A/N: First things first: I apologise for taking so long. My laptop broke down the day after I last posted, I couldn't muster the inspiration to write without it, and it took me nearly four months to get another. So there's my excuse; please don't lynch me! Well, and there's the fact that the site went screwy the day I finished writing it (grumbles)
Second, if Peter ends up surviving this story, anyone who wants to is quite welcome to join us in the new universe. All I ask is the token acknowledgment if it's referenced.
Third, an actual disclaimer! EDIT: disclaimer has been moved to first chappie, since I'd edited the story to include Bryan's name throughout the whole fic.
Second-to-last thing: I've made references to a
friendship between Peter and Bates which is otherwise nonexistent in
canon, but which I'm currently writing a series on. As of this chappie's edit, some of those are now posted, so check them out.
Finally, thanks to everyone for reviewing, it really makes it easier to get the creative juices flowing! The feedback'll be especially appreciated this chappie, because I had the 'I suck' syndrome you get when you haven't written for a while, and it'd be nice to know if it's justified. Oh, and angw, I wasn't originally intending to have a scene actually telling everyone about Ford, but for you, I made a change! (grins)
This chapter contains slightly religious overtones, but nothing
too overt, and is mostly talking... sorry, the action's pretty much all done!
Enjoy!
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V
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES
Voices.
They rang through the open door of the infirmary's waiting room, just one link in the chain of spacious compartments used as the medical wing. Elizabeth had been hearing them for several corridors now, but the strange acoustics of the city distorted the words unrecognizably until she'd gotten within a few doors.
"You're stayin' out here, lad, my people dinna need you underfoot while they work," Carson was saying with heated frustration as she strode through the entrance, her jaw set and dark hair bouncing. Rodney and the Scotsman were standing toe-to-toe in the centre of the crimson floor, glaring at each other in a way that held no true anger and a great deal of irritation. Around them the oddly-shaped room was empty but for the low, white-cushioned chairs and a few towering pot plants ranging the bronzed and windowless walls. Both the door opposite, leading into the infirmary, and the identical one to her left, leading into the lab, were tightly closed.
"Carson?" Both of the doctors turned at her voice, Rodney looking pale and unhappy, Carson looking harried even despite the hopeful glint in his blue eyes. Elizabeth swallowed through a dry mouth, not wanting to ask her next question but knowing she had to. "Is it – is it really him?"
Carson's eyes softened and he moved swiftly across to her, white labcoat billowing, to place a reassuring hand at her elbow. "We're still waiting on the report from his blood work," he told her softly, earnestly, his brow raised as he spoke. "But so far… I dinna think there's much doubt."
Elizabeth's knees went weak and Carson guided her firmly to the nearest seat, where she sank numbly into the thick white cushion. "How –" She swallowed at the crack in her voice and started again with a deep breath, her fists resting on her knees as she straightened. "How is he?"
"Not too good, t'be perfectly honest," Carson admitted regretfully, blue eyes flickering towards Rodney's demanding expression. "Not injured, exactly, but he hasn' been taking care of himself. Sunburn, heat exhaustion, sleep deprivation, malnutrition…" he trailed off, looking uncertain, and then hedged in a tone that said clearly he'd almost kept from saying anything more, "That's not the worst of it, actually…"
"What?" Rodney snapped instantly, arms folded over his chest.
Carson huffed a sigh, regarding the physicist worriedly. "There's evidence tha' he's been fed on by the Wraith."
Elizabeth closed her eyes and took another deep, shaky breath, swearing to herself that she would not cry. She had wanted to, several times, since they'd come to Atlantis, but she knew she needed to be strong for the others. "Is he –"
"Don't get me wrong, lass," Carson interrupted instantly, stuffing his hands anxiously in the deep pockets of his labcoat. "I doubt that it's a danger; actually it had to have happened a while ago, he's just got the scar, but the thought…"
In truth, Elizabeth didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or break down. However Peter had come across the Wraith, he'd been luckier than some of her people during the siege – luckier than Colonel Everett…
"What about that…" Rodney gestured ineffectually at his face, resting his elbow on his other arm as he struggled for the words.
