Fic: Defense Mechanism, 3/6 (nc-17)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
“Dr. Weir’s cognitive ability is deteriorating faster than expected,” Carson reported. “While Colonel Sheppard’s is improving slower than hoped.”
Caldwell paused, looking up from his desk. “There’s a joke in there somewhere about irony, but I’ll skip it for the moment because it seems distasteful.”
Carson smiled briefly, but the humor was short-lived. “There’s something else. Colonel Sheppard is adamantly refusing further treatment. Violently, in one instance. He wants the treatments to go to Dr. Weir instead.”
Caldwell sighed, heavily, as if he’d expected this development at some point. “Would that even make any difference at this point?”
“Marginally,” Carson answered. “It’ll slow down Elizabeth’s mutations, but eventually we’ll still have two subjects on our hands instead of just one. John will regress in any progress he’s made. It’ll buy us time, though. Maybe enough?”
Caldwell looked conflicted with the idea as Carson had suspected he would. He also looked worn thin and sleep-deprived. It couldn’t have been easy learning to run this city on a day-to-day basis, much less in the midst of a crisis mode. Carson suspected this was the first time Caldwell fully appreciated what it meant to be Elizabeth Weir, and he looked like the burdens were beginning to take its toll on him.
After a lengthy pause, Caldwell cleared his throat. “Continue the treatments on Sheppard. I can’t lose two members when I can viably save one of them.”
“It isn’t that straightforward. He’s refusing. I can’t force him into a medical treatment like that.”
Caldwell looked at him like Carson had just sprouted wings. “Yes, you can.”
Carson tried to explain, “No, I can’t. It’s an ethical line. This is an experimental treatment, and a patient has every right to-”
“We’re not dealing with normal situations here, Doctor. Colonel Sheppard is under my command, and he isn’t in the right state of mind-”
“I beg to differ!” Carson cut in, sharply. “He’s forfeiting his own treatments to help his friend. That’s cognitive rational thinking, if not a bit self-sacrificing. But then again, that’s Colonel Sheppard in a nutshell. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and why, and therefore mental competence in this matter is not something I can easily waive-”
Caldwell raised a hand to forestall anything more. “This is a direct order, Doctor. Administer the remainder of the treatment to Colonel Sheppard. End of discussion.”
Carson’s lips thinned into a straight line. “Aye.”
“In the meantime, you want to help Dr. Weir? I suggest you double your efforts in finding an alternative cure.”
There were a few choice words Carson had in response to that statement; as if he’d been doing anything short of working night and day and night again! He wasn’t a bloody magician. This was revolutionary work they were producing - rewriting laws and working on genetics and engineering, ideas that should have taken years to study! His team was jumping over hurdles like bloody Olympic athletes!
“Is that all?” Caldwell asked, and Carson nodded his head. “Please shut the door on the way out.”
After a beat Carson left, feeling rather like his input on this matter was nothing more than trivial.
The next day, Elizabeth quietly slipped out into the hallway, ignoring the accompanying guard as she walked to the far end of the corridor. She watched as everybody faltered in step when they caught sight of her, and Elizabeth did her best to fix locks of hair so that it settled more firmly against the bluish blemishes along the left side of her face. She hated the attention, and it was only now that she realized the full severity of the stigma John had suffered for the previous week.
The mutation was working quickly - too quickly. It had taken John twice as long as this to reach the same stage, and Elizabeth was only too well aware that the sedatives and inhibitors that Carson had given her were failing more than helping. She had no idea why she was responding to the retrovirus in a different way than John - maybe it was based on her gender, or the fact that she lacked an ATA gene? In any case, it didn’t help the already overtaxed scientific teams in reaching their conclusions any faster.
She tried not to let the impatience show, but the truth was, Elizabeth was scared out of her mind.
The mess hall was mostly vacant when she arrived, although she spotted Caldwell sitting quietly at the far end of the room. She halted to the side, briefly inspecting the array of food that seemed unappetizing at best. She was hungry, but the cravings ran more towards raw steak than anything listed in the Friday specials. She bypassed the food and approached Caldwell.
When he spotted her, he closed the folder resting in front of him and shifted it to the side. “Elizabeth, how’re you doing today?”
“Fine,” she replied, going for short answers. “Is there any word from Carson’s team?”
Caldwell hesitated. “They’re still working on it. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”
A few scientists scrambled out the room behind her, their exit abrupt and noisy, and Elizabeth tried not to take offense. After a beat, she pulled a chair free and joined Caldwell at the table, though he hadn’t offered and she usually wasn’t one to seek company for a late lunch. He stared at her across the table, and Elizabeth wondered what he was thinking. His face was closed off, making him a hard read. Either that, or Elizabeth was losing the ability to read people. It could have been either case, or both.
