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Chapter Text

Tales of Atlantis

Episode 1: A New Threat

"Dr. Weir!"

The leader of the Atlantis expedition continued down the corridor as if she hadn't heard her.

Catherine looked after her in disbelief. 

Oh no, she wasn't going to let her get away with this. Not this time. Not after six months of endless administrative tasks and minimal scientific activity. She was an expert in astrovirology, not a bureaucrat! How was she supposed to study alien pathogens if she wasn't allowed to travel off-world? She didn't take a job 1,000 light years away from Earth so she could fill out paperwork!

Clenching her fists at her sides, Catherine quickened her pace and caught up with Elizabeth Weir before she could reach the elevator. 

"Please, can you give me a moment? I need to talk to you."

Dr. Weir stopped and turned to face Catherine. Sharp, intelligent eyes searched her face, and Catherine tried hard not to flinch under the scrutiny.

"Dr. Spencer, how can I help you?" she asked. 

"It's about my position." Catherine took a deep, calming breath. "I would like to be replaced as soon as possible."

Dr. Weir raised an eyebrow and looked at her quizzically, her expression softening a bit.

"Excuse me? Why would you want to do that? You were Carson's first choice. He specifically recommended you, even before..." Dr. Weir swallowed visibly and started walking again, leaving Catherine no choice but to follow. "Besides, with your expertise, you're hardly replaceable."

Catherine nodded. Carson Beckett, her mentor and former Chief Medical Officer of the expedition, had recently died in a freak accident. He'd been the one to put her on the short list of candidates for the job, and she felt like she was letting him down, but she couldn't sacrifice her true calling for an administrative job. The thrill of intellectual challenge, the overwhelming need to find new treatments that could save hundreds, maybe thousands of lives, had driven her entire career. Take that away, and she didn't even know who she was anymore.

"This is not about my competence," Catherine insisted. "It's about me not being able to use my potential as long as I'm barred from off-world travel! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to help, but my expertise, the only thing I really bring to the table, happens to be in astrovirology. I'm not a team leader! I'm sure no one recommended me for my people skills!"

Dr. Weir stopped in front of the elevator; the door swished open and she stepped inside. Catherine had no choice but to follow. "And yet everyone says you're doing a great job," Dr. Weir countered. 

Catherine had no doubt. Dr. Weir would have sent her back to Earth with the kawoosh of a wormhole if things were different. Unfortunately, she was only doing this because she could not shirk a responsibility that should not have been hers in the first place.

"Thank you, I do my best to keep things running. Still, I came here to study alien pathogens, and I can't do that if I'm buried in paperwork! It feels like a waste of-"

Elizabeth abruptly turned to her. She seemed to have finally hit a nerve.

"Dr. Spencer, you know exactly why I made this decision! On your last mission with SG-1, you ignored a direct order and nearly got yourself killed. We just lost Carson. We cannot afford to lose you as well!"

It was all true, but only those who had been there had the right to judge her. She had disobeyed O'Neill's order, but she hadn't had much of a choice.

Gritting her teeth, Catherine swallowed her rising temper. Her professional crisis aside, Elizabeth was doing a damn good job as their leader and Catherine had no doubt that she had her best interests at heart. Still, it was not fair. 

She had potential. She could open up new horizons, make discoveries that could shake the foundations of medical science, cure ills that man had not yet thought of, put an end to suffering on a global scale. For most people, that meant keeping her in a glass bubble, safe and sound, unable to take a step on her own. Catherine wanted to live as much as anyone else, but living meant more than existing. What if risking her life was the only way to move forward?

"Insubordination doesn't seem to stop others. Take Colonel Sheppard, for example!" she snapped, too angry to stop the words from tumbling out.

If Dr. Weir felt anything other than mild amusement, she didn't show it.

"His job is to keep everyone safe, and that includes putting himself in harm's way, off-world or otherwise," she said matter-of-factly.

Okay, criticizing the military leader of the expedition wasn't the most convincing argument, she had to admit. But he was reckless and insubordinate, and that never seemed to bother Elizabeth. Or anyone else. It was the unfairness of it all that bothered her.

The elevator doors opened into a corridor a few steps from the control room and Elizabeth's office.

"And mine too," Catherine insisted, her words coming out more and more desperate. "I need to see how these pathogens behave in native populations if I am to gather valuable data and save people's lives! How am I supposed to do that from behind a desk, smothered in paperwork for the IOA?"

She hated the note of desperation in her voice, but God help her, she was desperate. Six months of paperwork were doing funny things to her brain. She could feel her neurons dying in droves from boredom. 

"But you are also an excellent surgeon. Even without leaving the City, you have saved many lives." Dr. Weir's expression was firm but not without sympathy. "Including Colonel Sheppard, if I recall correctly."

Catherine winced. It had happened four months ago, but every detail of that night was forever etched in her memory.

She should have refused to operate on him, considering their close… friendship. But she knew she was the best for the job, and she hadn't expected that to be a problem.

She hadn't expected his heart to stop beating that night, either. His breath. His thoughts. His life.

With the sound of the flatline in her ears, she stared at his still face, unbearably handsome even in death. His closed eyes, his colorless lips, his disheveled hair, now sticky with blood. Dead. His sense of humor, his intelligence, his bravery, his ridiculous self-sacrificing streak. The warmth of his hand on hers as he showed her the City. The smile that tugged at his lips whenever he looked at her. The spark in his hazel eyes that she knew was reflected in hers. All gone. Lost.

This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening. It was going to tear her apart.

Death follows me everywhere. I am surrounded by it. Drowning in it.

She knew she had to react, had to do something. She just couldn't remember what. Her mind had gone blank, protecting itself from the cold, sheer terror of yet another loss. She just stared and stared and stared, unable to think, unable to breathe, unable to react. And for a moment, it felt as if time itself had died and she was floating through the endless void, with no starting point and no destination. She felt just as lost as he was. Just as broken.

It had only lasted a moment. But that moment had almost cost him his life.

The sudden flood of memories made Catherine's heart drop like a stone in her chest.

She had let her emotions get in the way of her reason, her ability to make quick decisions. Gods! It didn't matter that in the end she had revived him. She had frozen in surgery. During the operation. The thought was too horrible to contemplate, but she had to accept it as true. Live with it. She had let him get too close and he had almost paid for it with his life. 

Oh, no. She didn't deserve any praise for saving John Sheppard. She deserved a suspension... or worse.

"That... was more luck than anything," she said, unable to keep a note of tense discomfort out of her voice. "I may be a decent surgeon, but medical research is my true calling. You see, when I left Earth, my team was very close to finding a cure for lung cancer. We could have had a modified virus ready to go in less than five years, and yet I left because what's out there," she waved her hand toward the gate, "could give me what I need to cure not just one type of cancer, but many. If I can't explore that possibility, I'd rather go back to my old research!"

The words came out harsher than she intended, but she was tired of being sidelined and more than a little angry. As long as this restriction was in place, there was no reason for her to stay. Worse, there were more than a few reasons for her to leave. If some of them were selfish and personal, that was no one's business.

"Would that change your mind about your position?" Elizabeth looked at her with a hint of a smile.

Catherine stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly realizing she'd been played all along. Knowing Elizabeth Weir, she had probably been waiting for the right moment to remove the restriction, the one that would give her the most advantage. Like the one that would make Catherine desperate enough to take whatever paperwork came with her position, as long as she was allowed to leave Atlantis once in a while.

She made a mental note never to underestimate Elizabeth Weir again and nodded.

"Yes. But I will ask the IOA to put someone else in charge of personnel and budget issues. I'd rather focus on medical research."

"And I'll help you send the request," Dr. Weir said with a nod. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend," she added before entering her office, where Major Lorne was waiting for her.

"Yeah, sure."

Catherine took a quick look around the Control Room. As usual, the huge place that served as their central base of operations was buzzing with activity. Behind the Ancient consoles, brilliant minds from all over the world worked together, brainstorming ideas and expanding the horizons of mankind. She loved this place. It gave her a sense of purpose, made her feel part of something significant, something with a pulse.

Eventually, her eyes found their way to the Gate and lingered. Bigger than life itself, it called to her, promising danger and discovery and the means to leave her mark on the world. She stared at it in rapt fascination, her heart aching with mixed emotions.

A small part of her brain warned her not to stay. She didn't need to stay in Atlantis to make a difference, and she certainly didn't need the... distraction, but she chose not to listen. She was good at blocking out distractions. There was no place for personal feelings in science.

Taking a deep breath, Catherine turned and nearly bounced off the chest of the last person she wanted to see. The distraction. Her personal reason for leaving.

Colonel John Sheppard.

o0o0o

"I'm just saying, Rodney, you didn't have to go into all that detail. It goes right over my head."

Dr. Rodney McKay, the expedition's chief scientist as well as a royal pain in the ass, rolled his eyes at him. The gesture seemed particularly theatrical up close, and John was forced to remember that the man was about his height and a good deal stouter. Rodney's constant fidgeting and tendency to be anxious made him appear much smaller than he actually was. 

"I was just making sure some of the information actually stayed between your ears," Rodney shrugged. "You must have understood some of my explanations, no matter how distracting the company may have been," he finished with an annoyed huff.

"She wasn't-" John stopped as Dr. Catherine Spencer suddenly turned and almost ran into him. He could never get over how young she looked. He wouldn't give her more than 19 on a bad day, instead of a few weeks shy of 27.

The only redeeming aspect that kept him from feeling like he was one step away from robbing the cradle were her eyes, which shone at him with both intelligence and determination. Still, with her skinny figure and innocent face, it was sometimes hard to remember that she was a medical doctor and the holder of several impressive Ph.D's. Her brain was probably as big as McKay's, not that Rodney would ever accept such a blasphemy.

John smiled. "Hi, Doc."

Her blue eyes widened, pupils dilated slightly, and her lips parted in a gasp of surprise, which gave his body a surprise of its own. A second later, those innocent eyes narrowed into slits and her nose wrinkled in disdain, deflating his physical reaction from naughty ideas to cold shower thoughts. John figured he could use the aforementioned shower after spending most of the day scouting around the City, but he couldn't smell that bad. Could he? If she wasn't looking at him like he was the ugliest mutt in two galaxies, he might have bent his head to smell himself.

