Impressions came and went - a rush of cold air, the grip of a pressure cuff, the prick of a needle. And voices - soft but precise, calm, yet not to be delayed in their purpose.

After all my denials, even I had to recognise, finally, that I was sick. Sick and helpless and weak and all the things I hated to be, because they left me exposed, maskless and open to attack, as I saw it. I closed my eyes against the swooping, fleeting faces and lights and wished I could close my ears to the disorienting sounds and, better yet, switch off my mind entirely for a while.

But racking shivers held me in their grip and the pounding in my head and ache in my bones wouldn't let me rest. And then the waking nightmares came, images rearing up in front of me - hunger-crazed Wraith, Genii hunting me through the dark, shining black iratus bugs with claws extended toward my neck. And not just enemies, but friends - men and women who'd died because I couldn't save them, their eyes accusing, their bodies torn and bloody, calling out to me, begging me to find them and bring them back. But they were dead; they were all dead.

And again and again, there would be Kolya and there would be the glint of a blade and the thud as it bit and the torment that followed.

Sometimes a familiar voice would pull me back, or I'd realise a hand was holding mine, anchoring me. And for a moment I'd be aware of my surroundings, the dull metallic finish of the walls, the gentle wash of cool air, the background hum of the city. But I couldn't stay. The anchor drifted and I would descend into the shape and shadow of nightmares once more.

I was wandering in the misty depths of a hive ship when there was an insistent jabbing at my shoulder and a snapping in front of my face. And then I was back, my vision wavering and blurry, but good enough to see a pink blob hanging above me, and in amongst the muffled sounds I caught my name repeated over and over. Then it faded and I was lost again.

They kept coming back. Whenever I thought myself lost beyond finding, a voice or a touch would catch me, like a fish on a hook and draw me back toward reality. And eventually, though my body fought like the wiliest old pike in the lake, I was landed, gasping, on the shore; or on a rumpled infirmary bed, in (thank God) one of the private side rooms.

At first I stared at the ceiling. And that was enough. Dull, flat, shadowy terracotta, up there doing its thing, minding its own business, just hanging there to be looked at by anyone forcibly horizontal. And then, after more drifting in dreamless sleep, the ceiling wasn't enough for me to look at, and I remembered that once, a long time ago, I'd been able to move. I gathered my resolve, twitched my neck to begin my head's journey, and then let its weight carry it around, until my cheek pressed against the pillow.

I blinked at the view. For a moment there was too much input and none of it made sense. But then patterns shifted in my sluggish mind and I could interpret the shapes and colours and sounds. There was the usual infirmary junk - machines on stands, racks of stuff in packets that rustle before someone pokes you with something or sticks it in you - and there was the usual flimsy, unrestful infirmary chair, but its occupant was a less-than-usual infirmary visitor. It was Woolsey. He was asleep, his head tipped back, his mouth open, snoring gently and rhythmically. He looked old and crumpled and, because my brain was beginning to spark to life, it occurred to me that if he looked that bad, what must I look like?

My chest hitched in what started out as a rueful chuckle, but ended up becoming a wheezing croak, followed by hoarse coughing. I couldn't stop. The crumpled heap that was the Atlantis Expedition Leader jerked awake, homed in on my troubles and leapt into action. Tickly plastic touched my lips. I sucked at the straw and cool water trickled into my mouth and down my grateful throat. The coughing subsided and so did I, as Woolsey's arm slid out from behind my head and I was lowered back to the pillow.

"Thanks," I rasped.

He smiled. "You're awake."

I kind of shrugged, but didn't really have the energy to get both shoulders in on the act.

"I'm glad," he said. "It's been… quite a journey."

I squinched up my eyebrows, which was enough of an expression of interest to get him going.

"You've been extremely unwell, Colonel."

Well, duh.

"And unfortunately it took Dr Keller quite a while to isolate the cause."

My eyebrows were tired, but he carried on anyway.

"A virus, with a very long incubation period, that you picked up on M4T-0XJ."

It didn't ring any bells.

"You carried a child?"

Oh. Yeah. We'd found a little kid who'd wandered too far from the village. I'd carried him home on my shoulders. Oh, well - no good deed goes unpunished.

