AN: I'm sorry for leaving you guys (and Sheppard and Co) hanging over the weekend. My jungle yard had to be cut back into submission, and the fish were gasping at the top of the tank for fresh air and possibly some clean water. The laundry, it gave up at least, and crawled away somewhere ot hide out of sight.

OoO

The downside of not being able to hear was…not being able to hear. At first, he'd had a hard enough time just keeping his feet under him to try and sort what the situation was. His eyes gave him the immediate reassurance that Teyla, Ronon and Doctor Z weren't bleeding, dying or in any immediate danger. Beyond that, he would've needed to be a lip reader, and there was only one tablet in the room, currently clutched in Rodney's hand.

The upside of not being able to hear was that he didn't have to get involved in whatever harsh argument or general bitching session that Rodney, Teyla and Doctor Z were hip deep in. Judging from the looks on their faces, there were some serious words being exchanged, and Zelenka kept waving at the door while Teyla kept gesturing at Sheppard and looking angry.

Judging the reason for her looks, he forced himself to straighten even more. He was capable of being here, and he resented the implied words that he couldn't hear saying otherwise.

His eyes slipped unsteadily past Ronon, then back to the door. Sheppard figured while they settled things, he might as well get the door open. Considering it might be as reluctant on this side as it was on the other, he placed his palm on the panel and waited.

Nothing.

The arms yanking him back caused him to stumble, and the fight to stay upright ended, ignominiously. Falling down on his ass wasn't a good topper to the situation, and Sheppard tried to stare unsteadily at a blurring Rodney. Sudden movement had rocketed his dizziness which in turn increased the queasiness Sheppard had been fighting all morning.

What he'd wanted to do was ask McKay what the hell that was for, but what Sheppard wound up doing, was groaning, curling in a desperate roll to the side, and losing hold of the small amount of chicken pea soup.

Sweating, sick, and really pissed, he managed to glare when the nausea receded. "Damn it, McKay!"

When Rodney didn't flinch away, Sheppard looked harder.

The room was a square lab, smaller than most, without the rows and rows of equipment. Instead, along one wall was a bench filled with things his blurry vision couldn't identify from where he was at. The lights were only half their usual intensity…things he'd processed all ready, but now everyone else in the room was curled on the floor, in various states of recovery from something.

What…

McKay had managed by then to shakily type. He thrust the tablet at Sheppard, then slumped to the side of him.

Don't do that again.

"What?" Sheppard coughed back another tidal wave of queasy. "Nothing personal, McKay, but my stomach doesn't listen to me, let alone you."

Judging from the irritated look, Rodney really wanted to reply, but whatever had happened to knock the others for a loop, McKay hadn't fully recovered from yet, and instead of typing scathing explanations, he settled instead for a weak wave which promised Sheppard that Rodney would get back to him in a few. Great.

Teyla was the first to recover enough to do anything other than lay around. She knelt in front of Sheppard and said something that he couldn't understand.

"I can't hear you," he explained.

She frowned, then touched her stomach, head, ears and stared at him harder, while still talking. Judging from her sideways looks toward McKay, Sheppard figured whatever she was saying now wasn't for him.

Charades. Sheppard inhaled sharply. He could've been sleeping this off. He should've been sleeping this off. It'd be on his deathbed before he admitted it to anyone, but he wasn't really in any kind of shape to be here. The headache alone was making him want to bang his head repeatedly against the wall.

"Better," he answered her pantomimed question. At least, he hoped that's what she was trying to get.

The skeptical look washed over him, and Sheppard wished she'd quite staring into him like she did. Normally his…not quite lies…but exaggerations of the truth, were enough to get him off the hook with everyone else.

Well, maybe if he wasn't still half-sitting, half-lying on the floor it might've been more believable, John…damn.

So, get up. Simple enough, right?

He started to push himself up, and two interesting…okay, not so much interesting, as alarming, things happened. First, his stomach flipped and lurched and told him he was apparently as stupid as some people implied (from time to time), and second, when his body reacted, so did Teyla and McKay. Before he could fully process what was happening, Teyla pulled him down to the floor and said something with a whole lot of feeling.

"Teyla, I can't hear you."

Let's state the obvious for a hundred, Alex.

It was then that Rodney pushed away whatever was wrong with him long enough to start typing. And typing. His fingers were making Sheppard dizzy, and about that time, McKay's fingers slowed, he paled, shook his head and glared at John.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow and waited, looking at Ronon and Zelenka who still looked a little rough around the edges and were staring at them as if they hadn't quite figured out what had happened. Well, that made three of them.