"Colonel," she said coolly, stepping between him and McKay.

He spun around to look at her and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.

"What did I say this time?" he whispered to McKay.

The chill in her voice was nothing new to him, but he still couldn't figure out what was causing it. It wasn't as if they had gotten off on the wrong foot from day one, quite the opposite. The chemistry between them had been so intense that even months later he could still feel it tingling on his skin.

If it hadn't been for his 'no sex with coworkers' rule, they probably would have ended up in bed before the end of her first week. That alone should have been reason enough for him to stop seeing her immediately. Only he didn't. Couldn't. For days they had walked and talked and laughed, pretending to be friends, when her slightest touch was enough to set him on fire. There was something about this woman that drew him to her like a moth to an open flame, the pull impossible to deny or resist. Not that he saw any reason to do either. Not after three months of flirting and tension.

The memory of almost kissing her on the balcony flashed through his mind. Even without their lips actually touching, the moment had been so hot and intense that he just knew they wouldn't have stopped there without Elizabeth's call.

Two of his men hadn't returned from their mission and couldn't be reached by radio. He had no choice but to tell Catherine what had happened and go looking for them. The next time he saw her, he was on a gurney in the operating room, barely conscious and fighting for his life. Catherine saved him that night, then turned Ice Queen on him in the morning. She gave him no word, no explanation, not even eye contact. She wouldn't even call him by name.

John would be lying if he said it didn't hurt, but he told himself it was only his pride that was wounded, and he backed down. What other choice was there? She wanted nothing to do with him, and he wasn't going to force her into something she didn't want.

So he humored her and went back to calling her by her last name.

"Did I just see what I saw?" McKay asked back. "John "Captain Kirk" Sheppard getting the brush off?"

John glared at McKay. "Oh, I don't mind her, she's just a kid. Who can understand teenagers anyway? Besides, she's like having a female you for a medic." He shuddered.

John knew it wasn't his best retort as soon as it came out of his mouth, but something about her had thrown him so off balance that he was proud to have come up with any retort at all.

Rodney patted him on the shoulder, an annoying smile on his lips. "Normally I would give you a proper comeback, but you're becoming an expert at digging yourself in deeper." He lifted his chin pointedly past John.

Already feeling the kick in the gut, John dutifully glanced over his shoulder at Dr. Spencer, who stood not ten feet away, measuring him from head to toe with an icy smile on her lips. When their eyes met, her gaze quickly shifted to McKay and she gave him the most brilliant and charming smile John had ever seen. 

She even had those dimples that made his groin feel funny and, as always, she looked so innocent it made him feel uncomfortable.

Completely unaware of his moral - and immoral - distress, the young doctor casually strolled back over to them. "You may be right, Colonel, if you mean to say that I am as brilliant a physician as Dr. McKay is a physicist, despite my apparent youth."

Her smile widened into a beguiling, truly seductive expression. Something she seemed to be far too young to know how to wield, let alone use on a man as inexperienced as McKay.

"And that my touch, though professional, leaves a lingering effect on the unsuspecting," she continued without so much as a glance at him.

And, oh boy, she had no idea how right she was. She might have looked 19 earlier, but she definitely didn't feel so young anymore, and for some reason, this "new" Catherine annoyed him more than he was willing to admit. On the plus side, her sudden metamorphosis allowed him to let his eyes drink her in without too much guilt.

"Dr. McKay, looks like we have a lot in common," she purred.

"Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay," Elizabeth called. "My office! Major Lorne has news." Her voice was as calm and collected as ever, but John sensed a hint of anxiety underneath. That was never a good sign. 

"You should go see what's going on," Catherine continued, touching Rodney's hand. "They probably need that big brain of yours."

John raised an eyebrow, glancing from the young, diabolical genius to the older, less mature one. After his fall from grace, McKay had somehow established himself as her new best friend. The even stranger part was that McKay wasn't trying to compete or outshine her. He certainly wasn't trying to flirt with her. Not that McKay could flirt. Catherine, on the other hand, seemed to have picked up some new skills in the eons since she had last given him the time of day.

"I swear, smart men will be the death of me." The young woman gave McKay one last sultry, seductive smile and walked away.

O...kay. Well, Catherine was definitely flirting. Either that or she was suddenly Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde, but in her case, Mrs. Hyde was the sweet one who only came out to play with the likes of... Rodney? 

John shook his head. None of this made sense. Not that he was an idiot when it came to women, but her giving him the cold shoulder was definitely a sign that something had gone very wrong somewhere. 

What the hell had he done?

"Come on, lover-boy." He pulled McKay down the hall. "Duty calls," he added, pulling the physicist toward Elizabeth's office. "You can join her later."

"Lover boy?" McKay groaned indignantly. "Mr. Unoriginal, you just couldn't find anything better, could you?" The lack of originality seemed to offend him more than the uninspired nickname.

McKay jerked his arm out of John's grasp as they entered Elizabeth's office, ranting about being raised in a cave.

Elizabeth glanced at them, the usually tolerant and even indulgent gleam that suggested she was dealing with 12-year-old boys missing from her eyes. John sensed the tension in her voice, and when he followed her into the office, he wasn't expecting cake and party hats.

Utterly oblivious to her dark mood, Rodney didn't even wait for Elizabeth to close the door before explaining himself. "I was just... We ran into Dr. Spencer in the hallway and..."

"McKay!" John warned quietly, and for once Rodney shut up, his gaze fixed on Elizabeth as well.

The meeting had begun without them and John noticed Teyla standing at the side of the desk. Silently, Elizabeth motioned for him to sit down. One step behind her, Major Evan Lorne seemed to avoid meeting their eyes, and when he finally raised his head, his gaze sent a shiver down John's spine. "Colonel."

"Major," John nodded in acknowledgment.

Lorne's unease was palpable, sadness and anxiety radiating from him in waves.

"I take it you managed to contact the people on MH6 - 98U?"

Lorne's gaze dropped. "Yes, sir."

Teyla sighed. "It was not a downed transmitter, as we had hoped."

"It seems," Elizabeth began, "that the villagers are sick and something or someone has... attacked the planet."

"Wraith?" McKay asked.

"They weren't culled," Elizabeth stated. She licked her lips and shook her head. "That's the only thing we know for sure. But the survivors have yet to explain what happened. The raids took place at night, and they were meant to kill."

John felt his skin tighten, preparing for a fight. "How many?"

Lorne bit his lower lip. His eyes met his commander's again. "At least a thousand, according to our database. Now..." he shook his head. "The man I spoke to said about 50. All sick with what looks like an extreme case of the flu."

John leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, taking a moment to absorb the horror of this information. It had been so quiet lately. Something like this was bound to happen.

"This is not their modus operandi," Rodney finally broke the silence. "The Wraith attack humans because they feed on them, not because they..."

"I know." Elizabeth nodded. "That's why I want your team to check this out, together with all the medical personnel we can spare. See if there are any signs of Wraith activity in the area. And Rodney, see what you can do about the malfunctioning shield mentioned in the report. It seems to have stopped working a few days ago."

She hesitated for a moment, then looked at him. "John, take Dr. Spencer with you this time."

John raised his right eyebrow, more than a little surprised. "Are you sure about this? O'Neill couldn't handle her in the field!"

Elizabeth stood up and rounded her desk to join Rodney at the window. "I'm sure you can charm her." The faintest shadow of a smile tugged at her lips, only to disappear a second later. "John, we don't know how contagious this thing is or if there will be more attacks tonight, so please be careful." The concern in her voice was palpable.

He nodded. What could go wrong? They were short on protective suits, and he was about to investigate an alien outbreak with the one woman who couldn't stand him and had a record of insubordination that matched his own. It was all peachy.

"Rodney, Teyla, radio Ronon and get him suited up. I'll meet you at the gate."

Rodney raised one hand tentatively, scratching the back of his head nervously with the other. "Are you sure you need me to come with you? It's just that I have this terrible allergy to infectious diseases of the alien variety."

"You're the alien here, McKay," John pointed out helpfully. "And you can't expect me to fix the shield. I can shoot it down if I have to."

"That's your answer to everything, isn't it? Shoot it or get me to fix it!" the physicist grumbled. 

John stood up, completely ignoring McKay's protests. "I'll alert the medical staff that they're going off-world."

"Can't you just radio...?" Rodney started, but John cocked his head and let out an exaggerated sigh. McKay seemed to get it. "Ahhh... well... good luck with her, then."

John made a face as he walked out the door. He really would have preferred cake and party hats just once.

o0o0o

John's legs forced him towards the infirmary, but his mind and heart couldn't keep up with the task at hand. If her former team leader was to be trusted, her willingness to travel off-world was matched only by her determination to get herself killed. He really should have gotten her side of the story while they were still on talking terms. Unfortunately, he had been more than a little distracted at the time.

Something must have distracted her now, because he managed to catch up with her before she made it back to the Infirmary.

"Dr. Spencer, we have to go off-world. There's been an attack on MH6 - 98U and a severe flu outbreak. It seems bad enough for Dr. Weir to request your presence. Prepare a medical team as soon as possible and be ready to leave in 20 minutes," he informed her.

She stopped in her tracks, turned slowly on her toes and stared at him with wide eyes. After a short, startled pause, she nodded professionally.

"So I can finally do my job?" she asked, tilting her head.

"I think so, and-"

"Excellent. My team and I will be in the Control Room in fifteen minutes." With that, she turned and entered the left corridor.

John lunged forward, cutting her off.

"Um, Doc. We must agree on some ground rules before you step through that Gate as part of my team."

When she stopped again, her feet skidded on the floor as if breaking quickly.

"Is that so?" she asked, dropping her gaze as quickly as it met his. "Last time I checked, I was a civilian, not a Marine or a flyboy."

Oh, boy, here we go. 

John had already suspected that she would be difficult to work with, but he hadn't expected it to bother him as much as it did. And it wasn't her disdain for authority that did it, but the way she made it sound like it was personal. Like she didn't want to deal with him. Work with him. Have anything to do with him. 

