The Air I Breathe
a Stargate
Atlantis Season 1 story by Setcheti
Disclaimer:
Don’t own them, not trying
to. This story is a one-shot,
stand-alone, and not episode or CD related.
Rated FRT:MV,MP,SLC
For once, it had been a fairly boring trip through the ‘Gate. The planet was green and pretty and uninhabited, there were no ruins to explore, and no Wraith had shown up to attack them – in fact, there was no sign that the Wraith had ever even been there. It looked like a likely place for a beta site, but it would be up to a team other than Major Sheppard’s to determine whether or not PS-814 was habitable by humans in the long-term sense. John Sheppard and his people, by the major’s own admission, did not have a good track record when it came to deciding how safe a planet was.
If anyone had seen fit to question that, one look at Sheppard’s team’s mission reports would have confirmed it. If there was trouble on a planet, it was going to find at least one of them.
Knowing that, everyone on Atlantis should have been expecting disaster to strike when the four of them came back from PS-814 without so much as a scratch. But no one did, although Dr. Weir, the mission’s civilian commander, did comment on it. “Isn’t this the first time you’ve all come back with your shields instead of on them this month?” she teased when the team meandered up the Gateroom steps in her direction. “I think I already like PS-814.”
“You can like it all you want, but there’s nothing there,” Sheppard shot back. He batted at his clothing, shaking loose a little cloud of yellow particles that floated gently down to the floor. “Except a shitload of pollen blowing around, that is. We apparently showed up just in time for spring to break wide open.”
Weir – and everyone else in the control room – immediately looked at Rodney Mckay, the mission’s astrophysicist and most vocal allergy sufferer. McKay’s light blue eyes narrowed, and he ran a hand through his cropped brown hair to dislodge his own small cloud of yellow particles. “How come whenever anyone mentions allergies everyone looks at me?” he complained. “Almost everyone is allergic to something, you know.”
“Almost everyone doesn’t make as much noise about it as you do,” Sheppard countered with a grin. He started to say something else, make a joke about how much dandruff could hide in such a little bit of hair…but he stopped himself. McKay had been good today, in fact he’d been on the ball when Sheppard himself hadn’t been quite up to speed a few times, so this would probably be a good time to show his appreciation by cutting the guy some slack.
Ford, unfortunately, wasn’t as appreciative as his team leader was. “You know, Dr. McKay, they make shampoo that’ll fix that problem,” the lieutenant quipped. “But then, I’d guess you already know all about special shampoos and hair treatments, huh?”
McKay made a show of ignoring him, beating more pollen out of his clothes, but Sheppard saw the faintest grimace cross his face and winced in sympathy; so much for slack. He gave Ford a dirty look – dirty enough to keep the younger officer from spouting off again – and then turned his attention back to the snickering Weir. Bitch, he thought to himself, wondering once again how someone with so little respect for other people’s feelings had risen to the position she had as a diplomat. “You know, I think we’d probably all better go try to wash some of this crap off before we debrief, just in case somebody else in the city turns out to be allergic to it,” he told her. “I’ll stop off at Beckett’s lair and give him a sample first, though, just in case.”
“I’ll take my uniform down to Biology once I’m changed,” McKay chipped in. “They’re always going on about us not bringing in enough samples, maybe this will shut them up for a few days. So we’ve got…”
“I’ll give the four of you an hour to get cleaned up,” Weir interrupted him. “It sounds like you had a pretty uneventful trip anyway, so I doubt anything you have to tell me about it can’t wait, right?”
“Right,” Sheppard said. “Meet back here in an hour, then, people – which means no side trips to the lab after you eat, Rodney, got it? Don’t make me come find you.”
McKay took the mock threat with a snort and headed off, smiling slightly to himself as he heard Dr. Weir behind him ordering someone to come clean up the pollen that was scattered all over the floor. He’d be quite amused if someone other than him actually did turn out to be allergic to the yellow stuff he and Sheppard had managed to shake off all over the place.
An hour and a half later, however, being amused was the farthest thing from his mind. Sheppard hadn’t shown up for the meeting, and when Rodney had gone looking for him, suspecting that maybe the man had fallen asleep in his quarters after his shower, he’d found the quarters empty and the shower unused. Then he’d gone down to the infirmary and found out that Sheppard had been there…but that he’d left after only ten minutes or so saying he needed to go get cleaned up. No one had seen him since.
Rodney wasn’t the only one who was worried; once Carson Beckett, the mission’s chief medical doctor, found out that Sheppard was missing, he took a closer look at the pollen sample and came up with a possible explanation. “His medical records show that he has mild seasonal allergies, but no mention of any allergen in particular,” the doctor told Rodney, concern thickening his Scottish burr slightly. “If this stuff is as similar in composition as it looks to our Earth pollens, he may be havin’ some kind of reaction to it after all. Did you notice anythin’ goin’ on with him while you were on the planet?”
The astrophysicist nodded slowly. “After we’d been there a while, he started to seem a little ‘off’ to me: forgetting what he was going to say, not being sure which way we were supposed to be going, getting irritable, that sort of thing.” He sighed, looking guilty. “I just thought he was tired.”
“No reason why you should have thought otherwise,” Beckett reassured him. “We need to find him, in light of what you’ve told me it’s likely that he’s wanderin’ around lost someplace, too confused to find his way back, and he might not be able to call for help if the reaction gets worse.”
“We’ll find him before that happens,” Rodney insisted. He tapped on his earpiece. “Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett thinks Major Sheppard might be having a…delayed reaction to that pollen we encountered, he’s most likely gotten himself lost in the city. If the internal sensors can pick him up, I’ll go get him and bring him back to the infirmary.”
“Hold on,” Weir told him, and he could hear her instructing someone in the control room to look for a lone signal in an unpopulated area. A moment later she addressed him again. “We think a life-sign we’re picking up in D-14 might be him – but you’ll have to hurry, if he keeps moving in the same direction he’ll be into an area where the sensors aren’t active in just a few minutes.”
“I have a hand scanner, I’ll find him,” Rodney assured her. He tapped the headset back off and managed a half-smile for Beckett. “He’s in D-14 and heading east by southeast – he must have wandered into one of the transporters by mistake when he left here. I’ll get him back to you just as quick as I can.”
“I know you will.” The doctor waved him off. “I’ll be gettin’ things ready for him – and be careful your own self, Rodney.”
Rodney snorted. “I’m always careful – self preservation is my middle name, remember?”
And then he was gone. Beckett watched him go, shaking his head. “I think it’s more of a nickname, actually,” he said to no one. “It may have stuck, but it doesn’t really suit you.”
When the astrophysicist didn’t come back after thirty minutes – and when repeated calls for him both to his headset and over the citywide communication system failed to get a response – Dr. Weir started to organize a more formal search. The internal sensors weren’t showing them anything that might be either Sheppard or McKay, so Weir set people to looking near all the ‘blind’ areas in the city in hopes that someone might get lucky.
She was the one who found McKay. She rounded a corner and saw him just standing there, leaning against the corridor wall with his back to her and his left arm hanging down by his side; she thought maybe he was using his scanner, but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t answered anyone earlier. Irritation made her snap at him. “Taking a break, Dr. McKay?”
