Condoms are indeed useful (The Tower)

"Our drone racks are now twenty percent full. It should be enough to defend against up to five hives, but the problem is, once again, power. A lone Zed PM can't juice up that many drones and the shield at the same time, so we'll have to attach a group of mark-two naquadah generators into the power grid," Rodney delivered his report about the newly acquired defenses with pride. He always made it look like he had done all good things all by himself. Nobody in the conference room was listening to him. John, Elizabeth, Ronon and Teyla were only hoping the report will be over before they die of boredom.

Finally, after ten more minutes, Rodney decided to end their torment and finish his report. Everyone stood up and stretched their limbs a little. That was when the slight ache in John's groin appeared again. He had gotten used to walking with it painlessly, but he completely forgot about it in the meeting. With nothing else on his mind right now, John had decided to hit the gym to try and shake it off, as he thought it was from the wave of cold weather that hit Atlantis recently. Little did he know how wrong he had been.


One week later, the ache still wouldn't go away. It got actually worse. At first, it got more intense - then it began to spread. John finally let go of his typical soldier machismo and decided to visit Carson in the infirmary.

After five minutes in the Ancient scanner, Carson finally gave John the basic diagnosis. "There is definitely something in ye that is not supposed to be there, lad. I'll need to run more tests to identify it and to estimate what it actually does. It will take only about an hour." John had resigned himself into the care of the doctor, who began using his devices on him.

Fifty minutes later, Carson packed his equipment and began asking questions. "How long have ye been having these aches?"

"About a week."

"When was the last time ye had sexual intercourse?"

"WHAT?" John slowly began to understand where Carson was headed and he didn't like the thought one single bit.

"The only thing that makes sense here is that ye caught an STD, son," Carson replied in a silent voice, not wanting to alert anyone about the condition of Atlantis' Kirk.

"Okay, I get it. It was..." John had to think hard for a while before he could give an answer. "...I think it was about a month ago with that - I think she was an important person on that planet." John gave Carson a scared look. He could always remember the women he had slept with, but now, he seemed unable to recall his memories right away. "Doc... What's going on with me?" John had finally asked the question he was afraid to ask.

"The bacterium that is probably causing this has already spread through yer body, son. Naturally, your groin still has the biggest concentration, but smaller numbers of it can be detected everywhere. It is attacking all yer organs, but the brain seems to be more sensitive towards its influence," Carson answered in a grieving voice.

"What are you going to do?"

"With your permission, I'd like to ask Ronon and Teyla if they know anything about the disease. I'd also like a sample of yer blood for testing. I'd also need a sample from the girl on the planet. Don't worry - I have a good idea who she was," Carson explained with a slight grin and stabbed a syringe into John's wrist to take a bit of his blood.


Elizabeth had no problems allowing a team to M5S-422 after Carson explained why it was needed. He, Ronon and Teyla were sent to the village, where several members of the former royal family lived – except now, they were working with the people they oppressed. Carson didn't feel comfortable discussing it in Atlantis, but once they went through the gate, he asked the Pegasus natives. "Have you ever seen a disease that would cause aches in the groin and memory loss?"

"I know about several. All of them are transmitted when two share one bed," Teyla answered and thought a little. "Is that why we are here?"

"Actually... yes" Carson said hesitantly. Neither Teyla, nor Ronon said anything, but both of them thought about the fact that all that flirting and womanizing would one day come back and bite their teammate hard. Now the day had come. "We have to find the girl he had slept with and test her."

And so they have. During the last month, Mara had changed so much that they could barely recognize her. Her hair and skin were dirty, her clothes were ragged in several places and she looked like she didn't sleep much. The odd thing was that she didn't display any signs of the disease - but Carson did find the bacteria when he tested her blood for it.

After Carson delivered his diagnosis, both Teyla and Ronon threw him incredulous and scared looks. A moment later, Teyla decided to speak the terrible news. "There are many diseases that cause loss of memory and aches in the groin, but only one of them has no effect on women. It is called Sevarra. There is no cure for it that I would know about. You were saying that Colonel Sheppard experienced these aches for seven days before he sought you out?"

"Yes, lass," Carson answered with uncertainty in his voice. The words 'no cure' usually meant big trouble.

Teyla sighed a little before delivering the last bit of her knowledge about what had befallen her friend. "Then unless we find a cure, he will die within the next five days."


"Oh my god!" Elizabeth exclaimed after the team delivered their report about their findings.

"It seems the bacterium reacts to its environment. Estrogen calms it down, but testosterone makes it highly aggressive. That's why women are not affected by it. The bacteria are merely surviving in their bodies. Once it gets into a man, it begins to reproduce and attack everything it gets to."

"What are you going to do, Carson?" Elizabeth asked after a moment of silence.

"I am going to use large doses of aggressive antibiotics on the most affected areas and smaller doses in his IV fluids. If that doesn't work, I'll try to inject him with estrogen and testosterone inhibitors. And if that doesn't work, I'll have to remove the source of testosterone in his body."

"Best case scenario?" Elizabeth tried to ask matter-of-factly, but this was her close friend they were talking about.

"We will get the disease out of him before it does any real damage."

Then, Elizabeth asked the question she was afraid to ask. "Worst case scenario?"

Carson didn't answer. He just turned his head to Teyla, who delivered an answer. "He will lose all his memories and faculties before the end -" Teyla's choice of words felt both sensitive and cruel to those in the room, "- in five, maybe six days."

"Alright. Keep me posted." Elizabeth accepted the news and adjourned the meeting.


The treatment Carson had proposed turned John's body into one big battlefield. Carson tried his best to cure the soldier, but the disease had already progressed too far – the week when John discarded his condition as a mere chill ache was what made the difference. The antibiotics merely slowed Sevarra down, but were doing so much damage to the soldier's body that after two days, Carson was forced to abandon this plan.

The first backup plan worked a little better, but John's body had only limited natural sources of estrogen and the Sevarra bacterium seemed to support his testicles – as if it was trying to create more fuel for itself. The day Carson switched plans, John suddenly lost all his memories and became aggressive, wounding two medics before a stunner blast from Corporal Perkins stopped him. After this incident, John had been permanently restrained and sedated.

Four days after returning from M5S-422, Carson finally decided to perform the most radical of his three plans: castrating Sheppard and injecting him with a huge dose of estrogen afterwards. It seemed to work and calm down the Sevarra bacterium, but it still wasn't good enough. Six days after diagnosing John with Sevarra, Carson had finally admitted that he had lost the battle for his life. In the five weeks since infection, the Sevarra bacterium reproduced – there were so many in John's body that they were killing him even in their dormant state.

Lt. Col. John Sheppard, USAF, had died nine days after first visiting Carson.

After two months of research, Carson found out that John would have died no matter what he could try. His experiments have showed that it is already too late when Sevarra shows its symptoms. As a result of this discovery, all off-world personnel had been issued condoms as standard field equipment – it was experimentally proved that they can prevent the Sevarra bacterium from reaching the man's body.


AN: Once again a big thanks to Reiko for betaing this for me. Another thanks goes to Fionnait for her scientific help