She entered his quarters. But this time it was different. As before a small slit of light lit the room from where the curtains just failed to meet. But unlike before the rest of the room wasn't hidden in shadow but instead, was bathed in an abnormal, white light. The quarters were full of laughter. Hiding the quiet drip of liquid she knew was there.

Knowing, as she always did, what was coming, she carefully stepped around the bed in the middle of the room. The laughter increased. Taunting her; tormenting her. Closing her eyes she took the final step and breathed in deeply.

She could smell nothing. It felt unnatural. Everything smelt of something. She could feel no sense of evil this time. She opened her eyes. There he was. On the floor, in the position he was usually in, yet there was no blood and his eyes were open. His wrists were slit and the Atlantean point of origin symbol had been cut into his chest just like always but no blood poured from his wounds.

On the wall there were no words written in blood. And when she looked down at her hands they were normal. No crimson liquid; no dagger. When she looked back up, he was standing; grinning inanely. He took a step towards her, grabbing her roughly, a hand on either side of her face, and pulling her lips to his.

It was wrong. This wasn't the John she knew. Just like everything else, it felt unnatural. 'John' pulled back and sneered before backhanding her across the face. Not ready for the blow, she fell to the floor. 'John' jerked her back up again, grabbing her jaw violently. He mouthed something at her that she couldn't understand. The laughter ceased.

"I'm going to kill you." Now she knew it wasn't John. It wasn't his voice. It sounded too inhuman. His face changed slightly; becoming harsher, uglier somehow.

He threw her to the floor. When she opened her eyes, after closing them on impact with the ground, she saw a dagger in front of her. Not just any dagger, the one that had always been in her hand; covered in John's blood.

She picked it up. As 'John' lunged for her, she stuck it up into his stomach. Instead of groaning in pain, he laughed. As he fell to the floor words began forming on the wall. She couldn't understand them. They didn't make sense. They were words of a language she had never seen before.

'John' called her name. It was no longer the inhuman voice, but the warm, caring voice of the real John Sheppard. She looked down noticing that his face was back to normal. She knelt down next to him. He reached up and held his hand against her cheek. Tears made their way down her face as he slowly caressed her face. Blood was once again pooling on the floor beneath his body, soaking her knees red. With a final breath, John's hand fell, limp, to his side. She felt for a pulse and upon finding nothing, she cried loudly.

In the distance she could hear someone scream.

Elizabeth woke sharply, realising she was the one screaming. Once again she was covered in a cold sweat. John was by her bed side and had obviously been trying to wake her because as soon as he noticed her eyes were open, relief passed over his face. Her face was wet with tears and once again her body ached painfully.

Elizabeth gasped and reached for John, holding on to him as new tears fell. He held her close, gently rubbing her back and holding her head to his chest. "It's alright Elizabeth. It's alright." He shushed her softly.

Eventually her tears slowed to a stop but Elizabeth refused to move from John's comforting embrace. The infirmary was dark indicating that the medical staff were probably asleep. There were other patients in beds opposite her, who were falling back to sleep after being awoken by her screams. She couldn't remember that many people being in the infirmary when she was awake earlier.

"John?" Her voice sounded foreign to her ears. It was hoarse from her throat being dry.

"Yes?"

"What's happened?" She asked referring to the other people in the infirmary.

John looked behind him at the sleeping figures in the room and sighed. "Apparently, the same thing that's happened to you, 'Liz'beth. They're all showing the same symptoms; a number of identical nightmares, nausea, being extra sensitive to touch. Beckett's trying to figure out what the problem is. But one thing he's found is that you all have the same blood type."

"I don't like this John." Her voice was shaky and her eyes were beginning to sting.

"Neither do I, 'Liz'beth, neither do I."

Both of them knew that the conversation was over yet neither of them moved away; content in each other's embrace.

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"Do you think we should wake them?"

"I don't know. I'd love to see the look on Sheppard's face."

As Elizabeth drifted into consciousness she could hear both the voices of Rodney McKay and Carson Beckett.

"Aye, but what about Elizabeth's."

Fully awake, but still tired, Elizabeth kept her eyes closed. She was still in her infirmary bed but someone else's body was draped over hers. Elizabeth knew it was John. She had her arms wrapped around his back and his hands were still on her back and head. She breathed in, inhaling his scent.

She felt John stir on top of her and realised he was waking up. "It looks like we won't have to wake them up Rodney."

Elizabeth opened her eyes slightly, so that she could see what was happening. John groaned. Elizabeth guessed that his body was stiff after falling asleep in that position. She watched as John sat up and groaned again. He blinked and rubbed his hands over his face before he noticed Rodney and Carson smiling at him. His eyes flicked from the two at the end of the bed to Elizabeth and back again. Elizabeth had to force herself not to smile as realisation dawned on John's face.

"I…we…this is not what it looks like!" John stuttered as he remembered where he'd fallen asleep and who with.

Rodney snorted in laughter and Elizabeth could just about see the glare that John directed at the scientist. John continued to try and explain. "She woke up after another nightmare, I comforted her. That was it; nothing else. I must have fallen asleep."