But we'd all gone into the village and sat down to a meal with the usual simple farming folk. The fingers that I'd forgotten I had, twitched uneasily, their tips brushing against soft cotton. One of the infirmary bleeps picked up its pace.

"The rest of your team is fine," said Woolsey. His hand was on mine, which was weird - I hadn't figured Woolsey for a hand-holder. "You were the only one to get sick."

The bleeps steadied out. They were okay - Rodney, Ronon and Teyla.

Huh. I was glad my team were okay, of course, but still - misery loves company, and I'd had plenty of misery. No, that was stupid. Of course I wouldn't want any of my team to have gone through this hellish experience - it was good it had just been me. Given the choice, I'd always choose to keep all the misery for myself. Which, thinking about it - and I was thinking about it for a change - was a stupid attitude to have. I didn't deserve all the crap two galaxies could throw. I couldn't take it all myself just to save others. That was down to divine beings, if you believed in that kind of thing. And I was no divine being.

"Colonel?"

"Uh…" He'd been talking all that time and I hadn't heard a word. Oh well.

"I'll get Dr Keller. I would imagine she'll want to carry out various tests now that you're finally awake."

I bet she would. Woolsey left the room and I challenged myself to fall asleep before Keller came back with her charts and questions. My exhausted body and mind both rose to the challenge in fine style.

The doctor got me next time, though. I woke up, feeling it was time I was a bit more vertical, and rapidly regretted the thought once Keller and Nurse Marie had raised the head of my bed and started on the usual crap - blood tests and reflexes and stupid questions to see if I'd retained the sense I was born with. I snarled and grunted my way through it all, feeling heavy and useless and with my head spinning so that I'd probably have hurled if there'd been anything inside me to come up.

And then the doctor suggested completing that particular equation and I snarled even more, informing her of the likely result, and things looked set to descend into an entente uncordiale when McKay arrived.

"Ah, Sheppard. Feeling better, I hear from all the way down the hall?"

Another snarl seemed in order.

Keller's lips were pursed tight. "You need to eat, Colonel. I can give you some antiemetics if you're feeling nauseous."

"No. No drugs."

The doctor folded her arms and took another breath, but Rodney got there first. "Oh, I see what stage we're at here - you're feeling a bit less like a heap of crap, but still sufficiently heap-of-crappy to know you're going to be here a while and you're taking it out on anyone that comes within your defensive perimeter." He flicked a dismissive hand at Keller. "I'll deal with this!"

"I don't think -"

"Yes, you do," he informed her. "Just take it as read for now that Sheppard thanks you for saving his life and doesn't actually mean to be rude and ungrateful. Go on! Off you go!" The doctor retreated. Rodney drew up a chair, with a clatter and a shriek of its legs against the floor. "So…" he began. The legs squeaked again as he collapsed heavily, tugging at the fabric of his pants where they pulled tight over his knees. "So, I'm not sure if there's any point in even bothering to ask."

"Ask what?"

"Ask what, he says. Oh, well, maybe something about - oh let me see now, what was it?" He scratched his chin, cupping his other hand around his elbow and staring at the ceiling with a totally false expression of puzzlement.

I folded my arms and sunk further down the bed.

"Ah, yes!" Rodney snapped his fingers. "I, in fact, we were all just wondering - why the hell you didn't tell anyone? Why, in the name of all the immutable laws of the universe, didn't you just say something? Anything would have done! In fact, something stoic and manly would've been fine if that's all you can manage. How about, 'I'm feeling kinda shit right now.' That would have done the job! And then maybe, just maybe, Keller could've got onto it quicker and you wouldn't've nearly died!"

"I didn't -"

"Yes! You did! You really did, John!"

He actually said my name. "Oh."

"Oh? That's the best you can come up with?"

He gave me the full McKay glare, complete with downturned mouth and jutting chin. Something told me I wouldn't get away with a smirk and a shrug here. His eyes were like blue lasers, but I made myself meet them, and keep on meeting them. "Uh…" His head tipped to one side, that crooked mouth twisting further toward sarcasm, ready to shoot down whatever crappy excuse I came up with. "If it helps," I said, "I'm feeling kinda shit right now."