The tablet slid across the distance between him and Rodney, coming to rest against his leg. Sheppard had only managed to sit when Teyla forced him to stop, so cross-legged, he took the tablet and read.

God damn it! Will you fucking stop MOVING. When you touched that panel you activated some kind of…sympathetic resonance…to the rest of us in the room, and how there are not four matching piles of vomit remains a mystery. What did you DO? And, for the record, this is not FINE. This is a hundred and eighty degrees from fine, and when I get us out of here, you are in serious trouble because now…now I can tell Carson exactly how crappy you feel!

"What?" The tablet loosened in his hand as he stared harder at the people in the room, and found four matching glares meeting his stare. Wait a second…back up the choo-choo train. If they were suddenly experiencing his symptoms… "You can't hear?"

McKay scooted closer, yanked the tablet from him and typed.

We are apparently as deaf as you are now, as I said, so could we skip past the whole revelation part of the impossible situation and show me what you touched! I should not have to suffer your...

Wait a minute…where's Simpson?

Rodney tossed the tablet in Sheppard's lap and stood, recovered enough to walk dizzily across the room to Zelenka.

He watched, bemused, as McKay put his hands on his hips and swayed seductively, then ran his hands along an imaginary pony tale, then tapped his foot irritably.

Where was Simpson?

The next few minutes would've been a lot funnier if he hadn't had a missing scientist to add to his list of things to worry about. Rodney might be a genius but God, he sucked at charades.

Finally, in a huff, McKay strode back, practically ripped the tablet from Sheppard's hands, and stalked over to Zelenka, the whole while typing furiously, as if all his frustrations would be eased by the small LCD screen. Sheppard almost felt bad for the equipment.

Damn, his head really was more hosed than usual. He was feeling sympathy for a piece of electronics while the glaring concern should have been that he'd missed Simpson's absence, but then again, their arrival in the room had created some confusion. Besides, he hadn't been the only one…McKay hadn't said anything before. Crap. Doc had said twenty-four hours, so, it had to be afternoon all ready. It'd probably start improving before that deadline. Think positive.

They were positively screwed.

Focus, John…what had he touched. If they had any hope of getting out of here before Elizabeth sent another (and bigger) rescue party, he needed to undo whatever he'd activated. Ignoring Teyla, Sheppard looked back at the panel by the door.

Oh, damn.

That wasn't the control panel that he'd touched. Wrong side of the door and the wrong color. The actual control panel was on the opposite side. So, all he had to do was touch the wrong one again and hopefully this connection to the others would stop, and then McKay could revert to being annoyed with him merely because that's what they normally did. It was a mutual thing.

Stealing a look at Teyla, Sheppard pointed at the panel, then himself. If she couldn't hear right now, explaining it would be reduced to hand signals.

She shook her head and pointed at the floor, her mouth moving.

Sheppard pointed harder, then grabbed his stomach, pointed at all of them in a sweeping gestured and faked throwing up. Then he pointed again at the panel. This was ridiculous. He should be sleeping. Possibly even drugged. God knows, he deserved it after this stunt, not that it'd stop him from doing it again. He was here with them, and that's the way it was supposed to be, and if it involved a little sympathetic puking, well, small price to pay for peace of mind, it wasn't like it was going to kill anyone.

Teyla looked even sterner, and she was gesturing for Ronon to come over. Shit. McKay was still trying to deal with Zelenka, the tablet changing hands so fast it made his head spin, and that is what saved him, because when Ronon climbed to his feet, he staggered, and Sheppard knew if he was going to stop the insanity, he needed to act now, before the big guy got over here and made him stay down.

Lurching to his feet, Sheppard saw enough to know that his instant swell of nausea was felt by all, then the dizziness sent him stumbling forward at a tilt towards the panel. The wrong panel; control panel this time. Hands splayed on the door, he shuffled himself to the right, hitting the one he'd activated the first time and thought, no, shouted with his mind, OFF!

Weak knees caused him to slide to the floor, and it was pure unadulterated relief when Teyla held him through another bout of retching, because if she was capable of doing that during this it was a good sign that he'd turned off…whatever that was.

OoO

He was dead.

Big needles…not even close this time. Carson was going to skip the torture and head straight for the kill. So long fair life, it was…interesting…while it lasted. At least death by scalpel was preferable to death by rapid aging via the big scary ugly fetid disgusting vampire like…

"McKay! Snap into it!"

"Out of it," Rodney snarled. His fingers had been poised in mid-ranting about why had Zelenka allowed Simpson to go through the door on the opposite side of the room without checking this one out, and thereby causing some kind of lock down in the first place, when Sheppard had decided to go all stupid hero of the week again and try to fix whatever he'd done in the first place.

