Ficathon story - "Reset" for Titan5
Title: Reset
Author: Karri
For: Titan 5
Rating: PG (maybe even G, it’s pretty tame)
Prompts: Shep whump, ATA gene, headache
Timeline: mid-3rd season, shortly after Echoes.
Summary: Something in Atlantis is having a negative affect on John.
A/N: *pats poor Titan5 for getting stuck with an fairly unknown, untested author writing in her first ficathon* I hope you’re not disappointed. :) Meanwhile...*does a happy dance for finishing my first ficathon story and even squeaking it in within the deadline!*
*huge hugs and thanks to padawan_aneiki for her speedy beta job!*
John Sheppard smiled tolerantly as he felt Teyla’s eyes studying him from behind. She (really, everyone, though they’d tried not to show it overtly) had been worried about him since the expedition had returned to Atlantis. But after the solar flare, the sort of scrutiny he was currently receiving from Teyla had diminished in frequency, with everyone sufficiently occupied with his or her own recovery to willingly attribute his previous signs of ill health to the whale-fish. A few, though, had in the week since had begun again to notice the signs of a headache that he never seemed fully able to shake and the slowly darkening smudges of weariness under his eyes.
As the gate swooshed to life, John glanced over his shoulder and caught Teyla’s eyes long enough to confirm that she’d seen what he already knew. Today, he was good. His 72-hour R&R (a diplomatic mission to New Athos to reaffirm friendly relations with the Athosians, actually, though neither John nor Teyla had really thought it necessary) had done the trick, as was no doubt Elizabeth’s intention upon recommending John undergo the task. He was leaving Athos relaxed, well-rested, and head-ache free. Whistling contentedly, John stepped into the ‘gate.
Too bad I didn’t return to Atlantis relaxed and pain free, he grumbled to himself as he stepped through into the gateroom and his headache returned with a wallop hard enough to send John staggering backward a couple steps, where he collided with Teyla as she stepped through the gate behind him.
“John…” she started to ask, concern deeply evident in her tone as she reached out to steady him.
“I’m okay,” he blurted, before she could finish her question. Well, I’m well-rested anyway, he silently amended, which is still better off than I was 72 hours ago. Steadying himself, John waved her off with a crooked smile. “Just tripped over my shoelaces,” he added lamely when she tilted her head with obvious apprehension. Teyla still looked unconvinced as he strode away, but John pretended not to notice.
I just need a little food and a couple Tylenol, he told himself as he smiled up at Elizabeth, who peered down at him with worried eyes. When she did not wave him up, John headed off to stow his gear before hitting the cafeteria.
Food’s not gonna help, came an unbidden warning from the back of his mind while he was stripping off his tac vest. Shut up! he ordered himself, tossing the vest aside with less than usual care.
Shouting at yourself isn’t going to help, either, reminded the walls in the muted whispers that seemed to follow him everywhere in Atlantis these days.
“You shut up, too!” John growled under his breath, rubbing his forehead almost desperately. Realizing he’d spoken aloud to the walls, he sighed. Terrific! You’re talking back to the walls now, John - a definite sign you’re losin’ it.
Closing his eyes, he sucked in a couple deep, cleansing breaths to compose himself. Opening his eyes again, John reached for his tac vest, but then abruptly jerked back again, setting himself off balance. Landing on his bottom with a hard thump, John stared up wide-eyed at the ghostly form shimmering in front of him. Helia!
The apparition appeared to be speaking to him, its gestures urgent. John tried to understand the words, but they were too muted to rise above the ringing that had started up in his ears when he landed on the floor. As the apparition’s expression grew increasingly desperate, the room began to tilt and buck wildly. Oh, wait, maybe that’s just my head spinnin’… Cramming his eyes shut, John shook his head, hoping to clear it, or at least to get it spinning fast enough to knock him out; with his headache rising quickly to crescendo, he didn’t much care which of the two happened first.
“John?” Teyla’s voice coming from behind startled him and he flinched.
“Uh…” he stammered, jerking his head around to see Teyla and Ronon, standing as her shadow, then back again to…Helia? John blinked. There was nothing in front of him but his discarded tac vest and the usual assortment of firearms and equipment hanging in a locker on the wall above it. “Ah, er,” he stuttered, “Um, you guys saw that, right?” John winced at the plaintive tone of his voice, but that didn’t stop him from looking at them with pleading eyes. Please, say you saw her, too, and I’m NOT nuts.
“Saw what?” Ronon asked, effectively answering the question.
John’s gaze dropping back down to his discarded vest, he rubbed at the headache now threatening to blot out his vision altogether and answered wearily, “Nevermind.” Nothing to see here, folks. I’ve just lost my marbles…finally.
“John?” Teyla pressed, but again John waved her off and instead pushed himself up to a crouch. Rolling forward on the balls of his feet, he reached for his vest, but kept going.
“John!”
“Sheppard!”
Both voices sounded at the same time, but John heard neither as he came to rest face down beside his vest. Vaguely, he thought he could still hear muted whispers coming from walls, but even those soon faded into blissful nothingness.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
A low murmur of voices drew John slowly and reluctantly closer to the top of the fog in which he was so peacefully floating. They were easy enough to ignore at first. After all, he had a lot of practice at that sorta thing; he’d been ignoring the whispering wall for weeks now. One voice, though, kept rising above the rest - petulant, relentless…McKay. John sighed.
“See!” Rodney crowed. “I told you he was awake.”
“Yes, ye did,” Carson confirmed. “Now hush up and let me have a look at him.” John felt a hand on his shoulder. “Colonel, lad, you wanna open yer eyes for me so I can have a look at ya?”
“No,” John answered emphatically, but it came out as more of a low moan, so he settled for lifting a hand and attempting to shoo the doctor away.
“Come on, Lad,” Carson continued to prod, and knowing he’d never be left alone until he gave them what they wanted, John complied. Or, tried to, at least, but getting his eyes open proved more of a chore than he’d expected, and he found himself falling back into the blissfully quiet fog, and then through the fog to…the Gateroom?
John peered around in confusion. Where is everyone? He reached up to key his earpiece, but let his hand drop back down as Helia appeared again. She wasn’t alone this time, however. She was flanked by Ancients, and beside her stood himself and Rodney, with Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon facing them. He watched with lingering bitterness as a console rose from the floor and Helia took control of his city.
