Sometime...Somehow... Part IX

Uh, geek-speak again: computers, nanites, attoseconds and all that jazz. I read stuff and adapt what I read. A lighter chapter, full of good ol' Rodney snark...

XXXXXXXXX

"A botanist from Teyla's colony here was good enough ta' help me run the labs, and we found tha' remnants of two substances in his blood and urine." Beckett said.

The group were once more back in their tiny meeting room, taking some drink and waiting for Beckett to get to the details on McKay's condition. As places to meet and discuss Rodney and their own futures it was as good a room as any. Plus it had fine light. The afternoon sun streamed in through the open shutters, shining a warm yellow glow into the dark corners of their situation.

Sheppard wondered what else could possibly be thrown at Rodney at this late date. "What kind of "substances"?"

"As far as I can tell, both act on the central nervous system, one has properties similar to dimethyl serotonin, that's a hallucinogen and a mild anesthetic which could partly account for his confusion when he regained consciousness. The other is similar in some of its properties to the poison produced by dinoflagellates – plankton and the sea creatures that feed on it. This is the substance that is most likely causing his pain.

"Now most of tha' toxin has probably broken down in his system but as I said there are lingering symptoms that I believe are still acting on the extremities of his body, his hands and feet for tha' most part; and I think it's likely why he's in so much pain." Beckett took a needed breath "Ironically, both substances appear to be derived from tha' same organism."

"So one thing causes pain and the other relieves it." Radek said. "Lucky."

Sheppard said with barely disguised sarcasm. "Yeah, I'll bet he feels real lucky. How long do you think it'll last doc'?"

Beckett shook his head. "I really can't say, but it is still present in his nervous system, and I hate ta' tell you that I see no reason why this won't cause him pain for many years to come unless we can devise a way ta' neutralize it. I can give him a regular course of pain relievers but there's not much more I can do at this point until we can study it further. We really need ta' bring in a toxicologist. But for now I'm afraid there's little more I can for him."

Sheppard set his jaw against all things unfair and callous. "So what you're saying is Rodney could be in pain for the rest of his life?"

Beckett shook his head. "I don't know John. I'm sure we can devise a treatment once we understand it but...I wish I could more but right now..." Beckett lifted one useless shoulder in defeat.

Ronan voiced the most relevant question and said it in his plain Satedan fashion "Now that Rodney's not in a coma anymore, what do we do with him?" Ronan looked around at his friends and teammates. "I mean, we can't take him back to Atlantis."

Teyla asked Beckett "Is Rodney sleeping?"

"No, he's awake now. I've removed his feeding tube and you'll be glad ta' know he complained the whole time. I left him eating from a bowl of puréed stew your friend tha' cook made up, Teyla. It's highly nutritious and calorie rich so it's a good start ta' his recovery. I'm keeping him off all solids for at least another day until I'm confident his digestion can take it and you should have heard him moaning on and on about that."

Sheppard perked up. As news events had lately gone it was fantastic. "So he's complaining?" It was the best thing they had heard all week.

Beckett nodded. "Plus he called me an idiot for suggesting that he stay in bed a while longer." The insult had been glorious to his ears.

Teyla said "Rodney is welcome to stay here until he has recovered. And, as far as I and my people are concerned, he is welcome to live here as long as he likes. Rodney has expertise in many fields of study and I am sure his input would be invaluable to the colony leaders."

Sheppard said "That's very generous of them but Rodney may not want to stay here." Sheppard had to work to keep the edge off his voice. As far as Sheppard was concerned Sheppard wanted Rodney where ever Sheppard ended up, if at all possible. "Eventually he'll probably want to return to Earth to see his sister."

Zelenka asked. "Any word from her yet?"

Sheppard shook his head. "No. And it's damn weird."

Ronan said "Well, the only news out there is that McKay's body was found. Nobody but us knows he's alive yet. Plus I thought he was a fugitive. I mean Zelenka and Colonel Sheppard basically stole him – right?" Ronan reminded them.

"When he was...when we thought he was dead, that was true; we were stealing what the scientific community would call an "archeological find"," Zelenka explained, "but he's, well, alive now. Once we tell them, they won't be able to touch him."