“I heard you visited John the other day,” Caldwell said. “I heard it was brief.”
“We didn’t have much to say to each other,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “The brig wasn’t that inviting, anyway.”
“His accommodations are a necessity. He’s too dangerous to be around, even for a short amount of time.”
“So you keep telling me.”
Caldwell sighed. “I’m doing this for your benefit and everybody else’s. I was looking over our surveillance footage for the last two weeks, ever since he was infected. You know what I found? Sparring room, last Tuesday. The instances of his abuse were apparently underreported.”
Her eyes flashed, agitated. “Are you implying I lied?”
He shook his head. “You should have a conversation with Teyla. Then tell me whether John needs to be locked up or not.”
A moment of utter silence followed, and Elizabeth tried not to let Caldwell see the effect his words had on her. What had happened between Teyla and John? A dozen scenarios played over in her head, and none of them were particularly appealing. She sat back, but her ability to continue playing this power game with Caldwell was taxing and beyond her interests. She rose, walking away from Caldwell without even a farewell.
She tracked down Teyla - using nothing but her instincts. She’d heard Ronon could track a person too, but this was something different. Something instinctual, not learned. She’d seen Teyla earlier, and had unconsciously imprinted her unique scent. Telya had an elemental smell to her, a combination stemming from Athosian candle oils and incense, a faint hint of cream, and body sweat. She threaded through the hallways until she found Teyla near the sparring room.
Teyla turned around, then startled slightly, finding Elizabeth standing behind her. “Elizabeth, I had not seen you there.”
“I was looking for you.”
Teyla nodded slowly, then paused awkwardly. “Is there something you wanted?”
“Yes. Company.”
Teyla smiled, but it was a little forced and tight - not that Elizabeth could blame her. She watched as Teyla gathered her belongings together, and then she accompanied Elizabeth out into the hallway. The single guard kept pace with them three steps behind, but Elizabeth tried not to let that subdue the conversation too much.
“I just spoke with Colonel Caldwell,” Elizabeth began. “He told me to ask you about some incident with John in the sparring room last Tuesday.”
Teyla hesitated, just for a microsecond, then said, “I see.”
Elizabeth stopped walking, bringing their conversation to a standstill in the middle of an empty hallway. She flashed a pointed look at the guard behind them, and he seemed to get the message because he stood post with his back against the wall, letting the conversation play out.
Elizabeth turned back to Teyla. “What happened?”
Teyla forced another smile. “It was really nothing-”
“Teyla,” she cut in, impatiently. “Just tell me.”
Teyla raised an eyebrow, and belatedly, Elizabeth realized her tone had been overly sharp. Unexpectedly, her throat felt rough like she’d been eating glass all day long, and Elizabeth tried to find a steadier equilibrium, difficult though it was.
“What happened?” Elizabeth asked, as evenly as she could. “Please, Teyla. You can tell me. You can trust me.”
Teyla paused, then took a deep breath.
“Gurney coming through!” the med tech shouted as the doors clashed open.
Carson dropped his sandwich in surprise and rushed over, shocked to discover one of the marines lying unconscious on the gurney. A moment afterwards, Teyla hobbled through the double doors, holding a blood-soaked cloth to her forehead.
“What the bloody hell happened?” Carson demanded.
Teyla paused awkwardly, then said one word, “Elizabeth.”
Carson’s eyes flew to the marine again, remembering that the lad had been assigned to Elizabeth’s guard duty. Realization dawned on him, but further inquiries would have to wait. Carson quickly inspected the marine. After a few moments he determined that the sergeant had suffered a small head wound and his abdomen was already discoloring to an unpleasant black and blue - bruised ribs, possibly broken.
Thankfully, none of it was life threatening. He called on another doctor to attend to the marine, then left to find Teyla again. A nurse was assisting her, but Teyla seemed distracted, settled against the wall while she held the bag of ice to her head. Carson approached her, then slowly eased the bag away to inspect her injuries. It revealed a nasty bump over her right eye that was already swelling three times the normal size. There was a cut that would need stitches, as well.
Concern festered, but Carson first excused the nurse.
When they were alone, Carson asked softly, “Elizabeth did this?”
“She was not herself,” she immediately defended, as he imagined she’d just gone six rounds with Caldwell over the same thing and was probably still a little prickly about the subject. She needn’t have bothered telling Carson that, though. “The guard acted quickly in my defense, and I was able to then subdue her with a stunner.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where is she?”