Rodney deflated, both hands doing a small, defeated, what-the-hell flap. "Huh. I'm sure you are." He ran one hand through his hair, making it stick straight up from his forehead. "Look, Keller's right - you need to eat. I'll get you something. And spoon-feed you if I have to."

He stood up, with another scrape of chair legs and turned away.

"I didn't realise," I said.

He turned back. "What?"

"I didn't know I was sick."

"Really." His arms slid into a sneering fold.

"Yeah, really. I just thought I was tired and had low blood sugar, you know, like you get. And, uh, I thought maybe…" I couldn't meet his gaze anymore and looked down at my hands where my right index finger was rapidly enlarging one of the holes in the cellular blanket. "I thought maybe I was losing it."

"Losing it? Losing what?"

My lower lip hurt because it was dry and cracked already without all the chewing. "You know - losing it. Because of all the shit we've been through."

"Oh."

I owed him more than that. I owed all of them more than that - these people who'd become my family. I'd let them in so far but no further, and now, even though the idea made me cringe, maybe it was time to slacken my guard a bit, just for them, just for the few people who really cared. "So, yeah, uh… I guess some of it was because I was sick, so that made it all worse, but uh…"

Rodney sat down again. I flicked a glance at his face. The accusing glare was gone, to be replaced by uncertainty.

"Well, I've never really been the right guy for the job, have I? I mean, it was all just an accident, wasn't it?" He didn't interrupt. For a change. Just when an interruption would have been welcome. "Because you, and most everyone else, you were all chosen because you were the best - you especially. But I was just there - you know? I just turned up, happened to have the right gene, and then ended up in charge. By mistake." My finger had gone right through the blanket. Keller wouldn't be happy. "And uh… people have been paying for that mistake ever since." I was glad I wasn't attached to the heart monitor any more - it would've been setting off alarms. "Paying with their lives." The Sekkari had seen through me. They'd seen right into my head, a grandstand view of my guilt and self-reproach. I yanked my finger out of the abused blanket and tried to pull the surrounding threads back into place. My hands shook and cold washed over my face and neck as sweat broke out. The criss-cross weaving was distorted. It would never go back. There'd always be a hole. And I'd made it. I'd made it for no reason - just because I couldn't keep my hands still. And I couldn't fix it. Nobody could now.

"Sheppard. John." Rodney plucked the blanket away from me and let it fall. "Leave it alone. It doesn't matter."

"It does." I gripped opposite elbows to still the shaking, but it just transferred to the rest of my body. "It matters."

"Look, stop. Just stop."

I'd closed my eyes. There was firm, warm pressure on my upper arms.

"Look at me, John."

I took a breath and let it out, slowly. I looked at Rodney.

"I'm glad it was you," he said. "I'm glad you showed up, that it was you on the rota to pilot O'Neill that day. Because if it hadn't been, if we hadn't had you here with us, all these years - more people would have died. A lot more. Probably all of us. So I'm glad."

His eyes were wide and totally fixed on me and full of all that stuff I try to bury - fear and desperation, crazy hope and a deep, burning need for something I could never put into words. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable and all the things I avoid like a hive ship at feeding time - but it was also totally, devastatingly honest. And in that nowhere-to-hide moment I knew that my friend wasn't just giving me glib reassurance - he was telling me the truth.

"Okay." I licked my sore lips. "Okay. I, uh…" My head had started to pound again. "Okay." I let my eyes fall shut again and my head rolled to one side, slackly.

The grip disappeared from my arms. I was relieved and disappointed.

"I'll get you something to eat." He wasn't running away. He wasn't giving up on me. He'd be back. He'd always be back. Him and the rest of my team, the rest of my family.

"Thanks."

He came back with soup and jello and I ate a few spoonfuls of each, then fell asleep and, if McKay was to be believed, snored so loudly that he couldn't concentrate on his work. That was his excuse anyway, when his badly suppressed giggling woke me up.

He was watching the Simpsons on his laptop.

"I didn't know you were a fan," I croaked.

He put the laptop down on the floor and passed me a cup of water, still supporting the cup even when my hand had closed around it.

"It has a certain easily-digested charm," he said. "And I've run through virtually everything we have in the last couple of weeks of watching over your motionless form."

Weeks? Why hadn't that occurred to me before? I certainly wasn't firing on all cylinders yet.

