Today and Tomorrow
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Wordcount: 6503
Prompt: sga_secretsanta
Warnings: May contain mild profanity.
Summary:
John falls afoul of a misunderstanding when encountering a new settlement.
For roo1965 who wanted trouble with first contact, something medical, Sheppard Whump and Carson. Thanks go to siennavie for beta-ing it for me at such short notice.
'Rodney, let's call it a day,' Sheppard suggested. 'There's nothing out here.' He'd been itching to get out but now that he was actually out, he was itching to go back.
'No, it's here,' Rodney insisted, barely looking up from his detector. 'I'm sure of it.'
John barely caught the 'It has to be,' muttered at the end. If he put money on how many times Rodney had said that and been wrong, he would have been a millionaire by now. It sometimes seemed like the scientist got stuck on that same soundtrack. The theory and the numbers said it was there, therefore it had to be, never mind that there actually wasn't anything there.
Sometimes though, Rodney was right and there actually was something and that was why Sheppard had given McKay the benefit of the doubt trudging after the scientist, who was solely focused on the detector in his hand. They still had several hours until their next check in but it would take them a while to trek back to the gate.
The fresh air had been pleasant at first but after the first hour or two, all the trees had started to look the same, making it feel like they had been walking around and around in circles. John understood why ZPM's were important but lately they had been chasing after way too many sensor ghosts, often with little reward. As much as he liked to be off world, John was bored. He would much rather be back in Atlantis, helping Lorne break in the latest batch of recruits or even better, be flying. Even ferrying the Athosians to and from the mainland would have been better than this.
He'd wanted to bring a jumper-it would have cut the time it took to search for the ZPM by more than half-but Elizabeth had overruled him. While Sheppard wanted to bring a puddle-jumper, they didn't need one and he hadn't been able to come up with a valid reason to convince her otherwise, leaving them stuck walking.
John swatted away a mosquito that was drifting, a little too close for comfort, towards him. It was hard to resist the urge to shudder; he hated bugs. 'How much farther, McKay?'
'Should be just...' Rodney suddenly looked up from his detector and paused. 'Huh.'
John caught up the last couple of strides so that he could see what had caught Rodney's eye. Sprawled out in the valley in front of them was a busy settlement. Rodney's attention switched back to his detector before up to the settlement again. The scientist even tapped the screen and shook the detector for added effect. 'The readings are coming straight from the middle of that town.'
John's instincts told him to turn back. The chances of finding a usable ZPM, that they could take, in the middle of a thriving civilisation were slim. It would most likely be depleted or part of another shield. They should just return to the gate now and call it a lost cause but it would be much easier to pull Rodney away with an argument as to why, if there actually was a ZPM in the middle of the town, they couldn't have it.
John sighed and trudged towards the outskirts of the settlement. As soon as they got near the first house a man came out to greet them.
'You are not from near here,' the man said, taking in their strange attire.
'No, we're, uh, from another village a long way away,' Sheppard explained.
The man frowned, cocking his head in thought, studying them further. 'You come from the Ancestor's ring?'
'Erm...' John paused, trying to decide which answer was the safest. 'Yes, we came through the gate.' There was such variety between the cultures they'd encountered since first coming to the Pegasus galaxy that Sheppard genuinely didn't know what reaction to expect. Some cultures practically worshipped the gate, and anyone who came through it, while others downright feared it.
'Come,' the man ordered suddenly, turning around on the spot. He walked off briskly towards the centre of the settlement paying no pause to see if they were actually following him.
The team looked to John as to whether or not to follow him. He could do little more than shrug before trudging after the strange man. The man hadn't killed them outright so, so far, so good. The man had shown them only hospitality so it would be rude not to follow. He wasn't going to let his guard down though.
After so many missions that had gone to pot, the only thing Sheppard was sure of was that you never knew which one it was going to be until the very last moment, when there was usually nothing you could do to stop that from happening. The only thing they could do was stay on guard and prepare to face the unexpected.
The man led them through the streets towards the centre of the civilisation. People stopped and stared at them as they passed. The people hung back, many of them whispering and pointing from a distance, only to stop when the team passed within hearing distance of them and smile. John couldn't quite get a feel for the atmosphere. The crowd seemed awed by their presence but underneath it all, they seemed to be hesitant, nervous almost to the point of being suspicious.
Rodney seemed to get more and more excited each time he looked at his detector. John could only presume that they were getting closer and closer to the ZPM but found it hard to summon the same enthusiasm; instead, the closer they got to the town centre, the more apprehensive he felt.
The closely clustered houses opened out into a large space surrounding some sort of temple with a large archway leading into it. John was no expert in Ancient architecture but the building had elements that reminded him of Atlantis and other Ancient outposts they'd found. There was even that slight hum he always felt at the back of his head when he was near dormant Ancient technology. The way the archway seemed to loom over them made him feel uneasy.
Ahead of him the man passed through the archway with no problem but John still hesitated. Rodney, with his head buried in his detector and muttering furiously about scientific terms John didn't understand, pushed past him through the archway.
'Come on,' Ronon grunted as he passed, following after Teyla and Rodney. Nothing had yet to happen each time and John felt himself reluctantly taking one step after another towards the temple entrance.
As soon as he stepped through, the statue at the top of the archway started to glow brightly. Sheppard froze as he suddenly found himself surrounded by spears pointed at him; the faces that had been welcoming seconds earlier were now openly hostile. The sense of doom he'd been feeling for a while now suddenly multiplied exponentially.
'What did you do?' Rodney demanded but John was too busy paying attention to the crowd of villagers that were looking like they wanted to behead them. He hadn't done anything. It had just happened.
'Guys. Let's talk about this,' he said with a nervous laugh, warily eyeing the sharp sticks pointed at him and his team from every direction. Why did things always seem to end up like this?
The leader thrust his spear at John, forcing him to take a step backwards. 'You will bring the Wraith down upon us.'
'Okay, we'll just be leaving then,' John said, trying to back up, only to find that more men with spears were blocking their path. Shit. This seemed to be one of those times where it was going very bad, very fast. It was starting to feel like they were already drifting well down shit creek without any form of propulsion, let alone a paddle.
Back on Atlantis, it was easy to laugh off the other teams' jokes about SGA-1's knack for getting into trouble way more than the others, but Sheppard was starting to think that maybe they were right. It happened to them way too often for comfort.
As the men with spears stripped his team of weapons and escorted them further into the temple, John found himself berating himself for not listening to his gut. They should have just gone back when he'd suggested, not let Rodney talk him into that extra hour. Then they would have never found the damn village and wouldn't be in this mess.
Hindsight was a wonderful thing. It was just a shame it wasn't going to do them an inch of good.
The men with the spears separated him away from the others, towards some kind of altar, shoving him onto the rough stone surface. As the villager firmly tightened ropes around his ankles and wrists, John realised he had no ideas of how he was going to get out of this one.
Shit.
John's heart beat loudly in his chest as the priest poised the point of the blade directly over his heart. He wanted to close his eyes but at the same time couldn't bring himself to do it; if he was going to die, here, today, he was going to stare at it straight on. No one would be able to accuse him of not dying with bravery. His only regret was that his team were caught up in it too.
A familiar zap vibrated through the air. The priest crumpled.
The blade’s aim was thrown. It scraped down the side of his torso, making him gasp in pain.
He didn't give it much thought beyond that because then chaos erupted around them.
