Chapter Text
“Good, we’re all here,” Elizabeth said. She folded her hands in front of her on the table. “Can you give us an update?”
It took Radek a few seconds to realize that she had been speaking to him, and he only made the connection when Dr. Beckett and Colonel Sheppard both turned to stare at him.
Zelenka sighed softly and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. It was getting harder and harder to focus, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. “I am not getting much closer. I do not think that we have more than twelve hours before a catastrophic overload, perhaps as little as ten. I have done all that I can to boost the supporting functions, and I have bought us as much time as I can. Now, we are all working on fixing the underlying problem of the leaking conduit.”
The other three looked at him a bit glassily. Elizabeth took a deep breath, flattening her palms in front of her. With a shock, Radek noticed that they were shaking slightly.
John and Carson hadn’t seemed to process the information at all. Radek wondered if perhaps, they didn’t feel well-enough informed.
“I could go into greater detail, but it would get a bit...technical,” Zelenka mumbled, rubbing his eyes again.
“No, please,” Carson said swiftly, and John nodded his agreement.
“We all go ‘boom’ in ten to twelve hours. Got it.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, and turned to Dr. Beckett. “Carson? Anything we should know?”
Carson shrugged slightly. “Dr. Mckay is stable. He seems to be responding to the antibiotics I have him on.”
John’s eyes widened at the mention of Rodney. Zelenka thought he looked as if someone had slapped him. Truly, Zelenka understood. He felt pretty much the same way whenever someone brought up Rodney.
“Do you have a sufficient amount of personnel and equipment in the infirmary?” Elizabeth asked.
Carson looked down at the table. “We are...generally doing as well as could be expected. There haven’t been too many injuries, and nothing too serious. The biggest...the equipment we would need to run a detailed biometric scan requires too much power. The only person right now who would really benefit from that is...Rodney. But I’m afraid that if he takes another turn for the worse...without the equipment to really tell what’s wrong, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do for him.”
“So you’re saying he’s going to die?” John said.
“I am saying nothing of the sort, lad,” Carson said sharply. “Just that...Rodney is stable now. But the longer this crisis goes on, the lower his chances of survival get.”
Everyone was silent. Zelenka felt that the world was rotating slowly around him. He only had another twelve hours to fix the power systems, and he would surely need all that time. But did he really have that much? Did Rodney?
Zelenka forced himself to breathe through a pulsing headache. He could barely even keep his eyes open at this point. How was he supposed to save Atlantis?
“What about the stimulants?” Elizabeth asked. Zelenka couldn’t tell if he’d missed the end of the conversation about Rodney, or if Elizabeth was forcefully changing the subject. “How many people are on them at this point?”
“Pretty much everyone who’s essential, unless I think they’d have a bad reaction to them for some reason. Some of the nonessential people too. More and more people are asking.” Carson grimaced, looking upset, and then continued. “I don’t like it, and we’ll be stretched thin, but it’s a necessary evil. Even I’m taking them now.”
That explained the bags under his eyes, Zelenka thought. Carson’s hands weren’t shaking, nothing like the tremor that had been running through his own for a few hours, the same tremor he could see starting in the Colonel. Still, Carson looked pale and drained, and from personal experience Zelenka knew that he’d only worsen over the next twelve hours.
“John?”
John started, snapping his eyes up from where they’d been fixed on a random point in space. “Right. I’ve still got men guarding the systems that are...left, as well as a steady patrol. I know we’re focusing on the power systems, so I’ve got Teyla and Lorne guarding Zelenka’s crew.”
Weir frowned. “Patrols? I agree we should keep a guard, just...in case, but what exactly are the patrols looking for?”
“I couldn’t get anything out of...Ronon when I...questioned him. His whereabouts are still largely unaccounted for, I don’t think we can rule out the presence of another enemy somewhere in the city.”
Zelenka was still stuck on the idea of anyone questioning Ronon, much less Sheppard, who was very attached to the Satedan. Weir, however, was still processing at a normal speed, and her eyes were flashing lightning.
“ Ronon is the imposter. We’ve been over this, John.”
Zelenka swallowed. He did not want to be in John’s position right now. If he could go the entirety of his service on Atlantis without Dr. Weir looking at him like that, he would be a happy man.
“I know he is,” John barked, then took a deep breath and knotted his trembling hands together. “I know he is. I’m just saying, if there’s one, there could be others. Whatever’s in Ronon could have an accomplice somewhere else on the base. We can’t get anything out of Ronon, and so we can’t afford to let down our guard.”
