A/N: Fireworks for everyone! The good stuff, so avoid dry grassy fields. Angsty chapter, this, with whump on the side. Poor John, the man needs a vacation.
Part 4
Direct line of sight let John see it all – two bodies of two different makes, piled shapelessly on a stone cold floor. The metal one remained untouched with the bent black jaws still gaping at him minus the blue lights for eyes. The organic body was going through further disturbing changes. Long, segmented bodied creatures like obsidian centipedes were squeezing out of the cracks and chinks in the floor to crawl over the mess of pale flesh splashed with dark blood. They swarmed the body in a cacophony of clicking appendages until nothing of the pale flesh could be seen, just a mass of writhing worm-shapes gradually shrinking as they inhaled the remains.
John would have been sickened to the point of puking if it hadn't been for the pain. His jaw, arm, back – excruciating beyond comprehension. He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a squeak like an out of tune violin. It hurt so much. His mechanical heart stumbled in his chest, pounding, slowing, then jolting as though uncertain as to what it wanted to do. It was trying to hold on, because survival instincts told it to. The need for the pain to end made it falter. So it danced like a drunkard, and kept the connection alive and strong.
Until John woke up gasping until his ribs screamed, then released it on a sob that had tears soaking the area of the pillow around his head.
SGA
Rodney tried the sleep thing, got maybe two hours before waking up from a dream in which they found John's dried wraith-sucked husk curled against the wall, gave up on sleep, and went to the lab to take the mini-culler apart and see what else made it tick. But since his mind wasn't in it, it became mostly busy work to pass the time until he finally reached the point where he couldn't take it any more.
That left only one more destination, the one he'd been trying to avoid. Not that he didn't want to see John, he just didn't want to see John in his current state. He'd planned to drop by after John had finally gotten some sufficient winks and his mind was more stable. But that was being selfish, Rodney knew it, and was starting to hate himself for it.
It was hard, though, this time around especially so. John was home, safe, and being cared for, and he was still suffering, which was all the more reason for Rodney to visit John in order to offer support. Yet twistedly enough, it was the same reason the thought of going made Rodney's stomach twist. He was right there, right in front of Rodney, and Rodney still couldn't do a damn thing to help ease his friend's agony. And the only thing he could think of to do that 'might' help might also make things worse. So all and all, going in to see John meant having to witness his ongoing torture, like watching a man drowning and not going out to pull him in, and that made Rodney feel like scum. Ten times the scum when John started trying to assure him that it was okay, it wasn't Rodney's fault, and there was nothing to be done about it.
He went to visit with John anyways. Carson was insistent that moral support from friends did more than anyone realized, and Rodney was going to just have to take his word for it or get crushed under all this guilt.
On entering the infirmary, McKay found it to be dimly lit, probably for Sheppard's sake. The man in question had his head turned so that Rodney was unable to see his face. The blankets were a mess, crumpled down to his waist, with one leg uncovered. Each of John's inhalations were fast and shallow, and on each exhale his chest shuddered. Sherbet was rubbing up and down along his arm, making small purring sounds.
McKay hurried over and began adjusting the blankets back over John's wayward leg, the one with the wrapped ankle. He tugged at the front of the blanket mound, his knuckles brushing John's sharply protruding ribs, and Rodney recoiled momentarily with a disturbed shudder. On maneuvering John's uninjured arm back beneath the blanket, he felt the solidity of remaining muscles twitching with tension, and wondered with a shock of fear if he was hurting John.
" Hey, Sheppard," Rodney whispered. " You all right? I-I'm not hurting you or anything..." Rodney craned his neck to see some of John's face, and caught a glimpse of the Colonel's wide and terrified left eye vivid being sunken and surrounded by bruised, shadowed flesh. John took a quick breath, but his chest still shuddered when it was released.
" I..." he croaked, swallowed, and continued. " Fell asleep."
Rodney gulped in sympathy and concern. He placed his hand lightly on Sheppard's shoulder, and felt the man's mild tremors. " Sorry to hear that. But you're awake now."
" Where is everyone?" John asked in a small, timid voice. " There was a nurse, but she wasn't here when I woke up."
McKay released John's shoulder to sit in the stool where said nurse should have been sitting. " Probably took off assuming you were out cold. I promise to chew Beckett out so he can chew her out in return.