"The spider-web?" Carson asked soberly, and Rodney snapped his fingers at the doctor in concurrence.
"What –" Elizabeth began, already tense with dread, but Carson anticipated her question and cut her off once again.
"It's a marking across his shoulders an' neck," he explained, chewing slightly on his lip as his brow furrowed. "It looks like a spider-web, but we don't know what it is. We're running a series of tests to find out, but I don't know when –"
"Doctor Beckett!" One of the nurses, Patricia Bourne, burst breathlessly through the door from the lab, hardly giving them a chance to open as she squeezed through the narrow space, her dirty-blonde hair bobbing at her shoulders. Her expression was urgent and she gripped a manila folder and some sheets of paper, but Elizabeth couldn't see what they were.
"What is it, lass?" Carson demanded, suddenly focussed and seemingly unaware of Elizabeth as she rose anxiously, hazel eyes flickering between nurse and doctor, or of Rodney who stood beside her, clenching and unclenching his hands, his jaw tense. Carson practically snatched the papers from his subordinate and she seemed only too happy to give them up, but as he studied the page he went white as a sheet.
"Good Lord…"
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The folder slapped down on the bronze-edged, octagonal counter, skewing the sheets paper-clipped to the top. The images on them were dark, showing a number of rounded forms seemingly floating in scarlet liquid, but among them were harsh, miniscule figures.
"They're nanites." Carson said in a bleak tone that brooked no argument. The reactions of the people he addressed were diverse and discouraging: Elizabeth stared down at her clasped hands, face pale, sitting up in her chair; Rodney threw up his hands in consternation, slumping back in his seat; Sheppard cursed, rubbing his face; Teyla drew in a sharp breath; Ronon didn't show anything at all and Lorne frowned, looking unhappy and a little uncertain.
"Nanites. They're those little machines that infected half the Atlantis population a year or so ago, right?" the major asked, his arms folded on the rippled glass of the illuminated tabletop.
"Aye," Carson confirmed. "And Peter's blood is teeming with them."
"Not trying to sound callous or anything, but are you sure he's safe?" Sheppard asked, the first half of his words muffled before he lowered his hands, although one ran halfway through his dark, scruffy hair to rest atop his head.
"Please," Rodney snorted derisively, crossing his arms. "If they were a danger Atlantis would've locked the city down. It hasn't, ergo, they're not a threat to the rest of us." He paused, staring down at the table, and then added darkly, "Not that that means they're not a danger to Peter."
"He's right," Carson agreed, glancing around at the table to make sure he had everyone's attention. Elizabeth reluctantly looked up from her hands, her eyes pained. "And he's right about the danger, too." He stepped back, turning around to pat the controls of the flat display screen at the back of the chamber, against the curved, red-framed rotating doors. "This is an x-ray of Peter's collarbone." The monitor flickered, presenting the hazy black-and-white image, but much of it was shadowed by an intricate net of thin white lines, a meshing of something so dense that an x-ray could easily pick it up.
"What the hell is that?" Sheppard demanded as a chill ran down his spine, sitting up in his seat with narrowed eyes.
"That," Carson said quietly, his worried blue eyes on the picture, "Is a network of linked nanites."
"Carson," Rodney choked, sitting upright in distress, wide eyes riveted to the screen, and the physician finally looked away, towards the Canadian. "Carson, they look like they're – are they in –" He stopped and sank back in his seat, thumb tapping restlessly, apprehensively, in the air, his mind obviously working at full speed and leaping to conclusions that none of the rest could see.
"Aye, lad, they are," Carson answered grimly.
"I do not understand," Teyla said, troubled, her brown eyes darting from Carson to Rodney and back to the display. "I thought nanites were to be found drifting in the blood. How then could so many of these be linked?"
"These ones aren't in his blood, lass," Carson explained, tracing one of the clearest lines with his index finger. "They're in his flesh. They're integrating themselves into his cellular structure, like an artificial nervous system." Although a few of his audience missed the implications of this revelation, the gravity of the doctor's tone and Rodney's shakily muttered 'oh, God,' as he leaned forward to put his head in his hands were enough for everyone to grasp the seriousness.
