This chapter is dedicated to magicisagift, Kipling-Nori, and SeeriaNix, for being my reviewers for the last chapter! (Huggles them)
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or the characters. This is set after Phantoms but before The Return Pt. 1! Song Lyrics: Waiting For Yesterday by 12 Stones.
Watch the sun steal Yesterday,
Hiding all emotion - far away.
Days spent wondering why this life is so cold,
And nothing ever changes.
Waiting For Yesterday — II
October 14th, 1:49
In seconds flat, Teyla had stolen John's pistol from the holster on his belt and shot him twice through the chest.
Silence rang loudly throughout the room.
"Colonel Sheppard!"
Carson dropped quickly to the floor beside John, shrugging off his jacket and pressing it to the wounds that were oozing blood. Teyla still held the gun, but her hands were shaking as she watched the blood pool all around their feet; John was loosing too much and too fast. Carson turned frantically to Teyla as he tapped his radio.
"John's been hit; guards to the infirmary, stat!" Then, to Teyla, he said, "Teyla, love, please put down the gun; I need to help John." His voice was shaking, but he found courage in the fact that Teyla was fighting for control; he only wished that it didn't have to be John's bloody body that was almost able to break the hold that the Wraith—or whatever it was—had on her.
The green in her eyes was beginning to disappear slowly, and once brown was the only color that remained, the gun fell from her hands and clattered to the floor as she slumped over.
Guards ran into the infirmary, their guns drawn. Elizabeth accompanied them, and as soon as she saw John on the floor, bleeding, her knees felt weak.
"Oh my God, Carson ... "
"I need to get him into surgery, now. Elizabeth ... it was Teyla. I can't explain it now, but somehow she's healed. She needs to be locked up; something was controlling her."
All the while he was speaking, several other medics were helping load John's still body onto a stretcher, and as soon as he was ready to be moved, Carson ran off without another word. He yelled frantic orders to the other doctors as a gown was placed over his shirt, blocking the blood that was seemed to be everywhere.
Elizabeth put her hand up against the wall, trying to calm herself. Her heart was beating fast in her chest and her emotions were running wild. Finally taking control of herself, she turned to the guards, who had bound Teyla's arms.
"Take ... " She paused and drew in a deep breath. "Take Teyla to holding cell one. Don't let her out, and don't let anyone in."
They nodded, and carefully began to move the unconscious Teyla from the infirmary to the transporter.
Elizabeth dropped into the same chair that she had sat in hours earlier. Only then, it was Teyla dying. Now, it was John. There was so much blood, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes from straying to the thick, maroon pool that shone in the light only yards away from her. When a nurse came out to clean it up, and she saw exactly how much there was, she found herself straying into the women's bathroom where she grasped the sink tightly and vomited.
Her body still shaking slightly, she slid down the wall and held her knees to her chest.
She'd seen blood before, but not like this. She'd seen John dying before, but not by bullets that had come from his own gun, and fired by his friend. The images of the blood surrounding everyone, the same blood was was splattered all over Carson's body, kept assaulting her mind.
Was he going to be all right?
2:10
Teyla groaned as she opened her eyes. When she looked around, all she saw were two guards placed at the door of the small room she was laying in. It was a cell.
"Where ... where am I?" she asked, putting her hand to her head and sitting up. The headache she had was like nothing she'd ever felt before; it almost felt like her head was splitting open. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, trying to make some of the pain go away.
But as soon as her chocolate brown eyes had shut, a million images came crashing into her head. Her whole body shaking, she fell to the ground, landing hard on her hands as her mind was assaulted with the picture of John laying on the infirmary floor, blood surrounding him, and a gun in her hands.
"No!"
The guards quickly turned around to see her now standing shakily on her feet.
"What did I do?" she asked quietly, but the fear and pain could be seen clearly in her eyes.
"Ma'am, please, calm down," one of the guards said.
"Is he all right?" Teyla questioned, clenching her eyes tightly shut, her hands pressing over them as she slid to the floor. The painful images of what she had done were flashing through her mind again and again. Blood ... his blood was everywhere ... his blood ...
Oh, God, what had she done?
"John ... "
"Ma'am?" the guard questioned. He touched the lock on the door, but the other guard walked up and shook his head.