Which, of course, didn't change the fact that he was responsible for her safety while she was off-world. She had to follow some basic rules if she wanted to travel. Carson had known that; she had yet to find out.

"I don't want to be late, so I should get going," she said matter-of-factly. "Please wait for us at the Gate."

The way she kept looking away from him was starting to get on his nerves. She didn't even have the decency to look him in the eye as she ignored everything he just said.

The hell with that!

"Dr. Spencer. I don't think I made myself as clear as I should have, so I'm only going to say this once. I'm well aware that you're a civilian and an invaluable member of this expedition. And you may have some training in the field, but that's not nearly enough in the event of an attack. As luck would have it, we have managed to awaken a race that wants to suck us dry for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which is reason enough for any civilian to understand and accept military protocol, especially when traveling off-world! This is not up for debate, nor will I put the rest of my team in danger just because you can't take orders from me. That being said, you will take cover if we are attacked and stay there until I tell you it's safe."

She looked like she was going to say something, so he raised his finger pointedly.

"If you choose to ignore my orders or undermine my decisions, which are usually in the best interest of the team, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you back through the Gate. Is that clear?"

This time it seemed he'd managed to stun her. Her big blue eyes finally locked on his and her face turned bright red. John flashed his patented half-smile that always made Elizabeth agree with him. "See you in fifteen."

He was halfway down the hall when Catherine regained her voice.

"Look, I told O'Neill, and I'm telling you. I will not stand by when there are injured people who need my help! Saving lives is my job. If I have to risk mine to do so, then so be it. I made my choice when I entered med school!" She turned and strutted away.

John closed his eyes in frustration. She sounded so much like himself, it was disturbing. It was also a very dangerous creed to live by, if his own medical record was any indication. Grudging admiration filled his chest. As much as he didn't want to like her - again! - he couldn't help but respect her determination to fight for what she believed in. If only he could leave it at that, but he couldn't. Not with Carson's loss still gnawing at him. He wasn't willing to risk losing another civilian the way he lost Carson.

Damn.

"Catherine," he called, regretting what he was about to say, but not enough to stop himself. " My job is to keep you alive, and I can't do that if you don't cooperate. Whatever's going on in that pretty head of yours, you can't save anyone if you're dead," he said, letting the edge of his voice soften to a more reasonable tone.

Catherine stopped abruptly, her shoulders hunched. 

"Oh, that's rich!" she scoffed. "I never expected to hear that from you of all people! Tell me, Colonel, did you figure it out before or after you volunteered for a suicide mission?"

So... little Miss "I'll Ignore You Out Of Nowhere" had taken enough interest in him to pull out his personnel file and read it.

Interesting.

"At least I wasn't an asset for others to protect," he said quietly, coming close enough to reach her shoulder from behind.

She pushed his hand away with a little too much force. As if the contact offended her. "No, you've just become an ass over the years."

"Fair enough," he allowed, looking at his hand in confusion. 

Was she acting like that because they almost kissed? It was the only thing that had happened between them that night, besides her saving his life, and it made him feel more than a little awkward. Maybe, blinded by the crazy attraction he felt for her, he had completely misread the signs. Hell, most men had no idea how to read a woman's signals, and yet he had never been wrong before. At least, not when it came to sexual chemistry.

Had it all been one-sided?

John let out a frustrated breath and took a step in her direction. 

"And this ass is telling you that if you continue in your stubbornness, I'll have no choice but to report to Elizabeth that you're a risk to this mission," he warned. "Don't fight me on this, Catherine. At the end of the day, it's my decision whether you can travel off-world or not."

She finally turned to face him. She was pale, and something inside her seemed to vibrate with tension. 

"Fine. I'll do my best to follow your rules," she spat. "Just make sure you're not the one who needs me to run by his side in the middle of a fight. I'll make you eat those rules."

She took a deep breath and entered the Infirmary, her feet shaking a little under her weight.

John was sure that if he had blinked, he would have missed that little fumble in her step. Her reaction only confused him more. Now he really needed the mission to take the edge off.

John took the nearest elevator and headed for the equipment room. The rest of his team was probably already in the Control Room, waiting for him.

And the people on MH6 - 98U had waited for help long enough.

o0o0o

John had been right. When he entered the room, Teyla was already at the Gate, talking to Ronon. He looked up at the control tower where McKay was fiddling with God knows what on his tablet and one of the many consoles. A few seconds later, Smith, a Marine who was to accompany them on the mission, entered the room and gave him a military salute. John nodded back slightly amused, then remembered how new Smith was. He didn't know that such formalities were mostly a thing of the past there.

John checked his watch: the medical team had five minutes left.

McKay trotted down the main staircase, barely looking up from the screen. "I see you're still alive, Colonel. Did you actually have a chat with the lovely doctor, or did you chicken out at the last minute because you were sure she was going to attack you with needles?"

"Stuff it, Rodney."

"So, will Dr. Spencer be joining us?" Teyla wanted to know.

John shook his head. "She will join us. She just needs some babysitting."

"We can do without her," Ronon said. At Teyla's side look, he added, "I mean, if she's not a team... player."

John chuckled slightly. The only time Ronon acted like a team player was when he beat the crap out of them during sparring sessions. "Yeah, look who's talking."

"Hey!" Ronon grinned and spun his weapon several times. "You want to play?"

"I think we're lucky to have her," McKay interjected. "I've been going over the data again and it doesn't look promising. The symptoms of this flu are quite peculiar. And deadly.” He lifted his eyes from the tablet and looked at each one of them in alarm. “Did I mention deadly?"

"Then maybe you should be the babysitter for a change," John said, glanced at his watch for a third time, then clicked his earpiece. "Sheppard to the Infirmary. Dr. Spencer, what's your ETA?"

"Sorry for the wait, Colonel Sheppard," she said as she led a seemingly full medical team into the Control Room. "We needed an extra minute to secure the equipment for viral studies."

John glanced at McKay, who was grinning at the young doctor, then at Elizabeth, who was heading their way.

"We're ready to go," he told her.

Catherine looked at him sheepishly, doing her best to avoid his eyes. He noticed that she seemed a little too eager and enthusiastic, but at least she was wearing a Kevlar vest and didn't look particularly defiant. Something had definitely made her act less childish. Something that had pissed her off mightily, but still gotten her attention.

Something he'd said. The problem was that his big mouth ended up saying a lot of things. If only he could find out what it was and save it for later. Either way, he figured it was only a matter of time before they started pushing each other's buttons. With a shrug, he shook his fist at Chuck and motioned for the technician to dial the Gate. Everyone stepped back as the chevrons began to lock into place.

"First time out of Atlantis, Doc?" Ronon asked.

"Yes. Not for lack of trying, I assure you."

"You know, it's actually quite dangerous out there," Ronon said in his usual guttural tone. "With the Wraith and all."

"Then I'm glad Rodney's coming, too. Makes me feel safer," she said with a smile, causing John to cough up a laugh. Before he could say anything, Ronon beat him to the chase.

"Yeah, you can definitely count on McKay to protect you."

"What... I will?" McKay looked around and then grinned nervously at the young doctor. "I mean... I will ."

"Try again with a little less hysteria, Rodney," John muttered. "She might buy it if you don’t sound like a scared little girl."

The "scared little girl" joke obviously ruffled Dr. Spencer's delicate feathers, as she shot him a fiery glare before quickly glancing down at the heavy looking kit in her hand. Trying to soften it with a charming smile, John reached for her kit.

"Do you need help with that?"

"No, thank you. Besides, you've got that big gun weighing you down, Colonel. I wouldn't want you to wear yourself out too quickly," she said sweetly, looking at him appraisingly.

Swallowing the words on his tongue, John raised an eyebrow and waited for her eyes to meet his. When they finally did, a slow blush spread across her face.

"Don't worry, Doc. My endurance is second to none," he quipped, feeling both childish and proud as the red in her cheeks deepened. 

Teyla rolled her eyes at him and he shrugged innocently. The urge to needle her was overwhelming, but now was neither the time nor the place. That included not commenting on the attention the young doctor was paying to McKay. That required a little more self-control. Still, Teyla's vague amusement reminded him that he didn't have to worry about Rodney. He’d turn things against himself sooner or later.

Ahead of them, the event horizon shimmered, waiting for their departure.

"Since my job is to protect the civilians, it prevents me from being a gentleman and letting the ladies go first. Rodney, you too." He walked ahead, motioning for the others to follow.

"Hey! That was really uncalled for!" Rodney protested, although John was sure that McKay was happy not to be the first through the Gate.

Chapter Text

Catherine stepped through the Gate and the next thing she saw was a bright green world with knee-high grass and huge leafy trees. Yellow, red and purple flowers caressed her legs while unknown birds chirped in the foliage. It felt like an alien version of a fairy tale forest.

An unpleasant prickle tickled up from the base of her spine and settled at the back of her neck, lifting the short hairs and making her shiver with a disturbing fear. It was too colorful, too peaceful, too... perfect . And though it looked nothing like Iraq, something about the wild beauty of this place reminded Catherine of her last mission on Earth.

Instinctively, she took a few steps toward Rodney and grabbed his arm. "This is so beautiful, it scares me," she said. "How ridiculous is this?"

"Not at all, really," he replied, checking his scanner. "My worst luck usually happens on the prettier planets. Or those that are well equipped with alien technology. Or with an abundance of food supplies that we could trade. Or... what I mean is... it's usually places like this where we have to do a lot of running. Mostly while being shot at."

Great. Exactly what she needed to hear.

She shivered again with both excitement and fear, but clamped her mouth shut when she heard a deep chuckle from ahead.

Sheppard! Damn that man.

"But I'm sure that won't happen this time," McKay added quickly, obviously trying to calm her down. "This looks safe enough. For now."

"When you're done bonding," Sheppard said without turning around, "there's a whole settlement waiting for our help. Let's go!"

She was almost grateful for the intervention. Almost.

o0o0o

They managed to keep a steady pace for a while, but he didn't expect it to last. After all, McKay was with them. Sure, he wasn't as vocal about it as usual, but he still hated leaving the safety of the City and everyone knew it. At least he'd stopped complaining about what the atmospheric radiation might do to his fair complexion.

