Thanks again for all the fantastic reviews. The next bit has medical mentions, so I apologize in advance if anything is incorrect as I'm no doctor. The blame would go to my trusty Complete Family Health Encyclopedia.

Part 7 – Looking For a Needle in a Hay Stack

Elizabeth sat quietly keeping vigilance over the restless colonel as he slept. From time to time, his body would jerk as if an electric current had passed through it. John's appearance appalled her, as he looked so very ill, even more so than on any other occasion that she could remember and there had been plenty of those since arriving in the Pegasus galaxy.

They had worked out a colonel-sitting schedule by drawing straws to see in which order they would go. Elizabeth had been delighted when she pulled out the shortest of the straws, meaning that she would go first. She wanted to be around anyway when the lab reports came in, so she waited along with Carson as the hours ticked by but with still no sign of the all-important findings.

Carson thought John's restlessness indicated that the pain meds were wearing off, so fifteen minutes ago he'd given him a booster shot. However, he continued to move about in obvious distress as Elizabeth tried hard to concentrate on the report she was reading.

She looked up when John suddenly cried out. His eyes were open but he was staring off at some point across the room. So, Elizabeth moved over to him and gently placed her hand on his forehead feeling for signs of fever. He felt clammy but the monitors indicated only a mild increase in temperature. Moving her hand gently into his, she tried talking to him. "John can you hear me?" However, he showed no reaction to her voice.

Elizabeth was beginning to fret as John still stared without focus. She was just about to speak to him again when his body suddenly went into violent terrors as he thrashed about, kicking off the covers and nearly knocking over the all-important monitoring equipment. The noise drew the attention of the staff and they wasted no time in coming to Elizabeth's aid as she desperately tried to calm him down.

Carson rushed over and quickly sized up the problem. "He's having another seizure," he informed his staff. "Let's try an anticonvulsant on him and pray it works."

Within moments, the drug was handed to Carson. He quickly prepared a syringe and injected it directly into John's IV. His thrashing had become so bad that several people had to hold him down to prevent him from pulling out the IV and monitor lines.

For several long minutes, everyone waited to see if the drug would have any effect. Eventually they were rewarded when John suddenly stopped moving. A few seconds later, he began to cry out in obvious agony.

Elizabeth turned away to hide her tears before clearing her throat to speak. "Shouldn't the last dose of pain meds have kicked in by now, Carson?"

Beckett looked puzzled and checked his watch as he replied. "Aye, it's been a good thirty minutes since the last dose. I'm beginning to think that we'll have to administer something stronger like morphine, but we'll give the other drug chance to work before giving him that."

Elizabeth nodded and drew her gaze back to John. He was quieter now but pain was still causing him to cry out and even whimper from time to time. His earlier thrashing had dislodged the bedding and as the nurses were still busy dealing with other matters, Elizabeth moved to place the cover back over John's body. Reaching down, she was just about to tuck the blanket around his left foot when she suddenly let out a gasp of shock. Carson and the nurses all turned towards her wondering what the problem was.

"Carson have you seen his ankle?" she asked.

"No, not since I examined him earlier."

"Well look at this." Elizabeth advised pulling the blanket back slightly to give the doctor a better view.

Carson moved over and stared down to see what Elizabeth was getting at. Letting out his own gasp, he bent down to inspect the swollen and inflamed area on John's upper ankle closer. "Oh, my goodness that certainly wasn't there a few hours ago," he exclaimed as he gently touched the patch of discolored, angry skin. It felt hot under his fingers, so turning to his staff, he ordered. "Will someone get me a magnifier, please?"

One of the nurses rushed off and returned a few minutes later carrying the requested item. Blending down, Carson made a closer examination of the area before moving away from his patient. "Well, I can't see a definite bite mark, although the inflammation certainly looks typical for some kind of sting or bite. So we can therefore assume that it is but we still won't know for sure until those lab reports come through."

Elizabeth nodded. "What's holding them up?"

"Apparently they are having trouble finding anything wrong at all, so they're doing every test under the sun and I'm afraid some of them take a little while to perform." Carson turned back to Sheppard at a loss for words. "I don't like the way things are processing and if it is a bite of some insect or reptile, we need to know what it is as soon as possible and then find a living example in order to make an antitoxin for an effective treatment."

Elizabeth thought for a moment. "What if we send a team back to Sovia and asked the inhabitants if they know of any poisonous creatures in the vicinity of the Ancient ruins."

"Aye, that may not be a bad idea. It may help to send one of my people to describe the Colonel's symptoms."

Elizabeth nodded again. "Okay, we'll have a team assembled and ready to go within fifteen minutes."

"Aye, that will be fine." Carson quickly answered her as he moved off to instruct one of his staff.

After radioing Major Lorne to organize the mission, Elizabeth returned to John's bed to find him quieter than before but still staring off into the distance. She took his hand in hers again and softly spoke to him. "John can you hear me?"

