A/N: Hey, it only took me three weeks this time! Somehow it seems much shorter. Thanks to all of you for hanging around, even though the last chappie took ages (although, a year, PurpleYin? Ouch).

In those three weeks I've posted two other stories, too… one of them plays on the Grodin/Bates friendship I mentioned last chapter and the other is along the same lines, but more of an episode tag than a singular adventure like the first. So, if anyone's interested, they're there.

There's probably tons of plotholes in this chapter (I was embarrassed at how many I had to fix just by writing it) so if you see any, feel free to punt me into them and tell me to start shovelling; I'll try and fill 'em in. I hope it all makes sense, since I've read over it so many times I'm finding it difficult to work out whether I've said what I wanted to or not.

There're a few minor charries who get screen-time in this chapter – three of them are names I got off wikipedia and used some deductive reasoning to apply faces to (although only one actually gets mentioned by name, the others just get described), so they're not OCs and thus not mine. The last is a nameless guy who was wandering around the first-season control room to whom I've given an identity. So does that make him mine or not?

Anyway. To continue…

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VI

RESPONSIBILITY IS DAMNED

Stephen strode.

He paced through the scarlet-floored halls, past the bustling, olive-drab jumpsuited or BDUed staff as they unloaded the new supplies from the turtle-like Daedalus. His impassive face warned no one to interrupt him, even as he threaded his way around carts and plastic-wrapped boxes in the direction of the control room, the light gleaming over his bald head and sharp features.

Idly he noted that somehow the city seemed to be buzzing with excitement surpassing even that which usually hailed the Daedalus' arrival, but Colonel Stephen Caldwell did not stop to listen. Doctor Weir had requested them back at Atlantis as soon as possible, and inwardly the officer's mind scrolled uneasily through the possible disasters responsible for their day-early arrival.

Before he'd even reached the cavernous gateroom, Weir intercepted him at a crystal-lit intersection, falling in beside him with a serious expression darkening her hazel eyes. "My office." was all she said, so Stephen bit back the question on his lips and nodded, studying her with experienced brown eyes. She was wearing her uniform instead of casuals, command red with black strips following the sides of her short-sleeved shirt; that often meant that she was feeling the pressure, feeling more like the leader of a semi-military expedition and not an experienced politician. Her closed air revealed nothing significant but in the months since Stephen had first come head-to-head with her over Sheppard's promotion he had come to recognise that the façade itself spoke volumes. Something had happened for which she felt she must bury her own emotions. Oh, she did that often enough anyway, but there was a marked difference between her usual stoic exterior and the one she displayed when something had rocked her to the core, and the one she wore now was the latter.

He kept his peace until they reached her roomy office, two glass sides looking out over the entry catwalk and the spacious gateroom, radiating warmth and personality through the glowing blue panels and Ancient script engraved on the wide cornice, the sculptures, the small tapestries, the artefacts. One could almost think she was an archaeologist, not a diplomat.

Stephen didn't even have to say anything; they'd hardly entered when Weir swung around to him, hands swaying. "Colonel. I'm glad you're here."

Hiding his surprise as her candid manner, Stephen crossed his arms over his khaki jumpsuit. "Well, considering the nature of your situation here in the Pegasus Galaxy, I could hardly hold back." He waited for a beat but Weir said nothing, moving behind her desk and thumbing through the stack of records piled in the centre. So, with a tilt of his head and a bracing, indrawn breath, he asked, "Do you mind telling me what was so important as to push our engines?"

Weir glanced up at him, slipping a folder from the load, her eyes finally showing some emotion; but it was such a mix of things that Stephen could only pick two: wary hope and sorrow. "What do you know about the members of the original expedition that we've lost, Colonel?"

Stephen frowned a little at that, unsure as to her meaning but knowing that, even now, the original pioneers were the closest-knit group on Atlantis. So he said exactly that: "I know how close you all were and how much their deaths affected Atlantis." He knew something about that himself; all veteran soldiers did, whatever branch of the service they were in.

"That's just it, Colonel." She kept her measuring gaze on him as she skirted her white-topped desk, holding out the file. "One of them's not dead."

Casting her an appraising look, Stephen took the file and flipped it open, examining the grainy image on the first page.

Peter Grodin. He vaguely recognised that name, having heard it once or twice, especially around the control room. He knew the man had once presided over the gallery, knew he'd been Weir's advisor, and also knew he'd died just before the siege, trying to buy Atlantis time.

And now they were saying he was alive? That explained all the excitement he'd felt – in a war zone, the return of people thought killed was close to a miracle. "How?" he demanded, looking up from the page. "It says here that he was caught in an explosion."

Weir didn't budge. She'd been watching him closely, arms crossed over her stomach, but now she lowered her head to the crimson, marble-like floor, dark, wavy hair shading her face. "Apparently the Wraith transported him off just before they destroyed the satellite."

She's got to be kidding. Expression tight-lipped and forbidding, Stephen closed the file with a snap, crossing his arms, tapping the manila folder in the air by his side. "I have no idea how you managed to figure that out, Doctor, but if you're suggesting that the Daedalus run a suicidal rescue mission –"

"No," Weir interrupted instantly, chin jerking up to meet his eyes squarely. "Peter managed to get away from the Wraith. He's here, in the city."

Stephen frowned, shifting. "How did he manage to survive for long enough to even attempt an escape?" he wondered. He would have thought the man would've been fed off of almost straightaway.

"Interrogation." Weir said quietly, remorsefully, her head bobbing, eyes flickering down and then back up to him. "They wanted to know about Atlantis."

To that, Stephen didn't say anything more. There was nothing more to say.

Instead, eyes narrowing, he prompted, "I fail to see what this has to do with the Daedalus."

Weir took a deep breath, tossing back her wavy hair. "He's been offworld almost since the siege. On one planet, he came in contact with a device that acts like a parasite, using nanites to spread itself throughout the host body." She must have seen him stiffen with tension, recalling her own reports from the first year, because she added with a slight, somehow impatient smile, "Rodney and Carson assure me they're not a danger. Not to us, at least."