Teyla nodded. "Yes, no one may claim a right of property on a living person. No one has any rights regarding Doctor McKay except Doctor McKay."

Beckett said "Be all of that as it may, he's not ready ta' travel anywhere yet."

"I may have a solution."

All heads turned to see Elizabeth Weir standing at the door, and Sheppard, once his feet got over their surprise and could move, greeted her first. "Elizabeth?" It felt ridiculously good to see her. "When did you get here?"

She removed her coat, one from her personal wardrobe. Nothing she wore was Stargate issue now. "Just now." She gave each of them a warm smile. "It's...comforting, to see you all, and all in one place again."

Moving like a cat suddenly Ronan lifted her up in his arms and hugged her tightly, and then set her back on her own feet. Smiling a bit shyly, Elizabeth's fare complexion turned pink. "Ah, well –ahem - it's good to see you too, Ronan." She tucked one stray lock of hair behind her ear to re-gather her dignity and then looked in turn at each member of the group of people who had become to her more than colleagues. They were like her children in a way. She felt responsible for them, she worried over them and, as she looked at each of their faces that she had missed so much, she found that she even loved them. It was easy to think so. And she was immensely proud of all of them and the work they had done together. "All of you."

Teyla said "You are with family, Elizabeth. Welcome home."

XXX

After more greetings and words of catching-up were exchanged, Elizabeth drew Sheppard aside and spoke into his ear. "John, I have some news that is going to be very bad for Rodney, and other news that is very good for you and Radek." Elizabeth spoke in a hushed tone.

He encouraged her to step into the hallway and closed the door behind them, walking beside her to the end where it turned a corner, leading to a large kitchen. "How about the good news first." He suggested.

"Colonel Carter is arguing your case for you before the Stargate Military Council underlining to them that you did not leave the Terra Cottas II until it was safe, and that you left the Daedulus in the hands of your Second-in-Command which is proper procedure, and from what she has told me so far from their reactions despite the theft of what the Science Expedition leaders called "A great historical discovery", it doesn't look like you'll be going to jail."

"That is good news."

"Although you will most probably be disciplined somehow."

"Less good, but better than I expected."

"And the bad news: Rodney's sister was killed in a car crash two months ago. That's why we've had no response to our attempts to contact her. It took this long for the Military to track down the husband because he went to some sort of retreat to cope. The daughter is with his parents." She said with irony "Welcome back to the world, Rodney."

Sheppard sighed heavily and mentally flipped the bird to Fate. "Um, let's keep this to ourselves for now. I'm not sure Rodney could handle the shock. He's just barely out of the woods as it is." Sheppard then looked amused. "A "great historical discovery" huh?" He said. "Let's not tell Rodney that one. He has a big enough ego."

"Where is he? Can I see him?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd be glad to see you. This way to Rip-Van-Rodney." Sheppard showed her to the room which was located two doors down from their informal meeting room. He himself had not gone in for a heart to heart since Rodney had fully awakened. He planned on it just as soon as he could find the right words to say that they had stopped looking for him. "Look - try not to be shocked or at least try not to show him you are. I mean he's still Rodney and all but," Sheppard made a small grimace, "just a whole lot thinner. At least he is until Beckett and Teyla's completely spoiling him fatten him up again."

With shaded humor "You don't think he should be spoiled?" she asked.

"Not at all, actually it's kinda' fun." He admitted. "Rodney always was a pushover for food. If you need anything just knock on the wall."

As she entered his small room her hands started shaking and her stomach filled with butterflies. How does one say "Congratulations on being alive again."? His shocking thinness shook her resolve but only for a few seconds and then she set her heart upon who he was, a person who had been loved, lost, missed in a most terrible way, and now brought home again to them, and suddenly nothing else mattered.

Rodney was sitting up in bed and greedily swallowing down the remnants of a bowl of thick soup but on seeing her, and recognising her immediately, his eyes lit up and he sputtered, sending a few drops down his stubble-ed chin. "Elizabeth, you're...um, I mean did they - you're here."