At first he didn’t move, but then he shifted his weight and fell rather than turned so that his back was against the wall. Weir gasped; the left side of his t-shirt and jacket were soaked with blood from his shoulder all the way down his chest, and his white face and blank expression told her he was in shock. His earpiece was off, dangling down uselessly from its cord. He stood there for a moment, staring and silent, then managed to croak, “John…” before sliding down the wall as though his legs just couldn’t hold him up any more.
Weir instinctively darted forward, too late to catch him even if she had been trying to, and whipped off her own jacket to press against his shoulder; once she was close, she could see the hole where a bullet had gone into him, still sluggishly pulsing out blood. His back arched weakly when she applied pressure to the wound and he whimpered but didn’t open his eyes. Weir was scowling as she barked out a medical emergency call to the infirmary, followed by, “All searchers return to the central part of the city at once!” she ordered tersely. “This situation has changed, repeat, the situation has changed.”
Rodney came awake because he heard a Voice. This voice was different than the other voices he vaguely remembered hearing recently; those voices had been quiet, and urgent, and worried, and one of them that sounded somehow warmer and richer than the others had been all of the above with just a bit of pleading thrown in – that one had been calling his name. In contrast, this loud Voice he was hearing now was hard and sharp and it had an electronic echo to it…
He woke up a little more, struggling to lift heavy eyelids. The Voice was coming through an intercom, that was it. It was female, it was familiar, it was…Elizabeth Weir. He was hearing Dr. Weir, and she was talking about something…he heard her say Major Sheppard, she was talking about John. Oh, right. He’d been looking for John, and he’d found him…but John hadn’t known who Rodney was and he’d gotten away again. Maybe Weir and the others were looking for John now – yes, that was it, she’d just said searchers…
Rodney jumped then, blinking at the ceiling. Dr. Weir had just given the searching soldiers permission – no, had given them an order – to shoot Major Sheppard. She had authorized them to use deadly force. That meant shoot to kill.
They were going to blow John’s brains out because he was allergic to alien plant pollen.
Rodney got up.
His shoulder exploded with ripping, tearing pain, but he ignored it; all
he could think about was John slumped against a metal bulkhead with half his
head missing, like Brendan Gaul had looked on the derelict Wraith ship. He had to get to John before the
soldiers did, before they followed Weir’s order and made him like
The metal was cold against his good shoulder, cold through
the thin material of the scrubs he was wearing. But when he tried to move away from the
metal something stopped him, and the background noises he hadn’t been paying
attention to suddenly got louder.
Hands were stopping him from leaving the wall, from going out to save
John, and a confused babble of voices was saying something about stitches and
back to bed and what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing…Rodney did his
best to jerk away from the hands, even though the warmth of them felt good, and
he could hear the urgency in his own voice as he did his best to drown out the
rest of them. “I have to save
John. She told them…she told them
they could kill him…like Gaul…I can’t let them make him like
The voices protested that, the hands pulled, and Rodney realized he was being forced back into the bed he’d decided John was going to use while he kept watch. He fought back harder, as hard as he could, and when the hands and voices finally forced him flat on his back anyway and something pushed down hard on his left shoulder the scream he let out was as much from frustration as pain. “I can’t let them kill John, she said they could kill John!”
More hands appeared, but these were gentle and their touch conveyed concern rather than insistent force. Blue eyes were looking down at him out of a tired, worried face. “Rodney, listen to me,” Beckett insisted gently. “You can’t go after him, he’s already hurt you once.”
Rodney tried to toss off the gentle hands, jerking his head from side to side. “Accident…he didn’t know who I was. They’re going to kill him…she said they could kill him…”
“Yes, she did.” The confirmation surprised him enough that he stopped fighting for a minute. “I heard it too, Rodney, we all did,” the doctor told him. “But you’re in no condition to go after him right now, do you understand? You’ve got to calm down so we can stop your bleedin’, you’re goin’ into shock again.”
“They’re going to kill John…”
“No, they aren’t – we won’t let them.” Beckett made a face when Rodney tried to struggle free again. “Get the damned sedative into him already!” he snapped at his helpers. “And get a better hold on him!” He returned his attention to the pale, frantic man on the bed, locking eyes with him. “Rodney, listen to me,” he repeated. “You let Melissa and the others take care of you, I’ll go get John myself. I’ll bring him right back here where he’ll be safe.” That got him suspicious disbelief, wonderful. The doctor put all the sincerity he could muster into his face and voice. “I promise, Rodney.”
“P-promise?” When Beckett nodded, Rodney all but
melted into the bed, although his head still tossed against the doctor’s hands
weakly. “She said they could kill
him, Carson. Like
“No, not like Dr. Gaul,” Beckett corrected him, patting his cheek. “I won’t let that happen, I’ll find him and bring him right back here. When you wake up, he’ll be in the next bed.”
Dilating blue eyes blinked up at him, heavy lids fighting not to close. “He can have my bed. I have to…I have to keep watch.”
“I’ve already got a bed for him, you’re goin’ to need yours.” Beckett kept patting. “Now just relax, your John will be here safe when you wake up.” More suspicion, and the doctor sighed. “I promise, Rodney. I’ll see him here safe, you’ve got my word.”
“O…okay.” It came out as a sigh, and the blue eyes finally closed all the way. “You promise.”
“Aye, that I do.” The doctor stayed where he was for a few minutes, making sure his patient was going to stay out, and then he peeled himself off the side of the bed with a groan. “Keep a close eye on him, don’t leave him alone for a bloody second,” he warned his people. “And implement the first phase of Protocol 5, don’t let anyone in here while I’m gone.” A few questioning eyebrows went up, and Beckett’s jaw set. “I’m goin’ to get Major Sheppard and bring him back, just like I promised.”
No one tried to argue with him. Beckett made use of one of the back exits from the infirmary complex and went straight to the weapons storage area, emerging with one of the Wraith stun weapons. Then he headed out into the city, keeping a close eye on the blips on his scanner so he wouldn’t run into any of the other searchers. He had a feeling he knew where Sheppard was, but that wasn’t going to do him any good if he fell afoul of Dr. Weir or the searching soldiers and was packed back off to the infirmary.
Or to a cell, if he just happened to shoot Weir himself. But wishful thinking wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
He’d been practicing using the scanner, and after only two close calls – bloody upper decks – he’d left the main search area behind and was heading down into an area of the city that they’d explored but didn’t usually visit. Beckett’s trained eye had noticed something when he’d gotten to Rodney earlier; he’d noticed that there was no blood spatter on the walls where the injured man had been found, and no blood on the floor either. Which meant that the actual shooting had happened someplace else, and the astrophysicist had been moving back toward the more inhabited areas – whether seeking help or trying to protect Sheppard he couldn’t say, possibly a bit of both. But either way, it meant that John Sheppard was down here, somewhere, in the warren of mazelike silver corridors that made up the lower part of the city’s eastern end.
It also meant that Beckett had a chance to catch him and stun him before the people with the real guns figured out they were looking in the wrong place. He kept one eye on the corridor and one on the scanner, holding the little device out in front of him so he wouldn’t have to look down and possibly miss something. Missing something at this point could be fatal – for himself and for Sheppard.
He stopped dead when he saw the first blip. Now came the tricky part. His quarry was approximately two corridors away, moving in a jerky, aimless way that denoted mental confusion and frustration; he was most likely lost in the maze of corridors and not able to think clearly enough to stop walking in circles. Beckett moved as quietly as he could in that direction, and then stopped again when he was just around two corners from the agitated man. Weapon at the ready, he took a deep breath and called out in the most reassuring tone he could manage, “John, it’s all right. I’m here to help you.”