John turned away. The memory of losing Atlantis was plenty fresh; he didn’t need to relive it to remember it.
His headache abruptly surged, dropping him to his knees with a groan. He scrunched his eyes tightly shut and, reaching up with both hands, simultaneously squeezed and messaged his temples. That seemed to help, somewhat, and he slowly peeked his eyes open.
The scene was different. Now he was in the Control Room. Turning carefully, John glanced down to where Helia would be if it were still in the same memory, but there was no one. John smiled. It faded quickly, though, as alarms began to blare around him. He jerked his head around, scanning to the room for the source of the alarm. His stomach dropped when his eyes found a laptop with a row of counting down numbers. Self-destruct, what the crap… He raced to the computer and entered for the prompt to key in his abort code. Come on, come on!
The computer was slow to respond. What? You WANT to blow up? John asked it, but before he’d finished the thought, the prompt pulled up and allowed him to enter his code.
The computer bonged him. Invalid command! What the…what does it mean ‘invalid command’? John pounded the enter key, frustration vying with desperation as the timer spun downward faster and faster…. “Come on!” he shouted, but it was too late. He knew it without looking at the numbers.
A bright flash, and then…Helia.
John resisted the urge to pound at his tem¬ples as he abruptly found himself back where he’d started. The pain in his head building along with his confusion and frustration, John shouted, ‘WHAT do you, WANT from me?”
And then all was white. He was floating, blissfully, in a quiet fog of nothingness. John sighed with relief and let himself sink deep down into it.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Again, it was Rodney’s voice John first recognized as he slowly floated back to the surface of the fog. This time, though, neither McKay nor Carson appeared to notice, so John just drifted, intending to let the conversation flow over him like a cool breeze.
“So you’re saying he might NOT have been hallucinating?” He heard Elizabeth say, which snagged his attention firmly enough to pull him the remainder of the way back to consciousness. He blindly pushed himself further up the pillows, before rubbing at his sleep-coated eyes until they agreed to focus enough to see a hazy group chatting in hushed voices several beds away. Are they trying not to disturb me, or do they not want me to hear? He wondered as he narrowed his focus onto an agitated-looking Rodney-shaped blur.
“No, no.” McKay emphatically corrected. “I’m saying he most likely DID see something; it just wasn’t really there…whatever he saw. There was definitely a surge in the program’s activity that happened at about the right time. I can’t be absolutely sure, of course, since no one thought to check the time when he saw…whatever it is he thought he saw…”
“But, Rodney…” Teyla interrupted, sounding mildly exasperated. There are no whales in the area. You confirmed this yourself.”
“Yes, yes!” Rodney confirmed. “No whales, though they’re not actually whales…oh, never-mind. No whales.”
“Then what makes ya think the whale-translation program has anythin’ ta do with what’s happenin’ with John now?” Carson redirected. Even fuzzy, John could tell the doc’s brow was deeply furrowed.
“Come on, Carson,” Rodney shot back impatiently. “You just said he’s got all the same symptoms as before…”
“Yes, but, Rodney,” Carson interjected. “It was the echolocation that caused the symptoms, remember, not the translation-program.”
“Well, yes, uh, that’s, um, correct, but…” Rodney stammered, and John grinned lopsidedly as his teammate seemed momentarily stymied.
Don’t worry, buddy. I got your back, he thought, before drawing everyone’s attention away from Rodney and to himself by saying aloud, “So, I’m not nuts, then. That’s a relief.” Unfortunately, it came out sounding more like, “Soimntssn.”
“Ah, Colonel, ye’re awake,” Carson observed, signalling for something before striding over quickly.
Generally a quick-learner, John settled this time for a simple, “Mmhm,” and a half-hearted, lopsided grin/grimace. Rubbing his eyes again, he didn’t notice the others join Carson at his bedside, or the nurse arriving with a cup of water. Hm, I’d swear those got higher, he mused as he leaned back into the pillows wearily and let his heavy hand drop back down onto the mattress. He blinked a couple times to refocus and noted Carson’s hand moving away from the bed control. Ah. He also noticed that up-close, the blurs really were the individuals that belonged to their voices, though everything was still a little soft and fuzzy around the edges.
“Drink, Sheppard,” Ronon grunted, snapping John’s attention to the straw in the cup hovering near his chin.
“Slowly, just a couple wee sips,” Carson instructed. “You’ve got a lot of medication running through ya, so yer stomach might not be vera receptive, and I dunna think yer head’ll much appreciate ya vomiting.”
‘Might not be vera receptive’…that doctor-speak for ‘will be seriously pissed’? John wondered as his stomach churned alarmingly with his second sip. Pulling his head away, he closed his eyes and pushed himself into pillows, swallowing hard a couple times in the hope of keeping down the water, and whatever else was trying to escape up his oesophagus.
“John?” Elizabeth asked, sounding alarmed, and John wondered if he’d turned as green as he suddenly felt.
A minute later, though, the churning stopped, and John opened his eyes again to see Carson handing an empty syringe to the nurse who’d brought the water. Terrific! He fumed half-heartedly, knowing the anti-emetic would most likely knock him out again. Were he not starting to really like the quiet, painless, nausea-free fog of unconsciousness, he’d really have been ticked. As it was…
“Thanks,” he murmured, relieved enough when it came out sounding like “thanks” to grin weakly. Carson smiled back, giving him a worried-but-trying-not-to-show-it pat; John noticed the rest of them wore apprehensive expressions to match. Definitely need a diversion, he decided, before anyone else decides to get in an ‘everything’s going be fine’ pat. “So, I’m not nuts, but I am seeing things, and you think the whale-translation program has something to do with it, even though there aren’t any whales in the area.” John pointedly fixed his gaze on Rodney.
“Um, yeah,” McKay replied with unusual succinctness.
“You guys weren't standing that far way,” John observed, tossing him a knowing glare.
“Oh, ah, right,” Rodney stammered, before quickly slipping back into all-business mode. “Of course, we have no way of proving the connection, but that’s the theory we’re working with at the moment.”
John nodded drowsily. “Any thoughts on proving it, or more importantly, making it stop?”
The question stilled Rodney and peered at John much too seriously for comfort. Just how bad do I look? John wondered. Probably as bad as I feel, he decided, settling down more comfortably as the drug-induced drowsiness he’d been expecting started to grab hold.