Elizabeth sighed, spreading her fingers over her eyes. When she took her hands away, the anger was gone, replaced by a wry smile. “I’m sorry, John, I misunderstood. I’m afraid I’m feeling the strain of the situation as well.”
“Can’t blame you for that,” John mumbled, letting his eyes droop half-closed. Carson clucked sympathetically at Elizabeth, and Zelenka sat very still and tried not to throw up.
“If we are now only talking about things that pertain to the military, I think that I should leave,” Zelenka said. “You three can….” Zelenka gestured vaguely, the necessary words escaping him.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Carson asked worriedly, and Zelenka figured he must look as bad as he felt.
But he nodded tightly. He wasn’t sure that he was alright, but there wasn’t really a lot to be done about it. “I just...I really must get back to work. We do not have much time left, and the infrastructure for many different systems has been damaged….”
“Alright, Mckay, keep us updated,” John said.
Zelenka froze, but the words sounded so natural in John’s mouth that for a second, it seemed that no one else noticed what he had said. Then, Zelenka watched as everyone else around the table slowly registered John’s words. John was the last to notice, and he immediately looked up at Zelenka, eyes wide.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean...I know you’re not….”
“I understand,” Zelenka said. And he did. He obviously wasn’t calling himself the wrong name, but he had tapped his comms, wanting to ask Rodney a question or get some piece of information from him, more times than he could count. He knew he was the Head of the Science Department now, but it still didn’t feel real. He kept waiting for Rodney to sweep in and save the day somehow, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever really process the fact that that wasn’t going to happen.
“It was just a force of habit,” John said. “It doesn’t….”
“I understand,” Zelenka said again. “We all miss him.”
“He’s not dead,” Carson said, sounding mournful.
“No one ever said he was dead, ” John said, whirling on Carson.
Zelenka figured the chance they had for any further productive conversation was gone. He slipped out of the room and headed back towards the team of scientists, praying that perhaps they’d somehow made a breakthrough while he’d been receiving updates. It seemed unlikely, but he could hope.
Rodney opened his eyes slowly. It took a lot more effort than he’d expected, and after he’d finally unpeeled his eyelids, he lay there just blinking at the darkness for a while.
Darkness. That meant it was...night? Rodney supposed that made sense. The daytime had been filled with lights and sounds and Carson’s soothing hum, and Sheppard. Now, none of those things were anywhere to be found.
Still, it was hard to be sure. Rodney’s thoughts were muddled, scattered into pieces by what Rodney assumed were very effective drugs indeed.
There was a sound from the foot of Rodney’s bed, and after a small struggle, he managed to swivel his neck around and to the side.
“Ronon?”
The Satedan was standing frozen by his bedside, face half in shadow. Rodney frowned. There was something about Ronon, something he thought he should remember….
But it was no use. The fog over his mind was too thick.
“Whassat?” Rodney asked, narrowing his eyes at the object in Ronon’s hands. It looked familiar, something Rodney was sure he had seen before, sure he should remember. A small grey block, rectangular and plasticky-looking. There was a small circular disc set into the molded plastic, and a steady red light blinked on and off in the center. The whole thing gave him the same vague feeling of unease that he got when he looked at Ronon’s face.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ronon said, and he bent down and placed the whatever-it-was under Rodney’s bed.
Rodney supposed that if Ronon were telling him not to worry, he should probably listen. The Satedan probably knew better than him, at this point.
“I was shot,” Rodney informed Ronon. He didn’t think he had seen the other man yet, although everything since the initial burst of pain had become a strange, dreamy swirl of half-remembered conversations. He couldn’t be sure of anything.
“Yeah,” Ronon said, in a flat, odd tone, but he didn’t volunteer anything else.
“Sh’pp’rd’s stressed,” Rodney told him. He wasn’t sure what exactly had dredged this up from the swampy corners of his memory, but John’s tight, worried expression was one of the few things he was sure on.
“I bet.”
There was something off about the way he was talking, and Rodney’s unease grew. Whether it was from the drugs or not, Rodney found himself shifting, trying to get a better look at Ronon’s face.
That was undoubtedly a mistake. Rodney fell back, gasping as pain seared across his stomach, whiting out his vision.
When his eyesight cleared, Ronon was still standing in the same place as before, watching impassively.