"Yes, I said weeks," he continued, putting the cup down for me. "Or twelve days anyway."

"That's not -"

"It felt like it." His mouth had tightened again and a line carved itself between his brows - I didn't remember seeing a line that deep before. "It felt like months."

"Sorry."

"Well, there we are. You couldn't help getting sick."

Why did guilt swirl uneasily inside me, then, along with the water I'd just drunk? No, I couldn't help it, but it felt like I should've somehow.

"John!"

Teyla stood in the doorway, her face lit up in an uncomplicated smile. I smiled back, because uncomplicated was good.

She approached me with that deliberate, dignified grace that could turn on a dime into a lethal attack.

"Hey, Teyla."

"It is good to see you awake, John."

She put her hands on my shoulders and bent forward, her hair brushing my face as our foreheads touched. Our breath mingled, a slow in and out of silent communication - relief, satisfaction in each other's presence and just that stillness, that nowness that you were supposed to be able to achieve through meditation, but I only got when Teyla did her Athosian greeting. My chest tightened, a painful knot appeared in my throat and heat rose on my cheeks.

Teyla straightened up and tactfully turned toward Rodney. "The kitchen staff have saved you a portion of the meatloaf, Rodney."

"Meatloaf? It's meatloaf day? How come I didn't know it was meatloaf day?" He slammed his laptop shut. "That's what you get for hovering anxiously over a friend's sickbed for days on end. Your fault, Sheppard!"

"They have saved you a very generous portion, Rodney."

"Oh. Oh, well. Maybe that's not so bad. But, we'll see, won't we?" He tucked his laptop under one arm and marched snappily out.

Teyla took up the vacated chair. She smiled again and took my hand and I wondered how many times she'd sat like that when I didn't know she was there - her hand in mine. I had known she was there, though. Through the darkness, her hand, her voice and the hands and voices of others - they'd held me and drawn me back toward them, toward life. Would I have given up? If they hadn't been there? If I'd been alone, would I have let go and drifted down into that darkness? Down and down, until there was no coming back?

"You know that Rodney does not really place meatloaf above the life of his friend don't you, John?"

I huffed a laugh and twitched a shoulder.

"He is more comfortable expressing irritation than saying how he truly feels - that he is relieved you are recovering."

"I know that."

"As I am." Her hand tightened on mine. "I am very happy, John, that you have returned to us. That I am able to look into your eyes and see that you are present and not lost in some fearful dream."

"Huh, yeah. Me too."

It wasn't even awkward, the hand-holding thing. Which it would be, when I was feeling more myself. For now, though, I was like a puppet - she could have picked up both my hands and made me conduct a brass band, or spell out 'John Sheppard is an idiot' in semaphore and I would've just gone along with it. Although, that was more McKay's kind of thing. Teyla wouldn't take advantage.

"You spoke, often, when you were delirious with fever."

"Did I?" This was another thing I didn't care that much about yet, with my head lolling against the pillows, reluctant to support its own weight, all my muscles weak and trembling if I tried to do much with them. I would, though, later on. "Hope I didn't give anything away." My lips had a go at a careless smirk. Teyla smiled slightly, but her brown eyes projected concern.

"You called out - to those that have been lost, I think. You spoke many names - some that I recognised, some that I did not."

"Oh. A long list, then." The lists carved into war memorials sprung to mind - names chiselled in granite to last forever as a permanent reminder of those that gave their lives. And though this was a list that existed only in my mind, it was carved just as deep, hacked not with a glinting blade but with the sharp edge of my own guilt. It would last all my life.

"We cannot blame ourselves, John. The living cannot blame themselves for lives lost that they could not save. We would also be lost if we did."

I looked down at our joined hands. Teyla had slid her fingers between mine. My eyes followed the converging lines of the tendons in the back of my hand, up past the jutting bones of my wrist, and along the smooth muscles of my forearm, all the way to my elbow, and the edge of the short, white sleeve. How could I not blame myself for lives lost under my command? I was 'the man', wasn't I? The one who had that burden to bear, the one where the buck stopped. Who else was to blame if not me? Look inside the head of any commanding officer and you'd find the same thing.