As weak as his voice sounded she was delighted that he also sounded like Rodney McKay. Biting her lip to keep back the tears she said softly "Rodney, are you kidding?" As soon as Rodney set aside his bowl and wiped his mouth on his sleeve Elizabeth perched on the edge of his bed and drew him into a brief hug. "Of course I would come. I came as soon as I could get away."

"Oh." He twisted a claw-like hand near his temple. "Oh, well, they don't tell me much right now, my head's not on all the way straight yet – apparently. They're keeping me locked up in here for fear I'll stub a toe, and Beckett won't let me eat anything solid yet - plus he keeps poking and prodding me like I was a mutton rare roast smothered in haggis - I mean I could kill him."

She laughed softly, wanting to say that he looked well but it would be too close to the edge of a lie. "They haven't filled me completely in either on...what happened to you." She said and then for a moment allowed herself the luxury of looking over his face, trying to remember the softer, rounder features of the Rodney of three and a half years ago, before fate had taken a swing at him, and at them all.

His hair was shorter than he would normally have worn it – she supposed that Beckett had had a hand in that – and his cheeks hollow but he still looked like Rodney. His eyes were as big and as blue as Robin eggs, the expression in them at the moment quizzical, as though he were studying something never before encountered. She supposed he was contemplating himself, and how he had gone into a nine thousand year sleep and had miraculously been woken up again.

And despite the thinness he looked somehow younger than she remembered. But beneath it all lay an undercurrent of fear and uncertainty, as though he had no idea how to handle being alive again. It was an element that made him seem new to it all, to life and all experience. It also made him seem frighteningly small and vulnerable. So much so that suddenly she was a little afraid for him as well.

With a gentle tease "Well, do I pass inspection?" He asked.

Elizabeth leaned forward and took him in her arms again, this time adding a kiss on his grizzled cheek. Beckett ought to have someone do a good and proper shave on him, she thought, though the shadowed look had always suited him well. "We missed you so much, Rodney. You have no idea." And she would never be able to explain it to him either. Would he believe her even if she did?

"So Beckett says, but I'd feel better if I could eat some real food." He stared at her face and said shyly "I'm a wreck but look at you, just as pretty as ever."

As she talked Elizabeth took his hand, needing the reassurance that he was not a dream. His flesh was warm under her fingers and she took comfort in it. "It is so good to see you. I mean it's been weird now that everyone's off doing something new, but now here we all are again."

His knowledge still incomplete, his expression remained open and innocent when he asked "Again? What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, after you disappeared and then the Iratus bugs came and then the loss of Atlantis -"

"What?" His eyes blinked once, then twice and his open and trusting face switched to one of confusion. Y-you...the what?" He asked, his voice shaking just a little, his expressive eyes wider, more fearful. "The...the what about Atlantis?"

The reflex that comes when two connections are suddenly severed from each other caused her to let go of his hand. Elizabeth leaned back a little, suddenly horrified. "Oh my God, has no one told you..?" She felt like an idiot. She should have asked someone, but she had been so anxious to see him alive that she hadn't connected the dots and thought to ask. "Oh Rodney, I'm so sorry to be the one to have to tell you this but...we lost Atlantis."

Rodney looked stunned. Elizabeth could have kicked herself.

"What do you mean...I-I saved Atlantis. I saved everyone." He was looking not at her but inward, as though he was trying to find the error. "Didn't I? I mean, I spent three years in hell, so I better have saved it. Unless something went wrong? I...was...did Atlantis...did something go wrong? Something I forgot or...or maybe something that Zelenka a-and I didn-?"

Elizabeth shook her head vigorously. "No, no, Rodney it was nothing you did or didn't do, believe me, you saved us. You did. We lost Atlantis. We did, to the Replicators. In a nut shell they sent nanite-enhanced Iratus bugs to the city and they overwhelmed it. We had to abandon and sink her so the Replicators couldn't move in and take control."

She saw it then, in his eyes, the sick realization that although he had saved them, he had lost his home. Their home was gone. But Rodney, although he physically looked like a ghost of his former self, was still Rodney McKay the genius and he threw back the covers. "Well, what are we still doing here?" He stood up and Elizabeth stood up right alongside him and it was a good thing, too, because he swayed and nearly fell over.

