Chapter Text
First Loop
For a fraction of a second, there was darkness and nothingness. Oblivion, like one couldn’t truly understand. An abnormal black void defined by the absence of dream or of awareness.
Then there were voices, piercing through, reaching directly to him. Voices pulling him to the surface. The lights in his mind flashed back on, as if a power cord had been plugged in. Or as if a cattle prod had touched his neurones and suddenly reactivated them.
"Colonel? Are we disturbing you?"
It was a deep male voice, authoritative and disapproving.
"Falling asleep in the middle of a private meeting, that is a first…"
A woman's voice added, her tone not fully critical yet not fully amused.
The first words would have been enough to shake him out of the void on their own. Military training obliged; it was hard for John Sheppard not to react -at least subconsciously- to the tone and usage of rank. And perhaps some of the shock awaking him emanated from even deeper, from growing up with the kind of ever-disappointed stern dad he had had.
But then adding the woman’s intervention only sped up the pilot’s return to the land of the living: the feminine voice was Elizabeth's, and she was apparently displeased with him for sleeping in class… or rather, for sleeping in a meeting?
At any rate, Sheppard startled awake, instantly alarmed and embarrassed.
He didn’t even need to know how and how long he had supposedly been nodding off; he only instinctively knew he shouldn’t have been out in the first place.
With the jolt, the man’s head snapped up from where it had been resting, his chin until then on his chest. His body startled hard, legs reflexively pushing him straighter in his chair. The kick was so fast that he lifted an inch or two from his seat before falling back down in it, causing the chair to scrape over the floor.
His eyes were open and wildly searching his surroundings, though his vision still seemed blurry with sleep.
It looked like Elizabeth's office.
His hands tried to grab the nearby desk or armrest for support -he had no clue what model chair he was on- yet obstacles abruptly stopped the instinctive motion halfway through.
First, there was something wide strapped to his left arm and across his chest in two points, over his black zip-up long-sleeve shirt. And something else wrapped around his left shoulder more directly on the limb, under his shirt. The two bindings together greatly reduced the mobility of that arm, wrapped it against his torso, and almost immobilised it entirely.
Almost entirely.
It became too clear how the binding could not suffice in bracing his limb against the violence of the jolt that went through his body.
Yes, the second thing the man noticed instantly was the flash of deep, blunt spade stabbing-like pain exploding into the same joint. That pain spreading like a wildfire down his upper arm and up into his neck and shoulder blade. The ache seemed dulled on the edges, as if this were an old injury or as if painkillers were already coursing through his veins, yet the unpleasant surprise remained.
Sheppard completely froze in his seat, with a sharp intake of breath. In the space of less than four seconds, he went from unconsciousness to startled horror, and then to stunned suffering. That was fast and disorienting.
He gripped at his protesting shoulder with his right hand, fingers digging into the aching flesh as if to force it to settle. He encountered fabric in the way to his throbbing joint.
Blinking away the dancing dots greying his vision, befuddled, Sheppard stared down at his arm until he processed what he was clutching. His left arm was in a sling, hence its immobilisation. The kind of sling meant for a shoulder injury. It had an immobiliser strap secured to the main forearm-supporting section, and circling around his ribcage and back to keep the joint even steadier. The kind he disliked because of how limiting and awkward they were.
The additional strap's pressure against his ribs remained an annoyance even when they were perfectly healthy. With the light soreness he was feeling in his chest, he could tell he had already enough of the said strap.
He grasped around his joint some more: his right fingers were probably feeling some elastic bandage through the fabric of his shirt right now. Hard to tell how swollen the area was, though it was blatantly painful even with whatever painkillers he might have been given.
So he had… hurt his shoulder?
When?… How?
"Colonel? Is everything alright?" Elizabeth’s voice reached him again.
There was a touch of concern dissimulated in the professional front, in the business-like reference to his title. The way the woman spoke when another crisis emerged in the middle of already serious Atlantis affairs. Sheppard blinked up at her, willing the fuzzy edges of his vision to recede faster as he breathed through the surprise pain.
She was sitting behind her desk, raising a questioning eyebrow at him.
His instincts forced him to react before he had gotten his bearings in full:
"I’m fine, I guess I just… moved too fast..." He quickly dismissed using words.
That had been whatever crossed his mind, though he wasn’t fully convinced himself.
Was he fine?
This felt wrong, though. Was something wrong?
He nervously licked his lips but kept himself from frowning at the very last second, mindful to school his features as well as he could. Whatever he was, he wanted to avoid being called out on the lie.
Elizabeth seemed sceptical, and feeling himself burning under her scrutiny, the pilot carefully straightened in his seat to offer a picture more valiant and persuasive.
"Maybe you should head back to the infirmary and see doctor Beckett about it. You might need more rest than you’ve had, understandably so…" Elizabeth replied.
Infirmary? Has he been there? Of course, he must have, if he had his arm in a sling: he must have received treatment…
Everything was coming at him too fast, and the deep man’s voice from earlier interrupted Sheppard’s thoughts already:
"Don’t tell me you ran out of there before the doctor cleared you, Sheppard..."
The pilot’s head snapped to the side so he could stare at the source of the reproaches. So he could find out who else was involved in that conversation that he did not even remember joining. Colonel Caldwell was sitting in a nearby seat, addressing him with one of his no-nonsense appraising looks. The older man looked settled in and in control, as if the talks between the three of them had been ongoing for long minutes already.