John slipped his shaking hand out from under the covers and rubbed his face, afterwards turning his head to look at Rodney. The weak limb hadn't done squat in removing the evidence of recent tears. " Will you stay?" he asked, again in that same timid manner that made Rodney's heart twist instead of his stomach. If John had an alter ego, then Rodney was seeing it now – from no backing down, leave no one behind, gun blazing Air Force Colonel to lost, broken little kid. He even looked smaller, but one tended to look smaller when one lost weight with no weight to lose in the first place.
" Well, seeing as how for once I don't have all that much to do, I think I can stay for a while."
John visibly relaxed, sinking further into the bed and his breathing normalizing. " Thanks." Sherbet climbed up onto the pillow, turning three times before plopping down with his tiny head resting on John's sharp shoulder.
Rodney cleared his throat, trying to muster up some small talk. Except he didn't want to do the idle chatter dance. A question had been nagging him for some time, and since keeping John awake was the goal here – and the only way Rodney knew how to help – in depth discussions over serious matters seemed the best way to go.
As long as it didn't make things worse.
" Um... Not that I want to dredge up any bad memories – and if you don't want to talk about it I completely understand..." a first for Rodney, and even he realized that. In truth he wanted answers, but not at the cost of furthering John's pain. " But um... back in the jumper, you were kind of freaking out. You kept going on about giving up, how you were about to. Seemed to kind of scare the hell out of you. I was just kind of – uh – curious as to what that was all about."
John's nervous eyes flicked to the ceiling, and his throat moved in a swallow. " I didn't mean to."
Rodney's brow furrowed, and irritation prickled under his skin unbidden. " Mean to give up? I didn't know there was such a thing as accidentally giving up in the first place."
John closed his eyes wearily, only to snap them open quickly with a quiet gasp. " That's not what I meant."
" We were trying to find you, we really were. And I'm sorry it was taking so long but we didn't have much to work with from the start..."
" Rodney," John said as forcefully as he could, only to have it come out sounding as worn out as he looked. " Cut me some slack here, I can barely think as it is. I knew you were looking for me and held on pretty good as long as I kept that in mind. Then Ient breaks the news that you wouldn't be coming any time soon because he was leading you guys on a wild goose chase. Don't you remember me telling you that?"
" No."
Now it was John furrowing his brow, then looking up at Rodney a little sheepishly. " I didn't?"
Rodney shook his head. " Not that I recall."
John looked away, then back to Rodney. " Oh. Well, yeah, that's what he told me. After that it was a little hard hanging on to hope. I mean, I tried, but..." he swallowed again. " You don't know what it was like there, Rodney." John's voice faltered in a desperate waver as he pushed for understanding. " What Ient was doing, what he was going to do. Death was kind of the best option at the time. If he hadn't of decided to let Meyon try to feed on me, then he was going to keep me around for further experimentation. The thing was he had to kill me because if he didn't he knew I would try to stop him from taking one of you guys and ripping out a big chunk of your mind to stick in that robot. And I would have tried to stop him even if it meant..." John's eyes moved everywhere except back to Rodney. " That... we couldn't escape and had to - um – die... at the same time."
Rodney's eyes rounded over. " You mean you were going to kill whoever Ient took to use as the spy."
John turned his head enough in order to focus on Sherbet's sleeping form. " If it absolutely, positively came down to that... To save Atlantis."
" Even if that someone was me? Or Teyla? what about Dr. Weir? Ronon... he'd probably be okay with it but..." Cold fear radiated from Rodney's chest. " Oh gosh, what if it had been me?"
John didn't say anything, but he didn't need to the way his eyes started tearing up. Rodney's instinct was to rant and rave over how John could even possibly think of doing such a thing. His friend's expression of growing anguish and shame shoved that desire to the dark places of Rodney's mind. The man had killed his own CO in order to protect earth. He did what it took to protect, made sacrifices where he had to, so it was only natural that he would consider such a morbid option. John was right, Rodney didn't know what it had been like, what John had gone through even with John having talked about it.
Rodney was relieved he never had to make such decisions, but it sickened him that John did. No one should have to go through torment only to have that kind of a burden dumped on the shoulders to crush and mangle.
" I didn't know what else to do." John's quiet voice startled Rodney from his thoughts. John sniffed, sighed, and wiped his eye with the heel of his hand. " I didn't want to die. And I definitely didn't want to kill anyone. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted it to stop."