"Blame is a poison," continued Teyla. "It sickens from within, as much as any fever." She placed her other hand on top of mine, so that it was wrapped in both of hers, warm and enfolding. "Have you not always done your best, John? Will you not always continue to do your best, to give as much of yourself as you can, to make the right decisions, even when there are no right decisions to make?"

I released my lip, sore again, and husked around my tight throat. "You know I will."

"Then that is enough. It is enough, John."

I took a long, slow breath in and a breath out and another and another. How did she do that? How did she project that aura of calm, so that my breathing synced with hers, so that her words sunk into my mind and picked away at the edges of my self-reproach, loosening tight threads, just as I'd picked away at the threads of my blanket?

Was she right? Of course she was. She'd lived with death and grief longer than I had. She'd grown up in a society where families were never complete, where each new dawn could bring violence and terror. We teach our children not to be afraid, she'd said, that first time we met. And you could bet the Athosians taught their children not to blame either - or not to lay blame on each other, anyway.

So was it enough? To accept I'd done the best I could and would carry on the same way? Could I stop torturing myself now? Could I stop reproaching myself with the names and the faces of the men and women who I would have given my life to save?

Tiredness dragged me down once more but there were no faces hiding behind my closed eyelids and no voices calling to me from the darkness as I fell into sleep. Were they at rest now? Could I let them go - move on? Maybe, maybe not. But, for now, I would rest, with my teammate by my side, holding on to me, lending me her strength.

A metallic hissing made a smile rise up inside me even before I was fully awake. The soft, rhythmic whisper continued, in a familiar rhythm, as comforting as the routine of stripping down and reassembling a well-known firearm.

I blinked and squirmed and pushed myself up the bed where I'd slid down far enough that my feet hung over the end. My head remained clear and the ache was gone from my joints.

"Sheppard." Ronon's eyes flickered up and then back down at his long sword, where it rested against his leg, his ankle crooked up onto the other knee, forming a support for the weapon. He swept the whetstone once more along its length, then picked up the blade and sighted down the edge, squinting.

I croaked a greeting. My teammate's eyes flickered away from his work again, resting briefly on the nightstand. There was a bowl of sloppy oatmeal and a mug, from which a swirl of steam rose and the floral scent of Athosian tea.

I picked up the mug and sipped. "Did you bring this?"

He grunted an affirmative.

"Thanks." I put down the tea and picked up the oatmeal. It was runny and extra creamy and sweet; honey, not sugar.

He set to work on the blade again. I'd brought Ronon his weapon when he'd been recovering from the Wraith enzyme. No words had been necessary - just the long, curving blade in its leather scabbard, to stand for his strength and my trust in him. Had it needed sharpening now, or had he brought it so that I'd remember? I'd been there for him, in a way that he could accept. Now he was here for me.

The steady hissing paused. I took another spoonful and it resumed. What would he have done if I'd refused to eat? Held the blade to my throat, probably. I smirked around my oatmeal. Ronon's lips twitched.

My spoon chinked against the bottom of the bowl. I slurped the last spoonful of the creamy sweetness, set it down on the nightstand and picked up the tea, folding both hands around the mug.

Ronon sighted down the length of his blade once more, grunted in satisfaction and slid it back into its scabbard. He looked at me. Was it his turn for a pep talk? Or to tell me what an idiot I was? He reached up and slid a long, thin knife from his hair, scrutinised its edge and then began sharpening it. The pitch of the rhythmic whisper was different, but Ronon didn't speak.

He said nothing when Nurse Marie came in and did the usual checks, and he remained silent when Keller arrived to give me a run down of what was going on with my blood work, and how I could expect to be in her thrall for a while yet and that there'd be a fair few physical and mental hoops to jump through before I'd be back to active duty.

She left and still the whetstone made its regular, up and down scraping progress along the length of a blade, this one a little shorter, a little wider, taken from its home in the lining of his boot.

The oatmeal and the activity had made me drowsy again, and the swishing of metal on stone was soporific too. My eyelids drooped and jerked open and drooped again.

"You know what runners do?"

I blinked and took a head-clearing breath. "Sorry, what?"

"Runners. You know what they do?"

I yawned and scrubbed one hand through my hair. "Run?"

He snorted at his blade. "Mostly they die."