"What does this mean for Peter?" Elizabeth asked stoically, her features schooled to motionlessness but her eyes fearful.
Carson huffed that familiar sigh, the one that meant he was about to reveal something he would give anything to be proven false. "I canna take it out. We're talking a network on the microscopic level here. All of it seems t'be joined to a device about the size of a mobile phone that's buried itself in his back, but even if I removed that it wouldn' remove the nanites. What's more, they're copying themselves."
Rodney rubbed his temples in wide circles, eyes closed, lips moving as he muttered under his breath. Elizabeth sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her red shirt, releasing a long, slow breath. "If this stuff's so microscopic, how come we can see some of it on the outside?" Sheppard asked, frowning, watching as Carson tapped the controls again to set the monitor to the scrolling blue-and-pink screensaver and retook his black-cushioned seat.
"What, did you fail biology in high school, Colonel?" Rodney snapped before Carson could answer. "The device is spreading. The skin is the largest organ in the human body, so it would need to cover as much space as possible; the strands are probably several nanites thick to make up the space."
"Alright genius, why?" Sheppard shot back.
Rodney's head snapped up and he opened his mouth to answer, eyes narrowed with irritation, but Carson jumped in first. "I canna be certain why, Colonel, but its effects are pretty clear. He's stabilised much quicker than expected, his sunburn has healed far too quickly, even the sedatives we gave him stopped working in far too short a time."
"In other words it's working like an improved and superior, if artificial, immune system," Rodney summarised with a glower at Sheppard. "Countering unnatural effects. I think we saw it on 736, too, he seemed fine until he had to exert himself…"
"Probably due to the fact that the device hasn't spread far enough," Carson theorized. "Otherwise it would have countered all of his weaknesses. Once his body starts working, the device isn't strong enough to keep up."
"If it's healing him, why would you want to take it out?" Ronon asked in a tone that would have been puzzled if were anyone else.
"Because, lad, the device itself is so invasive that it's doing almost as much harm as it heals," Carson said earnestly, leaning forward over the counter. "We don't even know if that's its purpose; it could be a side-effect of somethin' else."
"All right," Elizabeth said stridently, cutting through Rodney as he opened his mouth to expand on Carson's words. "What can we do to stop it?"
"What if we put him in front of the EMP generator?" Sheppard suggested at once, but Rodney just as quickly shot him down.
"Because even if it turned them off, it wouldn't get them out," the scientist snapped. "And like Carson said, removing them surgically is not an option." Sheppard sat back in his rotating chair, looking unhappy that they couldn't use the easy way out as Rodney continued. "Given that this expedition was supposed to consist of the best and brightest, there should be some able enough people on my team to figure out how to turn off the device and disassemble the nanites. The planet where it happened might have more information if we could get there."
"We'll have to wait, then," Elizabeth said softly as she stared down at her clasped and tense fists. "Since Peter told Carson the Daedalus is the only way there."
And she closed her eyes, wondering whether Peter's return would be for good… or whether it would be disastrously shortened.
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Sergeant Bryan Grimault lingered nervously by one of the many doors to the final ward of the infirmary, just out of sight behind the bronze, sharp-edged frame. Inside, the long chamber was filled with the quiet hum of many illuminated crystals, dotted with the thick, sturdy grey pillars and lined with both the high, white-padded examination couches of Ancient bronze and the unmoving hospital beds of Earth steel. Every now and then a nurse passed through, checking the equipment pushed on rolling metal racks against the dusty-brown, maroon-lined walls.
At the distant end, half hidden behind a low-hanging lintel and a crystal-studded column, he could just see the secluded area the medical team had marked as Peter Grodin's.
It was late night – or rather early morning – but since the Englishman's unexpected arrival in the early afternoon the rumour mill had already run rampant throughout Atlantis. The gateroom team had been pestered and harried for details, and more than one member of the original expedition had either been stunned or disbelieving at the news that the physicist had returned from the dead.