Wasn't that negating the hero part? If you do something heroic to fix the mess you caused, that's not really heroism, it's janitorial duty.

The resulting spike of nausea made his thoughts momentarily pause in misery, and then it was gone in rapid waves of relief, and his hearing was back. Headache, dizziness…all blessedly, thankfully, gone.

But, getting a dose of what Sheppard was feeling made him completely, utterly, freaked, because if Carson knew that was how the colonel felt, and knew that McKay had taken Sheppard on this rescue mission (and who was he kidding, Carson managed to find everything out), then he was dead. Completely dead.

Wait a minute, wait a minute – this room! McKay snapped his fingers, and pointed excitedly at Zelenka. "Do you realize what we've discovered?" He spun around and walked rapidly over to the panel, grinning elatedly. "This is amazing, why didn't I think of this before?"

"Because you were too busy keeping your stomach inside."

McKay glanced over at Ronon, noting how pale the runner still looked.

"Yes, right." He cleared his throat, and dragged his eyes back to the panel, trying to ignore the stress and anxiety coming from the sight of Sheppard being held in Teyla's arms as he rode through another bout of sickness. Dead. He was dead.

No, think positively.

Sheppard's motto, not his, but in this case, the colonel had it right. If it hadn't been for having the walking symptomatic disaster along with him, it's likely Rodney wouldn't have realized what this room was. It was a diagnosis room, where a doctor could literally feel what a patient was feeling…why they'd want to do that, though, honestly; the cost outweighed the benefits greatly in McKay's mind.

"This room is amazing," Zelenka breathed down his neck.

Jesus! McKay jerked his head around, "A little warning next time."

"You are not deaf anymore, McKay. Listen with that all important brain."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I mistakenly thought you were here to help." Rodney shoved past Zelenka and muttered, "One person, one brain, one rescue."

Ronon stuck his foot in front of McKay, and when Rodney paused and looked over at the runner in annoyance, Ronon raised the knife he'd been flipping and said, "Two brains will get us out of here faster, McKay. I've got to go water the trees." He peered around to focus on Sheppard and Teyla. "He needs a doctor."

"I'M a doctor! And one of my brains is worth two of anyone else's. Besides, he's got a concussion, it makes you throw up, see double, look and feel like shit, but short of a bleed on the brain, he's fine."

Teyla called, "What are the symptoms of this 'bleed on the brain'?"

Zelenka exhaled, and slumped against the door. "Nausea, vomiting, headache, vision problems, loss of coordination, balance --"

"Oh, no." McKay met Zelenka's face, then both stared at the dejected, pitiful figure resting against Teyla's chest. The vomiting, dizzy, unfocused, Colonel. "Zelenka, get over here and help me figure this door out!"

OoO

Carson had always pegged himself as a fair man, a good doctor and an accomplished geneticist. All things considered, not bad for his age, and his mum seemed proud enough.

The opportunity of a lifetime had brought him to this galaxy, and his growing ties to the people he worked with kept him here, despite the constant lurking danger every time he turned. He wasn't a brave man by any means, not up for the rigors Colonel Sheppard seemed to run into with startlingly frequency. But fear does not equal timid, and one thing that made Carson passionate was the health and condition of his patients.

Especially when one of said patients mysteriously disappears when Rodney conveniently had to go on a rescue mission.

He'd done some looking, and some prying. He'd started with Elizabeth, and he'd heard McKay reply that Colonel Sheppard had been fine when Rodney had left his quarters. With a knowing scowl, Carson let her know he wasn't fooled. Off the com she asked if he needed her to call McKay back.

At the time, he'd said no, and gone off in search of Major Lorne. He found the man where he was supposed to be, proving that it wasn't a necessary trait to stupidly ignore doctor's orders in the military. He brought the major up to the control deck and asked Elizabeth to get a lock on the life signs on the south pier, while he radioed McKay to confront the man.

The convenient radio interference made him close his eyes and dream off the next time Rodney needed a physical. Not that he'd ever do anything unnecessary, but Rodney didn't know that, thanks to a little exaggeration at opportune times in the past.

While Lorne verified that the life sign alongside McKay walking towards the other three was not any of the other soldiers on Atlantis, Carson made a mental list of what supplies he'd bring on the rescue mission to rescue the rescuers. Honestly, was Rodney that daft as to drag along Sheppard when the man himself had barely been capable of standing?

"Where is the fourth?" Simpson, Zelenka, Ronon and Teyla had gone on the exploration, yet only three life signs blinked…wait a minute… "There!"

A fourth isolated dot moved through the corridors…working its way back towards the central pier…here.

