Atlantis, 12:30 p.m.

Elizabeth checked in on her people at her lunch break the next day. Despite feeling tired and groggy all morning, she couldn't shake the feeling of relief and well-being. Carson had returned to duty late in the morning and reported that everyone was still improving. In fact, Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon were all awake and resting with trays of food and plenty of visitors to keep them company. John was still unconscious, but Beckett wasn't worried, yet, just cautiously optimistic.

Elizabeth smiled as she watched Rodney bully the nurses into bringing more food to his bed, even as he was frantically poking at a laptop and muttering about catching up on memos. Ronon looked supremely bored and simply glowered at his teammate's nearly subconscious whining, although he did sit at attention when Elizabeth stepped near to express her pleasure at his recovery. Ronon replied in typical fashion, but without the undercurrent of wariness he usually wore, and Elizabeth was pleased that the aloof warrior was warming to her.

"How is Sheppard?" Ronon blurted out the question just as she was turning away to look for Teyla. Elizabeth faced him to show him she was being fully honest when she replied.

"As far as I know, he is just fine; recovering as you are. Beckett says he just has more sleep to catch up on than you slug-a-beds." Her expression turned serious and she held Ronon's eyes. "I'm going to find out for myself, though, and I'll let you know if I hear or think otherwise." Ronon nodded gratefully, pleased that Elizabeth would keep him informed of the truth. Beckett was an honest man, but Ronon knew that he might withhold disturbing information out of concern for Ronon's own recovery.

Elizabeth smiled and after looking around for another moment, asked, "Where is Teyla?"

Ronon grinned a rare, reserved smile of mischief. "We sent her to check on Sheppard, too."

Elizabeth grinned back in understanding as she caught even Rodney's quick glance or two in her direction as he overheard their topic of conversation. Sheppard's teammates were intensely loyal and very close personally as well as working well together professionally. They would need to see for themselves that their friend was truly well and healing. Just as she needed to.

Her quick strides soon took her to a quieter corner of the infirmary where John slept, away from the bustle of visitors and daily routine. She stepped around the privacy curtains to find Teyla, dressed in hospital scrubs and a blanket around her shoulders, sitting perched on the edge of John's bed, her two hands clasped around the one that peeked out from under the blanket still draped across his shoulders.

Elizabeth scuffed her shoes a little to announce her presence and stepped close to lay an affectionate hand on Teyla's blanketed shoulder. Whispering so as not to waken John before he was ready, she said, "Teyla! I'm so glad to see you feeling better."

"Thank you, Dr. Weir!" Teyla's voice was also soft and her smile, while weary, was bright.

Elizabeth noticed that Teyla had quickly moved her hands at her approach and couldn't resist teasing the woman who was as close to John as Elizabeth herself, if not more so. "Don't worry, I won't tell him," she said grinning and nodding at John's hand. Teyla chuckled, patted it one more time then, still moving stiffly, left the bed to sit in the chair that remained nearby.

After pulling another chair next to Teyla's, the two women simply watched John sleep for a while in comfortable silence. Finally Teyla whispered, "I have a childish urge to shake him awake so I can thank him for the cure…and demand he tell me how he got it!"

"I know how you feel!" Elizabeth replied fervently. She was debating whether to bring up the topic of John's mutterings when John did it for her. Going suddenly from motionless sleep to frantic thrashing, he threw off the blanket over his shoulder into a tangle of fabric around his flailing arm. His head rolled on the pillows and, before she could stand up and even begin to try to calm him, he flopped onto his back. As his heavily bandaged shoulder pressed into the mattress, John arched his back in tense agony and a yell of surprised pain tore from his throat.

Teyla quickly tried to move him off the wound, but John fought her hold on his arms, his unseeing eyes open and full of defiant fear. "Let me go!" he growled at the visions in his dreams, then he began to plead with her, even as he fought, "Don't Nalia… Please Nalia…I'm sorry. You can help, Nalia…"

Elizabeth raced to get a Doctor or nurse, only to find them already hurrying her way. Beckett trotted up to John's bedside where Teyla was murmuring, "You're home, John. You are safe. You're on Atlantis. You're home," in soothing repetition.

Carson checked all the monitors and pulled a syringe out of his pocket to inject the contents into John's IV line. John stopped struggling instantly, although his face and brow remained contorted in an expression of anxiety or pain. As one, Teyla and Elizabeth turned to face Beckett with accusatory postures, demanding without saying a word to hear from the doctor what that was all about. They were taken aback when he laughed out loud and raised his hands as if to ward off an attack.

"Carson, it's not funny. Is something wrong with John?" Elizabeth voiced the question she thought was obvious from the situation.