Rodney let out another snort of disbelieving laughter. John stood up, albeit stiffly, and stepped threateningly closer to McKay. Elizabeth decided to make her presence known.

"Gentlemen." She tried to speak sternly, but it came out more like a cough.

"Elizabeth." Carson, who had come up next to her, handed Elizabeth a glass of water, which she thanked him for.

Elizabeth flicked her eyes over to John and Rodney, who had thankfully stopped bickering, and then turned to face Carson.

"Have you made any progress, Carson?"

"Aye. We have. Underneath ultra violet light, blood from people who are infected shows a certain protein marker. We took blood from those who don't have the same blood type as you, such as Colonel Sheppard and a mixture of people who do or don't have the ATA gene. It turns out that the gene stops you from being affected but only if it occurs naturally. Everyone else on Atlantis, including those with the artificial ATA gene, has this marker in their blood." Carson explained.

Elizabeth's brow creased in confusion. "You said everyone on Atlantis has this marker except for people with the Ancient gene?"

"Aye. But it only affects people who have AB negative blood, so thankfully not as many people will fall ill, with it being the rarest blood type. But unfortunately it's still ten percent of the expedition."

Elizabeth pulled herself up into a more comfortable sitting position. "Could this possibly be another outbreak from one of the Ancient labs?"

"No. I've checked and double checked the quarantine system. It's all in working order. If this was a proper virus we would be in a lock down by now." Rodney explained with out looking up from the tablet he had seemed to produce from nowhere.

Elizabeth suddenly raised her hand to her head. She felt fuzzy again and had to fight the urge to throw up. John was the first to notice her discomfort and reached out to steady her. Elizabeth grabbed his hand and buried her face in his arm. She swallowed, hard.

Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth pulled her head back from John's arm and spoke. "Do you have any idea as to what's caused this?"

Carson shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine, lass. We don't think it's something from off world though. And Colonel Sheppard has suspended any 'Gate travel."

Elizabeth looked up at John and smiled. He didn't smile back. Instead he was looking across the room at one of the other patients in the infirmary. The man in question, a marine, had started to convulse. John's grip on Elizabeth's hand tightened slightly.

Carson yelled for his nurses and ran over to the marine, pushing him down on the bed in an attempt to stop the man from hurting himself. The marine started retching, making Carson yell at everyone to get back. The marine coughed, blood splattering the bed sheets.

The marine, Sergeant Baston, Elizabeth realised, rolled onto his side in an effort to get out of the bed.

"Everyone stay back. We don't know if he's dangerous." John yelled as one of the nurses had stepped forwards to help.

Batson hit the floor, landing on his wrist with a sickening crunch which made Elizabeth look away. When she returned her gaze, Batson had stood up. He was muttering about Atlantis and the Wraith. He doubled over, vomiting over the infirmary floor before he suddenly threw himself at Carson. Thankfully the doctor had been pulled away only seconds before by John. Elizabeth was surprised, not having noticed John leaving her.

Batson fell to the floor, lying relatively still except for the occasional twitching of an arm or leg. Elizabeth watched as John let go of Carson and the doctor cautiously approached Sergeant Batson. He rolled him onto his back and checked for a pulse in the marine's neck. Carson's eyes widened.

"What is it Doc?" John had moved to the other side of the marine.

"He's dead." Carson started CPR compressions on the man's chest.

"Doc, leave it. You know it won't do any good." Carson stood up reluctantly and motioned for a couple of male nurses to take the body away.

"This isn't good." Rodney spoke from his shocked position by the infirmary door where he'd obviously been considering running from the potentially dangerous scene.

The scientist walked back over to Elizabeth's bed. Carson and John copied his actions; John discretely taking Elizabeth's hand in his again.

"No really, Rodney?" John replied sarcastically. Elizabeth noticed John's hand tightening around hers and bowed her head slightly to hide her smile.

"Rodney's right, John. We had no idea that this virus could result in death. This is much more serious than previously thought."

"Well, shouldn't you be trying to find something to cure it then?" Rodney's head shot up at John's comment. The two men looked at each other until Rodney backed down in understanding.

"Right…Carson?" Rodney grabbed Beckett's arm and they left John and Elizabeth alone.

John's eyesight followed them. "Hey? Are you alright, John?"

He turned his head back to Elizabeth. He locked eyes with her and she could feel the heat of a blush forming on her cheeks. "I'm fine, 'Lizabeth. Just worried."

"It'll be fine John." He raised his eyebrows. "John. It'll be alright. There's no need to worry."

John sighed, frustrated. "Elizabeth. A man just died! How can you expect me not to worry about y- it?"

"Nice cover." Elizabeth smiled as John winced. She grabbed his hand with both of hers.

"I would leave you to get some rest, but I don't want to leave you alone." He grabbed a chair from a nearby desk and sat down next to Elizabeth's bed; his hand never leaving hers.

Elizabeth sighed but settled down to sleep anyway. The last thing she remembered before drifting off to sleep was John pressing a kiss to the back of her hand.

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Okay, any of the medical garb in this I've just made up. So if there are any obvious mistakes…sorry!