Chapter 5: Just a Feeling

"You wanted to see me, Elizabeth?"

Weir looked up from her laptop and saw Carson Beckett hovering in the doorway to her office. She gave him a smile and motioned to one of the empty chairs in front of her. "I did, Carson. Please have a seat."

The physician complied and nodded a greeting to Major Lorne, who was already settled.

"Afternoon, doc," he said.

"Major." Carson turned his attention back to Elizabeth, studying her closely. He could see the small worry lines creasing her face and his heart started to thump a bit harder. "What was it you wanted?"

She let out a deep sigh and switched the laptop off before looking up at the two men. "As you know, Colonel Sheppard and his team are currently off-world investigating an Ancient outpost."

Beckett and Lorne nodded. "Yes, ma'am," Lorne replied. "Dr McKay said something about Zee PMs when I saw him in the locker room. He seemed pretty excited about it." He grinned. "Kinda made me wish it was my team going."

"Oh, Lord," Beckett muttered. Whenever Rodney was worked up about something, it usually meant trouble with a capital 'T'.

"That's correct," Weir said, a wry smile playing on her face at the soldier's description of the physicist. "The outpost is apparently capable of creating them."

"So what's the problem, love?" asked Beckett, his face creasing up with confusion. "Have they missed a check-in?"

"No, nothing like that," she replied quickly, seeing the small flash of fear in the Scotsman's eyes. "But I'd like you to have a medical team standing by."

"Aye, I can do that," Carson said, still feeling anxious. "Why though, if you don't mind my asking?"

Elizabeth gave him a small grin. "Well, you know John and Rodney. They have a… unique track record. No doubt one or more of them will come back injured in some way."

Beckett nodded. The amount of time SGA-1 spent in his infirmary was a worry – it seemed like every time they went off-world, the Pegasus Galaxy decided to have a pop at them and it had only been a couple of months since the last incident. McKay had not long recovered from his broken ankle, and this was the team's first official mission back after the injury-enforced break.

"And I'd also like you to have your team on stand-by, Major."

Lorne nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I'll need to recruit a couple of the lads though. Dr Grace is at the Alpha site with the repair teams and Jameson and Kemp are down with this stomach flu."

Captain Anderson and SGA-11 had returned to Atlantis from a mission presenting what appeared to be symptoms of a cold. Twelve hours later, however, all of them were back in the infirmary with sickness, diarrhoea and fever which the Scotsman had quickly diagnosed as gastric flu – or the Pegasus version of it at least. When more personnel were admitted with the same symptoms, it became clear that not only did the illness have an alarmingly short incubation period, but was highly contagious.

Luckily, a small number of the expedition (including the occupants of Weir's office along with SGA-1, 4 and 15) appeared to have a natural immunity. The sickness hadn't been a big enough threat to trigger the lockdown, but Carson wasn't convinced that was altogether good – it could have prevented the bug from infecting a significant percentage of the populace and saved him a lot of grief.

Although the recovery time was fairly quick, the medical staff were being pushed to their limits by the sheer number of people who were ill. The infirmary was full to bursting and several larger spaces had been commandeered as overflow.

"Seems like half the expedition's got it at the moment," Carson muttered tiredly. He'd spent most of the night taking in new admittances and trying to find room for everyone. "It's a nasty bugger."

"Major, you can take whoever you can find. I'm sure that there are more than a few marines who'd be happy to help out."

"Thank you ma'am." A thought crossed Evan's mind. "Uh, you don't think they're in trouble do you? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time," he added with a rueful smile.

"No, it wouldn't," Weir replied. "Let's just say I have a feeling."

"Female intuition, lass?"

She grimaced. "Something like that."

The two men got to their feet and headed towards the door.

"Carson?"

"Aye?"

"Could you have your team prepped to go off-world?"

The Scotsman pulled a face – it wasn't any great secret that he hated Gate travel with a passion. "That can be arranged."

Elizabeth smiled. "Thank you. I'll make it up to you."

"Aye, lass, you better." He scrubbed at his face with a hand. "I'll accept tea as payment," he said, giving her a look.

"I take it you've run out again?"

Beckett scowled. "It's not me that's been drinking it!" he replied. "I swear my staff knows where I stash it!"

"I'll see what I can do."

Carson grinned and headed out of the office. Elizabeth looked back at her laptop – she was studying the entries that had prompted the mission. As she read through, something in the back of her mind nagged incessantly at her. There was something familiar that she couldn't place.

Sighing, she pushed it aside and continued her reading.

___________________________________________________________________________

As Beckett walked down the corridor, he heard running footsteps behind him. Turning, he was surprised to see Lorne jogging up to him. "Problem, Major?" he asked.

Evan grinned. "Nah, I'm good, doc. I just had a thought is all."

"You want to be careful about that," Carson teased. "It could get you into trouble."

The soldier chuckled. "They usually do," he replied. "I was just gonna say that you should have a word or three with Dr Zelenka."

"Do you know something I don't, son?"

"Only that he'd be a good person to talk to about the combat engineers," Lorne replied. "It's what I'd do, anyway."

Beckett nodded slowly as he considered the idea. "Aye, you may be onto something there."

"Look, doc, I know the Colonel's team have a bit of a reputation so personally, I think it'd be wise to cover all the bases."

The Scotsman squeezed Evan's shoulder affectionately. "Me too. Thank you, lad."

"Anytime," Lorne replied. "Oh, and doc?" he called as Carson started to walk away.

"Yes, Major?"

"You're spending far too much time with Rodney."

Beckett laughed. "Aye, so I've been told."

___________________________________________________________________________

"Carson? What can I do for you?"

Radek studied the physician intently. He had walked into the lab five minutes ago with a pained expression on his face and had been pacing nervously ever since.

"Uh, I don't suppose you're free at all?"

Zelenka looked at his laptop and frowned. He had been working on diagnostics and various other projects – and none of them were anywhere near finished. He was about to reply that no, he was loaded with work that needed to be completed yesterday, when he saw something in Beckett's eyes that made him reconsider. He muttered to himself in Czech, before switching back to English.

"I need a break from this," he said, waving a hand in front of the computer. "What is wrong?"

Carson wrung his hands in an almost perfect and slightly worrying imitation of McKay. "I, uh, well, lad, I was just wondering if you could get a team of combat engineers ready."

Radek frowned. "What has happened?" he asked, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was only one team off-world on a mission at the moment. "Is there a problem?"

"Good God, no!" Carson exclaimed. "Call it a hunch. You see, Elizabeth asked me and Major Lorne to put teams on stand-by and we just thought that…" He trailed off, looking sheepish.

The Czech gave him a grin. "You are worried about Colonel Sheppard's team, no?" He knew about the outpost, as he had been with Rodney when it had been found in the database.

"Aye, son. Knowing that Rodney and the Colonel, there's bound to be something that goes wrong."

Radek sighed, mentally cursing himself for thinking 'Arcturus!'. McKay had paid a heavy price from that incident. Still, the Canadian seemed to have learned a lesson and Zelenka was sure that it wasn't going to be readily forgotten. "They have a certain skill for that," he agreed. "If it helps to put your mind at rest, I can have my team assembled in an hour. I will have to recall some of them from repairs, but I am sure Dr Weir will allow me to do so."

Carson's face split into a relieved grin. "Thanks, Radek." He flushed as his stomach rumbled loudly.

"I was thinking of getting some lunch. Would you care to join me?"

Beckett's stomach growled hungrily again, reminding him that it had been a long time since his last meal. Without any let-up in the stomach flu epidemic, he hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. "You know, I think I will, lad. Mess?"

The Czech nodded and shut down his computer. "Mess."