Thank you all so, so much for the great reviews. I'm posting another part because I'm going to be distracted this week with RL, and may not get to post tomorrow. Anyway...here's the heart of the story...and thank you again!
THIEVES IN ATLANTIS
BY TIPPER
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TOUCH OF HYSTERIA
Sheppard exhaled the held breath he'd been holding, his heart feeling like it was going to explode in his chest.
In front of him, Jumper Four settled to the ground softly, clearly acting on automatic from an order to shut down.
Half the window was shattered, destroyed, with just shards hanging down on the edges like icicles. A massive hole was in the center, more than big enough to climb through. On the other side of it, he could see Garron still curled up half in and half out of the pilot's chair, shaking and rocking with his arms around his head. Neera and Ren, he couldn't see.
He couldn't see McKay either.
He moved carefully forward, gun still raised and pointed at the occupants. He felt his men join him, backing him up. Without needing to make an order, he saw more military black sliding around either side of him, heading around to the back of the now still jumper.
When he finally got close enough, he climbed up inside the jumper through the gaping hole, stepping partially on the now shut down DHD, the geometric surface covered in bits of glass. When no one moved to stop him, he lowered the gun slightly and, with his left hand, reached out and hit the button to lower the rear hatch, pushing some more glass off the console as he did so. The hatch opened in the back almost silently, and marines boiled in from outside, guns trained on the three visible occupants.
Climbing the rest of the way in, Sheppard searched for McKay with his eyes, and, when he didn't see him, turned to look at Garron.
The teenager was just watching him now, not moving. He seemed intent only on breathing. Cuts from the shattered glass littered his arms, hands and face, the blood mingling from the tears still running down his face.
"Where is he, Garron?"
"What?" the teenager blinked once.
"McKay. Where is he?"
The teenager's eyes shifted around, not focusing on anything, until they caught sight of someone leaning over the co-pilot's chair to get to the young boy knocked out behind it.
"Ren...," Garron looked up at the soldier, a young sandy haired marine, "can you help him?"
"I think he'll be okay," said the man, glancing up at Garron and Sheppard. "Knocked up a bit, but okay."
"She's dead though," a different marine said, looking down at Neera. The Genii leader lay sprawled on her back in the middle of the floor between the four chairs, bleeding from a half dozen holes and a too many cuts to count. Unseeing brown eyes stared up at the roof of the jumper.
Sheppard nodded, then turned back to Garron.
"Garron, where is McKay?" he asked again, his voice ice cold. "Answer me, where is he?"
The teenager frowned a little, then looked towards the rear compartment...at the trunk. Sheppard followed his gaze, then swore.
In two steps, he was through the marines checking the back for stolen items and was pulling the deadbolts back on the trunk.
Stale air greeted him as he shoved the latched lid up fully, a mixture of blood and sweat greeting his nose. Grimacing, he looked at the man lying inside, curled against himself on his left hand side, blood stained hands fisted and raised to cover and hide his face.
"McKay?" he called, reaching to touch the man's arm. When he got no reaction, he jostled the arm slightly, "McKay!"
The same sandy haired marine who had checked on Ren appeared, and Sheppard recalled that he was studying to be a medic. He hadn't the full training or experience of men like Sergeant Greene yet, but he was getting there. His name was Sergeant Meriwether, and he looked every inch of that name.
Reaching in to touch at McKay's neck, the young marine's eyes softened, showing every emotion on his face. "There's a pulse," he said, "steady...but slow." Reaching further inside, Meriwether tried to move the right hand covering McKay's face, grimacing a little at the dried blood caking the fingers, to get a look at the man hiding underneath. Sheppard watched him, waiting.
"I...," the marine bit his lip, then shook his head. "Sir, he's...I think he's catatonic." He looked at the metal trunk, studying the strong construction. "It's a wonder he's not dead, actually. He would eventually have suffocated in there—it's looks practically air tight."
"God almighty," someone else swore from behind Sheppard, and the colonel turned to look behind him. The large, black marine standing at his back was staring at the inside of the trunk lid, looking slightly sick. Sheppard followed his gaze, and felt his own stomach twist in pain.
The lid was scratched from fingernails--the metal had actually been peeled slightly and dried blood tracked the thin lines. Rodney had been that desperate to get out.