And with a significant look at him, she moved past, out of her office, and he followed, coming alongside her as their footsteps sounded in unison on the maroon-lined floor. "Peter says he knows the location of the world where he found the device," she filled him in as they passed through the control room, winding past the lines of bronze consoles and busy technicians. "What we need is for you to play ferry; transport Colonel Sheppard's team, along with Grodin and Doctor Beckett, to the planet so they can search for more information."

It sure sounded simple enough, but the inclusion of the medical doctor didn't slip past Stephen's notice. There were a thousand variables to consider, variables that could go wrong. How did they know for sure the nanites weren't a threat? What if there were more there and the Daedalus got infected? What if the Wraith were looking for Doctor Grodin?

Then there was his crew to consider. They'd been trapped on a spaceship for almost six weeks straight, hardly given more than a few days on Earth before they'd been sent back. If Grodin had lived with this for days already, it obviously wasn't immediately life threatening. Surely he could wait for a few more while they had some downtime?

He drew to a stop on the broad floor between the command gallery and the circular conference room, turning to face the diplomat and taking a breath to tell her these things, to request a delay. "Doctor Weir –" he began, when the sound of voices caught his attention up the step. Automatically he turned to look through the open, maroon-framed doors that created the chamber's wall and his words caught in his throat, a chill skittering down his arms.

A man he'd never met but recognised as none other than Doctor Grodin himself was in there, seated at the white-lit table, leaning on it with his hands clasped; he was focussed on someone across the way, speaking quite earnestly. But that wasn't what the colonel was seeing. What he saw was the scientist's bearded face looking haggard, his skin blemished with a network of thin black lines, like the sickly threads of infection that radiated from a contaminated wound.

Stephen's argument vanished and he suddenly understood the urgency. Perhaps Grodin had lived with the nanites for days already, but that did not mean he was all right. If it was one of his crew, he wouldn't want to wait. He'd move mountains to cure them.

He was already speaking when he turned back to Weir, shifting slightly on the hard floor. "Alright, Doctor. It shouldn't take more than a few hours to prep the Daedalus. We'll leave as soon as you're ready."

"Thank you, Colonel," Weir said softly, staring up at him as he studied her open face, searching for evidence that she'd played him as only an experienced politician could.

All he saw was gratitude.

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Peter's gaze drifted over the interior of the Daedalus' bridge, taking in the glowing blue panels lining the sides and the green-gridded display suspended above a thin console in the centre. Just a step down from the chairless central hub was the forward section, in which the commander's seat was flanked by the bulky helm and weapons station, looking out through a viewscreen shaped like a fragmented semi-circle. The bulkheads were ranged with inset dashboards, pinpricked with lights, but the grey floor was open and uncluttered.

It was smaller than he expected, and yet seemed somehow bigger than it was.

And it was nothing like a hiveship.

Not that he was complaining much about the last.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Sheppard said, eyes wandering around the bridge with a pilot's gleam of appreciation as he came abreast of the scientist, hands clasped over the butt of his P90, and Peter smiled slightly.

"Different to what I imagined," he admitted. "I did some work on the Prometheus before I was transferred to the Atlantus project, and I remember seeing the blueprints for the Daedalus."

"Looks even better from the outside," Sheppard told him with a smirk, balancing childishly on the edge of the ribbed step where they waited for Caldwell to arrive. Peter had seen the exterior of the ship when they boarded, but he knew what the soldier meant; outside, in movement. Alive.

"I know," Peter answered with a twist of his lips, glancing around once again at the room, over the jumpsuited crew who, he noticed, kept sneaking peeks at him, the way people peeked at someone with some hideous deformity. It made him feel uncomfortable but he didn't want to make an issue of it; it wouldn't help matters at all. Instead he put it out of his head and continued, figuring that his next revelation would soon be public knowledge, so why bother withholding it for a few extra minutes? "I was there when the Daedalus ambushed the Wraith ships."

Sheppard's head snapped around to stare at him, hazel eyes shocked. "You what?"

"Alright, people," Caldwell interrupted him unwittingly as he strode into the bridge, passing Teyla and Ronon by the door and making Carson jump back guiltily from the long console he'd been examining. Rodney, beside him, on the opposite side of the room to Sheppard and Peter, just snorted at his movement.

The tall colonel stopped just behind his swivelling chair, piercing eyes passing just once around at the attentive bridge crew. "Let's make this trip as short as possible." He turned to look over his shoulder, gaze raking over Sheppard and Peter, side-by-side on the shallow, white-lit step, and to the Brit's surprise his expression showed none of the shock that people displayed when seeing him for the first time, no matter how quickly or skilfully it was covered. "Doctor, if you could give the coordinates to the lieutenant over there," and he nodded to the dark-skinned, round-faced officer at the helm, whose unassuming eyes moved from his scrolling display to Peter enquiringly.

"During the siege, the Daedalus went out to ambush the twelve hiveships on their way towards Atlantis," Peter began, resting his hands on his waist and ignoring Sheppard's tight, questioning stare.

"Doctor," Caldwell interrupted with a frown, turning around completely. "I'm sure it would be to your advantage if we got this over with as soon as possible. So, if you please –"

Peter smiled humourlessly, shaking his head. "You met the Wraith in battle in orbit over a planet. That's the one. I'm sure you still have those coordinates in your databank?" For a moment there was silence as Peter endured the surprised stares of everyone on the bridge, patiently meeting Caldwell's eyes, barring Colonel Sheppard, who swore quietly down at his feet. "I have to admit, you have impeccable timing, Colonel," the physicist added wryly, confirming the unvoiced question they all asked. "Your attack gave me the opening I needed to hijack a dart and get out of there. Well, as far as the planet, at least. Your weapons officer has better aim than I was comfortable with." The thin-faced lieutenant at the station in question grimaced somewhat guiltily.

Stephen Caldwell felt cold, staring back at the scientist's composed face, though his eyes were lit with irony. How close must the man have gotten to the Daedalus, to being destroyed, how desperate must he have been to contact them, only to have them turn around and escape, leaving him behind?

"Lieutenant?" he asked finally, finding his voice, his head turning slightly but gaze not leaving Grodin, and his subordinate answered instantly in his deep voice.

"Yes, sir. We've still got the coordinates in our log."

