A Man of Many
Talents, Part 2
by
Setcheti
For disclaimer and etcetera, see Part
1
Some six or seven hours later, Zelenka was sitting on a stool in the infirmary not far from McKay’s bed. He’d put the astrophysicist in the bed himself, and then sat right there watching Beckett take care of everything while answering the doctor’s questions. Beckett, bless him, hadn’t been suspicious of him in the least; in fact, he was all but bursting with excitement to start testing DNA samples so he could find out more. He had a theory, apparently, that the Ancients had in fact created the Wraith. “A race of supersoldiers, then?” Zelenka clarified. “Something that got avay from them?”
“All the way away,” Beckett confirmed. “I’ve talked about this with Rodney before. Ever since we found out that Teyla has inactive Wraith DNA, I’ve had the suspicion that the Ancients were involved in some things they maybe shouldn’t have been. And if they were conductin’ genetic experimentation and God knows what other kinds here, who’s to say they didn’t keep doin’ it on Earth as well once they got there?”
“That vould make sense – and it vould explain a lot of things.” Zelenka waved a hand at McKay, who still looked very white and hadn’t come around yet. “Are you sure he’s going to be all right?”
“Just as sure as I was the last three times you asked me.” Beckett rolled his eyes. “He’s goin’ to be fine, Petar – sore for a while, but fine. And that was good thinkin’ on your part not to risk those ribs, he’d have wound up with a punctured lung if you hadn’t been so careful of him.” He smiled. “He has a way of gettin’ under your skin, doesn’t he?”
“He didn’t expect anyone to stay to help him.” Zelenka couldn’t seem to let that go, the way McKay had ordered them all to run and so obviously not expected them to do anything else. “He knew that thing vould kill him, Carson, and he just stood there and vaited for it – he clubbed it in the face vith his gun vhen he ran out of the bullets.”
Beckett chuckled, although a bit sadly. “Our Rodney is a man of many talents,” he agreed. “Some of them surprisin’.”
“He’s not the only one.” Sheppard was walking through the infirmary door. He made the same wave toward McKay’s bed that Zelenka just had. “Is he going to be…”
“He’s goin’ to be fine – and I’m goin’ to put up a sign over the bed sayin’ so so the lot of you will quit askin’ me.” The doctor pointed at Zelenka when Sheppard raised a questioning eyebrow. “He’s on his fourth ask already.”
Sheppard winked at Zelenka, much to the scientist’s relief. The major had seen him carrying McKay earlier and had watched him kill half a dozen Wraith with his bare hands; he hadn’t been sure how Sheppard was going to be acting around him now. Normally, apparently. “And he didn’t chase you out already, I’m impressed – he usually orders me out after the second ask.”
“You’re more annoyin’ about it,” Beckett tossed over his shoulder. “And he’s just sittin’ there, you hover.”
“I do not!” Zelenka couldn’t help but laugh when the doctor turned around and gave Sheppard a look that made the younger man backtrack quickly. “I just…like to see what’s going on.”
“From three inches away, yes I know.” Beckett finished what he’d been doing and pulled up a stool of his own. There were only two other patients besides Rodney who had been seriously injured enough to need medical supervision, and both of them were sleeping; everyone who’d suffered minor damage had been sent back to their respective quarters to rest after being treated. “If you’re plannin’ to stay then take a seat, Major. It’s goin’ to be a while before Rodney’s awake, and I’d like to hear more from Petar here about his people back on Earth.”
“Oh good, a story.” Sheppard quickly got a stool and plopped
down on it. “So vampires really
come from
Zelenka rolled his eyes. “No, just my family,” he said, trading a look with Beckett. “Vampires are everyvhere. Ve just have to keep a low profile – even in twenty-first century, people can be so stupid.”
“Major, what do you think you’re doing?!” Weir’s voice made them all jump. She was standing in the doorway, Bates at her side with his weapon drawn and aimed at Zelenka. The two of them advanced into the room cautiously, as though expecting trouble. “I thought I told you I wasn’t sure…”
“And I told you I was.” It was Sheppard’s turn to roll his eyes. “You were saying something about stupid people, Dr. Zelenka?”
