After all the times he'd wanted to suture the Colonel's mouth shut, Carson never thought he'd be quite so relieved to hear a wisecrack from Sheppard. But that one comment to tease Teyla had done more to assure him that John was alright than a whole litany of tests. He was still up, reviewing those test results, even though everyone else had been asleep for a few hours, and the gentle drone of Rodney's snore tempted him to join them. But he kept going over the results, expecting something to leap out at him and force the whole thing to make sense. But he was having no such luck.

Other than the fact they were nine and seven, respectively, John and Teyla were just fine- physically anyway. Teyla had acclimated instantly. She didn't care where she was or how she got there, she just needed to know she had two new playmates, one a partner in crime and the other the aim of all her teasing. Though Beckett hadn't thought it physically possible, she'd been even more excited when she'd discovered there was another child here to keep her company.

She'd dashed behind the Colonel's privacy curtain before Carson could stop her, and much to his surprise, she'd been angelic after that. Teyla had sat quietly on the neighboring bed for the next several hours, clearly besotted with the miniaturized Colonel. In fact, Carson was quite convinced she'd only talked so much when he'd first awoken because she had a crush. Which Ronon and McKay were going to tease her mercilessly for when she returned to normal.

Teyla seemed largely unchanged from her adult self. She was still fiercely independent and incredibly loyal, both refusing adult supervision, and then refusing to talk to any other guard after Ronon and Rodney had declared themselves her brothers. She'd picked quite a fight with Sgt. Bates over the matter, calling him something moderately inappropriate in Athosian, which Carson had declined to translate for the marine. She wasn't quite as skilled at controlling her temper as she would grow to be, but still boasted the wit and playful spirit he'd seen her show among her people. Not to mention the grace of one born to fight. She even looked remarkably like herself, which Carson supposed he shouldn't have found surprising. Everything about her was the same, right down to the red tinge to her hair when the sun shone bright.

However, it was not that way for John. Physically he was himself, messy hair and clear eyes, with a lean frame. But mentally Carson still worried John might be in shock. In no lifetime would Carson have pegged John as stoic. Playful banter, humor in desperate situations, these things characterized John Sheppard, but not silence. Beckett just kept hoping that teasing Teyla meant the Colonel was on his way out of the woods and back into Nottingham.

Carson finally decided to call it a night, when the alarm on his computer blared. John's blood pressure was spiking. Beckett sprinted down the hall to where Sheppard was muttering in his sleep and at the sound of Carson's footsteps, McKay and Ronon sprang up. Sweat was streaming down Sheppard's forehead, but with one good shake John was awake.

"John, lad, listen to me. You're in the infirmary, you're alright. It was just a bad dream."

He gasped for air as his pulse returned to normal, but the moment of calm was interrupted as he rolled his head to the side to gain his bearings and leapt out of bed shouting "Lady!" Her blood pressure must have spiked moments after John, when Carson wasn't in his office to be notified, but after a few hard shakes she woke as well. Her arrival wasn't as peaceful as John's however. She shook uncontrollably and sobbed at her nightmares. In a moment John was up on the bed next to her, ever the champion, with his arms around her, reassuring her everything would be okay.

"There were Wraith," she wept. "I've never seen one before, just the stories. It was, was..." and she buried her head in John's chest. He rocked her back and forth, murmuring gently, but that did nothing to soothe his own shaking.

He took notice of the three stricken men at the base of her bed and forced himself to explain, "It was gaunt, and sickly pale, covered in slime like it had been pulled from a swamp."

Her eyes turned up as she whispered, "You dreamt it too?" Silence reigned for a moment, terrible theories racing through Carson's mind, all hinged on the response this tired little boy gave. John nodded.

Maybe it wasn't what Carson thought. Maybe it was just a regular, old, bad dream. "What else did ye see lad?"

He waited for a moment before he spoke, reassuring himself that Teyla's breath had evened out before he continued. "I was in a cage, no, a prison. Outside the bars it was dark, but inside there was beam of light, too pale and mechanized. The monster, the catfish gone wrong, was there with me. He walked towards me, slow and deliberate, he knew I couldn't run. I just, I sat there. I could feel it in my head, feel it telling me to stay. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, I could just wait. He ran his finger down my cheek, the nail slicing through me, and blood dripping down my face." He stalled as he remembered the sensation and Teyla took over, giving him time to recover, and through action tell him he wasn't alone.