It wasn't long before the sneezing started. To his surprise, it wasn't McKay.

"I need to rest for a few minutes," Catherine asked in a slightly breathy voice, then sneezed again.

John stopped abruptly and turned to face her. Avoiding his gaze, she put the medical kit down and pulled a travel pack of tissues from her inside pocket.

"I think it's the air here," McKay offered, oblivious to the tension between them. "This moon orbits around a large ringed planet... there are bound to be atmospheric differences Dr. Spencer isn't used to." He grinned at the young doctor, leaving him out of their easy camaraderie. "I'm feeling a little tired myself."

"Color me surprised, McKay," John murmured, almost raising his hands to the sky in a prayer for patience and sanity. Of course McKay would try to "gentleman" his way into Catherine's good graces. Wait, he was already there. The only one having trouble getting into Catherine's anything was himself.

He sighed heavily. "Look, you can both rest when we get there."

Without saying a word, she opened her kit, pulled out a bottle, took out a couple of pills and swallowed them dry before sneezing into her handkerchief again.

"Seriously though, Doc, I thought you'd last longer," he couldn't help teasing.

Catherine didn't take the bait, which was probably a good thing for John. He gave her a few more seconds, just in case, then reached down and closed the medical kit. "I offered to help you carry this if it's too much for your frail self." 

From the heated, teary-eyed look she gave him, John knew he was pushing the right buttons.

"And I remember myself saying I didn't need any help." Her voice was surprisingly low and breathy. She turned a hard, suspicious gaze to the hand on the handle of the kit.

A moment later, her gaze shifted back to his, and John could see blood vessels burning the whites of her eyes. It looked like she was having an allergic reaction. But McKay had plenty of allergies himself and he kept them under control well enough. She probably knew how to handle hers. The heat of her gaze seemed to burn right into him, though, and the suddenly deep grumble in her voice as she spoke each word made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"I just need a moment for the antihistamine to kick in. Contrary to popular belief," she sneezed again, the force of it shaking her whole body and nearly knocking the leaves off the trees, "I am human." She said this with a stern look at her own medical team. "Anyway, you shouldn't stay here and wait for me. Go ahead and I will catch up."

"That's not wise," Teyla said. "This planet may not be safe."

The infuriating woman gave them a brief smile. "It's okay." She looked at McKay. "We're alone, right?"

Rodney checked his life-signs scanner. "So far, nothing but us. But... the signal could be masked by radiation from the ring planet…”

John grunted. For someone who had agreed to behave, Catherine was creating a situation that could potentially put everyone in danger.

"What the hell are you talking about? We're not leaving you here. Ronon..." He motioned to the young woman.

"I can carry you, Doc," said the big man.

Not surprisingly, she shook her head. "That won't be necessary," she said. "This path leads straight to the settlement, doesn't it?"

"Well..." Teyla looked at him. "Yes. That is correct."

"Catherine..." McKay muttered, but a single sharp look from her silenced him.

"See? No reason to worry for me," she said almost cheerfully. "Besides, you all need to get moving. Isn't that right, Colonel?"

Leave it to her to turn a priority into the mother of all headaches. This was a mistake and he could feel it. Yes, she pissed him off to no end, but leaving her alone on a strange alien planet was another matter entirely. Especially one that had recently been attacked.

Reluctantly, he glanced at his own scanner. Just as McKay had said, the area looked clear, with no one around but them. Still, all his instincts told him to refuse, and he opened his mouth to say so when he caught her gaze. There was no misreading the silent plea in her eyes. She didn't want him to stay, and whatever was going on with her, she wasn't going to give up anytime soon.

He put the scanner back in his pocket and took a deep breath.

"Just a few minutes rest," he said, handing her his pistol. "Safety's on the side. Turn it off before you fire if you need to."

She huffed at him. "I know how to fire a gun, Colonel. That doesn't mean I'm going to use one."

John grinned. "Trust me, Doc. You want to keep this with you... just for the hell of it." As he placed the gun in her hand, he noticed it tremble. She abruptly dropped the gun to her lap and locked eyes with him, as if to dare him to mention the apparent weakness in her hand. Damn proud woman.

He reached for the medkit, and this time she let him take it.

"But..." McKay looked rather puzzled.

"No 'buts' Rodney. We're here to help these people, not on vacation."

He had never intended to be so harsh and regretted his words almost as soon as they left his mouth, but it was too late to take them back so he motioned for the team to move again.

"McKay!”

Rodney took one last look at her and so did he. 

Sitting on a log, elbows on her knees and head in her hands, she looked so young, so... vulnerable. He walked until they were out of sight, then ordered Smith to go back and keep an eye on her from a safe distance. It went against all his principles to leave that stubborn woman behind, no matter how annoying she was and how much she insisted that she was perfectly fine on her own.

The pain in the ass. 

o0o0o

After leaving Catherine and her companion behind, it took them only a little over fifteen minutes to reach the village. Rodney had been unusually quiet the rest of the way, and there had been no other inconveniences. 

With a population of over 1,000, the settlement had been one of the most densely populated on the planet and one of the most technologically advanced - which was impressive only in theory, since the others were entirely agricultural.

On their last visit, the villagers had given them a surprisingly warm welcome, treating them like family or long-lost friends. Everyone wanted to greet them, feed them, offer them a place to stay for the night. Their leader himself had invited the team to his home for tea and cooked his version of chicken and noodles for them.

They made them feel at home, among friends, and that was something that was not seen every day in these parts of the universe. 

Despite knowing better, as they entered the narrow streets of the village, framed by colorful shops and small buildings, John almost expected to see the villagers coming out to greet them again. 

But the shops were all closed now and there was no child running in the streets. There was no laughter. No chatter. No movement. The silence was deafening, and suddenly John knew there was something terrible about it, something that chilled him to the bone.

Blood pounding in his ears, John raised his gun and held it ready, motioning for his teammates to do the same.

"I have a bad feeling about this," John muttered.

"Maybe we should go back?"

That was McKay, of course. No surprise. John just ignored him and walked carefully down the street towards the main square. 

As they made their way deeper into the settlement, a stench of decay he hadn't noticed before assaulted his senses. "Ah, what the hell..." He pinched his nose with one hand and looked around for the source.

It didn't take long to find it, the place was literally swarming with flies. Holding his breath, John crossed the street, muttering a curse. 

The bloated corpse of a man in his late 50s lay sprawled in a pool of blood, his legs folded awkwardly under him, his hands still circling his neck as if trying to strangle himself.

So close, the stench was overwhelming. Swarms of green flies covered the body so thickly that they seemed to be piled on top of each other, some of them buzzing in and out of his mouth and nostrils. Holding his breath, John crouched beside the body, looking for wounds. There were none. From the looks of it, the man had bled from every part of his body - his ears, his nose, his mouth. It wasn't a pretty sight, as the weak stomachs of some of the medical personnel attested. 

"This doesn't look like the flu to me," he heard McKay say.

Swallowing hard against the rising nausea in his chest, John lifted his eyes to meet McKay's.

"No, it doesn't."

He stood and continued walking, the rest of the group following in stunned silence. As they made their way to the main square, they passed more and more rotting corpses, and a horrible smell of burned flesh joined the stench of decay. It looked like the survivors had tried to burn the bodies and couldn't keep up, so they left them to rot in the streets.

Ash, smoke, and an unbearable mix of burnt flesh and decay engulfed the main square. Breathing shallowly to avoid sucking in more of the disgusting air than he absolutely had to, John entered the square. 

He took only two steps before he stopped dead in his tracks.

As a colonel in the US Air Force, John had seen his fair share of death. He had caused his fair share of it. Still, nothing in his career had prepared him for the sight that awaited them in the town square. It was the scale. The blood. The piles of half-burned bodies. The greasy smoke. The stench. It was almost too much to take in. It sickened him like poison and made him grateful to McKay for nagging him all morning and making him skip breakfast. Rodney, on the other hand, had eaten a sandwich and was looking slightly green around the gills, trying valiantly to keep it down. Some of the nurses were even less fortunate, and the sound of them emptying their guts somehow fit the scene.

A few survivors, looking like the ragged zombies of every apocalypse cliché, approached them. Trying to distract himself from the pain and death that surrounded him, John focused on gathering as much information as he could.

The survivors were all sick and shocked to the core and all of them had lost loved ones, but some were able to shed some light on the events without breaking down in grief.

Apparently, a few days before the attack, a strange plague had begun to spread through the village, killing people and leaving them defenseless. There seemed to be no particular symptoms to this sickness - headaches, fevers, the usual flu symptoms, or nothing at all - until you were suddenly bedridden and dying, and it didn't seem to affect just one segment of the population. Rich and poor, young and old, no one was spared. Within days, the population had dwindled to about two hundred.

Sick and frightened, they were mourning their dead and their own fate when they were attacked by an unknown weapon. While none of the buildings were affected, anyone who fell in the path of the "red beam" was struck dead. 

There were no visible marks on the bodies - no lacerations or burn marks or anything - but they all seemed to have suffered massive internal hemorrhaging, their blood gushing from every orifice.

"Colonel, I don't think it was wise to leave Dr. Spencer and Private Smith out there alone," Teyla said, coming closer. Even though she seemed shaken by the sight, she was doing better than most under the circumstances, and John couldn't help but feel a little envious.

"She should be fine. Eventually she'll decide to get off her ass and join us. And if Smith's lucky, she won't even know he's there," John assured her, ignoring the pang of guilt that was creeping through him.

"I really think this was a mistake," Teyla insisted.

"I did a complete scan of the area. There was nothing there. There was nothing between there and here either."

"Yes, but I've had a strange feeling since we arrived."

John had learned to trust Teyla's instincts a long time ago and he wasn't going to ignore them now. "You think the Wraith are behind this?" he asked, taking out his scanner.

"I know it's not like them to kill people like this, but something definitely feels wrong."

He waited for the life-sign detector to complete a full scan of the area, and as the screen began to display the results, fear set in.

"This is not good."

"What is, Colonel?"

"They're not there, for one thing. But they're not on their way here either."

He frowned. "Rodney!" he called.

Rodney, who was checking God knows what on his tablet, probably to distract himself from the sight, raised his head. "What is it?"

