A/N: Thanks hugely to everyone who has taken the time to review – your feedback is much appreciated!

Things are calming down a bit in this chapter and there's a bit less blood and gore – but the angst still continues.

I've restrained myself from doing the evil cliffie this time – thought I'd better give you guys a break from the stress! – but we still don't know how things are going to turn out… poor, poor Shep! Multiple POVs again in this chapter, hope you enjoy it.

As ever, please review and let me know your thoughts.

P.S. Just for you Linzi – more of Sheppy nekkid and under a sheet in the infirmary:D

McKay felt like he'd been waiting here in the infirmary forever. Time had slowed to a crawl and his life beyond those infirmary doors, his work, his responsibilities as head of the science teams, seemed like a distant memory. All he could focus on was the here and now; the wait. The nurse had tried to encourage him to rest, citing his exhaustion and concussion. He had snapped at her harshly and felt no regret at her hurt expression. Elizabeth, ever the negotiator, had chided him gently, reminding him that the woman was only doing her job. He had been as smug and condescending as he knew how when he told Elizabeth and that foolish woman that he didn't care what her job was, that under the circumstances it had been a ridiculous, stupid suggestion and anyone with half a brain could see that. The nurse had been offended but the look in Elizabeth's eyes had told him wordlessly that she'd heard more than arrogance and spite in his outburst, that she understood his pain and his anger because she felt it too. He'd turned away from that understanding gaze and set his chin resolutely, defiantly ignoring Elizabeth's muted attempt at mollification, saying nothing when the nurse finally left the room. So far, she had yet to return.

Elizabeth had tried a few times since then to engage him in conversation but between his brusque, noncommittal responses and their shared preoccupation with the stubbornly closed doors through to the surgical suite they had eventually fallen silent. Elizabeth still sat half on the bed beside him, one hip perched awkwardly on the mattress, one foot still on the floor. At some point as they waited for news she had laid her hand on his and left it there. He had let her.

The silence in the room was thick, oppressive.

The wait was interminable. Not knowing was intolerable. Rodney felt stretched so thin and so tight that if something didn't happen soon he would surely snap.

He'd been waiting so long that when the doors finally slid open he physically started, his hand reflexively squeezing Elizabeth's. Her hand tightened around his in response. For a moment relief warred with apprehension and Rodney realised that, awful as the wait had been, there was no going back from this moment. In that instant, not knowing seemed a glorious luxury and he briefly wished he could freeze time, stay in this moment forever and not have to know. Then Carson walked through the doors and Rodney swore he could physically feel his heart stop. He felt suddenly dizzy and heard his own whispered words as though from far, far away, lost in the roaring in his ears. "Oh god.."

Carson was exhausted. The pressure of a trauma situation was intense, draining, and the level of concentration required was relentless. As he stepped out of the operating theatre he could feel himself beginning to crash; he fancied he could physically feel the adrenaline draining from his system as soon as he finally let the tension relax. But he had no time to rest yet; his work was far from over and there were people waiting on him, waiting for news. They were relying on him – and god only knew what awful fears must have been running through their minds as they waited for so long with no word.

Fatigue made him clumsy and it took him two attempts to swipe his hand past the sensor to open the doors into the main part of the infirmary. The first thing he saw on stepping through the doors was Rodney and Elizabeth, he dressed in scrubs and propped up in one of the infirmary beds, Dr Weir perched beside him, her hand clasped in his. The second thing he saw was the expression on their faces. Elizabeth's mouth was set in a tight, grim line and Rodney was a white as a sheet, looking for all the world like he was going to pass out at any moment. Tired as he was, it took a moment for comprehension to hit him and Carson looked from their stunned faces to glance down at himself in horror – emotionally exhausted and physically drained, in his well-meaning desire to update them on the situation as soon as possible, he had walked into the infirmary without even stripping off his soiled scrubs. He stood before them drenched in Sheppard's blood.

"Oh god!" He pulled frantically at the fastenings, ripping the bloodied gown from his chest with clumsy fingers even as he stepped quickly forward, trying to forestall the despair he saw in their eyes. "Ah'm sorry. Ah'm such an idiot, I didnae even think!" Fatigue and panic made his accent thicker as he tossed the dirty garment to one side, rushing to find words to calm their fears.

"It's not what ya think…"

"Is he dead?" Rodney's voice was thick, filled with a sick hopelessness that twisted at Beckett's heart.

"No. No, Rodney, he's not dead." Carson forced calm into his voice.

It took a moment for his words to sink in and Rodney seemed to visibly deflate as he finally registered what he was being told. He sank back against the piled-up pillows, colour flushing his cheeks as he breathed out, "Oh thank god." Elizabeth's relieved smile was enough to light the room and Carson's heart felt heavy with the knowledge that he had to dampen that enthusiasm. He took Rodney's hand in his and checked his pulse; the man's heart was racing, his hand trembling minutely in Carson's grip.

"He's out of surgery," he told them and he could see Elizabeth's smile dim at his non-committal tone.

He looked from one to the other, his colleagues, his friends, and he saw them take in the seriousness of his expression. Elizabeth's hand tightened around Rodney's.