Rodney had never been good in matters of comfort, but neither was he overwhelmed by the need to bust out of the room before the emotional flooding went above head level. Actually, he found himself wanting to stay for as long as it took, and at least attempt the comfort thing, even if he did suck at it, because it was all he could think to do for his friend.
" Well... Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't? But it's over now... Or at least it will be. You should probably try to focus more on that."
John fell silent for a moment, turning his eyes and his head to stare up at the ceiling. " I don't know if I can take any more."
" What, of not being able to sleep? You know, we can look for Ient's place, try to find a way to shut the robot down without causing you any problems..."
John shook his head, then lifted his limp hand to gesture weakly. " I meant this. Going through the Stargate, ending up here afterwards. Future captures, future tortures... future Ients. Crap Rodney, I knew I was going to die. Not figured, not considered – I knew. And I was ready for it. I wanted it to happen. I let Meyon try to feed on me. Not that I could have stopped her otherwise, but I didn't even try. I just gave up. And I still can't get over the fact that I'm not dead right now." John coughed out a half-laugh, half-sob touched with the slightly hysterical. " Life came as a surprise. Can you believe it? It shocked the hell out of me that I was still breathing. I was freakin' giving up. Since when the hell have I ever given up?"
Rodney shrugged uneasily. " Since you ran out of options. Look, everyone has a breaking point. You reached yours is all. As a practicing pessimist, I can tell you that it gets kind of hard to hold onto hope when there doesn't seem to be much hope left to hold onto. And for you to have a tough time at holding on... well... that's kind of saying a lot. I can't even imagine..." Rodney shook his head and flicked his tongue over his dry lips. " Calling it hell probably wouldn't cut it. Too cliché. So anyone who faults you – you, Lt. Colonel 'think positive' - for losing hope is an idiot."
" I had no reason to lose hope."
" You didn't know that. But now you do. Live and learn, and keep on living. You're alive, and you really do need to focus on that."
John lifted his hand to his face to rub it, closed his eyes, but snapped them back open with a gasp, dropping his hand to the bed with a muffled thump. " I don't ever want to go through that again – losing hope like that. I actually preferred Ient's beatings to that." John rolled his head in Rodney's direction. " I don't think I could take it."
Rodney gaped at John's desperation and fear, but his alarm immediately morphed into anger. " So you're still giving up?" Rodney wheedled. " After surviving all that, knowing there's always something to hope for, you're still going to call it quits? Apparently you haven't learned a damn thing. You can't just quit! That would be like... Ient winning. Or all the wraith. Or Koyla. Hell, every bad guy we ever met. You can't let them do this to you, Colonel. You're letting what happened to you dictate your life. And since when did you ever give in to being told what to do?"
John let out a long, slow breath. His eyes shimmered, and Rodney saw in them the longing to close, just for a minute. Rodney had never seen John look so defeated before – defeated period - and it both frightened and angered him. But that anger wasn't directed at John, but at every low life and nut-job who had ever hurt John in the name of pride, retribution, or sadism. It made Rodney's own eyes tear up until he blinked them away.
John shook his head. " I don't know. Maybe I need to think about it. But I'm too tired to think."
" Then think about it when you're not. Until then, don't worry. Just... focus on being alive. That's all I ask. Don't worry about giving up or anything like that. It doesn't really matter. You're alive and, personally, that's all any of us really care about. So just think about that."
John's head dropped more than rolled to go back to facing Rodney, and his eyes flickered with fear. " You leaving?"
" Not unless someone comes along to keep my seat warm. But let's change the subject. Present conversation is making me depressed. Hey, did you know Zelenka likes car racing?"
John shook his head. " No."
" He does. Freakiest thing. I found out when a race popped up onto his laptop instead of his formula. The way he reacted, you'd think it had been some rated X movie."
Rodney heard a soft, breathy sound, and realized that John was chuckling.
" What is with you scientists not wanting anyone to know you have interests outside of science?"
Rodney shook his head. " I have no idea. I'm quite proud of the fact that I enjoy hockey."
" Then I guess I was hallucinating when I caught you laughing your ass off watching Sponge Bob with Cadmen and Beckett."
Rodney blanched but other than that maintained his outward calm. " I will neither confirm nor deny it."
Again came that breathy, tired chuckle. " Whatever Rodney." Then he started coughing.