On his scanner, the blip stopped moving. The acoustics of the metal walls and floor carried the suspicious whisper back to him. “Who is that?”
“It’s me, Carson – Dr. Beckett, remember?” Another deep breath when he saw the blip begin to move hesitantly toward his position. “John, I know you’re lost and I know you’re frightened. We’ve got to get you out of here to someplace safe, all right? I can protect you, but we’ve no time to waste.”
The blip picked up speed, but at the same time started hugging itself closer to blue line that denoted the corridor wall. In his mind’s eye he could see Sheppard peeking around the first corner, fearing he was walking into a trap. Which, of course, he was. Beckett edged closer to his own wall, positioning himself so that the next peek would give him a clear target – a head shot wasn’t ideal, considering the complications it would cause, but he’d only get one chance and he couldn’t afford to be picky. “It’s all right, I can hold them off until you catch up to me. Then we can watch each other’s backs until we get to safety.”
Sheppard was coming faster now, and Beckett put his weapon right up against the wall and sighted down the length of it, finger just beginning to depress the firing button. Ten feet, five feet, two feet…dark brown hair appeared, the beginnings of a profile and the barrel of a service revolver, and the doctor fired.
Blue fire flowed out along the dull silver wall like sheet lightning, and the service revolver hit the floor as its owner took the full force of the blast and went down. Beckett kept his weapon at the ready just in case as he circled out away from the wall in the direction of the gun, also putting himself in position to verify that Sheppard was really down before getting any closer. Boots, legs, torso…the doctor knelt down and scooped up the revolver with the hand that had been holding his scanner, tucking the gun into the back of his waistband before he stood back up and started moving closer. Unconscious and breathing, but already starting to twitch in the opening moments of his first seizure. Wraith weaponry was designed to incapacitate, not kill, but only if it was a body shot; blasts impacting in the head and facial areas tended to short-circuit the victim’s cerebral cortex, as they’d found out all those months ago when Rodney had gotten hit by a stray bolt through the open wormhole. First would be seizures of increasing intensity, closely followed by complete arrest. Beckett quickly closed the distance between himself and Sheppard, laying his weapon down and stripping off his jacket to cushion the major’s head from the unyielding metal floor. Then he tapped on his earpiece to activate it, for once not sparing a thought to wish they had communicators that flipped open like the ones from Star Trek. “I need a medical team to my location immediately!” he barked. “Major Sheppard is down, stun bolt to the head, I need full resuscitation gear and I need it here in the next five minutes.”
His own people responded almost immediately – he knew they’d been waiting for his call and the team was already heading out the door. The next voice he heard was Dr. Weir’s. “Dr. Beckett, what do you think you’re doing?!”
“I found our missin’ man and I put him down,” Beckett snapped back. “You can call off the search, it’s over; this is a medical emergency now. Keep everyone clear of this area except the medical team, we can’t afford any nonsense.” His jaw set. “Like some bloody fool with a gun interferin’ with me savin’ Sheppard’s life. I see anyone come ‘round the corner except one of my people, they’ll be joinin’ the major and Dr. McKay in the infirmary.”
He could almost hear her blood pressure go up; Weir didn’t like to be dictated to. But they were on an open channel, and he knew she didn’t dare argue with him. Much, anyway. “All right, all searchers stand down and return to the central area, Major Sheppard has been found. Dr. Beckett, I’m coming down there so I can see what’s going on for myself.”
He didn’t answer her, instead whipping his scanner out and checking for the approach of the medical team before hiding the little instrument inside Sheppard’s jacket; Weir didn’t know he had the thing, he planned to keep it that way. When he spoke again it was to his people, covering himself. “Jonathan, how far off are you?”
“We’re halfway there, if we have your correct location.”
“In that case, I’ll probably be doin’ CPR when you get here – the seizures are gettin’ worse, he’ll shut down any minute. Melissa, if you haven’t already, implement the second stage of Protocol 5.”
“Understood.” The infirmary protocols were something Beckett and his main staff had started writing up not long after arriving on Atlantis, realizing that unusual situations might necessitate certain actions on the part of the medical staff – actions that needed to be carried off without a hitch at times when sitting down and discussing what they needed to do wasn’t an option. Protocol 1 involved emergency evacuation of the city, Protocol 2 hazardous conditions, Protocol 3 remote emergencies, Protocol 4 returning casualties…and Protocol 5, infirmary security lockdown. They hadn’t had to use the fifth protocol until now, but Beckett wasn’t concerned; his staff was loyal and well-trained, they weren’t going to let him down. “We’ll be ready for Major Sheppard when you get here, Doctor.”
“I know you will. Check-in in five minutes, Beckett out.” The five minute check-ins were also part of Protocol 5, the part that accommodated medical teams being sent out from the infirmary in a hostile situation. By that time the team would be here, though, so he abandoned the communicator and used both hands to try to keep his patient from hurting himself in the throes of his convulsions. Any second now…
Ten minutes later Beckett was sitting against the corridor wall trying to get his breath back and watching his medical team readying Sheppard for the trip back to the infirmary. The doctor had noticed Weir standing at one end of the corridor, but the one time she’d tried to get in closer his people had politely but firmly rebuffed her. She hadn’t tried again, but she was glaring daggers at him from where she was standing.
He didn’t care. He’d had to patch one man back up and almost had to kill another because of her stupidity, all the glaring in the world wasn’t going to make him any happier with her right now. Pushing himself back up to his feet, he waited out the ten seconds of dizziness that accompanied the change in latitude and then joined his team, brushing away their concern with a wave of his hand. “All right, notify the infirmary that we’re headin’ back.”
Someone did, and they started walking. Weir got out of their way, and after a blocked attempt to grab his arm and hold him back she trailed along in their wake, asking questions that were ignored by all of them. No doubt she’d been planning to follow them into the infirmary, but as per Protocol 5 as soon as the last medical team member was inside the doors were sealed. Beckett made a note to himself to check the security footage for that section at a later date; he wanted to see the look on Weir’s face when the door had closed on her.
He saw to stabilizing Sheppard, starting the major on a course of strong antihistamines and ordering more tests to be done, then checked on McKay briefly before going back to his office to write up his report. Once settled in his chair, though, Beckett typed in a few pertinent medical details on his laptop and then just sat back and thought. Why had Weir set up a situation that most likely would have gotten Sheppard killed – and by his own men, no less? He’d thought a few times that she might have some feelings for the man, but there’d been no sign of anything strong enough to provoke murder. And to the best of his knowledge Sheppard hadn’t encouraged any feelings she might have had…so what was it?
A few more moments of thought, then Beckett growled in frustration and started typing again. He might not know what it was yet – and he could only hope it wasn’t something else brought back from the pollen planet – but he was definitely going to have to find out before he took his infirmary out of lockdown. He just hoped that whatever it was didn’t net him any more patients before he’d figured out how to fix it.
When John Sheppard woke up, he felt like he was surfacing through layers of wet, heavy wool and his head felt about four times too big. He also couldn’t move his arms to feel his head, and that panicked him enough to drag him the rest of the way through the wool so he could see the infirmary ceiling. Dr. Beckett’s face appeared in his field of vision a few seconds later, and the doctor’s Scottish burr was a welcome sound in his ears. “Doc?”