Ronon had somehow got his gun back and was now stunning everyone he could get a shot at. The villagers weren't too impressed with their prisoners stunning their priest or the team's attempt to escape. They were determined not to let the team go without a fight.
Sheppard strained at the restraints with renewed effort, frantically trying to find any inch of give in them. He hated feeling helpless; his team were there, fighting and there wasn't anything he could do to help them. It was backwards. He was supposed to protect them, not the other way around. The ropes refused to give, then, suddenly, Rodney was there, fumbling at the ropes, trying to untie them.
'Hurry up, McKay,' Sheppard ground out impatiently, keeping one eye on the rest of the fight. Teyla and Ronon were putting up a good fight but the team were still hopelessly outnumbered. The sooner they got out of there the better.
'I'm trying,' McKay hissed in response as he fumbled at the ropes.
‘Use the knife.’ John suggested. The blade made short work off the ropes and within seconds, he was free.
Pausing only to retrieve their confiscated weapons, the team wasted no time double timing it back to the gate, the entire time staying alert for any sign of continued danger or ambush.
'I think we've lost them,' John breathed, only slowing to a walk when he hadn't heard any sound of further pursuit in at least ten minutes. They had either outrun the villagers of the villagers had given up on catching them. Whichever one it was, he had no intention of hanging around to find out. Ronon silently nodded in agreement.
'What was their problem?' Rodney grumbled, in between catching his breath.
Teyla briefly glanced at John before explaining diplomatically, 'I believe they did not like it when Colonel Sheppard accidentally activated that statue. They thought that his presence would attract the Wraith to their village.'
Stupid ATA-gene, John cursed. While some of the perks were cool, it seemed to always get him into trouble. He absent-mindedly rubbed his chest remembering how close he'd come to dying. This time had been too close.
They walked back to the gate in silence, alert and listening the entire way for the sound of renewed pursuit which thankfully never came.
'Dial the gate, Rodney,' John ordered. 'Let's go home.'
It was a relief to see the blue pond ripple into existence in front of them. He, for one, was not sorry to say goodbye to the planet. ZPM or no ZPM, the population was hostile; it was another address to add to the list of planets unsuitable for visiting. John just wished that they could go a month where nothing tried to capture, eat or kill them.
.......
In the time since they'd stepped back through the gate, John had either been stuck in the infirmary with Carson or debriefing with Elizabeth and the rest of his team. With all the fiasco with the villagers and the aftermath, it had been a long time since he'd last eaten and John was starving. Now that Carson had inspected and stitched up the cut on his ribs, he wanted to do nothing but eat, shower and sleep, in that order.
'I hope they have blue Jello.' Rodney hummed, absent-mindedly, alongside him as they trailed towards the mess hall. John didn't care what it was, just as long as it was hot. He'd learnt in the Air Force to never turn down good food when you were hungry. After living off nothing but MRE's for several weeks, you learnt to eat what was given to you.
John stumbled as the corridor suddenly lurched violently. His hand flew out to the wall to steady himself. Rodney stopped mid speech when he realised that Sheppard was no longer following him. 'Are you okay?'
'Yeah,' Sheppard replied, even though he wasn't sure himself. 'Tripped.'
'Are you sure?' Unsurprisingly, Rodney was frowning at him as if he'd just grown a third head; John wouldn't have believed himself either. 'Maybe you should get Beckett to check you over again.'
nbsp; 'I'm fine,' John insisted, shrugging it off. 'Just need to eat.' It had been a long day. All the running for his life had left him tired. What was it that Rodney was always complaining about? Hypo-something? Hypoglycaemia. Yeah, that's it. The mess hall wasn't that far away. He'd eat something and it would be fine. Steeling himself, he pushed off the wall and strode off down the corridor, declaring the conversation over.
Unfortunately, he made it less than two meters before another wave of dizziness washed over him, this time worse than the first. John closed his eyes and slowly slid down the wall as his legs crumpled beneath him. Fuck, where had that come from?
John's eyes startled open when he heard Rodney calling medical. Rodney glared at him, silencing any protests he had by challenging him to prove otherwise, before continuing to talk into his comm. John leant his head back against the wall, trying not to focus on how crappy he was feeling. It seemed to work somewhat because by the time Beckett arrived the room had stilled, even if his arms and legs still felt like they were made of the Jello Rodney was so fond of.
'What seems to be the problem here then?' The comment was light and humorous but anyone who knew the Scot well could hear that underneath, the doctor was serious and concerned.
'Sheppard fainted,' Rodney interrupted before John could open his mouth.
'Did not,' John protested. 'I'm fine.'
Carson tutted, feeling John's wrist for a pulse. 'I'll be the judge of that, Colonel.'
'Fine, I got a little light-headed,' John admitted, snatching his wrist back and glaring at McKay. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I just need to eat something.'
'Aye, that may be, but I'd like to check you out in the infirmary all the same,' Carson said diplomatically in a tone that clearly stated it wasn't up for discussion.
As if on cue, Carson's lackeys came around the corner with a gurney. John groaned; there was no way in hell he was letting them push him through the halls for everyone to see if there was anything he could do about it.
'I can walk,' he protested, pushing himself up to stand. The effect was greatly lost when the motion sent the room into a fast orbit once more, his legs instantly buckling underneath him.
Sheppard blinked his eyes back open. Carson was crouched over him in concern. The entire room seemed to have tipped over. He didn't know when that had happened but his limbs felt heavy like lead and he couldn't remember how to make them move. It took him a moment or two to remember where he was and what had happened.
Corridor near the mess hall.
He'd fainted.
Dammit.
There was no denying it; Rodney was never going to let him live this one down.
'We're going to lift you onto the gurney now, Colonel.' Carson was talking to him but he couldn't find his mouth to respond. His whole body felt like Jello, not just his arms and his legs this time. 'Ready, 1, 2, 3.'
By the time John was able to protest, he was already moving. The warning did little to help the sudden movement from sending the room spinning again with renewed frenzy. He closed his eyes firmly shut and clung to the first stationary object his hands came into contact with. The gurney beneath him felt like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. Something was definitely wrong.
Every now and then, John would open his eyes but, straight away, would have to close them again as the lights flashing overhead made his stomach roll. The nearer they got the infirmary, the more concerned John got. The dizziness wasn't passing. He wasn't even convinced himself that this was something simple as low blood sugar, so what the hell was wrong with him?
John hissed more out of surprise than actual pain when Carson pricked his finger. The sharp scratch startled him, cutting through the fogginess in his head.
'Glucose levels are within a perfectly acceptable range,' the doctor said after less than a minute, discarding the tiny strip from the machine when it beeped. He then moved to check some numbers on the monitor next to the bed. 'Your blood pressure's still a little on the low side though.'
Now that he was feeling marginally less crappy, John shifted on the bed to get into a more comfortable position.
.......
Unfortunately, as he moved, the stitches in his side pulled and John couldn't suppress a wince as pain flared down his side. The movement didn't go unnoticed by Beckett who gestured for him to lay back and remove his shirt. Sheppard reluctantly complied. Nothing ever slipped past the doctor.
Carson crouched over the bed and inspected the cut on John's ribs. He hissed involuntarily as Carson prodded the area around the wound. It burned like someone was holding a naked flame to his skin. Glancing down, John resisted the urge to groan at his misfortune; the area was now swollen and angry to the touch. He should have known it was going to get infected. With his luck, who knew what mutant microbes had been lurking on that blade, and now through his bloodstream?