"Dr. Weir said no opening the door, Samuel."
"Right. Ma'am? Are you all right?"
Teyla ignored both of them as she curled into the corner, her head in her hands. It was all she could do to keep her tears from coming as she continued to remember what had happened. She'd shot John. He was dying ... and she'd killed him.
Suddenly, she felt the returning sensation come over her; she cried out in her mind for it to stop.
But she couldn't do anything.
Her eyes flashed green once again as she moved from the corner and reached her hand through the cell bars, grabbed the guard by the back of his vest, and pulled him hard into the outside of the cell. His head made contact with the bar, and he slumped to the floor, blood beginning to ooze from the gash that had been created.
"Backup to holding cell one!" the other guard, Samuel, yelled into his radio. "Major Denver!"
He was never able to help his friend, however, because as began to move after yelling into his radio, he felt searing pain in his chest right before he realized that Teyla had stolen Major Denver's gun; she'd shot him.
Her hands were shaking no more as she held the gun tightly, and her finger pressed tightly onto the trigger; she shot the cell control's beside the door repeatedly. When the door finally swung open, she watched the force field between each of the cell bars go down, leaving both Teyla and the being controlling her confused as to how they had reached straight through.
There was no time to think; three more marines ran into the room; gun fire was heard, and only one figure walked out untouched.
Tears slipped unwillingly down the green eyes of the woman as she was forced to walked cautiously through the halls, the gun in her hands and tears in her eyes that were never supposed to shine through.
2:51
"Is he going to be all right?" she asked quietly.
Elizabeth sat wearily in the same chair, having finally forced herself to return to the infirmary. Carson had come out only seconds before, removing gloves and putting them in a trashcan along with his gown; they were both drenched in blood.
"He's going to be just fine. It didn't look promising for a while there, but he pulled through."
"Can I see him?"
"Aye."
Carson led Elizabeth back behind the curtain to where John was laying. His whole upper torso was wrapped tightly in bandages and his face looked pale and sweaty. Locks of black hair stuck to his head, and his breathing was supported by a ventilator. Elizabeth felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders at the sight of John Sheppard, alive and breathing.
"Elizabeth, we need to talk go Tey-" Carson began.
Elizabeth held up her hand to stop him and her face grew concerned and worried as she listened to the voice floating over her radio.
"Dr. Weir ... Teyla's escaped. We have four injured marines and one dead."
"Carson, follow me. Medical emergency!" she yelled.
Casting one last look in the direction of John, Elizabeth ran out of the infirmary. She didn't stop running until she was standing outside of the holding cell. There were several men sitting up against the wall; one was holding a cloth to his head and another grasping his leg in pain. There was blood everywhere, and Elizabeth felt only slightly light-headed as she immediately began helping Carson with the injured.
"She ... one moment she was muttering something about 'John' and then the next, her eyes suddenly turned green and she attacked. Ma'am," Major Denver said to Elizabeth, "she reached straight through the force field in the holding cell. Not even the Wraith can do that. And she ... she killed Samuel."
"Major, that wasn't Teyla. She's being controlled by something. Can you tell me where she went?" Elizabeth said, taping the small radio in her ear twice and repeating everything that Major Denver told her to the security teams that were already prowling the city.
"Use force if necessary."
She had to push the words past her lips, and she knew that if John were awake and actively in the search for Teyla, he would have yelled at her for authorizing the use of force.
"Elizabeth, love, we need to bring these men to the infirmary," Carson broke in.
"Right. While you do that, I need to find Rodney and Ronon; they'd want to help search."
"Aye, they would. But I haven't seen them since I told them to get some sleep hours ago."
Elizabeth took a deep breath in and then let it out. Between her concern for John's wellbeing, and capturing Teyla before she could injure anyone else, it had completely skipped her mind to tell Ronon and Rodney what was going on.
"I'll contact them."
Carson smiled weakly as he began to load the two most injured marines onto stretchers while several other doctors treated the rest of the injured personal on the site.
9:04
It had been hours. Search teams had been moving throughout all of Atlantis, and there was no sign of Teyla yet. And because Rodney had been tampering with the Ancient systems, searching for information on the device that had been found on P3X-221, they couldn't use the life sensors; though said scientist stubbornly insisted that he hadn't been the one to cause the sensors to go down.