SGA
John was sick. High fever, coupled with congestion that had him coughing until he could barely pull in more air. Teyla and Ronon walked in after waiting half the day to see John, and found him suffering both that breathing apparatus at the nose and a feeding tube through the nose. Instead of buried beneath blankets, he was covered by a single sheet pulled up only to his waist, and the hospital gown pulled down below his chest. The bandages were gone, the bony body and red, scabbing wound exposed, as Beckett cleaned that wound using a Q-tip. At the same time, a nurse was wiping John's forehead and arms with a wet cloth.
What really caught Teyla's attention was the look of terror in John's bloodshot and wildly roving eyes. His breathing was fast and raspy, and his arm flailed weakly trying to push Beckett away only to have the doctor set the arm back on the bed.
" Dr. Beckett?" Teyla asked, all ready to dismiss themselves if this was a bad time. Instead, Beckett brightened and waved them over.
" Teyla, Ronon, I'm glad you're here. I need a bit of help. The Colonel's fever is up and combined with lack of sleep it's made him delirious. The poor lad's frightened and I need help calming him down so I can finish this."
Teyla needed no further bidding and was by John's side, taking his weakly roaming hand and clasping it in both of hers, being careful of the I.V. Ronon just stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed, shifting from foot to foot periodically. The nurse wiping John down moved to the other side of the bed to give Teyla room.
Now that she was in closer proximity, Teyla could both feel and see John shaking. She began massaging his warm hand in hers, which drew his attention in her direction, but not his focus. His glassy eyes kept rolling as though searching for something in the dark.
" John?" she said. Now was one of those times when first name basis really mattered.
" Teyla?" John replied in a rasp. " Teyla, what's going on? I'm cold."
" You have a fever, John, and need to be cooled. Dr. Beckett is cleaning your wound. You are all right, no one is trying to hurt you."
John turned his head away to look up at the ceiling. He arched slightly, then dropped back down, squirmed, and arched again as though trying to dislodge something jabbing into his back.
" M-my back hurts," he croaked. " My jaw..."
Teyla looked at Dr. Beckett.
" I believe it's from that machine he's connected to," Beckett replied without looking up from his work. " The fever's havin' him slip off to sleep more, which increases the connection."
Teyla recalled Dr. McKay telling them about this human-like machine called a robot, hadn't understood any of it except that destroying it might hurt Sheppard worse, so she took Beckett's word for it.
" I'm tired," John whimpered. " I'm tired, I'm so tired, oh gosh..." he closed his eyes, then snapped them open with a gasp and a more violent shudder. " I'm tired," he whispered over and over again until deranged laughter interrupted the chant, melding into sobbing with tears sliding down along his cheekbone. Keeping her left hand in his, she reached out with her right to brush through his sweat-drenched hair.
It hurt to watch him, like a knife of ice through both the gut and the heart. The hurt increased when she tried to fight back her own tears that triumphed anyways and spilled out.
" There really is nothing we can do?" she asked, choked. Finally, Beckett did look up, his expression sad and tired.
" No lass. Not at the risk to Colonel Sheppard's life."
John closed his eyes again, opened them with a gasp, then a whimper. " Oh gosh, make it stop, I just want to sleep, please..."
When Beckett finished cleaning, he covered the wound with gauze pads, taped them into place, then with Ronon's and Teyla's help, lifted the weakened Colonel enough to rewrap his ribs. Once complete, Beckett lifted the gown back over Sheppard's chest and tied it around the neck. Sheppard's hand clung to the doctor's sleeve as he begged and sobbed for sleep.
sgasgasgasgasgasgasga
Elizabeth could only watch Sheppard. His concentration had been pooled on remaining awake, leaving little leeway for simple conversation. His eyelids twitched and fluttered, snapped open, attempted to slide close, then snapped open again. It hurt to watch, and made Elizabeth want to reach out and close his eye lids for him. Except it wasn't up to her to let him know when to sleep, it was up to some damn robot clinging pointlessly to existence. And there could be no touching John except to help him in staying awake. The lightest brush against his fingers, shoulder, or head and he would flinch, then struggle, trying to squirm away from that touch, begging not to be hurt, or apologizing profusely for whatever he'd thought or said against this Meyon creature. Pure delirium, Beckett had said. The poor pilot had no idea if he was coming or going, here or back in that nightmare.
In her short time since taking up the vigil so Sheppard wouldn't be alone, she'd cried three times, and her face was still wet from all three. Not being able to take his hand or place her own hand on his shoulder, to physically ground him in the here and now, hurt just as much as watching this torment. His chest pulsated with panting breaths, interrupted by liquid-like coughs gurgling and slapping up his throat. And his skin wasn't just white, it was going on gray.