“Caldwell is sending her to the brigs.”
Carson paused. His immediate instinct was to check up on Elizabeth, but he knew better than anyone that a stunner would do no lasting damage to her body. It sickened him that this was all happening. Elizabeth was one of the most non-violent people he’d ever met. The fact that she was now taking out guards, managing to wound Teyla of all people - it was like a horror show. He wasn’t sure what was more concerning: that she was capable of that violence, or that she’d committed it against a close friend like Teyla.
“What triggered the attack?”
Teyla shook her head. “Does it matter? She was not acting herself.”
Carson studied her, and knew better than to press the issue. “You’re going to need stitches. Maybe four or five. But you’ll be fine.”
Teyla’s eyes darkened. “But will she be all right? Carson, you should have seen Elizabeth. She was… I could not recognize my friend in there. One moment we were talking, and then something overtook her.”
Elizabeth’s situation was turning out to look bleaker with every passing hour. If she was already acting violent, then the disease was indeed progressing faster than Carson had anticipated. His team was still days - if not weeks - away from a viable alternative solution to the stem cell treatment. Caldwell’s men had recovered the sought-after plant from the Sukarian homeworld, but there were elements in its composition that made an identical treatment unlikely.
So much work to do, and not enough time.
Teyla reached for his hand, and Carson looked up, startled to realize he’d lost himself a little. He’d been doing that on-and-off throughout the day; the lack of rest was starting to get to him. But that was not something that would remedy itself, not until he had that cure.
To Teyla, he merely smiled, then went about gathering up the supplies he needed to suture up Teyla’s cut. “You look tired,” she observed, not unkindly.
“I haven’t had much sleep since… well, to be honest, I haven’t had proper sleep since first arriving in this galaxy.”
Teyla gave him a sheepish look. “I suppose we do keep you inordinately busy.”
“Aye,” Carson agreed whole-heartedly, mustering a small laugh.
He sobered quickly. At the heart of this, Carson’s own carelessness was to blame. If he hadn’t taken that bloody retrovirus drug to Ellia, and she had never acted rashly in administering the serum to herself, then all of the subsequent headaches could have been avoided. He wouldn’t forgive himself if something happened to Elizabeth because of that.
“They’ll be fine, Carson,” Teyla said, giving him a reassuring smile. “And they’ll have you to thank for that.”
He nodded, appreciating the effort. But secretly, deep down, Carson began wondering if this city was really worth all the lives sacrificed for it. Elizabeth and John were both two of the bravest souls he had ever met, entrepreneurs that lead this expedition when all others could only follow. Now they were paying for that bravery with a fate he imagined might be worse than death. He sometimes questioned whether this dream of exploration was worth the lives of the men and women who unerringly laid down their souls to protect it. Most days, the answer was overwhelmingly affirmative.
Today was not one of those days.
John had spent three days in the brig and was slowly going stir crazy.
He wasn’t even being released to the infirmary anymore, as his last treatment had been administered at the brig, at gunpoint and with tranquilizers. His mutation was slowing, but John was acting out bits of aggression now almost without even realizing it. He blamed it on being trapped for too long in this small eight-by-eight box, because it was testing his thin shred of control. His company also left something to be desired: today, his ever-present guard was Lt. Averman, the strong and silent type.
His team visited occasionally, but he was still too restless to prove a good conversationalist. Ronon had brought him dinner last night, and they’d shared the meal in utter silence. Rodney, on the other hand, seemed excessively thrown by the John’s demeanor and appearance; he hadn’t visited for more than two minutes at a time. John couldn’t really blame him.
Teyla was the biggest awkward mess, though. He saw her once yesterday, briefly, and he still didn’t know how to act around her. It was difficult and frustrating as hell. He remembered all too vividly the shock and confusion on Teyla’s face when he’d pinned her against the wall and forced a kiss on her - and that was before he’d almost goaded her into killing him. Jesus, he owed her one hell of an apology when this was all over. One of many, he supposed.
At least with Elizabeth, the kiss had been consensual. That mattered little, however, in the grand scheme of things. He had so many things to make amends for.
Hours passed slowly, and it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that his heightened senses picked up something interesting coming from outside. In the corridor, he could hear footsteps of several men approaching, and then there was that scent - Elizabeth. He recognized it in an instant, the sharp jab of interest spiking as soon as he identified her. Her smell was growing strong, an intoxicating blend of pheromones and musk, something so inherently delicious that John had to stop for a second to clear his head.
The room next to his held another brig, exactly the same as his own. He heard them deposit her in and close the door, but there was no other movement that he could detect inside. Concern gnawed at him, and he approached the nearest wall, hovering in order to pick up as much detail as possible.