Sheppard's breath quickened, and he growled, grabbing McKay's arm again and shaking. "McKay! McKay, wake up! MCKAY!"
"Sir! That's not going to—"
"Shut up! Rodney!" Sheppard grabbed at the hand covering McKay's face, forcing it away so he could see the man's face. The nails were ripped and torn, which explained the bleeding, and the sides of the hands were bruised. McKay was pale, eyes tightly shut, barely breathing and completely unresponsive. "No...damn it...Come on, don't do this..."
With a determined motion, Sheppard worked his fingers inside the closed fist he held, trying to loosen it, fighting the growing nausea in his stomach as it earned no reaction from the catatonic man. The hand stayed fisted, though now it partially gripped Sheppard's hand inside of it. Looking up, the colonel took stock of the men around him, all watching him dumbly, and his grimace turned into a frown.
McKay didn't need an audience for this.
Turning his head further, he saw that Garron was now standing up next to the pilot's seat, marines on either side of him, eyes moving from Sheppard to Ren's crumpled form and back again. A couple of marines were crouched by Ren still on the ground, but the rest of Sheppard's soldiers were now just standing near their colonel in the rear compartment, waiting for orders. He sighed.
"All right," he said, his voice shifting gears to become scarily quiet, "Someone call a med team up here, one for the boy and one for McKay…."
"Already done, sir," Sergeant Merriweather said. "I called them the moment you started firing on the ship."
Sheppard offered him an arched eyebrow for that one, then switched his gaze to the stocky, black marine standing on Garron's right.
"Sergeant Wright," he said, then, nodding at the man and then to the tall, moustached marine on Garron's left, "I want you and Wilmington to assist Garron down to the infirmary. Before you do, check him head to toe for any other weapons, especially knives. Once he's cleared, take him down, under guard, and do not let him out of your sight. Don't let Biro or any of the nurses give you any backtalk about this, understand? You heard how Neera and Freya got away from us before, I don't want that happening again with Garron."
"Yes, sir," Wright answered, taking Garron's arm more fully in his grip.
"Wait," the teenager looked like he wanted to dig his feet in, "Ren, I…I can't leave him."
"He'll be following you down soon," Sheppard said, without much sympathy. He had seen the fight inside the jumper through the window, and had seen Garron's reaction when Neera turned her gun on his younger brother, but it wasn't enough right now for him to feel more than cold anger at the boy. Not while McKay was like this. Not until he could properly process what had happened in his head. "Wright," he looked again to the sergeant, "Go."
Garron was practically carried out of the jumper by the strong men on either side, and, though he craned his neck to look behind him towards his brother before he disappeared, didn't actually try to argue again. It was as if the fight had gone out of him.
"Lieutenant Moore," Sheppard turned to look at the man standing over him—the one who had noticed the scratches in the trunk lid, "Take everyone here, except Dunne, Meriwether, Grossman, and Weathers, and, coordinate with the marines still searching the base to start looking for any devices or equipment that these people might have left behind as a present. I'll have Major Lorne take over once he's finished in the infirmary. Also, tell the Control Room to run full diagnostics of every system, and make sure no stone is left unturned, got it?"
"Yes, sir," the man nodded, backing away. With a nod to the marines around him, he headed out into the Bay with the bulk of them on his heels.
That left just four men in the Jumper, and Sheppard looked up at Grossman and Weathers, the two burly marines standing behind him.
"Sorry about this boys, but I'm giving you coroner duty. Wrap the body up and cart her down to the morgue. The docs can find her down there later, but I don't want her in this jumper or in my Bay any longer."
Two quick salutes, and Weathers was reaching up into the Jumper's stores for a blanket. Pulling down a yellow one, he and Grossman lifted Neera onto the blanket and literally rolled her up inside of it. Then, with a grunt, Grossman got her up on his shoulder and, with Weathers at his back, carried the dead woman out of the Jumper.
Which left two.
Sergeant Meriwether was still watching him from the head of the trunk, green eyes uncertain. He looked a little lost in this situation, though, now that they had confirmed McKay was alive just…not aware.
