Chapter 8
Sheppard knew only one thing for sure at this particular point in time. He felt good. Damn good. Codeine good. Someone could have hit him on the head with sledge hammer and he would have smiled and said, "Thanks". He also seemed to want to share everything. All that stuff he normally didn't talk about happily spilled out his mouth sans editing. But so far Royce hadn't exactly asked him anything interesting. Just some questions from his childhood that weren't even vaguely alarming. He'd talked about his bike, and Scamp the cat. There were summer vacations, and he recalled the times when he'd tried eating a Popsicle fast enough that the melting ice wouldn't roll down his hand, leaving it tacky from the sugar. If he'd had any rational part left, it would have picked up on the fact that so far he hadn't been asked much about his life beyond the age of ten.
He tapped out some drum beats on the bedside table, felt tired. Maybe he should take a nap. He closed his eyes, yawned.
"Sorry, Colonel, it's not time for a nap yet." That was Royce again. Good old Royce.
"I'm tired." And he was.
"Let me give you something and that might help you stay awake." Okay, if Royce wanted to make him feel good for longer, that was just fine by him. He helpfully held out his hand again, for injection number three and noticed Carson had slipped back into the room.
"Carson's back," he said. Just to state the obvious. He waved again. He liked Carson. Carson may have tried to shoot down his helicopter with drones but it wasn't deliberate, so that was okay. Sheppard was a forgiving guy when he wanted to be.
Beckett gave him a small smile, but seemed distracted. Maybe there had been trouble with the whole bathroom trip. Sheppard giggled to himself because the thought was funny. Royce was injecting the drugs again, and he ignored the slight burn in his veins because he really wanted another hit but this wasn't like the first or second shot at all. In fact it woke him up too much and it made him feel agitated. Everything was beginning to ache. He shifted uncomfortably. Decided abruptly, that he didn't like Royce. Come to think of it, had he liked him before all of the drugs?
"What the fuck are you still doing here?" He wiped a hand over his eyes, tried to wake up some more. Royce was an asshole.
Royce was grabbing a fourth syringe. He'd had enough of that, he decided. This time he didn't willingly hand over his arm. Instead he tried twisting his hand out of Royce's grip.
"No. I don't want any more."
Royce grabbed his hand back again. Sheppard started to struggle, thought it was time to run. Royce turned his head back towards Carson.
"I need some help here, Dr. Beckett."
Carson seemed slightly distracted, but came over anyway. Sheppard had two people to be pissed off at.
"You can cut that shit out, Carson! You are not touching me. Did you hear me, Carson?"
"Sorry about this, Colonel," said Beckett, and made a grab for his arm, held it still for Royce and Sheppard was really ramping up now, getting ready to throw them off, but he had two guys holding him down, and Royce pushed the drugs, and it was different again.
The anger was blown away, like dandelions in a summer's breeze.
"Oh," he said. Pleasantly shocked. He heard Royce explaining something to Carson in the background but was much too hazy to care. Couldn't concentrate much at the moment. Although he did spot Beckett handing over a note to Royce. It was like High School. All those girls passing notes backwards and forwards. Royce read the note and didn't say a thing, but he frowned. Sheppard thought frowning in Royce was probably a bad sign.
Royce went back to the stool, sat down to go back to asking questions, and Sheppard thought he didn't mind the questions.
"I think you reacted to the last batch I gave you. It happens sometimes."
"That's okay." Because it was. Everything was back to being good again. Nothing to worry about. Just hanging out with his friends.
"I was thinking we should talk about what happened on MX-twenty-one-forty-zero."
He wondered briefly if he should reply but so far the question was innocuous enough. Nothing too hard there. "We went on a trading mission but they didn't have much except for alcohol."
"Did you go straight back to Atlantis after the mission?"
"No. We'd had too much to drink. The villagers were friendly. Said we could set up camp in the woods without any problems. They seemed reluctant to let us stay though. Something about the accommodation being full."
"You set up camp in the woods." Royce he noticed, seemed to be talking to him and keeping his eye on the laptop and the pretty colors. Royce reached over and tapped a few keys.
"Yeah. Had our sleeping bags in our packs. McKay complained the whole way. Did you know he complains far more when he's tipsy?"
"I can imagine. Keep going."
"We made a fire, got settled down for the night. Ronon volunteered to take the first watch, which was great. The man's got a liver of stone. Three drinks didn't even affect him. I'd been avoiding any alcohol but I think the villagers were slipping me some in the what they laughing called fruit juice. I should have just stuck with water. They probably thought it was funny."
"Then what happened?"
