Note: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews – you guys make me smile. Stealth Dragon and obsessed1 both mentioned in their reviews that maybe John needed to be bubble-wrapped for protection and that sounded like such a Rodney comment, so I borrowed it. Thanks for the great idea guys!

The Bad Luck Charm – Chapter 6

It was over two hours before Beckett returned to retrieve the four people waiting to see Sheppard. If it had been any one else, he would have almost expected for them to have given up and left. But this was Sheppard's team. Certain members of the Atlantis expedition, particularly those who came over with the original group, had become like family. And there were core groups that were even closer than most families. Sheppard's team was one of those groups.

He and Elizabeth had discussed it on occasion. They weren't completely sure if it was the dynamics of their personalities and the way they interacted with one another or if maybe it was because none of them really had a family outside of Atlantis. Perhaps it was all of those things combined. The important thing was that they stuck by one another, protected and supported one another, like no other team he'd seen. And they liked to hide their closeness with banter, arguing, and snarking like no other team out there. He smiled when he'd think about how a lucky few seemed to be included in that close-knit family, including himself and Elizabeth.

Beckett smiled at the four worried faces, trying to put them at ease. "Okay, we've got the colonel settled, more or less. He's still a bit disoriented and restless, so don't be surprised if he doesn't seem to be exactly with us. He's drifting in and out, so I won't promise he'll say anything at all. His arm's all set, though, and I've given him as much pain relief as I dare in his present condition. When I say it's time to go, I don't expect an argument. Is that clear?"

Four heads nodded earnestly, so he led them to their friend.

Elizabeth moved to the side of the bed, standing beside John's head. His eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, making her wonder if he was in pain. A large white bandage covered most of the right side of his forehead, dipping down slightly over the outside edge of his eyebrow. His right arm was in a cast that extended up past his elbow and was secured to his body in a sling. His left hand supported an IV. She glanced down to see if the mark was still on his chest, but the neck of the hospital gown hid that area. He moaned softly as his eyes drifted open.

"John, we're here. Carson says you're going to be fine." Elizabeth lightly stroked the left side of his face.

John looked at her, his eyes distant and glassy. "I thought you left me. I waited and waited . . . but no one came. It was so long . . . I thought you left me alone there." His voice was soft, but somewhat strained and almost panicky.

Elizabeth shook her head and placed one hand on his face and the other on his shoulder. "John, we would never leave you, you must know that. I promise, we'll never abandon you."

John's eyes drifted closed, his voice getting even softer. "Thought . . . you didn't . . . care."

Teyla came up on the other side and touched John's shoulder as well. "John, it is Teyla. We all care for you very much and I can also promise you that we will never leave you."

John shifted restlessly under the covers for a second before opening his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. "Arm hurts."

"I know, Dr. Beckett said he's given you all the pain medicine he can because of your head injury." Elizabeth went back to gently stroking John's cheek.

"Head hurts too," he whispered, letting his eyes slide closed again. "Don't want to ascend."

"Not much danger of that," said Rodney, shifting his gaze sheepishly to the floor when four sets of eyes glared at him.

John's eyes suddenly snapped open and he grabbed at his neck with his left hand. He'd tried to move his right, but quickly aborted that plan at the first hot flash of pain. "Get it off," he yelled. Teyla grabbed his hand and quickly moved to pull it away from his neck, but he twisted away. They at first thought he was remembering the iratus bug incident, because that's the area of his neck he reached for. They were surprised when he pulled his hand free and began clawing again, but they couldn't tell if it was where the bug attached or at the mark left by Karyan.

"Make it go away! Cut it off. Get it off me." He bucked and struggled with more strength than Beckett would have thought possible. It took all of them to hold him still on the bed so Elizabeth could talk to him.

"John, it's Elizabeth. You've got to relax and hold still. Everything's okay. I promise that everything is okay, but you have to calm down before you hurt yourself." She had his face in both of her hands and her eyes were inches from his. After a few seconds, his struggles slowed down significantly.

"That's it, lass," encouraged Beckett. "Keep talking. I don't want to sedate him if I don't have to. He's having enough trouble as it is."

Elizabeth continued to speak softly and quietly to him for several minutes as he slowly relaxed and stopped fighting. His eyes began to drift closed again as he pleaded one more time, "Make it go away . . . please."

