Chapter 6

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The group of four stormed into the control room and McKay practically pushed Chuck, who was manning the sensors, out of his chair. He started punching in commands while the rest watched. Woolsey saw them enter from his office and got up to find out what was happening. When none of them noticed his arrival, he cleared his throat. Lorne and Ronon turned to him while Zelenka looked over McKay's shoulder, neither of them paying any attention to what was happening around them. "Major? May I ask what is going on?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Woolsey, I should have come in and told you as soon as we knew what was going on but things happened too fast."

"What things?"

"Colonel Sheppard appears to be missing and Ronon found Teyla unconscious in her quarters. She's in the infirmary right now. Dr. Beckett suspects poisoning." Chuck's mouth dropped open as he quietly listened in, no one remembering he was even there.

"Poisoning? Do you think Colonel Sheppard did it and that's why he's gone missing?"

"What? No, no, no, no, we don't think that at all. Our prime suspect is a botanist by the name of Dr. Ruth Hanson. Her actions around the Colonel concerned me and I alerted Dr. McKay. I found some things in her history that raised alarms. Things that I think are so similar to what's going on now as to be more than coincidence." He filled Woolsey in on the professor and the accidents the professor's wife had encountered.

Woolsey frowned. "Are we sure that this woman is the reason why Colonel Sheppard is missing and that she perhaps had something to do with Teyla's condition? Everyone associated with the SGC undergoes a psychological evaluation. Do you have any proof?" He hated the idea that someone with a psychological disorder might have gotten past the tests and was now a threat to two people he considered friends.

Lorne answered. "Well, no concrete proof. But think about it. I'm pretty sure she wanted John all to herself and I know she was furious when I tried to butt in. Suddenly John's missing, not answering his radio and Teyla's unconscious, most likely due to poison. Seems a little coincidental to me."

"Where would she get something to poison Teyla with?"

McKay piped up, proving that he wasn't completely unaware of what was going on around him, just that he elected not to bother answering. "The woman is a botanist. She can probably whip something up in her lab from any number of plants she's brought here from some backwater planet." He said absently, entering more commands and frowning. He looked up at Zelenka, who looked stricken.

Lorne, watching them, felt a shiver go up his spine. "What?"

McKay turned and stared at him. "I can't find any sign of John's transmitter." He admitted after a few seconds.

Woolsey stepped forward. "You mean, he's no longer in the city?"

"No, it means I can't find it in any of the areas the sensors are working in. There are plenty of areas that we haven't fixed yet." He snapped his fingers again. "We can scan from the air. Take up a jumper and scan the whole damn planet if we have to."

Lorne nodded. "I'll take one up right now. McKay, you coordinate from here."

"Fine, go!"

Neither bothered to get Woolsey's permission. Not that he wouldn't have given it, he would've just like to have been consulted. He watched Lorne bolt up the stairs, Ronon on his heels. He knew the Satedan wouldn't be able to just sit around on Atlantis if his friend was in danger, so he wasn't surprised. Sighing, he turned back to watch the two scientists talk in that weird shorthand of theirs. Part technical babble, part finishing each other's thoughts in incomplete sentences, each understanding the other without effort. He thought about going back to his office but found he wanted to be here and see what happened. The transition from Colonel Carter to him as the expedition leader hadn't been smooth but Colonel Sheppard had stood by his side the whole way. He'd come to enjoy their talks, smiling slightly as he thought about how surprised some people would be if they found out what they talked about. The Colonel was a very smart and well educated man. Something he kept hidden from most of those around him, for what reason he'd never been able to ascertain. He was needed here and locating him would now be everyone's first priority.

At the sound of the jumper exiting the city, they all turned to watch as it passed by the tower's window and then angled to attain more altitude. Once reaching a height of 1000 feet, Lorne leveled out and turned on the HUD. He tapped his radio and said. "We're in position to begin doing a sweep McKay."

"Good, good. I just sent you the transmitter frequency and code. It's unique to Sheppard and the sensors will only search for that one."

"Thanks doc. I'll let you know what I find. Lorne out." He started a methodical grid search over the city, Ronon sitting in the co-pilot seat, staring hard out the window as the city passed below them. Half an hour later, they still had no sign of the Colonel. Lorne widened his sweeps to include the water around the city, remembering the stories he'd heard about Sheppard finding Ford that way. He sincerely hoped they wouldn't find him there. His hopes were dashed a few minutes later when the HUD beeped and a dot showed up in the water, not far from the city. He turned and met Ronon's eyes, both of them knowing what that meant and none of it boded well for John's safe return. Neither spoke as they both turned back to stare out the window as Lorne guided the jumper over to the transmitter's location.

