An Unexpected Goldmine by kodiak bear (sickness challenge)
Title: An Unexpected Goldmine
Author: Kodiak bear
Cat: John/Rodney, preslash
Rating: T
Word count: 5,800+
Summary: The things you least expect to find can often be the best.
AN: This grew from a scenario in my yet-unfinished five things fic for this challenge that needed a rewrite. This became its own story with a different feel, so I let it have its day. Hope you like! Also, big thanks to my betas blade_girl and friendshipper, you were a tremendous help, both on this and the fic that spawned this one. Hopefully I will get it done before it makes me crazy. All remaining mistakes are mine.
ETA Thanks to mecurtin for pointing out a plot hole; it's fixed, and I appreciate your help!
An Unexpected Goldmine
There was a chance that MX8-003 might become a goldmine. Not a “three ZPM’s” goldmine, but more of the “anti-Wraith device” kind. It happened like this: on another world, while they were helping survivors of a recent, violent culling -- is there any other kind? -- Teyla was told about a world accepting refugees. A world where the atmosphere was impenetrable by ships - and thus, Wraith - and a world where the DHD had a device that re-routed all incoming biosignatures to a data cube, if they just so happened to be Wraith.
Poor Wraith.
Yeah, okay, not really. Still, Sheppard figured, if they could order one of those devices “to go” that’d be one more step for Atlantean-kind.
So, they agreed to the restrictions imposed by the government of ‘003, and there were more than a few; most of them he was uncomfortable agreeing to. Like the one where he couldn’t bring his P90, or his 9 mm, or his knife. And Teyla had to leave her P90 and her 9 mm, and her knife, and her sticks. Ronon left his blaster, his knives - except the hidden one in his hair, and in his boot, and possibly one in his mid-section that Sheppard didn’t want to spend too much time contemplating -- Rodney just left his pistol, which wasn’t a huge loss anyway, because Sheppard knew he was going to hover over the DHD and the anti-Wraith device and have little scientist kittens.
If they were attacked, he’d probably cover the anti-Wraith device with his body and scream “Don’t let it get hurt!”
Sheppard had sent Ronon and Teyla to scout the ‘003 village/town/city. It was a little large to be a village, and a little too sprawling to be a town, but just not quite city-size yet. But, as Sheppard looked at the fresh line of refugee tents in the distance, he thought city-status wasn’t far off, not at the rate these people were taking on the lost survivors of the Pegasus Galaxy.
And he kind of thought, too, that it was only a matter of time before the Wraith came knocking on their door. At some point, they’d get their hands on someone that would tell them the address, just like someone had told Teyla; then, all that the Wraith needed to do was park above the planet and fire. Problem solved. No more safe hidey-holes for the little mice to run to. Screwy atmospheric properties weren’t going to stop that kind of weaponry. Sensor scans, sure, but focused beams of energetic atoms geared towards blowing up whatever it touched - no.
Sheppard turned his back on the tents. “Any progress, McKay?”
Rodney leaned back on his haunches and did his best not to snap. Sheppard could tell Rodney was one question away from a temporary psychotic episode. “No, Sheppard, and for future reference,” Rodney flipped his watch with exaggerated motion, “at 1310, 1315 and 1320 the answer will most likely be the same.”
“What about 1325?”
“1330 and 1340 look promising.”
Sheppard slid off the rock perch that was starting to hurt his butt anyway. “Lunch time!”
“What? No!” Rodney didn’t move to get up. “I’ve got a very limited window, per this poorly negotiated agreement, and I am not going to waste it eating Mac & Cheese.”
“I’m not bringing a doggie bag back.” Sheppard knew Rodney liked alien cuisine. He surprised Sheppard on a regular basis by how paranoid he could be about germs, and alien viruses, and yet, he could dip a finger in a stew pot and taste with no more consideration than he gave in drinking his morning coffee. So, the big spread Kamsu had promised for the visiting team would be a culinary adventure for Rodney. If he’d just learn to take a break.
And maybe Sheppard would bring Rodney a doggie bag, if he stayed stubborn, and didn’t stop working. But he wasn’t gonna admit it.
“What part of ‘very limited window’ did you not understand?”
Sheppard stood over Rodney and peered around him, looking at the laptop scrolling meaningless information. “Last chance,” he offered magnanimously.
Rodney stared, hard. Then he turned away from Sheppard, and stuck his hands inside the device.
“All right. Suit yourself, grumpy.” The diplomatic building wasn’t far from the ‘gate; still, he didn’t like leaving Rodney alone on an alien planet. He debated calling Ronon and Teyla back, but he wasn’t going far, and he wouldn’t be gone long. And maybe he should work on this possessive, worrying obsession thing he was developing. “I’ll be back in ten; keep your radio tuned to channel 1. Anything blinks, you call.”
“Sure, whatever,” replied Rodney, dismissive and completely not reassuring. Right. Rodney noticing anything other than what was coming out of that device -
“Make that five,” Sheppard amended. And he could trim it to four if he ran.
OoO
That’s why when he arrived back in six point three minutes - there’d been a line at the buffet - carrying a fairly large container with lunch for two, he was pissed at himself. Rodney was standing by the rock Sheppard had left only minutes ago, looking irritated and worried, and on the ground by his side was a small child, a boy, maybe eight or so years old.
Sheppard sprinted the remaining distance. He shoved the heavy clay container with their food against Rodney’s chest, and dropped next to the boy. “What’d you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything! As soon as you left, he climbed out from behind that tree --” at Sheppard’s skeptical look, he glowered, “contrary to popular opinion, I’m completely aware of approaching danger…most of the time.”
“I told you to call if anything so much as blinked. Kids blink.” Sheppard didn’t see anything obvious wrong with the kid.
Rodney gritted his teeth so hard Sheppard imagined it might be time for him to see a dentist about that. “I’m sure he did. And then he stood over my shoulder, breathed down my neck and started in with the “what’s that, Dr. McKay” and “how does it work, Dr. McKay” and all I did was tell him that this wasn’t Sesame Street and he should go play on a cliff. It’s not like I was in any danger, and the next thing I know, he’s falling over!”
“Well, he’s breathing,” Sheppard said. “So at least you didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t touch him!”
“Come on,” Sheppard gathered the boy in his arms, “let’s get him to whatever passes for a hospital around here.”
Rodney looked longingly at the device. Sheppard paused ten steps away. The boy was surprisingly heavy and taking more effort to hold than he had expected. “Later, McKay! I’m sure they’ll give you extra time for being nice and helping one of their kids. Brownie points are always a good thing. Now, let’s go. I’m not leaving you here alone and I don’t know how long this is gonna take.”
When they got to the diplomatic building, Sheppard walked in through the door that Rodney held open. Ronon and Teyla were standing in the buffet line, and they turned when Sheppard called, “We need help here!”
Teyla’s eyes narrowed. Ronon shook his head, not surprised at all.
Kamsu left his chair where he’d been sitting. “Come with me,” he ordered, quickly grasping the situation and sweeping past Sheppard and Rodney.
Sheppard followed, and he felt the reassuring presence of Teyla and Ronon as they joined Rodney. Sheppard never felt restful when his team was split, even on a planet as seemingly harmless as this one. In fact, it was the harmless ones that scared him the most.
By the time Kamsu led them through another door into another building, Sheppard was struggling with the deadweight. ‘003’s gravity was .20 heavier than Earth normal. He wanted to say he was getting too old for this shit, but Jesus, he was only 39.
“Put him here, Colonel,” Kamsu instructed.