"I was just going to doze and, um, then…" He stopped. He couldn't remember clearly. Royce was looking at the monitor on the device that was supposed to view memory traces. Or whatever.
"Then?" Royce prompted.
Sheppard tried again. He wanted to tell Royce what he knew but unexpectedly nothing was making sense. The images jumbled, adrenaline slammed into him, he could feel his heart beating like the heart of a scared rabbit.
"There's uh, something. Something happened. I was by the fire. Now I'm not. I'm… I don't know where I am." And he didn't except that this place was cold and dimly lit and he couldn't see much. But he could hear. Someone or something was moving around. Skittering around. Swiftly, the pitter patter of tiny feet. A sound like worms in a bait bucket, twisting together. He was being dragged, nothing gentle about it. He couldn't coordinate himself to get out of their grip.
He heard, far away, Royce's voice mutter, "Yes. There it is. It looks intact but weak. I think I can enhance it…"
The feeling of well being that had been there only moments before was melting. The feeling wasn't replaced by anger. Just fear. It wasn't the fear he'd felt in combat or been trained to ignore. This was different. It was paralyzing. It shoved him left and right, kept him off balance.
"Describe what you can for me."
Sheppard shook his head. If he described what he recalled, it would make it real and he didn't want it to be real. He was flat on his back, tied down, he couldn't move. He was groggy, kept passing out, then he'd wake up. They were doing things to him. He could see the movement out of the corner of his eyes. The things that were making the skittering sounds. He'd been slammed onto a bone cold metal table like a sack of potatoes. His shoes were gone, his jacket, all of his clothes. Child like hands taking the time to undress him, strange and stranger because if you were going to kill someone, why bother?
He pushed himself from the table, strained to get up, was all uncoordinated movements, drunk from alcohol and whatever the aliens had given him or used on him.
They were surprised that he'd managed to get upright, but he couldn't see them clearly. Just shapes moving in the background, out in the shadows, away from the bright lights that shone directly on him. He tried to run, but his feet kept hitting bits and pieces, roughness – he cut his feet. In his haste to leave, he didn't watch where he was going but now he did and he was chilled. Fragments of glass, dirt, leaves, clothing, fasteners, clumps of hair, data pads, pens, smashed corner of equipment, a child's toy, broken bone of an animal, putrid liquids. He was stepping through the shattered remains and lives of others who had been here before him.
He couldn't afford to stop, couldn't find a way out, couldn't get himself to move fast enough out of this hell hole. Hands grabbed at him. They should have been too small to hold him that hard, to hurt him that much. Their fingers dug into him. They seemed amused by his attempt, or at least he thought that's what they were doing. A strange hiccupping noise that might have been laughter. They were less amused when he swung around, used his fists and nails to rake across the skin of one of his captors. The hands punched him, pulled him, dragged him, brought back their amusing new pet.
He was bodily picked up and thrown, smashed back onto the table, face first, the force bruising him, knocking he breath out of him.
"I know this seems frightening, but it's just a memory. Keep going." Royce's voice cut through the scene playing in his head.
There was nothing to do but curl himself in his bed and try to ignore the smell. "I know what this is," he said. He didn't know who he was talking to.
The smell was familiar. A stench. He knew that one well enough. Death. It was the smell of dead and decaying bodies, bloated, discarded. He was in a charnel house, next one on the heap.
Instinctively he held one side of his face. There was a tube being forcibly inserted up his nose, it hurt. A bony finger was trying to get him to open his mouth and when he wouldn't a piece of metal went between his teeth and they forced it open anyway, and something in him was vain enough to not want them to break his teeth, so he stopped resisting. They stuck some goop in there, it almost choked him and it tasted God awful. Everything hurt and he couldn't fathom why. They stuck his arm with a needle.
He twisted away from Royce, huddled further down in the bed.
"I know it's scaring you, but I want you to tell me what's happening," Royce's voice seemed more insistent.
"Don't make me." Don't make me do this, because I don't think I'm going to be able to put myself back together.
"Remember what your Dad used to say to you John? About the monsters?"
What? Where had that come from? His Dad? Yeah, Royce knew more about Sheppard than he let on. Seemed a minor problem compared to the other memories careening around. "I think. Yeah, maybe. He said there were no monsters under the bed."
"Why did he say that?"
"I was scared. I thought something lived under my bed when I was little. He gave me a torch and said that nothing could out run the light, so if I shone the light under there, real quick, and there was nothing there, they couldn't have been there in the first place." Somehow, despite his father's best attempts, it had only partially helped. But he knew his father was desperately trying, and John wanted to please him, so he kept a tight grip on the torch at night and pretended that whatever his father said, worked. Any kid knew that monsters were real. Any kid knew they really did move that fast.