'I'm going to run some tests,' Carson said, replacing the dressing and straightening up. 'Let's see what we're dealing with.
John looked away as Beckett prepared the area. It felt like only seconds later when the doctor patted his arm and declared, 'All done.'
'Does that mean I can go then?' John asked hopefully, deliberately ignoring the cannula that Carson had left in his arm.
'I'd like to keep you in overnight for observation,' Carson said as he gathered up the tubes of blood he'd collected. 'I'll have one of the nurses fetch you something from the mess hall.'
John sighed and settled back against the pillows. There was no point in staying uncomfortable and besides, maybe if he behaved, Carson would change his mind and let him go early. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep while he still could; John never slept well in the infirmary, not with Beckett's nurses waking him regularly to take observations. It was going to be a long night.
.......
When John woke, the dimmed lights said it was the middle of the night. His entire body was coated in sweat and he was in the worse kind of distress. His stomach lurched violently. He was going to puke and he was going to do it now. He hastily searched for the least offensive place to throw up. In a split second decision, John lurched to one side as his stomach heaved, vomiting over the side of the bed.
The noise seemed to echo in the empty infirmary and brought half the infirmary staff running but John was too busy gagging to pay them much attention. He'd missed dinner whilst sleeping, so there wasn't much to bring up, but that didn't stop his body from trying. It felt like his stomach lining was trying to escape by crawling out of his throat. It was several minutes before he finally managed to get the dry heaving under control and slump back onto the bed.
A clean bowl was pushed in his direction and John clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. In the corner of his eye, he saw the doctor on duty inject an anti-emetic into the IV line he'd gained in his sleep.
'This sucks,' he grumbled, shivering against the pillows. The involuntary action earned him a thermometer stuck in his ear. He didn't miss the doctor frown at the reading when the thing beeped. The doctor, some young hotshot woman who'd recently arrived on the Daedalus, had patted him sympathetically on the shoulder before whispering hushed orders to the nurse that he hadn't been able to hear.
Feeling too sorry for himself to care, John had sunken further into the pillow while wishing himself to be anywhere else.
By the time Ronon came to visit early the next morning, John was exhausted; between hot-cold flushes and puking up everything but his left kidney, he had barely had any sleep. He hadn't been able to get comfortable at all. Everything ached and each movement reignited the fire burning in his side. The one time he nearly managed to doze off, one of the nurses had woken him to check his temperature for the one-thousandth time.
John was no stranger to infected wounds but this one was knocking him six ways to Sunday. He felt miserable.
.......
On his way into his office at the beginning of his shift, Carson stopped to look around. John was sleeping under Ronon's watchful eye across the infirmary, the giant glaring at anyone who dared to think about disturbing the colonel. The poison was taking its toll on Sheppard's body but sleep was good. It gave him a chance to heal and meant that his body was fighting it.
Carson had heard from the night staff that John had had a rough night after he'd left, but he hadn't been prepared for how quickly the Colonel had gone downhill; whatever it was that they were dealing with had hit fast. Even in sleep, Sheppard looked sick. Beckett knew plenty enough from dealing with Rodney that the louder someone complained, the less sick they were. Beckett would be grateful when Sheppard was back to protesting he was fine and trying to escape.
Looking at the Colonel, Carson didn't have any good feelings. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something; they were in the Pegasus galaxy after all. Nothing was ever simple. There had to be something else going on.
The digestive upset could be attributed as a side effect of the antibiotics, but Carson would have expected to see some improvement by now. The antibiotics weren't doing any good and the microbiology tests had come back clean, so he'd ordered them to be stopped. It wasn't an infection like Carson had hoped, it was something else. An infection would have been much simpler to treat. Instead, one of the tests had detected several mysterious proteins in Sheppard's blood; toxins and enzymes wreaking havoc on his systems.
If they were on Earth, Beckett would have thought they were dealing with some kind of venom, like from a snake bite. Unfortunately they weren't on Earth, or even in the same galaxy; it could have been anything but Carson had to start somewhere.
.......
John stared at the ceiling through his eyelids, willing sleep to grant him reprieve. Ronon had fallen asleep in the chair next to him and one of the nurses had taken advantage of the Satedan's incapacity to take more blood from John. Not only had she woken him up but it had taken her several sticks to find a vein and by the end of it, John was left feeling like a bruised pincushion. Half an hour later, he was still half awake, in that distant state between unconsciousness and waking, exhausted but unable to sleep.
A hiss cut through the quiet sounds of the infirmary; John froze. He knew that sound and it sent terror tearing through his blood. His eyes roved the room but he couldn't see anything.
John was just starting to think he was hearing things when there it was again; a distinct scuttling, screechy hiss, clearly audible despite Ronon's loud snore. His eyes moved back across the space, this time with the efficiency and alertness of the soldier that he was, left to right and near to far in a systematic area that left nearly no inch of the room unchecked. If he thought he would be able to look under the bed he would have but he didn't think the burning wound in his side would let him. The source of the sound which haunted his nightmares was nowhere to be seen.
Finally, some innate sixth sense from watching so many horror films as a teenager made him look back up and immediately wished he hadn't. There wasn't just one, but several dozen Iratus bugs vying for space above his bed that hadn't been there a second ago.
The beeping monitor he was attached to picked up its pace. Could it beep any louder? John felt that he might as well have a luminous pink sign that said 'bite me' suspended over his head. The noise was going to tell every single one of them that he was there. Ronon snored loudly from the chair, oblivious to Sheppard's dilemma. John debated waking the Satedan up but didn't think he could do so without alerting every single one of the blasted critters.
How the hell did those things get on Atlantis?
As he watched, one lazily detached from the ceiling and drifted down on a single wispy thread before dropping onto the sheets with a silent plop. John instinctively drew his legs up close to his chest, as far away from the thing as possible. Somewhere in the back of his head there was this childhood notion that if he curled up into a small enough ball, the creatures would leave him alone.
They can't see me if I can't see them.
The bug on the end of the bed waved its pincers around, testing the air, trying to sense what was around it. Maybe it hadn't noticed him yet.
The monitor was beeping so loudly, surely the bugs were going to hear it. He would have ripped the leads from his chest if he didn't know that that would just make the monitor scream louder. The alarm would bring every medical personnel in the infirmary running, bringing food to the party. That was if they weren't dead already.
John looked around frantically for a weapon. What he would have given for his gun right now. As it was there was nothing. No scalpels, no saltwater. All his instincts were screaming at him to run but he was afraid the motion would alert them to his presence and he wasn't so sure he could make it that far without passing out. If he did that, he wouldn't stand a chance.
x The curtain rattled as it was pulled back along the track. John turned to warn the person that was coming through only to freeze again as his heart stopped inside his chest. John wasn't sure if he was in the frying pan or the fire. He didn't think there was anyway his day could possibly get worse.
The wraith reached out.
John punched it straight in the face. The wraith stumbled back in surprise.
He needed to run.
Now, while he still had the chance.
His chest hurt.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
He...
.......
As Carson walked past, he could hear the Colonel's vitals were elevated, the monitor beeping loudly. He pushed the curtain to one side.
John was curled up against the head of the bed, staring at something Carson couldn't see. The Scottish doctor had no idea what John was terrified about but he had a look on his face like a cornered animal. That fear only intensified when he noticed Carson had entered.
The doctor reached out a hand in the universal gesture for calming down a wild animal.
