As soon as his head touched the pillow he knew he wasn't going to sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he had managed a good night sleep, one uninterrupted by nightmares or fraught with random moments of waking. He couldn't shut off these days. His own treacherous mind wanted to remind him about his failings every waking hour and wake him up every sleeping hour.
He sat up from his bed and tossed the covers aside. He was wound up tightly like a spring, liable to uncoil at any second and the days events hadn't helped.
He pulled on his trainers. It was becoming increasingly common that to rest he needed to physically exhaust himself and he decided that a run might aid him in that cause.
The halls of Atlantis were quiet as he started to jog. It was exactly what he needed, nobody to stop him to have an inane conversation where he would have to feign interest.
His body moved rhythmically, he barely had to think about it, breathing precisely was responsive, muscles moving like a well oiled machine. He forgot about the ache in his ribs and dull throb in his head. He pushed aside worries with every exhalation.
He arrived at an outer walk way and picked up the pace, increasing his speed, breathing faster, legs pumping harder, the only accompaniment to his run was the sounds of the ocean below. Breathing with him.
He ran for an hour until he was sweating and his joints yearned for reprisal but as he arrived back at is quarters he was still wasn't tired enough to sleep.
Perhaps his wandering mind needed focus. He was absorbed on the physical aspects of his exhaustion, he needed to concentrate and mentally get himself in check before he could sleep. That way he might drift off into the darkness without over thinking.
He picked up his side arm and decided that an hour in the make shift shooting range should centre his mind enough to evade thinking beyond sleep.
He arrived at the shooting range and walked up to the line. He could see that fresh targets had been left out and took up a loose stance.
The room was blissfully silent.
He ejected his magazine in one practised fluid motion, checked the clip and then slotted it back in. He clicked off the safety and took aim. He trained his eyes on the target, regulated his breathing, and depressed the trigger slowly.
He fired off one shot and found himself momentarily startled by the volume of the bullet escaping the chamber. He rolled his shoulders to release some accumulated tension and then proceeded to fire off the remaining fourteen shots.
He ejected the magazine and allowed it to clatter to the floor loudly. He walked the length of the room to inspect his handiwork and realised that he had missed a few.
"Just tired," he reasoned with himself in the empty room.
He tore the target down, crumpled it in his hands, kicked it to the side of the room as if it were a football and then reattached another one.
He certainly wasn't going to miss again.
He walked back to the line and reached for another magazine.
The next moment moved by in slow motion. He'd been turning back to the target and inserting the next cartridge and his finger had been resting on the trigger. The combination of the undue pressure he exerted on putting in the cartridge, facilitated by a growing anger at missing the target, and his poorly placed finger, a rookie mistake, meant the gun expended a single shot.
It was a second after that he felt white hot pain lancing through his foot and he looked down at his trainer to see that there was blood pooling at the tip of it.
"You have got to be kidding me?" he mused.
He had just shot himself in the foot.
"Damn it," he swore and hopped ineffectually for a minute as if it would reduce the pain. Blood was dripping onto the floor, spraying outwards as he waved it back and forth to lessen the pulsating throb there.
He conceded that he would have to get somebody to look at it and he wasn't relishing in explaining how it had happened.
He reached up for his earpiece as he sat down on the floor carefully, "Beckett?"
There was a brief moment of static and then the Doctors voice carried over the radio, "Colonel?"
"Uh….can you come down to the armoury?" he grimaced when he looked down at his trainer, " And you should probably bring your medical kit."
He heard the concern overriding the Doctor's initial response to sigh, "I'll be right down."
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Beckett found Sheppard sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched and leaning back on his hands. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed.
"What have you done?" he asked as he crouched down beside him. He noted the little pool of blood next to Sheppard's foot and gave him a look.
Sheppard opened his eyes. "I shot myself in the foot," he explained as if it was an everyday occurrence. It certainly wasn't.
"How did you do that?" Beckett asked as he began to carefully untie his trainer and slowly extricate it from his foot. Sheppard hissed as the pressure was released and sat up straighter to get a look at the damage himself. Blood was flowing freely as Beckett elevated it up onto his knee.
"By accident."
"Well I wasn't assuming you did it on purpose," said Beckett. He edged down Sheppard's sock as carefully as he could. "You're not usually so careless." He examined Sheppard's face and could see the dark circles which seemed a permanent feature these days.
"Accidents happen," he said defensively.
"They do," agreed Beckett as he reached into his medical bag.
"Admittedly, if I'd followed my own rules and worn steel capped shoes I wouldn't be sitting here."
Beckett held his foot with latex covered hands and examined the damage, "Well, luckily for you the bullet hasn't penetrated the foot, just grazed the toe."
Sheppard looked at the bloody mess in front of him, "So, I still have all five toes?"
"Yes Colonel. You're going to have to come up to the infirmary so I can clean this up. It needs a few stitches, but should be fine to walk on, if a little painful." Beckett helped him up into a standing position. Sheppard leant against him to keep the weight off his foot.
"Thanks Doc."
"Perhaps next time you should follow your own advice."
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Sheppard limped into Mckay's lab and found him sitting by his laptop, working industriously, typing in commands, whilst simultaneously draining his mug of coffee. It was multi-tasking in its purest form.
"Why are you limping?" Mckay asked without even turning around. It turned out he could see his reflection in his computer screen.
"I'm not limping," said Sheppard deliberately putting pressure onto his aching foot. He managed to mask a wince. He leant against the work top and threw a glance over to the corner of the room where Adams and Jefferies were meticulously going through boxes of files. "How are my men getting on?"
Mckay looked over his shoulder and raised a dismissive hand, "They're useless and I resent that this is their punishment."