"Whatever you're feeling, that's just a memory. They can't hurt you, that's over and in the past. But we need to know that Atlantis is going to be okay, that Earth is still safe. Do you know what they wanted, or who they were?"
Darkness. Not dark. He figured he was drifting in and out of consciousness. They were drugging him, he thought. Maybe. His ankles tied down, his wrists tied down. He twisted and twisted and they wouldn't come loose. He couldn't seem to breath on his own any more. Machines made sounds. Hissing. Clanking. Breath forced into his lungs. Breath forced out. They were killing him. Or he was all ready dead. His right sinus hurt like hell, like the time he'd had a massive sinus infection. He lay there and his body demanded that he shift positions and he couldn't, and sometimes he slept, sometimes he didn't. When he jerked back into wakefulness, he was back in a nightmare instead of the other way around. He wondered why he wasn't thirsty. His hunger burned off and on. Maybe there were feeding him.
He woke again, didn't know what day, what hour it was. Same movements past his eye, swift, a flash. He risked turning his head to the side, even though he wasn't sure if he could manage the movement. Took forever, turned it, thought he should get a good look at his captors, even though it was probably the last thing he should do. Ignorance just might be bliss in this case.
The creature was an Asgard. No, wait, wrong. Not an Asgard. Same height. Skin more gray. Head didn't have that dome on the back. The creature was bent over a tray of instruments. Sharp. All sharp and glinting in whatever light source there was. The creature stopped working, seemed to sense it was being observed. Turned around.
Eyes like a human's in a gray, pallid face with no nostrils, just slits, and a mouth with teeth, all tiny and it smiled sadistically at him just like Death would smile, when Sheppard eventually got around to meeting him.
It terrified him. This was not Steven Spielberg's ET. No cuteness here. No friendly hellos. The creature advanced on him, seemed amused that Sheppard had bothered to try and look. Sheppard felt small hands clutch at his hair, roughly yank his head back. Once more he was staring at the ceiling. No, not a ceiling. Just a big open space that seemed to go on forever. Bizarre sculptures were hanging on the sides. Stuck there like big humanoid butterflies. Arms stretched out, legs stretched out. Mouths open. Some bloated, skin mottled, peeling off. Bones showing through. Eyes shriveled and blind. Not sculptures. People. People long dead and some not so long dead. Another creature moved to assist. They were doing something else; he could feel steel touching the sides of his head. They were clamping his head down. That explained it. They were screwing the clamp tighter and tighter so that he couldn't move.
The creature that had turned into the main magician's assistant was holding the eyelids of his right eye open. Shit, shit. No. The main creature, the main bad guy, a mutant troll doll, dropped a dollop of the same goop they'd stuffed into his mouth and even though he couldn't see the same, it didn't take a genius to recognize just what was coming at him. That's why they had his head clamped down. A needle. Long needle. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't, throat stuffed and clogged with a tube, being forced to breath and he didn't want to breath anymore, he wanted to be dead because then he wouldn't be here for this. He tried going somewhere else, somewhere safe. Antarctica. Snow. He couldn't concentrate long enough to stay there. The assistant creature just kept holding his eyelid open and he realized that his right eye had been paralyzed and okay, they were going to plunge it in there, and they did and he started trying to scream, and scream and for some reason he could understand them and they were telling him things, secrets, that he needed to be good, and he couldn't-
-Someone was screaming and wouldn't be quiet. Kept screaming. There was movement around him, feet running. Voices. Every. Where. Sting of a drug in his veins. Whoever was doing that should stop it. He was struggling, he had to run, get away, hands kept holding him. In the background the cardiac monitor seemed to be registering its protests at his too fast heart rate.
He heard a Scottish accent somewhere in the chaos. Something familiar he could latch onto. "John, it's okay. You need to be still for me, let me help you here."
He didn't want to be still, couldn't be still. They were here, they knew. No, not here in the room, but they were here. They knew everything. They'd told him what would happen if he was bad.
Somebody else was in the room too. Another familiar voice.
"I don't want to alarm anyone unnecessarily, but that signal isn't so random any more."
"Yes, thank you Rodney, that's not helpful at the moment. Grab a leg."
A hand was on Sheppard's chin, turning his gaze, trying to get him to focus. "John, it's Dr. Beckett. Remember? You want to look at me here for just a minute?"
John did manage to get himself to try and see who was speaking. The person was a blurry image but Carson's features eventually swam back into view. He knew Carson. Carson was okay. Carson was familiar and if it was Carson, then today must be Wednesday. No, that wasn't right. That meant he was in Atlantis.
"Doc."
"The one and only."