McKay's voice sounded in his ear. "Lorne? What the hell are you doing? Sensors show you're over the water."

Closing his eyes, Lorne took a moment before answering then reached up to tap his radio. "We know Rodney."

Both the quiet tone of his voice and the use of McKay's first name, told those in the city what they didn't want to know. Rodney responded first. "No, no, that's not possible. He can't be in the water. If Hanson is behind this, she wouldn't kill him. She thinks she loves him and that he loves her. That's the way that pathology works."

Carson's voice came on, sounding sad. He'd been listening in on the search through the military channel. "Aye, but it's also not uncommon for those afflicted to turn on the object of their affections if that person makes it very clear that they aren't interested."

Ronon and Lorne exchanged looks. How could one man be involved in two tales of stalking that ended badly in one lifetime? Ronon slammed his fist on the console in front of him and stood up. He couldn't sit still, wanting to find something to take his grief out on. He paced the jumper while Lorne watched him sympathetically, wishing he could do the same. Still, he had a job to do. He tuned back into his radio only to hear McKay denying it all.

"Maybe for someone else, but you know Sheppard! He'll play along until he either finds a way out of wherever he is or we find him! He'll charm the socks off her until she lets her guard down. No, there's no way that that's him in the water!" McKay crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn't willing to even consider that Sheppard might be gone for good this time. The man had cheated death too many times. He conveniently didn't think that maybe it had been one time too many. "Besides, he and Teyla…I mean it's only been a couple of days. There's no way he won't do everything in his power to get back to her."

Lorne looked at Ronon who now looked frozen in place, staring straight ahead, his face a blank mask. "I'm sorry Rodney." He hated the idea that this mission had turned from search and rescue to body retrieval.

"No, no, no, no, you go down there and you'll see. It's not him."

"Then how do you explain it?"

"I can't but I just don't believe it."

Lorne maneuvered the jumper lower to the water, watching the blip on the HUD. "We're going in. We'll…we'll bring him home." The jumper was equipped with machinery that could gently pick up anything bigger than a laptop and could, in a pinch, be used to retrieve a body. They entered the water at an angle, barely feeling the passage between air and water. He tracked the transmitter to an underwater rock formation and frowned. He tapped his radio again. "According to the HUD, we should be right over him but there's no…body."

Rodney swallowed the bile that threatened to come up, his overactive imagination envisioning the closest thing he had ever had to a brother, being eaten by some underworld denizen, leaving only the indigestible technology bits behind. He sat up straighter. "After my little incident with the downed jumper, Zelenka and I made sure all of them could extend the shield to cover more space, especially underwater. You can use that to get to the transmitter."

"Acknowledged." Lorne reached out and entered the appropriate commands. He turned to Ronon, hoping that the big man would be willing to do what he was about to ask. "Ronon, when I get close enough to where the HUD says the transmitter is, I'll extend the shield. I need you to lower the back hatch and walk out on it. Retrieve the device."

The man nodded once and got up from his seat, holding in the pain he wouldn't let anyone see, ever. John Sheppard had saved him from a life as a Wraith runner, even after he'd captured and threatened both him and Teyla. The man continued to surprise him on almost a daily basis, but he was one of the best commanders he'd ever had and the closest to being a brother. Not that he'd admit it, but McKay was close to holding that status as well. He'd been with the team long enough to see underneath the prickly exterior to find a much braver man than he would ever have believed. Also, one who felt more than he let on. Losing Sheppard would be hard on all of them. He walked to the hatch and waited for the word from Lorne. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but he set himself for the worst. Like McKay, he was aware there were plenty of carnivorous creatures in the ocean surrounding Atlantis. He swallowed hard, offering up a prayer to the Ancestors he no longer believed in, that he wouldn't find the transmitter with bits of his friend still attached to it.

Lorne settled the jumper in place and extended the shields. "Ok Ronon, you have a go."