An open bed. Sheppard settled the kid as gently as he could, pulling his arm out from under the kid’s neck. His hand came back wet, and Sheppard realized at some point the kid had drooled. With a grimace, he wiped his hand absently on his pants.
An older man, bald and squat, like all the native ‘003 people, ran over, watching every move Sheppard made. “What is this?” he demanded.
“He collapsed by the ‘gate. Near as I can tell, he’s breathing fine.” Sheppard looked at Rodney. “Did he say that anything hurt? Or that he didn’t feel good before he collapsed?”
The doctor’s sharp eyes fixed on Rodney. “You were with him?”
“Yes.” Rodney looked slightly defensive and a little like the proverbial deer in the headlights. “And Sheppard, right after. I didn’t even touch him! I don’t like kids.”
Kamsu and the doctor shared a long look. “We do not doubt you, Dr. McKay. This is Dr. Dagda; he is head of our Immigration and Health department.”
“Colonel, should I ask Carson to come?” Teyla looked at the boy and then to Sheppard.
“No!” Dagda’s emphatic reply caused Sheppard’s wariness to shift from slumbering to awake and ready. The ‘003 doctor nodded at Kamsu before turning back to the boy. Sheppard got it. Their part in the drama was done. Fine, he could take a hint. “Let’s go, gang."
He went to lead his team from the building, when Kamsu stepped in front of him and said, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Colonel.”
“What do you mean, you can’t let us?” Rodney demanded, with all the subtlety of a semi.
Sheppard ignored Rodney’s outburst, noted Ronon spinning up for a fight and Teyla’s quiet acceptance that if Sheppard said the word, she’d turn into the lethal machine she could be. He couldn’t quite keep a poker face, because this was getting ridiculous. Why was this always happening to his team? Get it together, John. Conflict-resolution. “And why would that be?” he asked. “McKay didn’t do anything.”
“As I said, I’m well aware this was not your doctor’s doing. In fact, believe me when I say, this is for your safety.” Kamsu waved at the air behind him, and Sheppard watched as a group of four guards melted into the room. They had weapons. And they were pretty big for ‘003 natives.
Ronon stood taller. “We’re leaving,” he stated flatly.
Dagda left the boy’s side and joined Kamsu. “It is what we feared. I found a small cluster of lesions on his torso.”
Kamsu tilted his head at Sheppard’s team, all of whom were poised for fight and then flight. “Please, explain to Colonel Sheppard and his people.”
“Gillian is a recent arrival. Every refugee must have a series of inoculations if they plan on staying for longer than 72 hours. He hasn’t received his yet; I talked to his mother just this morning telling her that they had one more day to comply. There is a disease native to our world that has a mortality rate of 85%.” Dagda’s face was somber. “It took our people centuries to create a vaccine; outbreak after outbreak did what the Wraith couldn’t do. Our people dwindled. When we finally created a viable vaccine, it became mandatory for every citizen, and any refugee wishing to remain on our world.”
“Yes, well you see, we’re not planning on staying over 72 hours,” Rodney said reasonably. If not with a little panic, because 85% fatal, and alien inoculations, these were all things that would worry Rodney.
“You do not understand, Dr. McKay.” Kamsu watched Sheppard.
“He’s got the virus,” Sheppard concluded.
Teyla added breathlessly, “We’ve been exposed.”
“It is not hopeless. There is a chance the boy will live, now that I’ve given him the vaccine,” Dagda said. “We’ve found that if it is given in the first 24 hours of symptoms, the odds of survival are increased dramatically. We discovered antibodies in the few that did survive. Through them, we were able to pinpoint the source as another disease, one that is far less damaging. For reasons we don’t understand, the moon shakes only infect approximately 20% of our people. We believe it has something to do with transmission, as those infected were all members of compact groups where repeated exposure was possible.”
“Moon shakes?” Rodney repeated. “It sounds like something you’d get at Dairy Queen.”
“McKay,” Sheppard said sharply, nudging him with an elbow. It meant “knock it off” and Rodney got it. Sheppard focused again on Kamsu and Dagda. “Okay, so, 20% of your people caught this other disease, and surviving it left them protected from the more lethal one. So, you give everyone the moon shakes? That’s like smallpox on our world. People that caught cowpox were immune to the more lethal, big brother virus. Gotcha. But what does that have to do with us?”
“Oh, no,” Rodney said. “They’re going to give us this moon shakes virus; why couldn’t that be ice cream?”
“No, they’re not.” Sheppard’s wariness mutated to resolve. He wasn’t letting anyone inject a live alien virus into his team’s bodies.
Dagda shook his head at Sheppard. “Colonel, surely you cannot be this unreasonable and before you say more, let me explain that of those 15% that survived, only 5% were individuals that had reached maturity. Adults are far less likely to survive.”
“Give us samples to take back to our people. Our doctors are good, they can figure this out.” Sheppard had a lot of faith in Carson, especially after he pulled Sheppard back from the brink of bug-hood. “You don’t know how our bodies will react to medication designed for your people. We’re not from around here.”
“So, you will not willingly submit to the inoculations?” Kamsu cut through the crap and succinctly called the situation. Sheppard really wished he hadn’t done that. Kamsu stared at Sheppard, his face an impenetrable mask.
Sheppard opened his mouth, thinking diplomacy, stall, but Ronon got there first and screwed that all up. “No.”
He saw the guards drawing their weapons in his peripheral vision. Aw, damn, why do things always have to degenerate to shooting? He reached for his chest, only to remember, sonofabitch, no weapons, and then he turned in time to see Ronon reaching for the knife he wasn’t supposed to have. “Ronon!” he barked, trying to head him off. “Stand down --” He didn’t want bloodshed if it could be avoided.
“Colonel!”
Teyla’s warning was too late. A nimbus of pain struck his entire body all at once. Every muscle in his body tightened, then released, and he crumpled to the floor with a final thought of this sucks.
OoO
Waking up after being stunned was one of those things that you go through the first time, learn what it’s all about, and think God, I hate this, and you hope it never happens again. Each time it did, you got just a little more leery of it, dreading the next time.
When he’d gathered enough of his wits about him, Sheppard opened his eyes to slits, just enough to survey the situation without giving away that he was awake.
“Finally.” Rodney pulled Sheppard’s eyelids a little more open, and peered at him like he was a science experiment. “You’ve been out longer than any of us, including Teyla, and you’re almost twice as big as she is.” He let Sheppard’s eyelids go and pulled his head back. “We’re screwed, by the way, just in case you were wondering.”
Groaning, Sheppard pushed himself up, looking around the room. “No, I kinda figured we were.” It looked like a hospital room. Four beds. Ronon and Teyla were sitting on one playing cards. Sheppard noticed the IV line running into his arm and almost scrabbled from the bed in panic. “What the hell --” he started to yank at it, when Rodney jerked from the chair.
“No, no! Leave it alone!”
“Are you nuts? We have no idea what they’re sticking inside of us.”
The door opened and the muffled, familiar burr of an accent stalled Sheppard’s hands. “They would be me, Colonel.” Carson’s eyes crinkled behind the see-through plastic of a hazmat hood, smiling reassuringly. “After the confrontation, they contacted Elizabeth via the Alpha site and explained the situation.”
“Did they --”
“Give you the vaccine?” Carson nodded. “Aye, they did. Before we got here. It’s the only reason I was allowed access to you. I’ve sent samples back home for tests. With conditions, they are going to allow me to work with their doctors in seeing you lot through this.”
“Are we contagious?”