"Go and replace Dunne in front with Ren," Sheppard said to him. Meriwether grimaced, but nodded, and moved to head into the front of the jumper. A few quiet words, and the young, dark haired Corporal Dunne was now standing next to Sheppard.
"I need you to go and find Heightmeyer…quietly," Sheppard told him, keeping his voice low. "I don't want anyone else to know about McKay down there except her, okay? I believe she is in the infirmary, helping out Biro. But, ask her not to come into the Bay until the med team has come for Ren and I've—"
Sudden, new noise interrupted Sheppard as, at that exact moment, two sets of med teams appeared with gurneys. They peeked inside, and the first was about to step into the jumper when Sheppard held a hand up.
"Wait. Just one of you, right now. For the boy. I want the other team to wait outside the Bay."
Slightly confused looks met his order, and one of the nurses was about to argue, when Meriwether jogged out from the front, grabbed the woman, and started speaking in quick, hushed tones. After a moment, she backed off, sympathetic eyes looking at Sheppard.
One of the med teams came inside and moved up front past Sheppard, pointedly not looking into the metal trunk as they went past. In moments, they had Ren ready for transport, a cervical collar around his neck, and were wheeling him back out. Sheppard didn't have to give any further orders as Dunne disappeared to find Heightmeyer, and Meriwether left with the boy. The soft-hearted sergeant promised him with a look that he would ensure people didn't talk about McKay's condition and Sheppard thanked him with a nod. The nurse leading the other medical team, meanwhile, said something about being "just outside the Bay doors" for whenever he called for them.
Half a minute later, Sheppard was alone.
For a few seconds, he did nothing. Just watched McKay as the scientist didn't move, didn't speak…just softly breathed. Trapped in his head.
The colonel sighed and worked his hand more inside of McKay's right one, then, once he had a solid feeling interlocked grip, pulled upwards slightly in order to loop his arm under McKay's, as if he were going to pull McKay up out of the trunk. Obviously, there were easier ways if what he was really trying to do was get McKay out, but that wasn't his goal. His goal was to get McKay to respond to him.
But the scientist's arm remained rigid, as if tensed to the point of rigor mortis.
Breathing hard, Sheppard readied himself on one knee and looked again at McKay's face. With the scientist's right hand no longer covering it up, he could see the man's pained expression, the strain in the tensed muscles along his jaw and along his forehead. There was nothing comfortable looking about it.
"McKay," he called, shifting again for better leverage, "McKay…wake up." He paused, grimacing a little, then tried again. "Okay, listen…it's me. It's Sheppard. I'm here. I'm going to pull you out, but help would be good. So…you push and I'll pull, okay? And we'll get you out of this damned box."
He closed his eyes, let out a huge breath, then opened them again. Gritting his teeth, he started to pull up.
McKay didn't move. He was like dead weight.
"Come on, McKay," Sheppard said, gritting his teeth as he continued to pull. "Come on and help me out, here!"
He pulled some more, then, with a grunt of pain, let go…McKay was too heavy to keep it up.
"Damn it! Can't you cut down on the power bars, for Christ's sake? It's like trying to lift Buddha! Give me some help, you jerk! I'm not superman!" As he complained, he adjusted his stance again, moving his right leg to distribute the weight better and getting more of his arm under McKay's. "Hell, you'd think I was trying to move Moses off the damn mountain here. All right, we're going to try this again. And this time, I expect help, you hear me? So, none of this, hiding in the dark bullshit. You're going to wake up and push yourself up, got it? Or so help me, I'll make sure Zelenka gets your job and you only get to work on fixing the sewer systems for the rest of your life! So, WAKE UP and pull yourself OUT!"
With a growl, he started pulling up on the arm again. But McKay remained stiff, immobile, like trying to bend back a metal bar.
"McKay!" Sheppard yelled, feeling every muscle in his back and neck straining, desperation filling his voice. "Wake up and help me, damn it! You rotten, stinkin', pain in the ass, HELP ME!"
And, like that, it happened. Sheppard nearly fell on his ass when McKay's arm abruptly loosened and flew upwards with the colonel's pull, bringing Rodney with it. The scientist sat straight up in the trunk, still holding on tight to Sheppard's hand, eyes very wide and very blue as he stared out the back of the jumper. With a sobbed cry, McKay let the hand go and scrambled out of the trunk, falling to the floor first as he tripped on the metal edge of the box, and then stumbling back up to his feet and out the open hatch.