Carson stumbled back, cursing, as John's fist collided with his face.
Ronon, woken by the din, leapt up to restrain Sheppard.
Staunching the blood flow from his nose, Carson looked up to see a brief look of surprise on John's face. Seconds later, the colonel's eyes rolled back into his head. His entire body stiffened, arching up against the bed. Cursing, Beckett had little choice but to push his own pain aside and spring into action.
Hoping that he wasn't dripping blood everywhere, Carson awkwardly used his spare hand to pull an oxygen mask over John's thrashing head. Ronon caught on and completed the action for him. Several nurses came in to help, summoned by the alarms but followed Carson's lead and stayed back. Sheppard was still seizing but at that point the best thing to do was wait. If they interfered, they were more likely to injure the colonel or themselves than if they simply waited it out; the seizure would either stop or it wouldn't and it was then that they would have to do something about it.
Carson's eyes flickered from the monitor to the bed and back again, tentatively watching for signs that the seizure was either stopping or they were going to have to intervene. After four minutes, Sheppard was still in the throes of a full Tonic-Clonic seizure. Anything longer than five minutes and Sheppard wasn't going to come out of the seizure on his own. The longer he seized, the greater the risk of brain damage or even death.
'Lorazepam,' Carson ordered over the rattling of the bed.
At some point, the colonel had managed to rip the IV from the back of his hand. Carson had to watch one of the nurses insert a cannula into the back of John's other hand so that they could administer the anti-convulsant. Throughout it all, the seizure still showed no sign of slowing down. If anything, the seizure was getting worse, the convulsions growing more and more violent with each one that passed.
Eventually they managed to get the anti-convulsant into John's blood and Carson watched anxiously for the drugs to take effect, all the while running protocols through his head, planning what was next if it didn't work. He didn't want to have to revert to those.
Thankfully, it never came to that; to Carson's immense relief, John's body eventually slowed gradually before finally stilling. He waited a moment or two to make sure that the seizure really had stopped before rattling off orders. Tests to be run. New drugs to be given.
John Sheppard was only getting worse. They were still no closer to solving this thing and Carson couldn't shake the feeling that they were running out of time.
.......
Five hours later, waiting for his latest test results to come back, Carson stuffed his hands into his lab coat pockets and stared out at the infirmary from his office door. The Colonel had yet to wake up again and Carson was starting to have doubts as to whether he was going to make it through the other side. Despite the strong anti-convulsants they'd administered, Sheppard had had three more seizures since the first.
Right now John was still fighting but every hour came at a price. Eventually his body would tire and, too exhausted to continue, it would give up, leaving John Sheppard dead. Medical intervention could only take him so far. There was only so much that Carson and his team could do. They would reach a point when the damage done to John's body was irreparable. Carson had to find an antidote before that happened, if it wasn't already too late.
The latest set of bloods showed that, on top of everything else, Sheppard's kidneys were starting to fail. While it was still early enough to reverse it, they were already one system too far down the slippery path to total organ failure for Carson's liking. Sheppard was dying in front of his eyes and their only solution was still little more than a stab in the dark. Carson would have liked to run more tests, would have liked more time to gather data so that he could predict how John's body would react to the solution and if it was even going to work, but the truth was simple. John Sheppard did not have that time, leaving Carson a difficult decision to make.
While ultimately the responsibility to proceed or not lied with him, Carson was fortunate that he didn't have to make decisions alone. The entire senior staff sat in front of him as he explained the situation. They were both John's friends and his family. The doctor had barely finished before Rodney demanded, 'Why haven't you given it to him already?'
'It's dangerous, Rodney,' Carson explained. 'The anti-venom could kill him in its own right.'
'What will happen if you do not give him this anti-venom?' Teyla asked calmly. He could see her thoughts ticking inside her brain, like the cogs in a clock.
Carson bit his lip, hesitating with what to say. 'He'll most likely die.'
The room descended into silence as all of its occupants realised the depth of Carson's dilemma. If they did nothing, John could die and if they administered the antidote, John could still die. Whichever path they chose, there was a high probability that Atlantis would lose its military commander. They wouldn't know if it was the right choice until it was too late to do anything about it.
'Do it,' Elizabeth said firmly, breaking the silence. 'If you think this is Sheppard's best chance, do it.'
.......
Less than an hour after making the decision, the medical team were ready to start. Taking a final look around to check that everyone was in place, Carson took a deep breath and slowly depressed the plunger. The anti-venom went in smoothly and as soon as the syringe was empty he discarded it into the bright yellow sharps bin before stepping back to watch the monitor. If there was going to be any trouble, they'd see it there first.
Up, down, up and down, spikes and bumps, over and over again at regular intervals. The leads traced the changes in electrical activity across John's body as his heart relaxed and contracted, squeezing blood around his body. Apart from being a little fast, the trace was almost textbook perfect. Atrial Systole, Ventricular Systole, Diastole, a repeating cycle of coordinated contraction turning around and around, tracing its way in lines across the screen.
Then the beautiful trace wobbled, not just once but twice and then a third time as Sheppard's heart stuttered. Carson swore but forced himself to take another deep breath to calm himself. They'd known this could happen, had been prepared for it. That didn't make it any better. One of the nurses handed him a syringe which he added to the chemical cocktail already flowing through the Colonel's veins. It took a moment or two for the drugs to have any effect.
Instead of John's heart rate getting faster, as Carson would have expected, the gaps between the peaks on the trace were getting further and further apart as John's heart slowed. As he watched, the monitor beeped to alert him that Sheppard's already low blood pressure had drastically dropped several levels. He ordered another drug to be run but didn't tear his eyes off the monitor, his sixth sense tingling.
Up and down, up and down...
He couldn't put a finger on it but something felt off, like a thunderstorm overhead, just waiting to break.
Up and down, up and down...
The line didn't come back up.
The monitor started screaming.
Carson and his team immediately sprung into action. The motion was instinctive, burned into his consciousness by years of practise.
'Clear.' John's limp body jerked on the table. Carson watched the line. Nothing, John's heart still wasn't beating. They resumed CPR. The paddles charged.
'Again,' Carson ordered. 'Clear.'
Carson was about to order another when there, a tiny blip, closely followed by another stronger blip, then another. Up and down, up and down. He returned the paddles to the trolley and tentatively felt for a pulse. It was only when he felt the strong steady pulsation underneath his fingers that he could breathe a sigh of relief. 'He's back.'
.......
The days that followed were relatively uneventful; several passed and John had yet to wake up. The venom had taken less than two days to drag John Sheppard to death's doorstep and more than twice that for the soldier to fight his way back. His vitals were back to normal; he was extubated and off the sedatives. All traces of the venom were gone and his kidneys no longer needed dialysis. Tests had shown that the anti-venom had worked. Medically, there was nothing left to do; nothing left to do but wait for Sheppard to wake up.
Carson looked across the room and sighed. 'What are we going to do with you, Lad?'
While waking was a battle that only John could fight, his team were always there, taking turns to eat, sleep and watch vigil over him. After coming so close to losing their team leader, the others weren't going to leave his side for a moment and Carson couldn't make them. It could have so easily gone the other way but it was a waste of time to dwell on that. Carson doubted that this would be the last time John would end up in his care. They would deal with when that happened too.
In an environment where he had seen people both live and die, Carson had learnt long ago to live each day as it came. They could all die that day, or the next, but what happened, happened and tomorrow was always another day.
