THIEVES IN ATLANTIS

BY TIPPER

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CHAPTER TEN: MORNING COLD

Breakfast the next morning was stupendous, as Neera's cooking attempted the impossible—to make everyone happy. She had apparently decided, since this was her last meal that she would serve, to poll all the marines and scientists in the City for their favorite breakfast foods. Consequently, the spread included everything from the ingredients for a full English Breakfast to Chinese rice pudding dishes to Turkish ekmek and tarhana soup to American pancakes. It was a feast.

Weir, having anticipated the chaos, actually attempted to institute a rotating schedule for this breakfast only, based on last names. It, of course, was a total failure, as people wanted to eat with their friends. Plus, hell, they argued, they weren't school children!

Yeah, right.

As Elizabeth surveyed the fighting and jostling in the mess from a side door, she couldn't help but think she'd seen better behaved people at an English football match.

Shrugging, she grabbed her tray (Neera had prepared one specially for her, in advance) and walked out of the mess, back to her office.

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Sheppard wasn't much of a breakfast person—he was more of a fruit and granola type. So, he handed the tray Neera had made for him, still mostly full, to Ronon and headed out to find McKay. The scientist was (understandably) choosing to forgo the feast for fear of hurting his still healing back and was eating with Ren, who had promised to bring him food in the labs. The colonel was pretty sure he could find something to annoy the scientist with (and thus entertain himself) until training later that morning.

Ronon dug into the second tray with gusto, which only made Teyla, sitting next to him, laugh out loud as she ate the traditional Athosian dish Neera had prepared for her people.

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Watching from the kitchens, Garron grimaced as he watched the Satedan eat Sheppard's tray…and worriedly fingered the small, empty bottles in his pockets. They'd already double dosed Ronon's food (Neera's suggestion. Garron had tried to talk her out of it, which, he had to admit, she was right to question why he cared). Fact was, if Ronon ate too much, it would kill him.

Damn it.

Why the hell did he care?

The hand in his pocket gripped one of the little bottles so tightly...it shattered in his hand. Quick as a flash, he washed his hand in one of the big sinks...then left the kitchens before Neera saw his mistake.

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Not everyone ate, of course. A good number of marines were on duty, some were on the Mainland, training, and there were also those scientists who just didn't eat breakfast. Still, as Neera dumped puts and pans and kitchen utensils into the massive dishwashers, she had to smile at how many she had gotten. By her estimate…she'd successfully sedated at least half the population of Atlantis.

And the other half…would soon be too distracted to notice.

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About an hour later, Elizabeth was yawning at her desk and chastising herself for eating too much so early. Leaning her head on her hand, she watched as the screen on the tablet she was studying started to blur...and didn't really care.

The door chimed.

"Come in," she called, sighing and lifting her very heavy head up off her hand.

"Doctor Weir!"

Elizabeth was jolted out of her stupor by Neera storming into her office with Freya in tow. It was obvious the little girl had been crying.

"I just want to say," the older woman declared, lifting her chin angrily as she hit the edge of the desk and glared down at the other woman, "that, even though you're exiling us to the Mainland later today, that's no call to start pretending we don't exist anymore!" Freya started crying anew as Neera slapped a hand down on Elizabeth's desk, making the leader jump. "You can tell your Doctor Beckett that making a little girl cry is not just rude, it's downright mean!"

The confused and slightly dazed expression Elizabeth gave to the tall woman was not faked.

"What?"

"Doctor Beckett!" Neera snapped, "He was supposed to have breakfast with Freya! She waited for him for an hour in his office, but he never showed. Well," she slapped her hand down again, "you can tell that man that we don't want to see him anymore. He thinks he's too good for Freya? Well, he's wrong! We're too good for him."

And with that, she turned and stomped out, never looking back, pulling the still crying little girl with her.

Elizabeth sighed, rubbing a hand across her tired, burning eyes, and tapped her radio.

"Doctor Beckett," she called, "Do you read?"

She waited a few seconds, then frowned slightly, some of the tiredness weighing her down falling away. Straightening, she tapped her radio again.

"Carson, this is Weir, please respond."

Again, nothing but silence. Elizabeth frowned and looked out the glass window of her office, to where the Canadian sergeant manning the communications station was watching her. Of course, he heard all the chatter on the radios, so had heard her call. His eyebrows lifted. She grimaced and stood up...only to stagger a little as her equilibrium threw her off.

"Must've gotten up too fast," she muttered to herself, walking around the desk to the balcony leading to the Control Room. In moments, she was standing before the man in question. He actually looked wide-awake. Oh, that's right...he was on duty during the breakfast. She was beginning to think he was lucky.

"Call down to the Infirmary," she said with a slight yawn, leaning against his console. "See if Doctor Beckett's there."

The Canadian tech nodded, and called down to the infirmary. A moment later, he looked up and shook his head.

"He's not there. But, apparently, he's supposed to be. There aren't any emergencies needing his attention so…he should be there."