Since the beginning of the expedition they'd lost more than one person, but of everyone a grand total of three had been legendised: Marshall Sumner. Brendan Gaul. Peter Grodin. A trio of dedicated men who had very deliberately chosen to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the expedition and its members. For most of Atlantis, the details of each one's demise were a little hazy, but that hadn't mattered.
Now Bryan, only just finished with his self-assigned shift, with the earnest greetings of the gateroom staff in mind to pass on to the man who had once been their team leader, wondered if he'd be able to face him.
Not long ago he couldn't wait to leave the control room, to find out for himself which rumours were true and whether the shabby man he'd seen in the gateroom really was his mentor. But the closer he came to the hospital wing the more his legs seemed too weak to continue, until finally he stood at the threshold.
What am I supposed to say? He asked himself uneasily. It's been a while. He could speak about the efforts of the gateroom team, but it seemed somehow unfeeling to prattle on about projects that Doctor Grodin should have been able to conduct himself. Help me find the right words, Lord, he finally prayed inwardly, squaring his shoulders, straightening his green-and-grey jacket, and stepped through the open door.
His approach across the dark-lined floor was slow, exact, giving the Englishman a chance to hear him and be ready. The very fact that the medical team had given the physicist such an isolated part of the infirmary had only fed the gossip, especially when it proved impossible to catch a glimpse of him for those who had trailed casually past.
When Bryan came around the incised pillar Grodin glanced up from the manila folder he was holding, looking tired but alert, and offered him a pleased smile. "Sergeant!" he greeted him softly, letting the folder fall to the white sheet pulled to his waist and reclining gingerly back against his many pillows, folding his arms in his lap.
Bryan took a moment to study the physicist, taking in his weary eyes, his darkly-burned skin, the white scrubs that did nothing to hide his thinness. Although he looked better, cleaner, than he had in the gateroom, he still had an air of disarray or infirmity. Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic beard that still coated his cheeks.
Or perhaps it was the unnerving network of thin black lines that reached from beneath the loose shirt, shoulder to ear, preventing the usually neat Englishman from cleaning up entirely, and Bryan felt with clarity why the area was so far out of the way.
The melancholy smile Doctor Grodin afforded him made Bryan suddenly conscious of the fact that the physicist was well aware of the assessment and its result, and the Canadian forced a grin, pushing down the chilly horror twisting his belly. "It's good to see you, sir." he said sincerely, putting the circumstances out of his mind.
"I was going to say the same." Grodin gestured to the backless, steel-legged stool on the opposite side of his bed but Bryan shook his head in refusal. He'd spent most of the day sitting down; he wanted to stand for a while. "How goes my control room?" Grodin asked instead with a slightly amused twist to his lips that said he remembered the stiffness which had been the gateroom staff's biggest grievance all too well. "You've been taking care of it, I hope?"
"Nothing less, sir," Bryan answered with a truer smile this time, clasping his hands loosely behind his back. One or two of the others might have felt slighted by possessiveness of Grodin's sentence, but of all the team Bryan had worked the most closely with him and felt that it always would be Grodin's control room, even long after the siege. No one could deny the mark the Englishman had made; even now, months after his 'death', Bryan sometimes felt like a usurper in Grodin's seat.
Especially whenever Doctor McKay walked into the room.
"The new staff is pretty capable. We have enough people to arrange proper shifts… no more working overtime in the dead of night. At least, not often." He grinned, partly in mirth for his next words and partly in relief that the exchange was going as easily as he'd hoped. "Actually, for a while there it was known as 'the graveyard shift' even during daylight hours."
"And why is that?" Doctor Grodin asked, amused, eyes glinting with eagerness to hear more, and with a sudden clench in his chest Bryan realized that it might not have been the best turn in conversation.
"Because if you annoy Doctor McKay, you're dead." He tried to lighten his tone, tried to make it a joke, but somehow it came out all wrong, far too solemn, and he grimaced.
"Ah," Grodin murmured, his expression dimming slightly in thought.
