Abby was checking his ob's when Sheppard woke with a start, screaming blue murder and attempting to get off the bed. She pressed her hands down firmly onto his chest to keep him from damaging himself but it seemed to scare him even more.

"No!"

He looked at the position of her hand, ripped it off and tried to scramble backwards but the handcuffs that had been put on him kept him where he was and he was unable to move back any further.

She didn't know why he had reacted to the placement of her hand, normally it calmed patients, grounded them, but he seemed to distress him.

"John," she held onto his shoulder, one hand hovering over the call button, "John."

He met her eyes and stilled. He was panting hard, trying to move away from her.

"Come on, calm down. You're fine."

"My team," he said looking around the room with wild eyes.

"They're not here."

"Where are they?"

"I.." she was at a loss for words, "I don't know where they are."

He wiped a hand across his face; it was shaking.

"But…I'm sure they're on their way."

His body relaxed a little bit and Abby moved her hand away from the call button. The last thing he needed was more sedation, especially in his state and pressing it would only bring more people and more aggravation.

"Relax okay? You're safe here."

His hand was up to his chest, curled protectively.

He licked his lips and she took it as her cue to pass him a glass of water. He eyed it warily before taking it from her and took an experimental sip.

"What happened to you?"

She wasn't expecting an answer and the look he was giving her implied he didn't want to give one, but then he surprised her.

"I think I was ambushed…." He passed the glass back to her, "….I don't know."

Abby pulled a chair over to the bed and perched on it, waiting while he glanced around the room again.

"It was supposed to be a peaceful mission. Food trade. Maybe…I don't know. Maybe we were wrong about them."

He tugged at the cuff around his wrist and groaned.

"They should be here by now."

Abby reached out and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. She could still feel the heat radiating off him and when he swallowed thickly and groaned again she could tell he was obviously having a hard time not to throw up. It was intuition as a doctor, knowing when to thrust a bowl under a patients chin before they lost the battle. She hadn't been wrong. He retched miserably and when he was finished she removed the bowl and mopped at his brow with a cold compress. He was sagging back into the pillow, eyes clamped shut and shivering.

"I did something stupid didn't I?"

"Well, I don't think you meant it but…yeah, pulling a gun out in the middle of a crowded ward isn't a winner."

"I was talking about the mission…" he smiled.

"Oh."

"But the gun, earlier, wasn't such a good move. I just needed to get out……"

"Where to?"

"Home…my friends," he opened one eyelid a crack, "I don't remember how I got here."

"We'll find out, but first you need to rest. You've got a dangerously high fever."

He clenched his jaw, "Nothing I haven't had before."

And for some reason she believed him. He looked tortured and she couldn't help but think whatever had happened on his last mission had been bad. Very bad.

---------------------

"How is he?"

Abby continued to remove the packaging to her sandwich surprised to find her own hands shaking slightly. Patients would get to her now and again, but this one was different. She didn't know how she could help Sheppard.

"Doctor Jenner?"

"He's just gone back to sleep."

Ling sat down opposite her, "I've called it in. He's going to have a full psychological exam in the morning."

Abby dropped her sandwich onto the table of the rec room, "I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"Why not?"

"He's not crazy. He's sick."

Ling leaned forwards, clasping her hands together, "Look, he seems…well, he's a very attractive man and-"

"I'd stop that sentence right now," Abby stated picking at her sandwich, "I'm not compromised by….." She laughed, "-that's just ridiculous okay. You're jumping the gun and-"

"As I recall, he was the one with the gun."

"He was backed into a corner and scared, not to mention he has a temperature of 103. Just wait until he's much better and we've had a chance to locate his friends and then do the exam. Not before."

"If there are any friends…"

"I believe him."

"I wish I did."

Abby looked longingly at her sandwich and found she wasn't really hungry anymore. She tossed it into the nearest trashcan and left Ling sitting in her rec-room.

-------------------

Doctor Jenner had introduced herself with a quick handshake and a warm smile and Nancy had informed her that she had come to visit her ex husband. She was guided over to a private room, acknowledged the two security guards stationed outside his room and pushed the door open uncertainly.