“Petar, please.” Zelenka looked at Weir with some irritation. “Dr. Weir, do ve have problem?”
Weir looked shocked by the question, but before she could
open her mouth Sheppard was answering for her. “No, we don’t,” he said. “
Bates chose that moment to speak up. “Sir, I think you should move away from…um, that.”
Sheppard gave him a meaningful look. “Sergeant, put your sidearm away. Now.”
“Sir…”
Sheppard stood up. “Now, Sergeant.” Bates followed the order reluctantly, looking unsure, and the major scowled at Weir. “You know, I blame you for this – used to be I didn’t have to ask twice to make him mind.”
Dr. Weir folded her arms across her chest. “I’m glad you’re finding this all so amusing, Major, but I’m responsible for the safety of every person in this city…”
“And you think Petar here is some sort of a threat, is that it?” Beckett stood up too, as did Zelenka. “I’ve got news for you, Doctor, if he was goin’ to hurt anyone he’d have had ample opportunity to do it before now.”
Weir didn’t buy it. “We don’t know that he hasn’t.” Now her glare was all for Zelenka. “We don’t know anything about him, apparently.”
“We know he saved McKay and he damn well didn’t have to,” Sheppard snapped. “He also didn’t have to help us get rid of the Wraith, since they really aren’t a threat to him personally.”
That startled her. “They aren’t…”
“The Wraith cannot feed off of me,” Zelenka told her. It was a fact he had proved several hours earlier with Sheppard watching. “And I cannot feed off of them either. Ve are…incompatible.”
“But you aren’t ‘incompatible’ with us,” Weir pointed out.
“No, not at all.” Zelenka’s easy agreement flustered her, and he smiled slightly. “But I also have not fed since coming to Atlantis, nor have I even had need to consider it until now.”
“He has to feed properly if he’s goin’ to exert himself like he did today,” Beckett explained before she could say anything. “We’ve been discussin’ what to do about it.”
Weir’s jaw set. “And just what were you thinking of doing, calling for volunteers? Because you must know that I can’t allow that.”
“You mean won’t, not can’t, and if they were volunteers you wouldn’t be allowin’ anythin’,” Beckett corrected her. “And no, although that could be an option in a pinch, it wouldn’t be our first choice.”
“Not after vhat I told him about it,” Zelenka put in. “The feeding, it is…vell, it can be habit-forming in some circumstances.”
Bates was looking curious now – worried, but curious. “For you or for them?”
The Czech scientist smiled at him, a normal smile with no fangs in sight, which seemed to both surprise and relieve the security officer. “For both,” he answered. “Think of it as love at first bite, so to speak.”
“You know, I saw that movie once, I thought it was cheesy,” Sheppard commented in his patented offhand way. “But I’d think that a bunch of the things I wasn’t able to feed Steve might work just fine for you, Petar. Or we could always do the blood drive thing.”
“Artificial blood might do the trick as well,” Beckett said, nodding. “I’ve got some prototype here with me, frozen, that we could try.”
“Kind of like a blood slushie.” Sheppard made a face, then shook it off. “I prefer blue coconut myself, but to each his own. All right, so we’ve got three options to explore other than asking around to see if anyone has a closet goth kink they’d like to indulge. I think that’s a pretty good start…”
“You can’t know if any of those ideas will work,” Weir contradicted him stubbornly. “And until then, Dr. Zelenka poses a threat to all the personnel in this city and on any planet we visit. We also don’t know what else he might be able to do, what abilities he has…”
“You have not asked me.” Zelenka folded his arms across his chest and raised a light brown eyebrow at her. “And you are talking about me as though I vas not here, vhich is quite rude of you, Dr. Weir.”
Sheppard almost choked on that one, and Beckett hid a smile. “Don’t you have more important things to be doin’ than harrassin’ the man who saved us from the Wraith, then, lassie?” the doctor asked pointedly. “Like maybe checkin’ up on all these personnel you’re so responsible for, hmm? Oh, and since you’re already here, Rodney’s goin’ to be just fine.”