"Can you do another scan of the area?"

"Can't you do it yourself?"

"I already did. I need a second opinion," he said sheepishly.

Rodney pulled out his own scanner and began to fiddle with it after a dramatic scoff in exasperation. As he did so, the look on his face changed from confusion to concern.

John looked over his shoulder at the screen. "What are those things?" He pointed to a group of three red dots.

"I managed to isolate human life signs and programmed the scanner to show everything else in red." The usual tone of superiority he reserved for such occasions was tinged with concern.

"So you're saying this little blue dot here," he pointed to a lone blue dot far off the trail and even farther from the village, "is the only human out there?"

"Pretty much... I hope you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

"Unfortunately, yes. Either they got separated and one of them is out of range, or..." 

The guilt was overwhelming. "Teyla, get Ronon and the others and prepare a defense!" John ordered, already on his way out of the village.

"Wait. What are you going to do?" Rodney called after him. "At least take Ronon with you!" he suggested, but John had no time for that.

o0o0o

"Breathe in, breathe out! Again and again... Stupid allergy!" Catherine muttered between sneezes.

She wasn't sure how long it had been since they had left, but it couldn't have been too long since her pills hadn't kicked in yet. Of all her allergies, this had to be one of the worst. Not only was it hard for her to breathe, but she was sneezing like crazy and her hands were so swollen that it was almost impossible to hold anything. That also made Sheppard's gun completely useless, not that she had any intention of shooting at trees.

We are here to help these people, not on vacation.

That was all he had to say after all the months of hard work, reorganizing the whole department, getting more funding from the IOA and spending more hours in the operating room than the other three surgeons combined. Not to mention the Everestine mountain of paperwork she had to fill out. Damn it, she wasn't just going to sit here and prove him right.

Despite her fatigue and dizziness - she needed to find some antihistamines with fewer side effects! - she forced herself to stand and took a few unsteady steps down the path to the village.

"Come on, come on, I can do this, I know I can!" she tried to encourage herself. It was still hard to breathe, but she finally seemed to have the sneezing under control. She was almost thankful that she didn't have to carry her medkit now. Surely she wouldn't have been able to move it, let alone carry it all the way to the village in her condition. She wasn't so grateful for the weapon, though - useless and heavy in her swollen hands. She was tempted to just drop it, but thought better of it. If she encountered a threat, she could at least use it for intimidation or, if not, a club.

She managed to take a few more steps before the weapon proved its usefulness. The leaves of the underbrush behind her rustled with the presence of something large, and she immediately took aim.

"Who's there?" she asked, glad that her voice sounded steady enough.

"Don't shoot! It's only me," said a vaguely familiar voice, and a short, young man she recognized as Private Smith emerged from the bushes.

"The Colonel asked me to keep an eye on you and make sure you get to the village in one piece."

So she couldn't walk half a mile to the village without a babysitter. Good to know that Sheppard thought so highly of her.

"Thank you, Private," she said dryly, putting the gun down.

"You didn't even take the safety off, did you?" he grinned.

"Of course not. I was going to bash your head in with it. I'm incredible with melee weapons, you know," she said by way of explanation.

"Sure you are," he agreed, fighting back a smile. "May I call you Catherine?"

"That's my name, isn't it?"

"Then, Catherine, allow me to accompany you to the village," he offered, giving her his arm.

Before she could wonder if he was being a gentleman or just mocking her, a red flash of light from behind hit him square in the back and went right through him. Blood spurted from his ears, splattered on her face and clothes, and the man collapsed at her feet, dead.

Idly, she realized that she should be in shock, but instead of panicking, she turned quickly, weapon at the ready.

The creature before her shouldn't have been there. Sheppard had scanned the area, hadn't he? But still, there it was - eight feet tall, white hair, and a pale blue face that sneered at her with razor-sharp teeth. She had seen pictures before. She knew exactly what it was, but it was one thing to see the small image of a Wraith on a screen in Atlantis, and quite another to see the living creature sitting in front of you.

‘ Run. Run. Damn it, RUN! ’ she told herself, feeling the blood run cold in her veins. Her brain told her she had no chance to outrun him, but she couldn't stay and fight either.

For what seemed like the longest minute of her life, the alien didn't seem inclined to attack, just stared down at her in what looked very much like disbelief. Whatever had thrown him off, Catherine knew he wouldn't stay that way forever, so she decided to use the opportunity to get the upper hand.

"Don't move!" she barked in military fashion. It almost sounded threatening, so she continued. "If you so much as blink, let alone move, I'll shoot you where you stand!"

A second Wraith appeared beside the first, and Catherine knew she was doomed. She removed the safety and desperately tried to pull the trigger, only to find that her swollen fingers lacked the strength to do so.

She tried again and again, refusing to give up without a fight.

She had almost succeeded when a yellow light engulfed her, and she lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

When she opened her eyes, Catherine found herself staring up at two fanged faces looming over her. Yellow eyes, glowing with cruelty and violence, stared at her in silence.

This had to be a nightmare.

She closed her eyes and opened them again.

Now the smaller of the two Wraith was looking at the other with what could be called a "sarcastic smile", if their race ever smiled.

"Look what we have here! You're not here alone, are you?" the tall one asked, coming closer. "Where are the others?"

The memory of the last few minutes before she lost consciousness came rushing back.

Oh, shit. Not a nightmare then.

"Others? What... others?" she asked, digging her nails into her palms to stay focused. Whatever was happening, she couldn't give them away.

"Your companions. Do you expect me to believe that you came alone, human? You're not from here, and you both had communication devices."

The voice was full of hate and disgust, making her heart race until she feared she would die of a heart attack. Unless, of course, the creature decided not to wait the extra ten minutes she needed to die of natural causes and killed her on the spot.

"I am a doctor, a healer. I came here to take care of the sick."

"Where did you come from?"

Now the creature was so close she could almost feel its foul breath on her forehead. She recoiled in disgust, almost gagging at the unbearable stench. Old death and decay, corruption and rotting blood. "Have you never heard of mints?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. They were going to kill her anyway, why bother being polite?

A quick glance convinced her that she was disarmed, and she doubted she was fast enough to steal a stunner from them, let alone use it.

Cursing under her breath, she searched the pockets of her bulky, suffocating vest for anything she could use as a weapon. She felt ridiculously relieved when her fingers closed on the familiar hilt of her pocket knife.

"I asked you a question, human. Where are you from?" the Wraith insisted.

"From Glendara," she said, sliding the knife open and twisting it around so that she would have a more comfortable grip when she swung it at the Wraith in a suicidal attempt at intimidation.

"Do not lie, human! Their weapons are nowhere near as advanced as what you were carrying. Are you going to tell the truth now, or do I have to feed on you first to make my point?"

"You sound... pretty convincing to me, but I told you everything," she said, jumping to her feet and pulling her hand out of her pocket. The blade of the knife nestled between her middle and ring fingers as an extension of her fist, and she swung it back, aiming for the Wraith's throat.

Her planning had been almost flawless under the circumstances, except that she hadn't expected the other Wraith to make good on the first's threat.

Faster than she thought possible, he lunged at her, and she barely managed to scratch him before the creature pointed a familiar weapon at her chest. The same one that had killed Smith.

With a terrified scream, she threw down the knife and grabbed the barrel of the gun, fighting hopelessly for another minute of life.

o0o0o

He shouldn't have left her behind, John blamed himself over and over again as he ran as fast as he could to where the scanner had last shown a human life sign.

He should have at least left Ronon with her, someone he knew would be able to hold his own against both the girl and any potential threat. Or he should have just let the big guy throw her over his shoulder, end of story. Hell, Rodney was eager enough to impress, he could have gotten the scientist to carry her, maybe that would have kept them both quiet and prevented so many dark scenarios.

The thought of having to go back and explain to Elizabeth how he lost her was sickening, but not nearly as much as the thought of finding her dead. The enormity of his mistake twisted through his gut like a blade. Though he wouldn't admit it, he expected the blue dot on the scanner to be Smith - more experienced and with a better chance of survival in a direct confrontation.

A scream pierced the air and he quickened his pace, weapon at the ready. He knew the voice, and his heart began to race. Against all odds, Catherine seemed to be holding on. Perhaps Smith had separated from her.

In seconds, he had crossed the distance to the source of the voice and could see her on the ground, struggling desperately to keep a Wraith weapon away from her chest. There was no time to hesitate before he fired a burst of bullets straight into the creature's head.

With a scream of agony, the Wraith collapsed on top of Catherine, his dark, viscous blood dripping onto her clothes. She struggled to free herself from the creature's crushing weight, but John was unable to help her as a second Wraith reached for its weapon.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," John warned, pointing his P-90.

The Wraith sneered. "Are you so impatient to join us for lunch? I only asked where we could find you," the alien snarled, seemingly unmoved by the death of his comrade.

Sheppard kept his rifle pointed at the annoying thing. "We're not really in a position to receive house guests right now. The place is a mess." 

He gave his best innocent smile.

"You humans and your taste for jokes. Such a shame they're usually wasted on my kind."

John raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean you'll let us go because we're funny? I know some lawyer jokes that are simply a hoot!"

The humor in his voice was flat, and his finger was tight on the trigger. He knew he couldn't let the Wraith escape and alert the others to their presence.

"Say I let you live a little longer if you tell me how many of you are here," he tried. His eyes were open for the third damn red dot the scanner had shown. Maybe the other Wraith had already run off to report.

The Wraith laughed. Not a real laugh, at least not by human standards, but a sound that sent shivers down his spine.

"For someone like you, I should be enough!" he roared, drawing his weapon inhumanly fast. Before he had a chance to fire, however, his advance was cut short by a burst of bullets to the chest.

The creature fell, another pile of lifeless Wraith next to the first. For good measure, John fired a few more rounds into him before turning to help her. She had crawled out on her own and was kneeling over a bloody corpse. A human corpse.

Smith .

He clenched his hands into fists at his side and swallowed hard to wash down the bitter taste in his mouth. Another one he had failed. Thank God, at least she was alive, and apart from the splattered blood on her face and clothes, she seemed to be fine. He asked anyway.