“Um, no, not really,” McKay answered, his eyes more worried than his voice let on.
“We could take him off-world,” Teyla suggested.
John tried to focus on her as everyone else turned their attention her direction, but the fuzziness was giving way to blurriness again, so he gave up and just closed his eyes. I DID feel a whole lot better on Athos, he agreed. Leaving’s just a temporary solution; it won’t fix the problem, pointed out the annoying voice from the back of his mind, or maybe it had been the walls; it was getting difficult to tell the difference. “Right now, I’ll take temporary,” he grunted in reply to whichever, or both…didn’t matter.
“Huh?” Ronon responded.
Nevermind, John thought, lacking the energy to clarify, while, all the same, comprehending that he should. He tried, with limited success, to get his mouth to work against the increasing lethargy pulling at him. “Offw’rld…” he slurred, “not r’l fix…take ’t an’waaaAAAAHHH!” His words morphed into a cry as the walls - and he was certain this time that it was the walls, not his own mind - screamed, NO!
John squeezed his eyes shut as his vision burned out in an explosion of white hot pain that drove his hands up to desperately press against his exploding temples. He shoved his head hard against the pillows with the vague hope that he could push hard enough to keep his brain from bursting through the back of his skull, while overwhelming pressure tossed him end over end until he didn’t know, or care, which way was up. Stomach still knows, he abstractly observed, as his few sips of water burned their way back up his oesophagus and he choked and gagged his way back into the blissful oblivion of his comfortable fog.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
This time, as he drifted up toward the surface of consciousness, John could feel the pain and pressure lying in wait…ready to pounce, to rip his brain to shreds before he could escape back into the safety of the fog. He bucked hard against the mattresses in anticipation.
“Ronon, get..”
“I’m here, Rodney,” Carson soothed, and in an instant the pain and pressure were retreating.
“Thanks,” John acknowledged, too grateful to be aggravated that it had come out, “thn”. Doc understood, he told himself, as Carson patted him gently.
John let himself float another minute, before mumbling, eyes still closed, “Ro’ny.”
“Here,” came the anxious reply. “Um, how you doing?”
“Leave…” John responded, ignoring the question. How he felt was obvious; he could hear it in Rodney’s voice.
“Leave?” McKay echoed. “You want me to leave?”
“M..me,” John grunted.
“I believe he’s referring to our earlier discussion, Rodney,” Teyla explained.
“He wants to go leave so that it can’t hurt him anymore,” Ronon clarified.
“Oh,” Rodney replied, sounding disheartened enough that John forced his reluctant eyes open…barely. “Hey,” Rodney greeted, noticing the pain-brightened slits of green boring into him. When John simply continued to stare at him, he stammered, “Um, yeah, about that… Well, we can’t do it…send you, or anybody really, off-world right now.”
“S’plain,” John grunted, keeping his gaze fixed on Rodney; he could almost think straight that way.
“The gate’s locked down,” Rodney replied simply.
“Fis i',” John managed, sinking deeper into the pillow before letting his eyes close again.
“Huh?” McKay huffed, his eyes flitting around the bed, asking everyone but Sheppard for a translation.”
“Fix it,” Ronon grunted.
“Oh.” Rodney took a deep breath, before simply stating, “I can’t.” When John made no response, he stammered, “The DHD isn’t getting any power. We’ve been trying for hours, even tried wiring it directly into a power source, but so far…nothing. Not that it matters, though, since the gateshield raised itself…”
That brought John’s eyes open to slits, again. Rodney shrugged in response to the unasked question of how.
“Both Zelenka and I have tried every pathway we can think of to get around whatever caused the lock-down, but so far nothing’s responding.”
“Da’lus…” John slurred.
Rodney rolled the sound around his mouth several times before comprehending it. “Daedalus!” he blurted, pleased not to have needed any help with the translation this time, but then he frowned, ”It left days ago.”
“So, call it back,” Ronon stated, earning a barely-perceptible nod from John. “Don’t need the ga…” Blaring alarms drowned out the rest.
“Rodney,” came Zelenka’s voice over the com. “You’d better get up here. The city’s shield just went up…”
“So much for the Daedalus,” Rodney muttered in frustration. As Teyla turned toward him with a determined expression, he added, “Even if Elizabeth convinced Caldwell to return, the Asgard beam can’t get through the shield, and I’m guessing we’re not going to have any more luck getting the city’s shield down than we’re having getting the gate shield down.” Rodney’s eyes flickered over to Sheppard. Fidgeting anxiously, he stated with more certainty than he felt, “We’ll think of something, Sheppard.”
“’kay,” John whispered and closed his eyes again.
“How are ya doing, Colonel?” Carson asked. “Got ya pretty dosed up already, but I can top ya off if ya need it.”
“’m ‘kay,” John mumbled. “Tir’d.”
Carson nodded. “I don’t doubt it. With all the meds ya got in yer system, I’m a wee bit surprised you woke up at all,” he observed, giving John another pat. “Go back ta sleep, Colonel. Rodney’ll figure this out.”
‘Kay, John meant to say, but he’d already slipped beneath the surface again, sinking into the fog with a speed that would have been frightening if he hadn’t just burned up his last ounce of energy. As it was, he hadn’t even enough strength left to think straight enough to know he ought to be afraid.
John emerged in the Gateroom. He looked around, expecting to find himself back in the memory of Helia’s arrival, but no one was there.
“Claim me,” whispered a voice, “claim me, claim me, claim me.” It was muted, more of a hum - like the hum that had gently caressed his every cell since his first step through his first Stargate...the hum of Atlantis. “Claim me,” it began again, “claim me, claim me, claim me,” but slowly the hum morphed into the whispering voices that had been chasing him through Atlantis these past weeks, and abruptly comprehension dawned.
“Show me,” John asked the city. “Show me what you need me to do.”
Slowly, Helia’s shimmering form appeared, flanked by Ancients; he and Rodney beside her with Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon facing them. The console rose from the floor and Helia took control of his city.
“The city is now under my control,” echoed her voice. “My control. Control. Control. Control.”
John shook his head, grimacing in frustration. The message was there, he knew it. He just wasn’t getting it.
“Claim me,” the city began again. “Claim me. Claim me. Claim me.”
Underneath that hum, Helia’s voice chanted, “Control. Control. Control.”
And it clicked.