"Lay in a course." Stephen's tone was unreadable, but his thoughts were on the battle, on the surge of triumph he felt every time their rail-guns ripped through a dart, now overlaid by the image of a frightened, possibly injured scientist, caught in the middle of a fight he didn't know the circumstances for. And he apologised, silently, with his eyes, almost fancying that that scientist understood.

"Yes, sir."

It was only then that Stephen turned around again, breaking his unspoken exchange with Grodin and stepping around his sturdy chair so he could take a seat, sinking back into it with suddenly weak legs, stretched out down the two back-lit steps leading into the forward bay. He'd caught Beckett and McKay's horrified expressions, realized that it was something Grodin had kept to himself to save them the awareness of that irony. The thought of it made the colonel himself break into a cold sweat.

That was a quirk of fate he could easily hate the universe for.

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The planet's orbit was still strewn with debris, drifting aimlessly in star-dotted space. The world itself was grey with thick clouds in the upper atmosphere, hanging in place beneath the flat, turtle-like ship. Peter stared out the sharp-edged viewscreen, focussing deliberately past the reflections, his stomach twisting with remembrance; in truth, he hadn't expected to be hit so hard with fear.

A hand clapped to his shoulder and he jumped, surprised, turning to find Carson beside him, the Scot's brow drawn over worried eyes. "Are you a-right, lad?" he asked softly.

"Yes," Peter answered with a sigh, averting his gaze from the window. "I just didn't expect to have to come back here. I'm not entirely sure why; it's something I should have anticipated."

Carson patted his blue-shirted arm with that reassuring smile he'd perfected for his patients. "We wilna be there long," he promised. "How are you feeling?"

Peter grinned wryly, having expected the doctor to ask sooner or later, and flexed his hands beside his beige slacks, half-hidden between them. "Still a bit numb," he admitted. "But no worse. And my back doesn't hurt unless I move the wrong way." That was a slight lie; now he didn't have something to immediately capture his attention, he found himself more aware of the incessant throb set just between his shoulder blades, the occasional sharp, stabbing pains.

Carson nodded, looking unhappy, and Peter knew he'd caught the deception, but he also knew there was nothing the Scot could do. That first night, he'd tried to give Peter a minor painkiller and sedative to help him sleep and had found it negated within ten minutes. The rest of the drugs they'd given him had gone the same way. It had frustrated the doctor to no end.

"Doctor," Caldwell interrupted them, tilting his head to speak over his shoulder. "Is there anything in particular we should be looking for near the location?"

"I lived in some ruins, in the middle of a desert plateau," Peter answered instantly, grateful for Carson's encouraging hand on his arm, but finding himself unable to meet anyone's eyes. "Within travel distance of the stargate."

"Woah, woah," Rodney's voice sounded, and with a few quick footsteps the Canadian was right in front of him, peering at him with a questioning frown. It was practically the first time the physicist had spoken to him since they came on board. "If the stargate was so close, why the hell didn't you leave earlier?"

Apparently the physicist had caught Peter's use of the word 'living' and all implications therein. The Brit had admittedly skipped over a few details when he'd been briefing them – there were just some things he couldn't bring himself to mention except by necessity. It was too soon; he'd been alone for too long. He didn't know if he could bear his friends' pity.

Peter tilted his head a little in a slight shrug, meeting the scientist's uncertain eyes. "It wasn't within walking distance, Rodney. The heat distortions made it difficult to see far, so I didn't even know it was there, and I didn't have anything to carry food or water to attempt a survey." He took a deep breath to answer the question Rodney was already opening his mouth to ask. "I only made it there later because I was picked up by traders with a wagon."

He couldn't muster the desire to say 'slavers' in the middle of a bridge full of strangers, and somehow he thought that Rodney caught the discrepancies in the excuse, but the physicist seemed to understand by Peter's closed expression that he didn't want to talk about it.

Instead the Canadian's hand twirled in the air as though to elicit a response or encourage his own thoughts, his planned words changing in an instant. "When you say 'desert', do you mean –"

"I mean sand, heat, and no water except the odd oasis, Rodney, yes," Peter cut in with a slight frown, and Rodney's hand stilled and dropped, the thickset scientist grimacing. Rodney already knew that, of course, unless he hadn't been listening during the meeting – which was a possibility – but Peter got the feeling he was complaining just for the sake of it. "I was lucky. If the ruins hadn't been within walking distance of where I crashed I wouldn't have lasted long at all." I just barely did anyway, he added mentally, remembering that hellish, disorientated journey.

"I think I've found it, sir," the sharp-eyed lieutenant cut in before Rodney could say anything else, although by his expression there wasn't much he had prepared, and Carson's gentle squeeze told Peter more than the doctor could have said either. "On the sun-side, north of the equator. Sending the coordinates to Hermiod."

Caldwell looked up to the trio of doctors, eyes flickering to the rest of the team behind them. "We'll beam you directly into the ruins," he told them. "Radio us when you're ready to come back up."

Minutes later the six of them rematerialized on the flagstones by the muddy oasis, lit by the sun pouring through the cracked, colour-bleached dome. The heat struck them like a blow, chokingly dry, and Rodney instantly groaned that he'd forgotten to bring any sunscreen when his words suddenly cut off. Peter wasn't listening anyway, too busy scanning the sand-scoured rocks with a sinking feeling in his belly.

He really, really hated deserts.

"Where now?" Sheppard asked, pulling him out of his reverie, and Peter studied the numerous entrances with a rising feeling of nervousness when he didn't recognise any of them.

Then, "That way," With a sense of relief he nodded towards a sand-duned doorway which had a tiny monolith of stone set by the entrance and then looked back at the others. Ronon and Teyla were both examining the broad walls, relaxed but alert, and Carson was looking around unhappily, mumbling under his breath.

Rodney was staring wordlessly down at the flagstones by his feet, and, following his gaze, Peter saw his unfinished clay map, now dry and weather-beaten. Or, more specifically, the long row of scratches lining the edge which marked the planet's passing of days.

Swallowing, taking a deep, careful breath, Peter turned away.

By the time they reached the little debris-strewn room in which Peter had found the entrance to the junk room, they were all uncomfortably hot and sweaty. The Englishman had tried to refuse the flak jacket, stating that the most dangerous things in the ruins were small enough to bite them in the foot and so it would offer little protection, but Sheppard had insisted – just in case. They did, at least, have the foresight of leaving behind their jackets, but apparently both Carson and Rodney had grown used to wearing the military black shirts and the latter grumbled about it incessantly, shutting up only when Sheppard snapped at him.

