Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far – your feedback is much appreciated!
I struggled at times to really find McKay's voice in this chapter but hopefully I've got it somewhere close to right.
Please review and let me know your thoughts...
Sheppard sleeps a lot.
Carson's got him on what he calls "light sedation". Basically, he sleeps a lot. But he's not completely sedated, not like when he was in the medically-induced coma. He's tired and he's woozy but he seems to sleep mostly normally and he wakes up now and then and is able to eat and drink a little. I guess that's a preferable option to shoving yet another tube into him. I'm sure it'd get his vote if he were ever aware enough to give an opinion on the subject.
I think that's what worries me. I know Carson may lecture me that my doctorate is not in medicine but I know enough – I know more than he thinks. Light sedation. Hunh. Sheppard's not just sedated. He's not just sleepy. When he is awake he's disoriented, barely conscious at times. He can cope with simple instructions – hold a cup to his lips and he'll drink – but he's not really with us. I suspect Carson's got him on what I like to call the "good stuff". And that's what scares me. Because that means... Well. It means that this treatment, this transformation… is it painful for him?
He didn't seem to be in any pain when the retrovirus was changing him.. sure the physical manifestations were freaky and they had to keep loading him up with viral inhibitors just to keep him any kind of lucid. But he never complained of any pain. But then again, this is Colonel John Sheppard we're talking about here. Mr Stoical Endurance himself. The man who indulged in hand-to-hand combat with a ten thousand year old wraith and just shrugged off his injuries as "a couple of cracked ribs". Oh yeah, just a coupla cracked ribs. Nothing, right? What's a fracture or two between friends, eh?
I've had a cracked rib. They hurt.
I don't know if it's a military thing or if it's specifically a John Sheppard thing but, whatever, the man would smile and tell you he's "fine" if he were bleeding out of his eyes. Damn foolish if you ask me. Pain is there for a reason. It's the body's way of telling us there is something wrong – see a doctor! But not Colonel Sheppard, no sir. He'd rather suffer in silence.
Is that what he's doing? He's too dopey to talk properly, to really communicate. Is he suffering?
I hate this. I really hate it. I just want my friend back. Is that so much to ask? This whole retrovirus thing has been a nightmare from start to finish and I just want it to be over with now. I want him fixed, back the way he was. I want this to be over and done with and behind us. I want to forget what it was like seeing him slowly change into a monster, I want to forget his growing frustration and the fear he tried so hard to hide. I want to forget that he attacked Elizabeth, took down a security detail without blinking. Most of all I want to forget the blank, empty look in those freaky yellow eyes as we stood outside the iratus bug cave.
It's been five days since Ronon shot him outside that cave. Since we grabbed our belongings and ran for the gate, Sheppard slung limply over Ronon's shoulders, my heart pounding from exertion and from the sudden flush of hope – we'd got the eggs, Carson could save Sheppard.
The exhilaration of that dramatic moment has faded pretty quickly and we were left with.. waiting. Waiting for Carson and his team to brew up their cure, waiting to see if the treatment was going to work, waiting for Sheppard to get better. I'm sick of waiting.
There's a rustling sound from the bed and I can't help looking up hopefully. I expect to find Sheppard just shifting in his sleep but I'm surprised to find his eyes open and seeming to focus on me, his head turned sideways on the pillow. He still looks terrible, washed-out and pale, the blue tinge still slowly fading from his skin, but his eyes – his eyes are gloriously normal. Sleepy and vague and not entirely focused but 100 percent human. Round pupils – oddly dilated and fixed from the happy juice Carson's been pumping into him – and round irises of indeterminate colour. Completely human, completely John Sheppard.
He seems to look right at me and his mouth works for a moment but no sound comes out. I'm so happy that he's awake and seemingly aware that it takes me a moment to realise that he's trying to talk. Idiot. My fingers are suddenly clumsy as I fumble for the cup of water and hold the straw carefully to his lips. He sips slowly, weakly, and the effort seems to tire him. But he smiles woozily when I move the cup away and his voice, though faint and scratchy, works.
"Hey."
I'm vaguely aware that I have a foolish grin on my face but I can't seem to shake it. With any luck Sheppard is so drugged up that he won't remember much of this or what an idiot I'm making of myself.
"Colonel," I try for my usual formality but I can't keep a tremor out of my voice.
His eyes are drooping already. He's been in and out of consciousness since Carson revived him from the medical coma but, other than that first moment where Carson checked his cognitive functions, this is the first time he's really been anywhere close to aware of his surroundings or really tried to communicate. My silly grin fades just a little as I suddenly realise that this is the first time he's spoken to me in days.. about 6 days in fact. As the retrovirus had really taken hold, Sheppard had locked himself away in his quarters, refusing to see anyone. Elizabeth had ventured in there a couple of times – and look how well that turned out.
Since then he's been medicated – apart from the brief hour of consciousness when Carson practically OD'ed him on inhibitors and sent him through the gate in our last-ditch attempt to save his life. I remember the awful anxiety I'd felt as we'd gathered in the gate room, waiting for Sheppard to join us, and how I'd tried so hard to put on a positive, cheerful face for him.. only to find the words dying on my lips as he stared right through me with those cold, dead, bug eyes. He'd been awake and aware and – at least mostly – lucid. But he wasn't the John Sheppard I knew.
He hadn't spoken a word as we stepped through the gate, as we trekked up into the mountains, even when Carson and then Teyla had tried to give him instructions outside the cave. He'd been silent and cold, distant, and it had been hard to know if he was even still taking anything in, comprehending anything that was said to him. The only noise we heard out of him that day was the scream of rage as he burst from the cave, shouldering Ronon aside, only to drop, suddenly and silently, to the ground as the stunner beam hit him square in the back.
I am ridiculously pleased just to hear his voice again.
"You okay?" His voice is slow and sleepy, thick with drugs, his words mumbling and slurred.
I have to bite back a harsh laugh. Absolutely typical. Classic Colonel Sheppard. He's been to hell and back, had to watch his body slowly mutate into god knows what, lost his mind, attacked his friends, been drugged and restrained, loaded with stimulants, shot – twice! – operated on, hooked up to machines and monitors and tubes and pumped full of medication and sedatives.. and he asks me if I'm alright!
I'm fine. I'm great. I'm just peachy.
I'm sitting here feeling pleased that my best friend's eyes aren't yellow and slitted anymore, for god's sake! I feel like I want to punch him. All of the frustration and fear of the last six days and more wells up in me and I feel like I want to shout at the top of my voice, tell him just what I think of his damn heroics and this stupid, pointless martyr complex that makes him put his own safety last, makes him worry about others when he should be concerned about his own stupid hide, makes him think he has to protect everyone else, even if it gets him killed.
On the other hand.. it's so.. so normal, so absolutely John Sheppard, that I feel a laughter bubbling up in me that I strongly suspect is verging on the hysterical. A tiny giggle escapes me before I can clamp down on the hysteria and Sheppard's forehead creases in a befuddled frown.
"McKay..?"
He's struggling to keep his eyes from closing, concern etched on his face.
I swallow and my voice comes out tight and unnatural, an edge of emotion under the forced calm.
"I'm fine. We're all fine. You're the one everyone's worried about.."
Sheppard smiles tiredly and his eyes slide closed as he gives in to the influence of Carson's cocktail of medications, the tension leaving his muscles as he relaxes into the soft, white linen of his infirmary bed.
His voice is barely a whisper. "I'm good."
And for the first time since all of this began, I start to really believe that he is.
Well. He will be.
TBC...