Wordcount: 6503
Prompt: sga_secretsanta
Warnings: May contain mild profanity.
Summary:
John falls afoul of a misunderstanding when encountering a new settlement.
For roo1965 who wanted trouble with first contact, something medical, Sheppard Whump and Carson. Thanks go to siennavie for beta-ing it for me at such short notice.
'Rodney, let's call it a day,' Sheppard suggested. 'There's nothing out here.' He'd been itching to get out but now that he was actually out, he was itching to go back.
'No, it's here,' Rodney insisted, barely looking up from his detector. 'I'm sure of it.'
John barely caught the 'It has to be,' muttered at the end. If he put money on how many times Rodney had said that and been wrong, he would have been a millionaire by now. It sometimes seemed like the scientist got stuck on that same soundtrack. The theory and the numbers said it was there, therefore it had to be, never mind that there actually wasn't anything there.
Sometimes though, Rodney was right and there actually was something and that was why Sheppard had given McKay the benefit of the doubt trudging after the scientist, who was solely focused on the detector in his hand. They still had several hours until their next check in but it would take them a while to trek back to the gate.
The fresh air had been pleasant at first but after the first hour or two, all the trees had started to look the same, making it feel like they had been walking around and around in circles. John understood why ZPM's were important but lately they had been chasing after way too many sensor ghosts, often with little reward. As much as he liked to be off world, John was bored. He would much rather be back in Atlantis, helping Lorne break in the latest batch of recruits or even better, be flying. Even ferrying the Athosians to and from the mainland would have been better than this.
He'd wanted to bring a jumper-it would have cut the time it took to search for the ZPM by more than half-but Elizabeth had overruled him. While Sheppard wanted to bring a puddle-jumper, they didn't need one and he hadn't been able to come up with a valid reason to convince her otherwise, leaving them stuck walking.
John swatted away a mosquito that was drifting, a little too close for comfort, towards him. It was hard to resist the urge to shudder; he hated bugs. 'How much farther, McKay?'
'Should be just...' Rodney suddenly looked up from his detector and paused. 'Huh.'
John caught up the last couple of strides so that he could see what had caught Rodney's eye. Sprawled out in the valley in front of them was a busy settlement. Rodney's attention switched back to his detector before up to the settlement again. The scientist even tapped the screen and shook the detector for added effect. 'The readings are coming straight from the middle of that town.'
John's instincts told him to turn back. The chances of finding a usable ZPM, that they could take, in the middle of a thriving civilisation were slim. It would most likely be depleted or part of another shield. They should just return to the gate now and call it a lost cause but it would be much easier to pull Rodney away with an argument as to why, if there actually was a ZPM in the middle of the town, they couldn't have it.
John sighed and trudged towards the outskirts of the settlement. As soon as they got near the first house a man came out to greet them.
'You are not from near here,' the man said, taking in their strange attire.
'No, we're, uh, from another village a long way away,' Sheppard explained.
The man frowned, cocking his head in thought, studying them further. 'You come from the Ancestor's ring?'
'Erm...' John paused, trying to decide which answer was the safest. 'Yes, we came through the gate.' There was such variety between the cultures they'd encountered since first coming to the Pegasus galaxy that Sheppard genuinely didn't know what reaction to expect. Some cultures practically worshipped the gate, and anyone who came through it, while others downright feared it.
'Come,' the man ordered suddenly, turning around on the spot. He walked off briskly towards the centre of the settlement paying no pause to see if they were actually following him.
The team looked to John as to whether or not to follow him. He could do little more than shrug before trudging after the strange man. The man hadn't killed them outright so, so far, so good. The man had shown them only hospitality so it would be rude not to follow. He wasn't going to let his guard down though.
After so many missions that had gone to pot, the only thing Sheppard was sure of was that you never knew which one it was going to be until the very last moment, when there was usually nothing you could do to stop that from happening. The only thing they could do was stay on guard and prepare to face the unexpected.
The man led them through the streets towards the centre of the civilisation. People stopped and stared at them as they passed. The people hung back, many of them whispering and pointing from a distance, only to stop when the team passed within hearing distance of them and smile. John couldn't quite get a feel for the atmosphere. The crowd seemed awed by their presence but underneath it all, they seemed to be hesitant, nervous almost to the point of being suspicious.
Rodney seemed to get more and more excited each time he looked at his detector. John could only presume that they were getting closer and closer to the ZPM but found it hard to summon the same enthusiasm; instead, the closer they got to the town centre, the more apprehensive he felt.
The closely clustered houses opened out into a large space surrounding some sort of temple with a large archway leading into it. John was no expert in Ancient architecture but the building had elements that reminded him of Atlantis and other Ancient outposts they'd found. There was even that slight hum he always felt at the back of his head when he was near dormant Ancient technology. The way the archway seemed to loom over them made him feel uneasy.
Ahead of him the man passed through the archway with no problem but John still hesitated. Rodney, with his head buried in his detector and muttering furiously about scientific terms John didn't understand, pushed past him through the archway.
'Come on,' Ronon grunted as he passed, following after Teyla and Rodney. Nothing had yet to happen each time and John felt himself reluctantly taking one step after another towards the temple entrance.
As soon as he stepped through, the statue at the top of the archway started to glow brightly. Sheppard froze as he suddenly found himself surrounded by spears pointed at him; the faces that had been welcoming seconds earlier were now openly hostile. The sense of doom he'd been feeling for a while now suddenly multiplied exponentially.
'What did you do?' Rodney demanded but John was too busy paying attention to the crowd of villagers that were looking like they wanted to behead them. He hadn't done anything. It had just happened.
'Guys. Let's talk about this,' he said with a nervous laugh, warily eyeing the sharp sticks pointed at him and his team from every direction. Why did things always seem to end up like this?
The leader thrust his spear at John, forcing him to take a step backwards. 'You will bring the Wraith down upon us.'
'Okay, we'll just be leaving then,' John said, trying to back up, only to find that more men with spears were blocking their path. Shit. This seemed to be one of those times where it was going very bad, very fast. It was starting to feel like they were already drifting well down shit creek without any form of propulsion, let alone a paddle.
Back on Atlantis, it was easy to laugh off the other teams' jokes about SGA-1's knack for getting into trouble way more than the others, but Sheppard was starting to think that maybe they were right. It happened to them way too often for comfort.
As the men with spears stripped his team of weapons and escorted them further into the temple, John found himself berating himself for not listening to his gut. They should have just gone back when he'd suggested, not let Rodney talk him into that extra hour. Then they would have never found the damn village and wouldn't be in this mess.
Hindsight was a wonderful thing. It was just a shame it wasn't going to do them an inch of good.
The men with the spears separated him away from the others, towards some kind of altar, shoving him onto the rough stone surface. As the villager firmly tightened ropes around his ankles and wrists, John realised he had no ideas of how he was going to get out of this one.
Shit.
John's heart beat loudly in his chest as the priest poised the point of the blade directly over his heart. He wanted to close his eyes but at the same time couldn't bring himself to do it; if he was going to die, here, today, he was going to stare at it straight on. No one would be able to accuse him of not dying with bravery. His only regret was that his team were caught up in it too.
A familiar zap vibrated through the air. The priest crumpled.
The blade’s aim was thrown. It scraped down the side of his torso, making him gasp in pain.
He didn't give it much thought beyond that because then chaos erupted around them.