“For the first 48 hours. It’s transmitted by bodily fluids; they don’t think it’s airborne, but in order to get access to you without taking the vaccine, I had to agree to wear protective gear.” Carson wore only a hazmat helmet instead of a full suit, and he pulled a pair of non-latex gloves from the pocket of his white lab coat. Sheppard couldn’t see any signs of his supplies. Must be in another room, he mused. “The virus you were injected with should begin to present itself within the next 12 hours.”
Rodney, Ronon and Teyla weren’t paying all that much attention, so Sheppard figured they’d already gotten the briefing. Crap, how long had he been out for?
Carson pulled his pen light from his pocket and ordered, “Hold still.”
“Why was I out so long?” he asked, trying not to wince too much as the light flashed across his pupils.
Rodney and Carson shared a frown.
“What?” Sheppard pressed.
“You remember I said it was passed by bodily fluids?” Carson flicked the pen light off and dropped it into his pocket. Sheppard nodded warily. “You were the one that carried the boy. Their doctor saw you come in contact with the child’s saliva. The virus can be absorbed through the dermal layer.”
“So I’m sick?”
“Not yet,” Rodney said brusquely. “But give yourself time.”
Carson shot a dirty look at Rodney before sitting on Sheppard’s bed. “Think of it this way - when a person at high risk for rabies gets preexposure treatment, it consists of three vaccinations. But, after a person is exposed to rabies, they have to go through a series of six doses.”
Sheppard settled further into his pillow, disgruntled. “So, because I was the only one with direct exposure, I got a higher dose. And that kept me under longer?”
“No, they kept you sedated longer.” Carson stood and pulled the almost empty bag of saline solution off the hook above Sheppard’s head. “You needed to receive four doses within two hours, and they knew you’d be less than cooperative. By the time I arrived, they’d allowed the others to wake, but you’d been given more sedative. Dr. Dagda tells me your odds of developing the more dangerous virus are around 50%, even with the higher dosage.” Carson depressed the plastic clip, pinching shut the IV line, and unhooked the bag. “The good news is that with the inoculation, if you do come down with the more lethal variety, your odds of survival are around 80% now as opposed to 15%. The two viruses will interact, and the hope is that the viral load of the less dangerous of the two will hopefully overwhelm the other. But we’re still running tests, so I’ll know more in a few hours.” Carson finished putting a new bolus of saline solution on the hook and plugged in Sheppard’s tubing, opening the clip and checking the drip before moving away, satisfied.
“They sedated us?” Rodney stared at Carson. “You didn’t tell me they sedated us.”
Ronon tossed his cards on the bed. “Because you would’ve whined, McKay, and demanded that Doc wake Sheppard up.”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Yes, Rodney, you would,” argued Teyla. “John needs his rest.”
John couldn’t believe this was happening. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone,” he groaned.
“That isn’t fair; this isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask that kid to bug me.” Rodney paced, dragging his IV pole with him.
“Next time I say it’s time for a break, you’re coming with me, whether you like it or not.”
Rodney stopped pacing. “No, I’m not. You can’t make me.”
“I can,” Ronon said, enigmatically.
“Okay, yes, maybe you can, but I can make you regret it.”
Teyla gathered the discarded cards. She glanced sharply at all of them. “I believe Elizabeth can make you regret it far more, Rodney.” She sighed and stretched her back. “She has allowed you to make excuses for not taking your turn on the waste management team. I would not give her reason to reconsider.”
Sheppard had seen his team during some low moments; times when a mission had failed, or the price of success had been too high, so he recognized the slumped shoulders, the irritated expressions. They were worried, annoyed, bored. It was probably the bored that scared Sheppard the most. When his team was bored they did things that tended to end badly. Like play with devices that were still labeled “unknown,” and beat each other up in the gym.
“Doc, is there any way you can bring our computers?” Imminent disaster loomed if they didn’t get something to occupy themselves with. Ronon didn’t do grumpy well, and neither did Rodney. And Teyla and Ronon? Sheppard still remembered his almost-broken nose. True, they’d been pumped on the enzyme, but Teyla seemed to enjoy getting into fights with Ronon, and Sheppard -- and his nose -- preferred to avoid that.
Carson beamed. “Already done. I’ll be right back.”
True to his word, Carson arrived with a medium sized case full of computers, a few books and a puzzle. Sheppard blanched at the sheer amount of time-occupying things, almost scared to ask, “Just how long are we gonna be here?”
Carson’s answer of, “Up to a week,” almost made a grown man cry. That’d be Rodney, by the way, because he complained about the destruction of the city if left in Radek’s hands, and how behind he’d be in his work, and that was when Carson handed out notes from Elizabeth.
Homework. They’d been given homework.
Teyla was told to revise three trade agreements, so long as she felt well enough. Ronon was told his recent suggestions for training were too dangerous, and to revise them with methods that did not involve bodily harm. Rodney was told to keep working on all projects he could access via his computer and that Carson would pass on any information, or get anything he needed, at which point Rodney had grumbled, “Atlantis,” and Carson had said, “Sure, but it’ll take about a week.”
“Ha ha,” retorted Rodney sourly.
And Sheppard had four overdue mission reports and a suggestion to get started on the fifth, seeing how they were living it. Her perky, “No better time than when it’s fresh in your mind!” written with a small, heart-shaped smiley next to it did nothing to ease his misery.
“I’m not feeling so good,” he complained.
Carson studied him suspiciously. “Is this another bout of report-itis, or is this legitimate, Colonel?”
Sadly, it was legit. Sheppard hadn’t really figured out what was wrong, but he felt achy and restless and off. When he told Carson he just wanted to take a nap, and then he’d start on his reports, the doc was back by his side, another pair of gloves on, and taking his temperature.
“That’s it then, it’s started for you, I’m afraid.”
Rodney had settled on his bed, his laptop scrolling yet more meaningless information. He paused in his typing. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Fever - it’s the first symptom. I might as well check the rest of you, but with the larger dose and direct exposure, it was expected that John would show signs first.” He turned a concerned eye back to Sheppard. “Go ahead and take that nap, Colonel. You’ll be better off resting. Looks like the reports will have to wait.”
Oh, goody. Sheppard was cranky. He felt like the executioner had granted a temporary stay, but left him strapped to the chair. He also felt hot and prickly. He must’ve dozed because things got distant. He heard people talking, but he was too tired to care. His skin started to itch, and he tried to scratch only to be told gently, “No, Sheppard, stop it.”
“McKay?”
“Don’t scratch; turns out the ‘lethal virus’ is just a very mean, slightly mutated version of the chicken pox. Carson is working on adapting the varicella vaccine for these people. The strain is just different enough that it won’t protect anyone exposed, not yet, at least. Teyla and Ronon both have a good bout of the moon shakes, but they’re going to be fine.”
Sheppard’s mouth was so dry you could probably desiccate flesh in there. His hair was sticky and his scalp itched, almost as much as the rest of him did. His eyes were still shut. “Then why’m sick?”
“Because, you idiot, you never had the chicken pox as a kid; and remember, standard Varivax won’t work, the inoculation you got on Earth is useless. They also dumped another virus into your system. The combination is kicking your ass.”
“Oh.” He knew that. He hadn’t had any siblings to expose him, and at the rate his family had hopped from base to base, he’d always managed to slip through the net of exposure when he was little. They’d made him get a whole round of new immunizations before leaving for Atlantis, but it figured that they would turn out to be useless. He should’ve remembered that. It was the fever, he couldn’t think. “What about you?” he managed to ask.
The voice dropped and grew tight. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine.” A short, painful chuckle. “Just peachy.”
Even sick as a dog, Sheppard read Rodney like a book. “McKay, I’m not dying.” He coughed from the effort. There were more murmurs somewhere further away. Words like “sent Elizabeth an update” and “Ronon, lay down” and “we’re still under quarantine procedures.”