Stepping forward into Helia’s shimmering form, John placed his own hand on the console. A surge of power shivered up his spine, and he closed his eyes as a glow of intense white light flashed out, blotting out all the world.
John had the energy to be afraid now, but he wasn’t. He knew this feeling. He’d felt a ghost of it before…with Chaya. This was more than she’d offered. No, this was more than he’d been willing to give, then. He was doing the sharing this time…letting Atlantis claim him as much as he claimed her.
“Claim me.” He heard once more and knew the city felt him clinging to one last thin thread of hesitation. What if I lose me in you? He asked.
A tickle of laughter danced up his spine as the city answered. There is no me here, there is only you.
And he understood. Just as the light before had been Chaya, this was him!
So, he let go.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
This time when John woke, it was a gentle hum that he heard (or was it felt?) - no muted whispered… Well, no muted whispers from the walls. He could hear Carson and Elizabeth and his team.
They’d moved farther away to chat, this time -- still not far enough to shield him, if that was intention, from the conversation. The infirmary just wasn’t that big, but he’d figured it wouldn’t hurt to let them keep their delusion. Besides, he was comfortably floating. Whatever drugs Carson’s doped me up with…sure like ‘em, he mused, grinning dopily, before settling down to eavesdrop.
“I just don’t get it, Carson,” Rodney complained. “You said yourself he was too drugged to sit up, let alone get out of bed and walk a straight line.”
John’s brow furrowed at that. Out of bed…walk a straight line…wonder where I went?
Lifting hands that seemed less heavy and clumsy than they’d been during his previous returns to consciousness, John rubbed at his eyes until they finally agreed to open and focus. Much to his surprise, the bleariness he expected wasn’t there. Everything was clear and sharp - sharp enough to see Carson shrug in response to Rodney.
“I dunna understand it any more than you understand what the city’s been doing, Rodney,” Carson stated matter-of-factly. “He did it, that’s all I know.”
John cleared his throat, and could tell that anything he said was just gonna come out as a croak. The noise had been enough to get attention though. He grinned as both Rodney and Carson froze like a couple wayward deer in headlights. A gentle shove from Ronon broke them loose, though, and the small crowd moved toward his bed.
“Here you go, Colonel,” came a voice from his other side, and John turned to find a nurse with, more importantly, a cup of water. He reached for it eagerly, only to be tutted at as she pulled it out of reach. “Just a few sips, Colonel.”
John nodded in dutiful agreement, and she graciously moved the straw to his lips. He sucked carefully, hazy memories of a rebellious stomach floating to the surface of his mind. The water seemed to settle well enough, though, and he grinned.
“Thanks,” he offered, heart-felt.
She smiled, before replying, deadpan. “Keep it down and that will be thanks enough.”
John smiled lopsidedly. “Do my best.”
“You’d better,” Rodney stated. “If you vomit all over me again, I’ll…”
John lifted a brow. “You’ll what?”
“By the look of him last time, Colonel, I’d guess he’ll return the favor,” Carson supplied.
John grimaced, before asking, “Where’d I go?” Caught off-guard, Rodney blinked at him blankly, so John added, “You said I got out of bed and walked a straight line. Where’d I go?
“You heard that?” Rodney shot back incredulously. John simply raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, okay. You went to the gate room and apparently reset that console Helia used to take command of the city.” His voice petered off questioningly.
“I don’t know how I did it, Rodney, or even what I did,” John replied to the unasked. “Guess I was sleep-walking.”
“You don’t remember anything,” Rodney asked dubiously.
“Nope,” John replied simply. “Nothing about that, anyway.”
“What do you remember, John,” Teyla asked, her expression apprehensive.
“I remember…” John’s brow furrowed. “…pain, a lot of pain; everything else is sorta…fuzzy, I guess.”
Rodney frowned, studied John for second, then opened his mouth to speak, but Ronon caught him by the collar before he could. “Leave it, McKay.”
Carson pushed past to the bedside as Rodney huffed. “How ya feeling, John?”
John thought for a minute, taking stock of himself, before answering, “Better.” It was Carson’s turn to raise an eyebrow, making John chuckle softly before adding, “Still have a little headache, but it’s not bad. Still feeling a little loopy, but not so exhausted. I can think straight again, and no voices or…anything.”
“Voices?” Rodney slipped out of Ronon’s grasp and pushed closer to the bed.
John winced. Oh, yeah, I hadn’t mentioned those.
“No more hallucinations, is that what you mean, John?” Teyla asked, and John nodded, smiling appreciatively.
“Now, doc,” John deflected before anyone else could ask anything, “you tell me, how am I?”
Carson chuckled. “Better,” he said with a wink. John glared at him, and he added, “The intracranial pressure that was causing ye’r pain is rapidly diminishing. I’ll be keeping ye here for a few days, just ta be certain, as I wasn’t able ta determine what triggered it ta begin with, but at this point, I feel confident in saying ye’ll be good as new in no time.”
John nodded and turned back to Rodney, “And the city…the gate shield? Still locked down?”
Rodney shook his head. “After you did…whatever you did with the control console, the city seemed to, uh, reset itself.”
John nodded, wilting drowsily.
“Alright, then, that’s enough for now,” Carson decided, shooing everyone away. “Go back ta sleep, Colonel.” This earned him another glare from John, and he chuckled gently. “I’ve reduced the amount of meds ye’re on, but ye’ve had a lot pumped into ye the past few days. It’ll be a bit before they work themselves outta ye completely,” he explained. “And I dunna doubt ye’r body could use the rest, anyway. Ye’ve been though at lot, even if it dunna seem like it.”
John sighed but nodded his reluctant agreement. Besides, it’s not as though I have much choice in the matter, he admitted to himself as he drifted slowly back into the fog.
“It is almost as though the city attempted to use the translation program to communicate its need to John, then forced him to stay until he reset the console,” he heard Teyla muse as Carson led them away.
“Hmm,” from Rodney was the only response he caught before he was too deeply submerged to hear more.
Next time, you could just ask nicely, he thought, though it wasn't really directed in any particular direction. A tickle shuddered through him, making him grimace.
She tried, chided a voice in the back of his mind. You refused to listen, until she stopped being nice.
Okay, okay, she tried, he replied testily, Tell you what, I’ll try to listen better, if she’ll try harder to ask in a way I can UNDERSTAND.
Another tickle shuddered through him, but it was gentler, and he knew he had his answer.