A moment later, a guard entered his room and whispered to Lt. Averman, “Dr. Weir’s status has been upgraded to hostile. We’re keeping her in the next brig. She’s been tranqed.”
“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Averman muttered back, then sighed. “All right. Understood. Let’s just hope that this doesn’t make Sheppard more agitated.”
They assumed he couldn’t hear them, but there was little John couldn’t detect at this point. He stood with his back to them, staring at the wall that adjoined Elizabeth’s room, and a quiet, reckless impulse started to grow. Her presence tested his resolve, shoving John forward until he teetered on the edge of a freefall. Christ, how was he supposed to control this - not this. He tilted his head, inhaling more of her scent, and that was when he realized it, the epiphany sliding in under his skin like a needle from an IV drip.
Elizabeth wasn’t just his mate; she was mutating into a Queen.
Elizabeth awoke to a dull ache that would vanish completely almost a minute later. Her focus was on other things. The world titled as she rose from her single-sized mattress, discovering herself in the brig. Her eyes met briefly with an unfamiliar guard before memories trickled in.
Oh, god. Teyla.
She didn’t remember much - it was all a haze. They’d been talking, and then Teyla had confessed that John had kissed her. Elizabeth had just snapped. She didn’t remember much beyond the blinding, instinctual need to eliminate a rival. She was mortified of that now, utterly and overwhelmingly ashamed at the thought that she’d hurt Teyla.
“Are they all right?” she asked, desperately looking towards the guard. “Teyla and Sgt. Aims? Did I-”
“They’re fine. No permanent damage done, ma’am.”
Elizabeth released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She turned away from the guard, needing a moment to regroup. There wasn’t much privacy, and she couldn’t expect it now. God, this entire thing was a mess, and Elizabeth could feel herself slipping further and further. How much longer before this retrovirus ruled her entirely? The worst thing was that she had just enough self-awareness and control to realize just how out-of-control she truly was. She imagined this was worse than going crazy; at least then, she wouldn’t realize the madness that was overtaking her.
She faced the opposite wall, drawing in a deep breath - and the scent of John came flooding in with it. She stared at the wall, eerily certain that he stood in a position that mirrored her own. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.
It both calmed her down, then wound her back up.
That night, they dreamt.
Their grunts and gasps blended with harsh breathing and high-pitched noises, alien and inhuman. Closer. Closer. His heavy mass forced hers to the ground and there was no space in between, only movement. A hard chest on top of hers and a body invaded another, digits tripping over the rise of scales and tangling in hair - grinding, thrusting and mating. She scratched her nails all across the hard muscles of his back and he groaned, slamming into her just that much harder. She wrapped her legs around his waist and forced him to pick up speed.
A half-human gasp escaped her lips and he breathed her name into her skin, but there was very little humanity left in either of them.
Harder. Heavier. Closer.
Mate.
She awoke with a gasp, body overloaded with heat, caught on the cruel brink of an orgasm without any promise of release. The brig was cold and dark, and she glanced aside to discover the guard on duty had fallen asleep at his post. She repressed the urge to scream. Her senses were still filled with John, half-distorted memories of phantom touches and kisses, hurried thrusting. Her frustration was so far beyond the normal physical release. She looked to the sidewall, then closed her eyes, reaching for John without even realizing what she was doing.
She could suddenly picture him in her mind’s eyes, the impression hazy around the edges, black and white, and the image seemed to pulse as it flowed into her mind. He was already out of bed, standing at the edge of his cage with an arm braced against the bars. She could read the lines of tension in his body. The distance between them was no more than a few feet but it felt like canyons could fill the space. She hated being that far from him, like someone was trying to reach into her chest and squeeze the air out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe without him.
‘Elizabeth?’
Her eyes snapped open, because John’s voice filled her head. She rose, across the cell in an instant, as close to John as she could reach.
‘John?’
His answer came back, loud and clear, though nonplussed. ‘I’m here. I can hear you.’
Her mind stalled, too caught up in the revelations of this latest mutation - telepathy. She shouldn’t have been shocked, not after everything else. Her mind tripped over a fact like she stumbled across it in the dark: the Wraith communicated this way and the Iratus Bug was its ancestor. It made sense in only the way the Pegasus Galaxy could, and she scrubbed a hand through her hair, body still heated and yet now fighting off a cold shiver.
'I can feel you,' he said, want tightening his voice.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing a breath. ‘What’s happening to us?’
There was a long pause, and John answered, ‘I don’t know.’
A single wall separated them.
She knew it wasn't going to be enough.