When McKay fell again on the floor of the Jumper Bay after just a few steps, landing hard on his hands and knees and looking ready to pass out again, Sheppard got up off the floor of the Jumper and jogged to the cockpit. Hitting a button, he glanced up through the shattered window as the roof hatch opened above, letting in the bright sunlight of afternoon. Turning, he ran out the back and skidded down onto his knees next to McKay, who was now sitting sideways on the marble flooring, holding himself up by his arms and pale as a ghost. Sunlight poured over them like a molten gold, warming the cold floor and the two men sitting on it.
"Hey," Sheppard said, getting up on one knee and shifting so that he was only a couple of feet from McKay. He held his hands up—he didn't want to touch the other man, to crowd him too much. "Hey, buddy, you okay?"
McKay was gasping for breath, swaying on trembling arms, seemingly unaware of the other man's presence. His head lifted to look up at the blue sky above, to feel the heat of the day on his face, then it lowered again, eyes closing. His arms shook violently and the right one gave out, so that he landed hard on his elbow with a soft cry, and his head bowed towards the floor. Sheppard grimaced, wanting to help but afraid to startle his friend and cause him more pain—in the bright sunlight, he could easily see the dark stains on his friend's back, some red with dried blood, the crusty fabric of the shirt breaking as McKay drew in huge lungfuls of air. Too much air.
Damn it.
"Stop it," Sheppard ordered, shifting a little closer. "McKay, stop it! Your hyperventilating," he warned. "Calm down. Calm down! Damn it, Rodney…use some of that famous intransigence to force your body to behave!"
For the first time, McKay seemed to hear him, and the still too wide blue eyes turned to look up first at the colonel's raised hands hovering in front of him, then to the scared hazel eyes beyond. Miraculously, as he met Sheppard's gaze, he managed to swallow and his breathing began to slow. His brow furrowed then, and he looked away, the confusion on his face turning into a frown, almost as if he was embarrassed.
"What…" He swallowed again—the motion looked painful, like this throat hurt. His voice barely rose above a whisper, "Where am I? What happened?"
Sheppard forced back a smile at finally hearing his friend's voice, fighting the urge to offer a comforting hand, and replied honestly, "You went catatonic on me."
McKay frowned some more, his eyes searching from side to side, as if trying to make sense of that. Swallowing again, he blinked slowly, still obviously trying to get his bearings.
"Ca...catatonic?"
"Yeah," Sheppard breathed, "And don't ever do it again."
Another deep breath, a few more eye blinks, and McKay whispered again. "Sorry."
"Yeah, well, you should be," Sheppard gave a weak laugh, giving up on trying to hide the relief in his voice. "Nearly scared me half to death, you idiot."
McKay glanced at him again, the confusion still on his face, but there was a spark of annoyance as well at being called an idiot. Sheppard just shrugged and smiled, and McKay's obvious annoyance with him grew. The color started to return to his face at the same time, muting the deathly pallor that had scared the colonel so much. As Sheppard had hoped, the anger the annoyance generated galvanized McKay into moving again, the scientist's fierce pride too powerful to keep him down for long.
Slowly, Rodney pushed himself back up onto both arms…then, with a pained grimace, got his legs under him enough to push the rest of the way up so that he was standing…mostly. Sheppard stood up with him, hands still outstretched, ready to catch his friend if need be.
The scientist's breathing had finally calmed to more manageable levels, so that it just sounded like he was wheezing. His whole body was still wracked with tremors, however, and he swayed on his feet, stumbling a little when he tilted too far in any one direction.
He swallowed again, and, with a stubborn set to his jaw, McKay finally lifted his head to meet the colonel's eyes.
"I'm okay," he said, his voice rougher than sandpaper. From the sounds of it, it was amazing he had any voice at all.
"Oh yeah, I can see that," Sheppard said, arching an eyebrow. "You're just raring to go, right?" McKay gave him a dark glare in return, then turned around to look at where he was, as if not quite seeing it yet. The movement was too much for his fragile balance, and he fell sideways. Sheppard acted without thinking, grabbing McKay's arm to help hold him up. He ended up with one hand on McKay's upper arm and the other under his elbow, drawing him in close, so that they were shoulder to shoulder.