Of them all, Ronon was probably the most comfortable in his light-coloured clothes, taking great pleasure in crushing the insects skittering around the flagstones beneath his heel.

"I thought deserts were supposed to be lifeless," Rodney had complained at one point, slapping at a mosquito-like bug that had just buzzed an escape from his hand.

"Far from it," Peter responded with a short laugh. "Just keep away from anything brightly coloured and you'll be fine."

Carson instantly jumped away from a fluorescent purple lizard he'd bent down to study, sunning itself on a terracotta rock. "Did you learn that the hard way, lad?" he asked nervously.

"No," Peter shook his head, stepping around a tall dune, kicking up sand. "If I had, I probably wouldn't have survived to make it back to Atlantis." Behind him, Rodney blanched, exchanging an anxious look with Carson, and Peter shared an amused smile with Teyla, walking not far to his left.

It was true that the Englishman had mostly been lucky enough to avoid the coloured animals, but he had seen the effects on the few birds or lizards who tried to feed off them. That was proof enough for him, even without the times he'd almost stepped on one of the bloody things.

Ronon gave him a hand moving the thick stone door, and then they all took refuge in the relative cool of the passage, Peter leading them down the narrow stairs. As soon as he set foot on the red-toned band of stone running the edge, the room lit up just as it had the first time, revealing that the long room was completely unchanged. Rodney squeaked slightly as he entered, ducking his head beneath the weight of the low ceiling, eyes rolling fearfully up to regard it; but he didn't say a word about his claustrophobia and the challenging look he sent Carson when the Scot moved anxiously towards him spoke volumes.

"We're looking for a computer of some kind," he said aloud instead, his LSD already in his hands to scan for power signatures as the rest of his team moved among the tables, himself hovering interestedly but cautiously over the nearest desk. None of them wanted a repeat performance of Peter's many little problems.

Peter, already mostly into the room, paused in front of a cleared piece of the far table with a pang, staring down at his initial attempts to create a distress beacon. His fingers touched on the jumble of wires, moving to the slim, dust-coated Athosian lighter he'd left behind, and then the stub of pencil he'd used to mark the devices for reference – the same pencil he'd pulled when they drew straws on the satellite.

Casting a glance towards Rodney, still at the dim glow of the entrance with Carson beside him, Peter reclaimed the two objects and slipped them into his trouser pocket, and then lifted his head to find Ronon had been watching him. The Satedan said nothing, his green eyes unfathomable, and soon looked away.

"Hey," Sheppard called from the far wall, standing before a thin, gauzy shroud draped over the far wall, lit from behind by the dim little crystals. He caught the sheet around the barrel of his P90 and pulled, dragging the light cloth down to the floor in a sprinkling of dust. Behind it was a broad panel, reminiscent of the ones on Atlantis, dark and deactivated. "This it?"

Seconds later Peter was there, Rodney not far behind. The Canadian didn't even stop; frowning, he reached out an inquisitive hand, brushing the ribbed metal set into the base of the screen. The panel immediately lit up with a blink, making the three nearby flinch at the brightness, the white glow playing over the sandy stones and dusty equipment on the desk behind them.

"Good, good, good," Rodney muttered to himself, unslinging his bulky backpack and dropping it to the floor. "Looks like the language is similar to Ancient, so our translation programs might be able to make something of it." Within moments his slim laptop was out and hooked up to the panel using the spare leads the physicist had learned to carry around, fitting them into some sockets after prying off the ribbed cover to look into the mechanics of the computer. He nattered on about the likenesses between this and the Ancient technology as he went, blue eyes afire with excitement, and for once Sheppard didn't tell him to be quiet; he was kind of interested too.

Though he'd die before telling anyone that, especially now.

Peter was studying the panel itself, his bearded face awash with the luminosity of the monitor. While he didn't understand the language beyond a few words – Rodney was right, it was remarkably like Ancient – he had long since mastered the art of deciphering the icons; he'd done it all the time back on Atlantis. It was amazing how universal some symbols were, actually; others had to be learned by trial and error.

So, by the time Rodney had just initiated a download of the system, the touch-screen flashed and shifted under Peter's careful fingers, blipping up a revolving, intricately lined blueprint of some anonymous device, unrecognisable blue text scrolling rapidly down the side.

"Stop playing around, will you?" Rodney snapped without looking up from where he sat cross-legged on the grimy flagstones, his computer resting securely in his lap and his skin washed-out in colour by the glow of the display. "Much faster my way."

Peter smiled at the familiar tone, slightly relieved at Rodney's willingness to speak to him, and didn't disagree; but neither did he stop, flipping through the line of icons at the bottom like a scrolling queue of files, and when Rodney didn't reprimand him again he knew he wasn't really doing anything to hinder the chief scientist.

"So what is this place?" Ronon asked impassively in his deep voice, coming up behind them with Carson by his side and Teyla trailing behind, still casting glances around the low chamber.

"It's a junk room." Rodney answered almost absently, then jabbed a finger at the screen, gesturing at something none of them could see. "It says here that all these devices were failed experiments. They were stored away in case they somehow helped other research or in the off-chance they figured out the problem." He snorted. "They didn't have a chance. Have you seen what half of these are supposed to do? It's ridiculous."

"Yes, Rodney," Peter said dryly, still flickering quickly from schematic to schematic, taking in the shapes but not bothering to memorise any of them. "Seen, but not understood. You're the one with the translations."

"Yes, I am," the Canadian answered smartly, tapping at the arrow keys methodically with his forefinger. "Looks like a close derivation of original Ancient. Hasn't evolved at all in ten thousand years, so the culture was probably destroyed by the Wraith during the first war." The laptop beeped and Rodney grinned, lifting a hand in casual triumph. "Ha. Easy."

"Didjeh find somethin'?" Carson asked eagerly, moving behind the black-clad scientist as the team pressed in a little closer, eager for information so they could escape the close, stuffy air of the room.