Part 4
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
“Dr. Weir’s cognitive ability is deteriorating faster than expected,” Carson reported. “While Colonel Sheppard’s is improving slower than hoped.”
Caldwell paused, looking up from his desk. “There’s a joke in there somewhere about irony, but I’ll skip it for the moment because it seems distasteful.”
Carson smiled briefly, but the humor was short-lived. “There’s something else. Colonel Sheppard is adamantly refusing further treatment. Violently, in one instance. He wants the treatments to go to Dr. Weir instead.”
Caldwell sighed, heavily, as if he’d expected this development at some point. “Would that even make any difference at this point?”
“Marginally,” Carson answered. “It’ll slow down Elizabeth’s mutations, but eventually we’ll still have two subjects on our hands instead of just one. John will regress in any progress he’s made. It’ll buy us time, though. Maybe enough?”
Caldwell looked conflicted with the idea as Carson had suspected he would. He also looked worn thin and sleep-deprived. It couldn’t have been easy learning to run this city on a day-to-day basis, much less in the midst of a crisis mode. Carson suspected this was the first time Caldwell fully appreciated what it meant to be Elizabeth Weir, and he looked like the burdens were beginning to take its toll on him.
After a lengthy pause, Caldwell cleared his throat. “Continue the treatments on Sheppard. I can’t lose two members when I can viably save one of them.”
“It isn’t that straightforward. He’s refusing. I can’t force him into a medical treatment like that.”
Caldwell looked at him like Carson had just sprouted wings. “Yes, you can.”
Carson tried to explain, “No, I can’t. It’s an ethical line. This is an experimental treatment, and a patient has every right to-”
“We’re not dealing with normal situations here, Doctor. Colonel Sheppard is under my command, and he isn’t in the right state of mind-”
“I beg to differ!” Carson cut in, sharply. “He’s forfeiting his own treatments to help his friend. That’s cognitive rational thinking, if not a bit self-sacrificing. But then again, that’s Colonel Sheppard in a nutshell. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and why, and therefore mental competence in this matter is not something I can easily waive-”
Caldwell raised a hand to forestall anything more. “This is a direct order, Doctor. Administer the remainder of the treatment to Colonel Sheppard. End of discussion.”
Carson’s lips thinned into a straight line. “Aye.”
“In the meantime, you want to help Dr. Weir? I suggest you double your efforts in finding an alternative cure.”
There were a few choice words Carson had in response to that statement; as if he’d been doing anything short of working night and day and night again! He wasn’t a bloody magician. This was revolutionary work they were producing - rewriting laws and working on genetics and engineering, ideas that should have taken years to study! His team was jumping over hurdles like bloody Olympic athletes!
“Is that all?” Caldwell asked, and Carson nodded his head. “Please shut the door on the way out.”
After a beat Carson left, feeling rather like his input on this matter was nothing more than trivial.
The next day, Elizabeth quietly slipped out into the hallway, ignoring the accompanying guard as she walked to the far end of the corridor. She watched as everybody faltered in step when they caught sight of her, and Elizabeth did her best to fix locks of hair so that it settled more firmly against the bluish blemishes along the left side of her face. She hated the attention, and it was only now that she realized the full severity of the stigma John had suffered for the previous week.
The mutation was working quickly - too quickly. It had taken John twice as long as this to reach the same stage, and Elizabeth was only too well aware that the sedatives and inhibitors that Carson had given her were failing more than helping. She had no idea why she was responding to the retrovirus in a different way than John - maybe it was based on her gender, or the fact that she lacked an ATA gene? In any case, it didn’t help the already overtaxed scientific teams in reaching their conclusions any faster.
She tried not to let the impatience show, but the truth was, Elizabeth was scared out of her mind.
The mess hall was mostly vacant when she arrived, although she spotted Caldwell sitting quietly at the far end of the room. She halted to the side, briefly inspecting the array of food that seemed unappetizing at best. She was hungry, but the cravings ran more towards raw steak than anything listed in the Friday specials. She bypassed the food and approached Caldwell.
When he spotted her, he closed the folder resting in front of him and shifted it to the side. “Elizabeth, how’re you doing today?”
“Fine,” she replied, going for short answers. “Is there any word from Carson’s team?”
Caldwell hesitated. “They’re still working on it. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”
A few scientists scrambled out the room behind her, their exit abrupt and noisy, and Elizabeth tried not to take offense. After a beat, she pulled a chair free and joined Caldwell at the table, though he hadn’t offered and she usually wasn’t one to seek company for a late lunch. He stared at her across the table, and Elizabeth wondered what he was thinking. His face was closed off, making him a hard read. Either that, or Elizabeth was losing the ability to read people. It could have been either case, or both.