Weir didn’t quite wince at the unspoken admonition; she’d been too caught up in her other concerns to spare much for her injured science chief. “What exactly happened to him?” she wanted to know.
“A Wraith happened to him,” Beckett told her. “He chased his people off toward the major and stayed behind to hold the bloody monsters off by himself – and I’ll be wantin’ Dr. Heightmeyer to talk to him once his concussion’s passed, that protective streak he’s come up with is gettin’ out of hand and I don’t like how close it came to suicidal this time.”
She ignored that and shot a suspicious sideways look at Zelenka. “Are you sure it was a Wraith?”
“Don’t you even go there,” Sheppard snapped. He wasn’t playing any more. “And if you want to see the Wraith, you can just trot on down to the main physics lab and have a look at what’s left of it. There’s even a piece taken out so you can look inside, which I thought was a nice touch.”
“You can also ask the rest of the bloody cowards on the science team to tell you what happened,” Beckett spat out. “If they’re not hidin’ someplace in shame right now, that is, after leavin’ Rodney behind to die.”
“They followed his orders to leave vithout a backward glance,” Zelenka confirmed, shaking his head. “I vas quite upset by that, it vas…not right. It vas part of vhat made up my mind to reveal myself, seeing him standing there vaiting for the Wraith vith his little gun and no bullets, not expecting anyone to stay. He did not know I vas there.”
“And we don’t know why you were there,” Weir jumped back in. “It may have been to save him, or it might have been for something else. If I remember correctly, vampires don’t just bite people in order to eat.”
Zelenka snorted. “You remember superstition and the major’s ‘cheesy’ movies,” he told her. “I am not the valking dead; I vas born the vay I am, as vas everyone in my family. My brothers and I vere all christened in the church, sunlight does not burn me, and I like the garlic chicken best of all vhen I eat Chinese food. And vhen I feed off of someone, it is a few mouthfuls only, less even than you give vhen you visit blood bank.” He scowled at her, brown eyes angry. “Ve are people just like you, Dr. Weir.”
She didn’t give in. “I have only your word for that, Dr. Zelenka – and no one else in this city is immune to the Wraith, or can kill them with their bare hands, or has the strength of ten normal people, or ‘needs’ to drink the blood of another human in order to do all of the above. I don’t know anything about you, and I can’t just take your word for it that you’ll ask before you…feed. So until someone can present me with some proof that you aren’t dangerous, I want you someplace where I can be sure you won’t pose a threat to any of my people.”
This time it was Major Sheppard who scowled. “I thought Dr. Zelenka here was one of your people, Dr. Weir?”
Weir just looked at him. “I did too. But now…”
“I’ll do it.”
The voice was soft and weak, almost a whisper, but it still made everyone jump. Beckett was at McKay’s side in a heartbeat. “Rodney? Don’t go back to sleep, keep talkin’ to me. How do you feel?”
Narrowed blue eyes blinked up at him. “Everything…hurts.”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you anythin’ for that,” Beckett told him sincerely. “You’ve got a bad concussion, Rodney. You can’t have any painkillers until it’s passed.”
“I remember.” The blue eyes flicked over to Zelenka, squinting as though McKay was trying to bring him into focus. “I’ll do it, Zelenka. I’ll volunteer.”
Zelenka immediately went to the other side of the bed, ignoring Weir’s gasp and Bates’ aborted move to stop him. He took the other scientist’s limp hand in his. “How much did you hear, Rodney?”
“Enough.” McKay licked his lips again, and this time Beckett held a straw up to them so he could sip some water. “You’re a vampire,” he said once the straw had been withdrawn. “It’s genetic, you were born that way. You’ve kept it a secret all this time, and you outed yourself to save me.”
“He did a lot more than just save you,” came from Sheppard, who was keeping Bates in place with a look even as he moved closer to the bed so his injured teammate could see him. “It’s thanks to Petar here that we were able to drive the Wraith out of the city, he killed about half a dozen of them by himself and helped us kill the rest.”