Rodney's blue eyes raced across the screen, his excitement fading, his hand drooping and lopsided mouth drawing to a tight line. When he glanced unhappily up at Peter, standing in front of him, his expression was crestfallen, his face pale.

"Rodney?" Peter asked softly, his heart sinking, letting his raised hand drop as he turned fully from the panel to meet the Canadian's disheartened gaze.

Rodney's jaw clenched and his eyes skittered elsewhere, over his impatient team-mates, the still, dusty shapes to the side, back to the blue monitor. "It's a medical device," he said, his voice shaking over the words, although it was clear they in themselves were not completely the source of his discomfort.

"Are you kidding, lad?" Carson demanded, shifting his weight to his other foot, hands moving to his waist. "Usually medical instruments don't have the side-effect of endangering their patients."

"Yes, well, like I said," Rodney snapped back instantly over his shoulder, managing to regain a vestige of his usual sharp composure. "This is a junk room. If it's in here, it didn't work."

"That is not very comforting," Teyla observed on an exhaled breath, looking around her with renewed nervousness. She wasn't the only one; Ronon gripped his square-barrelled pistol, aiming it stiffly at the ground and facing outward towards the cluttered tables as though expecting something to leap out at them at any moment.

"You were right about what it does, Carson," Rodney continued without seeming to hear the Athosian, rereading over the data. "The device's purpose is as a healing device. It, ah," he snapped his fingers, struggling for words. "It acts like an immune system, speeds natural healing ability… it was intended to effectively cure old age and render conventional doctors obsolete."

Carson frowned at that, his clothes rustling as he knelt beside the scientist so he could read over his vested shoulder.

"I thought you said that if it was in here, it didn't work," Sheppard pointed out. "Sounds like it works fine."

"If you want to look at it technically, yes," Rodney snapped back with a slight roll of the eyes, turning a glare onto the dark-haired officer. "But that's the problem. It's programmed to spread and that's what it does. Like Carson said before, it's highly invasive. No matter how small the nanites are, they're still a solid foreign body, and in this case, there are billions of them. In the blood you don't notice it, but in among the cells it's a completely different matter."

"Get to the point, McKay," Sheppard growled.

"My point, Colonel," Rodney retorted. "Is that some parts of the body are too dense to let the nanites in without causing irreparable damage."

Carson, pale, wide-eyed, lifted his eyes from the screen. "The test subjects were all driven insane," he whispered numbly, his gaze travelling unseeingly over the people in front of him as he sank back to sit on the floor. "The nanites spread too far. Once they got to the brain and spinal cord…"

"It was never going to work," Rodney said simply, his voice cracking again, Carson's emotions appealing to his own. "Not with the levels of density the nanites need in order to serve their purpose."

There was silence as they took in the implications, and one by one, the team's bleak, shocked gazes turned automatically to Peter. The Englishman refused to meet any of their eyes, sinking numbly back against the rough wall with his head downcast. There just wasn't anything to say.

Not for any of them, at least; but Rodney, as always, found words. And this time, they proved helpful. "We still have some time. The nanites spread where it's easiest first, so the CNS will be the last thing affected."

That broke the spell; it felt as though all of them had taken a deep, steadying breath and were ready to go on. "Alright, if you two scientists think we've got enough," Sheppard said briskly, his boots scraping on the ground as he shifted and moved back towards the stairs, Teyla looking after him and Ronon still eyeing the jumbled equipment critically. "We'd better get back to Atlantis."

"Well, at least now we're not researching blind," Rodney said with somewhat false jauntiness, his head jerking almost comically as he glanced from Sheppard, to Carson, to Peter. "Now we've got the data, this should be a snap." Peter raised his head and cocked an eyebrow in semi-joking scepticism, but Rodney just tilted a finger at himself. "Genius at work, remember? I can fix anything."

The familiar line made Peter smile faintly, and though Rodney soon dropped his gaze to work at detaching his computer while Carson made his way anxiously to Peter's side, once again asking after his health, the Englishman felt the breath-stealing, fearful twist in his stomach ease.

Whatever had happened between Rodney and Sheppard, whatever had happened on Doranda, however Rodney now felt about himself, Peter knew that if there was a way, Rodney would find it.

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"Radek!" A firm hand shook his shoulder, accompanied by the annoyed bark of his name, and Radek blinked groggily down at the flat keys of his computer, wondering what had just happened and why he felt so disconnected. That soon faded at the fingers snapping in front of his nose, and he instinctively pulled away, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose.

Then everything came back in a rush: Peter, the sombre procession as they returned from the planet, Rodney's manic drive to find a solution.

Speaking of whom…

"…don't think we'll be able to interface with it and – Radek, are you even listening to me or has senility finally caught up with you?" Rodney demanded, crossing his arms over his chest, foot tapping feverishly on the smooth floor.

"I am sorry," Radek sighed, taking off his wire-rim glasses to rub his eyes tiredly, far too drained to argue. "It is late and I am finding it difficult to concentrate." He didn't even want to look at the clock; he didn't need to. Rodney had begun working his team even before the Daedalus arrived, so between that and his constant trips to the infirmary to visit Peter, Radek hadn't had as much sleep as he should have. He knew for a fact that Rodney hadn't set foot in the medical wing since Peter had returned and felt obliged to make up for the Canadian's evasion.

If it had just been one of Rodney's frenzied projects, he would have been able to beg off with no trouble – one of the few that could – but his desire to find an answer was as strong as Rodney's and between the two of them neither had a chance for much rest.

He needed to take a break, he knew that, knew both of them did. Rodney disagreed.

"Peter doesn't have time for you to lose focus, Radek!" the Canadian snapped, blue eyes narrowed in misplaced anger.

"Peter would not want us to drop from lack of sleep!" Radek retorted in frustration, even though he knew that if it weren't for Carson's interference the Brit would probably be right there with them. The Scotsman had only reluctantly allowed Peter to join in with the project, but still came in every evening to drag him away 'for a good night's rest', casting a steely eye over the rest of the team that indicated he was quite willing to do the same for them if they pushed it too far.

Which was why the pair was alone in the device-scattered lab, the display suspended at the head of the room shimmering green and blue over the long tables dividing the centre and the equipment casting shadows across the many surfaces.