“I heard you visited John the other day,” Caldwell said. “I heard it was brief.”
“We didn’t have much to say to each other,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “The brig wasn’t that inviting, anyway.”
“His accommodations are a necessity. He’s too dangerous to be around, even for a short amount of time.”
“So you keep telling me.”
Caldwell sighed. “I’m doing this for your benefit and everybody else’s. I was looking over our surveillance footage for the last two weeks, ever since he was infected. You know what I found? Sparring room, last Tuesday. The instances of his abuse were apparently underreported.”
Her eyes flashed, agitated. “Are you implying I lied?”
He shook his head. “You should have a conversation with Teyla. Then tell me whether John needs to be locked up or not.”
A moment of utter silence followed, and Elizabeth tried not to let Caldwell see the effect his words had on her. What had happened between Teyla and John? A dozen scenarios played over in her head, and none of them were particularly appealing. She sat back, but her ability to continue playing this power game with Caldwell was taxing and beyond her interests. She rose, walking away from Caldwell without even a farewell.
She tracked down Teyla - using nothing but her instincts. She’d heard Ronon could track a person too, but this was something different. Something instinctual, not learned. She’d seen Teyla earlier, and had unconsciously imprinted her unique scent. Telya had an elemental smell to her, a combination stemming from Athosian candle oils and incense, a faint hint of cream, and body sweat. She threaded through the hallways until she found Teyla near the sparring room.
Teyla turned around, then startled slightly, finding Elizabeth standing behind her. “Elizabeth, I had not seen you there.”
“I was looking for you.”
Teyla nodded slowly, then paused awkwardly. “Is there something you wanted?”
“Yes. Company.”
Teyla smiled, but it was a little forced and tight - not that Elizabeth could blame her. She watched as Teyla gathered her belongings together, and then she accompanied Elizabeth out into the hallway. The single guard kept pace with them three steps behind, but Elizabeth tried not to let that subdue the conversation too much.
“I just spoke with Colonel Caldwell,” Elizabeth began. “He told me to ask you about some incident with John in the sparring room last Tuesday.”
Teyla hesitated, just for a microsecond, then said, “I see.”
Elizabeth stopped walking, bringing their conversation to a standstill in the middle of an empty hallway. She flashed a pointed look at the guard behind them, and he seemed to get the message because he stood post with his back against the wall, letting the conversation play out.
Elizabeth turned back to Teyla. “What happened?”
Teyla forced another smile. “It was really nothing-”
“Teyla,” she cut in, impatiently. “Just tell me.”
Teyla raised an eyebrow, and belatedly, Elizabeth realized her tone had been overly sharp. Unexpectedly, her throat felt rough like she’d been eating glass all day long, and Elizabeth tried to find a steadier equilibrium, difficult though it was.
“What happened?” Elizabeth asked, as evenly as she could. “Please, Teyla. You can tell me. You can trust me.”
Teyla paused, then took a deep breath.
“Gurney coming through!” the med tech shouted as the doors clashed open.
Carson dropped his sandwich in surprise and rushed over, shocked to discover one of the marines lying unconscious on the gurney. A moment afterwards, Teyla hobbled through the double doors, holding a blood-soaked cloth to her forehead.
“What the bloody hell happened?” Carson demanded.
Teyla paused awkwardly, then said one word, “Elizabeth.”
Carson’s eyes flew to the marine again, remembering that the lad had been assigned to Elizabeth’s guard duty. Realization dawned on him, but further inquiries would have to wait. Carson quickly inspected the marine. After a few moments he determined that the sergeant had suffered a small head wound and his abdomen was already discoloring to an unpleasant black and blue - bruised ribs, possibly broken.
Thankfully, none of it was life threatening. He called on another doctor to attend to the marine, then left to find Teyla again. A nurse was assisting her, but Teyla seemed distracted, settled against the wall while she held the bag of ice to her head. Carson approached her, then slowly eased the bag away to inspect her injuries. It revealed a nasty bump over her right eye that was already swelling three times the normal size. There was a cut that would need stitches, as well.
Concern festered, but Carson first excused the nurse.
When they were alone, Carson asked softly, “Elizabeth did this?”
“She was not herself,” she immediately defended, as he imagined she’d just gone six rounds with Caldwell over the same thing and was probably still a little prickly about the subject. She needn’t have bothered telling Carson that, though. “The guard acted quickly in my defense, and I was able to then subdue her with a stunner.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Where is she?”
“Caldwell is sending her to the brigs.”