Scrape, scrape, scrape - the regular rhythm continued, sharpening the blade to a lethal edge.

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But you didn't."

The blade paused, then resumed its up-and-down movement. "I wasn't just a runner."

"No?"

"I was a killer." He looked up at me and his eyes met mine, and for a moment they were hard and cold and his face was the face of death. "I killed to survive. And I survived seven years."

I licked my lips. He'd never really talked about his time as a runner. Not in any detail. I knew he'd brought death to that village, where they'd shot McKay in the ass and taken the rest of us prisoner. Ronon had been sick and they'd helped him and they'd been culled for their trouble. But that was about all I knew.

"You killed Wraith," I said.

"When I could. When they caught up with me. Yeah, I killed them." He checked the blade and slid it back in his boot. Then he put the whetstone away in the pocket of his pants. His sidearm, his knives and something to sharpen them on - those were what he needed to survive, those were the things he'd relied on, before we'd met, before he'd become part of my team. "But I didn't just kill Wraith."

He fixed me with his heavy gaze once more. The weight of seven years was in his eyes, right there for me to see. He'd killed to survive. He'd done what he had to do.

"I let it go," he continued. "I did stuff I'm proud of. I did stuff I'm not proud of. I can't change any of it. It's gone now. It's past. I let it go and do what I can with today."

He held my gaze a moment longer, then slouched further down in the seat, kicked up his legs until his boots rested on the edge of my bed and closed his eyes.

Stuff I'm proud of. Stuff I'm not proud of. I could say the same, that was for sure. Could I let it go? Could I accept that the past was the past and I'd done what I'd done and leave the whole mess well alone? Right now, the answer was yes. With Ronon here, his long, survival-toughened body draped between the buckling chair and my infirmary bed, I could leave it alone, and let my body and mind sink into a healing sleep once more.

Just a few more steps. Just a few more would take me out onto the balcony, and I could see from here, in the hallway that led past the infirmary, that the sun was out. Small, white clouds scudded across the patch of sky visible through the glass and I reckoned the waves would have white caps and, if I could just get out there, the stiff ocean breeze would lift my hair and set my thin scrubs flapping around.

"That's enough for today."

"Just a bit further." I leant against Nurse Marie's arm, breathing harder than I should, blinking away the patches of grey at the periphery of my vision. I was getting better, getting stronger, but my progress was frustratingly gradual.

"Colonel…"

"Just to the balcony, then I'll rest."

"You need to take it slowly. You don't want another setback."

I'd headed to the bathroom on my own the previous day, and ended up slumped in a heap on the floor. I could've got up, if they'd given me a chance. I'd just needed a couple of minutes to catch my breath. But my escape had been discovered, Keller had tracked me down and she and a nurse had gone straight into full-on flapping and clucking. They'd scraped me up and dumped me back in bed.

"That wasn't a setback. I was just having a breather."

"With the bruises to prove it?"

"Okay, so there might've been more of an impact than I was planning. But it was just a strategic pause, not a fall."

She gave a very nursey hum of disbelief. But we'd arrived at the balcony. The doors swished open and I stepped, a little shakily, into the sunlight.

I'm not an indoors kind of guy - not a sitting still, paying attention, getting on with things quietly type. Anyone who's ever been in a meeting with me can testify to that. I fidget so much that even Teyla's glares aren't enough to stop me. It's like I can't keep my body still - it needs to move to keep my mind occupied. But when I'm outside - the moment I step through the Gate onto yet another forested planet or even just out onto the balcony, a knot inside me unravels and tight ropes slip away.

So when I stepped out, for the first time in weeks, and just stood there with the sharp, salty breeze sweeping across my skin and rushing down inside my lungs, I felt like I was coming back to life - resurrected by the solar energy and the fresh, unrecycled oxygen. I belonged in this city, but most of all I belonged outside where I could breathe and move and be myself.

Not that I'd be doing much moving right now. I leant further into Nurse Marie's support, her arm around my waist.

"Colonel…"

"Just another minute! Thirty seconds?"

She tutted but remained beside me, steady and secure.

Even though I was still a long way from being completely recovered, I felt that this moment was a milestone. The bright, white-blue sky, the city spread out below me, the clean, purging air - I imagined the sickness blowing away, and with it my dragging, torturous thoughts, their black velvet weight shredding into streamers, flapping and tearing, uprooting from my mind to fly far away over the ocean.