Ronon had somehow got his gun back and was now stunning everyone he could get a shot at. The villagers weren't too impressed with their prisoners stunning their priest or the team's attempt to escape. They were determined not to let the team go without a fight.
Sheppard strained at the restraints with renewed effort, frantically trying to find any inch of give in them. He hated feeling helpless; his team were there, fighting and there wasn't anything he could do to help them. It was backwards. He was supposed to protect them, not the other way around. The ropes refused to give, then, suddenly, Rodney was there, fumbling at the ropes, trying to untie them.
'Hurry up, McKay,' Sheppard ground out impatiently, keeping one eye on the rest of the fight. Teyla and Ronon were putting up a good fight but the team were still hopelessly outnumbered. The sooner they got out of there the better.
'I'm trying,' McKay hissed in response as he fumbled at the ropes.
‘Use the knife.’ John suggested. The blade made short work off the ropes and within seconds, he was free.
Pausing only to retrieve their confiscated weapons, the team wasted no time double timing it back to the gate, the entire time staying alert for any sign of continued danger or ambush.
'I think we've lost them,' John breathed, only slowing to a walk when he hadn't heard any sound of further pursuit in at least ten minutes. They had either outrun the villagers of the villagers had given up on catching them. Whichever one it was, he had no intention of hanging around to find out. Ronon silently nodded in agreement.
'What was their problem?' Rodney grumbled, in between catching his breath.
Teyla briefly glanced at John before explaining diplomatically, 'I believe they did not like it when Colonel Sheppard accidentally activated that statue. They thought that his presence would attract the Wraith to their village.'
Stupid ATA-gene, John cursed. While some of the perks were cool, it seemed to always get him into trouble. He absent-mindedly rubbed his chest remembering how close he'd come to dying. This time had been too close.
They walked back to the gate in silence, alert and listening the entire way for the sound of renewed pursuit which thankfully never came.
'Dial the gate, Rodney,' John ordered. 'Let's go home.'
It was a relief to see the blue pond ripple into existence in front of them. He, for one, was not sorry to say goodbye to the planet. ZPM or no ZPM, the population was hostile; it was another address to add to the list of planets unsuitable for visiting. John just wished that they could go a month where nothing tried to capture, eat or kill them.
.......
In the time since they'd stepped back through the gate, John had either been stuck in the infirmary with Carson or debriefing with Elizabeth and the rest of his team. With all the fiasco with the villagers and the aftermath, it had been a long time since he'd last eaten and John was starving. Now that Carson had inspected and stitched up the cut on his ribs, he wanted to do nothing but eat, shower and sleep, in that order.
'I hope they have blue Jello.' Rodney hummed, absent-mindedly, alongside him as they trailed towards the mess hall. John didn't care what it was, just as long as it was hot. He'd learnt in the Air Force to never turn down good food when you were hungry. After living off nothing but MRE's for several weeks, you learnt to eat what was given to you.
John stumbled as the corridor suddenly lurched violently. His hand flew out to the wall to steady himself. Rodney stopped mid speech when he realised that Sheppard was no longer following him. 'Are you okay?'
'Yeah,' Sheppard replied, even though he wasn't sure himself. 'Tripped.'
'Are you sure?' Unsurprisingly, Rodney was frowning at him as if he'd just grown a third head; John wouldn't have believed himself either. 'Maybe you should get Beckett to check you over again.'
nbsp; 'I'm fine,' John insisted, shrugging it off. 'Just need to eat.' It had been a long day. All the running for his life had left him tired. What was it that Rodney was always complaining about? Hypo-something? Hypoglycaemia. Yeah, that's it. The mess hall wasn't that far away. He'd eat something and it would be fine. Steeling himself, he pushed off the wall and strode off down the corridor, declaring the conversation over.
Unfortunately, he made it less than two meters before another wave of dizziness washed over him, this time worse than the first. John closed his eyes and slowly slid down the wall as his legs crumpled beneath him. Fuck, where had that come from?
John's eyes startled open when he heard Rodney calling medical. Rodney glared at him, silencing any protests he had by challenging him to prove otherwise, before continuing to talk into his comm. John leant his head back against the wall, trying not to focus on how crappy he was feeling. It seemed to work somewhat because by the time Beckett arrived the room had stilled, even if his arms and legs still felt like they were made of the Jello Rodney was so fond of.
'What seems to be the problem here then?' The comment was light and humorous but anyone who knew the Scot well could hear that underneath, the doctor was serious and concerned.
'Sheppard fainted,' Rodney interrupted before John could open his mouth.
'Did not,' John protested. 'I'm fine.'
Carson tutted, feeling John's wrist for a pulse. 'I'll be the judge of that, Colonel.'
'Fine, I got a little light-headed,' John admitted, snatching his wrist back and glaring at McKay. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I just need to eat something.'
'Aye, that may be, but I'd like to check you out in the infirmary all the same,' Carson said diplomatically in a tone that clearly stated it wasn't up for discussion.
As if on cue, Carson's lackeys came around the corner with a gurney. John groaned; there was no way in hell he was letting them push him through the halls for everyone to see if there was anything he could do about it.
'I can walk,' he protested, pushing himself up to stand. The effect was greatly lost when the motion sent the room into a fast orbit once more, his legs instantly buckling underneath him.
Sheppard blinked his eyes back open. Carson was crouched over him in concern. The entire room seemed to have tipped over. He didn't know when that had happened but his limbs felt heavy like lead and he couldn't remember how to make them move. It took him a moment or two to remember where he was and what had happened.
Corridor near the mess hall.
He'd fainted.
Dammit.
There was no denying it; Rodney was never going to let him live this one down.
'We're going to lift you onto the gurney now, Colonel.' Carson was talking to him but he couldn't find his mouth to respond. His whole body felt like Jello, not just his arms and his legs this time. 'Ready, 1, 2, 3.'
By the time John was able to protest, he was already moving. The warning did little to help the sudden movement from sending the room spinning again with renewed frenzy. He closed his eyes firmly shut and clung to the first stationary object his hands came into contact with. The gurney beneath him felt like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. Something was definitely wrong.
Every now and then, John would open his eyes but, straight away, would have to close them again as the lights flashing overhead made his stomach roll. The nearer they got the infirmary, the more concerned John got. The dizziness wasn't passing. He wasn't even convinced himself that this was something simple as low blood sugar, so what the hell was wrong with him?
John hissed more out of surprise than actual pain when Carson pricked his finger. The sharp scratch startled him, cutting through the fogginess in his head.
'Glucose levels are within a perfectly acceptable range,' the doctor said after less than a minute, discarding the tiny strip from the machine when it beeped. He then moved to check some numbers on the monitor next to the bed. 'Your blood pressure's still a little on the low side though.'
Now that he was feeling marginally less crappy, John shifted on the bed to get into a more comfortable position.
.......
Unfortunately, as he moved, the stitches in his side pulled and John couldn't suppress a wince as pain flared down his side. The movement didn't go unnoticed by Beckett who gestured for him to lay back and remove his shirt. Sheppard reluctantly complied. Nothing ever slipped past the doctor.
Carson crouched over the bed and inspected the cut on John's ribs. He hissed involuntarily as Carson prodded the area around the wound. It burned like someone was holding a naked flame to his skin. Glancing down, John resisted the urge to groan at his misfortune; the area was now swollen and angry to the touch. He should have known it was going to get infected. With his luck, who knew what mutant microbes had been lurking on that blade, and now through his bloodstream?