"Well, you're right. It's not funny. But you two are." Carson chuckled a moment longer before taking Elizabeth's hand firmly. "The Colonel is as fine as can be expected. He still has a fairly high fever, which is why he's having periods of delirium with the episodes of dreaming. The rest all still have fairly high fevers, if we're going to get precise about it," and he gave Teyla a little glare at her disappearance from her own bed. "The disease took much more out of John because we weren't there to relieve the symptoms as it progressed. We're watching him closely, and I still have no reason to believe he's not just dreaming, resting and recovering. You people are going to wear yourselves out, though, if you keep fussing over every sound the poor man makes."

Elizabeth felt a twinge at the Doctor's jab. She was beginning to worry more about those plaintive mutterings than John's physical condition, but she still felt a little guilty listening in. Something had happened that was disturbing his dreams more than could be accounted for by fever and illness. She exchanged a quick glance with Teyla and realized that the young woman was thinking the same thing.

"I'll sit with him a while longer," Elizabeth announced firmly and planted herself in her chair. The gratitude on Teyla's face was worth any glare she received from Beckett. Beckett turned his glare instead on Teyla who was in truth beginning to look a little pale and shaky. She sighed and shuffled off to her own bed, shooting Elizabeth one last look that said all too clearly, "Let me know if anything happens…"

Elizabeth settled in and peered closely at John's face. He was calm and resting quietly on his side again, but she still thought his expression was pensive, even in sleep.

"Nalia…I'm so sorry…" he whispered, deeply immersed in dreams.

Yes, something had happened, she thought to herself.

G3C-187, Day 1

John woke on the cold hard floor and wished he hadn't. Then he chastised himself for the thought, knowing that, ultimately, feeling like a frozen popsicle in a prison on an alien planet was still better than being dead. At least so far. Wincing in anticipation of the pain, he finally pushed himself up to sit against the wall and tucked his knees into his chest, fighting off the dizziness the change in position exacerbated.

Looking around the room, he realized that someone had been there and left a bucket in the corner by the one wall of his cell that was paneled and a blanket on the cot. No food, no water. The fact that he had missed the visit terrified him: if he was going to talk his way out of this he needed to be conscious to do it. He hastily made note of the shadows filtering dimly through the dirty, paned and barred window above his head and resolved to stay awake until the next visitor.

For the moment he was too exhausted to consider a physical breakout, but he studied the room he was in carefully, should that become necessary. He'd been in cages before and held what was probably an inflated opinion of his ability to escape any prison. Usually, though, he wasn't 48 hours from death by respiratory distress as he was contemplating a jailbreak. He checked his watch nervously at the thought; they had arrived about this time of day yesterday. His first 24 hours were gone.

When the hard floor started to dig into his tailbone, he limped over to the cot and wrapped the holey wool blanket around his shoulders gratefully. But he returned to his spot on the floor and folded one edge under him as he sat. He was worried that the cot, as thin and threadbare as it was, would lull him into sleep again.

One hour merged into two, then doubled into four. The light outside was fading and there were no other lights in the darkening prison. He hadn't expected automatic flood lights to blaze on at dusk, but he rather thought someone might bring him a candle or a lantern like the ones Naden had used last night at dinner.

Six hours after waking up alone in the cell, John was fighting down sheer panic. He paced the length of the barred wall, despite the agony of each step. The room was pitch black with only the faintest hint of moonlight or starlight brightening the window into a slightly less dark patch against the otherwise inky walls. A thin strip of candlelight seeped under the heavy outer door, but as nightfall turned into mid-night, even it went out without even so much as a footstep reaching his ears.

That was when he began to yell, screaming for someone to hear him, to acknowledge he existed. Finally, trembling with fury and terror, he felt his way to the cot and sat on it against the wall, his knees drawn up again, the blanket still draped around his shoulders. They'd left him to die. There would be no visitors, no food or water that would only delay the inevitable. They'd suffered the plague before and apparently decided that those weak enough to succumb should be locked away. His head dropped onto his knees and he fell deep into thoughts as black as the room around him.

John was roused out of dreams of swimming through cold waters filled with stinging jelly fish and Wraith hands clutching at him. Thinking he'd felt a breeze against his face he tilted his head towards the sensation, realizing, as the deliberate motion pulled him further awake, that he'd slumped over and was laying on the cot…and that it was brighter in the room. Perhaps he should open his eyes, he thought stupidly, and did so.

It was brighter. The tiny glow of a candle held by a small brass candlestick sat flickering on the floor near the door, but it was the shadow that was pulling hastily away from him that caught his attention. "Wait!" he gasped, cursing the sleep that was still fogging his reactions, and the fire in his joints that slowed him as he struggled to sit up. "Wait!" he pleaded as the shadow darted out of the cell, hastily shut the door and stooped to pick up the candle.

As the shadow bent into the glow of the tiny light, John recognized its face, "Nalia!" he called as he staggered to the bars. The girl froze and gave him a terrified glance, then slipped through the outer door and pulled it quickly shut, choking off the small light and plunging John back into utter darkness. For a while, John raged at the bars, calling Nalia's name, begging her to come back and berating himself for falling asleep and missing his chance to talk to the girl.