"I've been told stories my whole life, but I've never seen one before, never seen them feed. My village was burning, everyone was screaming, and running into the woods. There was no way to fight them, though some tried. I watched one carry away my best friend, and I couldn't even scream. It came out of the fires of a collapsing tent, fragments of bodies in its wake, and it walked towards me. The dream became too deep when he walked in. It had been just a dream, he gave it meat, made it real. I felt flames lick past my left leg from tent ruins to my side. Ash floated through the air, but it smelt wrong. People were in the cloud, and my lungs clogged with my friends."

"You could hear his fabric shift as he skulked towards you, and hear the hiss when he bared his teeth to smile. It got worse the closer he came. Your body ached to be away from him it felt so wrong, so sickening. " Teyla scooted closer to John, now using the hug to comfort him as much as her.

"I could hear him breathing Carson, nightmares aren't supposed to breathe."

"He called me little brother, and said he'd be seeing me soon. I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard Dr. Beckett. Then his smirk grew, like you weren't waking us up, like he was letting us go."

Teyla took John's hand, and wrapped his fingers around her own. She rolled his fingers out from within and held his palm to hers. She snuggled her ear closer to his chest to know his heart still beat, and that she was beside him.

"When he grinned, he told me you were coming to take me back, but he'd keep me in the end."

Rodney collapsed back into his chair as Ronon turned his eyes to Carson, burning with the unsaid order to make it stop.

Beckett stepped over with a gentle smile, and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "You're here." He moved his hand to trace the path of John's cheek where the wraith had cut him open and whispered, "You're safe." He stepped over to the cupboard of medicines and began rummaging as he berated himself. "This is why I wanted the two of you asleep as quickly as possible. After the stress you two have had today I was worried that there might be some bad dreams." Carson turned around with his cart full of supplies and a vial of sedative. "And then there were two marines in here earlier discussing Wraith physiology in detail." Beckett clicked his tongue and gave a chagrined apology to the children. "I let them discuss because I thought you were both too deep in your unconscious states to hear, but I was wrong. You must've heard their descriptions and with all you've been through, your brain manifested the first thing it could think of."

He sighed, deciding that the faster he moved on, the less questions there would be about the explanation. "Now, I'm going to give you both a sedative, and you'll sleep easy for the rest of the night. I promise."

Beckett reached for Teyla's arm, but she flinched back and tucked herself behind John. He murmured to her that it would be alright, then stretched his arm out to Carson to prove it to her. The Doc gave John an overly perky smile and quickly administered the drug. Teyla watched as Beckett gave it to John, and then buried her head in his shoulder until Beckett was done with her. When that was resolved, she settled back into place.

"You should both peacefully be asleep in a few minutes." Carson rolled the tray out of the way and moved to scoop up John and place him back in his own bed, but John shook his head.

"No Dr. Beckett, I will stay here." Carson glanced down and saw the half asleep Teyla with her fist clenched around the front of John's scrubs. He wrapped his arms around her and waited for her breathing to slow before he would close his eyes. Whatever the dream meant, at least he was acting like his usual overprotective self.

"John?" Rodney interposed, the scientist refusing to let him fall asleep, "One more question, whose hand was it that woke you up? Carson shook you, but by both shoulders."

"I don't know him. He was young, and a soldier." John yawned and started to slip into unconsciousness as he kept muttering. "He smiled at me, though, and his left eye was black, and his eyebrows were bushy." John faded into oblivion as the men stared at each other in fear.

Rodney headed towards the exit and Carson asked, "And just where are you going?"

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm off to misdiagnose two children!"

"Rodney," growled Ronon. He sighed in response and apologized.

"I'm sorry Carson, it's not like you chose for this to happen! I'm going back to my lab to find what we missed."

"Rodney..."

"Ford, Carson. He had a dream about Ford and the Wraith. I want to know why." Rodney strode from the room and Carson went to take his place in the chair next to Ronon. His research could wait until Rodney came back with his computer. For now, the vigil took precedence.