Well, you got yourself into this, you might as well continue, Bryan admonished himself. "He missed you a lot, sir," he said quietly. No one knows that better than me, he thought with a sharp pang, remembering the first few weeks, when McKay's harsh remonstrations had made him feel even more inadequate. He hesitated, and then added sincerely, "We all did. The control room staff, I mean. They wanted me to tell you."
"I appreciate that," Grodin accepted his words ungrudgingly, his soft tone light and expression otherwise composed, but Grodin's eyes had always been the window to his soul, and Bryan knew he meant it.
"Doctor Goshawk told the newbies all about you when they first arrived," the sergeant remembered with a slightly distant grin which Grodin returned, recalling the middle-aged, blond-haired perfectionist. "I think they were a bit in awe of anyone who could stand Doctor McKay for more than a few minutes, especially considering how hard he came down on all of us. I don't know if they realized he wasn't as harsh before." He took a deep breath. "I always got the feeling he wanted to make sure we'd live up to both of your standards. I think we did pretty well."
"Tell me," Grodin requested, settling into the comfortable stack of pillows, expression eager. So Bryan did: he told him about the new people, about the projects they were conducting, and many, many anecdotes of the gateroom. The Canadian relaxed, secure in the companionable atmosphere, no longer fearing a slip of the tongue even when the topic changed to that of the siege.
They were so caught up in their conversation that neither noticed the sudden tap of running footsteps, the wild-haired Czech who suddenly appeared, pale, across the way, his blue, long-sleeved shirt rumpled. His eyes were wide behind his glasses and the moment he laid eyes on the scene he stopped short, frozen by the pillar, his lips moving in shocked, incomprehensible expletives.
Alive! All this time, alive! My God, what has been happening to him!
"I don't think I've ever prayed so much in my life," Sergeant Grimault was saying soberly, barely filtering through Radek's stunned mind, and for a moment he felt guilty to be eavesdropping but found himself unable to leave or even move. "Although that incident with the nanites came close."
The Canadian was well-known on Atlantis as a functioning Catholic, one of the few who still took his faith seriously. While most of the soldiers had kept that superstitious belief in some higher being, the scientists were too enamoured in their pursuit of facts to be concerned with religious debates, and for some the concept of 'higher being' was now filled only by the word 'ascended'.
"You stayed on Atlantis for the siege," Peter said, not questioning but sounding faintly regretful, and Radek's stomach twisted with familiar 'might-have-beens'. There was no doubt that Peter would have stayed on Atlantis instead of going to the Alpha site, if he'd had the choice.
"It's what you would have done, sir," the sergeant answered softly, unconsciously agreeing with what Radek already knew. "And besides, I have military training. It made sense."
Peter shook his head, smiling, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm glad. I have no doubt I chose the right person to take over for me."
Sergeant Grimault smiled widely in thanks, his usually long face suddenly round-cheeked and glowing. "Thank you, sir, but the truth is that Doctor Zelenka took over most of the projects; I just kept watch over the gate. To be honest… I don't think there was anyone who could completely fill your shoes."
"He is right," Radek spoke at last, his voice trembling and thick with accent. Grimault snapped about, startled, and Peter tilted his head to see around the Canadian, his eyes lighting up with delighted recognition.
"Hello, Radek," Peter welcomed him as the Czech came abreast of Sergeant Grimault, quick blue eyes taking in Peter's gaunt appearance with prickles of horror for the hundredth time since he'd entered.
"I was in middle of experiment," Radek blurted, twisting his sweaty hands together in distress. "Out in city, only returned not long ago. Am finding Rodney in lab talking mile-an-hour, wanting to know where I was, saying you are alive, now we must save you from device." He shook his head despondently as Peter watched him with entertained bemusement, finding it difficult to understand the engineer through his accent.
"I should go get some sleep, I have a shift tomorrow," Sergeant Grimault put in to give the scientist a chance to gather his nerves, and Radek shot him such a grateful look that Peter chuckled. "I'll be praying for you, sir."
"Sleep well, Sergeant," Peter responded with a smile. "And thanks."