She frowned, sighed, and tapped her radio again.

"Major Lorne?"

A brief pause, then, "Yes, Doctor Weir?"

"Doctor Beckett's missing, and Freya's upset because she was supposed to eat with him. Do you think you could try to locate him for me?"

"Sure. I'll have someone check the infirmary and—"

"He's not in the infirmary. Try his labs then his rooms, and, if he's not there…" she shrugged, "let me know."

"Right. Lorne out."

Weir leaned more heavily against the console, lowering her head. Part of her reasoned she should be more worried than she felt…but it seemed very difficult to muster the strength to do so.

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"So, Carson's missing?" McKay asked into his radio, looking over at Ren where they had been studying some of the jumper shield diagnostics on his computer screen in his lab. The boy's eyebrows were lifted, obviously curious about what was happening.

"Seems like," Sheppard replied over the connection, sounding almost lackadaisical about it all. "No one has seen him since dinner. Lorne's already checked his lab, and I'm here in his room, but he's not here. His bed has obviously been slept in, but," McKay could almost hear the shrug the colonel was giving, "he must have just gotten up and left. I…oh…hang on…."

McKay frowned, crossing his arms, waiting for Sheppard to continue.

"Okay," Sheppard radioed, "Cadman's here. She says Beckett's med kit is missing, as is his grey fleece. She also says he's oddly fastidious about making his bed, so he must have left in a hurry. That all suggests he was, maybe, woken up and asked to go help someone."

"Who?" Elizabeth asked from across the radio line, from where she was still in the Control Room.

"I don't know. Lorne?"

"Yes, sir?" The major, unlike the others, still sounded pretty crisp.

"Send out a general roll call. See if anyone else is missing. Maybe he…what, Lieutenant?"

There was another pause before Sheppard added.

"Cadman pointed out that Beckett must have his radio, wherever he is. Apparently, he always leaves it next to the bed, by his ear, when he sleeps. It's not here. So he must have it."

"Okay," McKay said, "And that helps us how?"

"What do you mean, how does that help us?" Sheppard replied. "If he uses it, we can find him."

"Yes," McKay replied. "But he hasn't, so, right now, it doesn't."

"Huh?"

"I'm saying it's not important to us right now. He's not answering. If he had it, and could use it, he would have. But he hasn't. So, either the radio is out of commission, or..." He paused. He'd been about to say, 'or Carson is out of commission,' but he knew no one wanted to go there yet, particularly not him. "So, I'm saying, it's not a factor, not unless and until he uses it."

There was a brief silence on the line, then, Sheppard sighed. "Oh."

McKay frowned. Sheppard wasn't usually this slow.

"Well," Elizabeth said, sounding tired, "just keep looking. He couldn't have gone far." And then it sounded like she yawned. What the hell was she doing last night to be so tired?...Oh...brain, don't go there, McKay chastised himself.

"We'll find him," Sheppard called.

"I'm sure we will," Elizabeth replied, sounding almost bored about it all.

Shaking his head at their oddly subdued tones, McKay walked over to the main screen in the lab, and called up the images that should be showing on the main screen up in the Control Room.

He frowned even more deeply when he found himself looking at the long distance sensors.

"Elizabeth," he called, "Why aren't you looking for him with the City's sensors?"

"Oh, right," she replied, her rounded tones sounding like she was yawning again. "We were going to do that next. Sergeant, if you would?"

A second later, the screen changed, to show the entire city. It started to shift around, as whoever was controlling it began scanning for solitary life signs. There weren't many.

McKay grimaced, getting annoyed as the images seemed to shift too slowly.

"Look," he said impatiently, "I'm coming up there. Just keep looking." Shaking his head in annoyance, he turned to head out of the lab, pausing only at the last second to glance behind him at Ren. The boy was still watching him, looking very worried.

McKay jerked his head towards the door, "You coming?"

A small nod and Ren was off the stool he'd been perched on and following McKay out.

A couple of lab benches over, Doctor Bryce watched them leave with little interest, though the two still full trays of food near where they were working looked tempting. McKay had been too focused to eat, and Ren didn't either. Still, as good as it looked, it wasn't tempting enough. With a sigh, he lowered her head to the bench in front of her, emitting a spectacular yawn.

She was asleep in seconds.

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The wind was cool, brushing across his face with a kind touch. Beckett let it soothe him for a while, before his brain slowly began to question why he could feel it. He didn't sleep with the windows open, so…

Bit by bit, awareness grew, as he wondered why he could also hear nothing but wind and, somewhere far away, lapping water. A few other sounds—which he recognized as bird calls—came slowly to the fore. For a second, he wondered if he was in a cottage on the water. Maybe on holiday in Cornwall? It certainly sounded like Cornwall. Smelt like it too. Salt water, seagulls, wind, a hint of cold wetness seeping through his clothes into his skin….

As he considered the possibilities, his body decided it wanted to breathe a little better, and he attempted to shift a little to draw in more air into stifled lungs.