'I'm going to run some tests,' Carson said, replacing the dressing and straightening up. 'Let's see what we're dealing with.
John looked away as Beckett prepared the area. It felt like only seconds later when the doctor patted his arm and declared, 'All done.'
'Does that mean I can go then?' John asked hopefully, deliberately ignoring the cannula that Carson had left in his arm.
'I'd like to keep you in overnight for observation,' Carson said as he gathered up the tubes of blood he'd collected. 'I'll have one of the nurses fetch you something from the mess hall.'
John sighed and settled back against the pillows. There was no point in staying uncomfortable and besides, maybe if he behaved, Carson would change his mind and let him go early. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep while he still could; John never slept well in the infirmary, not with Beckett's nurses waking him regularly to take observations. It was going to be a long night.
.......
When John woke, the dimmed lights said it was the middle of the night. His entire body was coated in sweat and he was in the worse kind of distress. His stomach lurched violently. He was going to puke and he was going to do it now. He hastily searched for the least offensive place to throw up. In a split second decision, John lurched to one side as his stomach heaved, vomiting over the side of the bed.
The noise seemed to echo in the empty infirmary and brought half the infirmary staff running but John was too busy gagging to pay them much attention. He'd missed dinner whilst sleeping, so there wasn't much to bring up, but that didn't stop his body from trying. It felt like his stomach lining was trying to escape by crawling out of his throat. It was several minutes before he finally managed to get the dry heaving under control and slump back onto the bed.
A clean bowl was pushed in his direction and John clutched it to his chest like a lifeline. In the corner of his eye, he saw the doctor on duty inject an anti-emetic into the IV line he'd gained in his sleep.
'This sucks,' he grumbled, shivering against the pillows. The involuntary action earned him a thermometer stuck in his ear. He didn't miss the doctor frown at the reading when the thing beeped. The doctor, some young hotshot woman who'd recently arrived on the Daedalus, had patted him sympathetically on the shoulder before whispering hushed orders to the nurse that he hadn't been able to hear.
Feeling too sorry for himself to care, John had sunken further into the pillow while wishing himself to be anywhere else.
By the time Ronon came to visit early the next morning, John was exhausted; between hot-cold flushes and puking up everything but his left kidney, he had barely had any sleep. He hadn't been able to get comfortable at all. Everything ached and each movement reignited the fire burning in his side. The one time he nearly managed to doze off, one of the nurses had woken him to check his temperature for the one-thousandth time.
John was no stranger to infected wounds but this one was knocking him six ways to Sunday. He felt miserable.
.......
On his way into his office at the beginning of his shift, Carson stopped to look around. John was sleeping under Ronon's watchful eye across the infirmary, the giant glaring at anyone who dared to think about disturbing the colonel. The poison was taking its toll on Sheppard's body but sleep was good. It gave him a chance to heal and meant that his body was fighting it.
Carson had heard from the night staff that John had had a rough night after he'd left, but he hadn't been prepared for how quickly the Colonel had gone downhill; whatever it was that they were dealing with had hit fast. Even in sleep, Sheppard looked sick. Beckett knew plenty enough from dealing with Rodney that the louder someone complained, the less sick they were. Beckett would be grateful when Sheppard was back to protesting he was fine and trying to escape.
Looking at the Colonel, Carson didn't have any good feelings. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something; they were in the Pegasus galaxy after all. Nothing was ever simple. There had to be something else going on.
The digestive upset could be attributed as a side effect of the antibiotics, but Carson would have expected to see some improvement by now. The antibiotics weren't doing any good and the microbiology tests had come back clean, so he'd ordered them to be stopped. It wasn't an infection like Carson had hoped, it was something else. An infection would have been much simpler to treat. Instead, one of the tests had detected several mysterious proteins in Sheppard's blood; toxins and enzymes wreaking havoc on his systems.
If they were on Earth, Beckett would have thought they were dealing with some kind of venom, like from a snake bite. Unfortunately they weren't on Earth, or even in the same galaxy; it could have been anything but Carson had to start somewhere.
.......
John stared at the ceiling through his eyelids, willing sleep to grant him reprieve. Ronon had fallen asleep in the chair next to him and one of the nurses had taken advantage of the Satedan's incapacity to take more blood from John. Not only had she woken him up but it had taken her several sticks to find a vein and by the end of it, John was left feeling like a bruised pincushion. Half an hour later, he was still half awake, in that distant state between unconsciousness and waking, exhausted but unable to sleep.
A hiss cut through the quiet sounds of the infirmary; John froze. He knew that sound and it sent terror tearing through his blood. His eyes roved the room but he couldn't see anything.
John was just starting to think he was hearing things when there it was again; a distinct scuttling, screechy hiss, clearly audible despite Ronon's loud snore. His eyes moved back across the space, this time with the efficiency and alertness of the soldier that he was, left to right and near to far in a systematic area that left nearly no inch of the room unchecked. If he thought he would be able to look under the bed he would have but he didn't think the burning wound in his side would let him. The source of the sound which haunted his nightmares was nowhere to be seen.
Finally, some innate sixth sense from watching so many horror films as a teenager made him look back up and immediately wished he hadn't. There wasn't just one, but several dozen Iratus bugs vying for space above his bed that hadn't been there a second ago.
The beeping monitor he was attached to picked up its pace. Could it beep any louder? John felt that he might as well have a luminous pink sign that said 'bite me' suspended over his head. The noise was going to tell every single one of them that he was there. Ronon snored loudly from the chair, oblivious to Sheppard's dilemma. John debated waking the Satedan up but didn't think he could do so without alerting every single one of the blasted critters.
How the hell did those things get on Atlantis?
As he watched, one lazily detached from the ceiling and drifted down on a single wispy thread before dropping onto the sheets with a silent plop. John instinctively drew his legs up close to his chest, as far away from the thing as possible. Somewhere in the back of his head there was this childhood notion that if he curled up into a small enough ball, the creatures would leave him alone.
They can't see me if I can't see them.
The bug on the end of the bed waved its pincers around, testing the air, trying to sense what was around it. Maybe it hadn't noticed him yet.
The monitor was beeping so loudly, surely the bugs were going to hear it. He would have ripped the leads from his chest if he didn't know that that would just make the monitor scream louder. The alarm would bring every medical personnel in the infirmary running, bringing food to the party. That was if they weren't dead already.
John looked around frantically for a weapon. What he would have given for his gun right now. As it was there was nothing. No scalpels, no saltwater. All his instincts were screaming at him to run but he was afraid the motion would alert them to his presence and he wasn't so sure he could make it that far without passing out. If he did that, he wouldn't stand a chance.
x The curtain rattled as it was pulled back along the track. John turned to warn the person that was coming through only to freeze again as his heart stopped inside his chest. John wasn't sure if he was in the frying pan or the fire. He didn't think there was anyway his day could possibly get worse.
The wraith reached out.
John punched it straight in the face. The wraith stumbled back in surprise.
He needed to run.
Now, while he still had the chance.
His chest hurt.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
He...
.......
As Carson walked past, he could hear the Colonel's vitals were elevated, the monitor beeping loudly. He pushed the curtain to one side.
John was curled up against the head of the bed, staring at something Carson couldn't see. The Scottish doctor had no idea what John was terrified about but he had a look on his face like a cornered animal. That fear only intensified when he noticed Carson had entered.
The doctor reached out a hand in the universal gesture for calming down a wild animal.