Author: Karri
For: Titan 5
Rating: PG (maybe even G, it’s pretty tame)
Prompts: Shep whump, ATA gene, headache
Timeline: mid-3rd season, shortly after Echoes.
Summary: Something in Atlantis is having a negative affect on John.
A/N: *pats poor Titan5 for getting stuck with an fairly unknown, untested author writing in her first ficathon* I hope you’re not disappointed. :) Meanwhile...*does a happy dance for finishing my first ficathon story and even squeaking it in within the deadline!*
*huge hugs and thanks to padawan_aneiki for her speedy beta job!*
John Sheppard smiled tolerantly as he felt Teyla’s eyes studying him from behind. She (really, everyone, though they’d tried not to show it overtly) had been worried about him since the expedition had returned to Atlantis. But after the solar flare, the sort of scrutiny he was currently receiving from Teyla had diminished in frequency, with everyone sufficiently occupied with his or her own recovery to willingly attribute his previous signs of ill health to the whale-fish. A few, though, had in the week since had begun again to notice the signs of a headache that he never seemed fully able to shake and the slowly darkening smudges of weariness under his eyes.
As the gate swooshed to life, John glanced over his shoulder and caught Teyla’s eyes long enough to confirm that she’d seen what he already knew. Today, he was good. His 72-hour R&R (a diplomatic mission to New Athos to reaffirm friendly relations with the Athosians, actually, though neither John nor Teyla had really thought it necessary) had done the trick, as was no doubt Elizabeth’s intention upon recommending John undergo the task. He was leaving Athos relaxed, well-rested, and head-ache free. Whistling contentedly, John stepped into the ‘gate.
Too bad I didn’t return to Atlantis relaxed and pain free, he grumbled to himself as he stepped through into the gateroom and his headache returned with a wallop hard enough to send John staggering backward a couple steps, where he collided with Teyla as she stepped through the gate behind him.
“John…” she started to ask, concern deeply evident in her tone as she reached out to steady him.
“I’m okay,” he blurted, before she could finish her question. Well, I’m well-rested anyway, he silently amended, which is still better off than I was 72 hours ago. Steadying himself, John waved her off with a crooked smile. “Just tripped over my shoelaces,” he added lamely when she tilted her head with obvious apprehension. Teyla still looked unconvinced as he strode away, but John pretended not to notice.
I just need a little food and a couple Tylenol, he told himself as he smiled up at Elizabeth, who peered down at him with worried eyes. When she did not wave him up, John headed off to stow his gear before hitting the cafeteria.
Food’s not gonna help, came an unbidden warning from the back of his mind while he was stripping off his tac vest. Shut up! he ordered himself, tossing the vest aside with less than usual care.
Shouting at yourself isn’t going to help, either, reminded the walls in the muted whispers that seemed to follow him everywhere in Atlantis these days.
“You shut up, too!” John growled under his breath, rubbing his forehead almost desperately. Realizing he’d spoken aloud to the walls, he sighed. Terrific! You’re talking back to the walls now, John - a definite sign you’re losin’ it.
Closing his eyes, he sucked in a couple deep, cleansing breaths to compose himself. Opening his eyes again, John reached for his tac vest, but then abruptly jerked back again, setting himself off balance. Landing on his bottom with a hard thump, John stared up wide-eyed at the ghostly form shimmering in front of him. Helia!
The apparition appeared to be speaking to him, its gestures urgent. John tried to understand the words, but they were too muted to rise above the ringing that had started up in his ears when he landed on the floor. As the apparition’s expression grew increasingly desperate, the room began to tilt and buck wildly. Oh, wait, maybe that’s just my head spinnin’… Cramming his eyes shut, John shook his head, hoping to clear it, or at least to get it spinning fast enough to knock him out; with his headache rising quickly to crescendo, he didn’t much care which of the two happened first.
“John?” Teyla’s voice coming from behind startled him and he flinched.
“Uh…” he stammered, jerking his head around to see Teyla and Ronon, standing as her shadow, then back again to…Helia? John blinked. There was nothing in front of him but his discarded tac vest and the usual assortment of firearms and equipment hanging in a locker on the wall above it. “Ah, er,” he stuttered, “Um, you guys saw that, right?” John winced at the plaintive tone of his voice, but that didn’t stop him from looking at them with pleading eyes. Please, say you saw her, too, and I’m NOT nuts.
“Saw what?” Ronon asked, effectively answering the question.
John’s gaze dropping back down to his discarded vest, he rubbed at the headache now threatening to blot out his vision altogether and answered wearily, “Nevermind.” Nothing to see here, folks. I’ve just lost my marbles…finally.
“John?” Teyla pressed, but again John waved her off and instead pushed himself up to a crouch. Rolling forward on the balls of his feet, he reached for his vest, but kept going.
“John!”
“Sheppard!”
Both voices sounded at the same time, but John heard neither as he came to rest face down beside his vest. Vaguely, he thought he could still hear muted whispers coming from walls, but even those soon faded into blissful nothingness.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
A low murmur of voices drew John slowly and reluctantly closer to the top of the fog in which he was so peacefully floating. They were easy enough to ignore at first. After all, he had a lot of practice at that sorta thing; he’d been ignoring the whispering wall for weeks now. One voice, though, kept rising above the rest - petulant, relentless…McKay. John sighed.
“See!” Rodney crowed. “I told you he was awake.”
“Yes, ye did,” Carson confirmed. “Now hush up and let me have a look at him.” John felt a hand on his shoulder. “Colonel, lad, you wanna open yer eyes for me so I can have a look at ya?”
“No,” John answered emphatically, but it came out as more of a low moan, so he settled for lifting a hand and attempting to shoo the doctor away.
“Come on, Lad,” Carson continued to prod, and knowing he’d never be left alone until he gave them what they wanted, John complied. Or, tried to, at least, but getting his eyes open proved more of a chore than he’d expected, and he found himself falling back into the blissfully quiet fog, and then through the fog to…the Gateroom?
John peered around in confusion. Where is everyone? He reached up to key his earpiece, but let his hand drop back down as Helia appeared again. She wasn’t alone this time, however. She was flanked by Ancients, and beside her stood himself and Rodney, with Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon facing them. He watched with lingering bitterness as a console rose from the floor and Helia took control of his city.