"We managed to remove the shrapnel and stop the bleeding," he told them, "but I'll no lie to you. He's in a bad way."

"He lost a lot of blood and required massive transfusion. The injury to his abdomen is severe. The shrapnel severed an artery and he bled out during surgery."

He was brutally honest with them. "We almost lost him."

Elizabeth's voice was tight, artificially calm, and he could almost feel how fragile her control was right now. "What is his prognosis, Carson?"

Beckett sighed. He hated this.

"He's stable for now but he's weak. Very weak. His breathing function deteriorated during transport to the infirmary so he's on a ventilator… he's had to be resuscitated twice…" his voice trailed off as he saw the light of hope begin to fade from their eyes.

He rubbed a hand across his face tiredly, taking a moment to close his eyes, his fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. He couldn't remember the last time he felt this tired.

They were waiting for him when he opened his eyes, their emotions worn thin, their hopes and fears writ large on their faces. For Carson, dealing with the family and friends of patients was the hardest part of being a doctor. He cared a lot, some would say too much, and found it hard to detach himself from the emotional aspects of the case. And now, here in Atlantis, so far away from home, the members of the expedition were like a family. How much harder then to give the harsh truth to his patient's friends and family when they were his family too, when the patient was his friend as well? Some people would call his emotional attachment a flaw, a fault that made him an imperfect doctor. He'd expressed this opinion to Dr Weir in the past and he remembered her response as he spoke to her now; she'd told him that his ability to care was what made him a good person and a great physician – and had played a large part in why she had chosen him for this mission. He held on to that thought as he did his best to reassure them.

"The next 24 hours will be critical. He's holding his own for now but his body has been through a lot. He's weak and in shock and the kind of massive blood transfusion we've been forced to give him carries its own risks. We'll monitor him closely, try to deal with any complications as they arise."

He could see his own fears and hopes reflected in their eyes.

"The Colonel's a strong lad," he told them, a certain pride in his voice "He's a fighter. If he can make it through the night then he's got a good chance."

"Thank you, Carson. I know you'll take good care of him." Elizabeth's voice was quiet, calm, and her smile was genuine. Her faith in him made him all the more determined to live up to her belief in his abilities.

"Can we see him?" Rodney was pale, exhausted, his chin jutting out as he spoke, anticipating Carson's response.

Beckett tried to hedge his answer, "Rodney, you're clearly exhausted.."

"And I'm not going to get any rest sitting here worrying, am I?" McKay interrupted sharply. Carson didn't miss the slight squeeze Elizabeth gave the scientist's hand and the look that passed between them.

"Please Carson," Elizabeth pushed. "Just for a moment?"

He sighed.

"Just a minute or two," he relented. He held up a hand as Rodney threw back the blankets impatiently. "And you're not walking anywhere! I'll have Nurse Miller bring a wheelchair."

"I'm fine!" McKay protested but Carson was having none of it. "I'll not have you keeling over from exhaustion, Rodney. It's been a very long day and I've a lot of work still to do – so you can go by wheelchair or you can stay where ye are."

McKay would have argued but Elizabeth took one look at Dr Beckett's stern face and intervened. Faced with a united front, Rodney grudgingly acquiesced and they followed Carson into recovery with Elizabeth pushing Rodney's wheelchair.

The steady beep of the heart monitor and the slow, repetitive hissssss-click of the ventilator were the only sounds in the recovery room. The atmosphere was subdued and even the medical staff seemed to feel it, Carson's voice dropping to an almost whisper as he reminded them, "A minute or two and that's all. I mean it."

Elizabeth's heart was pounding in her ears as she slowly pushed McKay's wheelchair forwards, the thundering drowning out the silence that lay like a heavy blanket over the room. The silence was more than an absence of sound, it was a living, breathing thing, a tension in the air. It was the sound of a life hanging by a thread.

She heard McKay's indrawn breath as they approached the Colonel's bed and she found her hands gripping tight to the handles of the chair, helping steady her as the air seemed to rush from her lungs.

John looked terrible.

The man who was so full of life and energy, who had laughed and joked with her only that morning in her office, who had physically fought to protect his team and this city on more occasions than she could recall, was reduced to a pale and fragile form, lost in the confines of a hospital bed, draped loosely with a crisp, white sheet and surrounded by more wires and cables and tubes and monitors and equipment than she had thought possible. All of this, she thought helplessly, it's taking all of this just to keep him alive.

His face was obscured by the mass of twisting tubes attached to the hard plastic connector that filled his mouth, allowing air to be pushed into his lungs through the tube that stretched down his throat, keeping his airway open. His bare chest rose and fell in time to the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, his skin unnaturally pale and dotted with the adhesive pads of an array of monitors.

She watched as Carson moved gently around the bed, checking readings on monitors, still working to keep John with them. Rodney, for once, was silent.

John had survived the explosion, the desperate wait for help to reach them. He'd survived the trip back to the infirmary, blood loss, respiratory failure, two attempts to revive him with the defibrillator, an arterial bleed. He'd survived surgery.

Only time would tell if he would survive the night.

Once again, all they could do was wait.

TBC...