“S’mething bad ‘s happening,” Rodney said. He knew he was starting to slur. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay awake. The pull of the drugs was too great, and the pain left him drained.
“It’ll be over soon,” Ronon said.
Over soon. That...that sounded good. Over. Of course, Rodney would still be shot. But maybe everyone would be less worried. Maybe he could see Sheppard again.
“You...okay?” Rodney asked. He was having a difficult time remembering...well, much of anything, really. But he had a bad feeling when he looked at Ronon. Something had happened with Ronon. He couldn’t be hurt, or Carson would be there. But...but...something bad had happened.
“I’m okay.”
“Seem...weird,” Rodney managed. Ronon did seem weird. Weird. Rodney felt kind of weird too. Maybe he should just go to sleep.
“Go back to sleep,” Ronon said. That was the first thing Ronon had said that Rodney really felt made sense. He needed sleep. He was exhausted. And it was the middle of the night. Everyone else was asleep, probably. Everyone except Ronon and Rodney.
“You put somethin’ under my bed,” Rodney said, suddenly remembering. He couldn’t quite remember what it looked like. But he didn’t think he wanted something under his bed. He would prefer if Ronon removed it.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ronon said flatly. “I need to leave now. Go back to sleep.”
“Mk,” Rodney said softly. God, sleep did sound good. Ronon turned to leave, and Rodney closed his eyes. The sound of footsteps retreated.
Rodney was so tired. He tried to breathe deeply, but it just...it hurt so much. It was hard to breathe at all. He kept his eyes closed, and tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but it wasn’t working, it wasn’t working. His stomach felt like it was on fire.
He needed Carson. He needed Carson to come back with some of those miracle drugs. The ones that made him feel like his body wasn’t real anymore. He couldn’t think so well when he was on them, but that didn’t matter. He just wanted sleep. Ronon had said he should get some sleep. He was so tired.
The call button seemed very far away. Rodney lifted his hand, gave up, lowered it back down. Maybe he didn’t need drugs after all. He wasn’t sure which would be harder - trying to sleep without painkillers or lifting his hand and moving it a few inches to the right.
God he was tired.
He picked his hand up and slammed it down on the call button. That movement wasn’t enough to really set off the pain in his stomach, but he was horribly alarmed by how weak he felt. His hand might as well be a ten pound weight. A twenty pound weight. Some amount of weight that was...high.
Carson came in, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Had the doctor been asleep? Was Rodney supposed to be asleep?
Oh, right, he was. Ronon had told him to get some sleep. That’s why he was getting drugs from Carson.
“What is it, Rodney?” Carson asked. “Do you need something? Why are you awake?”
What had he needed again? Maybe he was higher than he thought.
Oh drugs. He needed drugs.
“‘T really hurts,” Rodney said, letting his eyes drift closed. “Ronon came and woke me up. Now ‘t hurts too much, an’ I can’t sleep.”
“Ronon was here?” There was a strange, sharp note in Carson’s voice. “Are you sure?”
“He put somethin’...under my bed,” Rodney said with a sigh. He remembered being curious about what it was, but now he mostly just wanted the pain to lessen a bit.
Carson’s eyes widened, and he bent down to peer beneath the bed. Rodney waited, rather impatiently, for Carson to give him the drugs he had asked for in the first place. Whatever Carson found so interesting could surely wait.
After what seemed like an eternity to Rodney’s foggy mind, Carson straightened up, his eyes wide and almost glazed-looking.
“Hurts,” Rodney reminded Carson, in case he had forgotten.
The doctor didn’t seem to hear him. His face was frozen, his eyes fixed on some distant point. Rodney frowned.
“ Hurts ,” he said again.
Finally, Carson stirred, turning woodenly towards him. “It’s a bomb.”
Actually saying the words served as a jolt, snapping Carson out of his state of frozen horror. His hands began to shake. There was a bomb under Rodney’s bed.
“‘M tired,” Rodney mumbled again, apparently not having processed Carson’s words in the slightest. That was probably for the best, Carson thought. Right now, he was too all-consumed with the bomb under Rodney’s bed to think about anything else, even comforting his patient.
Ignoring Rodney, Carson knelt back down, staring at what was undoubtedly an explosive device. He’d seen John set explosives of this kind, made up of a block of C4 and a detonator. But Carson had only seen that a few times, during some of the more unhappily memorable experiences he’d had in the field. He’d certainly never expected to find plastic explosives in his infirmary, complete with a steadily blinking detonator.