“Then stop looking like it.”
Sheppard grinned, feeling his dry lips crack. “Make me.”
“Stupid ass,” Rodney murmured affectionately. And then things went dark again.
OoO
There were short bouts of lucidity, where Sheppard knew Rodney was there, and Carson and nurses. There were sponge baths to lower his temperature and make him shiver. He said things like “I’m never letting another kid near you again” and “six point three minutes wasn’t long enough for this” and “quit shaking” because there were times when it was dark, dim, and he was hot, only to feel Rodney near, holding him, and trembling.
“I can’t help it,” Rodney complained. “It’s the moon shakes. The main symptom is uncontrollable tremors at night!”
“Ro…ron…non, Tey…la?” he chattered, because he was freezing.
“They’re fine,” Rodney replied huskily. He pulled away and Sheppard groaned, intensely feeling the absence of Rodney’s warmth. “Damn it, get those blankets over here! What’s taking so long - it’s not like you have to hike back to Earth!”
Sheppard gasped in sheer relief when Rodney returned, bringing his burning heat back with him. He curled against Rodney’s chest and he might have made soft whimpering sounds that he’d hopefully never remember. But it felt so damn good. Then he let the dark claim him, again.
OoO
When he next woke up, Rodney was sleeping in a bed nearby, and Sheppard could see they were in an isolation room back on Atlantis. Ronon and Teyla slept in beds on his other side. He had an IV, an oxygen cannula drying out his nose, and he felt like he’d been run over by a truck, and then the truck had whistled for all its buddies to come join the party.
The effort required in taking all of that in wore him out, and he drifted back into the soft lethargy of recovering sleep.
The next time he woke, Rodney was sitting next to him and Ronon and Teyla were gone.
“McKay?”
Rodney jerked, looking up from his laptop. “You’re awake.”
Sheppard coughed, cleared his throat, and the pain almost made him scream in a very unmanly way. It felt like something had shredded his throat. “I think so,” he rasped.
“You think so?”
Rodney’s voice was tired. Kind of matched his face, Sheppard thought drowsily.
“Well, things were a little hazy for a while.”
“Carson!” Rodney shouted, and Sheppard winced. Add one killer headache to the list of painful things. “Get in here!”
That earned Sheppard about ten minutes of being poked and prodded. He learned that everyone was recovering. The Athosians were getting inoculated for this particular brand of chicken pox, just to be safe, as was the rest of the expedition.
“You had a bad case, Colonel. You got blisters in your mouth and throat, and just about every place possible. It was a godsend you were too delirious to know what was going on. You’d have been out of your mind trying to scratch in all the places, and driven mad by the places you couldn’t reach.”
He was given Motrin and Tylenol, another bolus of saline solution, a glass of water and told, “When you can keep that down, and one more after, we’ll take out the IV.”
After that, they were left alone. Rodney was still wearing scrubs and when Sheppard asked why, he said, “I’m still shaking at night. It’s disturbing, really. Like having all your muscles spasm uncontrollably at the same time.”
“Really?” Sheppard had slept through that - at least, he thought so. He seemed to remember Rodney’s trembling making the bed shake. But Rodney wouldn’t have been in Sheppard’s bed. He must’ve been dreaming some weird stuff during the spikes in his fever. “We didn’t --” he started to ask, but then couldn’t figure out how to say it without causing an awkward, uncomfortable silence. And anyway, his throat hurt like hell.
Rodney narrowed his eyes at Sheppard. “Didn’t what?”
“Umm --”
“Die?” Rodney tried hopefully.
“No.” Sheppard looked at him. “It’s hard to miss the fact that you’re breathing, and talking.”
“True, good point; didn’t infect anyone else?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t remember,” Sheppard settled for saying.
Rodney looked uncomfortable. He seemed to be about to say something, but then he pulled his laptop off the floor and resettled himself. He started tapping. Sheppard’s eyes kept drifting shut, then he’d force them open, only to find them shutting again. During one of those times where he forced his eyes back open, he found Rodney staring at him, an odd, soft expression on his face.
Sheppard heard a memory of soft whimpers and felt a hard chest and remembered gentle murmurs telling him he was going to be all right. Rodney became aware of Sheppard’s scrutiny and glared. “Would you stop that? It’s creeping me out.”
“I’m creeping myself out,” he admitted. What the hell -- that must’ve been some fever. Fortunately, he couldn’t stay awake any longer to obsess over it. Sleep stole Sheppard back into the dark, and the next time he woke up, Rodney was gone.
OoO
So, that was how it happened. The people of ‘003 were so relieved to get cases of Varivax that they were more than happy to let Rodney return and study the device for as long as he wanted. Sheppard watched him, and this time he didn’t leave him alone, not even for six point three minutes. But it turns out that MX8-003 wasn’t a goldmine after all, because the technology attached to the DHD was tapped into an extensive amount of geothermal energy below. There hadn’t been just one device; it was actually part of a bigger structure, the majority of which was underground. The atmospheric conditions that kept the skies free of ships and sensor scans were controlled by, and tied into, the routing-storage system. As they say, “you can’t have one without the other” so Rodney typed up his report, filed the schematics he was able to produce, and sulked for days.
Sheppard had recovered from his bout of chicken pox complicated with moon shakes, and tried to piece together fevered dreams with reality. He found himself staring at Rodney a lot.
Ronon and Teyla had also recovered. They sure didn’t look like they’d tried to punch each other during their enforced time in isolation, and by the way, the sly looks were starting to grate.
Ronon asked Sheppard, “Did you see Gillian? He made it, full recovery.”
“Great,” Sheppard said.
He debated sending the kid a Gameboy and a lifetime supply of batteries. And when he thought about why, he grinned. Rodney looked over at him, across the briefing room table where they’d just been given their next mission and asked, “What are you smiling about? It’s a jungle! We’re going to spend five days hiking through forest that is bug-infested, predator-filled, and probably --”
“Full of germs,” Sheppard supplied.
Teyla scooted from her seat and suggested mildly, “Maybe the high fever has damaged John’s mind.”
Ronon shrugged, checked the charge on his blaster and said, “I’ll get some hunting in at least.”
Elizabeth considered him. “John, are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”
“Yeah. I’m good.” He kept smiling. Because he was pretty sure he remembered some things right, and one of them was the feel of Rodney’s body pressed against his. Inadvertently, Sheppard had stumbled on to something; when he’d been sick -- out-of-his-mind sick -- Rodney, the sneaky little bastard, had let down his guard and shown Sheppard something that, on an ordinary day, he wouldn’t have ever let slip.
And Sheppard wanted to see what it took to make that rise to the surface again. Germs, predators - okay, not bugs, curiosity only went so far - and M5X-991 was a veritable playground of possibility.
They stood, and filed from the room, talking about weapons, extra rations and beefing up the med kit. Ronon and Teyla split in opposite directions to get ready. Rodney paused next to Sheppard and stared at him suspiciously. “You’re acting funny.”
“Define funny,” Sheppard returned.
“Do you remember anything from when you were --”
“It’s all really…vague.” He made a fuzzy, reassuring face.
They stared. Rodney hesitated. They both knew he was lying. “Well, I guess I should get ready, then.”
“Yeah. You should.”
“Are you sure --”
“Positive.”
Shaking his head and looking entirely unconvinced and a little anxious, Rodney left. Sheppard headed towards the transporter and remembered the sound of soft whimpering and the feel of a hard, solid chest that had made him feel safe, protected and warm.