Christ, was that slur his voice? He supposed it was, because Beckett answered him with, “Thank God, you know me. Do you know where you are?”
“The infirmary.” Did he have a concussion? No, John had had a concussion before and this wasn’t it. He swallowed, trying to get his voice back, and Beckett immediately gave him some water. That was better, but his voice still didn’t sound right – it was like his mouth wasn’t fully cooperating with his brain or something. “What’s wrong with me?” He tried to flex his arms without much success save for a weak tremor that ran along his muscles, although he thought he felt something holding him down as well. “And why can’t I move?”
“A variety of reasons. Let’s just say you were…a wee bit hard to handle for a while,” Beckett told him – but John noticed that he didn’t do anything to get rid of the vague restraint. “How are you feelin’ now?”
John scowled at him. “I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew what was going on.”
Beckett sighed. “All right, then. What’s the last thing you remember, John?”
“Um…” John searched his memory, found it wrapped in what was left of the wool and mentally poked at it in tentative dismay. “We got back from the planet, I came down here to give you a sample of the pollen…” The memory trickled into vagueness at the same time his voice did, and he frowned. “And then I went back to my quarters? I thought I was going back to my quarters…”
“You were tryin’ to,” Beckett said, very gently. “You don’t remember gettin’ lost?”
“Lost?” John poked at the wool some more, harder this time. Gray metal corridors, the lonely echo of his boots on dustless floors, a sense of not knowing what direction to walk in… “Well, I guess I sort of remember that.” The wool gave slightly. “I remember feeling really confused.”
“Aye, that you were.” The doctor sat down on the side of the bed, catching and holding his eyes. “You had an allergic reaction to the pollen from the planet, John. Rodney’d noticed you bein’ a bit off before that, but he thought you were just tired.” Beckett sighed. “Once we got you in here the problem wasn’t all too hard for me to fix…but you gave us a bad few hours.”
There was something important here that he was missing, and that wasn’t a feeling John liked. “What aren’t you telling me, Dr. Beckett? And why won’t you let me loose?” A thought came to him, and he tried to flex against whatever was restraining him again with no more success than before. “Was I violent? Did I…hurt someone?”
“You weren’t violent.” John was reassured by that, until Beckett added, “You were just…confused, and you didn’t really remember who any of us were, so we couldn’t take any chances. Everythin’ is all right now, though.” He patted one of John’s arms, the feel of the contact dull and remote. “I’ll be takin’ off the restraints just so soon as I’m positive your system is clear of the allergen, all right? Until then what you need to do is sleep, most of the other side effects from the stunner should have gone away by the time you wake up again.”
“Stunner?” All right, that explained a lot about the way he was feeling right now. “You shot me?”
Beckett didn’t smile. “I didn’t really have too much of a choice. I apologize for it havin’ to be a head shot, but I couldn’t wait for anythin’ less damagin’. Don’t worry, in a few more hours you’ll be able to move about mostly like normal again, you’ll just be tinglin’ all over.”
John remembered something about that. “Like Rodney was that one time?”
He didn’t understand the look that crossed the doctor’s face. “Yes, like Rodney,” Beckett told him, patting his arm again. “Go on back to sleep, John. We can talk about it all some more in a few hours when you’re feelin’ better.”
Beckett sat there until he was positive his patient had gone back to sleep, then checked the soft restraints one more time to make sure they were secure. It might not have been necessary to use the restraints, seeing as how the stunner had left Sheppard mostly paralyzed for the time being anyway, but better safe than sorry. A noise from the next bed reached his ears and he stood up, grimacing. If only the problem his other patient was having could be as easily solved. “It’s goin’ to be a long few days, I think,” he said to no one, and then went to see what he could do for Rodney.
Two and a half hours after John had first come awake, he woke up again. Or rather, the tingling woke him up; it was like pins and needles to the power of ten, and he decided he didn’t like it very much. Trying to wiggle around to make it stop did show him that he wasn’t restrained any more, though, which was a relief. John stretched and wiggled for a little bit longer and then sat up slowly. He could feel himself shaking and his head still felt a little stuffed, but he wasn’t dizzy and he didn’t feel sick. He saw Beckett standing next to another bed just a little way away from his, and he wondered idly who the occupant could be. He vaguely remembered the infirmary being empty when he’d come down here before…
Before. Before he’d gotten…confused, and lost, and hadn’t known anybody. Before Beckett had decided a stun shot to the head was unavoidably the only way to take him down. John’s mouth went dry. The doctor never had told him if he’d hurt anyone, what if that person in the other bed… “Doc? Who is that?”
Beckett turned around, in doing so moving out of the way, and John’s breath got stuck someplace in his chest and refused to come back out. He didn’t start to breathe again until the doctor shook him just short of violently, shoving him back down on the bed. “Major, snap out of it!” Beckett was hissing at him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
John blinked, and blinked again. He felt like an elephant had stepped on him. “What did I do? What did I do to Rodney?”
The doctor shook his head. “Like I already told you, you were confused,” he said. “He came lookin’ for you and you didn’t know who he was.”
“He came…looking for me?” John tried to look over at the other bed again, but Beckett wouldn’t let him. “What did I do, dammit?!”
“You shot him – and keep your bloody voice down, you’ll have him rantin’ again…oh crap, there he goes.” To John’s surprise, though, instead of rushing back to Rodney Beckett pulled him back upright. “How are you feelin’ now? Are you dizzy at all, or sick at your stomach?” When John shook his head, the doctor tugged him off the bed. He growled when John tried to resist. “Don’t fight me, John, I need your help – I’ve just been waitin’ for you to wake up so we could get this settled.”
John swallowed; looking across the room was one thing, seeing what he’d done up close was something else. But he let the doctor drag him over to the other bed, keeping as much of his distance as he could when Beckett leaned in close to the astrophysicist’s ear and started talking. “Rodney, Rodney it’s all right. D’you hear me, it’s all right.”
The injured man thrashed fretfully in response to that, shaking his head against the pillow. “No…John…”
That wrung a moan from John and he tried to back away, but the doctor’s strong hand wrapped around his wrist forced him to stay where he was. “He’s right here, Rodney.”
“No…dead…couldn’t save...” More thrashing, the astrophysicist’s face twisting up in pain as the movement pulled at the injury hidden under the white bandages. “She k-killed him…”
Beckett patted his cheek until he opened his eyes. “Rodney, I promised you I’d bring him back, didn’t I?” A hard tug, and Sheppard was standing right beside him in the spot he hadn’t wanted to be in – way too close. “Here he is, see? And he’s goin’ to be fine now.”
John didn’t feel fine, he felt so guilty he was almost sick. Unlike him, Rodney wasn’t wearing a dignity-preserving pair of Beckett’s dark red scrubs; instead a standard-issue hospital gown was snapped into place over his good arm but just lying draped over his left shoulder with its heavy covering of white bandages. There was an IV taped down on the back of his left hand, and the eyes that were blinking up at him were drugged pools of dilated black just barely rimmed with palest blue.
And those eyes were terrified…but not of John Sheppard. The tiniest bit of guilt receded, and John didn’t resist this time when Beckett pushed him even closer to the bed. “Rodney, I’m okay, see?” he all but whispered. God, it was killing him to see his friend like this. Tentatively he reached out a shaking hand and touched the same cheek the doctor had been patting. “Please calm down, please? I’m okay, really, I’m just…tingly.”