They stood up and began working the kinks out from where they had struggled with Sheppard, still unsure if he meant the iratus bug or the mark on his chest.

"Well, that was interesting," said Rodney worriedly. "Are you sure he's okay, because that most definitely did not look okay to me."

"He'll be fine, Rodney. I told you he was disoriented from the concussion."

Rodney eyed Beckett suspiciously, but didn't say any more, much to everyone's surprise.

"You've had a chance to see him, now I need all of you out of here so my patient can get some rest. Come back after supper to check on him if you'd like."

"We'll do that," said Ronon, frowning as he looked at Sheppard for several seconds before turning away. The others nodded, more to themselves than anything, as they followed him out of the infirmary.

oOo

Beckett sat back in his chair as he finished updating the medical charts for his current patients. He rubbed his face as he picked up the report that had come back on Sheppard's blood work and took another look at it. Everything was normal except for the trace amounts of a substance he was unfamiliar with. He was anxious to get the results of the tissue sample back, but he knew they wouldn't be ready yet.

He thought back to some of the things Sheppard had said the night before. When he had talked about being left behind, they all knew he was referring when he was trapped in the time dilation field with the people who were trying to ascend. Sheppard had assured them that he understood it was only hours to them and that they'd been working to rescue him the whole time, but they knew there was no way to completely overcome the six months of hopelessness the pilot had been subjected to.

For weeks afterwards, he'd been erratic in his behavior. One day he couldn't seem to go five minutes without being with a member of his team and then the next he'd hide out for hours on some distant pier, just sitting and watching the ocean. They spent several nights sitting up watching movies in the rec room because he couldn't seem to go back to his room alone and other nights searching for him because he was unaware he'd been gone all day. Elizabeth had finally demanded he "make time" to see Kate for the sessions she had required or he wouldn't be going back through the gate. Slowly, he'd eased back to his normal self, but the emotional toll of being abandoned by people he loved had been devastating.

Beckett shook his head. There was no time to be worrying about that now. A lot had happened since then and they had moved past it. He just hated that Sheppard was apparently reliving it. Nick said that the confusion the colonel was experiencing had gotten better as the night wore on. By morning, he'd almost been himself again. Beckett looked at his watch and decided now was a good time to check on his patient and refill his coffee cup.

Standing up and stretching, the physician made his way out of his office, only to stop a few seconds later. He wasn't so much amazed by the small throng of people around Sheppard's bed as he was that they'd slipped past his office without alerting him. He shook his head silently thinking he must be losing his touch.

Elizabeth sat next to the head of John's bed, talking quietly to Teyla as she sat in a chair next to her. Her right hand rested on the bed and ever so often, her index finger would reach out and gently stroke the colonel's shoulder. Ronon sat in a chair on the other side of the bed, his feet propped up on the lower rail of the bed. His arms were crossed over his chest, his head forward as if he was sleeping. Rodney sat on the adjacent bed behind the women, muttering to himself and typing away on his laptop. Beckett smiled as he approached.

"And just what are all you people doing here?" he asked with feigned sternness.

All eyes lifted to look at the doctor, but Ronon was the one who spoke. "We're making sure Sheppard doesn't wake up alone. We . . . didn't want him to think we left him again."

Beckett nodded. "Aye, I'm guessing you've been feeling a might guilty about that as well."

"We know he understands and does not blame us," said Teyla, "but the feeling of being abandoned remains deep within him."

"I know lass, and it probably always will. There's a part of you that never recovers from something like that."

"Maybe we can make sure it never happens again, though," said Rodney.

"That we can do," said Elizabeth firmly.

Ronon put his legs down so that Beckett could get past him. "Well, I'll just give him a quick check and get out of your way then. Has he stirred at all?"

"A few times," said Elizabeth. "We thought he was waking up just a few minutes ago, but then he settled back down."

Beckett nodded as he checked the IV line. When he brushed up against John's arm, the pilot's hand shot up and grabbed the doctor's wrist as his eyes snapped open.

John said something at Beckett in a foreign language, his voice cold and demanding, as he sat up in bed, still gripping the man's wrist. Everyone had immediately stood up, but no one approached just yet.

