AN: After today's post I will be away on holiday until next Monday, but I will resume posting then. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing so far. It's much appreciated. :D

Sheppard rolled onto his side and pulled his covers up, desperately trying to get back to sleep. He still felt exhausted and didn't even want to check his watch to see what time it was. His body was telling him to stay put, and he meant to listen to it this time.

The sound of the ocean accompanied him through the window he'd left slightly open. The waves and the fresh air usually helped to lull him, but right now he felt so knotted up inside he couldn't relax. But why was he so worried; he tried to think about what was concerning him, but it wouldn't come into focus.

He heard a voice calling his name, distant through his thoughts. It confused him for a moment, but then he realised someone was contacting him through his earpiece. He checked his watch, 0524 hours, and activated the link.

'This is Sheppard.'

'Colonel Sheppard. Elizabeth's condition has deteriorated considerably. She's losing the fight. Yeh need to get down here right away, lad.'

The alarm in Carson's voice had him immediately leaping out of bed, pulling on his trousers and boots and running for the infirmary. The deserted corridors seemed longer than normal as he sped down them, as if they were trying to sabotage his attempts to reach his friend in time. Eventually, he made it to a transporter that took him to the infirmary level, almost directly outside the entrance. When he strode in, Carson, in full hazmat gear, was there to meet him.

'It's not good, Colonel. The nanites are spreading throughout her body, taking over all her functions. There's a particularly high proportion of them in her brain and I believe they are trying to take command of her body. If we don't find a way to stop them soon, she'll become some kind of organic replicator and she'll turn on us.'

'Can I see her?'

'Of course, but you'll need to stay outside the isolation tent we've set up around her, son. We can't risk yeh getting contaminated, too.'

John nodded his understanding and followed Carson through to the room where Elizabeth was being treated. McKay was already there, studying a datafile. Though he couldn't see her clearly through the sheeting, Sheppard could make out she had her eyes closed. Carson started up the scanner and captured the latest images of her body's fight with the nanites. She was riddled with them.

'D'you think she's aware we're here?' Sheppard asked, watching her untroubled exterior, in complete contrast to the fight for survival she was engaged in.

'How can she be? She's unconscious,' McKay snorted.

Carson joined John to look at his patient. 'Yeh may be right. Yeh could try talking to her – tell her to keep fighting.'

'And that will help exactly how?' McKay sneered, clearly not convinced by the doctor's suggestion.

'In a coma, one's sense of hearing is the last thing to go and the first thing to return. There are many cases where patients were actually able to hear others talking to them in their rooms,' Beckett explained patiently as if speaking to a petulant child.

Rodney gave his a sceptical glare. 'And were these comas also caused by nanites invading people's bodies, hmm?'

'No, Rodney, but there are indications that she's thinking.'

'You mean dreaming?' Sheppard asked, wondering what kind of nightmares nanites might bring with them.

'More than that,' Carson replied. 'Her mind is extremely active for someone in a coma. Her EEG reads almost as if she were going about her daily life, which suggests she may well be able to hear us.'

Sheppard looked down at Elizabeth again. 'What the hell are they doing to her?'

'I wish I knew,' Carson confessed sadly. 'The immune-boosting drugs are having no effect.'

Sheppard felt anger at the lack of control they had over this situation rising inside him. 'Aggressive little bastards,' he muttered through clenched teeth.

Suddenly, he heard McKay snap, 'What?'

'What?' Beckett retaliated.

'Well, it's that look. That's the same look I get when I have a brilliant idea.'

Thinking that and odd thing to say, Sheppard asked, 'How would you know how you looked?'

'Cause it's happened more than once in front of a mirror, okay?' McKay explained. Then he turned back to the doctor. 'Carson, what is it?'

'I don't know about brilliant, but it just might...Excuse me,' was the enigmatic response as he hurried away.

'What are you doing?' McKay called after him, heading in the same direction.

That left Sheppard alone with Elizabeth. He struggled to come up with the words he wanted to say. 'You know, if Carson's right and you can hear me, I suppose I should say something profound.' He paused, trying to think of something, anything that might help her. Nothing came to mind. 'OK, I'm not so good at profound,' he admitted, 'but you should know we're doing everything we can to get you through this. These, these nanites, I don't know what they're putting you through, I don't know what they're doing to you, but...don't let 'em get to you.'

He saw a flicker of movement behind Elizabeth's eyelids, showing signs of her brain's continued activity.

'We're doing everything we can to bring you back, but you've got to do your part. You've got to fight this.'