Rodney stopped moving, closing his eyes as if to focus on his breathing, and letting Sheppard help him. The scientist swallowed again, and the colonel realized McKay was probably nauseous and, clearly, dizzy. Finally, Rodney moved to straighten again and made to pull his arm away, but the colonel held on firmly, tightening his grip.
"It's okay, McKay. Let me help for a minute, all right? There's no one to see."
McKay opened his eyes again then blinked once, his brow furrowing as he took that in. But he didn't try to pull his arm away again. Sheppard felt McKay finally give in, letting Sheppard take more of his weight.
"No one here?" he croaked softly, still not looking up at his friend, "that's…odd. Where…is everyone?"
"I sent them all out. Figured you wouldn't want…" he paused, mentally adding, 'anyone to see you like this.' He let out a quick breath, then smiled, "Figured you might need a little time to get your head back on straight, you know? So you can face the masses when you're more able to be you again." He shrugged, then indicated the main doors with his head, "There's a med team just outside the door."
McKay suddenly straightened at the words 'med team', body going rigid again. "Beckett!" He coughed a little at the pain in his throat, and the shakes were back in his frame, "Wait, did you…?"
"Calm down! Yeah, we found him, and he's alive," Sheppard promised, gripping McKay's arm harder as the scientist still shook. "I said, calm down! He's down in the infirmary, being taken care of. Neera and Freya threw him off a balcony—he's lucky the fall didn't kill him."
McKay looked confused, but the shakes subsided as he took that in, "Neera and…?"
"Yeah. And Garron and Ren tried to steal a jumper and you while we were distracted searching for Beckett. Oh, and Neera gave half of Atlantis food poisoning—which is why everyone was acting so slow."
The scientist blinked slowly, as if Sheppard had just spoken in a foreign language, then looked up again at his surroundings. For a second he just looked around, still frowning at whatever it was he was seeing.
"That's why we're in the Bay," he said finally, as if just catching on to this fact.
"Yeah."
McKay looked up the rest of the way, at the open ceiling. "You open that?"
"Yeah."
McKay closed his eyes, clearly just enjoying the sun on his face. "Thanks."
Sheppard watched him for a moment, then snorted. "Well, okay. Um, if you're back with us now, I may as well call the med team in, so they can give you the pampering you so don't deserve."
McKay gave a short, weak laugh. "Pampering? Please. Get real."
"I'll tell them to be nice."
Rodney gave him a faint smile, "Not possible. They live to torture me. Especially the Vampire."
Sheppard laughed, "You really need to stop calling Biro that."
"If the shoe fits..." he smiled more and coughed, then coughed harder, doubling over slightly. Sheppard frowned, keeping a tight hold on the arm so McKay wouldn't fall over. When he was breathing evenly, if roughly, Sheppard got him standing straight again, one arm around his friend's waist now in order to keep him steady. McKay was deathly pale again.
"I'll call them in now, yeah?" he asked. McKay nodded, not opening his eyes.
Sheppard grimaced and reached up to touch his radio, then paused, remembering something else. Clearing his throat, he gave his friend a sheepish look. "Oh…um…I forgot to tell you...Heightmeyer's probably out there. I…I was….in case I couldn't…."
"I was that far gone?"
All trace of McKay's early humor was gone, and some real fear had returned to his eyes.
Sheppard gritted his teeth, then nodded. "Yeah." Then he smiled, "But you came back."
McKay eyed him, the fear fading slightly, but not completely. Then his eyes narrowed, as if remember something strange.
"I heard you yelling at me," he admitted, eyes searching from side to side again. "It was...irritating. I wanted you to stop." He looked away, snorted, and drew his arm away from Sheppard's in order to stand on his own. The other man let him. "I recall thinking how much I wanted to hit you just to make you shut up."
Sheppard's eyebrows lifted mockingly, "Yeah, like you ever getting close enough to hit me is gonnahappen anytime soon."
McKay snorted, sniffed and lifted a hand to his head. "Aw, man...ow. My head is splitting," he muttered softly.
The colonel took that as a cue, and hit his radio. As the doors flew open across the way, revealing a whole host of white clad personnel, McKay looked askance at his friend.