"Colonel, it's me, Carson Beckett. You're in Atlantis, son, you're safe." Beckett talked softly and calmly to John, trying to get him to focus on where he was while placing his free hand on top of Sheppard's restraining one.

"John, it's Elizabeth. Everything's okay, we just need you to let Carson go so we can take care of you." John turned to look at Elizabeth, his eyes wide in confusion. He let go of Carson's hand has he started to list unsteadily to one side.

"Liz'beth," he whispered as his eyelids drooped and Carson caught him, easing him back down to the bed.

"Yes, John, it's Elizabeth. You're safe, I promise. Just relax."

Once John was lying down again, his eyes fluttered a few times before opening. He looked up at Carson, his face frowning in concentration. "Doc?"

Carson smiled and nodded. "Yes, colonel, good to have you back. Now don't be trying to sit up again just yet."

John looked around the room, his frown increasing. "I'm in the infirmary again?"

"Yes, colonel, I'm afraid so. What do you remember?"

John licked his lips and looked back at Beckett. "Going to bed in my quarters not long after you released me. I'd like to request some sheets and blankets for my bed, by the way. I thought I was going to freeze. How'd I end up back here?" Mentally trying to assess his condition, he had logged his arm in the cast and a bandage on his aching head. The rest of him was about as sore as he ever remembered.

"You don't remember the marines and the stairs?" asked Rodney, his eyes wide in amazement.

John turned his head slowly toward Rodney, afraid moving it too fast would increase the pain and nausea. "Stairs? There aren't any stairs in my quarters."

Rodney was now the one who looked confused. "No, not in your quarters. The stairs outside, on the way to the mess hall. You don't remember falling down the stairs?"

"No, I don't." John was beginning to look worried and his breathing was coming a little more quickly.

Carson sighed. "Take it easy, colonel. Why don't we start at the beginning so we can catch you up."

John blew out a deep calming breath. "Yes, please, because this is frustrating."

Beckett nodded and patted John on the shoulder. "I imagine it is, lad. Well, I brought you breakfast yesterday morning, a muffin and orange juice, on my way to the infirmary."

"Wait," said John, lifting off the pillow a few inches, only to have Beckett gently push him back down. "You said yesterday morning?" That meant he'd lost almost two days. He felt his heart hammering in his chest. He hated this, more than just about anything. He sometimes felt he'd lost more of his life to being unconscious or short term memory loss than he'd kept. He was the only person he knew that could regularly go to bed and wake up in the infirmary and not remember anything in between.

"Lad, are you hearing me? Are you all right?"

He suddenly realized Beckett was looking at him with his worried doctor look. "Sorry, doc, guess I drifted there for a minute." He hesitated, trying in vain to boost the memory. "I . . . I don't remember."

Beckett didn't seem upset and merely smiled at him. "It's all right, some memory loss is quite common with concussions. It's nothing to worry about."

"Not nearly as worrisome as the time traveling you were doing last night," said Rodney.

"What?" asked John.

"Rodney!" exclaimed Beckett. "I'm sorry about that, colonel, I was going to talk to you later, in private," he emphasized as he glanced over to glare at Rodney for a moment. "You were a wee bit disoriented last night, that's all."

John groaned. This just kept getting better and better. He'd lost two days and apparently carried on in his sleep to boot. "Doc, I'm getting tired and everything hurts. Could I just get the short version on how I ended up in here again?"

McKay sidled over to get closer to the bed. "Well, being the good friend that I am, I came to get you for lunch. We were on our way to the mess hall, when two of your rather large goons brought their barroom brawl out of a side corridor and knocked into you, pushing you down a staircase." McKay looked around the room smugly. "I, of course, administered first aid and kept everyone from panicking while calling for a medical team. By the way, you bleed a lot, do you know that?"

Beckett sighed. "As I recall, it was Ronon that called for the medical team."

Ronon stepped over to stand right behind Rodney. "And as I recall, Teyla was the one doing most of the first aid. I do seem to remember you screaming like a girl."

McKay huffed loudly. "I did not scream. I may have yelled a little."

John snickered, but it turned into a groan when the action vibrated through his head producing a spike of pain. He closed his eyes and brought his left hand up to feel the bandage on his forehead. "How many?"