"Are you hurt?"

She didn't look at him, but shook her head no. He felt ridiculously grateful.

The poor guy's injuries looked like the ones he'd seen in the village, which meant they'd been inflicted by the same weapon.

Which meant the Wraith were somehow responsible for the attack.

It made no sense for them to attack a settlement instead of feeding on the colonists. Absolutely none.

Almost on instinct, he leaned over the fallen Wraith and picked up its damn weapon. It looked like a flashlight with a crystal on one end and engravings all over it. He put it in his pocket to take a better look at it later.

He turned back to Catherine, who had been silent the whole time.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked in the softest tone he could muster, immediately regretting the stupid question.

"He's dead," she said, and he knew she meant the private. Her voice sounded empty and hollow, like she was in a nightmare. Then she raised her head and he got a good, long look at her blue eyes, now clouded with pain. His heart twisted and he had a sudden urge to kneel down beside her, hold her, protect her from the horrors that lay ahead.

Instead, he simply reached down and helped her to her feet.

"Thank you."

Catherine frowned and looked around, taking in her surroundings.

"What did you find in the village?" she asked.

"I'll tell you on the way. It's not a good idea to stay here for long - there's supposed to be a third one in the area, and I don't see it anywhere. Nothing is scarier than a stealthy Wraith," he said in a lame attempt to lighten the mood. He walked towards the road and waved for her to follow.

o0o0o

They walked at a brisk pace and Catherine didn't seem to complain, even though she was limping. He had finished telling her about the village and the "red light from the sky", and she had given him all the details of Smith's death.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, looking at her worriedly.

She nodded.

"Weren't there any healthy villagers left?" she asked, clearly uncomfortable with the subject.

"It didn't look like it, and I'm almost certain there are more Wraith around. If I'm right, they'll attack again sooner or later."

He watched her for a few more steps, her feet looking more uncertain with each one. He couldn't blame her, that was one big Wraith falling on her, but they needed to get back as soon as possible. He held out his hand for support. "We have to get to the village before they do."

"I'm... fine. I can walk by myself, thank you."

But she wasn't.

She managed to take two more steps before coming to an abrupt halt, her eyes filling with tears as she bit back a whimper.

"What's wrong?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

"I think I twisted my ankle," she admitted reluctantly. "That stupid thing must have weighed a ton!" She cleared her throat, dragging out the moment as best she could. "Can I borrow your shoulder? As much as I'd like to, we're in a hurry and I doubt I can keep up the pace."

He nodded, letting her lean against him, and grabbed her hand, half expecting an indignant sneer or worse from her. Surprisingly, her face flushed and their eyes met for a few seconds. John felt her hand tense, but she didn't try to take it back.

Instead, her warm fingers curled against his palm in silent surrender. A temporary one, no doubt, but given the situation, John felt she was giving him a piece of her vulnerability as she became quiet again, allowing him to support her.

She must be too exhausted and shocked to resume her ice queen routine, his brain supplied.

"I can carry you, you know? You can't be that heavy, and the village isn't that far," he offered.

o0o0o

She stared at him in disbelief. That would take the cake! Here she was, writhing in pain, still riding the adrenaline rush of her very first Wraith encounter, concentrating on how... exasperated she was with him, just to have something other than the pain in her ankle to think about, and he offered to carry her.

Had the circumstances been different, she would have laughed at the irony. Hadn't she already spent most of her day in dangerous company? Worse, part of her wanted him to take her in his arms, hold her tight, and keep her safe. She really wished it was the part that was writhing in pain and not the one that was constantly thinking about that annoying half-smile of his.

"You're the king of timing, aren't you?" she asked sarcastically. "Is that how you've charmed all my nurses?"

He stopped and looked at her in confusion, his hazel eyes narrowed to slits. "Would you believe me if I told you I have no idea what you're talking about?"

She shook her head no.

He shrugged. "Fair enough. Now I'd ask you not to hit me too hard."

Without further warning, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, carrying her like a sack of potatoes.

The nerve of him! Who did he think he was?

"Hey, what do you think you're doing? Let me down!"

"I hope this is sufficiently un-romantic for your taste," he said, flinching slightly under her constant attacks on his back.

Her small fists couldn't do much damage, but it was still satisfying to make sure he was aware of her complete disdain for the situation. True, she wasn't much of a fighter, but any woman would hit a guy trying to carry her like she was a bag or something. Emphasis on "something", because in his haste, Colonel John "Caveman" Sheppard seemed to think that running was more important than her feelings.

"Didn't you hear me, Colonel? I want to walk alone. I may have a bad ankle, but I don't like being carried like this!" she hissed, continuing to punch him in the back. "Damn you, let me down! "

o0o0o

Catherine's attempts to hit him felt more like a massage than anything else, which made it somewhat bearable. Along with her weak struggles, he also ignored her protests and complaints. He knew that if he ignored her, she would eventually give up, either out of boredom or exhaustion.

As they approached the village, he was proven right when she gave up hitting him and suddenly fell silent.

It really had been a good idea. They were almost clear of the trees now, which left them with a small stretch of clear land to cover before they reached the village. A few hundred meters at most.

"Do you think they're after us? The Wraith?" she asked in a surprisingly calm voice. "How long can we hold them off? We need time to treat the sick and evacuate."

He shook his head. "I know that. We'll just have to wait for Rodney to fix the shield. This shouldn't be a military mission."

They reached the edge of the forest. He could see the village, still quiet for now. He didn't want to be seen giving the good doctor a piggyback ride, and he assumed she didn't want to be seen riding him like that either. He sat Catherine down, being careful not to drop her on her injured foot.

"Well, I doubt you'd want to make your entrance on my back. Lean on me and try to keep up. It's only about 300 feet. And, Catherine... It's bad."

o0o0o

Catherine grimaced as she put the injured foot on the ground, but it was quickly replaced by an expression of gratitude. Being seen on John Sheppard's back was even more humiliating than being carried by him.

Having already experienced the horror of seeing her first living Wraith, she thought nothing could shock her again. She had never been more wrong in her life.

The dead, quiet streets of the village looked and felt like nothing she had ever seen, read, or even heard of.

Horrible images of bloody, bloated corpses lying in the streets gave way to half-mangled bodies with smoke still rising from their remains. As her mind began to process what she was seeing, Catherine's heart began to race and her chest began to hurt.

Next to her, John was completely silent, and she didn't even dare to look in his direction. He'd told her about it, then tried to distract her, but now... now he couldn't protect her from the horror. Couldn't even protect himself, considering how tense and silent he was, his eyes fixed on the road, his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.

To her right, a disfigured woman was clutching the small, bloody body of a child to her chest. Blood gushed from her nose and mouth, and her dead eyes stared at her, expressionless and empty. Three paces away, another corpse, this time a young man, lay in a pool of blood, his head covered with green flies and hundreds of small crawling creatures.

Thick smoke rose in the air, giving the images an apocalyptic air of violence and madness. The blood, which painted dark patterns on the pavement, added a surreal touch to the gruesome scene.

Oh, the blood! Was it possible for so much blood to come out of these bodies? The red was everywhere - around the disfigured woman, under the teenager, on the pavement under their feet, on the walls of the houses. The red dripped from the walls and gathered into rivers, threatening to drown the whole village. The whole world.

And the smoke! It swirled over the streets and crept into her pores, clogging them and filling her nostrils with the nauseating smell of burnt flesh.

Catherine choked and began to cough violently. She felt the sickening taste of death in her mouth and tried to spit it out. She choked again and coughed and coughed and coughed until she could no longer breathe around the lump in her throat.

"Oh, God," she gasped.

She stopped and leaned forward, her stomach heaving violently, but there was nothing inside of her to come up. 

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of nausea, and his arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace. Holding on to him with everything she had, Catherine buried her face in his neck, waiting for the pain in her chest to subside. Then she returned the embrace, unshed tears choking her throat. He didn't move and didn't let go until she loosened her grip.

"How was that possible?" she asked, forcing the words past the lump of grief in her throat.

He shook his head. 

"I told you. First they were sick, then the shield malfunctioned and..."

His voice broke, and he massaged his eyes wearily, taking in a tight, unsteady breath. "We should go," he said abruptly.

Catherine nodded and resumed walking.

"It gets worse, you know," he warned her. "There's a big pyre in the main square where they burned the first wave of victims. The survivors were in no condition to perform individual rites for everyone and wanted some closure. Of course, there was no one left to clean up afterwards. It's brutal. Are you sure you can handle it?"

She nodded grimly. In truth, she longed for the safety of her lab, but she wasn't going to turn her back on these people just because she had a hard time dealing with death.

"Yes. I wish I didn't have to," she admitted, "but I won't be able to live with myself if I go back now." She stopped and looked up at him. "Look, I know I went all damsel in distress on you earlier, and I'm sorry, but you don't have to worry about me. I've been on the front lines for almost two years. I can hold my own," she said, realizing as she spoke that she was telling the truth and not just saying what he so obviously wanted to hear. It was the wanton, senseless killing of innocent civilians - women, children, even babies - that had made her emotions run wild. Not the stench or the blood. She had smelled death before.

Death follows me. Follows me everywhere.

As she limped towards the main square, she could feel his eyes on her, worried. Almost as if he expected her to collapse. She raised her head and pushed up her chin, feeling a surge of pride. She was Catherine Spencer, Chief Medical Officer of the Atlantis expedition and the best astrovirologist in two galaxies. She couldn't break down. She couldn't show weakness. Not with her team looking up to her, expecting her to be the rock they could rally around.

No... she couldn't be weak now. She couldn't be anything but the best in front of them.

As she entered the main square, the knot in her chest tightened, but she didn't fall to her knees, didn't cry, didn't make a fool of herself. The grief and horror were still there, but she buried them in the deepest, darkest pits of her heart and walked on. She could do that. Ignore what the world threw at her and how it broke her to pieces.

There were people who needed her. Depended on her. 

She paused for a second to look around, then went straight to the first person in sight, Teyla Emmagan. She looked deeply troubled and sad as she examined the body of a child, and Catherine suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu. As she approached, she could see that the girl was already dead, bleeding from her mouth and ears. Her heart sank at the sight, but she couldn't allow herself to lose focus. There was no time for the dead. There never was. She had to make sure the survivors were cared for.