He licked his lips. They were dry. His mouth was dry. Voice shot for some weird reason. "Um… Something happened."
"Aye. It did."
He was exhausted. Energy was running out of him like water spiraling down a plug hole. He could sleep for a week with or without drugs. The arms that were holding him down seemed to vanish and that was good. He rolled over, curled himself up because he was cold.
"Tired." Simple statement of fact. That was all he was capable of. He'd started shaking.
"Aye, I imagine you are. You're probably going to sleep for a good while."
The shaking wouldn't go away. His teeth were chattering. Knocking together like he was sitting outside McMurdo base in his underwear. Someone started pulling a warming blanket over him, switched it on. Carson pulled an ear thermometer out of his pocket.
"I'm just going to get a reading here, Colonel. Hold still for a wee second."
Even though Carson had warned him, and moved slowly, he still jumped when he felt the metal touch against the inside of his ear. There was a beep a few seconds later. Carson checked the readout, didn't react.
"Your body temperature dropped slightly. Nothing to worry about. You'll warm up soon."
Between the shaking Sheppard managed to squeeze out a question. "Where'd Royce go?"
"He's gone to see Elizabeth."
Carson was pulling more blankets over him. He didn't have the energy to take over and complete the action himself, couldn't stop himself shaking, and it seemed he was overcome with a pathetic inability to perform simple tasks for himself. Carson held a straw to his lips.
"Drink this. It'll help your throat, and make you feel better."
He didn't have the reserves left to tell Carson he was an adult and the last thing he needed was a bendy straw in a plastic cup, but thirst told him otherwise. He sucked back a mouthful, it was like watered down orange juice, didn't care and concentrated on emptying the cup as rapidly as he could in between bouts of shivering. The blankets were helping and he was warming up enough that the shaking seemed to ease up. Carson poured him another. This time it was water. He dispatched that fairly quickly as well, not slowing until half way to the bottom. He finished the rest at a leisurely pace. Watched as Carson put the cup down on the bed table.
"Do you think you could go to sleep?"
Sheppard nodded slightly. The shaking was almost gone so that was a stupid question. He was almost asleep as it was. Simple stuff. Simple. He felt himself drift off.
((--))
Carson watched as Sheppard's breathing evened out. Considering the number of drugs he'd been given, it wouldn't surprise him if the man was out for ten hours at a minimum.
Richard was back in the room, Rodney had barreled in without asking around the time Sheppard started screaming his head off. There were two more nurses from the infirmary area who had joined Rodney without asking. Royce however, hadn't stayed around to help. He'd injected Sheppard with yet another drug, seemed to think his job was done and left Carson to clean up the mess.
Carson thought he'd be making a mess of his own in about thirty minutes. The mess would probably be from the result of Carson pummeling Royce within an inch of his life if he got near him. Not that Carson was a violent guy, and he didn't start fights but was more than capable of defending himself if he had too. Doctors didn't work the A&E night shift without getting more than enough experience in holding down violent patients. Carson figured he could get the satisfaction of getting off at least one good shot before Royce killed him with some patented CIA death grip.
Rodney was standing to one side, his expression grim, keeping quiet. A quiet Rodney was an upset Rodney but he'd have to wait because Carson had some work to do. He beckoned to Richard and the other nurses.
"Colonel Sheppard is probably going to be out for a while. Under no circumstances is he to be left alone. I want a nurse with him at all times. He's still going to have to be turned every two-hours as per the normal routine. I don't need to remind you that he's going to be strung tight, and the last thing I need is for anyone to get punched again. Make sure you talk to him before you do anything at all, even if he's asleep. If I see him in restraints you'd better be telling me that he was about to kill himself, because that's all I'll accept as an excuse."
Richard asked another question. "Do you want him sedated if he does wake up?"
"No. He's got enough junk in his body as it is. There's to be no drugs at all until I'm sure he's metabolized what's there. When he wakes up, get a urine sample down to the lab."
Richard nodded, bustled over to the bed and started clearing up.
"Oh, and any remaining drugs that Royce had, I want that packaged and sent down to Dr. Biro for analysis. I'm going to presume that neither he, nor the IOA is going to give me the courtesy of telling me what I'm dealing with."
With the nurses fully occupied, Carson turned his attentions back to Rodney. Rodney seemed to be thinking some options through.
"If we don't figure out what that signal's doing, we could be in big trouble."
"You think so?" Carson's reply was sarcastic. He had more then enough to worry about without wondering whether Atlantis was about to be overrun by aliens. Again.
Rodney didn't get a chance to reply. Elizabeth's voice echoed in both their ears. "Rodney, Carson, I need to see you. Right now."