Radek's absent gaze followed the sergeant as he departed, vanishing around the maroon door frame. "He did well to take over the control room," he said softly, rubbing inattentively at his wrist beneath the hem of his shirt. "Rodney was not happy with him at all, not with any of them for a long time, but I think…" He cut himself off, shaking his head with a few muttered words in his native tongue and turning back to his friend only to find himself being studied by probing brown eyes.
Nervously Radek pushed his glasses back up his nose, wondering exactly what the physicist was seeing, and offered a tiny smile which Peter returned, gesturing to the round chair. Radek took it gingerly, suddenly unsure what to say or do after his flood of words.
Fortunately Peter took the decision out of his hands. "How is Rodney?" he asked, looking blindly down at the paper-clipped report sitting on his lap. It was true he'd only seen him early that afternoon, but not since then and Sergeant Grimault's words had made him suddenly worried. He knew what Rodney was like…
Radek blinked at him, surprised. "He has not been to see you?" he demanded, and Peter shook his head.
"Doctor Weir and the rest of Colonel Sheppard's team came in with Carson several hours ago, but…" he shrugged helplessly, remembering that less-than-happy meeting.
"Peter?"
Doctor Weir's hesitant voice made Peter look up from his tray of bland hospital food and smile at the string of visitors trailing through the infirmary towards him.
"Hi, Doc," Sheppard waved as Carson pushed past him to check the clipboard on the side cabinet and Peter nodded back, grateful for the chance to abandon his meal. His fingers had started going numb again, making it difficult to handle the utensils, and he wasn't feeling terribly hungry in any case.
The doctor frowned but refrained from comment when the physicist set his tray aside, instead asking, "How're you feeling, lad?"
"Well enough, all things considered," Peter answered as Elizabeth came to his bedside, where he sat cross-legged and straight-backed amongst the rumpled sheets. Her expression was concerned, if guarded, and Peter found himself unable to meet her examining gaze, knowing he looked like hell and already tired of seeing the repulsion in others' eyes. He remembered Sheppard's expression on P3M-736 all too well, and didn't look at the soldier when he came forward, leaning on the side of the bed.
"I just thought I'd bring along something for you to read," Elizabeth's tone was light-hearted as she held out the stack of full manila folders and Peter let out a pleased chuckle, smiling as he took them. "So you could catch up." She pursed her lips and put her hands behind her back with a slightly girlish movement, something Peter recognised and appreciated as an attempt at cheerfulness.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, setting them down on the blanket pushed towards the end of the bed. He'd been going a bit stir-crazy, having given up on going to sleep long ago, too charged with adrenaline and with too many questions to ask. Instead he looked up at Sheppard, eyes flicking at the hulking stranger behind them in query.
"Oh!" Sheppard tilted back, thumbing towards the dreadlocked warrior that Peter remembered from P3M-736. "This is Ronon. He joined my team a couple months ago. Ronon, this is Doctor Grodin."
"Doc." Ronon greeted him in his deep voice without a change in expression, his green eyes unnervingly piercing.
"Ronon." Peter slanted his head a response, unconsciously assessing the man, who returned his gaze without a flicker. Somewhat grudgingly the scientist admitted that he'd be an asset if you could gain his trust, but his own initial meeting made him wary of the expressionless alien.
"He was a runner," Sheppard said, rocking back and forth on his feet and looking strangely proud, but Peter's attention was drawn by a single word.
"Runner?" he repeated, surprised.
"The word refers to people immune to the Wraith touch," Teyla explained, lifting her chin expressively. "If captured, they are tagged and set loose, hunted for sport."
Well, that makes a great deal of sense now. "Yes, I've heard that term before," Peter murmured. "I was mistaken for a runner by some natives while offworld."
"Aye, lad, I'm not surprised," Carson muttered without looking around, letting the pages he'd lifted off the board flutter back down. "You've got the handprint and anyone could mistake that device for a tracking beacon."
Peter looked down at his lap, clasping his fingers uncertainly, his dark fringe shading his face. "I'm sorry about Lieutenant Ford, Colonel," he said quietly, aware of the suddenly charged atmosphere as his visitors looked less-than-covertly towards the soldier.