On his next coughing fit that had his head lifting off the pillow, a string of saliva slid down his cheek, and Elizabeth had to clench her fist to keep from wiping it away with the cloth on the tray beside her. The only help she could provide was offering water when he voiced in a croak or whimper the need for a drink.
When the coughing finished, John inhaled a breath that sounded like it was scraping his throat, and dropped his head back on the pillow. On occasion he sometimes mumbled, but now, instead, began humming. It sounded like something Johnny Cash, going on for a while, then stopping when the coughs started. When the coughs stopped, he started humming something else, escalating toward murmured words that Elizabeth caught to be "Don't fear the Reaper," at which, after a moment, John coughed out an unstable laugh and went back to humming.
" Any change I should know about love?"
Elizabeth didn't turn her head. She didn't have to with Carson now standing beside her. She gripped the rails of the bed to keep her hand from wandering out and brushing back John's sweat-slicked hair. " He's getting worse."
Carson moved, and Elizabeth caught the flash of dim light off the end of his stethoscope. " His coughing?"
" I meant him mentally," she replied.
Carson slipped the stethoscope down the front of the loosely tied gown. Even with his chest wrapped, John still felt it, and he gasped, his body going rigid. He squirmed, trying to push away, but was too weak to even manage a centimeter.
" Shhh, it's all right lad," Carson soothed.
" John?" Elizabeth joined in. " Listen to my voice. You're all right. It's just Carson checking your temperature. Can you hear me John?"
John's blood-shot and wild eyes flicked to her face and stayed. She smiled at him calmly though inside she felt apprehensively ill. It should have been impossible for John to be able to hold out this long without sleep. But then again, this was John, the epitome of impossible in more ways than one. Still, even pulling it off, Elizabeth didn't need to be a doctor to know that even his stubborn body would eventually drop. What made her ill was that, according to Carson, he could very well drop off into death rather than sleep. His body was weak enough for the possibility.
When Carson finished, working fast as possible to diminish John's time in anxiety, he pulled the stethoscope away and stepped back.
" See John?" Elizabeth said with a forced, sad smile. " You're all right."
He blinked rapidly as though trying to clear his vision, then nodded. Elizabeth's smile became genuine, until she looked at Carson and his solemn expression.
" Congestion's getting' worse, and his heart rate's up. I'm going to have to attach the monitor. Elizabeth, if this doesn't end soon so he can get some sleep – I'll be blunt, it's going to kill him."
Elizabeth nodded, her throat closing off. " I know. You've said."
Carson shook his head, pursing his lips, and Elizabeth caught what she swore was a shimmer of moisture in his eyes. " We just got him bloody back. And all he needs is bloody sleep. Gaw, all I want to do is give him a sedative. But knowin' what he'll go through when put under makes me sick. It's bloody well pissin' me off. Damn wraith are bad enough eatin' us, they have to put us through hell to boot. I've never been a deeply religious man, but wraith are devil spawn if ya ask me. Pure and simple. Hard ta deny the devil when ya've seen his handy work in the flesh."
Nodding again, Elizabeth placed her arms on the rail of the bed, and her head on her arms. " I think John would readily agree with you on that if he could."
John coughed, which caused him to squeeze his eyes shut that promptly snapped back open, and he whimpered.
SGA
John was losing. He couldn't keep his eyes open forever, and couldn't deny the demands of his pain-wracked body. His heart felt like it was being tossed around and pummeled, and his chest heavy with lungs lined in cotton. He was hot, and yet cold covered his skin like a wet suit. Then there was his head, and the stabbing, cracking, pound in his skull, expanding to try and crush his brain. His gut churned and roiled in nausea but he lacked the strength to throw up.
He'd tried distraction after distraction, forcing his brain to work equations, to recall the lyrics to songs. He made his thoughts move fast, focusing in on some, then pulling away when they began slipping off incoherently, the herald before the dreams. He heard voices, clear sometimes, mangled and resounding others. Echoes of voices he knew, with faces to match when close in, blurred when moving away. But, sometimes, he would hear Meyon scream, hiss, Ient's accusing voice, making him wonder if he were dreaming and couldn't wake up. If he didn't wake up, Meyon would get him, or Ient would be furious.