He continued to talk to her that way, urging her to fight, telling her to stay with them, to try to wake up and come back to them, and although he could see how busy her mind was, she just couldn't do what he asked. Teyla and Ronon now joined him, too, Teyla doing her bit, though Ronon looked visibly uncomfortable with the thought of talking to the unconscious woman. Nothing they said made a difference. His friend was dying in front of him and there wasn't a damned thing Sheppard could do to stop it.

As he battled to keep down his surging emotions, Carson and Rodney returned.

'Okay. We think we've found a way to uncouple the nanite cells from Elizabeth's cells,' McKay announced.

'We?' Beckett repeated in a tone that suggested he had done most of the work. John really didn't care who was responsible, he just wanted to know what they planned to do.

'How?' he heard Teyla asked before he had the chance to voice the question himself.

'We create a distraction,' Rodney told her. He held up a small cylinder, smiling smugly.

Carson took it from him and carefully put it down on a nearby trolley, as if he thought it might explode if he left it in Rodney's hand any longer. 'It finally occurred to me why I wasn't having any success...'

'What were the nanites originally designed to do?' McKay blurted out, interrupting him.

'Fight the Wraith,' Ronon rumbled, his arms folded over his broad chest.

'Exactly,' Rodney grinned. 'So that's what we'll get them to do now.'

'We think by implanting a small amount of Wraith tissue into Doctor Weir's body...' Carson said, trying to pick up the conversation again.

'It's like a tumour,' Rodney added, interrupting once more.

'Aye, a small tumour, yes – the nanite cells will essentially...'

'...attack it. They have to – it's what they are programmed to do, which will draw them away from Elizabeth's cells, effectively unbinding them,' Rodney said triumphantly.

Tempering his enthusiasm, Beckett stepped in again. 'It will only last a few seconds or so, mind you, before the nanites attack the Wraith tissue and return their focus to Doctor Weir's cells.'

'Yeah, but that's all we need; momentary distraction to draw them away from her so we can zap 'em with the EM pulse.'

Sheppard looked back and forth between the two men, suddenly experiencing the weirdest sense of déjà vu. 'Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is all wrong. We've already done all this.'

His companions looked at him oddly, their expressions varying between amusement, concern, and contempt.

'This is hardly a time for jokes, Sheppard!' McKay snapped. 'We need to do this if you want to save Elizabeth.'

'No...no...there's no point. This has already happened.'

'What do you mean, Colonel? Are you not feeling well?' Teyla asked, her brow puckering with worry.

'I mean, we have all been through this. This is where it started...when we first realised Elizabeth had been infected with Niam's nanites. She got through this. We put the Wraith tissue into her, the nanites went for it, we blasted them with an EM pulse directed through the scanner, but some nanites survived and Elizabeth had to shut them down herself.'

'How did you know we were thinking of directing the pulse through the scanner? I hadn't even told you that yet,' Rodney gasped.

'Because this has already happened!' he shouted, scraping his hands back through his black locks. 'Don't any of you remember?'

They were all still casting him dubious looks when another realisation struck him. He slowly slid his eyes in Carson's direction.

'Aye, lad. You're right. I shouldn't be here.'

'You died. An explosive tumour took you out.'

Carson nodded. 'That's true, son. Only a few months after all this happened.'

The others still looked as baffled as ever, but Carson smiled at him, his kind eyes twinkling in the dim light of the lab.

'Am I dreaming this, because I have been having some seriously weird nightmares lately,' Sheppard asked him.

Carson slipped off the helmet of his hazmat suit. 'You're asleep, but whether or not this is just a dream or something more significant...well...only you can make that decision.'

While he tried to fathom Carson's cryptic clues, he turned to look at Elizabeth. 'The nanites are dangerous, aren't they?'

'Yeh don't need me to tell yeh the answer to that, son,' Carson replied, stepping up to his shoulder.

'Erm, excuse me. Shouldn't we be getting on with the procedure? Remember the nanites about to completely take over Elizabeth's body, anyone?' Rodney called from behind them.

'This is significant in some way. Are the nanites really about to take over her again?' Sheppard asked the doctor.

'Only time will tell. But yeh know in yer heart that something's wrong, don't yeh, son?'

He nodded, chewing his lip. 'So what do we do?' Can I use the solution you came up with?'

Carson shrugged, looking up at him with his clear, blue eyes. 'I'm not sure, John. It all depends on how far the nanites are spread, and whether the person inside really wants the little buggers to shutdown.'

'What the hell are you two gibbering about?' McKay demanded, turning Carson around to face him. 'We need to fix this. Now!'