Ronon hit the switch and the rear hatch slowly opened, the residual water from the jumper roof streaming inside and eventually subsiding to an unnerving drip. When it was fully down, he stepped carefully out on it, searching the rock formation for anything that could be the transmitter. Something glittered in the light from the interior of the jumper and he moved closer, reaching out to pick up a jar. What it contained, he wasn't sure. It might be nothing. He set it down and kept searching. He almost missed it but a change in the current made it move. He reached out again and picked up a Lantean radio that was resting a few feet to the left of where the jar had been. He closed his eyes for a moment and then placed it with the jar. He searched the rest of the area but couldn't find anything else. He picked up the two pieces and walked back into the jumper, hitting the hatch button to close it behind him. He walked up to the front and silently handed the two pieces to Lorne.

Lorne took them just as silently. The radio was theirs, no doubt about it. The jar, he wasn't sure about. Carefully, he unscrewed the top, taking out bloody surgical gloves between forefinger and thumb. He frowned, knowing that neither Caron nor Jennifer would countenance disposing of medical waste this way. What was under the gloves though, sent a shock through him. Sitting in the bottom was a slightly bloody transmitter. He looked up at Ronon and smiled widely, the runner looking confused. Tapping his radio, Lorne excitedly spoke into it. "McKay? We found it! In a jar with surgical gloves. The Colonel isn't here! We have a radio as well. If I was a betting man, I'd say it was removed so we couldn't find him this way."

The relief in the control room was palpable. McKay responded immediately. "I told you! I told you he wasn't down there." He crowed.

"You were right and I'm damn glad you were. Still doesn't help us find John though. We're heading back."

Carson came on again. "Bring me the jar and the gloves, will ye lad? I'll test the jar to see if we can find any clues as tae who did this." He sighed. "Might be a wee bit difficult as it's been underwater, but we'll do our best." When he got an affirmative answer, he tapped the radio off. He leaned over and gently patted Teyla on the shoulder. "There's a bit of good news, love. Ye need tae come back tae us now." He wasn't surprised to get no response from her. He sighed and then looked up when someone came into the room. Marie stood there with a tablet in her hands. "Have they finished the analysis then?"

"Yes Dr. Beckett. It confirms that there was something in the food. The same substance was in Teyla's blood sample. Unfortunately, whatever the substance is, it's not in the database."

Carson sighed. He'd been afraid of that. At least now they had an idea of what had transpired. He stood up and held out a hand for the tablet, Marie handing it over without a word. She came to stand by the bed. "Why don't you head over to your lab? I'll sit with her."

"Thank ye me dear. I just want tae draw a wee bit more blood tae see if the levels of the substance have dissipated any. Maybe we'll be lucky and it will work itself oot of her body naturally." Marie nodded and went to get the kit. When she returned, she efficiently drew enough for his test and handed it to him. He took it and patted Teyla one more time before heading to his microscope, hoping he could find something that would allow him to treat his friend with more than just saline and oxygen or that the levels were down. Marie watched him go and sat on the stool he'd abandoned. She'd always had an eye on Colonel Sheppard, something she knew she was not alone in, but had also known that no one other than the woman lying still in the bed had ever had a chance with him and she didn't begrudge the woman that fact. She offered up a prayer of her own that the two would have a future.

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Lorne docked the jumper and both he and Ronon practically ran off it before the hatch even finished opening, Ronon clutching the items he'd found under the water. They both headed to the infirmary at a run, skidding to a stop when they finally entered the quiet room, the only sounds the beeping of the heart monitor on Teyla. Both looked at Marie for an update, taking the small smile as a sign that she wasn't any worse. Marie pointed towards the lab and they headed that way to find Beckett bent over a microscope muttering to himself. "Doc?" Asked Lorne, not surprised when the man jumped in surprise, so engrossed in his work he'd been.

"Aye, is that the jar with the gloves and the transmitter, then?"

"Yeah." Lorne held them out to him.

Beckett frowned. It wasn't the same kind of specimen jar the medical lab used. He looked up. "This isn't one of ours. Do ye think ye can track down which department uses this kind?"

"You bet doc." Lorne was going to start with Botany, more sure than ever that Hanson was behind this.

Carson opened it and found the gloves to be dry and protected, his hopes raising. "I'll test the jar but I think the gloves might give us the best data. The jar kept them protected from the elements and I might be able tae pull some DNA or even some fingerprints from the inside of them and match them up to the SGC database. I'll let you know what I find."

"Good. We'll be up in the control room with McKay and Zelenka. Let us know as soon as you do."

"Aye, lad, ye have me word."