Except they were dead. He saw their bodies every time he closed his eyes. Meyon still a pile of metal but Ient a pile of black-stained bones still writhing with black-bodied centipede creatures, weaving in and out carrying chunks of meat in their sharp mandibles. John swore he could smell the stench of wraith blood and decay.
The stupid Tin Man wouldn't die. So what if it might hurt should it be smashed to pieces or shut off. Sheppard wanted it smashed. He wanted to sleep, not wake up in another body and another place. He tried willing the thing to die, even attempted closing his eyes to take over the body, and from there attempt to give in to death. Except it was a machine, playing by its own rules, going against Sheppard's will since he was only one component to the entire structure. He was beginning to realize this the more he fought the thing in his myriad of ways. He had thought it his own subconscious keeping the thing alive. But it was a bunch of crap. Even his subconscious didn't want to put up with that pain. So he begged for death in the machine body, while clinging to life in his human body, which was dangerous when the pain melded during transition and he forgot which body he was in.
Die already you son of a bitch! His mind screamed, his body screaming with it. He must have said it out loud, when the voices became frantic and the faces loomed closer.
John didn't care anymore. He wanted the damn thing dead.
" Just kill it... kill it... Please..." He didn't know if anyone heard. He could barely hear himself, and couldn't get his voice to go any louder. Took too much energy, energy he needed to stay awake.
Please let it die... please...
When he closed his eyes, to see elsewhere, he stiffened with pain, then attempted to recoil from the huge centipede scuttling toward him smooth and quick. His view of the two corpses became blocked by the segmented body crawling over the metal face of Tin Man. John felt its many sharp claws clattering over the metal flesh, felt it squeeze through the crack in the glass of the metal ribs like a gash in John's flesh and bone side. The feet pierced tubes, mandibles cut wires and punctured holes in the mechanical heart, searching for the organic. It gnawed and nibbled on this and that, spilling fluid like internal bleeding, then it left finding nothing worth eating. All the while, John choked on his own screams of agony that diminished when the creature left.
John woke up, gasping and sputtering as his weak hand pawed at his own side where the centipede had entered. Even with that kind of pain ripping through him, waking up had been a struggle. He felt a hand grab his wrist to pin his arm down. He tried to pull away but lacked the strength to do so. A Scottish voice told him to calm down, that it would be all right.
Ha! Fat chance there. Promises, promises. So where were the results? It wasn't going to be all right, not until Tin Man was dead. The thing was better off without a heart.
Then John's body was flooded in overwhelming lethargy. This was it, the final pull to bring him under and stick him back in that metal husk for more fun in the basement of hell. And it was happening fast. John's eyes drooped toward close, and not even the grip on his wrist sent the fear stampeding enough for him to snap awake.
Except when he closed his eyes, the dungeon was hazed in a blurring fog, thickening, numbing him. The mechanical heart thumped slower, stuttering, then seeming to trip over itself until...
Everything stopped – the pain, the robot ticker – and the world went black like a light being flipped off. Darkness, nothing but, and it was nice – warm, safe, silent, and free. John had never thought darkness could be so heavenly, and yet here he was, basking in it, wrapping himself in it like a blanket.
Not yet. He needed to make sure of something first, so forced his eyelids apart and blinked until the world around him focused.
Beeping of a heart monitor, the smell of antiseptic – John smiled and breathed out a sigh.
" Colonel Sheppard? John, lad?"
Don't forget the Scotsman. Carson's face was hovering over John's. John, smiling, pushed every iota of hidden strength into his one good arm to lift it and clutch weakly at Carson's sleeve.
" I-it's... over," he breathed. Then began chuckling, softly at first, then slightly faster and noisier. Tears leaked from the corner of his eyes, tears of sweet, indescribable relief. " I can sleep now. I can sleep..."
Carson's face broke out into its own smile of relief. He patted John's hand, then took it and gently maneuvered it beneath the warm covers. " Ya sleep then, lad," he said, and John was vaguely surprised to see tears in Carson's eyes. " You sleep. We'll be right here waitin' for ya when you're done."
John would have slept with or without permission, but felt safe in Beckett's assurance. So he let his eyes slide close, sinking into the soft, yielding mattress, wrapping himself in the warm darkness. He felt in the distance blankets being pulled up to his neck, and a warm hand on his forehead. Then he felt nothing, and liked it that way.
SGA
A/N: 'Tis not all folks. Still an epilogue to go. Sleep John, sleeeeeep..."