When the anger passed, he sank back onto the cot and buried his head in his hands, trying to think clearly, but only questions came to mind. Why had Nalia come? Why did she run when he woke? He closed his eyes and tried to picture the moment when he'd pried his eyes open; she had pulled away quickly, but he suddenly remembered the feeling of something brushing his cheek. Had she touched him while he was sleeping? Why?

A sudden, uncomfortable thought struck him and he hated the way his mind began to think of ways to take advantage of the situation. John was a man who'd been told he was handsome often enough that he supposed he believed some people could think so. He honestly didn't ever think about it himself. He'd used his flyboy-pilot routine on more than one occasion to get a date, but like all men the galaxies over, he had to work hard enough at wooing women that the idea of an alien teenager falling for him on sight seemed somewhat laughable, whatever McKay might assume.

However, if Nalia did have a crush on him… He groaned in frustration. Could he actually play on a young girl's innocent infatuation and use her to get him out? In those dark, desperate hours before dawn, he knew for a moment that he actually might try. And in all honesty, it would be difficult not to as she was the only person he knew who had even hinted at a cure or shown any sympathy at all. He had come back because of her in the first place.

The window grew brighter, finally casting enough light into the room that John could make out shapes, and see his own hands in front of him. He still sat on the edge of the cot, and rubbed his face tiredly in the cold light when his glance fell on the floor. Near the end of the cot sat a small cup and a simple pitcher of water. He knew that it hadn't been there the evening before, and he hadn't been able to see it in the dark until now. As he slid off the cot to pour and drink greedily, his heart fell a bit further.

He was sure that Nalia had brought him the water during her nighttime visit.

Nalia ran from the prison room door, clutching the candle tightly, her heart hammering in her chest from fear and…something else she'd never felt before. He had remembered her. He knew her name. She was giddy with delight at the simple fact that he recognized her, even as she was terrified that he might tell her father she'd been to see him,.

Daydreaming as only a girl can, she skipped lightly out of the dark and empty building until she passed near the small grimy windows where the man's voice yelling and cursing and begging stopped her in her tracks. He was calling her name, over and over, every repetition burying a spike of guilt and longing and regret deeper and deeper into her already damaged heart. She stood frozen even after the shouts grew softly desperate, then stopped altogether.

Nalia had lost her mother and half her planet to the plague two years before. She had come of age in a time of terrible loss and uncertainty. Her father had taken her to another planet, hoping to flee the memories only to see their new home struck down, their new friends suffer from the illness they soon discovered Nalia and her father themselves had brought upon them. They'd been driven off that world and almost killed.

When they came here, Naden had been prepared. Even as the people welcomed them, Naden began to warn them of the plague that was striking planets. He called it a test of the Ancestors and that those who were strong enough to fight the illness would be free of the Wraith forever. He set himself up as town Doctor, and pretended to treat everyone, praising those that stayed well and scoffing at those who fell ill, convincing the town that in the divine test, those who were strong and faithful would be saved. In their desperation to find some meaning from their plight, the townspeople accepted Naden's interpretation, and shunned the sick.

And in the end, half the town had died, just like everywhere else. But they let Naden and Nalia stay, and even followed his council on other matters as well.

Nalia had seen too much death in her short life, lost too much with little comfort or regard for her pain.

And then, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, and Teyla Emmagan stepped through the gate. And they were the most beautiful people Nalia had ever seen. And they were strong, and they were not afraid of her father. She had stared at each of them all evening long from the corner of the room in her house as they talked with Naden. She could tell that her father was growing angry with their guests; they simply wouldn't be intimidated and Naden had grown accustomed to being deferred to.

When Naden left for a moment to tend to their small flock of livestock before bed, the guests remained talking quietly around the table, and she could tell that they were friends. Nalia hadn't had friends since she was a young girl and no one her age here had…survived. She was beginning to feel something like hero-worship for these beautiful strangers and could have simply sat by the fire and watched them talk to each other for an eternity.

But it wasn't until the man who'd called himself Lt. Colonel John Sheppard had wandered over to the fire, stretching out limbs stiff from the long conversation that Nalia began to feel something entirely new. He took her breath away and she didn't understand why. He'd smiled at her absently and run his hand through his dark hair, then turned to receive a quick, one-armed, goodnight hug from the woman with the flowing cinnamon hair before they retired to the rooms Nalia had prepared for them.

For a long time she stood in the dark outside the prison window, remembering the feel of his hot skin on her fingertips as she'd touched his cheek; remembering him smiling at her and imagining herself giving him the good-night hug; wishing she was the woman who was his friend and travel companion.

He had remembered her name. And now he was going to die, desperate and alone, and calling her name. With a choked cry and hot tears rolling down her cheeks, she ran to her home and flung herself on her bed, grief for the man and everyone she had lost pouring out in great soul-wracking sobs.