"We'll be right there," replied Rodney.
Carson spared a glimpse back at Sheppard, out for the count. There wasn't much more he could do here.
Sometimes he entertained the idea of asking for a transfer back to Earth. Admittedly they'd never let him go back to his old, blissfully ignorant life where he kept fighting the good fight and truly believing he was of some benefit to the world but maybe he could just hole up at SGC and that would be that. At least he could visit his family every so often. He didn't think it was much to hope for.
Was it?
((--))
Elizabeth Weir had decided to drop any pretence of being a diplomat, or for that matter, someone with manners. Royce, she had decided, was an unrepentant Black Ops prick and the sooner she got him out of Atlantis, the happier she'd be.
He'd turned up in her office to share his conclusions with her. He was excited, hell, he was even happy. Apparently it was a job well done because he'd concluded that yes, Atlantis was probably in the firing line again. Of course, he wasn't entirely sure how but if she gave him a few more days, a few more rounds with Sheppard, he could figure it out.
She'd called in two marines around that point and told him if he left her office she'd have him shot on sight. He smiled at her with that patented smirk that said she didn't understand quite who she was dealing with and she'd almost had him shot for that alone.
"I think you're forgetting Dr. Weir. I'm under direct orders of the IOA and therefore the President. What do you think they're going to say when I make my report?"
She was past the point of politeness. "You're presuming you're going to make it back. It was a rather unfortunate accident. Inexplicably, you seemed to have lost your balance on one of the balconies and fallen into the ocean. According to the autopsy results, you drowned. As long as they don't look too hard they won't realize you drowned as a result of having your head held down."
One of the marines edged closer, and Royce, for what was the presumably the first time in his life, paled and sat down.
He'd shown her the paper trace of Sheppard's EEG. Yes, they had a problem. She called Carson and Rodney up to her office. She needed their opinion because she trusted them implicitly to give her the right answers. Unlike Royce.
When they'd walked into her office, Carson had given Royce a look that said he thought Royce was the equivalent of dog shit.
They didn't bother to sit down. Neither man wanted to go anywhere near Royce, who'd gone back to sitting in his chair with a studied and disturbing calmness. Even the marines didn't seem to faze him, or if they did, he was good at hiding it.
"I need some explanations gentlemen."
Rodney started speaking, looked guilty. "The signal started showing up when Sheppard showed up. It mimicked the usual random traffic noise but it was new, so I thought it was a quirk in the algorithm. I'm sorry Elizabeth, it just didn't occur to me to check the signal further."
"Rodney, you weren't to know. The question is, what are we going to do?"
Carson put in his two cents worth. "We're going to have to scan him. See if we can't locate some sort of transmission device. The Ancient scanners are efficient, so we should be able to find it."
Rodney bent forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his thighs, deep in thought. "Okay, that's not so bad. I can figure that out. Even if it's cloaked or something weird, we might be able to triangulate a position using a change in power. Maybe. Although it's going to be a small transmitter." He abruptly straightened up, snapped his fingers. "Yeah, okay, this might work. Get some Ancient nannites, program them to seek out any targets that aren't biological in nature, or don't match Sheppard's cell structure. Get them to tag it as soon as they find whatever 'it' is. I can also work on a way of blocking the signal. I think." Rodney paused briefly before finishing his topic of conversation. "You know this might also explain why he can't use Ancient technology."
Carson stared at Rodney. Well, that's why he was on this mission. Radical genius and all that. "It might work Rodney, but I'd prefer the scanning route first, if you don't mind. I don't think he needs another medical crisis."
"Oh. Sure. No problems, Carson. You try that first. I'll go and start working on the nannites as backup."
Elizabeth nodded. "Go ahead but Rodney, make sure the nannites are safe."
Rodney looked insulted. "Like I'm going to use anything that could hurt Sheppard."
"I know, Rodney. I trust you," said Elizabeth because she did. For all his bluster, when it came down to the crunch, Rodney always came through and this time, more than ever, they needed a miracle save. John needed a miracle save.
Rodney and Carson left her, alone with Royce. He dug around in his pockets, pulled out a cigar.
"Mind if I smoke?"
"Yes, actually, I do."
He lit the damn thing up anyway.
((--))
Carson walked down the corridors with Rodney in tow. Rodney abruptly stopped.
"When are you going to do the scan?"
Carson regarded Rodney for a moment, hoped the man didn't take him to task for his next suggestion. "When he wakes up."
"Carson, that could be hours from now. We don't know what's going to happen."
"Don't you think perhaps if Atlantis was about to be taken over, or blown up, the aliens would have done it by now? Anyone that can plant a transmitter on someone is waiting for something. Maybe they're planning on waiting for a wee bit longer."