"Teyla, where is my team?"

"Dr. Spencer, what happened?" she asked, staring at the copious amounts of blood covering her and the impressive blood stains on Sheppard's uniform. "And where is Private Smith?"

Sheppard said nothing, so Catherine filled in for him. "He's dead. Long story. Did you touch the body?”

Teyla shook her head.

“No, none of us did. Your nurses warned us not to,” she said.

Catherine let out a deep breath. “Good. That’s good,” she said absently. “It doesn’t completely eliminate the risk of infection, but it reduces it.” She looked around. “Where is my team?”

Teyla pointed to the large house that seemed to be the busiest place in the village at the moment. "Over there. We've already taken everyone in."

She turned to Sheppard and nodded her thanks.

"I can get there on my own. Thank you," she muttered and walked away before he could say anything else.

As she limped towards the house, she could still feel Teyla's heavy gaze on her and the unspoken question in her eyes. How did Private Smith die? She wasn't sure, but he had been killed because of her, and if she didn't manage to keep the few survivors alive, his sacrifice would have been in vain.

She clenched her fists and made her way to the improvised infirmary with grim determination.

o0o0o

Teyla watched Catherine until she disappeared into the house, then turned to John, who looked like he'd been to hell and back. On second thought, he was still in hell. They all were.

"Are you all right, Colonel?"

He didn't get a chance to answer before a faint sound, like a wasp, drifted through the air.

"They're coming!" Ronon shouted.

The attack came swiftly.

Three Wraith Darts emerged from behind the forest line and swooped over the village. The roar of their engines sowed panic in their hearts, for they knew the Wraith were there to kill.

"GO! Everyone, positions! Put them down before they take us out!" John yelled.

Not needing to be told twice, Teyla and Ronon took up strategic positions, each finding a different shelter, their weapons pointed at the sky.

The Darts seemed to be searching for something, scanning the area and flying in tighter circles over the village. The first Dart turned for another sweep, the other two joining it, flying in a V-like formation and diving toward the ground before opening fire.

With his P-90 in hand, John watched in silence, waiting for them to get close enough to be within weapons range.

"Fire on the first target!" he ordered, squeezing the trigger and pumping half a clip into the first Dart, followed immediately by the rest of his team.

A few rounds hit the Dart’s engines and with a deafening noise it exploded and fell to the ground.

For a moment, the remaining Darts gave the impression that they were retreating. Instead, they beamed down a dozen Wraith, ready for battle, and the weapons in their hands were no stunners. They were not there to feed; they were there to kill.

"Rodney!" John yelled into his radio, taking out the first Wraith.

Without waiting for another order, Teyla and Ronon opened fire, taking out as many Wraith as they could, fully aware of the danger their weapons posed.

o0o0o

Rodney had started working on the shield generator, but the panel was partially burned and some parts were missing. It had been a challenge to get it working the first time, now it was almost impossible. The prospect of imminent death didn't help.

"The panel's a mess and the circuits-"

"Rodney!"

He knew that voice as well as he knew that John would not take 'no' for an answer. As usual, they were all in deep shit and he was the only one who could save the day. He sighed and looked at the burned circuits.

"I'm working on it!"

"How much longer?" John wanted to know.

Rodney rolled his eyes in pure annoyance. "It will take a miracle to get it working again. I can't say... Ten minutes? Just... Just give me ten more minutes, okay?"

Rodney was pretty sure he could work a miracle in ten minutes. He wasn't sure they'd be around to use it.

"There are Wraith everywhere, and they keep coming! We may not have ten minutes!" John snapped.

"Oh, thank you. And this helps me how?"

There was a sharp intake of breath and then John said, "Just... fix it!"

As if he were some kind of wizard.

With a long sigh, Rodney opened the panel again. Maybe he could find a way to bypass all the fried circuits.

As a Wraith beam shot over his head, inspiration struck and he felt able to improvise. Good thing he worked best under pressure.

o0o0o

With another burst of gunfire, John killed one of the remaining five Wraith and looked anxiously for the two Darts. He was about to run out of ammunition, but now wasn't the time to bring up that problem.

"I got six!" John announced over the radio.

"I got seven," Teyla replied.

"Ten."

He had never tried to compete with Ronon, but Teyla was once again holding her own against the Wraith. His eyes darted in her direction, consoling himself with the thought that she only got more than him because she had a better location.

Chapter Text

Excited, Rodney reached for his radio. "I'm almost..."

The sound of footsteps behind him made him turn and he froze, dropping the radio. The sight of razor-sharp fangs was immediately followed by the realization that a giant Wraith was pointing his weapon at him. Rodney opened his mouth in horrified shock, desperately wanting to scream and completely unable to make a sound. 

As if in slow motion, he saw the Wraith's finger tighten on the trigger and squeezed his eyes shut.

It was going to happen.

He was going to die.

Any second now.

A deafening burst of gunfire followed by a loud thud broke his paralysis and Rodney threw himself to the ground and rolled to the side, covering his head with his arms in a futile attempt to protect it.

It was too much. All of it was too much.

The bodies. The blood. The smoke. The stench. The Darts. The collapsed shield. The Wraith. Oh, God, the Wraith .

Strong hands closed on his shoulders and Rodney gasped, eyes flying open in terror but not seeing anything as he thrashed and kicked. Those firm hands didn't let go. They remained on his shoulders, shaking him gently, until finally a familiar voice broke through the roar of panic in his head.

"Rodney, listen to me. You can stop now. He's dead. I killed him."

Slowly the struggle gave way to trembling and Rodney finally found his voice. Uncertain. Faint.

"John?"

He blinked and looked around in wild disorientation, his heart pounding like a jackhammer against his rib cage, his chest heaving in short breaths that weren’t nearly enough to fill his lungs.

A reassuring, yet somewhat mocking smile greeted him.

"Are you all right?"

The question almost made Rodney laugh, but he simply didn't have it in him.

"Y-yeah. Peachy. I didn't hear him coming and for a moment I thought... I thought..."

John's eyes went from Rodney to the sky, then he straightened up as if his senses had gone on higher alert. 

"It doesn't matter now, Rodney! Did you fix the..."

"Yes!" Rodney jumped to his feet and ran towards the device. He was still scared out of his mind and probably in desperate need of therapy, but those were thoughts for later. 

As the last microchip clicked into place, Rodney closed the panel with a nod of satisfaction and pressed his hand to the screen. The shield generator activated with a humming sound and the force field around the village came into being.

"John, did you see that?" He turned to his friend. "I did it! It's working!"

He had never doubted that he could make it work. Come to think of it, didn't he tell them not to waste their ammo? 

Well, no, he didn't. 

But he could have.

Ronon and Teyla killed the last Wraith before joining them.

The place was littered with Wraith bodies, but the two remaining Darts were nowhere in sight.

"What the hell just happened?" Rodney asked, still holding his weapon. "I mean, they're usually sadistic and murderous and all that, but they'd rather have us for dinner, if you know what I mean. Why are they so... deadly murderous all of a sudden?"

No one could give him a real answer.

o0o0o

Catherine entered the house expecting the worst. Her heart broke even more when she saw the suffering villagers lying on old mattresses and whatever other bedding had been looted from the other houses, some of them delirious with fever or dying. She could tell just by looking at them that at least two of them wouldn't make it through the day.

A loud buzzing sound alerted everyone. There was no doubt what it was, and Catherine couldn't blame the nurses for stopping what they were doing and listening intently to the growing noise. Unfortunately, there was no time to panic and there was no way for them to help those outside. All they could do was help the people in their care.

"Stephanie," she called.

The nurse in question snapped out of her terrified daze and turned her attention to Catherine. It seemed that, as far as her staff was concerned, she was indeed scarier than the Wraith - something she could digest later.

"Bring me gloves and disinfectant!" Catherine ordered, not letting the woman sink back into her fear. "And snap out of it, for God's sake!"

"Yes, Dr. Spencer. Right away."

The nurse hurried to bring her the Betadine and help her clean the mess on her hands, not saying a word about the thick layers of blood covering her.

There was a lot of coughing, screaming, and mumbling as some of the patients were buried in their own hallucinations while others cried and fought the nurses trying to care for them. Another patient was vomiting, choking and coughing - one of the two she had no hope for. The air was thick and the smell almost unbearable, but she couldn't allow herself to get sick. There would be plenty of time for that... later. Or at least she hoped there would be.

She pulled on gloves and a face mask and glanced at the door. Over the unnerving whir of the darts, she heard the bark of guns and Colonel Sheppard's voice shouting something, but she couldn't make out the words through the closed door.

They may be dead before nightfall, she thought with a shudder, and by 'they' she knew she meant Sheppard in particular.

Frozen fingers closed around her heart and squeezed hard. She recognized it now, this old fear, as familiar as an old shoe and as sharp as a knife. Not the fear of dying, but the fear of surviving alone. Just thinking about it made her throat tight and her palms damp.

So this was it. She could tell herself that it was over. She could put on a brave face. For a part of her, it would never be over. That part of her would always stand by her mother's grave, throwing the first handful of dirt on her coffin before it was lowered into the ground. That part of her never left the cemetery that day, never got over the fear of being the one left behind. The one who survived.

‘ Your mother would be so proud ,' her father's ghostly voice told her 8-year-old self. ‘My brave, brilliant little girl!’

Five years later, it was his empty coffin she was throwing dirt on. She was a teenager, no longer his little girl. But she was still brave.

Catherine closed her eyes, trying to silence the inner scream of panic and pain that always seemed to be lodged deep inside her. The scream that no one ever seemed to hear. She could never care about anyone too much or for too long. Whenever she did, death would snatch them away.

Death followed her everywhere.

How much did she really care for Sheppard? Catherine didn't dare answer that question. She couldn't.

If she did, she would lose him as well. Sooner or later, she would stand by his coffin and throw a handful of dirt on it. She knew it wasn't entirely rational, but it fit the pattern too well and she couldn't help but believe it.

Catherine shook her head and clenched her fists at her sides.

