Author's note:- Many apologies for the delay but I've been ill and off work for the last couple of weeks. I'll try to make the next update a lot quicker. Hope you like it- J

Chapter 2:- If you could see what I see.

"You're the danger?" McKay repeated, "What are you talking about? What's wrong?" He tried to keep the panic out of his voice, he'd never seen Sheppard like this, couldn't remember ever seeing fear in his eyes. It wasn't right, Sheppard didn't do fear, that was his role in the team, fear, panic, anxiety, all his prerogative. It was Sheppard's job to maintain an air of calm, to talk him down, to deal with his rapidly escalating fear. Fear that was escalating because Sheppard was bleeding to death in front of his eyes, and wouldn't let him get close, and Sheppard was afraid and he was never afraid, and. . .No, stop! He broke the spiralling chain of thoughts. If this was role reversal then he had to remain calm. Sheppard needed him to. . . He needed. . .

John watched as Rodney started to panic, not surprised by the reaction, only by the question. 'What's wrong?' Surely he could see what was wrong, unless he knew, unless he already knew about the mutation. Had he seen. . . ? Did he know? What had happened before? How had the creature attacked. . .?Where was. . ? The questions were overwhelming, and he knew he couldn't answer any of them.

He blinked again, staring back at Rodney, assessing him, a creeping paranoia building, crawling through his mind, a living, breathing insect like form, foraging through his thoughts looking for food.

They already knew what was happening to him, knew that he was changing, they'd let the creature bite him, let it take him to see what would happen, because. .

No, that wasn't right, Rodney wouldn't let them, unless they were prisoners and he didn't. . .

God he was confused

What was happening to him?

"I. . ." John hesitated, looked down at the tough blue coating that now formed his skin. "I don't know what I'll do." He looked up again, met Rodney's gaze, mirrored his confusion with his own. "Please don't come any closer."

Rodney took a deep breath and dropped slowly to one knee so that his eyes were level with John's. He wasn't that good at doing calm in tense situations, but he could do it, when it was really needed, and now it was really needed. He could see that. His mind was running a million possible reasons for John's behaviour. They had seen enough strange things, possession by aliens, invisible enemies, nanoviruses, drugs, retroviruses, a myriad of possible causes, but they wouldn't be able to help until they could find out which one, and they couldn't do that if he wouldn't let them get close. Not to mention the blood that was still dripping down from the wound on his neck, and that was another thing he didn't really do- blood, especially blood that was dripping down from his best friend's neck. He didn't. . .dammit, focus, he needed to focus if he was going to help John. "Why don't you just put the gun down?" he asked, working hard to keep his tone reasonable, because, dammit, having a gun pointed at him, even if he didn't think John would really use it was making remaining calm even harder.

Sheppard shook his head, "No, I can't."

"Why not?"

John stared again, processing the question. He looked at the gun then back up at Rodney. Why did he have a gun trained on his friend? "Because if I do you'll come closer," he finally stated.

"And why can't I come closer?" Rodney asked, feeling like he was dealing with a child, and he hated dealing with children. He lacked the patience for it, actually he lacked the patience for dealing with most adults too, but again he suppressed his normal reactions, for John Sheppard he could be patient.

"Because. . .," John glanced round the room nervously, he blinked more sweat from his eyes. "Because if you do I might hurt you."

Rodney considered his answer for a moment. "So you're pointing a gun at me so that I don't come any closer, because if I do you might hurt me?" he asked.

John blinked and nodded.

"So what? To stop me from coming close where you might hurt me you're going to shoot me?"

"Yes," because he had to keep him away. "No," because he couldn't shoot Rodney, couldn't hurt him, he was trying to protect him, to protect everyone.

"Have you any idea how little sense that makes?" Rodney asked, allowing the exasperation to register in his tone.

Yes, he knew that it made no sense, nothing made sense to him, he didn't understand what was happening or how it had happened or why, but they needed to stay away from him because he wasn't sure. . . "I. . . .I don't want to hurt you."

"Then put the gun down," Rodney suggested softly

'Put the gun down,' the words repeated in his head, he looked down at it again and then back at Rodney, meeting his gaze, seeing the slight plea, mixed in with the fear, and he misread the fear for him for fear of him, and that stabbed a new hole into his already damaged psyche. Rodney was afraid of him. He let his arms relax, let the gun begin to drop, it was a small thing, but he could remove at least that part of his friend's fear. His gut churned with the knowledge that he could do nothing else, that even without the gun his friends would still fear what he had become.

Rodney let out his breath slowly, the air leaving his lungs as though their deflation was lowering Sheppard's arm. It was almost all the way down when the commotion drew his attention, pounding footsteps tumbling to a stop as they came through the door, voices shouting, and Rodney was shouting too, shouting a despairing "No!" as a startled John raised his gun again and pointed it at the door in reaction, fear and confusion pushing him in a sliding path along the wall towards the corner as his finger squeezed the trigger almost by reflex, and a bullet thudded into the metal floor, just in front of a startled Ronan Dex.

There were more shouts from the doorway, the marine next to McKay had his gun raised again and Rodney's attention switched rapidly three ways as a frightened Sheppard yelled at everyone to stay away, Ronan cursed loudly but held his ground, and the marine nervously flexed his finger on his own trigger.

"STOP," McKay yelled, raising his hands and patting the air placatingly, "Everyone just stop before someone gets hurt."

McKay wasn't sure what he expected when he shouted, but he hadn't quite expected everyone to listen to him, hadn't expected to hold everyone's attention, but he did. Silence filled the room as Rodney patted the air some more. "OK, right, that's good." He stated. He turned to the marine first "OK, you, Sergeant. . .lower your weapon and get out of here. Teyla," he could just about see her from his position, standing worriedly behind Ronan, "Keep everyone else out of here," she nodded her understanding as he turned his attention back to John who was also staring at him.

"Please," John asked, "Just keep everyone away from me." And that was when Ronon shot him.

TO BE CONTINUED. . .