"Fine," Rodney growled, his head jerking to the side in a reflexive action. "Go and sleep, waste good hours we could put to better use."

Stubborn. Always, stubborn. Radek sighed, replacing his glasses and slipping off his tall, circular stool. His movements followed by Rodney's tight-lipped gaze, he closed the lid of his laptop with a click, grasping it loosely to his side before raising his head to meet Rodney's accusing glower, laying a placating hand on Rodney's arm. "We cannot help him if we are not rested," he reminded his friend gently, and the Canadian's distressed eyes followed him out until his footsteps had stopped echoing down the corridor.

Ten minutes later Rodney's own head was in his arms, crossed on the steel table, his black-screensavered laptop pushed before him. His mind was racing far too quickly for him to sleep, he knew that, it was why he didn't even try; instead he kept going over and over what they'd learned, what ideas they'd already contemplated and then discarded.

EM pulse wouldn't work, nanites are resistant to degradation, unlike the others we've come across, so there's no way to break them down afterwards. No way to interface with the device, acts as a central control system but designed to be self-contained.

They probably wouldn't be able to connect with it even if there was a suitable port to do so; the damn thing was deep enough to require surgery to get to. And even if they could, just looking at the schematics, Rodney knew it would be too big a risk to try it anyway.

The implant was designed to protect itself against almost anything that could be thrown at it. It had to avoid the body's natural immune system, the wear and tear of exertion, the possible effects of the illnesses it counteracted. It was certain that such an act would be counted as a threat – the detailed logs that came with the data said that all too clearly.

At first he'd been hopeful that the device would shut itself off, that its power source – whatever it was – would run out, but seeing the data they'd collected he lost any hope of that, even though he grudgingly acknowledge the genius of the idea. It was supposed to be long-term, so its creators had chosen a power source that would almost never run dry.

It fed off the electrical currents of the body's nervous system. That was what caused the numbness, was partly the reason it was made in the way it was. Even normal nanites could only be programmed to do so much; taking care of an entire body was stretching the limits. With the speed and efficiency the creators desired, it was impossible to do and still enable the machines to replicate. The format of networking and the chosen power source erased that problem.

Solitary nanites, such as the ones which held the virus they'd encountered, could conceivably act as a secondary immune system, could heal and cure with the best of them, but this was something else. The system meant that they could build on each other, meant they could protect each other, protect the body they inhabited, and made it virtually impossible to stop them.

In the end, that was what made the experiment a failure.

This isn't working. He squeezed his sleep-itchy eyes shut to try and erase the ache behind them, then blinked rapidly down at the desk surface. Radek's right. I need a break.

And yet what good was that when he couldn't sleep through it? Maybe he should get some sleeping pills from Carson…

But that meant he had to go to the infirmary. And the infirmary was where Peter was.

The thought of meeting him there made Rodney's stomach twist. The mission to the desert planet had been bad enough, possible only because Rodney had buried himself in complaints, in their objective, rather than dwell on the circumstances overly much.

In a way it was his worst nightmare: to have someone he'd killed come back, where he was forced to face them, knowing he'd been responsible for their death. He'd discovered recently just how hard it was to apologise for a very real mistake. He didn't have the courage to do it again.

Somehow it made it worse when he knew that Peter would never and had never blamed him, even though he deserved everything the Brit might throw at him. The anger, the disappointment, the lack of trust he could deal with, had been dealing with, hard though it was; the acceptance that was Peter's trademark…

God, no. He didn't deserve that. That was why he'd never tried to resist the consequences of Doranda – his friends' reactions were justified and he knew it, had grown enough to admit it.

Coward. Rodney's inner voice sneered, a part of him he'd once thought to be long quenched. He didn't disagree. He knew what he was.

But you don't have to be, another part reminded him, one that still sounded like one John Sheppard, though Rodney couldn't say how pleased the colonel would be to know that. Is the man who walked into an energy beast a coward? Is the man who stepped in front of a gun a coward? Who came after me and a superwraith? Who stayed in a flooding control room? Who went with the bastard who'd tortured him? Is that man a coward?

Rodney's jaw set and he lifted his head in determination. No, that man wasn't a coward. Somewhere, somehow, he'd changed. Okay, so he'd acted like an idiot with the Arcturus project. But he was still him.

So it was that, a few minutes later, Carson exited his office, ceramic coffee cup in hand, to find Rodney lingering hesitantly by the infirmary doors, eyes fixed upon the hidden alcove which belonged to Peter. "Lad?" he asked, causing the Canadian to jump, startled. Carson frowned; Rodney's eyes were rimmed in black from exhaustion, and the Scotsman couldn't help but wonder how long it'd been since he'd slept properly, making a mental note to give him some sleeping pills before he left.

"Carson." Rodney said in that tone of his that should be a question but wasn't. His eyes didn't stay long on the scruffy-haired doctor, whose white shirt was rumbled and face lined with fatigue, testimony to the fact that he was staying up nights looking over the data himself. Instead they travelled back to the far end, straining as though wanting to see around the pillar in the way.

"He's asleep right now, but if you want to sit with him awhile," Carson suggested gently, and Rodney jerked back as though electrocuted.

"No, no," he babbled instantly. "Lots of work to do, just taking a walk to clear my mind."

Liar. Carson thought instantly with fond exasperation, studying the way the physicist refused to look at him, the way his hands motioned. He knew that Rodney had been avoiding the infirmary, knew why. "Any progress?" he asked instead, soberly, following the Canadian's gaze towards the end.

"Well, we found out that –" Rodney cut off at Carson's sternly weary Look, pursing his lips unhappily. "No." he muttered.

Carson huffed, fingering the smooth handle of his mug with absent anxiousness. "If we're goin' to find something, it has t'be soon," he said gravely without looking at his companion, brow furrowed in worry. "It's getting worse, taking over his immune system. Soon he might not be able to live without it at all. Even if we managed t'get rid of it… he could be killed by something as simple as a bloody virus."

For several long moments there was silence beside him, and Carson frowned. He would have thought that news would elicit some kind of comment, at least.

But when he turned to look at Rodney it was to find the physicist's hand suspended in the air, his expression frozen, staring unseeingly at the room before him, and the Scot's heart skipped a beat. He knew that look.

