kriadydragon | Story - What Dreams Pt. 2

Shifting into a more comfortable position, Rodney started a new game. He was just about to move a pawn when a light nudge to his hip, once again, made him move the piece to the wrong square.

“Damn it!”

“No.”

Rodney stilled for a heartbeat, then looked over at Sheppard. The Colonel's eyes were fluttering, fighting against the lingering pull of sedatives. Heart-rate skyrocketing, Rodney slid to his feet, setting the laptop aside without taking his eyes off Sheppard.

Sheppard's own heart-rate, along with his breathing, was increasing. He began to squirm, his head rocking back and forth as he muttered too low for Rodney to hear except for a more loudly whispered, “No. No.”

“Doctor Keller,” Rodney squeaked. He cleared his throat and said in a loud whisper, “Keller! Keller, get in here, now! Keller, anyone!”

The blankets bulged when Sheppard arched and he rattled the bed when he slammed back down. The more Sheppard struggled, the more agitated he became, feral grunts interchanging with frightened whimpers, and still with a desperate “no, no, no,” in between.

“Dr. McKay?”

Rodney didn't dare take his eyes off Sheppard (painfully aware of how pointless it was) but knew by the voice that it wasn't Keller behind him. Probably a nurse, and right now she was better than nothing.

“Get Keller,” Rodney hissed between gritted teeth. He heard the patter of running footfalls fade, then the double-patter of double the footfalls returning a minute later.

“Dr. McKay,” said Keller, thank goodness. “Just relax. I had another syringe ready, it should be in there with you. Right there on the table, in fact. Just tap it and stick it in the I.V.”

Rodney rolled his eyes to the bedside tray and the capped syringe he'd idly man-handled a little over an hour ago. He began inching toward it.

“Rodney, he's a man waking up from a sedative, not a rattlesnake,” Keller said.

Rodney sneered. “That's easy for you to say. You're not in here with him.”

“He's also restrained.”

“I've seen the levels Sheppard lowers himself to when he can't use his hands to kill and, thanks to this stupid shield, I'm in perfect biting range.” Rodney slowly reached out toward the table. “Possibly even head-butting range.”

Sheppard's head stopped its frantic lolling but the eyes continued to roll, taking in surroundings that were obviously horrifying, because if the man's eyelids opened any wider they would rip. Rodney backed up as far as the shield would allow as his hand continued its agonizingly slow journey toward the syringe. Then his fingers, finally, brushed the plastic surface.

John's eyes rolled to Rodney, locked on, and opened even wider. With a watery scream Sheppard lurched away slamming his back into the rail. Rodney flinched flicking the syringe onto the floor, jerked back into the shield and repelled off with a yelp, hearing a sickening crunch when his feet pressed on plastic.

“Son of a...!” Nothing was left of the syringe but shards and a bent needle. “Oh, crap, no!”

Sheppard thrashed and bucked, screaming at the top of his lungs in a feral display of insanity that Rodney had never even imagined he would ever see in the normally stalwart Lt. Colonel. The man was an animal, a literal animal willing to break his arms or even tear them off if it meant getting himself free. Rodney backed away as far as he could, the same mindless panic starting to soak into his own nerves, making his heart hammer and his breathing barely able to keep up. He wanted out, needed out, before Sheppard broke free and either attacked him in self-defense or beat him bloody in a mad scramble for freedom.

“Zelenka!” Rodney shouted, matching Sheppard's hoarse cries. “Where the hell is Zelenka! I need out of here!”

“Dr. McKay! Dr. McKay, you need to calm down!” Keller shouted back. “Colonel Sheppard is restrained. He's sick, he's weak – he's not going anywhere. But he is going to hurt himself if he keeps this up. You need to calm him down, Rodney. Do you hear me! You need to get him to calm down!”

Spots flashed before Rodney's eyes, his breathing impossibly fast. “How – how the hell – am I supposed to – to do that!” he gasped.

“I told you! By calming down. Deep breaths, Rodney. In, out, in out, nice and slow. You're hyperventilating! In, out, in, out...”