I shivered.

"Right, that's enough - back inside. Now." Nurse Marie steered me in a cumbersome about-face. "Dr Keller'll have my hide if she finds out I let you get cold."

"Nah. She'll blame me." Reluctantly, I allowed myself to be guided away from the freshness and freedom. The doors slid shut. I sagged and stumbled, but luckily there was another pair of arms to support me.

"I could sling him over my shoulder," Ronon offered.

"No, thank you, Mr Dex," said Marie. "Not this time, anyway."

"Hey, I'm right here!"

"What there is of you," said Ronon. "I can take him from here."

He slid a long, powerful arm under my shoulder and round my back, taking most of my weight.

"Hold on, big guy. I'd like my feet to touch the floor."

Ronon rumbled, and propelled me back into the infirmary, not quite dragging me but not allowing me to do much of the work either. He actually lifted me onto the bed, which I definitely could've done myself, pulled the blankets right up to my chin and tucked them in hard, ignoring my protests.

I fought my arms free, scowling. Ronon dropped into the abused chair and grinned.

"Thank you for your assistance," I snarked.

"Y'r welcome." He kicked his feet up onto the bed again and bent both arms behind his head. "You need anything else?"

"No, thanks. I'm good." And I was good, in a totally exhausted, limbs-like-lead kind of way. Tired, but refreshed, wobbly when on my feet, but definitely on the mend.

What would the Sekkari find if they looked in my mind now? Some of the same thing, that was for sure. In amongst the renewed optimism and the beginning of a new, healthier path, there still lurked the old route, the winding, spiralling way down into self-blame and depression. You can't just let things like that go - it's not so simple. You can't just snap your fingers and decide to be easier on yourself, to be more positive, to cut yourself a break. That kind of thing takes practice. And it takes the support of friends.

"Actually, there is something I need," I said.

Two more chairs were found, Rodney dragging one over to my bed, its legs scraping harshly, Teyla carefully lifting hers and setting it down next to his. Ronon had returned to his reclined, feet-up position, having tracked down the rest of my team.

Maybe I should have asked him to get Lorne too and even Woolsey. But for now, this was enough. Just my three teammates were enough, for now, to help me take the small steps that I needed to take - small, steady steps toward revealing just a little more of myself, letting people in just a little further, so that I didn't have to deal with it all alone, so that they could help steer me away from the pits and chasms of self-reproach and regret.

Teyla linked her hands together and let them rest, relaxed in her lap. Rodney shifted, sat back, then leant forward, trapped his hands beneath his thighs, then pulled them out again to twitch at his collar and scratch the tip of his nose.

"What's this all about, Sheppard? Why've we all been summoned into your illustrious presence?" He folded his arms, swung one leg over the other and leant back, glancing down uneasily as if the chair might collapse beneath him.

I fiddled with the bed controls, moving the head into a more upright position, then letting it down a couple of centimetres. Ronon and Teyla remained still. Rodney huffed.

I chewed my lip. "So… I want to tell you something."

"No, you don't," Rodney interrupted. "That much is painfully obvious."

"Rodney!" Teyla silenced him. "We must be patient. If John has something important to say, we will wait until he is able to say it."

Rodney snorted and muttered something about coffee.

Ronon, his eyes still closed, nudged my leg with the toe of his boot. Reassurance? Or telling me to spit it out? Both, probably.

I huffed, with as much impatience as Rodney. Get on with it, John. I plunged in. "I want to tell you what happened to me. With the Sekkari."

"Oh." Rodney sat up a little straighter. "Did it involve scantily clad blondes? Because the botany guys said you were gone a while." He rubbed his hands together. "Come on, then - let's have the juicy details!"

"No blondes, Rodney." My right hand crept toward my left forearm. "Just a couple of Genii."

"Genii? That doesn't sound like much fun."

"It wasn't." My hand closed around my arm, feeling the muscle and bone, smooth and complete. "Kolya was there."

"Kolya? But you killed him." Rodney rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, Sheppard - you actually shot the guy yourself! You didn't fall for that, did you?"