It was the look the Canadian got when he'd just had a brainwave.

"Rodney?" he asked, his tone almost urgent with excitement, and as though his voice was a signal Rodney's hand tapped the air.

"That's it," he exhaled. "Carson!" He turned to the expectant, somewhat startled physician and snapped his fingers at him, breathless with enthusiasm, his blue eyes sparkling. "You're a genius!"

"What?" Carson demanded, clutching his forgotten mug so tightly in both hands that it was a surprise it didn't crack.

"The device is completely self-contained," Eyes unfocussed and turned inwardly in rapid contemplation, Rodney's hands started to dance, like they always did, what Carson had long thought of as the motion of a true artist. "We'd have a hard time trying to get into it to do anything useful. But a virus – a virus could do that for us."

And as though he'd forgotten Carson was there, muttering to himself with rapid sentences, Rodney turned around and strode from the room, leaving a slightly bemused but very hopeful physician behind.

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"Rodney."

Rodney looked up from the keyboard, his furious typing halting for a moment so he could grin at the new arrival. "Peter!" he greeted him cheerfully as the Brit approached, skirting the long tables where the rest of Rodney's blue-shirted team worked, hunched over computers and schematics, conversing in low voices. He didn't even feel a twinge of squeamishness upon seeing his friend, even though the nanites now reached to his hairline on one side of his face, creeping up his neck on the other. The pang of guilt was sharper but he shoved that aside, once again focussing on his task instead of his friend.

"I'm sorry I'm late. Carson was holding out on me," Peter apologised, coming to Rodney's unoccupied side and casting a quick acknowledging nod towards Radek, seated on the other side of the table where he was muttering to himself under his breath in Czech. "I hear you've had an idea?"

"Virus," Rodney said promptly, shifting aside on his stool so Peter could see the lines of script on his screen. "I can't believe it took me so long. If we can introduce a computer virus into the device's system, we can trick it into withdrawing. We won't have to do a thing."

"Except write the virus," Peter pointed out with a wry smile, and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Aside from that, Captain Obvious." He gestured enthusiastically at the monitor, his knee jiggling restlessly under the table. "The data from the planet has been invaluable; we've nearly got all the relevant pathways identified and the program is almost done. Soon you'll be able to walk around without looking like a Borg extra from a Star Trek set."

Peter's lips quirked in amusement, his eyes flickering over the blue text, and opposite him Radek snorted, apparently not too busy to keep from listening in.

But then Peter's grin turned to a frown and Rodney's heart clenched. "What?" he demanded anxiously, and Radek paused in his typing to glance across to the two of them in query.

"This is all very well, Rodney," Peter said slowly. "But how are you going to deliver it?"

Rodney opened his mouth to answer –

And then found that he didn't have one.

There was a heavy pause in which Rodney stared, momentarily stumped, at Peter, whose frown deepened, mouth tightening, still gazing at the scrip on the monitor. "What about –" he began, and Rodney felt a flutter of panic, suddenly knowing exactly what the Englishman was going to suggest.

"No," he cut him off. "No, not that, there's something else –"

"Reprogramming," came the accented answer from over the table, and the pair turned to look at Radek, looking intently at his own screen before glancing up to meet first Rodney's pleading expression, then Peter's questioning eyes. "We reprogram one of the nanites."

"That's it," Rodney repeated his favourite words, snapping his fingers gratefully at Radek and turning in his seat to look at Peter, eyes skittering this way and that in thought. "Some of the nanites are deployed into the bloodstream to cover all their bases, we can take one of those, change it, put it back, done."

Peter smiled in guarded relief. "Sounds easy." His gaze was caught by flickering display hanging at the front of the room, the Ancient-made screen showing an enlarged schematic of a nanite for the entire room to use as reference, and he frowned slightly.

"Well, obviously we'll need to test it," Rodney acknowledged, his mind already several steps ahead, not really noticing when Peter moved around him to study the design, hands on his hips. Neither did Radek; he had turned around to the laptop on the low trolley set beside him against the table, his fingers blurring over the keys as he confirmed the validity of his idea. "But if we changed the program a little – this could work. This could really work."

"These are complicated," Radek told him. "Finding the right algorithm will be difficult."

"Right, right, right, I'm sure I saw some notes which could help with that –"

Peter glanced back over his shoulder to where the two scientists were now firing ideas at each other in a well-played match of skills and couldn't help but smile again, feeling comforted by their dedication, by the unproven and yet obvious fact that they'd been staying up nights for his sake.

Then he turned back to the monitor, the green light playing over his tanned skin as his eyes flickered with fading hope over the images once again.

No, he wasn't wrong.

It wasn't going to work.

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"We ready?" Rodney demanded, rushing into Carson's smallish lab like a whirlwind, but Carson didn't even look up from where he was standing at the desk on the back wall, focussing the microscope as he leaned backwards to compare its position to the pink, circular image on the corresponding laptop's screen.

"Almost," the physician replied, giving it one last tweak before standing back and lifting his head to meet Rodney's manic gaze. The Canadian still looked far too tired for Carson's liking, but the Scotsman knew better than to say something, not when they were so close to an answer. Rodney would just ignore him or ask for stimulants or something equally daft.

He just hoped they really were near the end.

"We're ready," Radek was assuring the Canadian from where he stood beside the square, white-topped desk against the grey pillar in the centre, holding up the slide on which was the blood sample. Peter, previously sitting on the round stool just behind Radek, beside the unframed Ancient screen, wordlessly moved closer, crossing his arms and looking over Radek's shoulder as the Czech used a pipet to drop their modified nanites into the sample and slipped it beneath the glass.

Tense with anticipation, the four of them looked to the brightly coloured screen, where they could see the magnified images of the tiny, harsh machines against the grainy red. Peter almost held his breath, hoping that he'd been wrong after all, but as they watched several of the nanites drew near to another, surrounding it, crowding it, and when they broke away a few seconds later it was gone.

Carson exhaled perceptibly and Radek looked down to the table, pursed lips drawing back in frustration.

"Okay," Rodney said disappointedly, thumb tapping reflexively. "So that didn't work. We'll try again. Like Radek said, these are complicated, it might take some experimentation to get it right."