"AH!" Pain blasted through him, searing points of agony across every muscle. His eyes flew open as aches and pains from every joint, bone and sinew screamed in protest at any kind of movement. What the HELL? He whimpered, desperately wanting and waiting for the pain to slacken its hold long enough so he could think…

Blurred memories of balconies and falling in the night and Freya's laughter echoed through his jumbled mind as the facts of where he was and what had happened tried to coalesce in his head.

He was on a roof—a roof made up of a series of shallow peaks like dragon teeth, and he was wedged between two of them, trapped deep in the shadows. He was hurt. Mangled. Broken!

He'd fallen? No…God, no, he'd been pushed! Neera had pushed him! And Freya…Freya had laughed.

For several minutes, he fought the blind panic of his situation—trying both not to cause himself any more pain and trying not to just give up and die. But, oh God…how was he going to get out of this?

Help! He needed help! Weakly, from a too dry throat, he managed a soft cry, trying to call out, but even he could barely hear his own voice. Water. He needed water!

Why hadn't they found him? Even on a roof, they should have been able to pick him up. The sensors should have picked him out! Were they leaving him to die? Did they care so little that they hadn't even noticed he was missing?

Every possible emotion, from anger to terror to despair to hysteria ran through him like water rushing from the tap, alternating hot and cold through his mind and across his injuries. He couldn't think clearly, couldn't make sense of what had happened, couldn't even make sense of where exactly he was. Was he even on the South Pier? Was he even on Atlantis? Was any of this even real? Please, God, PLEASE let this be a nightmare!

He wanted to scream…but even the idea of that hurt. He could taste the tinny taste of blood on his lips. He was cold, too, stuck in this shadowed wedge. He began to shiver as he thought about it, felt his heart begin to race. Oh God…he was going to die!

He lifted his right hand (the other he couldn't move at all—he wasn't even sure it was there, except that there was a numb sort of impression where it should be) and raised his arm to the sky, as if he could reach up out of the shadow to the sun above. He managed to lift it high enough for the sun to just touch the fingertips…and the warmth was wonderful.

But he couldn't hold the position long, and it fell back down, landing on his stomach. The fingers curled into a fist as he felt the warm sweatshirt material. Tears ran down his face, and he tipped his head back, wanting to yell it all out…but his chest hurt too much.

Then his fingers felt something square in the pocket of the fleece jacket.

For a second, he didn't move, trying to think what it could be.

Slowly, he slid his hand to the side and then into the pocket. And pulled out the iPod he'd borrowed from Cadman for jogging. He lifted it up, staring at the device.

Shakily, he rested it back against his stomach, unwound one of the earbuds and put it against his ear. Then he hit play.

Cadman's taste in music was…not the best.

As the sudden blasting of Aqua's "Barbie Girl" in his ear told him clearly.

Oh God. He was going to die listening to a horrible Danish pop group.

It made him laugh; he couldn't help it. It was too absurd. For some reason, it cheered him up, particularly since, though laughing was painful, he realized the pain from his chest was not as bad as it had been.

Pulling the earbud back out of his ear, he turned the player off and let his quiet laughter subside.

Laura was looking for him. She wouldn't give up. And neither would Elizabeth, Rodney or anyone else. They would find him. They were looking for him right now. He just had to hang on, or, better yet, find a way to tell them where he was…

The comfort this small bit of rationality brought him was wonderful, and it gave him a strange sort of strength. Breathing carefully, more mindful of his injuries, he managed to detach from his fear long enough to catalogue what exactly was wrong with him. Most of the pain was cascading, making it difficult to pinpoint, but he had his skill on his side.

He could think (mostly) clearly, so his head must be okay. It didn't beat with any real intensity, so he may have escaped any serious sort of head injury. He could lift and turn it as well, which was good. And he did so, to see the rest of him.

His left arm was wedged tightly between himself and the roof, and though the arm was bent so that he could see his fingers, he couldn't get them to move much. It was like they were buried deep in molasses. That wasn't good. His chest hurt like hell. Broken ribs? Breathing was hard…but not impossible. As long as he didn't breathe too deeply. Legs. There. Far away. They didn't seem like they wanted to move. He could feel them…at least, he thought he could. He focused on shifting them. They didn't shift.

Panic started to rise in his throat again, and he had to force himself to calm back down. It wasn't working.

He pressed the play button on the iPod again.

The awful song started playing softly from the earbuds now lying loose across his chest, and the distraction was enough. Thank you Laura. He upped the volume. Aqua, tinny when heard normally, sounded like the Chipmunks to him through the earbuds.

It made him giggle slightly.

Stop that. You don't giggle.

Taking in another fortifying breath, he turning his head and tried to see more of his surroundings—to see if there was anything nearby on this roof that he could use.

And that's when he saw it.

There was no questioning what it was—the thing stuck to the side of the roof several feet away from his body, too far for him to reach, blinking merrily away—was a Wraith device.

Oh, crap.

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TBC...

And I'm so not done yet...! hee!