"Yeah, I fell for it. Why wouldn't I? I thought he was dead the first time I shot him - the guy had more lives than a cat. And you know how real it was - you fell for the fake Zelenka, didn't you?"

"Yes, but come on! Zelenka was at least plausible. Kolya? Not so much!"

"Shut up, McKay," Ronon growled. "Let Sheppard say what he needs to say."

Rodney subsided, muttering.

Teyla leant forward and curled one hand around my right elbow, drawing my arm toward her and holding my hand. "Tell us, John. Tell us what happened."

I told them.

I told them about being tied to a tree and beaten. And I told them what happened next. The ropes around my wrists, the glint of the blade as it swept down and then the pain.

"So, Kolya actually…" Rodney swallowed visibly and clamped a hand over his mouth. "And you felt…" He closed his eyes.

"Yeah." My voice was husky, my throat tight, my heart labouring.

Teyla held my hand in both of hers again and squeezed. "I am sorry, John. I am sorry we did not realise that something so awful had happened to you."

"It didn't happen, though. Did it?"

"If it felt real, it happened," said Ronon. He slid his feet off the bed and the front two legs of his chair smacked against the ground. His fists clenched as if he'd like to give the Sekkari a smacking. "Why did they do that? They didn't have to make it that bad."

I blew out a long, slow breath between sore, pursed lips. "He said I did it. He said he saw it inside me. He said…" I cleared my aching throat. "He said I torture myself every day."

There. I'd done it. It was all out in the open. Did I feel better? Not yet, no. Sweat prickled on my forehead. I closed my eyes.

Teyla's small hands still held mine. "Thank you for telling us, John."

I shrugged, hiding in the darkness.

Then there was a tentative pat on my lower leg. "Yes. Um… I'm glad you told us," said Rodney. "It must have been awful. Really. Awful."

I looked up. That familiar crooked mouth drooped beneath troubled blue eyes.

Then Ronon stood up and one large hand gripped my shoulder. "You're okay, Sheppard." His eyebrows slanted a grim v-shape. The Sekkari'd regret it if they ever crossed paths with the ex-runner. He sat down again, pulled a knife out of his hair and began picking his nails with it.

"So, uh… I wanted to say thanks as well," I said.

"What, thanks as in 'Oh, yeah, thanks so much for not realising I was drowning in guilt'?" said Rodney. "'Thanks for letting me drag myself so far down I nearly died?'"

"No!" I sat up, pushing away from the comfort of the bed. "No, I mean, really, thanks! Thanks for being there, when I was sick. For pulling me out of that. And for saying what I needed to hear, these last couple of days. Thanks. For… you know - for being my team."

"You are very welcome, John," said Teyla.

Ronon paused in his manicure. "Yeah, we got your six, Sheppard."

"Well, of course we have. We've got your entire three-hundred and sixty degree circumference if necessary," said Rodney. "You know that. Don't you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." I sagged back onto the pillows.

Teyla let go my hand and lowered the head of the bed.

"So… we should probably go," said Rodney. "Let you get some sleep."

Yes. I should let them go. They'd been hovering around my bed long enough. They probably had plenty of things they wanted to do instead of wasting their time listening to me snore.

But.

They were my team. And I had to learn to ask for what I wanted - what I needed. "Could you stay? Just for a while?"

Teyla's hands slid around mine once more. Rodney's chair scraped noisily closer to the bed and he smoothed down the blanket over my feet and tucked it in, even though it was already tucked. Ronon slid the knife back into his hair, kicked his legs back up on the bed and draped himself, like a big cat after a kill.

"Yes," said Teyla. "We can stay."

"Yeah," said Ronon, his eyes closed once more.

"I might go for coffee," said Rodney. "But I'll come straight back."

"Thanks." My eyes closed too. I let my body relax into the bed, sagging down into peaceful thoughts and wandering dreams.

There was a low rumble:

"Bring back some food, McKay."

And a terse stage whisper:

"Oh, what? Am I your servant? Get your own, Conan!"

And then a gentle murmur:

"I would appreciate some tea, Rodney."

My lips curved. The soft familiar ripple of rumbling, whispering and murmuring washed over me. I slept.

I hope you enjoyed my story! Please review - I'd love to hear what you thought.