“And now our good Doctor Weir wants to lock him up.” McKay squinted toward the blur that he assumed was Weir, frowning. “He could have fed off me when I was unconscious, no one would ever have known. But he didn’t.” He raised one shaking hand and patted both sides of his neck. “See, no holes.”
Zelenka smiled down at him. “Among my people, feeding from someone vithout their consent is same as rape.”
The hand he was holding turned in his and squeezed weakly. “You’re not a rapist.” Rodney squinted toward Weir again. “And they can’t lock you up just because…because they’re superstitious.”
“We’re not goin’ to let that happen, Rodney,” Beckett told him soothingly. The doctor was eyeing the monitors with concern, and he hadn’t missed the slight gasp that was invading his patient’s breathing. “Now you need to settle down. Nobody’s bein’ locked up, nobody’s doin’ anythin’.” He cast a glance of his own at Weir, an unfriendly one. “It’s all just a lot of talk, you know.”
She responded with a frown of her own. “I’m responsible for the well-being of everyone in this city…”
“Dr. Zelenka is one of the people you’re responsible for. He’s not some sort of monster all of a sudden, just because his DNA has an unusual sequence in it.” McKay’s blue eyes had swung back up to Zelenka again. “Show her. Show her that I’m telling the truth.”
Zelenka looked to Beckett, who made a face and shook his head. “It makes sense to him, and he most likely won’t calm down unless you do – and it’s not like I can sedate him right now. But what you were tellin’ me earlier…”
“Vas true,” Zelenka told him, nodding. “Some of my family still do visit the hospice back home, and the cancer vard at hospital. The doctors know us, trust us.” When Beckett nodded back he smiled down at McKay again. “You really vant to do this, Rodney? You don’t owe me anything, and although I could stand to eat I am not in any distress at present.”
“I want to do this.” Another weak squeeze, and a smile, and McKay turned his head away and closed his eyes. “Show her. It’s not like I can hurt any more…than I already do.”
Zelenka’s expression grew grave. He turned his fellow scientist’s face back toward him and waited until puzzled blue eyes squinted open again. “Rodney, I promise you,” he said softly. “In a few moments, you von’t be in any pain at all.”
And then he turned McKay’s face away again, lowered his head to the exposed throat and let his fangs come out, sliding into the warm skin so smoothly that the other man barely even twitched. Beckett was watching from the other side of the bed, and when he saw his patient relax almost bonelessly into the mattress he sighed in relief. “It’s workin’,” he said quietly.
Sheppard had drawn closer. “What’s working?” he asked in an equally quiet voice. Then he saw McKay’s face. “Hey, he looks…really content there.”
“He is – he’s feelin’ no pain.” Beckett took one more look at the monitors and then moved away from the side of the bed, bringing Sheppard away with him and raising his voice enough so that Weir and Bates could hear him as well. “It’s a chemical Zelenka’s people release when they feed, it causes the brain to release certain other substances that have a euphoric effect. Considerin’ the shape Rodney’s in right now, he’ll most like go to sleep after this and he should sleep peacefully for several hours – which is exactly what he needs. Petar is savin’ him half a day’s worth of lyin’ there in pain.”
Weir wasn’t convinced. “And just how do you know that for sure, Dr. Beckett?” she snapped. “Because he told you so?”
Beckett didn’t back down. “I’ve no reason to doubt him. And Rodney is right, if Petar had wanted
to feed earlier he’d have had ample opportunity to do it with none of us the
wiser. But since the Wraith were
dispatched I’ve seen every member of this expedition – alive and dead – at least
once, and not a one of them is sportin’ any puncture wounds that could possibly
have been made by Petar’s teeth. And,” he interrupted before she could
protest that statement, “I took a mold of his teeth just a bit ago, both with
the canines elongated for feedin’ and at normal size like they are the rest of
the time, so I can back myself up on that one. He’s not bitten anybody attached to this
mission, either here or in
“And I believe that if you say our good Dr. Beckett might not have noticed people running around a top secret military base with weird little puncture wounds in their necks, you’d be accusing him of incompetence. Or something,” Sheppard put in before Weir could open her mouth. “And that wouldn’t be a very good idea, would it, Dr. Weir?”