The very idea of calming down seemed ridiculously impossible, but Rodney's need to breathed surpassed logic and he focused on Keller's voice and the rhythm it set. In and out, just as instructed, until the spots cleared up and Rodney finally remembered how to breathe.

It also helped that Sheppard was no longer screaming. He was whimpering and moaning, still struggling against the restraints. That struggle had dropped the blankets to Sheppard's waist showing Rodney the red, raw wrists chafing against the soft inner-lining of the cuffs. Sheppard was hurting himself.

Hurting himself because he was trying to get away. And according to the direction he was twisting and pulling, it was Rodney he was trying to get away from.

“Sh-Sheppard?” Rodney squeaked. “Sheppard, what's wrong?”

Sheppard didn't answer. He did struggle harder. Rodney moved cautiously to the other side, out of biting range but within sight. Sheppard snapped his head around and leaned away from McKay, putting the strain on his other wrist. When Rodney moved back to the left side, Sheppard switched directions again.

Rodney scowled, “Hate to break it to you, doctor, but it looks like Sheppard's not in a social mood at the moment. Doubt I'm going to be much help, here.”

“Rodney,” Keller said in a tone of pure exasperation that meant she was a hair's breadth away from being less than polite. “There's a shield between me and my patient, which makes me a hell of a lot less helpful than you. Sheppard needs to calm down and you're the only one who can do it. I thought you could fix anything!”

“Anything with wires!”

“Just think of John as an organic computer, then. Isn't that what most people say the human brain is – a computer?”

“Yes, a very complex and fragile computer that I wouldn't freakin' touch with a ten foot pole! I'm a physicist, not a brain surgeon! And I am not a psychologist. I'm only going to make things worse!” He pointed a shaking finger at Sheppard's bleeding wrist. “See, see. Worse! And all I'm doing is standing here.”

“And panicking. And because you're panicking, John's panicking. Talk to him, Rodney. Just talk to him, get him grounded before he breaks his arms.”

Gulping, so tense he was shaking, Rodney took a tentative step forward. “Sheppard? John? H-hey... pal. It's me, Rodney.”

Sheppard's body slumped to the side over the rail, out of exhaustion or petrification, Rodney couldn't say. Definitely not because the pilot had passed out: he was still panting and his body was still trembling, which Rodney knew unconscious people didn't do.

“Dr. McKay,” Keller said. “John's breathing's too fast. I need you to get the oxygen mask on him. Next to the bed. Just turn the knob once when you get it on his face.”

Rodney nodded absently. Without looking away, he grabbed the mask where it hung by the bed to have ready.

“John? Can you look at me?” Rodney had no idea what the hell he was doing when he reached out and placed his hand on Sheppard's shaking shoulder. It was a bad idea, he knew it was a bad idea, and Sheppard's violent flinch followed by body-shuddering dry-heaves proved it. Rodney snatched his hand away with a hissed curse.

Then reached out again, using Sheppard's moment of distraction to make contact. After four painful heaves ending on a liquid choke, Sheppard's body slumped bone-lessly, barely able to so much as squirm from McKay's touch. Setting the mask beside the pillow, Rodney gripped both of the pilot's shoulders and rolled him onto his back. Sheppard flopped like a rag doll, his skin bright with sweat and his eyes even brighter with a sickening amount of terror as he stared up into Rodney's face.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he panted, over and over.

Rodney moved quickly, strapping the mask onto Sheppard's face, never taking his eyes off Sheppard's glassy hazel ones. “Sorry for what?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry...”

Terrified and frustrated to wits end, Rodney gripped both of Sheppard's upper arms, grounding him just like Keller had said. “Sorry -for – what?”

“You're dead, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know, I didn't, I failed, I'm sorry. So, sorry, Rodney, so sorry, so sorry.”

Rodney reared his head back. With his eyes still locked on Sheppard's, he reached back for some rapid finger snapping in Keller's direction. “What was Sheppard' hallucination? Do you know?”

“Uh... I – I don't really know. None of us were allowed to participate in the ceremony with him. The priest in charge did say it was supposed to, um, leave him vulnerable, make him reveal wishes, fears, stuff like that. He said the hallucinations could be pretty vivid...” Then she gasped. “Oh, gosh. Is he still...?”