"He's not dead, Grodin," Sheppard said almost accusingly, staring at the physicist and obviously assuming that Peter had taken Ronon's placement on the team as Ford's demise.
Peter looked up, shaking back his uncut hair, and met his intense gaze. "I know," he said simply. "I met him offworld."
He honestly thought that everyone had stopped breathing for a moment or two. Then, "What?" Sheppard asked dumbly.
"Is he all right?" Carson demanded anxiously in the same instant, taking a few steps closer in his excitement.
"I don't –" Peter shook his head regretfully, struggling for words. "He was… chaotic. I think he felt betrayed; he definitely felt like none of you trusted him." Elizabeth hung her head at that, hands clasped before her, her heart constricting for the dozenth time that day. "All he wanted was to secure your belief in him again. He really felt the enzyme was a good thing, but…" he shrugged helplessly, but the others understood: the enzyme was most definitely not something they wanted to start using.
"Why did he not come back with you?" It was Teyla who asked, seeing Sheppard's tight expression, glaring down at the crimson floor.
"We were being attacked by Wraith," Peter explained, his hands draped over his scrub-clad knees and brushing against the sheets. "He told me to go through to P3M-736, that he'd be right behind me." He shook his head slightly. "He wasn't. The last I saw of him… he was right in the path of a culling beam."
There was a stunned, uncertain silence; then Sheppard turned on his heel and strode out without a word.
"But you know Rodney, always blames himself," Radek cut through Peter's thoughts, and the Englishman's lips twisted ironically.
"Right."
Sergeant Grimault's words had only fed an idea that Peter hadn't wanted to admit to himself, had wished wasn't true: Rodney was holding himself responsible for what happened to Peter. Though he'd felt slightly hurt by the fact that Rodney hadn't come to visit, he knew it was because Rodney felt guilty… and Rodney had a habit of running away from his emotions, especially where they pertained to friends he didn't feel he should have.
"He believed you were alive," Radek said, staring awkwardly down at the sheets. "This morning. I told him no, is not possible." He snorted in self-disgust and Peter forced a chuckle.
"Well, have you ever known Rodney to be wrong?" he joked, but then the expression on Radek's face made him stop, a little perturbed.
"Yes," the Czech said softly. "Yes, I have." He shifted uncomfortably, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes, and then putting them back on again while Peter waited patiently, recognising that his friend was working himself up to an explanation. "The report would tell you about it," Radek sighed finally. "But is too detached, I think. Too objective. You might not understand." He fell silent, twisting the hem of his shirt sleeves between his fingers. "It was a planet called Doranda," he said at length without looking up. "An Ancient device. A weapon and a power source. You know how the ZPMs work, yes?"
"Of course," Peter answered, brow furrowed. "They draw power from the space and time of universes outside of ours."
Radek interjected before he could go on. "Yes, yes, yes. But Project Arcturus – it was supposed to draw power from our universe, making limitations nonexistent."
Peter understood; such a thing would have been the biggest breakthrough since they'd come to Atlantis. And yet… "Somehow I get the feeling this didn't end well," Peter observed uneasily, and Radek shook his head.
"No. It did not. A member of our team was killed – Doctor Collins. He came on the Daedalus, after the siege, so you did not know him. But Rodney – he would not give up." Radek's pained eyes lifted to meet Peter's his tone growing husky with remembrance. "He said he could fix the problem, believed he could succeed where the Ancients had failed. He asked Colonel Sheppard to trust him, to help convince Doctor Weir to try again – just the two of them." The Czech released a long breath, looking back down at his hands. Peter watched him worriedly, able to clearly imagine Rodney proposing something like that.
"I tried to tell him he was wrong – such power could never be predicted, never be controlled, but he did not listen. He destroyed the weapon, five sixths of the solar system, nearly killed them both." Peter closed his eyes with a groan of dismayed comprehension, sinking back into his pillows and ignoring the twinge in his back when he dropped too low. "Colonel Sheppard has had trouble trusting him since then," Radek finished softly.
It suddenly all made sense. Offworld he'd seen evidence that the team connection, the camaraderie, had vanished to the winds, with no idea how it had suddenly gone. "And everyone else?" Peter asked with a twist of uncertainty.