Maybe ‘003 was a goldmine after all, just not the one Sheppard had expected.
Author: Kodiak bear
Cat: John/Rodney, preslash
Rating: T
Word count: 5,800+
Summary: The things you least expect to find can often be the best.
AN: This grew from a scenario in my yet-unfinished five things fic for this challenge that needed a rewrite. This became its own story with a different feel, so I let it have its day. Hope you like! Also, big thanks to my betas blade_girl and friendshipper, you were a tremendous help, both on this and the fic that spawned this one. Hopefully I will get it done before it makes me crazy. All remaining mistakes are mine.
ETA Thanks to mecurtin for pointing out a plot hole; it's fixed, and I appreciate your help!
An Unexpected Goldmine
There was a chance that MX8-003 might become a goldmine. Not a “three ZPM’s” goldmine, but more of the “anti-Wraith device” kind. It happened like this: on another world, while they were helping survivors of a recent, violent culling -- is there any other kind? -- Teyla was told about a world accepting refugees. A world where the atmosphere was impenetrable by ships - and thus, Wraith - and a world where the DHD had a device that re-routed all incoming biosignatures to a data cube, if they just so happened to be Wraith.
Poor Wraith.
Yeah, okay, not really. Still, Sheppard figured, if they could order one of those devices “to go” that’d be one more step for Atlantean-kind.
So, they agreed to the restrictions imposed by the government of ‘003, and there were more than a few; most of them he was uncomfortable agreeing to. Like the one where he couldn’t bring his P90, or his 9 mm, or his knife. And Teyla had to leave her P90 and her 9 mm, and her knife, and her sticks. Ronon left his blaster, his knives - except the hidden one in his hair, and in his boot, and possibly one in his mid-section that Sheppard didn’t want to spend too much time contemplating -- Rodney just left his pistol, which wasn’t a huge loss anyway, because Sheppard knew he was going to hover over the DHD and the anti-Wraith device and have little scientist kittens.
If they were attacked, he’d probably cover the anti-Wraith device with his body and scream “Don’t let it get hurt!”
Sheppard had sent Ronon and Teyla to scout the ‘003 village/town/city. It was a little large to be a village, and a little too sprawling to be a town, but just not quite city-size yet. But, as Sheppard looked at the fresh line of refugee tents in the distance, he thought city-status wasn’t far off, not at the rate these people were taking on the lost survivors of the Pegasus Galaxy.
And he kind of thought, too, that it was only a matter of time before the Wraith came knocking on their door. At some point, they’d get their hands on someone that would tell them the address, just like someone had told Teyla; then, all that the Wraith needed to do was park above the planet and fire. Problem solved. No more safe hidey-holes for the little mice to run to. Screwy atmospheric properties weren’t going to stop that kind of weaponry. Sensor scans, sure, but focused beams of energetic atoms geared towards blowing up whatever it touched - no.
Sheppard turned his back on the tents. “Any progress, McKay?”
Rodney leaned back on his haunches and did his best not to snap. Sheppard could tell Rodney was one question away from a temporary psychotic episode. “No, Sheppard, and for future reference,” Rodney flipped his watch with exaggerated motion, “at 1310, 1315 and 1320 the answer will most likely be the same.”
“What about 1325?”
“1330 and 1340 look promising.”
Sheppard slid off the rock perch that was starting to hurt his butt anyway. “Lunch time!”
“What? No!” Rodney didn’t move to get up. “I’ve got a very limited window, per this poorly negotiated agreement, and I am not going to waste it eating Mac & Cheese.”
“I’m not bringing a doggie bag back.” Sheppard knew Rodney liked alien cuisine. He surprised Sheppard on a regular basis by how paranoid he could be about germs, and alien viruses, and yet, he could dip a finger in a stew pot and taste with no more consideration than he gave in drinking his morning coffee. So, the big spread Kamsu had promised for the visiting team would be a culinary adventure for Rodney. If he’d just learn to take a break.
And maybe Sheppard would bring Rodney a doggie bag, if he stayed stubborn, and didn’t stop working. But he wasn’t gonna admit it.
“What part of ‘very limited window’ did you not understand?”
Sheppard stood over Rodney and peered around him, looking at the laptop scrolling meaningless information. “Last chance,” he offered magnanimously.
Rodney stared, hard. Then he turned away from Sheppard, and stuck his hands inside the device.
“All right. Suit yourself, grumpy.” The diplomatic building wasn’t far from the ‘gate; still, he didn’t like leaving Rodney alone on an alien planet. He debated calling Ronon and Teyla back, but he wasn’t going far, and he wouldn’t be gone long. And maybe he should work on this possessive, worrying obsession thing he was developing. “I’ll be back in ten; keep your radio tuned to channel 1. Anything blinks, you call.”
“Sure, whatever,” replied Rodney, dismissive and completely not reassuring. Right. Rodney noticing anything other than what was coming out of that device -
“Make that five,” Sheppard amended. And he could trim it to four if he ran.
OoO
That’s why when he arrived back in six point three minutes - there’d been a line at the buffet - carrying a fairly large container with lunch for two, he was pissed at himself. Rodney was standing by the rock Sheppard had left only minutes ago, looking irritated and worried, and on the ground by his side was a small child, a boy, maybe eight or so years old.
Sheppard sprinted the remaining distance. He shoved the heavy clay container with their food against Rodney’s chest, and dropped next to the boy. “What’d you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything! As soon as you left, he climbed out from behind that tree --” at Sheppard’s skeptical look, he glowered, “contrary to popular opinion, I’m completely aware of approaching danger…most of the time.”
“I told you to call if anything so much as blinked. Kids blink.” Sheppard didn’t see anything obvious wrong with the kid.
Rodney gritted his teeth so hard Sheppard imagined it might be time for him to see a dentist about that. “I’m sure he did. And then he stood over my shoulder, breathed down my neck and started in with the “what’s that, Dr. McKay” and “how does it work, Dr. McKay” and all I did was tell him that this wasn’t Sesame Street and he should go play on a cliff. It’s not like I was in any danger, and the next thing I know, he’s falling over!”
“Well, he’s breathing,” Sheppard said. “So at least you didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t touch him!”
“Come on,” Sheppard gathered the boy in his arms, “let’s get him to whatever passes for a hospital around here.”
Rodney looked longingly at the device. Sheppard paused ten steps away. The boy was surprisingly heavy and taking more effort to hold than he had expected. “Later, McKay! I’m sure they’ll give you extra time for being nice and helping one of their kids. Brownie points are always a good thing. Now, let’s go. I’m not leaving you here alone and I don’t know how long this is gonna take.”
When they got to the diplomatic building, Sheppard walked in through the door that Rodney held open. Ronon and Teyla were standing in the buffet line, and they turned when Sheppard called, “We need help here!”
Teyla’s eyes narrowed. Ronon shook his head, not surprised at all.
Kamsu left his chair where he’d been sitting. “Come with me,” he ordered, quickly grasping the situation and sweeping past Sheppard and Rodney.
Sheppard followed, and he felt the reassuring presence of Teyla and Ronon as they joined Rodney. Sheppard never felt restful when his team was split, even on a planet as seemingly harmless as this one. In fact, it was the harmless ones that scared him the most.
By the time Kamsu led them through another door into another building, Sheppard was struggling with the deadweight. ‘003’s gravity was .20 heavier than Earth normal. He wanted to say he was getting too old for this shit, but Jesus, he was only 39.
“Put him here, Colonel,” Kamsu instructed.
An open bed. Sheppard settled the kid as gently as he could, pulling his arm out from under the kid’s neck. His hand came back wet, and Sheppard realized at some point the kid had drooled. With a grimace, he wiped his hand absently on his pants.