The soothing tender tone of Elizabeth's voice brought him nearer to the surface of reality. Nearer than he'd felt in hours or was it days, as the nightmare of never ending pain and discomfort being his only memory. The pain was still there but pushed back to something resembling manageable. He vaguely wondered why he was still alive, the last time he'd been wake enough to register anything, he was sure that he was dying.

Licking dry lips, he tried to focus his vision on Elizabeth. Her image came back blurry but he could still make out her wonderful hair and the intense look of worry on her lovely face. He felt her raise the bed slightly and press an ice chip into his mouth. He relished the cold moisture as it melted on his tongue and slid down his aching throat.

Her comforting voice came again. "Hey, you've got us all worried. I know this is a stupid question, John, but how are you feeling?"

John would have smiled if a jolt of pain hadn't shot up his leg to land violently in his gut. He pushed the pain down to answer her after clearing his throat. "Not…good. Wha…what's wrong?" he simply asked.

"We're not sure at the moment but it seems you were bitten by something on Sovia. Can you remember anything?"

John searched his fuzzy brain. He vaguely remembered being asked that question before but a memory of a bite still refused to surface, so he simply shook his head causing a jolt of intense pain to shoot through his neck. He grabbed the sheet and rode it but it refused to back down as it intensified to become white-hot agony. No longer able to take it, he screamed.

Shocked at first, Elizabeth felt helpless as John screams echoed across the infirmary. Then an automatic response kicked in and she held him close against her to give comfort and support. He continued to yell but she muffled the noise against her shoulder. She felt his hands clenching her red top as he rode the untold wave of agony. His body began to shake with terrors again, and she feared another seizure was on the way.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carson rush over with a syringe, which he quickly injected into the IV. "I'm afraid it's time for the hard stuff," he muttered. "I just hope to god it gives him some peace."

They both waited for some sign that John's pain was easing and eventually after a good ten minutes, he began to calm down until only the odd whimper escaped his lips as he began to drift towards sleep.

Elizabeth felt his head slump as sleep claimed him. Carefully, she eased him back into the pillow and wiped the tears from her eyes before facing Carson. "He's getting worse isn't he?"

Carson looked at her sadly. "Aye, the pain is getting extreme but at the moment all his major organs are functioning normally, which of course is a blessing. With a toxin say from a snake or spider bite you would expect find swelling of the bite area followed by pain, which we know for sure he has . He's also suffering from dizziness, nausea, sweating, low blood pressure, convulsions, and extreme pallor, all of which are signs of snakebite toxin but that's where the comparison ends. An untreated snakebite would be followed by respiratory paralysis or internal bleeding. There would also be tissue destruction around the bite wound. Thankfully that's not happening at the moment."

"So are you saying that this could right itself given time?"

Carson shook his head sadly at the hope in her eyes. "I'm afraid not because until we know what we're dealing with, there's no telling how the symptoms will proceed."

Thankfully just as Carson finished his explanation, a toxicologist approached carrying the long await report on her tablet computer. "We've found something, doctor," she stated.

"Aye, okay, we'd best talk about this in my office. Are ya coming, Dr. Weir?"

Elizabeth looked towards John, torn with wanting to stay with him but also wanting to hear what the lab technician had to say. Knowing it probably wouldn't take long, she followed Carson towards his office.

"Well, what are we dealing with?" Carson asked the young woman the minute they arrived.

"I'm afraid to say, but we've found the strangest protein I've ever seen. It took some very complex tests to locate it because its quantity is exceedingly small. However, there is no denying that this is a toxin we're dealing with but how it was introduced into the Colonel's blood stream is another matter."

"I think we can guess that it was a bite because the probable site has already started to swell." Carson told her. "Is there any indication as to what symptoms this toxin is likely to produce?"

"I'm so sorry, we just don't understand the molecular build-up of this protein and there's nothing much to work from. I would suggest the best course of action would be to find out exactly what caused the bite and then we can work from there if we have a live specimen."

"Aye, I was afraid you were going to say that but at the moment, we haven't a clue as to what caused this."

The young toxicologist glanced sadly towards Elizabeth and Carson. "I hope you find out soon because whatever this protein does it can't be good for the body. We'll be ready to make an antitoxin if you find the creature."

"Thank you, lass, we'll keep you informed."

Without a word, she quietly left the room leaving two very worried people behind.

-SGA-

Elizabeth sat at her desk knowing that she should be in her quarters and asleep by now. It was well after midnight but she couldn't rest until Major Lorne and his team returned from Sovia. Ronon was now sitting with John after her stint had ended a couple of hours ago. Thankfully, the morphine had giving him some rest and he'd slept quietly giving them all hope that the ordeal would be nearly over. Yet somehow, Elizabeth knew it wouldn't be that simple, it never was for John.

Lorne and his team had reported in an hour ago stating that the Sovian's hadn't been too pleased to see them again but after hearing the reason, they had co-operated. Unfortunately, they knew of no such creature within the area of the ruins but they were allowing the team to search for a while. They also handed over the two known venomous spiders and four snakes found in the hotter regions of the planet. Soon it would be night around the ruins, so the team would return home within the next hour and then Elizabeth would attempt to get some sleep.

TBC