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Chapter 3: For the Greater Good

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John stalked into the medical labs, relieved to find it empty though the reason was grim: all the medical personnel were busy trying to save lives from the explosion. Lucky for John, he and Dr. Beckett had discussed the gene therapy on numerous occasions, John had even witnessed it being administered so he knew the location of the ATA vials. He had already retrieved the vial and loaded up a syringe when Rodney stumbled into the room, heaving for breath from the exertion and coming to lean heavily against the door.

"Sheppard…don't," Rodney gasped out through burning lungs, hand raised toward John in entreaty. "We don't know….the effects…if it'll even… do what you…hope it will."

"One way to find out," was John's flippant reply as he held the syringe up and pushed the plunger to remove the air bubbles.

"You could die!" Rodney shouted, pushing off the door, heading for Sheppard on heavy feet.

"If we don't get the ZPM back, we're all dead and maybe not just us here if the Wraith get into our systems, learn Earth's location," John railed back, didn't know why Rodney couldn't see the real threat. "Even if this is a long shot, it's the best we have," and John went to insert the needle into his arm but Rodney lunged for him, grabbed his hand, halting his motion.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch you kill yourself on some…some unproven belief!" Rodney shouted, only his desperation allowing him marginal success at playing keep away with a man much stronger than himself and skilled in the art of combat.

Trying to wrestle free of Rodney's unskilled but tenacious hold, John gritted out, "You're taking the whole insubordination thing to a whole new level today, Rodney."

"So do what you threatened, kick me off your team! But you have to be alive to do that!" Rodney made a grab for the needle, wasn't expecting John's elbow to slam him in the face. The blow stunned him enough to lose his grip and for John to slip out of his reach…and plunge the needle's contents into his arm. "No no no no!" Rodney exclaimed in anger and terror.

John gave an apologetic smirk to his friend. "Sorry about the elbow, McKay,"

A new voice replied before McKay could. "What the bloody hell is going on in here! I have patients…." But then Carson's tirade broke off as he saw the vial on the table, the needle in John's hand and he didn't like the pieces he was putting together. "What are you doing with the gene therapy?"

"A little experiment that I hope pays off," was John's answer delivered with a self-satisfied smile. Meanwhile, Rodney's answer had been a pissed off rant of "The Mensa candidate there took it thinking it would boost his connection to the stargate dial so he could…star 69 the last location dialed. I tried to stop him, but he hit me in the face."

At the information, Carson noticeably paled and rushed to John's side, grabbed the Colonel's arm and began taking his heart rate in his wrist. "You bloody idiot! We have no idea the effects this could have on you. And I haven't been able to find a way to reverse it or diminish it or…or…This was never supposed to be given to anyone already with the gene, let alone someone with your high level of the gene."

"'Never supposed to' are some of my favorite things to do," John jokingly shot back but then he stumbled and Carson had to steady him.

"Colonel! Tell me what you're feeling?!" Carson demanded as he started to manhandle John toward the medical wing. But they only took two steps before John's eyes rolled up, he dropped to the ground and went into the throes of a seizure.

"He's dying! He's dying! Do something Beckett!" Rodney shouted in a panic, dropping to his knees to land beside Sheppard's convulsing body, not sure if he should latch onto Sheppard and restrain him or just not let him hit his head on the tables or chairs.

Beckett was on the floor on the other side of Sheppard, commanded, "No, don't grab him just put something under his head and block him from hitting anything around him."

Ripping off his jacket, Rodney lifted Sheppard's jerking head and slid the jacket underneath then pulled his hands back, and protectively keep himself a barrier between Sheppard the table and chairs he couldn't manage to move back any further from his current position on the floor. "Why aren't you helping him!" he shouted to Beckett, who had right away slipped something in John's mouth so he wouldn't bite his tongue but was now just sitting back and watching John dying. "Do something to stop the seizures!"

"I'm terrified to introduce any more drugs into his system, it could overload his heart that's running away like a freight train right now!" Carson shouted back, his frustration at his helplessness and fear for Atlantis' military leader and his friend, oblivious. "Just… talk to him. Try to be comforting."

"Comforting?! Me?! I'm not….I don't know how…" Rodney stammered, wishing someone else was there who did know how, like Teyla.

"You do know how, so do it!" Carson commanded his eyes boring into Rodney's terrified ones. He relented a little, "Do it for him, Rodney. So he knows we're here, that he can just ride it out and we'll be here."