"Rodney. Please sit down."

But he was up and he was Rodney McKay and there was no way he was going to be dissuaded. "No, no, no, no, we have to get back there. Iratus bugs – nanite-enhanced - are you sure? Wow, that's smart of them. Really, that's very, very smart - where are my clothes?" He looked around the floor as though expecting to find them lying in a pile just like in his old quarters.

Elizabeth swiftly went and knocked on the wall as Rodney abandoned his search for some proper daywear, instead attempting a stumbling navigation in the general direction of the door. "Come on, Elizabeth. We can't waste anymore time."

"Rodney, what are you going to do – just hang around on the surface of the ocean until you think of something?" She tried reason. "The city is under six hundred feet of ocean not to mention that you're sick."

"Well, I admit I'm not up to par but Carson's soup sure is helping. I feel way better than I did an hour ago – I promise." He tried to push passed her, lost his precarious balance and fell on his knees. Just then the door opened and Sheppard and Ronan entered followed by Beckett. With so any people in the room crowded around the patient, there was hardly room to stand up.

Two tree-limb thick arms belonging to Ronan set Rodney back on his feet with one easy scoop.

Sheppard demanded "Where do you think you're going?" While Beckett took Rodney's elbow and started guiding him back to his bed.

But Rodney had no eyes for anyone but Sheppard. "Why didn't you tell me Atlantis was lost?" He asked. "Why would you keep that from me?"

Sheppard realised their heart to heart was about to occur. "We didn't think the shock would be good for you, Rodney, I mean you just back from the dead and all."

Rodney, helpless to resist Beckett's, and then also Ronan's hands that demanded if not his mental obedience, then his physical, was coaxed to sit back down on the thin mattress. "I had a right to know." Rodney accused. "You should have told me right away."

Beckett soothed "Settle down, Rodney, and maybe the Colonel can fill you in." Beckett threw Sheppard a look that said May as well have that talk now huh? and then warned Rodney "Get out of that bed again and I'll be forced to sedate you."

Like the turning of the tides, some of Rodney's old snark was surging back. "Oh, yeah? You and what army?"

Ronan bent over and offered him a dead-level glare of his dark brown eyes straight into Rodney's powder-blue's. "Me, that's who."

Rodney lifted his chin in a pathetic show of defiance but when Ronan did not back down, declined to challenge the large man any further, saying in a small voice that still managed a respectable measure of snipe "Fine."

Sheppard knew Ronan would make good on his word and help Beckett force Rodney to rest whether he wanted to or not, and Rodney knew it too. He waited for the others to vacate and then settled at the other end of the bed. "Look, it was my call whether to tell you or not. We were going to tell you by the way, we just wanted to wait until you were stronger."

Rodney, though looking far from it, said "I'm fine-I'm-fine-just tell me what the hell happened. I want to know everything that happened after I went through the worm hole, every detail, and don't you dare leave anything out 'cause I'll know."

Sheppard struggled over whether to snark right back at his old friend, if just for the sheer joy of it, or to discard his military macho reserve and smother Rodney in a man-sized hug until the stuffing came out. After a moment of indecision he settled on his own brand of flippant affection "Yeah, it's good to see you too, Rodney." Then Sheppard began a long and detailed history of the world as it was sans Rodney McKay. "So, here's what happened..."

XXX

"So no poisons, pesticides, toxic spray - none of it has made a dent?"

Sheppard shook his head no. "Not for more than a few minutes and the damn things regroup. Part of the reason we finally decided to sink her was to keep the things contained as best as possible inside Atlantis, and to keep the Replicators out, until we can figure something out."

"How long has she been down there?" Both used the feminine to describe their beloved ancient city. It was their home, it had protected them, provided a doorway to the universe, and showed them a giant chunk of how their ancestors had once lived, fought and died. Atlantis was a friend.

"Over a year now." At McKay's fallen face Sheppard misinterpreted his expression and defended the decision. "We had no choice, Rodney; we had to protect her from the Replicators."