Weir swallowed, opened her mouth, then closed it and swallowed again. “If anything happens….”
“Nothing has happened yet, nothing is going to happen.” Sheppard plopped back down on his stool – conveniently between Weir and McKay’s bed. “Now, Bates, I believe I’d detailed you to oversee the cleanup, right? I think your time would be better spent doing that than following Dr. Weir around while she puts in her appearance for everyone who got hurt.”
Bates knew an order when he heard one, and mindful of Sheppard’s earlier veiled reprimand for questioning orders, he followed it. “Yes sir, Major. What do you want us to do with the dead Wraith?”
“Throw them off the dock – after you’ve stunned the bodies, or at least shot them in the head, just in case,” Sheppard told him. “Don’t touch the one in the physics lab, though, I want to keep that one just the way it is for a little while longer.” He scowled. “There are some scientists who I want to make sure get a really good look at it. And at that blood on the back wall, too.”
“Major…” Weir’s voice held an edge of warning. “I can’t allow…”
“What we can’t allow is for this,” Sheppard waved his hand in McKay’s general direction, “to happen again.” He leaned forward, brown eyes intense, all but forcing her to look at him. “Dr. Weir, sacrificing yourself for someone else is a very personal call to make, and one not everyone is capable of making. I know that and I accept it, so I don’t necessarily expect self-sacrificing behavior from anyone, not even from the really exemplary personnel we brought with us on this mission. But what I’m asking myself right now, and what you should be asking yourself too, is if they were too afraid of the Wraith to stay and help…why didn’t they force McKay to go with them?” He nodded his approval when her eyes widened. “Now you see it, right?”
She nodded back, temporarily sidetracked from her original problem by the larger one that had just been pointed out to her. “They could have saved him.”
“But they didn’t – they didn’t even try. We were lucky,” he emphasized, almost harshly. “And we can’t count on being that lucky again. I’m going to march every last one of those people through that room, I may even make them sit in it for a hour or so. I want them to fully understand what they did, because that is the only way we can be reasonably sure they won’t do it again.” He raised a hand when she started to protest again. “I’m doing this under my authority, not yours, okay? I know there’s a clause somewhere in there about the scientists having to comply with reasonable training demands made by the military commander, or something like that, and I’m going to hold every last one of those people to it.”
There wasn’t much Weir could say to that. There was a clause in the civilians’ contracts that gave the ranking military commander the power to compel training, and she had no basis to contest it unless his demands were unreasonable. Which they weren’t, considering what had happened. Or almost happened, anyway. Rodney McKay was on the very short list of mission-critical personnel who were to be protected at all costs, everyone knew that, and yet Dr. Zelenka had been the only one who had stayed behind to help him.
Of course now that same man was currently drinking his blood, because that same man had turned out to be a vampire. From the perspective of the issue Sheppard had just pointed out to her, however, Weir had to admit that Petar Zelenka was looking less and less like her biggest problem in the city right now. She still thought he would bear watching, but she was willing to do it discretely for the moment. So she gave Sheppard a curt nod to signal her agreement and then turned her attention back to Beckett. “Doctor, I’ll need the casualty report and your supply status tomorrow morning. If anything changes in the meantime, I’ll be in my office.”
Beckett gave her the same nod she’d had for Sheppard, not failing to notice that she hadn’t mentioned going around to check on the injured mission personnel who were currently recuperating in their respective quarters. Weir almost hesitated for a moment, apparently expecting more of a response, but when it wasn’t forthcoming she simply turned and walked away.
Zelenka had finished feeding as she left and was patting the two tiny punctures in McKay’s neck with a square of gauze. But where McKay looked very peaceful, the Czech scientist seemed to be bothered by something. Beckett was on it at once. “Petar, what’s wrong?”