"Wouldn't it be kinder to do it when he's asleep?"
"I'm not sedating him, Rodney, and considering all he's been through I don't want him waking up in the middle of any medical procedure, no matter how innocuous."
"Yeah, makes sense," said Rodney. Then he sighed. "This entire day has been crap."
"Sums it up."
"What are we going to do if we can't fix this, Carson? I think I can block the signal but to do that all of my solutions involve locking Sheppard up in a shielded room. That's not good."
"We'll figure it out. Don't worry. We always do."
"One day, our luck is going to run out."
"Rodney, you've always maintained it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with your amazingly big brain."
"I lied. It's ninety-nine percent my amazingly big brain and one percent pure luck. The luck portion always worries me."
"You don't strike me as someone who thinks there's such a thing as luck, or synchronicity, or whatever. I thought everything could be explained by statistical probabilities."
"Carson, if it was all down to statistics, there would be a lot more happy people around. For whatever reason, the Universe usually conspires against us all."
"That's not exactly an upbeat life philosophy."
"Since when did life ever give anyone, except a small minority, a break?"
"How do you explain the minority?"
Rodney broke into a small smile at that. "They're in league with the devil."
He didn't bother to hang around for Carson's reply and Carson couldn't figure out whether Rodney was being serious or not and then thought Rodney was probably joking. Probably. Still, now he knew why Rodney spent every week in Kate's office. The man had a seriously depressing belief system at work.
((--))
Teyla had been requested by Carson to come down to the infirmary early in the morning. He didn't give her a full explanation until she arrived, except to tell her that a familiar face would be welcome. They'd tried to keep Sheppard's privacy intact, keep the number of people involved to a minimum but it seemed Carson needed the help, and so did Sheppard. Rodney was indisposed, trying to figure out how to block the alien signal.
She sat in a chair, opposite the bed. Sheppard was still sleeping. The night has been rough on him. Every time the nurses had attempted to roll him over, even though they talked to him, let him wake up, their touches sent his heart rate through the roof, left him in a cold sweat. He tried hard not to let them know, but he would bite his bottom lip, stifle the cry before it could escape. He was having difficulties and it was obvious to everyone.
Teyla had only met Hermiod briefly and even though intellectually she knew this was nothing to do with Hermiod's race of people, the fact that Sheppard's torturers were related to the Asgard made her doubt that the Asgard were as benevolent as they claimed.
She sat in a chair and worked on the Athosian version of crocheting. The nurse that was in the room – his name was Richard - had briefly left to get a cup of coffee. She'd never been particularly good at this venerated art and she'd never let anyone see her attempts to sew up a never ending supply of misshapen and odd shaped squares and circles. Still, it was a hobby that made a change from fighting. Or running. She completed a stitch with some concentration. She decided if she couldn't get the next stitch to work, she'd give up and cram it back in the bag she'd brought with her.
"What'cha doing?"
She looked up. Sheppard was awake. Still seemed groggy but pleased to see her.
It was too late to hide her attempts at a more tranquil hobby. She held it up so he could see better. Her efforts had created a pattern that resembled the web of a drunken spider.
"It's called daetrek. My grandmother taught it to me, but I am afraid even after all these years, I have yet to master it."
He regarded her crocheting with a bemused expression. "It's very original. What do you do with it after you finish?"
"I am supposed to assemble them into more useful items. Some of the other women make blankets."
"I imagine there's a lot of hats and scarves sets for Christmas."
Teyla didn't get the reference, so instead she smiled and put the crocheting away.
"Do you feel better this morning?"
"Depends on what you mean by the word better. I'm okay, if that's what you mean."
Richard came back into the room, saw that Sheppard was awake. Gave them both that patented, reassuring medical professional smile. "Hey, good morning. I'll just go and get Dr. Beckett."
Sheppard grimaced. "I'm over the whole poking and prodding thing. Do me a favor Teyla. Grab a wheelchair and break me out of here."
"I do not think Dr. Beckett would be pleased if I did that."
"Damn right I wouldn't be pleased." The man in question has just entered, wearing the same smile as Richard and forcibly cheerful. He came over to the bed, glanced at the monitors, and dug his stethoscope out of his coat pocket. Idly warmed up the business end on his shirt, as per usual. "Just wanted to give you a quick check-up, make sure you're okay."
"I'm fine, Carson. Quit worrying."
"I'm your doctor. Worrying is second nature to me when it comes to you, Colonel. Sit up for me and lift up your shirt."
Sheppard did as he was told, sat up and forward, got his t-shirt out of the way. Carson approached him carefully. "I'm just going to listen to your breathing, you'll feel me touch your back."