"Sixteen, colonel. You had a pretty nasty concussion to go along with it. Even you aren't hard headed enough to go against a staircase and come out unscathed. You've also broken both your radius and ulna, so you'll be stuck in a cast for a while. By now you've figured out you have a multitude of bruises and muscle strains as well."

"Oh, yeah," mumbled Sheppard. "I feel like a bus hit me." He was a little startled when everyone laughed at the comment.

Elizabeth saw his dismay and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Carson told us you'd probably feel like a bus hit you."

John sighed in relief. "I was worried at why you would think that was funny, because it doesn't feel funny at all."

"No, the funny part was seeing Teyla explain what a bus is to Ronon," smirked Rodney.

A smile flickered briefly across John's lips before morphing into a grimace of pain. The problem with waking up was that the pain tended to wake up along with you. Every movement, including breathing, hurt. As he tried to lie as still as possible, he quickly figured out that he hurt even without movement. Feeling a tug on his IV, he opened his eyes to see Beckett adding something through the IV port.

"I hope that's something really good, because even my toenails hurt."

Silence filled the room as everyone stared at Sheppard. "What?" he asked nervously.

Teyla seemed to regain her composure first. "It is just that you rarely admit when you are in pain. We are worried that it must be great for you to say anything."

John laughed nervously. "Lighten up, guys, it's not that bad. What happened to the guys that knocked me down the steps and are we talking marine or air force personnel?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"Marine," filled in Rodney.

"Major Lorne is taking care of it," said Elizabeth, a smile creeping across her face. "And I heard through the grapevine he's making them scrub and polish every square inch of Jumper One, inside and out."

"Good," John drawled. "That sounds fitting to me and she needed a good cleaning."

"I hope they're using their toothbrushes," said Rodney. He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows up and down. "Their only toothbrushes."

Elizabeth winced. "That's a bit harsh, even for you."

Rodney just shook his head. "It wouldn't seem that way if you'd been there to see the colonel take a header down that staircase. I think they're getting off light, myself. Oh, and while we're talking about the colonel, I really think he should start wearing some protective gear when he goes out, you know, like bubble wrap and a helmet maybe."

"McKay," John drawled in his best warning tone. "Don't start."

"Hey, I'm just saying . . . you spend more time here than you do in your room. You've given new meaning to the term accident-prone."

John folded his lower lip in and chewed on it, knowing he couldn't argue with the statement. Lately, he had spent a lot more time in the infirmary than anywhere else, and he was getting sick of it.

Beckett saw the worried look on John's face and decided to change the subject. "Oh, colonel, I noticed the reappearance of a certain article of faded blue clothing. I'm afraid I took the liberty of getting rid of them this time around."

John almost came up off the bed. "What? You threw away my lucky boxers?"

Elizabeth and Teyla's mouths dropped open, followed by putting their hands over their forehead to partially hide their faces. Rodney and Ronon just gaped unabashedly.

Beckett had the decency to look embarrassed, but whether it was for throwing away the boxers or bringing it up in mixed company was anybody's guess. "Colonel, you can see through them. There's no point in wearing any if you're going to wear those."

"How lucky can they be if you've ended up in the infirmary in them on multiple occasions?" asked Rodney, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or be disgusted by the conversation.

"But I've never died or almost died in them. It's always something like this, a broken arm or shot in the leg. Besides, when my chopper went down in Afghanistan behind enemy lines and I actually made it out alive, that's what I was wearing."

Rodney grimaced. "I'm surprised you didn't save the rest of the uniform to go along with it. And just for the record, I think it's interesting that the man that doesn't believe in a bad luck charm happens to have lucky underwear."

John frowned a bit, finding it harder to concentrate and stay awake as the drugs began to take hold. "Actually, there wasn't enough left of the rest of the uniform. Too many holes and blood and burned spots." He decided to ignore the lucky underwear comment. His brain just felt too fuzzy to develop an appropriate rebuttal.

"Thanks for that lovely image," moaned McKay. "I think you're definition of lucky is slightly more warped that that of the average person."

John yawned and struggled to keep his eyes open. "Looked a lot worse than it was. Getting . . . kind of tired." He didn't really mind the lethargic feeling beginning to spread through him because it was taking the pain away.