Swallowing hard, Rodney looked down at the seizing man on the floor, his friend, his best friend if anyone had to know. "Hey….Sheppard….John…it's Rodney," he began but earned a miffed glare from Carson so he tried again, found his voice did know how to drop low, to offer up a soothing, comforting even timbre, "You're gonna be ok, just hang on a little bit longer. This won't…I mean I don't think….no, I know the seizure will be over soon and I'll lecture you on how stupid and reckless you were." But the seizure wasn't magically over yet just because he wanted it to be. Leaning down closer to John, his voice went gentler, "I'm right here…so is Carson so you just….be your stubborn self and ride this out and we'll stay right here." But watching as his friend still convulsed, Rodney's voice broke on his next words, "Don't die, Sheppard. Ok. Just…don't die. Fight to stay with us, don't let some stupid gene take you away from the people who care about you."

A few torturous moments later, John suddenly twitched less and less then blessedly lay still, breathing hard but his eyes were glazed over and his pupils were dilated. Rodney wasn't sure if his friend even saw anything, mentally registered anything, let alone him being at his side like he promised. "Sheppard?" he tentatively called, reaching out and laying his hand on his friend's chest, needing to feel the heartbeat under his hand to be reassured his friend hadn't been stolen away from him.

On John's other side, Beckett snatched the colonel's arm from the ground, was again tracking his pulse which, thank the good Lord, was lowered now and growing more steady and less erratic. Reaching out, he gently put his hand on John's forehead, didn't feel any heat pouring off the man. Moving his hand to rest on the man's hair in a gesture, not medical but one of friendship, Carson hung his head down in relief. And as much as the other ramifications of the drug hung over their heads, at least the John was still alive, hadn't gone into cardiac arrest under the severe seizing.

Watching John's every facial feature, Rodney felt his own breath catch when John blinked once, then again and his eyes lost that glazed over sheen. "Hey, hey, you back with us?"

For John, it was like trying to come out from under anesthesia, was a struggle and his memories of what happened were just starting to form coherent images to his brain: His team not taking his leadership seriously, returning to Atlantis without Ronon and Teyla, the explosion…a second stargate. Adrenaline shot through his veins, and he sat up, surprising the heck out of McKay and Beckett, causing them both to look at him like he was a freshly minted zombie lurching off a morgue table. "I have to get to the gate," he announced, more to himself than the two men on the floor on either side of him.

"You're not going anywhere but into a hospital bed," Carson decreed, latching onto John's arm to keep the man down, intending to call for a stretcher to immobilize him to make certain Sheppard hadn't suffered any nerve damage.

"So I passed out, I'm fine, just had to get recharged with my new abilities is all," John downplayed, though he was struggling to shake off the lethargy and achiness in his body.

Becket didn't respond to John's statement, was trying to word his response just right so as to not panic Sheppard about what had truly happened to him during his lost time. But Rodney blurted out, "Passed out?! You had a seizure for five minutes…felt like an hour! You could have brain damage, nerve damage….psychological…"

Beckett cut across Rodney's freak out, "Or you could have just overtaxed your system and need some rest," shooting McKay a glare of death for scaring his patient.

But John didn't seem scared…he seemed pleased. "Wait, I what?" turning excited eyes to the Doctor.

Patiently and compassionately, Becket began to explain to his patient, "You had a mal seizure probably due to…"

"Overtaxing my system, yeah, heard that but that means it probably worked. That the therapy worked on my DNA," John theorized, hoping against hope the advanced boost to the Ancient gene in his DNA gave him the star 69 power he needed.

But Beckett wasn't sure at all that this was a good thing. "Well, I don't know. We would need to run tests…under very strict and careful measures…"

"I have a better idea," John interjected as he started to climb to his feet, latched onto Rodney's arm when he wasn't gaining much altitude on his own. "McKay, help me up."

Torn, Rodney stammered, "But Beckett thinks…."

"Now, Rodney! And yes, that's an order," John growled, knew he was wasting precious time in tracking the ZPM but his darn feet and legs weren't working like they should.

"Ye'll not do any such thing McKay!" Beckett countermanded, giving the scientist the harshest look he had in his arsenal.

Any other day, Rodney might have sided with Beckett, but today, he couldn't, not if it meant going against John's orders. Feared that one more infraction and Sheppard's threat would become reality and he'd be off the man's team. But there was more to it than that. He knew how important it was to get the ZPM back, that Sheppard was taking the blame all on his own shoulders for the explosion, the causalities, and the theft. And if Sheppard couldn't do something to right some of that…Rodney didn't know how Sheppard would deal with that.

"Sorry Beckett," Rodney offered to his doctor friend as he put a hand under John's arm and helped the Colonel to his feet.

Now upright, John's head reeled and he staggered into Rodney, felt his knees refuse to lock. It just pissed him off, that he had to clutch onto Rodney's shirtfront in the hopes of not hitting the floor, even as he closed his eyes against the spinning room.

It felt a thousand times wrong when John nearly nosedived onto the floor and it was Rodney who had to grab him around the waist and keep him upright by leaning him against his own body. "Holy crap, Sheppard!" Rodney called out in alarm.

