Thanks so much for your comments and reviews. It's wonderful to know that you're reading this, and what you think.

x-x

Rodney glanced at himself in his bathroom mirror and grabbed his toothbrush, getting ready for bed. Grimacing at his reflection, he started brushing.

He'd seen Heightmeyer again today. He still wasn't talking to her. Well, not much; not anything of importance. He'd answered her questions as briefly and succinctly as possible, offering nothing beyond the most basic details. After all, he didn't believe in psychiatry... Well, that wasn't precisely true. He'd had to see her in the past, and he'd found it somewhat helpful, but what he was going through was nothing that he couldn't deal with on his own. He just needed sleep, and maybe a little time to think.

Still, he went because he had to. Because if he didn't, they'd never clear him for duty.

Returning his brush to its glass, he finished up in the bathroom, then slid into bed. Heightmeyer had prescribed some sleeping pills, which she'd said might help him with the dreams. He'd taken two, just as she'd said, but he wasn't feeling particularly confident in their power.

Turning off the lights, he turned onto his side, and -

Rodney felt someone grab his arm, and he twisted in alarm. Heart pounding, breath harsh in his ears, he tried to see where he was. He had no idea where he was. He blinked and his vision tunnelled outward, and he saw Sheppard standing nearby.

The lab. He was in the lab, and -

Rodney cocked his head, puzzled. John's mouth was moving, and he was saying something to him, his eyes showing his alarm.

Rodney felt something slip from his grasp and looked down. There was a knife there on the floor, its blade slick with blood. It looked like his own Leatherman, the one he kept at the bottom of his drawer. Vision greying, he looked up to see John tap his radio and speak, but he couldn't understand the words.

Rodney dropped to the floor and sat, cross legged, staring down at his hands.

Blood again, he thought, his heart beating frantically. What was all the blood from?

With his peripheral vision, he caught John's foot as he kicked the knife away. Rodney smiled. "Good idea," he may have said.

He stared at the blood on his hands as he waited for Carson.

x-x

Rodney could tell he'd been sedated from the feeling of it. Drugs like that left him lethargic, his thinking dopey, and he hated them. He tried to raise his hands but the sharp tug of restraints stopped him, and he hissed at the pain in his arms.

He remembered in a rush: the lab, John there, and then getting to the infirmary and freaking out, but nothing after that.

He remembered cutting himself now, back in the lab. It had actually seemed quite logical at the time. He'd been going stir crazy, and he had been drinking, and he'd taken those pills. So, maybe he wasn't sedated. Maybe how he was feeling was simply a combination of all of that. Maybe he was still kind of out of it. But he hadn't been too far-gone to break through the lock on his room's door, or to make it to his lab.

He'd been working on figures there, calculations, and he couldn't find any paper.

He remembered John's face when he walked into the lab, obviously looking for him.

He'd been very, very drunk, and very, very stupid. "Gonna do something like that, not in public," he said, realising that he was whispering aloud only as the slurred worlds came forth. "Gotta do it where no one can find you."

He tried to lift his hand, giggling when he realised that he'd again forgotten about the restraints. He'd just wanted to see what he'd "written" on his arms. He wondered if the scars would fade away, or if he'd always be left with his random scribbling.

All of that seemed more than a bit mad, thinking about it now. It certainly was unlike him. The drinking, the anger, the...everything, lately. He supposed he should be worried, but he wasn't, and he was not sure if that from the drugs or something else.

He heard rustling just as Carson came into view.

"Rodney," Carson said, eyes on the monitors beeping away above him. "Good to see you back with us."

Rodney went right into it, never one to beat about the bush. "Something's wrong with me, but I can't figure out..." He lifted his head, and let it fall back with each of his next words.

"What"

"It"

"Is."

He pulled against the restraints.

"Rodney, everything will be all right." Carson signalled to someone across the room, and Rodney saw a medic come to his side.

He watched as the medic inserted something into his IV line, injecting a clear liquid into the tube going into the back of his hand. "No, it won't," Rodney said, just as the medication hit and he spun away.

x-x

Please review and let me know what you think of this so far. Thanks!