Radek hesitated, threatening to send Peter's heart plummeting to his stomach. "It has been difficult," the Czech acknowledged at last. "He said some things… but he has apologised. He has lost some standing, it is true, but… not all."
"Just with Colonel Sheppard," Peter surmised, and Radek nodded slowly, reluctantly, remembering how amazed the expedition had been when it became clear how close the pair's friendship had been. As time went on it was just something they took for granted. It must, he realized, have been a great blow for Peter to come back to that. As far as he knew, nothing had changed.
For several moments they sat in companionable, if dispirited, silence, Radek looking down at his hands and Peter regarding the folders on his lap. Then, "Major Lorne seems like a good man," Peter noted softly, changing the subject, picking up the topmost file and looking at it thoughtfully. It was written by the major himself, an account of the events on a planet named Olesia.
"He is," Radek agreed, grateful for the change. "He is not as critical as Sergeant Bates; knows when to let things go, when to laugh." And, seeing Peter's brow rise, his brown eyes flickering dubiously towards the Czech, he added hastily, "But not as focussed or secure, I think."
Peter chuckled at his earnest expression. "It's all right, Radek." The engineer looked faintly relieved, making Peter laugh again. Sergeant Bates had not been popular, something the marine himself had known, but if Sheppard and McKay had rated first on the list of 'strangest friendships in Atlantis' then Peter and Bates had come a close second. The two had been so correct in their manner and courtesy towards each other that some people even maintained that they hadn't been friends, but Radek was one of those who knew better.
It had been a source of constant amusement that, while the frequent bets on the then-major and the acerbic physicist were focussed on who would be injured, those that were laid upon Elizabeth's two advisors had been about who would injure who. Stackhouse had often joked that as long as they were teamed together they were untouchable to everything and everyone except each other.
Then Peter went offworld while Bates remained back at Atlantis, separating them by half a solar system, and the universe decided to have a laugh at their expense. That had jacked up the superstitious nature of more than one person by quite a few points.
Peter had been worried sick when Sergeant Bates hadn't turned up to welcome him back to Atlantis – if the sergeant could ever be called welcoming – and his fears were only slightly assuaged once Carson assured him the marine hadn't been killed, but sent back to Earth. Though he hadn't realized it at the time, Ford's recount had left him sure that those he was closest to had all survived unscathed; it'd been a shock to realize otherwise.
"What is this that Rodney said about a device?" Radek finally asked the question that had been plaguing him since he entered the infirmary, and Peter's hand lifted automatically to his shoulder before he caught himself.
"This," he sighed, gesturing at the web that Radek had been surreptitiously avoiding looking at. "Carson said…" Peter stopped, grimaced, remembering the incident with the nanites and how close Radek had come to having his brain explode, as Ford had so delicately put it. The physicist took a deep breath and continued, his arms prickling like they had when Carson had told him what they found out. "They're nanites."
Radek's reaction was expected: his eyes widened, his face paling, and he unconsciously leaned back, making Peter chuckle somewhat bitterly. "Don't worry, they're not infectious." He filled the engineer in on all the gory details, everything Carson had relayed to him under Elizabeth's concerned gaze, along with her assurances that Rodney had volunteered his team to figure out how to remove them or at the very least shut them off.
The last thing he'd wanted was to go back to that God-forsaken desert planet and somehow the idea of having company made him feel almost ashamed, but the plan was sound and if that was what it took…
By the time he'd finished Radek looked horrified. "Rodney is right," he said immediately. "We will figure this out." He reached forward and grasped Peter's wrist firmly, catching his gaze with blue eyes that were steely with familiar determination. "You are not alone anymore," he insisted, making Peter smile faintly in gratitude. "You have brought yourself back. We will save you."
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A/N: If anyone's interested to know why I made Sgt Canada religious: if you watch 'the Siege part 1', in the scene where Rodney tells them that one of the hiveships is destroyed, you see the sergeant praying in the background. It struck me as a nice little character quirk, so I just had to reference it.
Only two more chapters to go and counting!