"It's not that but, I mean the bugs had already invaded – Replicator bugs – what difference did it make at that point if the Replicators came?"

"I suppose none, but Elizabeth and I decided...well, fuck 'em."

Rodney had to concede "Well, I'm with you on that...but there must be a way, there has to be a way. I mean this is just a problem and problems can be worked out...you just have to think..." Rodney squeezed his eyes shut, the whispered words still falling from his lips "Come on, Rodney, think-think-think..."

Sheppard could see the little cogs and wheels turning 'round and 'round, Rodney's magnificent brain firing up the engines to produce brilliance.

Sheppard decided he was right when Rodney kept talking aloud to himself, ticking off their failures and why. "An EM pulse didn't do it because the bugs could learn and regroup faster and faster with each attempt. The poisons didn't work on the Iratus bio-cells because the nanites simply rebuilt or duplicated any cell that had been damaged by the toxins. We can drown the bugs but not the eggs, and the drowned bugs just come back to life after a while anyway..."

Sheppard held his breath. This was McKay, and he could out-think almost anything, at least that's what Sheppard had come to believe over the years of Rodney's repeated strokes of genius in saving their lives, or saving the city, or both. The scientist had made some mistakes (occasionally gi-normously bad mistakes), but those were the rare exceptions. Come on Rodney, think of something we haven't.

"Did you try both methods simultaneously?"

Sheppard deliberately didn't hide his disappointment. "Yes, but the result was the same. No poisons from Earth, no matter how deadly, or from anywhere else for that matter, had enough of an effect even with an EM pulse alongside. The nanites are too fast now, too evolved." Then he had to say it, all the better to goad Rodney into the light. "Come on, Rodney, you have to be thinking of something we didn't."

Exasperated "Give me a break, willya? I just woke up from a nine thousand year sleep for crying out loud. Right now my brain's working at only half mast, thank you very much."

But Sheppard waited and watched as Rodney's eyes (those illuminated, ingenuous, bewitching, sometimes raving mad, exquisite eyes), moved back and forth as though he were reading an inner scroll of knowledge spitting out massive amounts of possibilities, a kaleidoscope of concepts both weird and wonderful, things of which only he could comprehend. Sheppard was certain the truth of it was not far off.

Rodney was about to speak and then didn't, leaving his mouth hanging open an inch but saying nothing. Sheppard leaned in a bit, waiting patiently for the fantastic but do-able plan that had to be teetering on the tip of Rodney's pink tongue.

Sheppard almost jumped when suddenly Rodney turned to him, painfully latched onto his left knee with one clawed hand and asked in earnest "John, where's my clothes?"

"What...your clothes? Which...what clothes?"

Rodney almost rolled his eyes and it gave John a tiny thrill. God! how he had missed that.

"The clothes I was wearing when you thawed me out."

"Oh." Sheppard wondered if Rodney was backsliding into wacky-land. "Oh, those clothes. Uh, I'm not sure. Why don't we ask Zelenka?"

When Rodney got up to join Sheppard for the short walk next door Sheppard stuck out a stern finger at him. "You are staying here – and get back in bed! I'll bring the others."

Now Rodney really did roll his eyes and Sheppard had to press his lips together tightly to stop himself from smiling like a fool. "I'll be back in a minute."

Rodney threw him a mocking salute and plopped on his back full length on the covers, muttering "Sheesh! Once an army guy, always an army guy."

XXX

Zelenka dug out the remnants of Rodney's clothing which they had cut off of his "dead" body and Rodney fished through the pockets until he found what he was looking for. Holding it up to five pairs of eyes like a trophy, he said "This is it."

Sheppard said it for them all "It's a stick."

Rodney looked at his friend as though his IQ had just dropped about a hundred points. "It's not just a stick, it's a hollow stick – a root actually - and what's inside just might do what your other poisons could not."

Beckett asked "Is that from...?"