The two left at a more sedate pace than that at which they entered. Stopping by Teyla's bed, Ronon patted her leg and Lorne her shoulder. They turned away, trusting the doctor to do everything in his power to help her in any way. In unspoken agreement, both turned to head back to the control room to see what their other doctors had come up with. Before they even reached it, they could hear the two doing their weird arguing which usually ended up with one of them coming up with an idea that no one else would have.

"Rodney, we can't track either the radio or transmitter in anything other than real time!"

"How do we know that the data isn't stored somewhere? We all know the ancients were somewhat lax with their documentation!"

"We've never found anything to indicate we can backtrack one of the transmitters!"

"But we've never found anything that said we couldn't! And if we can't, I think we need to look into setting it up to do just that. Who knows when some other whacko will decide one of us is her destiny and make off with us? Can you imagine the loss to Atlantis if it were me?"

Lorne and Ronon looked at each other and had to smile. The ego of Dr. Rodney McKay was the stuff of legends. They walked into the room together and up the stairs. The two of them were still sitting at the console, Chuck and Woolsey leaning up against others, quietly watching the drama that was their two best scientists working together. They both looked up when the two of them reached the control room.

"Good work you two." Woolsey said. They both nodded but knew that this wasn't over. "Do either of you have any ideas on how to find Colonel Sheppard?" Ronon nodded, caressing his gun. Woolsey smothered a smile. "Something that doesn't have to do with threats and bodily harm?" The Satedan looked disappointed.

Lorne had been thinking about this all the way back to Atlantis and had formulated a plan. "What if we let it be known that the Colonel is missing but we don't know why and that Teyla is unconscious but we haven't been able to determine the cause. That maybe we even suspect him of having something to do with Teyla's condition and that's why he's MIA. Then we watch Dr. Hanson and track her. See where she goes. I'm convinced that, eventually, she'll lead us to John." He paused. "Somehow I think Dr. Brown would be willing to help us." They all looked at Rodney who went bright red and shrugged.

Woolsey nodded but played devil's advocate. "We still don't know that she's behind this. We now know that someone removed the transmitter from Colonel Sheppard, but there's still no proof she was the one behind it. Besides, she's a botanist, not a medical doctor. Would she even know how to remove it?"

Lorne nodded. "Yeah, when I was going through her college history, I was actually surprised at the number of anatomy and biology classes she took, more than I would have expected from someone who was majoring in botany." Woolsey closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

Lorne turned and walked up to McKay. "Doc, can you pull up the requisition forms from the botany department? Specifically the kind of specimen containers they use?"

McKay nodded and entered the commands into his laptop. He pulled up the most recent requisitions, found the one that contained what he was looking for and brought up a picture of the ones most often asked for. Lorne took a look at it and nodded. "Yup, that matches what we just dropped off with Doc Beckett. He confirmed it wasn't a kind the medical staff use and I know it's not for geological samples." While he was career military, he had attended college, majoring in geology. He'd always been fascinated by rocks and had kept an eye on what that area of their expedition stumbled on.

"It's still all circumstantial concerning Dr. Hanson." Woolsey said. He held up a hand when several mouths opened to argue. "However, I will admit that said circumstantial evidence is stacking up against her. I will authorize the surveillance." They all nodded, thankful that he was behind them. "Now we just need to get the rumor mill in motion." All heads turned to look at Chuck, who attempted to put an innocent face on.

"What?"

McKay snorted. "Do you really think we don't know you're behind most of the gossip on Atlantis?"

Chuck opened his mouth to deny it, but then took in the hopeful looks on the rest of the faces looking at him. He relented. "Fine, I'll do what I can."

"That's all we can ask Chuck." Woolsey said.

Chuck smiled when he remembered that Woolsey had had a hard time getting his name right when he first arrived. He gestured to McKay to get up from his station and then took his place when he vacated. He started to type into the computer and then stopped, finding them all watching him. "Do you mind?"

"What? Your grapevine is a closely guarded secret?" McKay huffed out. He'd been on the receiving end of said grapevine, it seeming to know about his breakup with Katie almost the moment it'd happened. The same with his relationship with Jennifer. He blushed a little when Chuck merely raised an eyebrow. "Fine. We'll leave you to do whatever it is you do." He turned and stalked away. The others smiled and melted away themselves. Once alone, Chuck began disseminating the misinformation across Atlantis, using a carefully constructed network of trusted confidants.

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