John turned away. The memory of losing Atlantis was plenty fresh; he didn’t need to relive it to remember it.
His headache abruptly surged, dropping him to his knees with a groan. He scrunched his eyes tightly shut and, reaching up with both hands, simultaneously squeezed and messaged his temples. That seemed to help, somewhat, and he slowly peeked his eyes open.
The scene was different. Now he was in the Control Room. Turning carefully, John glanced down to where Helia would be if it were still in the same memory, but there was no one. John smiled. It faded quickly, though, as alarms began to blare around him. He jerked his head around, scanning to the room for the source of the alarm. His stomach dropped when his eyes found a laptop with a row of counting down numbers. Self-destruct, what the crap… He raced to the computer and entered for the prompt to key in his abort code. Come on, come on!
The computer was slow to respond. What? You WANT to blow up? John asked it, but before he’d finished the thought, the prompt pulled up and allowed him to enter his code.
The computer bonged him. Invalid command! What the…what does it mean ‘invalid command’? John pounded the enter key, frustration vying with desperation as the timer spun downward faster and faster…. “Come on!” he shouted, but it was too late. He knew it without looking at the numbers.
A bright flash, and then…Helia.
John resisted the urge to pound at his tem¬ples as he abruptly found himself back where he’d started. The pain in his head building along with his confusion and frustration, John shouted, ‘WHAT do you, WANT from me?”
And then all was white. He was floating, blissfully, in a quiet fog of nothingness. John sighed with relief and let himself sink deep down into it.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Again, it was Rodney’s voice John first recognized as he slowly floated back to the surface of the fog. This time, though, neither McKay nor Carson appeared to notice, so John just drifted, intending to let the conversation flow over him like a cool breeze.
“So you’re saying he might NOT have been hallucinating?” He heard Elizabeth say, which snagged his attention firmly enough to pull him the remainder of the way back to consciousness. He blindly pushed himself further up the pillows, before rubbing at his sleep-coated eyes until they agreed to focus enough to see a hazy group chatting in hushed voices several beds away. Are they trying not to disturb me, or do they not want me to hear? He wondered as he narrowed his focus onto an agitated-looking Rodney-shaped blur.
“No, no.” McKay emphatically corrected. “I’m saying he most likely DID see something; it just wasn’t really there…whatever he saw. There was definitely a surge in the program’s activity that happened at about the right time. I can’t be absolutely sure, of course, since no one thought to check the time when he saw…whatever it is he thought he saw…”
“But, Rodney…” Teyla interrupted, sounding mildly exasperated. There are no whales in the area. You confirmed this yourself.”
“Yes, yes!” Rodney confirmed. “No whales, though they’re not actually whales…oh, never-mind. No whales.”
“Then what makes ya think the whale-translation program has anythin’ ta do with what’s happenin’ with John now?” Carson redirected. Even fuzzy, John could tell the doc’s brow was deeply furrowed.
“Come on, Carson,” Rodney shot back impatiently. “You just said he’s got all the same symptoms as before…”
“Yes, but, Rodney,” Carson interjected. “It was the echolocation that caused the symptoms, remember, not the translation-program.”
“Well, yes, uh, that’s, um, correct, but…” Rodney stammered, and John grinned lopsidedly as his teammate seemed momentarily stymied.
Don’t worry, buddy. I got your back, he thought, before drawing everyone’s attention away from Rodney and to himself by saying aloud, “So, I’m not nuts, then. That’s a relief.” Unfortunately, it came out sounding more like, “Soimntssn.”
“Ah, Colonel, ye’re awake,” Carson observed, signalling for something before striding over quickly.
Generally a quick-learner, John settled this time for a simple, “Mmhm,” and a half-hearted, lopsided grin/grimace. Rubbing his eyes again, he didn’t notice the others join Carson at his bedside, or the nurse arriving with a cup of water. Hm, I’d swear those got higher, he mused as he leaned back into the pillows wearily and let his heavy hand drop back down onto the mattress. He blinked a couple times to refocus and noted Carson’s hand moving away from the bed control. Ah. He also noticed that up-close, the blurs really were the individuals that belonged to their voices, though everything was still a little soft and fuzzy around the edges.
“Drink, Sheppard,” Ronon grunted, snapping John’s attention to the straw in the cup hovering near his chin.
“Slowly, just a couple wee sips,” Carson instructed. “You’ve got a lot of medication running through ya, so yer stomach might not be vera receptive, and I dunna think yer head’ll much appreciate ya vomiting.”
‘Might not be vera receptive’…that doctor-speak for ‘will be seriously pissed’? John wondered as his stomach churned alarmingly with his second sip. Pulling his head away, he closed his eyes and pushed himself into pillows, swallowing hard a couple times in the hope of keeping down the water, and whatever else was trying to escape up his oesophagus.
“John?” Elizabeth asked, sounding alarmed, and John wondered if he’d turned as green as he suddenly felt.
A minute later, though, the churning stopped, and John opened his eyes again to see Carson handing an empty syringe to the nurse who’d brought the water. Terrific! He fumed half-heartedly, knowing the anti-emetic would most likely knock him out again. Were he not starting to really like the quiet, painless, nausea-free fog of unconsciousness, he’d really have been ticked. As it was…
“Thanks,” he murmured, relieved enough when it came out sounding like “thanks” to grin weakly. Carson smiled back, giving him a worried-but-trying-not-to-show-it pat; John noticed the rest of them wore apprehensive expressions to match. Definitely need a diversion, he decided, before anyone else decides to get in an ‘everything’s going be fine’ pat. “So, I’m not nuts, but I am seeing things, and you think the whale-translation program has something to do with it, even though there aren’t any whales in the area.” John pointedly fixed his gaze on Rodney.
“Um, yeah,” McKay replied with unusual succinctness.
“You guys weren't standing that far way,” John observed, tossing him a knowing glare.
“Oh, ah, right,” Rodney stammered, before quickly slipping back into all-business mode. “Of course, we have no way of proving the connection, but that’s the theory we’re working with at the moment.”
John nodded drowsily. “Any thoughts on proving it, or more importantly, making it stop?”
The question stilled Rodney and peered at John much too seriously for comfort. Just how bad do I look? John wondered. Probably as bad as I feel, he decided, settling down more comfortably as the drug-induced drowsiness he’d been expecting started to grab hold.
“Um, no, not really,” McKay answered, his eyes more worried than his voice let on.