Sheppard wasn't sure what happened next; he felt a crippling pain across the back of his neck and for a second or two, his vision blacked out. When he came to his senses, he was on the floor and he could hear shouting, panic, and equipment smashing.

He looked around for the cause of the commotion, spotting Elizabeth now on her feet with Teyla in a strangle hold while Ronon desperately tried to pull her off.

'Sheppard! Help me!' he screamed, and Sheppard was straight on his feet, swinging his full body weight off Elizabeth's right arm. It made not the slightest difference. He watched as Elizabeth choked the life out of Teyla, even as Ronon took a step back and fired shot after shot into her back with his energy weapon. She only let go when it was clear Teyla was gone. Without missing a beat, she shook Sheppard free, throwing him across the lab, then smashed her fist down on Ronon's weapon arm so hard the colonel literally heard the bone splinter.

The Satedan crumpled to the floor, screaming in agony. Sheppard cursed himself for not bringing his gun, even though he knew it wouldn't have made any lasting impact. Though winded, Sheppard staggered back to his feet to put himself in her path again, determined to protect the others and desperately trying not to look at Teyla's lifeless body lying discarded on the floor. Elizabeth barely shook as he swung a right hook at her, simply returning the favour and sending him flying across the lab and into a bank of computers.

As his blurred vision began to clear, he saw her advance on Carson, but as she reached him she stopped, frowning.

'Sorry, love. I'm dead. There's not much yeh can do ta me.'

She accepted that without question, turning instead to Rodney cowering beside him. 'Please...God, no!'

She thrust out her hand, but unlike that of a true Replicator, it didn't slide through his forehead with ease, instead splitting his skull with a nauseating crunch. Sheppard froze in horror as she held McKay suspended like that for a few seconds longer, then snatched her hand back, leaving him to drop like a severed marionette. He folded, blood oozing from his injury, his eyes glazed in death.

'Carson! Is this what's coming?' Sheppard yelled to him, watching Elizabeth turn his way.

'Possibly. Trust yer instincts, lad. They've never guided yeh badly before.'

Elizabeth was over him now, her eyes burning with the same anger he'd seen in Oberoth's eyes when he'd looked at him. 'You can't stop us. We are superior in every way.'

'I will stop you,' he vowed, listening to Ronon's growls behind him as he forced himself to his feet to try to defend his friend. Sheppard knew the Satedan couldn't help him, but he didn't care. This was a dream...there was still time to stop the nanites...to save Elizabeth.

'Good luck, son,' Carson said, fading into the gloom of the failing lab.

Sheppard fixed his eyes on Elizabeth's, and instead of being afraid, he smiled up at her. 'I'll save you,' he promised.

She frowned, then smirked. 'Only if someone saves you first.'

He closed his eyes as her hand came toward his forehead...

At the first sensation of the impact, Sheppard's eyes snapped open. He was in his office – Elizabeth's office – feet up on the desk watching the feedback from the isolation room and had somehow managed to fall asleep again. He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned toward the screen. Elizabeth was rubbing her temples and a light sheen of perspiration glowed on her skin. She looked like she might have a fever. But weren't the nanites supposed to cure those kinds of things?

He tapped his earpiece. 'Sheppard to Keller.'

'Yes, Colonel,' she immediately responded.

'Any change in Elizabeth's condition.'

'I was about to update you, Colonel. She seems to have developed a temperature, nothing too serious right now, but we plan to monitor her more closely. We've just carried out another scan and the nanites are still exactly as they should be, so this appears to be unrelated at this time. I'll do some blood work and see if I can figure out what's going on.'

'But I thought the nanites should keep her well.'

'Well, they were programmed specifically to fix life threatening injuries such as the one's she'd sustained after the satellite beam struck the city. It's possible they may overlook something as innocuous as a virus as long as Elizabeth's body seems able to fight it.'

Sheppard scratched his hair, suppressing a yawn, 'So what you're saying is you think this may be a cold?'

'It's quite possible that's all it is, yes.'

Sheppard knew the young doctor might be well right, but his instincts were telling him there was more to it. Hadn't Carson told him to trust his instincts? Of course, Carson had been dead for weeks now, so the fact he was even considering taking his advice above and beyond that of a living doctor suggested his mental state wasn't quite as peachy as he'd hoped.

But, as he watched Elizabeth, a growing sense of foreboding stirred within him. He trusted her, but he couldn't say the same thing for those damned nanites lurking inside her. For now, he decided to bide his time. He wasn't ready to tell anyone about his freaky dreams just yet. Instead he chose to sit tight and hope they were nothing more than that.