"And, thanks," he whispered. "I don't know if anyone else could've or would've—"
"Don't mention it," Sheppard replied with a shrug. McKay stared at him a moment longer, then smiled softly, just as he found himself swarmed by people.
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Kate Heightmeyer caught Sheppard's eye as McKay conceded to the gurney and settled himself down for the ride. Even she could see how his muscles melted as he finally seemed to rest, letting the medical team guide him out. He was down the hall and out of sight quickly, leaving the colonel and the psychiatrist behind.
Kate moved so that she was by the colonel's side, expert eyes reading the lines in his face and the tiredness seeping into his stance.
"What happened?" she asked softly.
"They locked him in a box," he replied darkly. "A very small, dark box."
"Ah," she nodded, "his claustrophobia."
"He wasn't responsive when we got it open. But…I think he's okay now." He glanced behind him at the jumper still sitting in the middle of the Bay floor, "You might want to take a look at what he did to the lid of the trunk before you talk to him."
"I will," she said, looking at him kindly. Then, with a small sigh, she added, "You look like you could use some rest as well."
"Unfortunately," Sheppard arched an eyebrow, "I can't. City's still on alert, and it needs someone at the helm. With Beckett, McKay, Weir and Teyla down…that just leaves me."
She smiled, "No rest for the wicked, eh?"
He just shrugged and sighed, rubbing at his forehead. "Yeah." Giving her a nod in farewell, he turned and moved away, leaving her alone in the Bay. As he reached the doors leading to the stairs to the Control Room, he glanced back and saw Heightmeyer heading towards the Jumper. She was good at her job, no matter how much they each tried to pretend they didn't personally need her. He remembered overhearing Teyla rib McKay one night off-world about pretending he was dating her, to avoid the appearance of his needing her help. Man was such an ass sometimes. A touch of guilt lit his gut, then, thinking about how he and McKay had been about Bryce last week, when Heightmeyer tried to talk to them seriously about Bryce's condition. Luckily for them, Heightmeyer was the last person to throw something like that back in their faces with a "shoe's on the other foot now" sort of excoriation.
Sighing again, he headed through the doors and was soon at the stairs, jumping down them to get to the Control Room. Within moments, he was back in the heart of Atlantis, nodding at the skeleton crew manning it. The Canadian gate tech was still at his station, expertly monitoring the search crews.
"Hey, Canuck," Sheppard said, coming up next to him and patting him on the shoulder. "Just wanted to say, nice job."
The sergeant looked up, smiled briefly, then frowned in confusion. "For what, sir?"
"The floor trick, up in the Bay. With the Jumper. I know they dialed, but you locked the floor somehow." He ruffled the kid's hair, "You did good. Probably saved McKay's life with that one."
The sergeant's eyebrows lifted, "Oh…you mean when Jumper Four's DHD activated the Gate? That wasn't me, sir. I don't have the command codes needed to institute the lock on the Jumper Bay floor."
"What?" Sheppard's eyebrows lifted, "Then who did it?"
"McKay himself, from what I can tell. He locked it down a couple of hours ago, from the Bay itself, looks like." The sergeant typed some commands into the logs, and brought up some gibberish looking detail on his laptop screen. He pointed at a particular command line, "See? That's McKay's command line. He must have figured out that the refugees were going to try and steal a jumper, and he activated the protocol. It wouldn't have taken him long, probably just hit a few keys, typed in his code, and it was done—the refugees probably didn't even notice he was doing it."
Sheppard stared at it a moment longer, then backed away, shaking his head. "He must have typed it in right before they knocked him out," he said, smiling crookedly. "Damn idiot managed to save himself, and he didn't even know it."
"Well," the sergeant shrugged, "he is a genius."
And, for some reason, Sheppard found that hilarious. He was still laughing as he started calling in for updates on the search teams and from the infirmary, clearly having a hard time returning to a straight face. The sergeant smiled with him, saying nothing about the touch of hysteria he could hear. Colonel Sheppard, he figured, had earned it.
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TBC...
And if you reread the part before Garron stuns McKay, you'll see he did indeed type in something first. I don't know why I get such a kick out of them rescuing themselves. Hee. Concluding parts soon!