Carson was usually very careful with his patients, always taking time to explain the procedures, but this was excessive even for Carson. Teyla watched as Sheppard closed his eyes and seemed to be fighting not to pull away as soon as Carson came anywhere near him. He managed to sit still, take deep breaths as instructed. He flinched when Carson took his temperature.
"Colonel, I've got some technicians waiting outside and they're going to bring in the scanner. You've had one before, right?"
Sheppard nodded, seemed unsure at this piece of news.
Carson continued. "It doesn't hurt and it's over quickly. You don't have to do anything, just lie still. Remember?"
"Sure. I remember. It's okay, Carson. I'm not going to freak out."
"I didn't think you would. Just wanted to make sure you knew what was going on." Carson hit his radio button. "You can come in."
Two technicians wheeled the scanner in, which everyone jokingly called the Whiteboard. Because that's exactly what it looked like. A big glowy whiteboard. In fact, it looked so much like a whiteboard that Carson had been forced to attach a note to the device that explained it was not in fact a whiteboard and would the science teams please stop drawing flowcharts on the scanning surface.
Teyla stepped out of the way and moved her chair back towards the wall. The two technicians started the scanner up, pushed it closer to the bed. All they really had to do was pull it along at a set speed, along the length of Sheppard's body. Carson loved this particular piece of Ancient technology. He'd explained the differences between the scanner and the MRI to her, presumably for the sake of conversation. The scanner was non invasive and patients barely had to hold still for five minutes, unlike the twenty to ninety for an MRI. Even non claustrophobic patients struggled with being stuck in an MRI, and the earplugs and headsets given to patients did nothing except slightly muffle the noise generated by the gradient magnets being opposed by the main electrical field. Even better, the position of the patient was unimportant. The scanner worked whether the patient was sitting up, standing up, or lying down. At least, that's what he'd told her.
The technicians started pulling the scanner, and Sheppard concentrated on keeping himself still. Carson kept out of the way too, giving the scanner one clear object to scan. He monitored progress on his laptop. "Yes. That's good. Can you just keep it there for a few moments longer? I need a clear series of his head."
The technicians paused and no one was perturbed, or upset. Sheppard took a few deep breaths, seemed to be coping well.
Then she noticed his eyeballs rolling up into his head.
"Dr. Beckett!"
At exactly the same time, the heart monitor started screaming again. Not because his rate was too high but because his rate was dropping like a stone. The technicians hurriedly pulled the scanner out of the way, Carson was yanking the bed back so that Sheppard was lying prone, throwing the pillows under his head to the floor, leaving just one, listening intently with his stethoscope.
"Christ! He's not breathing." Carson reached over, hit the call button for all he was worth, whirled on Teyla. "Go and get me some nurses. Right now!"
She ran out the door, Carson yelled something at the technicians. Nurses were all ready running towards the room and they piled in there, in a manner not unlike someone about to do battle with the Wraith.
Teyla watched the doors close and she did not go back.
((--))
Carson had a healthy patient who had suddenly and inexplicably gone sour on him. Bradycardia, breathing non existent. He'd pulled an ambu-bag, placed it over Sheppard's mouth and started squeezing before handing over to Richard. He went through the basics, tilted Sheppard's head. First primary point of care - making sure his patient could still breath. The heart rate wasn't good, but the heart was still beating and that was the main thing. As long as it was pushing blood around, however, feebly, that meant some air could get to the organs and the brain. Although at the rate it was plummeting, that wasn't going to be for long.
"What's his O2 doing?" He didn't direct the question at anyone in particular. Someone had clipped a pulse oximeter onto Sheppard's finger.
"Ninety one."
Not terrific, but it was good enough under the circumstances. The chest was rising, so he was getting oxygen, nothing seemed to indicate any blockages or swelling, but he sure as hell wasn't breathing spontaneously. He turned his attentions back to the heart rate, sitting down at an alarming 10 bpm. If Sheppard didn't pick himself up, even intubating him wasn't going to make any difference. Thank God he'd still kept the peripheral line and the saline lock in place.
"Someone start an IV running and get me a milligram of atropine."
He glanced up at the two technicians, standing around awkwardly, the scanner still off to one side. "And could you get that thing out of the room? It's cluttering the place up."
The technicians nodded, grabbed it and hauled it outside. Someone handed over the syringe of atropine, one of his nurses had just run in a line, hooked up a bag of saline and was holding it with one hand. Carson went for the drug port to start injecting the contents, noticed a change in the heart rate. Held off on injecting.
The cardiac monitor showed the rate was picking up.