"Is he okay?"

Doctor Jenner patted her on the shoulder, "He's had a rough night, but he's stable. His fever spiked about five hours ago but he's doing fine."

"And the……security guards?"

Doctor Jenner smiled tightly, "He was a little disorientated. We had to sedate him."

Nancy didn't know what that meant exactly. She was still a little shocked at having been called in the middle of the night to be asked for a medical history. She hadn't heard from her ex husband in years and to have been called out of the blue had shaken her. She hadn't been able to drop off after that and had made the four hour drive into Colorado to……she didn't know why, to confirm that he really was okay. To confirm that he was still alive.

"I'll be just outside if you need me."

The door slid shut behind her and Nancy walked around the privacy curtain to see John, lying on his side, one hand tucked under his chin, the other cuffed to the side of the bed.

He hadn't really changed. He looked a little bit older and his hair was definitely longer than it had been. In his sleep she recognized the tight lines of his face, the clenched jaw, the look of restless dreams. That she remembered. That was familiar.

She sat in the chair beside his bed, draping her coat over her knee and watched him sleep, unsure of why she was there and how he would react when he awoke to find her sitting beside the bed.

It didn't take long for a reaction. He started to shift under the covers, mumbled something in his sleep, tried to turn and then met resistance from the steel cuffs around his wrist. There was a second in which he tensed, breathed out loudly and then snapped his eyes open.

Nancy moved onto the edge of her chair and reached up to his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze and reassuring him like she had done for many years, that everything was okay.

He blinked tiredly before recognition dawned, "Nance?"

"What have you done this time?"

He regarded the cuffs with a look of confusion and tugged at them experimentally before sagging back against his pillow, "What are you doing here?"

His voice was hoarse and he was blinking sleepily, his free hand reaching up to rub at his face and run a trail through his messy hair.

"They couldn't get hold of your medical files. And…" she paused, "I just couldn't sleep when I knew you were here. I had to come see you."

He met her look and raised his eyebrows, "You still live in Colorado?"

"No."

"But…" he tried to sit more upright, but his reactions were slow and he seemed weak, "…you loved that house."

"No, you loved that house," she said teasingly.

It had backed onto an airstrip and was noisy as hell.

"I moved back north to be closer to my parents."

He nodded and she wasn't sure if he was really listening to her. He seemed to be staring off at another point in the room, possibly trying to piece together how and why he was handcuffed to his bed.

"What happened?" he asked.

Nancy found her treacherous eyes moving to the handcuffs again.

"Why don't you tell me?"

"I….."

She'd missed him. The last time she had heard from him he had been stationed in Antarctica. She'd received one grainy telephone call from him in which had had tried to convince her that he was fine and enjoying his new opportunity within the Air Force and then nothing. That had been over three and half years ago.

He didn't answer her question.

"Are my team here yet?"

Nancy watched him closely, "I……I don't think so."

She didn't know what team he was referring too. As far as she had known he had been alone in Antarctica. He hadn't been assigned a unit. If anything, serving again, having command, had been the last thing on his mind when he left.

He looked deflated, "Oh."

"John, what aren't you telling me?"

"My team should be here now. I need to go back."

"Doctor Jenner said," and she cleared her throat, unsure of his reaction, "She mentioned that a Doctor has come and talked to you. A psychiatrist."

He pulled at the handcuff again, its clink filled the silence, "She didn't believe me," he muttered rotating his wrist, "-thinks I'm crazy."

"Who?"

"Ling," he said sharply, "Thinks I've lost it."

He'd never been very good at expressing himself. Their relationship had ended amicably after realization dawned that he wasn't ready for marriage and she really didn't like being a soldier's wife. He was never around and the fallout from bad missions always destroyed him. After Mitch and Dex had died he had been inconsolable, retreating into himself and barely uttering two words to her for months. And after Holland….it just wasn't the same. He wasn't the same. He'd hardened a little, become that much farther away and then….nothing. She knew he hated psychiatrists. Her own suggestion that they seek marriage counseling had been rebuffed just as quickly.

"How are your family?"