"Oh come on, spending time with you is always a punishment," said Sheppard with a sly grin, "Hey guys how's the paperwork going?"
Jefferies emerged from one of the boxes with an exasperated look while Adams held up a wad of paper and said, "Boring Sir, really boring."
Sheppard smiled, "Then I'm happy. Keep up the good work." He turned back to Mckay, "You said you had some interesting gadgets down here."
"This is new," said Mckay as he typed, "You volunteering your gene."
"Well I've got some time to spare."
"You could help us with these reports," suggested Jefferies.
"I'll leave those in your capable hands," said Sheppard dryly, "Quiet capable hands."
"Why are you being so hard them?" asked Mckay.
Sheppard raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Oh come on. Even I haven't ventured into those files and half of it's on the computer anyway."
"Good," said Sheppard, "They need to learn a little respect." He crossed his arms over his chest.
Seeing he wasn't going to get a further explanation and his brief moment of compassion had gone unnoticed he said, "Okay." He closed the lid on his lap top and hopped off his stool. "This way."
Sheppard followed him through to a connecting room where there were a number of devices laid out on a table. He turned back when he heard chatter coming from the Adams and Jefferies and decided to let them have their moment of respite. After all Mckay would be telling them to shut up the minute he re-entered the room anyway.
"So, what do we have here?" he asked prodding a few of the devices.
Mckay reached out for his hand and stilled it, "No touching. Until I say so."
"Okay, control freak."
Mckay sighed and put his best 'put upon' expression on his face, "We picked these up on Mx483 and this-" he said holding up a particularly ugly device, "-is wraith."
"Yeah," he said with a firm nod, "-its wraith."
The men at the table shared a glance which admitted they already knew that fact to be true.
Sheppard picked it up and turned it over in his hands, "You should be careful with this," and he was speaking from experience, "One twist and you could blow one hell of a hole."
The device was snatched from his hand by Stark who laid it back down on the table. It was as if a small child had picked it up and he was now being reprimanded for being careless. He was tempted to point out that he had successfully used one before but decided to wipe the thought from his mind. Petty differences seemed insignificant at that point in time.
"You encountered a similar device on a scouting mission," he drew his attention back to the suits, "where you fought a wraith that had managed to survive for an extended period of time?" The man had Sheppard's file in front of him and was leafing through it with the same level of interest as if he were skimming through the readers digest.
"Yes," said Sheppard. He waited for further embellishment and then when he could wait no longer, "Where did you find that?" Sheppard asked. His mind was already conjuring up horrendous simulations and adrenaline was beginning to surge through his veins. He was finally waking him up from his Daedalus space lag.
"Not so long ago an Australian communications specialist picked up a…strange signal originating just south of Jalalabad. The U.S. military communications specialist confirmed its presence."
"A Blackbird recon aircraft was sent to gather additional information," said Stark, letting Sheppard know that he already knew what was going on. He was no doubt relishing in the superiority of having more information than him.
Sheppard knew what recon aircraft he was talking about. The SR-17 Blackbird was a high altitude, high speed strategic reconnaissance platform with electrical and optical systems tailored to each mission's specific requirements. Coupled with the Blackbird's speed, it gave it the ability to map over 100,000 square miles an hour.
"What did you find out?"
"The area we're talking about is impressive," said Stark from behind him.
He was passed a map outlining the scale of the anomaly. His heart was hammering against his ribs in quick succession.
"And underground in a section we know there to be numerous catacombs," said one of the men.
"We sent a special ops team to do recon." His friend supplied.
Sheppard's gut tightened. Why did he have a feeling he knew what they were going to say?
"That special ops team has been MIA for two weeks," the man in front of him looked uncomfortable and he continued, "A week ago we were able to recover an Afghan body and that is where we found this device." He looked at it pointedly, "This naturally alerted the SGC's shadow committee."
Sheppard licked his lips nervously. There was a lot of information to take in but he was getting the frightening picture.
"This strange signal? You think it's a homing beacon?" He was asking a deliberate and loaded question to confirm his suspicions.
"It's possible," said one of the men.
"So let me get this straight. There's the possibility that there could be a….. ship….. down there?"
"The evidence is mounting up that way."
"A radius of this size, a signal, wraith weaponry." It could only mean one thing. "A hive ship?"
"You'll be briefed about your mission on the plane that's waiting for you."
"Are you even listening to me?" Mckay was clicking his fingers in front of Sheppard's face and he reached his hands up and squashed the noise.
"I'm listening."
"You were staring into space," said Mckay placing the device he was holding up back onto the table.
"Fine, I wasn't listening okay. I was thinking."
"Well, that's not at all offensive. I interrupt my work and spend the best part of ten minutes explaining to you what this is and you zone out."
"Maybe that was the problem; you were talking for ten minutes."
"This is all stuff you need to know. What else is so important? What were thinking about? lunch? Which pie shall I have? Green jello or blue?"
"I wasn't thinking about lunch." He could tell Mckay what he was thinking about. He wanted to tell him, but a voice in the back of his mind threatened him to keep quiet. It was one of the reasons he felt so distant from everyone.
"I'm going to get back to my work," said Mckay, "We have a briefing in an hour and I want to be prepared for it."
"I wasn't thinking about lunch," Sheppard defended, "I swear."
"Then what were you thinking about huh?" Mckay put his hands on his hips.
"I was thinking about-" it was on the tip of his tongue. He clamped his mouth shut as Mckay started to tap his foot impatiently and resignedly he lied, "Green jello."
"I thought so," said Mckay and he turned on his heel.
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TBC
Don't know when the next update will be.
Maybe lots of lovely reviews will encourage me to type faster.