“We could take him off-world,” Teyla suggested.
John tried to focus on her as everyone else turned their attention her direction, but the fuzziness was giving way to blurriness again, so he gave up and just closed his eyes. I DID feel a whole lot better on Athos, he agreed. Leaving’s just a temporary solution; it won’t fix the problem, pointed out the annoying voice from the back of his mind, or maybe it had been the walls; it was getting difficult to tell the difference. “Right now, I’ll take temporary,” he grunted in reply to whichever, or both…didn’t matter.
“Huh?” Ronon responded.
Nevermind, John thought, lacking the energy to clarify, while, all the same, comprehending that he should. He tried, with limited success, to get his mouth to work against the increasing lethargy pulling at him. “Offw’rld…” he slurred, “not r’l fix…take ’t an’waaaAAAAHHH!” His words morphed into a cry as the walls - and he was certain this time that it was the walls, not his own mind - screamed, NO!
John squeezed his eyes shut as his vision burned out in an explosion of white hot pain that drove his hands up to desperately press against his exploding temples. He shoved his head hard against the pillows with the vague hope that he could push hard enough to keep his brain from bursting through the back of his skull, while overwhelming pressure tossed him end over end until he didn’t know, or care, which way was up. Stomach still knows, he abstractly observed, as his few sips of water burned their way back up his oesophagus and he choked and gagged his way back into the blissful oblivion of his comfortable fog.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
This time, as he drifted up toward the surface of consciousness, John could feel the pain and pressure lying in wait…ready to pounce, to rip his brain to shreds before he could escape back into the safety of the fog. He bucked hard against the mattresses in anticipation.
“Ronon, get..”
“I’m here, Rodney,” Carson soothed, and in an instant the pain and pressure were retreating.
“Thanks,” John acknowledged, too grateful to be aggravated that it had come out, “thn”. Doc understood, he told himself, as Carson patted him gently.
John let himself float another minute, before mumbling, eyes still closed, “Ro’ny.”
“Here,” came the anxious reply. “Um, how you doing?”
“Leave…” John responded, ignoring the question. How he felt was obvious; he could hear it in Rodney’s voice.
“Leave?” McKay echoed. “You want me to leave?”
“M..me,” John grunted.
“I believe he’s referring to our earlier discussion, Rodney,” Teyla explained.
“He wants to go leave so that it can’t hurt him anymore,” Ronon clarified.
“Oh,” Rodney replied, sounding disheartened enough that John forced his reluctant eyes open…barely. “Hey,” Rodney greeted, noticing the pain-brightened slits of green boring into him. When John simply continued to stare at him, he stammered, “Um, yeah, about that… Well, we can’t do it…send you, or anybody really, off-world right now.”
“S’plain,” John grunted, keeping his gaze fixed on Rodney; he could almost think straight that way.
“The gate’s locked down,” Rodney replied simply.
“Fis i',” John managed, sinking deeper into the pillow before letting his eyes close again.
“Huh?” McKay huffed, his eyes flitting around the bed, asking everyone but Sheppard for a translation.”
“Fix it,” Ronon grunted.
“Oh.” Rodney took a deep breath, before simply stating, “I can’t.” When John made no response, he stammered, “The DHD isn’t getting any power. We’ve been trying for hours, even tried wiring it directly into a power source, but so far…nothing. Not that it matters, though, since the gateshield raised itself…”
That brought John’s eyes open to slits, again. Rodney shrugged in response to the unasked question of how.
“Both Zelenka and I have tried every pathway we can think of to get around whatever caused the lock-down, but so far nothing’s responding.”
“Da’lus…” John slurred.
Rodney rolled the sound around his mouth several times before comprehending it. “Daedalus!” he blurted, pleased not to have needed any help with the translation this time, but then he frowned, ”It left days ago.”
“So, call it back,” Ronon stated, earning a barely-perceptible nod from John. “Don’t need the ga…” Blaring alarms drowned out the rest.
“Rodney,” came Zelenka’s voice over the com. “You’d better get up here. The city’s shield just went up…”
“So much for the Daedalus,” Rodney muttered in frustration. As Teyla turned toward him with a determined expression, he added, “Even if Elizabeth convinced Caldwell to return, the Asgard beam can’t get through the shield, and I’m guessing we’re not going to have any more luck getting the city’s shield down than we’re having getting the gate shield down.” Rodney’s eyes flickered over to Sheppard. Fidgeting anxiously, he stated with more certainty than he felt, “We’ll think of something, Sheppard.”
“’kay,” John whispered and closed his eyes again.
“How are ya doing, Colonel?” Carson asked. “Got ya pretty dosed up already, but I can top ya off if ya need it.”
“’m ‘kay,” John mumbled. “Tir’d.”
Carson nodded. “I don’t doubt it. With all the meds ya got in yer system, I’m a wee bit surprised you woke up at all,” he observed, giving John another pat. “Go back ta sleep, Colonel. Rodney’ll figure this out.”
‘Kay, John meant to say, but he’d already slipped beneath the surface again, sinking into the fog with a speed that would have been frightening if he hadn’t just burned up his last ounce of energy. As it was, he hadn’t even enough strength left to think straight enough to know he ought to be afraid.
John emerged in the Gateroom. He looked around, expecting to find himself back in the memory of Helia’s arrival, but no one was there.
“Claim me,” whispered a voice, “claim me, claim me, claim me.” It was muted, more of a hum - like the hum that had gently caressed his every cell since his first step through his first Stargate...the hum of Atlantis. “Claim me,” it began again, “claim me, claim me, claim me,” but slowly the hum morphed into the whispering voices that had been chasing him through Atlantis these past weeks, and abruptly comprehension dawned.
“Show me,” John asked the city. “Show me what you need me to do.”
Slowly, Helia’s shimmering form appeared, flanked by Ancients; he and Rodney beside her with Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon facing them. The console rose from the floor and Helia took control of his city.
“The city is now under my control,” echoed her voice. “My control. Control. Control. Control.”
John shook his head, grimacing in frustration. The message was there, he knew it. He just wasn’t getting it.
“Claim me,” the city began again. “Claim me. Claim me. Claim me.”
Underneath that hum, Helia’s voice chanted, “Control. Control. Control.”
And it clicked.