Carson paused. His immediate instinct was to check up on Elizabeth, but he knew better than anyone that a stunner would do no lasting damage to her body. It sickened him that this was all happening. Elizabeth was one of the most non-violent people he’d ever met. The fact that she was now taking out guards, managing to wound Teyla of all people - it was like a horror show. He wasn’t sure what was more concerning: that she was capable of that violence, or that she’d committed it against a close friend like Teyla.
“What triggered the attack?”
Teyla shook her head. “Does it matter? She was not acting herself.”
Carson studied her, and knew better than to press the issue. “You’re going to need stitches. Maybe four or five. But you’ll be fine.”
Teyla’s eyes darkened. “But will she be all right? Carson, you should have seen Elizabeth. She was… I could not recognize my friend in there. One moment we were talking, and then something overtook her.”
Elizabeth’s situation was turning out to look bleaker with every passing hour. If she was already acting violent, then the disease was indeed progressing faster than Carson had anticipated. His team was still days - if not weeks - away from a viable alternative solution to the stem cell treatment. Caldwell’s men had recovered the sought-after plant from the Sukarian homeworld, but there were elements in its composition that made an identical treatment unlikely.
So much work to do, and not enough time.
Teyla reached for his hand, and Carson looked up, startled to realize he’d lost himself a little. He’d been doing that on-and-off throughout the day; the lack of rest was starting to get to him. But that was not something that would remedy itself, not until he had that cure.
To Teyla, he merely smiled, then went about gathering up the supplies he needed to suture up Teyla’s cut. “You look tired,” she observed, not unkindly.
“I haven’t had much sleep since… well, to be honest, I haven’t had proper sleep since first arriving in this galaxy.”
Teyla gave him a sheepish look. “I suppose we do keep you inordinately busy.”
“Aye,” Carson agreed whole-heartedly, mustering a small laugh.
He sobered quickly. At the heart of this, Carson’s own carelessness was to blame. If he hadn’t taken that bloody retrovirus drug to Ellia, and she had never acted rashly in administering the serum to herself, then all of the subsequent headaches could have been avoided. He wouldn’t forgive himself if something happened to Elizabeth because of that.
“They’ll be fine, Carson,” Teyla said, giving him a reassuring smile. “And they’ll have you to thank for that.”
He nodded, appreciating the effort. But secretly, deep down, Carson began wondering if this city was really worth all the lives sacrificed for it. Elizabeth and John were both two of the bravest souls he had ever met, entrepreneurs that lead this expedition when all others could only follow. Now they were paying for that bravery with a fate he imagined might be worse than death. He sometimes questioned whether this dream of exploration was worth the lives of the men and women who unerringly laid down their souls to protect it. Most days, the answer was overwhelmingly affirmative.
Today was not one of those days.
John had spent three days in the brig and was slowly going stir crazy.
He wasn’t even being released to the infirmary anymore, as his last treatment had been administered at the brig, at gunpoint and with tranquilizers. His mutation was slowing, but John was acting out bits of aggression now almost without even realizing it. He blamed it on being trapped for too long in this small eight-by-eight box, because it was testing his thin shred of control. His company also left something to be desired: today, his ever-present guard was Lt. Averman, the strong and silent type.
His team visited occasionally, but he was still too restless to prove a good conversationalist. Ronon had brought him dinner last night, and they’d shared the meal in utter silence. Rodney, on the other hand, seemed excessively thrown by the John’s demeanor and appearance; he hadn’t visited for more than two minutes at a time. John couldn’t really blame him.
Teyla was the biggest awkward mess, though. He saw her once yesterday, briefly, and he still didn’t know how to act around her. It was difficult and frustrating as hell. He remembered all too vividly the shock and confusion on Teyla’s face when he’d pinned her against the wall and forced a kiss on her - and that was before he’d almost goaded her into killing him. Jesus, he owed her one hell of an apology when this was all over. One of many, he supposed.
At least with Elizabeth, the kiss had been consensual. That mattered little, however, in the grand scheme of things. He had so many things to make amends for.
Hours passed slowly, and it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that his heightened senses picked up something interesting coming from outside. In the corridor, he could hear footsteps of several men approaching, and then there was that scent - Elizabeth. He recognized it in an instant, the sharp jab of interest spiking as soon as he identified her. Her smell was growing strong, an intoxicating blend of pheromones and musk, something so inherently delicious that John had to stop for a second to clear his head.
The room next to his held another brig, exactly the same as his own. He heard them deposit her in and close the door, but there was no other movement that he could detect inside. Concern gnawed at him, and he approached the nearest wall, hovering in order to pick up as much detail as possible.