Rodney blinked at him. “T-tingly?”
“Our good doctor stunned me. Right in the face, too.”
“In…in the face?” More
blinking. “
The doctor moved to be more easily visible. “I told you I’d get him, Rodney. It was just like we thought, the reaction he had to the pollen was affectin’ his mind, he wasn’t thinkin’ straight. So I stunned him with a Wraith weapon and then we brought him back here.” Beckett smiled down at him. “He’s goin’ to be keepin’ you company in here for a good little while, but he’s all right.”
“Really?” The doctor nodded, and Rodney’s eyes slid shut so fast John was frightened for a minute, but fright was supplanted by surprise when the other man turned his face into Sheppard’s touch and sighed. “Good. Don’t want…to be here if he isn’t.”
John’s breath caught in his chest. He didn’t think Rodney was talking about being in the infirmary. “Doc?”
Beckett shrugged. “He means it, if that’s what you’re wantin’ to know. He tried to come after you, got right up out of that bed and was staggerin’ out the bloody door when we caught him – I had to promise I’d find you before he’d let us put him back to bed and put his stitches back in.”
John was still frozen, staring at the faint, contented smile on Rodney’s face. “He ripped out his stitches trying to come after me? But I shot him…”
“He knew that wasn’t your fault, he told us so.” Beckett’s voice took on a hard edge. “He heard Dr. Weir announcin’ over the ‘comm system that the searchers were all right to use deadly force, that’s what set him off. It was after we got him back in bed that I doubled his medication, I didn’t have him nearly this drugged up before – but still every time he gets anywhere near conscious he’s fussin’ about you.” This time John did look at him, and the doctor shrugged again. “He’s bloody well in love with you, but he also knows you’re not inclined that way yourself. He was hidin’ it quite well until this happened.” To his surprise, the major looked dismayed by that. “John…?”
“I wish he hadn’t been – so good at hiding it, I mean.” John turned back to the bed, his fingers moving against the cheek they were still resting against. “I actually do happen to be inclined that way, you know. Why do you think Weir was so ready to get rid of me?”
That was a scenario Beckett hadn’t considered …but it did make sense. Several pieces of the puzzle that had been confounding him fell into place at once. “So I’m guessin’ you turned her down, did you?”
“And told her why. I didn’t want her to think I was rejecting her personally.” John sighed. “I didn’t expect her to react…the way she did.” A wry half-smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “I really didn’t expect her to try to kill me over it. She’s a civilian, after all.”
“That sort of stupidity isn’t limited to the military,” Beckett told him. “But I can understand you not expectin’ it of her, I’m not sure I would have expected such a reaction myself. So I should probably keep us on Protocol 5 until she’s had a chance to calm down, hmm?”
John looked at him again. “Protocol 5?” He resisted when Beckett tried to pull him away from Rodney’s bed, and only relented when the doctor dragged his bed closer in compromise. Not that he was going to deny that being back in the bed felt good. Okay, really good. “What’s Protocol 5?”
“Number five is the one we institute in an internally hostile situation – it’s a complete security lockdown of the infirmary.” Beckett had gone back to Rodney and was checking his bandages, making sure his earlier thrashing hadn’t done any more damage. “We’d been discussin’ implementin’ it when Rodney here tried to go after you, and it went into effect as soon as I left the infirmary.” He smoothed the bandages back down, relieved. “Well, he pulled a few but didn’t tear anythin’. I’ve no expectation that he’ll remember you’re alive when he wakes up again, but hopefully seein’ you will keep him a bit calmer.”
“I hope so too.” John was still watching Rodney, trying to reconcile what he’d already known of the astrophysicist with what he knew now. “I think that’s the least I can do for him.”
Rodney surfaced through the numbing blanket of his medication five more times over the next few hours, each time frantic with the idea that John had been or was being killed by Weir’s searchers, and the major was all but beside himself. The white bandages were stained with blood now, restraints had been added, and Beckett was starting to talk about heavier sedation even though it could be dangerous – more tests had revealed that his patient was having an unexpected reaction to a combination of the pollen still in his system and one of the medications he’d been given, so adding anything else to the mix would be a risk the doctor was only reluctantly considering taking.
John didn’t want to take that risk either. He was sitting on the side of the bed now, still too shaky himself to stay standing but not wanting Rodney to think he wasn’t there. Unfortunately this time it wasn’t working; this time Rodney was convinced that John was a ghost and, even more disturbingly, that Brendan Gaul was with him. No amount of reasoning or touching would convince him otherwise, and finally John did the only other thing he could think of to make his friend accept that he was real.
He kissed him. Rodney froze in mid thrash, then slowly relaxed and even began to respond. When John finally ended it and pulled back, the astrophysicist was smiling. He blinked heavy-lidded, dark-circled blue eyes at the bemused Beckett. “You didn’t tell me I was dead too,” he murmured accusingly, and then his eyes closed and he went back to sleep.
John just stared at him, then gave Beckett a sheepish smile. “I knew I was good, but I didn’t know I was that good.”
Beckett started to chuckle, shaking his head. “I can see Rodney’s not the only one with a nice healthy ego,” he commented, but he still forced John back into his own bed and then mollified the man’s protests by arranging things so that the two beds were even closer than before, just over two feet apart. “There, now you get some rest,” the doctor scolded him. “The medication he’s reacted so badly to should be wearin’ off, hopefully he’ll start settlin’ down now – I’ll leave convincin’ him he’s not dead to you, since it seems you’ve found the way of it now.”
The sheepish smile became a smirk. “I think I can do that.”
Dr. Weir showed up later that day, and was just short of surprised when the doors to the infirmary failed to open for her. She’d posted guards outside the night before, more as a reminder that she was in charge than out of any real fear something was going to happen, and had been concerned when they reported that no personnel had entered or left. She also hadn’t received word from Dr. Beckett about either Sheppard’s condition or McKay’s, and that had concerned her too; the doctor was usually very prompt in getting his reports to her, especially when it involved key mission personnel.
It irritated her to have to use the intercom next to the door, and she let that feeling show as she did it. “Dr. Beckett, this is Dr. Weir. Why are the doors not responding?”
The door slid open. Beckett was standing there, looking tired. “They’re respondin’ just fine,” he told her shortly. “What did you need, Dr. Weir?”
She put his tone down to exhaustion and deliberately ignored it, although she did make a mental note to speak with him about it another time. “I need to know what’s going on with Major Sheppard and Dr. McKay,” she replied. “You haven’t given me any reports, you know. Where are they?”
“In bed, of course.” Beckett stepped aside just enough so that she could see into the infirmary, but not enough to allow her to step past him – in fact, his body language suggested she shouldn’t try it. “See for yourself.”
Weir looked past him, seeing Sheppard where he lay on his side facing away from her and McKay beyond him, lying on his back with his eyes closed. Her own eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why are they so close together?”
“Because Dr. McKay was worryin’ about his team leader, I had to put the man where he could see him.” The hard edge in Beckett’s voice shocked her attention back onto him. “He’s been ravin’ about you killin’ Sheppard ever since that bloody stupid announcement you made,” he snapped. “He even made it out of bed and got halfway out the bloody door before we caught him, ripped out his stitches doin’ it and only stopped fightin’ us when I promised I’d bring the major back here,” his voice dropped to a low growl, “where he’d be safe.”