Six hours later, the next one didn't work either. Nor did the next. Rodney was all set to try again, Radek stoically behind him, when Carson thrust a bottle of sleeping pills into his hand and threatened to sedate him if he didn't try to get some sleep. One glance at Peter's tired expression had seemed to decide him, if only to spare the Brit the disappointment of a possible failure for a few hours.

The next morning they were back at it again, Rodney barking orders to his team, now looking somewhat rested, himself working feverishly as he bounced ideas off of Radek. Peter tried to help, offering his own suggestions, always finding reason to hope at every test before having them dashed. In the beginning he attempted to be more productive, but while writing the program his numb fingers kept slipping on the keyboard to the point of risking an hour's work for one blunder, and to his frustration he'd been forced to let the others do the typing.

Over the course of the next two days they changed the program a dozen times, long enough that Carson finally gave in and helped set up a corner of the main lab for the testing, just to avoid running all over Atlantis. Every now and then Elizabeth, or Sheppard, or even Caldwell popped by to see how they were doing or cajole Rodney into letting his team take a rest. Once, Bryan came in with some notes on nanite research that he'd found in the Ancient database, but it proved to be little more than an abstract, not much help at all.

"If Kavanaugh were here, he would be complaining about wasted resources," Doctor Jaworski said once with a chuckle, running a hand through his grey hair as he stretched his aching back, sore from so many hours leaning over a laptop, and cast a gaze twinkling with humour towards Peter.

The Brit had grinned back, remembering the first time he'd heard that Kavanaugh had left. Radek had originally been the one to tell him, but Albin Jaworski later expanded the reasons into a story that was no doubt mostly fiction. A member of the original expedition and one of the control staff, he was everyone's favourite to partner with during the nightshift because he regaled his companion with stories in that wonderful Polish accent of his. Whenever they'd been paired together, he and Peter had always tried to outdo each other in terms of wild tales.

Albin almost always won.

But the humour vanished within seconds when similarly grey-haired Donaldson had muttered jadedly in answer, "Maybe he'd have a point," and rubbed his lined face tiredly.

Rodney's head jerked up from his fixated stare at his laptop to glare at the thin scientist. "I did not just hear you say that," he snapped angrily, and pessimistic Donaldson blinked back at him in a manner that said he wasn't doomsaying, Kavanaugh-style, so much as worn-out and despairing enough to risk his superior's wrath to point out a negative.

Finally, "Okay, let's try this again," Rodney rubbed his eyes wearily, thumbing one last key and nodded assent to Radek, who once again transferred their modified nanites to the slide.

Carson, having been standing in on the research for a day now, partly to make sure that everyone got some rest at some point or another, accepted the slide and swivelled around in his chair to put it in place, ignoring the pair crowding over his shoulder, the rest of the team staying back but straining to see. Peter stood silently with his arms crossed near the edge of the table, in the corner, close enough to observe.

Inside the circle of the microscope's boundary, the nanites drifted against the mottled background. One floated into view…

Only to be mobbed by several more.

Leaning on the desk, Carson hung his head in despair, while Radek rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily and the other scientists exchanged resigned glances, moving back towards the end-to-end desks splitting the middle of the lab to start again.

"This should work," Rodney muttered, his tone one of disbelief, his eyes tracking the shifting nanites. "Why isn't this working!" His hand rolled, a sure sign he was about to dive headfirst into another idea and drag the rest of them with him. "Maybe – maybe if we –"

"No," Peter cut in, staring grimly at the still-moving screen, and his friends looked at him in surprise. "No, Rodney. It wasn't going to work. You know it wasn't going to work. The nanites communicate via a mild EM field initiated by the electrical current they use to power themselves. Every time you try to modify their programming, you modify the field. Our nanites register as a foreign body to them."

He's wrong, this idea will work, it will… oh, God, it won't… "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," Rodney said desperately, holding up a finger to stop him from going further, and Peter's eyes shifted towards him bleakly. No, he can't say it, that can't be the only way, it's too risky, I won't let it be! "No, don't say it, there's something else we can do –" He stopped, his face lined with anguish, knowing that he was lying.

"Don't make me say the obvious, Rodney," Peter said softly without looking away, both of them apparently completely ignorant of their audience. Radek looked between them miserably, the only one who seemed to have any idea what they were talking about – for now. There were several dawning faces on the other side of the room.

Oh, God, not again. One moment, Rodney was staring at his friend; the next, he'd deflated, sinking down onto the spare stool beside Carson, his expression raw and guilt-stricken as he broke their exchange. He's going to do something stupid and risky. Alone. Again. And I can't stop it. "I killed you," he said hoarsely, feeling too drained, too exhausted to bother hiding from it any longer.

"I'm here and I'm alive, Rodney, if not all right," Peter answered quietly, his arms so tense he was almost hugging himself.

My fault. "But I should've checked the pathways, should've checked my work, if I had this wouldn't have happened and you wouldn't have been culled," Rodney rambled, one hand fisting in the air, his gaze flickering around the floor, unable to look up at the Brit. Killed. Culled. Not much difference.

"You had no time," Peter said firmly, albeit thickly. "It doesn't matter whose fault it was or what might have happened. I won't say what I went through was a lot of fun. It wasn't. The point is, I'm all right with that. But." He paused, waiting until Rodney had looked up, and held the distraught Canadian's gaze with a haunted, pleading one of his own. "But I can't go through with this unless I know you are too."

His beseeching expression cut into Rodney like a blade. The Canadian found he didn't know exactly how they'd moved from the nanites to the satellite, but suddenly realized what Peter already knew: his reluctance for their single option was rooted in that final mission.

Because Rodney would always blame himself for not finding another option, for sentencing Peter to that nightmare, no matter what happened.

He didn't want risk that a second time.

Yet, once again, they only had one option. It was Peter's life, Peter's decision, really, but Rodney would take on the responsibility for the outcome. He hadn't taken it well last time, when Peter had made the choice for him.

This time, strong as the Brit was, he wasn't strong enough to do that again. Rodney knew that he could say no, and Peter would trust him to find another solution.

But staring, pale-faced, at his friend, his colleague, his own little slice of hell, Rodney knew there was only one choice he could make.

He only hoped it was the right one.

Because one way or another… this would end it.