An older man, bald and squat, like all the native ‘003 people, ran over, watching every move Sheppard made. “What is this?” he demanded.
“He collapsed by the ‘gate. Near as I can tell, he’s breathing fine.” Sheppard looked at Rodney. “Did he say that anything hurt? Or that he didn’t feel good before he collapsed?”
The doctor’s sharp eyes fixed on Rodney. “You were with him?”
“Yes.” Rodney looked slightly defensive and a little like the proverbial deer in the headlights. “And Sheppard, right after. I didn’t even touch him! I don’t like kids.”
Kamsu and the doctor shared a long look. “We do not doubt you, Dr. McKay. This is Dr. Dagda; he is head of our Immigration and Health department.”
“Colonel, should I ask Carson to come?” Teyla looked at the boy and then to Sheppard.
“No!” Dagda’s emphatic reply caused Sheppard’s wariness to shift from slumbering to awake and ready. The ‘003 doctor nodded at Kamsu before turning back to the boy. Sheppard got it. Their part in the drama was done. Fine, he could take a hint. “Let’s go, gang."
He went to lead his team from the building, when Kamsu stepped in front of him and said, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Colonel.”
“What do you mean, you can’t let us?” Rodney demanded, with all the subtlety of a semi.
Sheppard ignored Rodney’s outburst, noted Ronon spinning up for a fight and Teyla’s quiet acceptance that if Sheppard said the word, she’d turn into the lethal machine she could be. He couldn’t quite keep a poker face, because this was getting ridiculous. Why was this always happening to his team? Get it together, John. Conflict-resolution. “And why would that be?” he asked. “McKay didn’t do anything.”
“As I said, I’m well aware this was not your doctor’s doing. In fact, believe me when I say, this is for your safety.” Kamsu waved at the air behind him, and Sheppard watched as a group of four guards melted into the room. They had weapons. And they were pretty big for ‘003 natives.
Ronon stood taller. “We’re leaving,” he stated flatly.
Dagda left the boy’s side and joined Kamsu. “It is what we feared. I found a small cluster of lesions on his torso.”
Kamsu tilted his head at Sheppard’s team, all of whom were poised for fight and then flight. “Please, explain to Colonel Sheppard and his people.”
“Gillian is a recent arrival. Every refugee must have a series of inoculations if they plan on staying for longer than 72 hours. He hasn’t received his yet; I talked to his mother just this morning telling her that they had one more day to comply. There is a disease native to our world that has a mortality rate of 85%.” Dagda’s face was somber. “It took our people centuries to create a vaccine; outbreak after outbreak did what the Wraith couldn’t do. Our people dwindled. When we finally created a viable vaccine, it became mandatory for every citizen, and any refugee wishing to remain on our world.”
“Yes, well you see, we’re not planning on staying over 72 hours,” Rodney said reasonably. If not with a little panic, because 85% fatal, and alien inoculations, these were all things that would worry Rodney.
“You do not understand, Dr. McKay.” Kamsu watched Sheppard.
“He’s got the virus,” Sheppard concluded.
Teyla added breathlessly, “We’ve been exposed.”
“It is not hopeless. There is a chance the boy will live, now that I’ve given him the vaccine,” Dagda said. “We’ve found that if it is given in the first 24 hours of symptoms, the odds of survival are increased dramatically. We discovered antibodies in the few that did survive. Through them, we were able to pinpoint the source as another disease, one that is far less damaging. For reasons we don’t understand, the moon shakes only infect approximately 20% of our people. We believe it has something to do with transmission, as those infected were all members of compact groups where repeated exposure was possible.”
“Moon shakes?” Rodney repeated. “It sounds like something you’d get at Dairy Queen.”
“McKay,” Sheppard said sharply, nudging him with an elbow. It meant “knock it off” and Rodney got it. Sheppard focused again on Kamsu and Dagda. “Okay, so, 20% of your people caught this other disease, and surviving it left them protected from the more lethal one. So, you give everyone the moon shakes? That’s like smallpox on our world. People that caught cowpox were immune to the more lethal, big brother virus. Gotcha. But what does that have to do with us?”
“Oh, no,” Rodney said. “They’re going to give us this moon shakes virus; why couldn’t that be ice cream?”
“No, they’re not.” Sheppard’s wariness mutated to resolve. He wasn’t letting anyone inject a live alien virus into his team’s bodies.
Dagda shook his head at Sheppard. “Colonel, surely you cannot be this unreasonable and before you say more, let me explain that of those 15% that survived, only 5% were individuals that had reached maturity. Adults are far less likely to survive.”
“Give us samples to take back to our people. Our doctors are good, they can figure this out.” Sheppard had a lot of faith in Carson, especially after he pulled Sheppard back from the brink of bug-hood. “You don’t know how our bodies will react to medication designed for your people. We’re not from around here.”
“So, you will not willingly submit to the inoculations?” Kamsu cut through the crap and succinctly called the situation. Sheppard really wished he hadn’t done that. Kamsu stared at Sheppard, his face an impenetrable mask.
Sheppard opened his mouth, thinking diplomacy, stall, but Ronon got there first and screwed that all up. “No.”
He saw the guards drawing their weapons in his peripheral vision. Aw, damn, why do things always have to degenerate to shooting? He reached for his chest, only to remember, sonofabitch, no weapons, and then he turned in time to see Ronon reaching for the knife he wasn’t supposed to have. “Ronon!” he barked, trying to head him off. “Stand down --” He didn’t want bloodshed if it could be avoided.
“Colonel!”
Teyla’s warning was too late. A nimbus of pain struck his entire body all at once. Every muscle in his body tightened, then released, and he crumpled to the floor with a final thought of this sucks.
OoO
Waking up after being stunned was one of those things that you go through the first time, learn what it’s all about, and think God, I hate this, and you hope it never happens again. Each time it did, you got just a little more leery of it, dreading the next time.
When he’d gathered enough of his wits about him, Sheppard opened his eyes to slits, just enough to survey the situation without giving away that he was awake.
“Finally.” Rodney pulled Sheppard’s eyelids a little more open, and peered at him like he was a science experiment. “You’ve been out longer than any of us, including Teyla, and you’re almost twice as big as she is.” He let Sheppard’s eyelids go and pulled his head back. “We’re screwed, by the way, just in case you were wondering.”
Groaning, Sheppard pushed himself up, looking around the room. “No, I kinda figured we were.” It looked like a hospital room. Four beds. Ronon and Teyla were sitting on one playing cards. Sheppard noticed the IV line running into his arm and almost scrabbled from the bed in panic. “What the hell --” he started to yank at it, when Rodney jerked from the chair.
“No, no! Leave it alone!”
“Are you nuts? We have no idea what they’re sticking inside of us.”
The door opened and the muffled, familiar burr of an accent stalled Sheppard’s hands. “They would be me, Colonel.” Carson’s eyes crinkled behind the see-through plastic of a hazmat hood, smiling reassuringly. “After the confrontation, they contacted Elizabeth via the Alpha site and explained the situation.”
“Did they --”
“Give you the vaccine?” Carson nodded. “Aye, they did. Before we got here. It’s the only reason I was allowed access to you. I’ve sent samples back home for tests. With conditions, they are going to allow me to work with their doctors in seeing you lot through this.”
“Are we contagious?”
“For the first 48 hours. It’s transmitted by bodily fluids; they don’t think it’s airborne, but in order to get access to you without taking the vaccine, I had to agree to wear protective gear.” Carson wore only a hazmat helmet instead of a full suit, and he pulled a pair of non-latex gloves from the pocket of his white lab coat. Sheppard couldn’t see any signs of his supplies. Must be in another room, he mused. “The virus you were injected with should begin to present itself within the next 12 hours.”