Rolling his eyes, Rodney spat, “I don't know!” But it explained a lot. Hell, it explained everything. A slow metabolizing drug plays out fears in bright Technicolor, and what was Sheppard's biggest fear?

Rodney grabbed both sides of Sheppard's head, pulling him in until there was only two inches between their faces. Rodney could feel the warmth of Sheppard's vomit-sour breath on his chin, which meant Sheppard could feel Rodney's breath.

“Sheppard – John. I'm not dead. I-am-not-dead. Do you hear me? Not dead.”

Sheppard's head twitched “no” in Rodney's grip, then tried to pull away. “Blood. There's Blood... everywhere. I see it. Smell it. So much, there's so much. Bodies. Dead... You're dead, you're all dead -”

“John! No! We're not dead! You didn't fail, nothing happened. Look, look...” he set Sheppard's head back on the pillow, then proceeded to release Johns' bloody left wrist.

“Rodney!” Keller yelped. Rodney ignored her, prying apart the slick straps then lifting the blood-caked and stiff hand to his neck. Prying two of John's finger away from his palm, Rodney pressed them over his carotid.

“You feel that? Huh? Ever meet a dead person with a pulse?”

Sheppard blinked rapidly, doing the pressing for himself until Rodney gagged.

“Hey, hey, not so hard, buddy, okay?” he choked. Sheppard's breathing slowed, almost stilled, and he blinked harder as though clearing his vision.

“R-Rodney?”

Grimacing in discomfort, Rodney nodded.

“McKay?”

“Yes, it's me, Rodney McKay, in the living flesh. Not dead, just like I said – and you're making me rhyme, so stop it. I hate rhyming.”

Sheppard stared at Rodney for several long seconds, then pulled his gaze away to pass it around the infirmary, wearing the baffled look of a man finally realizing where he was and what was going on. When his eyes settled back on McKay, they were shining with moisture and flickering with confusion and joy.

“Not?” He asked, his timid hope making him so pathetically helpless.

Rodney set John's hand back on the bed, leaning forward to unbuckle the other wrist. “Not dead.” He looked the abraded wrist over and tsked. “But Keller's probably going to kill you.”

Keller sighed. “I am not, Rodney.”

“Kick your ass, then.”

“Still no,” Keller said, half-annoyed, half-amused.

When Rodney was about to set the newly freed wrist down, Sheppard twisted the appendage, putting Rodney's own wrist in Sheppard's weak grasp.

“What happened?” John asked, his wide-eyes making the question seem more like a plea.

Rodney pursed his lips, then sighed wearily. “Long story.”

Sheppard tightened his grip, which still wasn't much. “I want to hear it.” Please don't go. I don't want to be alone.

Sighing again in even heavier weariness, Rodney relented with a casual shrug. “All right. Not like I can go anywhere.” But when he reached back to tap the shield with his knuckles, he encountered only air. Rodney looked over his shoulder at an equally bewildered Keller. “Make that formerly couldn't go anywhere.”

When Keller and two nurses rushed in to take care of John, rather than leave, Rodney backed up to give them room while staying in sight as he explained what was going on.

----------------------------------

“It was the potency of the drug,” Keller explained to those assembled in the conference room. “The lingering affects, likely coupled with some form of withdrawal. I would imagine that the hallucinations experienced – being so vivid – had left Colonel Sheppard with a few nightmares. With the drug still in his system, even a small dose probably made those dreams a hell of a lot more real, the images lingering even when he woke. In turn, it ended up convincing his mind that the hallucinations were, in fact, real - kind of like hypnotism or a subliminal message. When Dr. McKay proved to John that we weren't dead, it ended the hallucination. Basically, Colonel Sheppard woke up.”

And that was Rodney's cue to jump in. He leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table-top. “And when he woke up, the shield went down.”

“And all other systems were restored,” Radek added.

“Which proved my theory that the quarantine was Sheppard's fault.”

Sam's brow puckered in consternation. “But how? Is it really that possible to have that kind of control over Atlantis?”

“Er... to an extent, we think,” Zelenka replied. “Colonel Sheppard was very distressed, which could have amplified his connection with the city.”