“Not vrong, not exactly,” Zelenka told him. “Just…vell, something in his blood, I am not sure.” He licked his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is because I have not fed in so long, but it vas not like I vas expecting.”
Beckett drew even closer, frowning. “In what way?” Then his eyes widened. “Not…”
“It is…possible.” Zelenka frowned back. He shrugged. “I only know about how it happens, I have never experienced it before. Only time vill tell.”
Now Sheppard was frowning too. “So if it does, what then? Somehow I can’t picture McKay tagging along at your heels and calling you master. Not that I wouldn’t pay to see it if it did happen, you understand.”
The scientist smiled, and Beckett had to chuckle. “I believe I might my own self, but I don’t expect to see it. I think it’s probably a chemical reaction, possibly even a mild allergic reaction, connected to the feedin’ chemical that causes the endorphin release,” the doctor said. “Most likely in the beginnin’ it was engineered as a way to keep the vampires’ feedin’ limited to a particular segment of the population. I’ll need to do some testin’ to be sure, but that’s my theory from what Petar’s told me so far.”
“Engineered?” Beckett explained his idea about the origins of the Wraith again, not looking at all unhappy to be doing it, and when he was finished the major was wide-eyed but nodding. “Yeah, I could see that – this city may look like some New Age utopian fantasy, but I don’t think the people who lived here were very nice.” He turned his attention back to Zelenka. “What else besides vampires?”
“Ve don’t have much contact vith the others,” The Czech told him with a shrug. “Ve have no reason to do so. But there are many who are…different, and who hide vhat they are. Veres, for example – verewolves to you, but not all are like wolf.”
Sheppard looked excited by the idea. “Are any of them here?”
“No.” Another shrug. “There are not that many of us, compared to rest of population. And most in clans stay vith clan.” He smiled, sketching the universe with his hands. “I am adventurous, I vanted to see the vorld. My mother says it is alvays to be the youngest who leaves home to seek his fortune, so she vas not surprised by me.”
“You’re the youngest?” The major was interested by that too. “Of how many?”
“I have four older brothers,” Zelenka told him, smile widening. He liked to talk about his family. “Many cousins, nieces and nephews as vell, but not all are vampires. Sometimes it…skips a generation, sometimes even more than one. Clans die out that vay, vhen not enough are born to carry on. And sometimes even vhen enough are born, a clan will die out if they are too isolated and lose contact vith other clans, other groups.” He answered the question he could tell Sheppard was going to ask before the other man’s mouth had finished opening. “Incest is a sin. And it does not produce viable offspring, even vhen one is stupid enough to try it. Better for clan to die out, if that is only alternative.”
“Petar told me of a clan near
“Ve do try to police our own,” Zelenka said, shrugging. “Superstition is damaging enough vhen it
isn’t true – is not to this day safe to even talk about vampires in that area,
much less to be one, even though it has been hundreds of years since anyone from
the clan Dracul vere alive.” He
made a face. “They vere, as
Sheppard absorbed that with a nod. “Hence all the horror movies, I’d guess,” he commented, but he was frowning. “Superstition isn’t limited to Transylvanian villagers with torches, though – Dr. Weir just proved that one. So as much as I want to hear more stories – and more about your family, Petar – maybe what we ought to be talking about is how to keep anyone from going Buffy on us here in the city.” He got two questioning looks. “Buffy, as in Vampire Slayer?” Beckett and Zelenka looked at each other and then shook their heads at him, and Sheppard sighed. “Forget it, it’s not important. What we need is to come up with the right explanation to give everyone who saw a vampire that looked a lot like Petar here running around the city killing Wraith. And then I’m going to take that explanation and try it out on a room full of captive scientists so we can see how well it works – if those guys don’t panic, then we’ll know it’s good.”
No one could disagree with that, and once an sufficient explanation had been agreed on Sheppard left to round up his ‘training class’ and Beckett went back to testing DNA and getting more details from Zelenka. Who stayed where he was, sitting on a stool watching Rodney McKay sleep while he answered Beckett’s questions. And wondering what was going to happen when the astrophysicist woke up.