"It's been seven hours," Elizabeth said, folding her arms over her chest and pacing back and forth. She was still in full gear, because not long after four in the morning, she had joined the search teams. Only the radio call from Carson saying that John was awake had made her stop looking. Now, she was standing in front of the now-awake John Sheppard, who was trying his best to get out of the bed he was currently residing in.
"Let me look for a bit," he insisted, wincing loudly as he shifted in his bed.
"No, John, you can barely move, and what's more, you just woke up from surgery!"
"Elizabeth-"
"No."
Her voice was firm, and John sighed; he knew it was the truth. If it weren't for the pain medicine that Carson had him on, he wouldn't even be able to sit up right now.
"Look, Teyla is out there hiding. You know that she is probably aware of everything that is happening, even if she isn't in control. She's already living with the fact that she nearly killed me, and now that she hurt so many other people, and killed Samuel. I can find her. Let me out of here."
"No, John. Carson just removed two bullets from your chest! You are in no condition to be moving around."
"I feel fine."
Elizabeth gave him a look that basically conveyed the feeling 'Yeah right'.
"OK, so I don't feel fine, but I can do this."
Just then, Ronon and Rodney, along with two other marines, walked into the infirmary.
"Oh, thank God. Rodney, will you tell Elizabeth I'm fine and can help you look?"
Rodney raised an eyebrow.
"John, you look like crap."
"What a big help you've been," John said, rolling his eyes.
"Aye, but you seem to be fine."
Four pair of eyes turned around to stare at the doctor that had just entered the room. John looked at him confused, wincing in pain again.
"Care to elaborate on that, doc?"
"You're fine, except for the holes in your chest. Elizabeth, he's right."
"Hold on, he was just shot! He shouldn't even be able to speak this much."
"You remember the mission that Major Lorne's team went on last week?" At four positive nods, Carson continued. "They traded with the locals; C-4 for medical supplies. Elizabeth, you authorized this."
"Yes, I am aware of that. What does it have to do with anything?"
"Among the supplies was a medicine, that, once administered, could rapidly heal wounds and internal bleeding. I gave it to Colonel Sheppard during surgery because I knew there was no way he would live otherwise. It has yet to be tested, and that's why I didn't mention it before. But it does more than heal on contact; it keeps healing. It was some kind of plant on their planet. Fascinating, really. I'd like to go and study-"
"Carson ... " John said, sighing.
"Right. I'm afraid to use another dose yet, and the current one seems to be wearing off, but it's almost as if he'd been in recovery for more than a week."
"So I can go?" John asked anxiously.
Carson nodded.
"Normally, if you had been in her for a week, I would have kicked you out because by now you'd be getting on my nerves. Elizabeth, he really is up to it."
"How ... " The rest of her sentence was cut off, however, as she sat down in a chair, sighing. There was no use arguing with a bunch of thick-headed men. Instead, she said, "Fine."
"Thank you."
It took less than three minutes for John to be out of bed, out of the infirmary gown, and in his own clothes again. He grasped the gun he was given and began to walk out of the room, Ronon and Rodney with him. Elizabeth sighed.
"Men."
"We should split up," John said.
"Why?" Ronon questioned, frowning, as they walked through the halls. Rodney jogged a little to catch up with the other men, who were keeping a constant few steps ahead of him.
"Yes, why?"
"Because, if we find her, it's better of only ones of us dies."
Rodney blinked at him a few times, then shook his head. John just smirked, trying to hide each wince of pain as he moved.
"She wouldn't kill us, would she?"
John raised an eyebrow at Rodney and sighed. "I'll keep going forward. Rodney, left, Ronon, right."
With that, he walked off, leaving Rodney standing there. The scientist blinked a few times, then walked off in his direction and John sighed in relief; he needed to go on alone. He knew he could find Teyla, but Rodney's whining and Ronon's presence seemed to distract him far too much.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, and the small amount of blood that seemed to have seeped through the bandages, he began running.
—TBC—
OK, you guys can do better than this. Out of the 250 people who viewed the last chapter ... three reviewed. I am complaining, by all means, but I will not give up on this story. Ever. I am going to finish it, I'm just wondering why people won't stop and give their thoughts when it takes seconds.
Oh, yeah ... and ... Please Review!