“Sort of like how people in extreme emotional states – like fear or anger – are suddenly stronger, faster, able to endure more,” Rodney said.

“Like those stories of mother's who have pushed cars aside in order to reach their injured children,” said Zelenka.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yes, something along those lines. What ever protocol was enacted, Sheppard wasn't aware he'd enacted it. He might not have even enacted it, but it had enacted itself in response to Sheppard's emotional state, maybe sensing his fear.”

Sam raised both eyebrows, simultaneously impressed and alarmed. “Wow, that's... quite a connection.”

Zelenka shrugged. “The city has been known to be rather hyper-sensitive from time to time.”

“But is it a sensitivity we need to worry about in the future?” Sam asked, which was the real issue at hand.

“Not unless Sheppard's doped to the gills again,” Rodney said, earning an elbow to the side courtesy of Ronon. He shot a glare at the Satedan before answering. “What I mean is... I have no idea, but I doubt it. There were a lot of factors involved, one of them being Sheppard having the strongest gene and his,” he sneered, “knack for being able to handle all systems without breaking a sweat. But we have written a few override programs, ones designed to trick Atlantis into thinking that all's well.”

“It will also come in handy for mis-programed quarantine protocols,” said Zelenka with a straight face, completely ignoring Rodney's scowl.

Sam smiled. “Great. Just make sure to have more than one, just in case. Dismissed.”

Everyone rose and milled out the door.

“Oh!” Radek said, sitting back down. “I was right about that control room being more than just for the plumbing. You'll want to check it out.”

“Can't,” Rodney said, rising. “Busy.” He hurried from the conference room, veering toward the mess hall.

------------------------------------

John rubbed his fingers over the bandages around his wrist, watching the shadows rippled across the white gauze. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the clean, salty air pouring in through his window: no blood, no decay, just a cool ocean breeze. He looked up at the last of the sunlight flashing golden off the silver spires.

He'd been drugged. The blood, bodies, decay – all a dream. Only a dream.

A dream so real he could smell it, taste it, and just remembering it shot cold down his spine that made him shiver and pull his robe tight around his body. It had all seemed so real. All that blood, and Rodney's dried up corpse...

His door chimed. “Sheppard?”

John jumped hearing Rodney's voice say his name, filling his head with charnal images that hadn't been real. Not real, just a dream. A frickin' dream, better than anything they could have shown at the Imax.

Swallowing, heart thudding fast and heavy, John moved toward the door and opened it with a trembling hand.

Rodney – standing and breathing Rodney – stood on the other side with a tray piled with food in one hand a his chess box tucked under his other arm.

“Brought food and entertainment,” he said with a smile, which he dropped when he looked John up and down. “You okay?”

John sighed in relief and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm good, just... I'm good.” He stepped aside to let Rodney enter, taking the tray so Rodney could set up the board. Tonight's dinner was boiled chicken, plain mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables and a carton of milk. Rodney's was pork chops, potatoes with gravy, more vegetables and a bottle of iced tea.

Recovery could be so cruel at times.

Rodney sat at one end of Sheppard's couch and John the other with the bored between them and the food on the coffee table. They were silent when they started to play.

“Oh,” Rodney said when it was his fourth move, “we're making it so that Atlantis can't do your evil bidding anymore when you're.. not in your right mind. Just so you know.”

John couldn't help a wicked grin. “Really think it'll do any good?”

“Never hurts to try.” After moving another pawn, Rodney looked up at John. “So... doing good?”

“Doing better,” John said. “Not so tired anymore.” He moved his knight and smiled another wicked smile. “Checkmate.”

Rodney glared at the board, opened his mouth to protest only to close it, then reset the pieces. “Rematch. No way am I losing to you when you're invalid.”

John chuckled, reaching over and stabbing a piece of chicken with his fork while Rodney plotted his first move. After Sheppard' second win, Rodney suggested a movie. Halfway through it, John's early statement of not being so tired was proved wrong when he dozed off.

The weight of a blanket settling over his body made him start. “McKay?”

“Still here, Sheppard.”

“Oh.” Sheppard tugged the cover up to his neck and hunkered deeper into it. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Any time, pal.”

The End

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