A moment later, a guard entered his room and whispered to Lt. Averman, “Dr. Weir’s status has been upgraded to hostile. We’re keeping her in the next brig. She’s been tranqed.”
“Fuckin’ fantastic,” Averman muttered back, then sighed. “All right. Understood. Let’s just hope that this doesn’t make Sheppard more agitated.”
They assumed he couldn’t hear them, but there was little John couldn’t detect at this point. He stood with his back to them, staring at the wall that adjoined Elizabeth’s room, and a quiet, reckless impulse started to grow. Her presence tested his resolve, shoving John forward until he teetered on the edge of a freefall. Christ, how was he supposed to control this - not this. He tilted his head, inhaling more of her scent, and that was when he realized it, the epiphany sliding in under his skin like a needle from an IV drip.
Elizabeth wasn’t just his mate; she was mutating into a Queen.
Elizabeth awoke to a dull ache that would vanish completely almost a minute later. Her focus was on other things. The world titled as she rose from her single-sized mattress, discovering herself in the brig. Her eyes met briefly with an unfamiliar guard before memories trickled in.
Oh, god. Teyla.
She didn’t remember much - it was all a haze. They’d been talking, and then Teyla had confessed that John had kissed her. Elizabeth had just snapped. She didn’t remember much beyond the blinding, instinctual need to eliminate a rival. She was mortified of that now, utterly and overwhelmingly ashamed at the thought that she’d hurt Teyla.
“Are they all right?” she asked, desperately looking towards the guard. “Teyla and Sgt. Aims? Did I-”
“They’re fine. No permanent damage done, ma’am.”
Elizabeth released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She turned away from the guard, needing a moment to regroup. There wasn’t much privacy, and she couldn’t expect it now. God, this entire thing was a mess, and Elizabeth could feel herself slipping further and further. How much longer before this retrovirus ruled her entirely? The worst thing was that she had just enough self-awareness and control to realize just how out-of-control she truly was. She imagined this was worse than going crazy; at least then, she wouldn’t realize the madness that was overtaking her.
She faced the opposite wall, drawing in a deep breath - and the scent of John came flooding in with it. She stared at the wall, eerily certain that he stood in a position that mirrored her own. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.
It both calmed her down, then wound her back up.
That night, they dreamt.
Their grunts and gasps blended with harsh breathing and high-pitched noises, alien and inhuman. Closer. Closer. His heavy mass forced hers to the ground and there was no space in between, only movement. A hard chest on top of hers and a body invaded another, digits tripping over the rise of scales and tangling in hair - grinding, thrusting and mating. She scratched her nails all across the hard muscles of his back and he groaned, slamming into her just that much harder. She wrapped her legs around his waist and forced him to pick up speed.
A half-human gasp escaped her lips and he breathed her name into her skin, but there was very little humanity left in either of them.
Harder. Heavier. Closer.
Mate.
She awoke with a gasp, body overloaded with heat, caught on the cruel brink of an orgasm without any promise of release. The brig was cold and dark, and she glanced aside to discover the guard on duty had fallen asleep at his post. She repressed the urge to scream. Her senses were still filled with John, half-distorted memories of phantom touches and kisses, hurried thrusting. Her frustration was so far beyond the normal physical release. She looked to the sidewall, then closed her eyes, reaching for John without even realizing what she was doing.
She could suddenly picture him in her mind’s eyes, the impression hazy around the edges, black and white, and the image seemed to pulse as it flowed into her mind. He was already out of bed, standing at the edge of his cage with an arm braced against the bars. She could read the lines of tension in his body. The distance between them was no more than a few feet but it felt like canyons could fill the space. She hated being that far from him, like someone was trying to reach into her chest and squeeze the air out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe without him.
‘Elizabeth?’
Her eyes snapped open, because John’s voice filled her head. She rose, across the cell in an instant, as close to John as she could reach.
‘John?’
His answer came back, loud and clear, though nonplussed. ‘I’m here. I can hear you.’
Her mind stalled, too caught up in the revelations of this latest mutation - telepathy. She shouldn’t have been shocked, not after everything else. Her mind tripped over a fact like she stumbled across it in the dark: the Wraith communicated this way and the Iratus Bug was its ancestor. It made sense in only the way the Pegasus Galaxy could, and she scrubbed a hand through her hair, body still heated and yet now fighting off a cold shiver.
'I can feel you,' he said, want tightening his voice.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing a breath. ‘What’s happening to us?’
There was a long pause, and John answered, ‘I don’t know.’
A single wall separated them.
She knew it wasn't going to be enough.
Part 4