Rodney explained "Gobi Prime, yes. It's the poison of the Giant Goliath beetle –which I named by the way - the one that nearly killed me. If all the poisons from Earth and the known worlds aren't having an effect, then we need one from an alien world - right? Synthesize a large enough amount of this and introducing it into an entirely flooded Atlantis might just do it. As long as we open every corridor and compartment in Atlantis to ocean water and flood them all to the last square meter we might be able to knock them all out at once. The poisoned sea water can be contained within the shield and once the bugs are dead, siphoned out by Daedulus by beaming it into space."

"Mmm Rodney, what about the nanites?" Radek asked softly.

Rodney had not noticed his former colleague seated in one corner trying to look inconspicuous, but now he did. "Radek...uh, yeah,...um, yes, I-I was thinking about that and if we write an attosecond long program and feed it into the nanite matrix within a total time unit of, say, a hundred attoseconds long, it should confuse them so much they'll simply be unable to function."

Sheppard asked "Sounds...interesting but what exactly is an attosecond?"

Radek filled them all in. "It's a time period equal to one quintillionth of a second. Basically an attosecond is to a second what a second is to thirty-one-point-seventy-one billion years," He explained. "That's twice the age of the universe."

Rodney added "Right." He smugly looked around the room at their faces as though he had just explained all the important parts. At their blank faces, he frowned and continued "The program ought to be relatively simple to write: then all we have to do is command the Yes/No sequence to insert itself in between each attosecond within the time-unit of the nanites and this should cause them to turn themselves off and on in a continuous loop. It'd be the same as telling a person to go and stay at the same time; it's an impossible command to obey so he couldn't move. He'd literally freeze in place, unable to function." Rodney finished with a flourish of a waving hand like he was a magician on stage. "And viola' - the nanites will freeze in place."

Rodney looked upon his little hollow reed, and his own idea, with pride. "Best of all, this way all we have to clean up is some residual Iratus bug carcases and the egg nests. No trillions of tiny nanites to sweep up – imagine the logistics of that? Suppose we missed a few?"

Beckett said. "What'll you and Doctor Zelenka need in order to set this all up?"

Rodney pursed his lips, and then shrugged as though it were an easy list. "I guess a computer with the biggest hard drive on Earth plus a holographic memory, about a week's work in a lab somewhere and – oh, one of the Iratus bugs."

With irony Sheppard asked "Oh, is that all?" and then enlightened his friend. "Rodney, we can't get one of the Iratus bugs, they're all in Atlantis and Atlantis is at the bottom of the sea."

Rodney looked at Sheppard. "Well, didn't you say Carson had some?" then at Carson "Didn't you examine one of them?"

Beckett nodded. "Several, but that was over a year ago. The Iratus are sure to have evolved even more by now. We'd need a new one, wouldn't we, lad?" Beckett often used the Scandinavian/Celtic word to describe any fellow even a few years younger than himself though Rodney, in this instance, was now a good ten years his junior, at least in appearance.

Rodney thought about it. "Probably a good idea –yes."

Sheppard said "Well then I guess we'd better go get one."

Ronan crossed his arms, reminding his former leader "Teams have tried – and failed. The bugs are impossible to snag out of the air or the water. They fly and swim so fast it's hard to even see them."

Zelenka added "And because they're basically a bio-Replicator half-breed they're now immune to the energy field of the transporter, so we can't even beam them out."

Sheppard was not one to be dissuaded so quickly though. "We'll just have to do better somehow."

"Let me try." Rodney said.

Sheppard personally vetoed the idea before it even had a chance to leave the gate. "Absolutely not."

Rodney seemed genuinely surprised. "Why not?"

"Because you're ill." Beckett answered for the both of them.

"I'm not ill. I may not be as strong as I used to be but – John how long will it take for us to get to Atlantis?"

Sheppard put his hands on his hips in his habitual power-stance because he could see the old-slow stoke of Rodney McKay stubbornness asserting itself and burning hotter with every passing minute. "Well, if we're not all in jail, a few days but that doesn't matter because you're NOT. GOING."

"John, I have to go."

Sheppard prepared himself for the long list of reasons he knew Rodney was about to throw at him. The most frustrating part was the damn scientist was probably right about all of it.