Beckett smiled as he watched the tension lines easing and Sheppard beginning to relax into the pillows. "I think it's time to let the colonel rest, now. Why don't you go get some lunch and check back later."

Beckett watched from the foot of the bed as one by one they touched John on the shoulder or leg and let him know that they would be back later. He began drifting away himself when he heard John call Rodney back to the bed. Watching, he couldn't hear what Sheppard was saying, but at the end of his instructions, Rodney wrinkled his nose and said, "Ew!" very loudly. Beckett laughed and wondered if he should post a guard on garbage detail.

oOo

John was a bit startled when he opened his eyes to find Carson sitting beside his bed watching him. Their eyes locked briefly and John thought he saw worry lining the kind face. "Doc, are you . . . sitting there watching me sleep?"

Carson smiled, but it was superficial. "I was just taking a break and I knew you'd be waking soon. I wanted to talk to you without your entourage." Beckett briefly stood to adjust John's bed to more of a sitting position.

John tried to swallow, but his mouth suddenly felt dry. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"No, probably not. I took a blood sample and a small tissue sample from the mark on your chest yesterday. I got the lab results back a little while ago."

John shifted nervously under the covers, suddenly feeling cold and vulnerable. He pulled the blanket up farther on his chest with his good arm, carefully working around the cast. "What do they show?"

Beckett sighed. "Well, there were trace amounts of an unidentified chemical in your blood work. The same chemical was found in more concentrated amounts in the tissue sample. It appears it's being slowly absorbed through the skin, sort of like a time release system to keep a constant flow entering your body. I believe that's probably what's interfering with your body's temperature regulation."

"What else does it do?"

"Now that, I don't know. The chemical is unlike anything we've encountered so far, although the biochemists think it's probably a plant extract of some kind. It seems to be interacting with the Ancient gene in some way, but we haven't figured out how yet. Rodney's working on it right now."

John closed his eyes and brought his left hand up to rub his eyes. His head was really starting to pound and, on top of everything else, he was starting to itch again. He had already noticed that the red patches had faded, but not gone away entirely. He had a brief moment when he just wanted to lose it, to break down and yell or cry or just pound his head in frustration. Sucking in a deep breath, he scolded himself, trying to concentrate on the fact that he was the military head of Atlantis and as such, was not privy to falling apart at the seams. A little unraveling, maybe, but not falling apart.

"Colonel, you really aren't going to like the next part, but since we don't know exactly what this chemical is doing to you, I want you to stay in the infirmary until we get this sorted out." Beckett waited for the explosion, but to his surprise, there was none.

"Okay." The reply was soft and uncertain.

Beckett eyed his patient carefully. "I'm sorry, did you say okay?"

Sheppard shifted around again. "I said okay. Doc . . . I'm starting to wonder about this whole bad luck thing. This is a lot, even for me."

Beckett shook his head as he rubbed the side of his face. "Aye, that it is lad. I have no idea how a chemical could cause bad luck, but it does seem a might unlikely to be coincidence. I would say that perhaps your expecting bad luck was making you walk right into it, but there's no way you could have known or controlled any of these situations." He reached out to still Sheppard's hand as he scratched his hip.

John looked down sheepishly. "Sorry, guess I'm starting to itch again."

Beckett nodded. "Stay here and I'll get you something for that." The doctor got up and walked back into the drug room. As he was coming back out, some sort of blaring alarm he'd never heard before went off, making him jump and almost drop the pills he was carrying. Rushing back out into the infirmary, Beckett stopped dead in his tracks to stand open-mouthed and wide-eyed beside an equally shocked Marcy. "What the bloody . . . "

A giant mound of white foam sat almost like a large, lumpy snowman in John Sheppard's bed. One last glop fell from an opening in the ceiling to land on top of the pile, sliding down to reveal a few dark hairs beginning to stick out of the top. One side of the mass moved and a wad of foam was slung off to reveal a hand, which then moved up and made a downward swipe to uncover a face. The soggy bandage on his forehead was beginning to sag down over his eye as the adhesive failed, revealing little wisps of foam clinging to the dark stitches.

The wet, foam laced face that peered out from the white fluffy mass was a picture of misery. John spat some foam out of his mouth, grimacing as he proceeded to cough and gag. His dark eyes looked over at Beckett when he was able to breathe again.

"I . . . quit."

TBC