Weir stiffened. “I had to do what was necessary to keep everyone safe, Doctor. Major Sheppard had already injured one person.”
Beckett didn’t give an inch. “You could easily have sent them out with the stunners, but you didn’t. Do I want to know why that was?”
She was still trying to formulate a response to that when a machine somewhere behind the doctor blared out a shrill warning, and looking back into the infirmary she saw what looked like McKay having some sort of seizure. Sheppard had sat up in his bed and it looked like he might be trying to get up to go to the other man, but the medical staff that came rushing in forced him to stay where he was while they surrounded McKay.
Beckett had rushed away from the door when the alarm had gone off, but if Weir thought that meant she could get into the infirmary she was sadly mistaken; another member of the medical staff immediately took the doctor’s place and started pushing buttons on the control panel. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weir, but we’re going to have to close up again,” the young man told her, and then the door slid shut with a soft wheeze and snap. She stood there blinking stupidly at it for several long minutes before going back to her office to think.
Inside the infirmary, McKay was still giggling uncontrollably between gasping breaths under his oxygen mask while Beckett checked his stitches and upbraided Sheppard at the same time. “Major, I’m assumin’ this was your doin’?”
Sheppard stayed propped up on one elbow, looking on with concern and more than a little fresh guilt. “I was just telling him this story about something that happened when I was in flight school, and he was trying not to laugh because Weir was there…”
McKay was obviously trying to add his own explanation to that but not having much luck, his words broken by the tail end of his laughter-induced hyperventilation and muffled by the mask. Beckett rolled his eyes, shook his head. “Well, you didn’t hurt him and he didn’t hurt himself,” he allowed, pressing the taped bandages back into place with a sigh. “And your shenanigans got Dr. Weir out of my hair for a wee bit more and gave her a good scare besides, so I suppose I’m not too terribly upset with either of you – but that doesn’t mean I want a repeat of this, do you understand me?” Two nods, and he sighed again; he supposed he should just be glad Rodney had finally come awake enough to know where he was and who was with him. His tone softened as he asked, “How are you doin’, Rodney?”
The astrophysicist blinked at him. “These are the good drugs, right?” He smiled contentedly when Beckett nodded. “I feel gooood.”
The doctor had to smile. “Glad to hear it,” he said, patting the bandaged shoulder. “Enjoy it while it lasts. And you, John?”
Sheppard yawned. “I’m tired. But at least the tingling finally stopped.”
“You should go to sleep,” Beckett replied. He echoed the yawn behind a quickly raised hand. “Go ahead and get your rest. The infirmary staff won’t be lettin’ anyone in to bother you.”
That got Rodney’s drooping eyes back open – partway, at least. “You’re on…Protocol 5?”
“Aye, that we are. Go to sleep, Rodney.”
The scientist did, almost immediately. Sheppard cocked an eyebrow at Beckett. “You look like you should take your own advice, there, Doc.”
“I will be, after a bit.” The doctor stifled another yawn. “I’ve got a sight of work to do first, though – I want to be ready for our good Dr. Weir’s next sally.” He smiled again. “She’s confused now, I give her til mornin’ to get angry and come marchin’ down here again. But we’ll weather it, never fear.”
“I wasn’t.” Sheppard grinned and hitched over onto his side again so he could watch Rodney sleep until he was ready to succumb again himself. “I trust you, Carson.”
“Thank you, John.” This time Beckett patted the major’s shoulder. “Be sure you get some sleep. Call Melissa or Jonathan if you need anythin’.”
John gestured to his sleeping friend – soon to be more than that, if all went well once Rodney was all the way with it and they could talk. “Got everything I need right here, thanks.”
Beckett smiled again. “Aye, I can see that you do.”
Weir was back the next morning, bright and early, with Bates at her side and two Marines behind them. “Dr. Beckett, unlock this door immediately,” she ordered through the intercom. “If you don’t, I’m relieving you of duty.”
The door didn’t open, but the comm panel beside it did crackle to life. “I’m sorry, Dr. Beckett is asleep,” a female voice said. “He was up working most of the night. If you come back this afternoon…”
“I won’t be coming back this afternoon, I’ll be coming in now,” Weir interrupted. “Melissa, right? Open this door or I’ll have it opened and you’ll be joining Dr. Beckett under arrest.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you in, Dr. Weir,” the young woman’s voice came back apologetically. “We’re still under Infirmary Protocol 5 until Dr. Beckett says otherwise.”
“Infirmary Protocol…?” Weir turned to Bates, who shrugged his ignorance, then turned back to the panel. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with such a protocol, Melissa, please explain.”
“Protocol 5 covers emergency lockdown of the infirmary in an internally hostile situation,” the voice quoted. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weir, but as per Protocol 5 only medical staff and patients are allowed inside the infirmary in an internally hostile situation. If you need medical attention…”
“I don’t need medical attention – and I didn’t approve any separate security protocols for the infirmary!” Weir was losing her temper now. “Either you open this door or we’re going to open it by force!”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. If you want to speak with Dr. Beckett, he’ll be available this afternoon,” Melissa told her. “I’ll have him contact you as soon as he wakes up.”
The connection went dead. Weir stared at it for a long moment, then pulled out her communicator and called the control room. “Peter, get this door open.”
There was a pause, then Peter Grodin’s British-accented voice came back almost as apologetically as Melissa’s had. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weir, I can’t do that. The security lockout on the door won’t permit an external override.” She heard him clear his throat. “And I don’t advise attempting to manually force that particular set of doors, they seem to be connected to some sort of anti-tampering device which happens to have quite a bit of voltage running through it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Weir couldn’t believe it. “Why in God’s name would they have something like this set up in the infirmary?”
An even longer pause came from the communicator, then… “Most likely to protect patients and medical staff in an internally hostile situation, Doctor.”
“This isn’t a situation!” No answer, and she started to get suspicious. “Dr. Grodin, do you know something about this?”
Still no answer, and a moment later a different voice filtered through the small speaker. “Dr. Weir? Dr. Grodin has just left the control room. Do you want me to call him back?”
Weir ground her teeth. “No, but if he returns please let me know, Weir out.” She had a feeling Grodin wasn’t planning to return any time soon, though, and the implications were worrisome. She turned back to Bates. “Sergeant, what do you recommend we do?”
Bates straightened to attention. “I suggest that we come back this afternoon, Doctor,” he told her. “The only way to prove to Dr. Beckett and his staff that our intentions aren’t hostile is by not taking hostile action. In the meantime I suggest that we obtain a copy of the infirmary protocols and familiarize ourselves with them.”
She looked at him like he’d grown another head. “That’s your suggestion? Go along with them?”
Bates nodded. “With all due respect, Dr. Weir, we can’t afford not to go along with them,” he said. “All medical personnel are currently inside the infirmary complex – I checked before we came down here. And that means that whatever is going on, they’re all in agreement about it.” He shrugged tightly. “They’ve also all been well trained, from what I’m seeing now and what you told me before, which would lead me to believe that a security lockdown involves more than just locking the doors.” He decided not to mention that it couldn’t have been a member of the medical staff who’d set up the anti-tampering system on the infirmary doors, meaning that someone with engineering expertise was on their side as well – Bates noted to himself that he needed to surreptitiously have the doors on all the main laboratories and work areas checked as soon as possible. He drew himself up, looked her straight in the eye. “We should go now, Doctor. I’ll leave two men on the corridor to keep out everyone who isn’t in need of medical attention, with orders to let through anyone who does.” He shook his head when she scowled. “Dr. Beckett’s assistant said only medical personnel and patients, ma’am.”
