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Chapter 17: Pinched for Time

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At the grim reality that they weren't easily getting John back with them, Elizabeth turned to Carson. "Right now, we can't get John back here through a Stargate but Doctor you have been, not so cordially, invited to come to where John is. So use the two hours we have to try and synthesize a serum that allows John to get through a stargate safely."

"But this is not a two-hour-turn-around request! The ATA serum is very complex and to try and have something able to code with the new genes the Colonel introduced into his DNA .."Carson anxiously tried to explain the impossibility of her time frame.

But Rodney peevishly broke in. "You're saying no before you've even started working on the problem! Two hours is like…a year compared to the time Sheppard gives me when things are going south. You can practically get a massage during all this cushy breathing room."

"Rodney, not helping," Elizabeth chastised.

Carson meanwhile defensively shot back to McKay, "I'm not just trying to fix the electricity and making it sound harder than it is."

Before the bickering could escalate, Elizabeth spoke louder and more forcefully than she had before. "Listen! We all care about John and us arguing and not working together isn't helping him. Carson, get the treatment for those townspeople ready and work on something to help John." At Carson's brimming objection, she offered a counterplan, "And if we can't move John from where he is, we'll stay there and work on a treatment."

Rodney immediately voiced his doubts about her plan B. "They barely even have Bunsen burners let alone the material Carson would need…"

"Rodney, we have to work this out, step by step, and not roadblock ourselves with complications before they become problems," Elizabeth firmly commanded. "Now, how about you get our main Stargate open so it would be possible to get a jumper to John if no other options present themselves. Carson, you have your job to do. And Radek, since our ZPM has been returned, get our shield and cloak back up and see if anyone detected our presence while we were visible."

When the three men scattered to do her bidding, Elizabeth felt a tinge of uselessness. At least in a way to help John. As for the people who had killed some of her people that day and were holding John hostage, she had a thing or two she needed to convey to them, strongly, before she'd agree to any peace between their people.

Leaving the med area, she ducked into the nearest conference room before asking one of the soldiers by the 2nd gate to open communications to the people who had John. "This is Dr. Weir of Atlantis. I'll like to talk with your representative before any of my people come to treat your people. Hello? Are you reading me?"

But when a voice came back in her comms, it was the familiar tone of their soldier by the gate. "Sorry ma'am, they aren't responding."

Silently Elizabeth cursed, hated the negotiators who never gave you a chance to even talk out the terms. Usually that indicated the military was leading the terms of peace. John would be able to theorize what their enemies might be planning, the contingencies they'd have if we betrayed them, and the precautions Atlantis should be putting in place. Plus John was always a calm presence to have around when things were balanced on a razor's edge.

To her soldier…or rather John's soldier she ordered, "Ok, contact me if they communicate at all."

That left her back to feeling helpless..and with too much time to worry about John. And about what she might be sending Carson into. In John's absence, she decided to grill Rodney on everything he'd learned about their opponent. Forewarned is forearmed…oh crap, now she was starting to think like John.

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John was in the grips of another seizure when Kannar opened the doors. Instinctively, he started to go to the man to ensure he didn't hurt himself. But he didn't count on his two soldiers protectively holding him back. Mutar wrapped an arm around his waist, while Frata, the only woman soldier in their ranks, stepped into his path to ensure he couldn't break free and touch John…infect himself with Kannar's made-up illness.

"Damn it, he could die if we don't help him!" Kannar snapped. "Keep him from choking or swallowing his tongue!"

"Then he dies! But you're gonna live," Mutar loyally decreed, would call his leader's wrath down on his head if it meant he didn't infect himself.

"He dies and our leverage is gone, our peace.." But Kannar had to amend his protest to carry on his charade, "..our people might not be healed."

"I'll go to him," Frata offered, and it stilled Kannar's physical protests, but his anxious gaze skimmed to the still thrashing Atlantean. "Fine, go to him. But you can't restrain him while he's fitting, just get things out of his way. When he stills, roll him over to his side in case he becomes ill."

Frata nodded her understanding, shot a look to Mutar to ensure he kept his hold on Kannar. Then she turned and went to the man whose body was flailing like the time one of their people was bitten by a poisonous snake. Their writhing had been their last motions before death. She did as Kannar instructed, moved the bench, table and chair away fro the man than sat on her hunches, waiting to see if there would still be life in him when he stilled.

Though Mutar no longer had an arm around his waist, restraining him, Kannar didn't pace as he wanted to, stayed routed to the spot, nearly forgetting to breathe. This was hell, watching someone suffer and not being able to offer them any succor. 'This is what you put McKay through, to watch his friend seize and maybe breathe his last and he could do nothing but watch.' As much as he owed the doctor an apology, he couldn't focus on that, not when he was fervently asking the universe to not let Sheppard die. Not only would it forever set his people and Atlantis to war, but he liked the guy. A lot. Knew the Atlantean didn't deserve to die in such agony and unbearably alone.

John's body finally gave a shudder and stilled, Kannar feared there was no life in him, until he started choking. Frata immediately turned him on his side, even gave a few good pounds on John's back until his breathing was somewhat regulated. When she looked up wild-eyed to him, Kannar realized the sacrifice she thought she had just made, for him, out of loyalty to him. That she might have sentenced herself to the painful illness John was experiencing.