Nancy couldn't contemplate having a normal conversation with him. Something was wrong.

"It's post traumatic stress isn't it?"

He smiled sadly, "No Nance, it's not."

"Well then, where have you been? You've been gone for…three years and you just turn up?"

"I've been…." He looked over to the door as if he expected someone to be listening, "I've been away, doing something important."

"In Antarctica?"

He shook his head.

"I need to get back. People rely on me."

"You've always thought people rely on you. You're not responsible for everything that-"

"I'm Commanding Officer of a base of hundreds. Of course they rely on me."

A promotion. Now she knew he had lost it because with his record there was no way he was ever going to get a promotion. He was lucky he was still part of the military.

"Come on John. A promotion?"

"Yeah. You don't believe me?"

She decided not to broach the subject again.

"I was kind of surprised to be listed as your next of kin? What about Graham? Your dad?"

He was licking his lips, reaching for the water beside his bed. He was basically doing what he always did. He was avoiding a difficult question.

"They're fine by the way, although……you might want to talk to your dad. He's not been well lately."

"You know we don't get on."

"I know but…if something happened to him then…surely you would want to have made some peace."

"Peace? Yeah…that's going to happen."

"Okay, I'll let it go," she squeezed his arm again.

She helped him with the water.

"It's really good to see you."

-----------------------

Five hours later, the door had opened crack and Nancy had looked up to see a woman standing there. She looked over to John, where he was sleeping again, and quietly got up to join the woman.

"How's he doing?"

"Okay…I think. Can I-"

"Oh sorry," and the woman presented her hand, "I'm Doctor Ling. I did the psychiatric evaluation on John when he came in. I was just wondering if you had a few minutes to have a little chat with me."

Nancy nodded ands followed her across the ward to a private room.

She hadn't even got comfortable when Ling was already ploughing ahead.

"Now, Doctor Jenner may or may not have mentioned, but we're a little concerned about John."

Nancy took the coffee that was proffered to her and allowed it to warm her hands. Doctor Jenner hadn't seemed to have liked this Ling character and Nancy was beginning to get the same bad vibe.

"How?"

"He's having problems facing up to reality. At current he believes he is commanding officer of a base……….."

Nancy sipped her coffee.

"…….in space."

And nearly spat it out.

Nancy didn't know how to process the information that was being given to her and instead she said the first thing that came to mind, "Well, he did say he'd been promoted."

Ling smiled, "Yes well….aside from his……diminished state of mind he attacked some security guards earlier."

"John doesn't like hospitals."

"Not many people do but then they don't go waving a gun around."

"What?" Now the handcuffs made sense, "Are you sure?"

"I was there Mrs Sheppard."

"It's…….Harmon. Nancy Harmon. I…changed back to my maiden name."

"Look, I want to get some background details from you. I want to build up a picture of John. Is there anything you can think of that may have contributed to his strange behavior?"

"I…."

Nancy felt like a traitor but if what this woman was saying was true then maybe he did need help. He hadn't seemed to be himself when she was in the room with him. Perhaps he was suffering from PTSD.

"Maybe…..maybe his friends deaths effected him more than I thought."

Ling had a pad of paper that was resting precariously on her knee and she was already writing things down, absorbed in what she was saying.

"Mitchell and Dexter, they were members of his unit. They died out in the field and John never forgave himself."

"Really?"

"I thought he'd dealt with it and then……Holland, a guy he tried to rescue, he also died."

"And how did he react to that?"

"Well, he didn't talk about it much. I know he spoke to a counselor back on base."

"But he didn't talk to you about it?"

"No. I think he wanted to protect me. You see John wants to protect everyone."

Ling nodded and didn't say anything.

"Our marriage ended shortly after that, not because of him, it was both of us and he was sent to Antarctica to ferry local officials from base to base. I thought it would be good for him, a slower pace."

"When was that?"
"That's was…..three and a half years ago now. I had maybe one, two calls from him and then this is the first I've seen of him."

"And you think these deaths may be responsible?"

"I don't know. John always took failure personally, only, it wasn't his fault. None of it was."

Tbc…..one chapter to go.