Rodney, Ronon and Teyla weren’t paying all that much attention, so Sheppard figured they’d already gotten the briefing. Crap, how long had he been out for?
Carson pulled his pen light from his pocket and ordered, “Hold still.”
“Why was I out so long?” he asked, trying not to wince too much as the light flashed across his pupils.
Rodney and Carson shared a frown.
“What?” Sheppard pressed.
“You remember I said it was passed by bodily fluids?” Carson flicked the pen light off and dropped it into his pocket. Sheppard nodded warily. “You were the one that carried the boy. Their doctor saw you come in contact with the child’s saliva. The virus can be absorbed through the dermal layer.”
“So I’m sick?”
“Not yet,” Rodney said brusquely. “But give yourself time.”
Carson shot a dirty look at Rodney before sitting on Sheppard’s bed. “Think of it this way - when a person at high risk for rabies gets preexposure treatment, it consists of three vaccinations. But, after a person is exposed to rabies, they have to go through a series of six doses.”
Sheppard settled further into his pillow, disgruntled. “So, because I was the only one with direct exposure, I got a higher dose. And that kept me under longer?”
“No, they kept you sedated longer.” Carson stood and pulled the almost empty bag of saline solution off the hook above Sheppard’s head. “You needed to receive four doses within two hours, and they knew you’d be less than cooperative. By the time I arrived, they’d allowed the others to wake, but you’d been given more sedative. Dr. Dagda tells me your odds of developing the more dangerous virus are around 50%, even with the higher dosage.” Carson depressed the plastic clip, pinching shut the IV line, and unhooked the bag. “The good news is that with the inoculation, if you do come down with the more lethal variety, your odds of survival are around 80% now as opposed to 15%. The two viruses will interact, and the hope is that the viral load of the less dangerous of the two will hopefully overwhelm the other. But we’re still running tests, so I’ll know more in a few hours.” Carson finished putting a new bolus of saline solution on the hook and plugged in Sheppard’s tubing, opening the clip and checking the drip before moving away, satisfied.
“They sedated us?” Rodney stared at Carson. “You didn’t tell me they sedated us.”
Ronon tossed his cards on the bed. “Because you would’ve whined, McKay, and demanded that Doc wake Sheppard up.”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Yes, Rodney, you would,” argued Teyla. “John needs his rest.”
John couldn’t believe this was happening. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone,” he groaned.
“That isn’t fair; this isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask that kid to bug me.” Rodney paced, dragging his IV pole with him.
“Next time I say it’s time for a break, you’re coming with me, whether you like it or not.”
Rodney stopped pacing. “No, I’m not. You can’t make me.”
“I can,” Ronon said, enigmatically.
“Okay, yes, maybe you can, but I can make you regret it.”
Teyla gathered the discarded cards. She glanced sharply at all of them. “I believe Elizabeth can make you regret it far more, Rodney.” She sighed and stretched her back. “She has allowed you to make excuses for not taking your turn on the waste management team. I would not give her reason to reconsider.”
Sheppard had seen his team during some low moments; times when a mission had failed, or the price of success had been too high, so he recognized the slumped shoulders, the irritated expressions. They were worried, annoyed, bored. It was probably the bored that scared Sheppard the most. When his team was bored they did things that tended to end badly. Like play with devices that were still labeled “unknown,” and beat each other up in the gym.
“Doc, is there any way you can bring our computers?” Imminent disaster loomed if they didn’t get something to occupy themselves with. Ronon didn’t do grumpy well, and neither did Rodney. And Teyla and Ronon? Sheppard still remembered his almost-broken nose. True, they’d been pumped on the enzyme, but Teyla seemed to enjoy getting into fights with Ronon, and Sheppard -- and his nose -- preferred to avoid that.
Carson beamed. “Already done. I’ll be right back.”
True to his word, Carson arrived with a medium sized case full of computers, a few books and a puzzle. Sheppard blanched at the sheer amount of time-occupying things, almost scared to ask, “Just how long are we gonna be here?”
Carson’s answer of, “Up to a week,” almost made a grown man cry. That’d be Rodney, by the way, because he complained about the destruction of the city if left in Radek’s hands, and how behind he’d be in his work, and that was when Carson handed out notes from Elizabeth.
Homework. They’d been given homework.
Teyla was told to revise three trade agreements, so long as she felt well enough. Ronon was told his recent suggestions for training were too dangerous, and to revise them with methods that did not involve bodily harm. Rodney was told to keep working on all projects he could access via his computer and that Carson would pass on any information, or get anything he needed, at which point Rodney had grumbled, “Atlantis,” and Carson had said, “Sure, but it’ll take about a week.”
“Ha ha,” retorted Rodney sourly.
And Sheppard had four overdue mission reports and a suggestion to get started on the fifth, seeing how they were living it. Her perky, “No better time than when it’s fresh in your mind!” written with a small, heart-shaped smiley next to it did nothing to ease his misery.
“I’m not feeling so good,” he complained.
Carson studied him suspiciously. “Is this another bout of report-itis, or is this legitimate, Colonel?”
Sadly, it was legit. Sheppard hadn’t really figured out what was wrong, but he felt achy and restless and off. When he told Carson he just wanted to take a nap, and then he’d start on his reports, the doc was back by his side, another pair of gloves on, and taking his temperature.
“That’s it then, it’s started for you, I’m afraid.”
Rodney had settled on his bed, his laptop scrolling yet more meaningless information. He paused in his typing. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Fever - it’s the first symptom. I might as well check the rest of you, but with the larger dose and direct exposure, it was expected that John would show signs first.” He turned a concerned eye back to Sheppard. “Go ahead and take that nap, Colonel. You’ll be better off resting. Looks like the reports will have to wait.”
Oh, goody. Sheppard was cranky. He felt like the executioner had granted a temporary stay, but left him strapped to the chair. He also felt hot and prickly. He must’ve dozed because things got distant. He heard people talking, but he was too tired to care. His skin started to itch, and he tried to scratch only to be told gently, “No, Sheppard, stop it.”
“McKay?”
“Don’t scratch; turns out the ‘lethal virus’ is just a very mean, slightly mutated version of the chicken pox. Carson is working on adapting the varicella vaccine for these people. The strain is just different enough that it won’t protect anyone exposed, not yet, at least. Teyla and Ronon both have a good bout of the moon shakes, but they’re going to be fine.”
Sheppard’s mouth was so dry you could probably desiccate flesh in there. His hair was sticky and his scalp itched, almost as much as the rest of him did. His eyes were still shut. “Then why’m sick?”
“Because, you idiot, you never had the chicken pox as a kid; and remember, standard Varivax won’t work, the inoculation you got on Earth is useless. They also dumped another virus into your system. The combination is kicking your ass.”
“Oh.” He knew that. He hadn’t had any siblings to expose him, and at the rate his family had hopped from base to base, he’d always managed to slip through the net of exposure when he was little. They’d made him get a whole round of new immunizations before leaving for Atlantis, but it figured that they would turn out to be useless. He should’ve remembered that. It was the fever, he couldn’t think. “What about you?” he managed to ask.
The voice dropped and grew tight. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine.” A short, painful chuckle. “Just peachy.”
Even sick as a dog, Sheppard read Rodney like a book. “McKay, I’m not dying.” He coughed from the effort. There were more murmurs somewhere further away. Words like “sent Elizabeth an update” and “Ronon, lay down” and “we’re still under quarantine procedures.”