Kannar felt like such a traitor, wanted to reassure her that she couldn't get sick with what John had. But he'd perpetuated the lie, even to his own father. It was too late to undo any of it. The only good news was John was opening his eyes, though there was confusion writ on his so very pale features. When Frata shifted to his head, he jerked at the presence, his hackles raised that it wasn't a safe person like McKay there while we was vulnerable.

"Where's McKay?" John demanded, well intended to but his voice was a feeble croak. More a entreaty than a commanding demand.

The question and the man's genuine fear put a shiver down Kannar's spine. "We traded him back to Atlantis along with the ZPM in exchange for a cure for my people. Don't you remember that?" his voice going gentle with the question.

"Guess I forgot, have a lot on my mind, right?" John tried to joke even as he was internally freaking out about the gaping holes in his memory. He went to push himself up by his elbows but barely moved his arms before he collapsed back on the ground. Had to abandon the idea of speaking from a position of power…or well, not like on his deathbed pose.

It was obvious to Kannar that John was highly disturbed by his failing memory but was determined to put up a fair front. "We gave your people two hours to get a cure for our people here," he supplied, hoping to rattle John's memories back online.

"And if they refuse or can't create one?" John queried before he gave a sour smirk. "Wait! This I don't have to remember: I'm dead, right? Which isn't going to do much for your tourist ratings."

"We didn't ask for outsiders to be here," Kannar shot back, heaped his tone with indignation for good measure.

"Yeah, and Atlantis didn't invite you in to kill some of our people and put the rest of our entire base in jeopardy! Guess we're both bad hosts," John snarked.

But Kannar felt the real wrath in John's words at the lives he had cost Atlantis. Wanted to tell him he was trying to do the right thing, make up for the lives lost but couldn't. It wasn't just him and John there. Unable to say anything more, not with their audience, Kannar stiffly began to turn away. Then he stopped, his eyes going to his soldier who had dared to touch John. He seemed to want to say something to her but left with whatever it was unstated, along with his other soldier.

That left the woman soldier behind. John wasn't stupid enough to think she was his personal nurse, more like another inmate in this quarantine. Because she thought there was a high probability she was infected now.

Kannar let her believe that.

It left John feeling a little ashamed he'd railed at the guy because he was clearly still selling their ruse. Could probably be trusted to deal honorably with Atlantis, even if he died. John might have thought on how Elizabeth was going to handle all this, but another seizure obliterated all thoughts from his head.

He woke having someone pounding him on his back again, the hand less tentative in its impact than Rodney's had been, even in his panic. When he could breathe, the hand removed itself and he noted shuffling behind him, someone moving away from him, not offering him any comfort. So yeah, not Rodney, but the female soldier then. He didn't bother acknowledging her presence or even offering up his thanks, which if she thought by each touch she was sealing her fate, she probably would tell him to eat dirt and die, quicker than he already was.

So he lay there, immersed in his own thoughts. And as much as he knew he should be formulating his part in what came next in the negotiations, his mind wouldn't stay on that track. Instead, he prodded a memory and found it hazy, if not downright barely there. He couldn't remember the conversation, verbatim, of his last parting with his dad. He knew it had been unpleasant, yelling, accusations, hurt feelings (his, not his father's) and his father's words had burrowed into his soul, so deep he thought they weren't ever going away.

And now..he didn't know them anymore.

Which, ok, was maybe one of those half glass full things…if he didn't suspect losing his memories after each seizure was nondiscriminatory. That it wouldn't just wipe out the bad but the good too. And now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember, even under the point of torture, his way to the training rooms in Atlantis, which before he could have stumbled to in the dark if he had to. Now when he envisioned walking out of his quarters…he couldn't even picture what was beyond his door, let alone which direction to go.

Something along the lines of panic slithered in the pit of his stomach. Just maybe he could survive the seizures, even get through another stargate and live to tell the tale only to find that, the life he loved, it was over. The career that was his saving grace, keeping it had slipped through his fingers somewhere among his seizings. That he'd end up like some of his soldier friends after Traumatic Brain Injury, not being able to go to the quicky mart around the corner and find their way back to their home two blocks away.

John tried to push the wild fear blossoming in his chest down, to put it in his emotional lockbox where all the rest of his trauma was consigned to rust away. Gave a miniscule hope that that fear would be the thing that got zapped out of his mind with his next seizure. But then again, that really wasn't his kind of luck.

Dying he had come to terms with many times, but this…being less than himself?! He wasn't sure he was strong enough to handle that. And that was sadly, the one thing he did remember about his last argument with his dad, that he'd called him a coward.

It was a fine time for his dad to finally pay enough attention to him to discern something true about his black sheep son.

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TBC

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Thanks so much for the reviews telling me this story is appreciated. And for hopefully those silent readers out there, thanks for tuning in again.

As the stats are still down, I'd love encouragements by reviews or pms!

And I'm wholly supportive of our soldiers and want all the support possible to go to those who have suffered a TBI. This story is to honor them and bring awareness to their struggles and their bravery.

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.