"Thank God." He kept his eye on the monitor. The rate climbed steadily, back up to sixty. About normal for Sheppard. Sheppard's color improved. He signaled to the nurse to stop the resuscitation, and he was enormously relieved and pleased to see that Sheppard had resumed breathing on his own.
That just left him with trying to figure out what happened. Patient goes downhill rapidly, and spontaneously recovers. Carson didn't like these particular conundrums as there was no way to know if it was a one off, or there was going to be a repeat performance. It did mean he'd have to keep a closer eye on Sheppard, and run some more tests.
"What happened?" Sheppard was awake, looking dazed and bleary eyed.
"You took a wee turn on us. But you're fine."
Sheppard seemed to take that answer at face value, maybe because he was still too out of it to question Carson further.
It was right then that Carson's brain seemed to pull a Rodney on him. All the pieces of scattered clues and information that had been floating around in his head seemed to coalesce together and it occurred to him that actually, he probably did know what the problem was.
He turned to Richard. "Son, go and grab that scanner and bring it back in here for me."
Richard did as he was told, returned quickly with the device. Carson turned his attentions back to Sheppard. "Sorry, Colonel, I just wanted to try this out one more time. We didn't get a good picture the first time."
It was a white lie. Carson was desperately hoping his theory was wrong. Nervously, he activated the scanner again, pushed it close to Sheppard, and replicated the movements of the two technicians.
Same result. Sheppard was out, the monitor was screaming, breathing gone, oxygen stats plummeting.
"Son of a bitch! Richard, get the damn thing out of here!"
Richard had it out of the room just as fast as he'd managed to bring it in. Another nurse had the ambu-bag in place, pushing air into still lungs. On the plus side, the effects were brief, twenty seconds at the most and Sheppard was coughing and awake rapidly.
"Man, this sucks," said Sheppard. He coughed again. Hard.
"Aye, lad. That it does."
((--))
Some days, bad news was about the only news available in Atlantis. This was one of those days. Carson had shared his latest findings with Rodney and Elizabeth. They were back in her office, Royce shipped off to some guest quarters to wait it out before they dialed up Earth and kicked his ass through the wormhole.
Rodney wasn't happy. Not happy at all because the news had just sunk his brilliant idea to use the nannites and the research had been going so well. They were programmed and nearly ready to be unleashed.
"So, " said Rodney. "Not only can he not use Ancient technology, but if we use any Ancient technology to try and remove the device, that thing inside of him is going to kill him."
"That would appear to be the size of it," said Carson.
Elizabeth asked the next question. "Was there anything on the scans at all?"
"Aye. There's some blurring in his right sinus. It looks vaguely like a shape, but it's too difficult to make out." Carson passed around the film he'd printed out. As he'd said. A small, indistinct irregular shape was sitting in Sheppard's right sinus. A not particularly clear sinus either. Fluid levels had built to half way.
"What's all this white stuff?" Rodney was good at many things, but reading x-rays, or any sort of output concerning the human body wasn't one of them. As a man who prided himself on having an IQ well on the right side of the bell curve, not being able to understand medical procedures aggravated him. Mind you, he always reminded himself that being jealous of a soft science like medicine was hardly something to worry about.
"His sinus is blocked. Presumably as a result of the device."
"Is there anyway to remove this thing?" Elizabeth again, with yet another good question. An obvious one, but the question had to be asked.
"I could perform sinus surgery. Try and remove it the old fashioned way."
Rodney shook his head. "If it almost killed him just because you scanned him, what's it going to do when you start trying to fish it out?"
"If the device is only programmed to react to Ancient technology, then maybe there's a chance we can remove it without setting it off."
Rodney thought Carson was being particularly optimistic and told him so. "We can't take that kind of risk Carson. Look, I know you want to help Sheppard but it's a long shot."
Beckett considered Rodney's response. "I know. You're right. I just can't stand the thought of him at the mercy of alien technology. Especially when we don't even know what it's all for."
"What's our next step?" Elizabeth had her hands clasped in front of her, leaning them on her desk. Carson knew she was trying to keep herself from pacing around the room.
Rodney sighed. There wasn't much they could do, at this point in time. "I can work on shielding Sheppard's room. At least we can block the signal. Then we go back to trying to determine how we get it out, although I get the feeling it's going to take a long time to come up with a solution."
"What happens while we're waiting for you to come up with an answer?" Yes, Elizabeth had all of the excellent questions and Rodney didn't even want to contemplate the answer.
"I guess we'd better ask the Athosians if they'd like a permanent house guest because I imagine the only way we're ever going to be safe, is to make sure that Sheppard isn't in Atlantis."
((--))