Carson stumbled back, cursing, as John's fist collided with his face.
Ronon, woken by the din, leapt up to restrain Sheppard.
Staunching the blood flow from his nose, Carson looked up to see a brief look of surprise on John's face. Seconds later, the colonel's eyes rolled back into his head. His entire body stiffened, arching up against the bed. Cursing, Beckett had little choice but to push his own pain aside and spring into action.
Hoping that he wasn't dripping blood everywhere, Carson awkwardly used his spare hand to pull an oxygen mask over John's thrashing head. Ronon caught on and completed the action for him. Several nurses came in to help, summoned by the alarms but followed Carson's lead and stayed back. Sheppard was still seizing but at that point the best thing to do was wait. If they interfered, they were more likely to injure the colonel or themselves than if they simply waited it out; the seizure would either stop or it wouldn't and it was then that they would have to do something about it.
Carson's eyes flickered from the monitor to the bed and back again, tentatively watching for signs that the seizure was either stopping or they were going to have to intervene. After four minutes, Sheppard was still in the throes of a full Tonic-Clonic seizure. Anything longer than five minutes and Sheppard wasn't going to come out of the seizure on his own. The longer he seized, the greater the risk of brain damage or even death.
'Lorazepam,' Carson ordered over the rattling of the bed.
At some point, the colonel had managed to rip the IV from the back of his hand. Carson had to watch one of the nurses insert a cannula into the back of John's other hand so that they could administer the anti-convulsant. Throughout it all, the seizure still showed no sign of slowing down. If anything, the seizure was getting worse, the convulsions growing more and more violent with each one that passed.
Eventually they managed to get the anti-convulsant into John's blood and Carson watched anxiously for the drugs to take effect, all the while running protocols through his head, planning what was next if it didn't work. He didn't want to have to revert to those.
Thankfully, it never came to that; to Carson's immense relief, John's body eventually slowed gradually before finally stilling. He waited a moment or two to make sure that the seizure really had stopped before rattling off orders. Tests to be run. New drugs to be given.
John Sheppard was only getting worse. They were still no closer to solving this thing and Carson couldn't shake the feeling that they were running out of time.
.......
Five hours later, waiting for his latest test results to come back, Carson stuffed his hands into his lab coat pockets and stared out at the infirmary from his office door. The Colonel had yet to wake up again and Carson was starting to have doubts as to whether he was going to make it through the other side. Despite the strong anti-convulsants they'd administered, Sheppard had had three more seizures since the first.
Right now John was still fighting but every hour came at a price. Eventually his body would tire and, too exhausted to continue, it would give up, leaving John Sheppard dead. Medical intervention could only take him so far. There was only so much that Carson and his team could do. They would reach a point when the damage done to John's body was irreparable. Carson had to find an antidote before that happened, if it wasn't already too late.
The latest set of bloods showed that, on top of everything else, Sheppard's kidneys were starting to fail. While it was still early enough to reverse it, they were already one system too far down the slippery path to total organ failure for Carson's liking. Sheppard was dying in front of his eyes and their only solution was still little more than a stab in the dark. Carson would have liked to run more tests, would have liked more time to gather data so that he could predict how John's body would react to the solution and if it was even going to work, but the truth was simple. John Sheppard did not have that time, leaving Carson a difficult decision to make.
While ultimately the responsibility to proceed or not lied with him, Carson was fortunate that he didn't have to make decisions alone. The entire senior staff sat in front of him as he explained the situation. They were both John's friends and his family. The doctor had barely finished before Rodney demanded, 'Why haven't you given it to him already?'
'It's dangerous, Rodney,' Carson explained. 'The anti-venom could kill him in its own right.'
'What will happen if you do not give him this anti-venom?' Teyla asked calmly. He could see her thoughts ticking inside her brain, like the cogs in a clock.
Carson bit his lip, hesitating with what to say. 'He'll most likely die.'
The room descended into silence as all of its occupants realised the depth of Carson's dilemma. If they did nothing, John could die and if they administered the antidote, John could still die. Whichever path they chose, there was a high probability that Atlantis would lose its military commander. They wouldn't know if it was the right choice until it was too late to do anything about it.
'Do it,' Elizabeth said firmly, breaking the silence. 'If you think this is Sheppard's best chance, do it.'
.......
Less than an hour after making the decision, the medical team were ready to start. Taking a final look around to check that everyone was in place, Carson took a deep breath and slowly depressed the plunger. The anti-venom went in smoothly and as soon as the syringe was empty he discarded it into the bright yellow sharps bin before stepping back to watch the monitor. If there was going to be any trouble, they'd see it there first.
Up, down, up and down, spikes and bumps, over and over again at regular intervals. The leads traced the changes in electrical activity across John's body as his heart relaxed and contracted, squeezing blood around his body. Apart from being a little fast, the trace was almost textbook perfect. Atrial Systole, Ventricular Systole, Diastole, a repeating cycle of coordinated contraction turning around and around, tracing its way in lines across the screen.
Then the beautiful trace wobbled, not just once but twice and then a third time as Sheppard's heart stuttered. Carson swore but forced himself to take another deep breath to calm himself. They'd known this could happen, had been prepared for it. That didn't make it any better. One of the nurses handed him a syringe which he added to the chemical cocktail already flowing through the Colonel's veins. It took a moment or two for the drugs to have any effect.
Instead of John's heart rate getting faster, as Carson would have expected, the gaps between the peaks on the trace were getting further and further apart as John's heart slowed. As he watched, the monitor beeped to alert him that Sheppard's already low blood pressure had drastically dropped several levels. He ordered another drug to be run but didn't tear his eyes off the monitor, his sixth sense tingling.
Up and down, up and down...
He couldn't put a finger on it but something felt off, like a thunderstorm overhead, just waiting to break.
Up and down, up and down...
The line didn't come back up.
The monitor started screaming.
Carson and his team immediately sprung into action. The motion was instinctive, burned into his consciousness by years of practise.
'Clear.' John's limp body jerked on the table. Carson watched the line. Nothing, John's heart still wasn't beating. They resumed CPR. The paddles charged.
'Again,' Carson ordered. 'Clear.'
Carson was about to order another when there, a tiny blip, closely followed by another stronger blip, then another. Up and down, up and down. He returned the paddles to the trolley and tentatively felt for a pulse. It was only when he felt the strong steady pulsation underneath his fingers that he could breathe a sigh of relief. 'He's back.'
.......
The days that followed were relatively uneventful; several passed and John had yet to wake up. The venom had taken less than two days to drag John Sheppard to death's doorstep and more than twice that for the soldier to fight his way back. His vitals were back to normal; he was extubated and off the sedatives. All traces of the venom were gone and his kidneys no longer needed dialysis. Tests had shown that the anti-venom had worked. Medically, there was nothing left to do; nothing left to do but wait for Sheppard to wake up.
Carson looked across the room and sighed. 'What are we going to do with you, Lad?'
While waking was a battle that only John could fight, his team were always there, taking turns to eat, sleep and watch vigil over him. After coming so close to losing their team leader, the others weren't going to leave his side for a moment and Carson couldn't make them. It could have so easily gone the other way but it was a waste of time to dwell on that. Carson doubted that this would be the last time John would end up in his care. They would deal with when that happened too.
In an environment where he had seen people both live and die, Carson had learnt long ago to live each day as it came. They could all die that day, or the next, but what happened, happened and tomorrow was always another day.