Weir’s jaw set, she looked like she wanted to argue…but something in the young sergeant’s level dark gaze apparently stopped her. She sighed, explosively, and stalked back up the corridor without looking back to make sure he was following her. “I want a copy of those protocols.”
They came back that afternoon – alone, at Bates’ recommendation. Melissa answered the infirmary’s door again, but this time she let them in and led them across the unoccupied main patient area to a smaller room at the back. Beckett was waiting there, sitting to one side of a small conference table with his laptop open in front of him. To Weir’s surprise, however, he wasn’t alone; Dr. Grodin and Dr. Heightmeyer, the mission’s psychologist, were there as well. Weir ignored Grodin and focused on Heightmeyer. “Kate…?”
“I requested that Dr. Heightmeyer attend this meetin’,” Beckett said. He still looked tired. “Now if the two of you would take a seat, we’ll get started sortin’ all this out.”
Bates sat down immediately, which irritated Weir. She had wanted to come back with more soldiers, take the infirmary by force once the door was unsealed, but the sergeant had refused on the basis of some regulation she’d never heard of and so the two of them had come down alone to meet with Beckett. Except for Melissa, the infirmary had been noticeably empty. Weir stayed standing. “Where is everybody?” she demanded.
Beckett shrugged.
“Around, I suppose,” he replied.
“Sit down,
She didn’t. “Where are the major and Dr. McKay?”
Beckett snorted. “Gettin’ some fresh air – inside the complex, so don’t you be gettin’ any ideas. They’re neither one of them well enough to be released yet, even if it was safe for me to let them go back to their rooms.” Weir’s expression said that wasn’t good enough; the doctor stood up with a sigh. “Fine, then, I’ll show you – but you won’t be disturbin’ them, understand?”
She didn’t reply, but he still led her out of the room and quite a way farther into what she supposed was the infirmary ‘complex’ she hadn’t realized they had. Their destination was a set of scaled-down but familiar clear doors, and before Beckett let her get near them he did something to a panel nearby, presumably to keep the doors from opening. What she saw through the patterned glass was a smaller balcony than the one outside the control room, intimate instead of imposing and partially covered to keep off the sun; in fact it appeared that the rooflike cover seemed to be retractable and possibly could be made to extend the length of the balcony as well if more protection was desired. Beckett confirmed that with a nod when she asked. “I didn’t want to overdo it, but they could both do with a bit of sun,” he told her. “Too much artificial light isn’t good for a person, you know.”
Weir did know that, but at the moment she was much less concerned with the sun and much more interested in the ‘they’. McKay was stretched out on something like a lounge chair, slippered feet propped up and a robe belted over blue-green scrubs; a wheelchair parked nearby silently attested to the fact that he wasn’t yet back on his feet. Sheppard was sitting next to him on a regular upright chair that reminded her somewhat of an old-fashioned deck chair, not wearing a robe over his own red scrubs. The two men appeared to be talking rather aimlessly, but then McKay shivered and Sheppard immediately moved closer to him, looking worried. More conversation, and then the major left his chair for a seat on the side of the lounger and wrapped his arm around the astrophysicist’s shoulders. McKay leaned into his hold, resting his head on Sheppard’s shoulder…and Weir turned away, grimacing. She did not want to watch them get comfortable with each other, cuddling together on a balcony watching the ocean, and she definitely didn’t want to see the two of them start to kiss.
Beckett obviously didn’t want her to either, because he
immediately pulled her away from the door and led her back down the corridor
into the small conference room.
“Problem,
She stiffened all over, and sat back down in her chair quite a bit harder than was necessary. “There are regulations against…that in the military.”
“Just the major, then,” Beckett qualified ruthlessly. “So should I take that as assurance that Rodney is safe from you, or is the relationship he has with John goin’ to be puttin’ him in your sights as well?”
Weir’s mouth fell open. “I…I didn’t do anything to Rodney! It was Major Sheppard who…”
“Shot him, yes. We know.” Beckett rolled his eyes. “So does Rodney – and he also knew it had been an accident, he woke up tellin’ us so. Somethin’ you would have known as well if you’d waited to hear from me like you’re supposed to.” His mouth twisted in combined disapproval and disappointment. “Or if you’d called down to the infirmary to ask after him, somethin’ you also didn’t see fit to do.”
She didn’t answer that, just glared at him. Beckett rolled his eyes, and Heightmeyer looked down at the tabletop with a frown. Bates stepped into the silence. “How soon will the major be back to duty, Doctor?”
“I’d say in a few more days,” was Beckett’s answer. “It’ll be a week for Dr. McKay, but no goin’ offworld for him for another month until that shoulder heals, not even if it’s a planet full of bunny rabbits.”
Grodin chuckled. “With their team’s luck, even bunny rabbits could turn out to be deadly.”
“I can’t argue with that, lad.” Beckett had a smile for him, but it went away when he returned his attention to Weir and Bates. “All right then, I don’t see any need for beatin’ around the bush. I’d like to take my infirmary off Protocol 5, but I can’t do that until I’ve had some assurances that my people and my patients aren’t in any danger. So give me some assurances.”
Bates started to open his mouth, but Weir beat him to it. “I want to know why you thought you had the authority to set up your own security protocols in the first place,” she demanded.
“It’s in my job description,” was the doctor’s immediate rejoinder. “And that wasn’t an assurance, Doctor. Try it again.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not in command here, Dr. Beckett.”
“At the moment neither are you – and you won’t be until I’m
certain you won’t be endangerin’ Major Sheppard
again.” Beckett wasn’t going to
beat around the bush. “You
deliberately set up a situation that likely would have gotten him killed, and
the way you went about settin’ it up caused my other
patient to re-injure himself tryin’ to get out of the
infirmary.” He leaned forward. “
Bates looked sideways at Weir, who was glaring at the doctor, and then cleared his throat. “I wasn’t responsible for that order, sir, and I didn’t have knowledge of it until it was given. I’ve informed my people since that deadly force isn’t ever to be used against mission personnel unless myself or Major Sheppard gives the order directly.”
Beckett found another smile for him. “Now there’s what I was hopin’ to hear,” he said, nodding. “Does Lieutenant Ford know what’s been goin’ on?”
Ford had been sent back to the mainland with Teyla right after Sheppard had turned up missing, supposedly in hopes that they could find out something more about the pollen planet – and that they wouldn’t find out the problem was something more than pollen. A spate of windy weather had kept them from coming back. “I contacted him a few hours ago,” was Bates’ answer. “He wanted to come back at once, but I advised him that we had the situation under control. He’ll be back just as soon as the storm has cleared enough so that they won’t be taking an unnecessary risk.”
“Good, good – nothin’ they could do here at present anyway.” The doctor raised an eyebrow in Weir’s direction. “A bit odd that you sent off the major’s right-hand man just at that time too, isn’t it?” he questioned mildly. “Especially as you knew there was a storm blowin’ up over the mainland and he’d most likely be stuck over there a few days.”