Stop it! she scolded herself. She didn't have time for this nonsense. She could deal with it later, after they returned to Atlantis. Right now, she needed every emotional wall she could put up if she was going to get through this ordeal with any semblance of sanity left. She couldn't help anyone if she gave in to her fears.

So she bit her upper lip, concentrating on the insignificant pain until the unbearable tightness in her chest loosened enough to allow air to pass, then turned her attention to doing her best to keep each wretched soul alive for as long as she had a say in it.

By the time she finished tending to the last one, the gunfire had died down. All she could hear was a deep silence and the beating of her own heart. Exhausted, she slumped into a chair and stared at the door. 

"They're not shooting anymore. Who wants to go outside and see what happened?"

She didn't dare face her fears just yet.

o0o0o

The Dart they had brought down lay in a pile of rubble that had once been an abandoned house at the edge of the village. There was nothing left to salvage, but the danger it posed was gone. With the shield functioning, they would have at least one night to get the villagers stable and ready for teleportation.

With nothing else to do outside, Teyla walked into the improvised infirmary, almost bumping into one of the nurses. Everyone inside was wearing gloves and face masks, and a nurse offered her a pair as soon as she entered.

"You took them out, right?" a blonde nurse asked. "Is everyone all right?" she continued with obvious interest. "Ronon? Col. Sheppard? Dr. McKay? "

Teyla gave the woman a tired look, but nodded. "They are all unharmed." 

Noticing Catherine at a patient's bedside, she walked over and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It’s over now."

The doctor stared through Teyla, her eyes slightly blurred with exhaustion. "Where are... the others?" she asked.

"They're alive," Teyla assured her.

"And... Rodney?"

Teyla didn't miss the pause in her voice, the hesitation. It was as if she was about to ask about something - no, not some thing , some one - else and changed her mind at the last moment. Teyla had a hunch that she knew who it was.

"Dr. McKay is fine," she said, watching her reaction carefully. "And so are the others. All of them."

The young doctor took a deep breath and a hint of color rose to her cheeks. "Good. That's... Thank you," she said, glancing at the door with an expression of pure relief. Then she felt Teyla's gaze on her and looked away quickly, as if in shame.

"He managed to get the defenses up in time," Teyla continued, pretending she was still talking about McKay, "and we took out the Darts without resorting to plan B. He was quite surprised."

"I see," was all she said before returning to her patient.

Watching her as she leaned over the bed, administering medicine to an old woman, the Athosian realized that she simply could not place her in any of the categories she had constructed for her teammates. She seemed frail and distant, with a stubbornness and ego to rival Dr. McKay's, yet she handled the pressure surprisingly well.

But why didn't she ask about Sheppard if she was so worried about him? Teyla knew how much she cared for him; it was obvious to anyone who saw her. It was in the way she looked at him when he wasn't paying attention, in the catch in her breath when he touched her. In the way she kept avoiding his eyes when they spoke; even in her reluctance to say his name, even though she worried sick about him.

Could the Colonel be so blind, so unaware of her feelings?

Then she remembered just how close their relationship had been just a few months ago. No, he wasn't blind and he wasn't unaware. In fact, there was a very good chance that he felt the same way and was better at hiding it. But if that was the case, what could have happened between them to cause such a change?

Teyla shook her head and took a deep breath. Whatever it was, no one had asked her opinion and it was none of her business. And as much as she cared for both of them, she wouldn't invade their privacy uninvited.

"If you need anything, I will be outside," she said and headed for the door.

o0o0o

Zelenka was the one to receive the team's call for backup. He found Dr. Weir in her office, where she had been waiting for news from Colonel Sheppard's team. He entered.

"Dr. Weir, it seems that Colonel Sheppard's expedition has run into some Wraith trouble. It appears there are about thirty colonists left after the last Wraith attack today, and they are all sick. Now, Sheppard's team has managed to disable a Dart with what they had on hand, but the area is not safe yet. Rodney even managed to get the shield back online, but it only has enough power for a few more hours."

Elizabeth listened in silence, already thinking about what to do. When he finished, she had already made a decision.

"All right. I'll send two Jumpers to pick them up."

"Dr. Weir, you should know that Dr. Spencer insisted that we take quarantine measures in case the pathogen is airborne," Zelenka pointed out.

"All the more reason to move quickly if we want to get them back safely." She was more than aware of the danger, but there was only one thing they could do. She touched her earpiece and called Lorne.

"Major, this is Elizabeth Weir. Please assemble a team and hurry to the Control Room. You will leave immediately for MH6 - 98U. It appears that Colonel Sheppard's team has been attacked by the Wraith. They need help evacuating the survivors. Dr. Spencer warns us that the pathogen may be airborne, please be careful."

"I'm on my way, ma'am!" came the reply.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, Dr. Elizabeth Weir looked at the Gate. If she had learned anything in all this time in another galaxy, it was never to give up hope.

o0o0o

The deaths of the two terminal patients shortly after the end of the attack didn't surprise anyone. However, the fact that most of the stable cases had become terminal in just as short a time filled Catherine with an unbearable sense of uselessness and despair. But this was neither the time nor the place to show it, not if she didn't want her nurses to lose heart and let the chaos take over.

Calmly and efficiently, she moved from one bedside to the next, fighting for each life in turn, barely pulling one back from the brink before two more were nearly lost. If at first she had planned to get them all through, her hopes had shrunk to saving as many as she could.

At the edge of her vision, she saw a couple of nurses carrying one of the now three bodies out. She barely had a chance to tell them to leave the door open before all hell broke loose. It started with an old man who began breathing heavily and choking on blood, going into cardiac arrest before anyone could react.

"Give me epinephrine, fast!" Catherine ordered, but by the time she injected the adrenaline, he was already dead.

"Defibrillator! Damn it, we're losing him! Charge to 150!"

Nothing.

"Again! Charge to 250! Come on, breathe!

Again at 300! "

No pulse.

"Dr. Spencer! We got another one!" 

"This one's in shock too!" 

"This girl is..." 

And then the real nightmare started.

Later, when she would think back on that day, all she would remember was limping from one patient to the next, giving them every drug that could alleviate their symptoms, with no chance of actually saving them, and trying every resuscitation technique imaginable, all to no avail. It took only forty minutes for the number of deaths to rise from three to ten, and it spiraled from there.

The elderly died first, followed by the children, while a few of the adults seemed to cling to life in desperation, but they didn't last long either. By the end of that long day, they were all dead.

"What the hell was that?" the blonde nurse - Stephanie, her brain supplied - asked, bordering on hysterical. "Did we get it too? Are we going to die?"

Catherine could see the same question in the eyes of all her team members, and she couldn't say anything to reassure them because she didn't know the answer either. Lacking a better alternative, Catherine decided to fall back on her reputation as a tyrant, hoping to distract them from their dark thoughts. She didn't have Dr. Weir's gift for speeches, but at least she could do what she knew best - play the mean bitch.

"Pull yourself together!" she ordered, grabbing Stephanie by the shoulders. "We all knew the risks, and we signed up for this anyway. If I catch anyone having second thoughts, I'll send them packing as soon as we know they're not contagious." Which also meant they would survive whatever this was, and she gave them another sharp look, daring them to argue with her, then added, "Pack the tissue samples and the med kits. Help is on the way, and we shouldn't stay here any longer than we have to."

o0o0o

The settlement looked disturbingly peaceful. Apart from the building the Dart had crashed into, there were no visible signs of an attack. The shield shimmered faintly around them, making it look like they were underwater. All was quiet. A ghost town, Catherine thought. There was no smoke. There were no screams. The houses stood as pristine as ever. Only the stench was horrible, but she was almost used to it by now.

Nothing was the same, yet everything was unchanged. Only the sensation of loss and uselessness, the desire to run away, to cover her eyes and pretend it never happened felt stronger than ever.

Could she do it? Did she have any right?

She looked around for Colonel Sheppard. At least the team she had come with was still alive, for now. None of them showed any signs of illness yet, so maybe she still had a chance to come up with something in case it had already spread.

She spotted him near one of the smaller houses and, doing her best not to limp, made her way towards him. He looked about as discouraged and haggard as she felt, so she decided she couldn't burden him with her personal problems.

"Colonel," she began, leaning against the wall next to him.

"Dr. Spencer, how are things going?" he asked.

She shook her head. There was no way to make the news sound better, so she decided to put it simply. "Everyone died."

"Oh."

"I've never seen anything like it." She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, her chest tightening. It hurt to talk about it. "But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"What is?"

"We can't leave the bodies like this. I have no idea what caused it or how it spreads. We’ll have to burn them, and I'm afraid even that won't be enough. We may have to burn the entire village. With this kind of pathogen out there, the Wraith would be the least of this galaxy's worries. If it originated here, it would be the only way to make sure it doesn't strike again."

"And if it didn't?"

"We would have cut off a possible source of infection. But the threat would still be out there, so we might have to find the point of origin."

"How likely is it that we've already been infected?"

She sighed and looked at him. It was the last thing she wanted to say, but she forced the words out. "I think it would be a miracle if we weren't."

He nodded. "Aren't we a threat to Atlantis?"

"I've already recommended quarantine, but we need to get back. Outside of Atlantis, I have no access to the necessary equipment to find out what exactly this is and how to stop its spread. There's more at stake here than our lives - or even Atlantis," she said gravely.

He took a breath. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Catherine turned and looked at him in surprise. "For what?"

"For agreeing to take you with us. Maybe if you stayed in-”

Before her mind could catch up, she put her hand over his mouth, silencing him. "This wasn't what I wanted, and what happened today hasn't changed my mind. I'm here to do my job and I don't need you to take care of me. Or anyone else for that matter."

He frowned down at her, and she finally realized just how close they were. Too close. And her hand was still firmly pressed over his mouth.

She jerked it back with a gasp and stepped back. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” she stammered, feeling her cheeks flush with heat. “Anyway... That was all I had to say. I have to go, Colonel," she said. "Looks like the rescue party's here." 

She turned and hurried away, the pain in her leg preventing her from actually running.

"Well done, Catherine. Don't let anything stop you from throwing yourself at him. Again," she muttered to herself, heading for the Jumper that had just landed in the village square.