“Then stop looking like it.”
Sheppard grinned, feeling his dry lips crack. “Make me.”
“Stupid ass,” Rodney murmured affectionately. And then things went dark again.
OoO
There were short bouts of lucidity, where Sheppard knew Rodney was there, and Carson and nurses. There were sponge baths to lower his temperature and make him shiver. He said things like “I’m never letting another kid near you again” and “six point three minutes wasn’t long enough for this” and “quit shaking” because there were times when it was dark, dim, and he was hot, only to feel Rodney near, holding him, and trembling.
“I can’t help it,” Rodney complained. “It’s the moon shakes. The main symptom is uncontrollable tremors at night!”
“Ro…ron…non, Tey…la?” he chattered, because he was freezing.
“They’re fine,” Rodney replied huskily. He pulled away and Sheppard groaned, intensely feeling the absence of Rodney’s warmth. “Damn it, get those blankets over here! What’s taking so long - it’s not like you have to hike back to Earth!”
Sheppard gasped in sheer relief when Rodney returned, bringing his burning heat back with him. He curled against Rodney’s chest and he might have made soft whimpering sounds that he’d hopefully never remember. But it felt so damn good. Then he let the dark claim him, again.
OoO
When he next woke up, Rodney was sleeping in a bed nearby, and Sheppard could see they were in an isolation room back on Atlantis. Ronon and Teyla slept in beds on his other side. He had an IV, an oxygen cannula drying out his nose, and he felt like he’d been run over by a truck, and then the truck had whistled for all its buddies to come join the party.
The effort required in taking all of that in wore him out, and he drifted back into the soft lethargy of recovering sleep.
The next time he woke, Rodney was sitting next to him and Ronon and Teyla were gone.
“McKay?”
Rodney jerked, looking up from his laptop. “You’re awake.”
Sheppard coughed, cleared his throat, and the pain almost made him scream in a very unmanly way. It felt like something had shredded his throat. “I think so,” he rasped.
“You think so?”
Rodney’s voice was tired. Kind of matched his face, Sheppard thought drowsily.
“Well, things were a little hazy for a while.”
“Carson!” Rodney shouted, and Sheppard winced. Add one killer headache to the list of painful things. “Get in here!”
That earned Sheppard about ten minutes of being poked and prodded. He learned that everyone was recovering. The Athosians were getting inoculated for this particular brand of chicken pox, just to be safe, as was the rest of the expedition.
“You had a bad case, Colonel. You got blisters in your mouth and throat, and just about every place possible. It was a godsend you were too delirious to know what was going on. You’d have been out of your mind trying to scratch in all the places, and driven mad by the places you couldn’t reach.”
He was given Motrin and Tylenol, another bolus of saline solution, a glass of water and told, “When you can keep that down, and one more after, we’ll take out the IV.”
After that, they were left alone. Rodney was still wearing scrubs and when Sheppard asked why, he said, “I’m still shaking at night. It’s disturbing, really. Like having all your muscles spasm uncontrollably at the same time.”
“Really?” Sheppard had slept through that - at least, he thought so. He seemed to remember Rodney’s trembling making the bed shake. But Rodney wouldn’t have been in Sheppard’s bed. He must’ve been dreaming some weird stuff during the spikes in his fever. “We didn’t --” he started to ask, but then couldn’t figure out how to say it without causing an awkward, uncomfortable silence. And anyway, his throat hurt like hell.
Rodney narrowed his eyes at Sheppard. “Didn’t what?”
“Umm --”
“Die?” Rodney tried hopefully.
“No.” Sheppard looked at him. “It’s hard to miss the fact that you’re breathing, and talking.”
“True, good point; didn’t infect anyone else?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
“I don’t remember,” Sheppard settled for saying.
Rodney looked uncomfortable. He seemed to be about to say something, but then he pulled his laptop off the floor and resettled himself. He started tapping. Sheppard’s eyes kept drifting shut, then he’d force them open, only to find them shutting again. During one of those times where he forced his eyes back open, he found Rodney staring at him, an odd, soft expression on his face.
Sheppard heard a memory of soft whimpers and felt a hard chest and remembered gentle murmurs telling him he was going to be all right. Rodney became aware of Sheppard’s scrutiny and glared. “Would you stop that? It’s creeping me out.”
“I’m creeping myself out,” he admitted. What the hell -- that must’ve been some fever. Fortunately, he couldn’t stay awake any longer to obsess over it. Sleep stole Sheppard back into the dark, and the next time he woke up, Rodney was gone.
OoO
So, that was how it happened. The people of ‘003 were so relieved to get cases of Varivax that they were more than happy to let Rodney return and study the device for as long as he wanted. Sheppard watched him, and this time he didn’t leave him alone, not even for six point three minutes. But it turns out that MX8-003 wasn’t a goldmine after all, because the technology attached to the DHD was tapped into an extensive amount of geothermal energy below. There hadn’t been just one device; it was actually part of a bigger structure, the majority of which was underground. The atmospheric conditions that kept the skies free of ships and sensor scans were controlled by, and tied into, the routing-storage system. As they say, “you can’t have one without the other” so Rodney typed up his report, filed the schematics he was able to produce, and sulked for days.
Sheppard had recovered from his bout of chicken pox complicated with moon shakes, and tried to piece together fevered dreams with reality. He found himself staring at Rodney a lot.
Ronon and Teyla had also recovered. They sure didn’t look like they’d tried to punch each other during their enforced time in isolation, and by the way, the sly looks were starting to grate.
Ronon asked Sheppard, “Did you see Gillian? He made it, full recovery.”
“Great,” Sheppard said.
He debated sending the kid a Gameboy and a lifetime supply of batteries. And when he thought about why, he grinned. Rodney looked over at him, across the briefing room table where they’d just been given their next mission and asked, “What are you smiling about? It’s a jungle! We’re going to spend five days hiking through forest that is bug-infested, predator-filled, and probably --”
“Full of germs,” Sheppard supplied.
Teyla scooted from her seat and suggested mildly, “Maybe the high fever has damaged John’s mind.”
Ronon shrugged, checked the charge on his blaster and said, “I’ll get some hunting in at least.”
Elizabeth considered him. “John, are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”
“Yeah. I’m good.” He kept smiling. Because he was pretty sure he remembered some things right, and one of them was the feel of Rodney’s body pressed against his. Inadvertently, Sheppard had stumbled on to something; when he’d been sick -- out-of-his-mind sick -- Rodney, the sneaky little bastard, had let down his guard and shown Sheppard something that, on an ordinary day, he wouldn’t have ever let slip.
And Sheppard wanted to see what it took to make that rise to the surface again. Germs, predators - okay, not bugs, curiosity only went so far - and M5X-991 was a veritable playground of possibility.
They stood, and filed from the room, talking about weapons, extra rations and beefing up the med kit. Ronon and Teyla split in opposite directions to get ready. Rodney paused next to Sheppard and stared at him suspiciously. “You’re acting funny.”
“Define funny,” Sheppard returned.
“Do you remember anything from when you were --”
“It’s all really…vague.” He made a fuzzy, reassuring face.
They stared. Rodney hesitated. They both knew he was lying. “Well, I guess I should get ready, then.”
“Yeah. You should.”
“Are you sure --”
“Positive.”
Shaking his head and looking entirely unconvinced and a little anxious, Rodney left. Sheppard headed towards the transporter and remembered the sound of soft whimpering and the feel of a hard, solid chest that had made him feel safe, protected and warm.
Maybe ‘003 was a goldmine after all, just not the one Sheppard had expected.