Fisting his hand tighter in Rodney's uniform, John bit out, "Get me to the stargate." Knew the command would have more weight if he could raise his frigging head off Rodney's chest and, I don't know, open his eyes…so he did that. Met McKay's eyes and hoped the other man knew that he wasn't screwing around, that he had to obey him or…hell, the consequences of failing right now were too much for John to think about.

And as scared as Rodney was at John's weakness, he could see the need in his friend's eyes, the Colonel's determination to do what he could to track the ZPM, to make the risk he had put himself in by taking the gene therapy worth something. Rodney couldn't deny John that, regardless of how much he wanted to scream to Beckett to take Sheppard, for the doctor to make sure the fool hadn't done something horribly wrong to his health. But this wasn't about him, and it couldn't be about Sheppard's wellbeing. 'When have I become this person who puts the good of the many ahead of my own life? Or the life of a friend?!' He didn't know but it was unnerving and not the best thing to think on at that moment.

So instead of dwelling on his moral compass, Rodney got a better grip on John's waist, slung the man's arm over his shoulders and started maneuvering them toward the door.

Beckett dodged into their path. "No! I'm not letting you take him outta here like he's just fine! You said it yourself Rodney, he just had a seizure, he took a drug that we have no idea how it will continue to affect him," he protested, voice raised in panic because, John Sheppard was his friend too and he was seriously concerned for his health.

"Rodney, wasting time…" John reminded, hand reaching out to grab the support of the doorframe as they were waylaid. Took the small reprieve to try and get his legs to stand up straighter, gather strength, remember how to do that thing called walking.

"Beckett, we have to go if he can now do what he thinks he can. The ZPM isn't out of our reach but it might soon be. We don't have time to debate this!" Rodney's volume escalating in the lab as his blood pressure was practically redlining.

"He could die, Rodney!" Beckett shouted, frustrated that that fact was getting lost in the heat of the moment, saw Rodney flinch but there wasn't surprise in the man's eyes. Turning his attention to Sheppard, Carson put a hand on the man's shoulder. "John, do you understand that?! The risk you took…the risks you are taking by not letting me treat you right now?!"

John solemnly met Carson's eyes, knew the man was genuinely concerned about him. "Yeah, I read the fine print. No guarantees, no money back guarantees and my 'I will not sue' disclosure is all signed up."

"Damn it! This is no joking matter," Beckett shouted, thought this was a world gone crazy when serious health concerns became something amusing.

It was Rodney that answered Beckett's outburst, not John. "He knows that but…" Rodney broke off, looked to John before he looked back to Beckett, "getting to the other stargate, maybe tracking down the ZPM, that's why he did this…risked…" he couldn't put those fears into words, so he didn't. Stated resolutely, "It can't be for nothing."

"I objected to all parts of this…." Beckett fumed.

Knowing what his decision might end up costing him, John knew that he didn't want the good doctor to blame himself for any of it. "Carson, I take full responsibility. Not you…not Rodney, just me," he solemnly declared, resolute gaze holding Carson's.

Beckett wasn't sure if he was more angry or more touched that the Colonel was thinking of his feelings instead of worrying about himself. "This isn't about blame, lad! This is about our caring about you, being worried about you."

"And I'm worried about everyone on Atlantis if we don't get that ZPM back," John countered, couldn't let himself get sidetracked by Beckett's kind words and good intentions. "My personal safety doesn't matter stacked up to what's at stake, not if that injection I took helps us track the thieves."

Before Beckett could react, Rodney was grumbling, "Well your personal safety matters to me but then again, I never get a vote, do I? Only get hit in the face for trying to stop you from doing something stupidly reckless."

"Not helping Rodney," John gritted out between his teeth.

"Right…ok….priorities," McKay seemed to be giving himself a pep talk to calm down before he focused again on moving the person standing in the way of their current 'find a miraculously way to save Atlantis yet again' mission. "Carson, please….not only are we running out of time but he's heavy," Rodney said, shifting John a little tighter to his side to ease up the strain on his shoulder.

The cold hard facts that he was in the middle of a military do or die situation had Beckett shifting on his feet, then there was Rodney's plea and John's determination. With bitter realization, he knew that he couldn't stand in their way anymore. Shifting to the side, leaving the doorway clear, he clarified as the two men shuffled by him, "When this treasure hunt is over I want him back here right away, no stops for food or chatting or debriefing. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," John agreed with a pale version of his cocky smirk while McKay's replied with a "Trust me, I'll be glad to make him all your problem."

"Godspeed then," Becket bade as he watched them leave the lab and make their four legged journey down the corridor. But in his gut, he felt how wrong it was, letting John out of his sight. But then again, this was the freaking Pegasus galaxy and not too many things had felt right or gone easy since they stepped through the Stargate.

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TBC

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Thanks for my awesome reviewers and all those reading this story.

Cheryl W.