Lorne folded his arms and turned to face Elizabeth and Carson. "Whoever that is, they're coming to us."

"I see that, Major. Shall we find out?" She gestured for Lorne to lead the way.

With a last glance at the screen, Carson saw the other two had joined the three that were staying still, and turned to follow Elizabeth and Lorne on the intercept with the other life sign. When he got a hand on McKay and Sheppard for this, they'd be lucky to get off with merely vitamin shots for the next month!

McKay was undoubtedly a brilliant scientist but when it came to things of the body he was woefully clueless. The man fussed over a splinter and then dragged his concussed and deaf friend across the city. He was worse than a child with a puppy.

Simpson came around the corner, staring intensely at the floor and not realizing where she was until she literally ran into Lorne.

The major steadied her, smiling slowly and holding the blond-haired woman for a little longer than Carson figured was necessary.

"Are you all right?" Lorne asked warmly.

She blushed, pulled away and then realized they had an audience. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry, Major, my mind was somewhere else – Doctor Weir, we've had a little problem."

"I know, Doctor. How did you manage to get free?"

"I'm not entirely sure. We were exploring a room, the lab was different than any other we have found before, and while Radek went to examine the panels on the wall, I stepped into what I thought was an extension of the room, but the next thing I know, the door shuts behind me and I couldn't get it open. I lost contact with the others." Simpson shrugged, frustrated. "I recognized the main corridor leading to the central pier so I decided I'd make my way back and get help."

"Do you think you can lead us there?" Carson knew Simpson didn't have the ATA gene, but he and Lorne did, so maybe they could get the door to respond where she hadn't been able to.

"Yes," she answered quickly. "Easily. It's almost a straight path. But, Doctor Beckett, no one was injured when I left?"

Carson rolled his eyes. "Aye, I understand, Lass. And chances are, they're still fine, but Rodney left a short while ago with Colonel Sheppard to rescue you."

Understanding filtered over Simpson, and the woman smiled ruefully. "I'd say bring the infirmary, but I don't suppose that's possible."

Elizabeth covered her smile, and opted to try and remain neutral. As if – the betting pools she participated in assured everyone she knew exactly what they were talking about. Besides, it was understood that the jokes, betting pools, and sarcastic comments regarding Sheppard and his team where defense mechanisms against the very real concern and fear they all suffered from. You couldn't do this job and stay safe; the two concepts were polar opposites. Kate had once explained to him, after he collected his two hundred and fifty dollars from her for winning the mission pool that the entire process was a healthy release for the anxiety those left behind had to deal with.

He could accept that, but anxiety when they were off world was one thing, this, on the other hand, was another. This was unnecessary suffering and he'd be damned if he trusted either one of those two in the near future.

"I'll get my bag, Elizabeth."

She nodded then instructed Lorne to round up a team. This time she was sending in the big guns. Literally.

OoO

Sheppard looked up at Teyla and asked, "Do you have a powerbar?"

She looked concerned, reached for the tablet and typed, then held it in front of him so he could read.

I do not think that is a good idea.

Of course it wasn't a good idea. None of this had been a good idea, but, at least if he had something in his stomach, then he wouldn't be stuck with the dry heaves that seemed to hurt a heck of a lot more than throwing up food.

"It can't hurt," he tried, shooting her a slightly hopeful look.

In fact, it could, a lot. Every time he gagged and retched, his headache increased exponentially. You know, being severely concussed (and maybe he could shove that down Beckett's throat because he hadn't said anything to Sheppard about just how bad his head had gotten rattled, so really, this wasn't his fault) and deafened was a miserable combination.

She pushed the tablet back towards him.

You should not have come.

He stared at her then. It was rare that Sheppard telegraphed just how deeply he resented someone commenting on the obvious, but really, she had just taken it too far.

"Really?" he grunted, fighting back another wave or retching with desperate coughs. "Bonding, Teyla…this is one of those team bonding moments."

Think positively, regardless of how close you are to the pine box and a one way trip to the Styx River. Of course, the pine box floated and he could MacGyver an oar with a little help…like a powerbar.

"I'm starving, you really should feed me." Try, try again.

More typing.

You threw up on me once, Colonel. It is not an experience I would like to endure again.

The letters on the tablet blurred, and Sheppard shoved it listlessly to the floor. "You're not going to give it to me, are you?"

Instead of bothering with the tablet, she settled for a firm negative shake of her head. Ronon's face dropped into view and he took the tablet from Sheppard's fingers and said something to Teyla. She shook her head and said something back.

Sighing, Sheppard closed his eyes. They were in their world and he was apparently in his. And his sucked.