Rodney was speaking true to form. "I need to see the condition of Atlantis and the level of infestation. I need to run scans and determine which parts of the city are flooded and which aren't. I need to know if the structure is intact, if the shield generator is operational or not, and if it isn't, whether can I make it operational, not to mention I need to see the bugs in action – if you want me to devise a program that'll address all aspects of the damn things, well then you'd better not leave me behind."

Ronan was on Sheppard's side. "It's too dangerous McKay. We can get the bugs."

Rodney was not one to back down when he knew he was right, not even to the intimidating Satedan. "Oh, right, because in that regard you've all done so well until now!"

"Look Rodney, this is no walk in the park you're talking about." Sheppard reminded him. "You just came back to life. You're in no condition to take on something like this."

Then Rodney did what Sheppard hated most. The infuriating bastard used persuasive reasoning. "Look, you just admitted that no one has been able to catch one of these newest versions of the bugs, so what do you have to lose by taking me with you and letting me try to figure out a way to do that?"

Sheppard crossed his arms and sighed, his eyes studying the tops of his boots. You, for one he thought. But maybe Rodney was right. Re-taking Atlantis, one last crazy attempt by the world's craziest magician scientist, might be worth the risk. He asked Beckett "If he eats properly and stays in bed and rests for the next few days," Sheppard stared directly at Rodney while he said the previous few words, "will he be strong enough to travel? And, you know, go under water in a submersible suit and all that?"

Beckett could see his medical opinion was about to take a back seat to the need for Rodney to try and save Atlantis once again. "I'll make a few shots of pain killer for you to take with you in case he has trouble."

Rodney protested the third person discussion of his health. "Hey, I'm right here."

Beckett said to Rodney "If you rest and eat everything I provide and do everything I say for the next three days, and I mean everything, then I'll grant you temporary medical leave to do this insane thing." Then to Sheppard and Ronan "All three of you better go then, in case something happens to him."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not in the room." Rodney barked, and then held up the hollow reed in his hand. "Now, if you're all finished publically humiliating me, then I'd like to get back to our discussion of this." Carefully Rodney pinched his index and thumb together to untie the wet length of twisted reed around one end when he gasped and drew his hand back like he'd been stung.

Some of his bravado vanished as Teyla, recalling his level of pain during her connection with Rodney and so being the first to grasp what was happening, stepped forward and took the tube gently from his hand. "Let me help you, Rodney."

He relinquished it as he massaged one hand with the other. His previously triumphant face grimaced in pain as the nerve endings at the tips of his fingers began their round of deep burning aches.

Beckett had a morphine shot prepared and hidden away in his pocket for the expected event. He sat down next to the scientist and took his arm, carefully rolling up the sleeve. Rodney did not protest when Beckett drove the sweet chemical relief home. Beckett knew Rodney's feet would also be hurting again and it was satisfying to see the lines that the sudden pain had etched on his features smooth out and disappear. "Better?"

Rodney nodded but did not look at any of the others in the room, and Beckett at once recognised the secret shame that many patients felt toward their own weakness. But the continually returning pain was a reality that Rodney would have to learn to accept no matter how ambitious his aims. Not only would he need to learn to live with the discomfort itself, but at the limitations its crippling effects would no doubt place upon his new-found life.

"Rodney," Beckett urged softly for only his ears. "I think you ought to get some more sleep now, don't you?"

Rodney nodded and it was clear he was grateful the doctor was offering him a way out without having to admit that the pain, however partially masked by the morphine, was swiftly eating up the remainder of his meagre supply of energy. As he stood he could hardly keep his eyes open. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I guess so."

Rodney let Ronan walk him to his room but protested when the towering Satedan tried to pull his blankets up for him. "I'm perfectly capable of tucking myself in."

Ronan ignored the words and simply watched his friend for a minute as Rodney rolled onto his side and let out a long sigh. Even that small gesture sounded spent. Ronan turned to leave when he heard a softly spoken "thanks" arise from out of the tangle of blankets.

Ronan knew just a few words - simple true words - were all that was needed from him to the smaller man, words he had not yet had the chance to speak "Glad you're home Rodney."

XXX

Part X soon.