Carson needed to get rid of it. That was the first step. He couldn’t even afford to waste the time it would take to call someone, Sheppard or one of his men, someone who would actually know what to do. Carson wasn’t exactly an explosives expert, but he knew enough from listening to John and Ronon show off that an entire block of C4 would result in a very big explosion indeed. Simply evacuating the infirmary until someone else could deal with it was not an option. It might not be enough.
Carson also knew that disarming this particular bomb was as simple as pulling out the detonator. ‘Simple.’ Staring at the blinking red light, it didn’t feel particularly simple.
“Carson?”
“Not now, Rodney,” Carson said crossly, not taking his eyes off the C4. “There’s a bomb under your bed.”
Rodney blinked slowly. “A...bomb?”
Carson swallowed hard. He knew how to separate the detonator from the explosives. Not only had he seen John do it before, it was pretty intuitive. But he...there were professionals who were supposed to do this. People whose jobs it was to defuse bombs. Carson wasn’t even sure he’d ever touched an explosive before. He didn’t feel qualified.
He had no choice.
Could it be sensitive to pressure? Could he set it off just by touching it? Carson didn’t think so. He thought only time could activate it. But….
He couldn’t leave it. He had no idea how much time they had before it went off. But if Carson didn’t act fast, he would kill both Rodney and himself.
With one hand, Carson gingerly reached forward and slid the block out from under the bed. It looked even more sinister now that he could see it better. Carson had seen plenty of action movies, and those sorts of bombs always had timers attached to them, ticking down to show the hero how much time they had to get everything sorted. Carson wasn’t sure he would be able to handle the pressure of a timer, but at the same time, he wished he had some sense of how long it could take. He was sure each breath would be his last, that it would explode between one heartbeat and the next.
“What is that ?” Rodney asked. He had shifted slightly so he could peer over the side of the bed.
“It’s the bomb,” Carson said, alarmed by how shaky his voice sounded.
“A bomb from Ronon?” Rodney asked, sounding sleepy. Carson stiffened. He hadn’t fully conceptualized the fact that the explosive was, in fact, from Ronon. But that...he couldn’t think about that now. He put it aside for later, and tried to focus on what was in front of him.
“Yes,” Carson said faintly.
“Okay,” Rodney said softly, threat apparently already forgotten.
The flashing red light - that had to be the detonator. Carson grabbed it, but it was stuck. Carson didn’t think it would be too difficult to peel away from the brick of explosives, but he wasn’t sure that that was safe. He desperately wanted to avoid triggering the explosion himself.
He wished John was here.
Carson blinked. John had to be warned. Ronon must have escaped somehow, and gotten his hands on explosives. That was crucial information for the Commander of the Military. Carson needed to pull himself together, protect Rodney, and warn John.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Carson tightened his grip on the detonator. He took a deep breath. He knew that wasn’t going to prevent him from exploding, nor would it make the feeling of exploding less of a shock, but it did make him feel a bit more in control.
Carson pulled the detonator out. The infirmary did not erupt into a burst of pressure and flame. They were safe.
Carson opened his hand and let the detonator fall through trembling fingers. It bounced onto the infirmary tiles and rolled away, red light blinking harmlessly. Before Carson could second guess himself, he scooped up the C4, cringing at the feeling of the molded plastic in his hands. It felt more like silly putty or clay than a block of high explosives.
Carson looked around frantically for somewhere to put it, unsure what might cause it to go off. Finally, he hurried to his desk and put it in the bottom drawer, which he kept empty. As soon as the explosive was out of sight, Carson sunk to the ground, shaking.
“Carson?”
He’d forgotten about Rodney. Trembling, Carson heaved himself upright and returned to Rodney’s room.
“‘S it gone?” Rodney seemed more curious about the fate of the bomb than anything else. He blinked softly at Carson, but he didn’t appear worried in the slightest. “Tired.”
Carson, on the other hand, was shaking so badly now that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to still his hands long enough to give Rodney the drugs he clearly wanted. And that wasn’t even his first order of business. He’d taken care of the bomb, but he still needed help. Ronon had escaped, Rodney could have died, and Carson had a block of C4 sitting in his desk drawer. He needed John.
“Just a moment, Rodney,” Carson managed, his voice thready and frightened sounding. Taking a deep breath, he reached towards his comms and called for John.