Stepping forward into Helia’s shimmering form, John placed his own hand on the console. A surge of power shivered up his spine, and he closed his eyes as a glow of intense white light flashed out, blotting out all the world.
John had the energy to be afraid now, but he wasn’t. He knew this feeling. He’d felt a ghost of it before…with Chaya. This was more than she’d offered. No, this was more than he’d been willing to give, then. He was doing the sharing this time…letting Atlantis claim him as much as he claimed her.
“Claim me.” He heard once more and knew the city felt him clinging to one last thin thread of hesitation. What if I lose me in you? He asked.
A tickle of laughter danced up his spine as the city answered. There is no me here, there is only you.
And he understood. Just as the light before had been Chaya, this was him!
So, he let go.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
This time when John woke, it was a gentle hum that he heard (or was it felt?) - no muted whispered… Well, no muted whispers from the walls. He could hear Carson and Elizabeth and his team.
They’d moved farther away to chat, this time -- still not far enough to shield him, if that was intention, from the conversation. The infirmary just wasn’t that big, but he’d figured it wouldn’t hurt to let them keep their delusion. Besides, he was comfortably floating. Whatever drugs Carson’s doped me up with…sure like ‘em, he mused, grinning dopily, before settling down to eavesdrop.
“I just don’t get it, Carson,” Rodney complained. “You said yourself he was too drugged to sit up, let alone get out of bed and walk a straight line.”
John’s brow furrowed at that. Out of bed…walk a straight line…wonder where I went?
Lifting hands that seemed less heavy and clumsy than they’d been during his previous returns to consciousness, John rubbed at his eyes until they finally agreed to open and focus. Much to his surprise, the bleariness he expected wasn’t there. Everything was clear and sharp - sharp enough to see Carson shrug in response to Rodney.
“I dunna understand it any more than you understand what the city’s been doing, Rodney,” Carson stated matter-of-factly. “He did it, that’s all I know.”
John cleared his throat, and could tell that anything he said was just gonna come out as a croak. The noise had been enough to get attention though. He grinned as both Rodney and Carson froze like a couple wayward deer in headlights. A gentle shove from Ronon broke them loose, though, and the small crowd moved toward his bed.
“Here you go, Colonel,” came a voice from his other side, and John turned to find a nurse with, more importantly, a cup of water. He reached for it eagerly, only to be tutted at as she pulled it out of reach. “Just a few sips, Colonel.”
John nodded in dutiful agreement, and she graciously moved the straw to his lips. He sucked carefully, hazy memories of a rebellious stomach floating to the surface of his mind. The water seemed to settle well enough, though, and he grinned.
“Thanks,” he offered, heart-felt.
She smiled, before replying, deadpan. “Keep it down and that will be thanks enough.”
John smiled lopsidedly. “Do my best.”
“You’d better,” Rodney stated. “If you vomit all over me again, I’ll…”
John lifted a brow. “You’ll what?”
“By the look of him last time, Colonel, I’d guess he’ll return the favor,” Carson supplied.
John grimaced, before asking, “Where’d I go?” Caught off-guard, Rodney blinked at him blankly, so John added, “You said I got out of bed and walked a straight line. Where’d I go?
“You heard that?” Rodney shot back incredulously. John simply raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh, okay. You went to the gate room and apparently reset that console Helia used to take command of the city.” His voice petered off questioningly.
“I don’t know how I did it, Rodney, or even what I did,” John replied to the unasked. “Guess I was sleep-walking.”
“You don’t remember anything,” Rodney asked dubiously.
“Nope,” John replied simply. “Nothing about that, anyway.”
“What do you remember, John,” Teyla asked, her expression apprehensive.
“I remember…” John’s brow furrowed. “…pain, a lot of pain; everything else is sorta…fuzzy, I guess.”
Rodney frowned, studied John for second, then opened his mouth to speak, but Ronon caught him by the collar before he could. “Leave it, McKay.”
Carson pushed past to the bedside as Rodney huffed. “How ya feeling, John?”
John thought for a minute, taking stock of himself, before answering, “Better.” It was Carson’s turn to raise an eyebrow, making John chuckle softly before adding, “Still have a little headache, but it’s not bad. Still feeling a little loopy, but not so exhausted. I can think straight again, and no voices or…anything.”
“Voices?” Rodney slipped out of Ronon’s grasp and pushed closer to the bed.
John winced. Oh, yeah, I hadn’t mentioned those.
“No more hallucinations, is that what you mean, John?” Teyla asked, and John nodded, smiling appreciatively.
“Now, doc,” John deflected before anyone else could ask anything, “you tell me, how am I?”
Carson chuckled. “Better,” he said with a wink. John glared at him, and he added, “The intracranial pressure that was causing ye’r pain is rapidly diminishing. I’ll be keeping ye here for a few days, just ta be certain, as I wasn’t able ta determine what triggered it ta begin with, but at this point, I feel confident in saying ye’ll be good as new in no time.”
John nodded and turned back to Rodney, “And the city…the gate shield? Still locked down?”
Rodney shook his head. “After you did…whatever you did with the control console, the city seemed to, uh, reset itself.”
John nodded, wilting drowsily.
“Alright, then, that’s enough for now,” Carson decided, shooing everyone away. “Go back ta sleep, Colonel.” This earned him another glare from John, and he chuckled gently. “I’ve reduced the amount of meds ye’re on, but ye’ve had a lot pumped into ye the past few days. It’ll be a bit before they work themselves outta ye completely,” he explained. “And I dunna doubt ye’r body could use the rest, anyway. Ye’ve been though at lot, even if it dunna seem like it.”
John sighed but nodded his reluctant agreement. Besides, it’s not as though I have much choice in the matter, he admitted to himself as he drifted slowly back into the fog.
“It is almost as though the city attempted to use the translation program to communicate its need to John, then forced him to stay until he reset the console,” he heard Teyla muse as Carson led them away.
“Hmm,” from Rodney was the only response he caught before he was too deeply submerged to hear more.
Next time, you could just ask nicely, he thought, though it wasn't really directed in any particular direction. A tickle shuddered through him, making him grimace.
She tried, chided a voice in the back of his mind. You refused to listen, until she stopped being nice.
Okay, okay, she tried, he replied testily, Tell you what, I’ll try to listen better, if she’ll try harder to ask in a way I can UNDERSTAND.
Another tickle shuddered through him, but it was gentler, and he knew he had his answer.