“I relayed that information to you myself, Dr. Weir,” Grodin put in before she could object. “In front of all the
personnel in the
Weir’s face turned red. “Dr. Grodin, please.” Kate Heightmeyer spoke for the first time. “Dr. Weir, why didn’t you come to me with this problem? You’ve been very thorough, even unnecessarily so, when it comes to ordering mission personnel with interpersonal difficulties to report to me for counseling. At the very least, if you had a problem of this magnitude with Major Sheppard’s…conduct, you should have reported it to myself or Dr. Beckett immediately. So why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t see it as a problem,” Weir forced out
between clenched teeth. ‘Dr. Weir’
not
“Which brings us back to the question of why you didn’t send them after him with stunners – since you knew that he was havin’ a reaction to the pollen, so you knew that whatever was goin’ on was neither his fault or his choice.” Beckett appeared singularly unimpressed by her anger. He sat back in his chair and gave her a very level look. “Well?”
Weir mimicked his posture, folding her arms across her chest. “I did what I thought was necessary. And it’s not like I was trying to hide anything. I announced my decision over the citywide communications system.”
“Yes, that you did – with some very spectacular results where Dr. McKay was concerned,” Beckett scolded. “He damn near killed himself tryin’ to get out of here to save Major Sheppard from you.” Something flickered through her expression, and his eyes narrowed. He leaned forward again. “You did know about him too, didn’t you? Is that why you’ve treated Rodney the way you have all this time, because of bloody homophobia? Was this maybe a warnin’ for him as well?”
Weir didn’t answer, just glared at him, and Heightmeyer sighed. Her next remark, however, was addressed to Beckett. “Carson, I…I don’t know how this happened. We screened everyone who was recommended for this mission to make sure we excluded this sort of thing, even the military contingent was screened. Everyone knew we couldn’t afford to have any sort of strong, established prejudice in any of the personnel. And we know the screening works, it’s been used effectively for years.”
“It most likely didn’t work because our Dr. Weir wasn’t screened – or at least not by the SGC and not specifically for the mission,” Beckett offered. He shook his head. “It’s a common oversight, especially when the person leadin’ the mission is already functionin’ in their official capacity. It’s not your fault, Katie lass. We none of us saw this comin’.”
“Neither did I.” Sergeant Bates stiffened in his own seat when everyone looked at him. “Colonel Sumner told me before we left Earth that ‘Article 69’, as he called it, would not be enforced on this mission. And he said that even though everyone had been checked out thoroughly, I was to keep a close eye on my people and stamp out any pockets of…this sort of trouble before they became generally known.” He swallowed. “Before they could grow into…bigger problems.”
“Aye, that’s what they do.” Beckett didn’t appear surprised. In spite of the façade of military pissiness the colonel had projected, the doctor had known that someone completely hidebound would never have been assigned to a mission like theirs, never. General O’Neill had been in the field too long himself to be that kind of fool. Pity he hadn’t been so conscientious when it came to the civilian contingent, but then maybe that had been out of his hands. One thing Beckett did know was that O’Neill had always seemed to have very little use for Weir, and he’d kicked himself a few times over the past couple of days for not paying more attention to that. He brought himself back out of his introspection with a shake of his head. “This one bloody well did, and now we’ve got situations all over the city, half of which are hidin’ here in the infirmary complex until it’s safe to come out.”
“Now that’s something else we need to talk about.” Weir obviously thought she’d found her footing again. “For starters, just how big is the so-called ‘infirmary complex’, Dr. Beckett?”
“It’s as big as it needs to be,” the doctor told her. “The main medical staff does have to sleep here, you know, it’s bloody well inconvenient otherwise. I’ve also got to have the option of pullin’ all my people inside in an emergency, or a quarantine, so we needed space to accommodate the non-essential medical personnel as well. And of course the patient areas and the labs…” He trailed off with a shrug. “Well, like I said, it’s as big as it needs to be.”
She tapped her fingers against the surface of the table, not quite hiding the beginnings of a triumphant smile. “Doesn’t such a large active area require a lot of power?”
“No, Doctor.” Weir didn’t look happy that Grodin had answered her question, but the physicist didn’t let that stop him. “The areas of the infirmary complex which aren’t in use at any given time are powered down – automatically, using motion sensors. It’s only the main patient area and the main medical laboratory which have continuous power.” He cleared his throat. “We couldn’t implement the same system city-wide because we didn’t have enough sensors. Dr. Zelenka and I have been collaborating on an idea to adapt the city’s internal sensors for that purpose, but we haven’t yet been able to make it effective. Or, for that matter, safe.”
Weir didn’t address that. “What about the anti-tampering setup on the infirmary doors? Who set that system up, Dr. Grodin?”
“Don’t answer that, Peter.” Beckett injected himself back into things before Grodin could do more than start to open his mouth. “We don’t need to add a witch hunt to the problem we’ve already got, and that’s where I see this headin’. Katie?”
Heightmeyer nodded. “I’d have to agree, yes. Dr. Weir,” she addressed the angry diplomat. “Obviously we have some trust issues between yourself and the senior staff which need to be addressed, but we do need to focus on one problem at a time and to do that we need to stay on topic.”
Weir shook her head. “I think it’s all part of the same topic, actually. From the look of things my entire senior staff has been conducting clandestine operations on this mission since its inception if not before – and in my opinion that is the biggest problem we’ve got on our hands right now, not the very minor issue of a few people overreacting to a decision they didn’t understand and therefore didn’t agree with.”
Dead silence. Then Beckett leaned back in his chair again with another sigh. “Damn.”
Heightmeyer shook her head. “I had hoped…”
“We all did, lass.” The doctor steepled his fingers, frowning. “All right, I’ve had assurance from Sergeant Bates that we’ll not be havin’ any more problems from his end, now we’ve just got to decide how to go about makin’ sure the civilian side of things doesn’t get out of hand again. There’ll have to be an order for mandatory councilin’, Katie, but the problem’s goin’ to be figurin’ out how to create oversight for a position that’s not supposed to need it…”
Weir all but stood up out of her seat. “Now wait just a minute…!”
“…Without lettin’ everyone know that somethin’s wrong, we’ve got enough problems with morale right now as it is,” Beckett continued, ignoring her; she slowly sat back down. “Peter, I hate to ask it of you, but you’d be the logical choice for that one.”
“You mean the only choice.” Grodin shrugged. “You’re right, though; I am supposed to be second in the civilian command, my having greater input could be passed off as a sharing of responsibility on the off chance that something were to happen to Dr. Weir.”
“Actually, you should have been doing that already,” Bates told him. “And you should have a second of your own, just in case – someone other than Dr. McKay, he’s in the field too much.” Heightmeyer looked a question at him, and the sergeant answered it at once. “The chances of Dr. McKay getting killed or captured are too high, ma’am, so third in the citywide chain of command is too high too.”
“But he’s head of the science teams…”
“And that’s why he goes through the ‘Gate so much,” Grodin explained. “It had to be amended to his job description; we don’t have power available to send multiple missions out to any one location until we get things right. It’s one trip per address unless there’s something there we need, and Dr. McKay is the one who has to decide if what’s there justifies us expending the resources to go back.”
“Or if the available resources are safe to bring back with us,” a new voice intruded. Major Sheppard was standing in the room’s doorway. “For the record, he was worried about the pollen on that last trip and I blew him off. I told him seasonal allergies never killed anyone.”
“Not normally they don’t, no.” Beckett stood up.