John did not remember that meeting. Nor walking in here.
Was this all a bad dream?
His throat felt oddly tight.
Sheppard’s mind was reeling, drowning in confusion, though he instinctively picked up on the accusation of having escaped the infirmary. He didn’t want to be dragged back there by force, whatever was happening right now. There had to be a logical explanation, and he simply needed a moment more to figure it out on his own. Yes, this was one of Sheppard’s classic flaws, one he was still working on bettering since joining the expedition. Namely, his near inability to let go of the steering wheel. If he had to surrender to the infirmary's staff, he’d walk himself there, without the escort. But not before he made sense of things first.
Speaking of which, what were the two men from a security detail doing outside the office’s door anyway?
The pilot tried not to glance their way.
"No, sir. I wouldn’t have made it out of the door if it were the case; Carson knows me too well, he would have anticipated it…" Sheppard hurried to deflect, using snarky humour like ninjas used smoke bombs.
His voice didn’t sound as steady as he had wanted it to be, so he quickly added: "But I’m starting to wonder if he didn’t give me something a bit too efficient, thinking I was headed straight to my quarters to sleep it off."
This time, Sheppard couldn’t keep himself from furrowing his brows, his own words leaving him pensive and perplexed. Had he found the answer, then? Had he been doped on painkillers a little too strong for him?
Was it why he was literally waking up in the middle of a meeting with Caldwell and Elizabeth, having no idea how he got there and why his left arm was hurting like a son of a bitch?
Yet again, he was given no time to process his situation further, as Elizabeth took over:
"As I said, maybe it would be preferable if you did just that and got some rest, colonel. We can keep you in the loop on what was decided, and brief you when you feel better." She cautiously said.
Sheppard yet again blinked at her, mind buffering.
Should he actually go? Leave the meeting? Should he stay? Wasn't this important, what they were doing right now?
Though at once, it was a reflex; when being told he wasn’t fine, all he wanted was to claim the opposite. It only had him want to declare he was alright regardless, because he couldn’t be weak or unreliable. He suddenly felt that he needed to be in the loop. This minute and not later, whatever was happening here.
The airman didn’t know if it was important, but it had to be.
His throat felt too tense, tight from the emotion perhaps. He had absolutely no clue what they were all doing here, but his heart was beating too fast, and his denial whispered to him that things would maybe make sense soon. Maybe if he stayed, the memories would come back, and everything would click into place?
In any case, three seconds had ticked by since Elizabeth’s suggestion, and Sheppard could not afford to stay silent long enough to betray his internal turmoil. Or long enough to have the security detail drag him back to the infirmary, kicking and screaming.
He tensely licked his lips again, shrugged with his one intact shoulder, and replied:
"I’m good, it’s passed now. With the talks of running from Carson, I’m wide awake…"
He looked Caldwell’s way and, ignoring the latter’s dubious air, he gestured to go on:
"So you can, you know… proceed." Sheppard added.
Realising he had still been clutching his painful shoulder, he hurried to release it. He laid his right arm down on the armrest as casually as he could muster. Something around his wrist caught the hard surface, though the man was too distracted to mind the why of it. There was a pause during which the pilot made great efforts to appear unbothered, innocent, conscious, and as fine as he claimed. And during which he knew the other two were staring at him with scepticism.
"Alright, if you say so, John." Elizabeth finally conceded.
Sheppard guessed there was a reason behind her emphasis on his name. Why she wasn’t using his rank, then. It probably was part of an attempt to convince him to reconsider getting some medical treatment or some rest right now.
He mentally shrugged it off as confused thoughts wildly battled in his mind, making it difficult to truly be rational. He forced a reassuring smile that must have seemed strained and fake, regardless. He desperately hung onto the hope that things would make sense soon and that the memories would come back any second now.
"Right, where were we…" Caldwell picked up, decidedly more motivated to get back to business.
Caldwell did send a long, narrowed look to Sheppard, as if suspecting the latter was up to no good. And Sheppard wished he knew what he was up to himself indeed. Perhaps he’d even reveal his schemes to the Daedalus man the moment he solved the baffling puzzle.
Still, Caldwell resumed presenting what sounded like a report on a group of men who had apparently fled from some tavern when a team was sent to question them. It did sound truly important, something Atlantis’ CO should be made aware of. Elizabeth listened with enough attention to confirm it. Sheppard put himself through honest efforts to follow the older man’s words as well, even if nothing of the report rang a bell.
But, alas, the pilot’s mind drowned in too many tumultuous interrogations to remain focused on the report very long. Despite his attempts, Sheppard was distracted rapidly.
Because his thoughts kept going back to wondering how on Earth did he end up in Elizabeth’s office in this state. The mystery obsessed him.
How was it that he had no memories of walking in here, or of the infirmary visit he apparently came back from not too long prior? How could he end up with an arm in a sling, some muscle soreness, and a painful, busted shoulder without remembering getting injured in the first place?
Caldwell and Elizabeth spoke among themselves, yet Sheppard remained profoundly lost in thought. The man’s face was scrunched up in concentration, perplexity, and apprehension. He was still frozen in his seat, half holding his breath as if it could help rein in his racing heart. He felt himself pale, and his ears rang as the others’ voices droned on. His right fingers were grasping at the armrest in a vain attempt to anchor himself to reality, and his left hand clenched in a fist with the tense energy coursing through his being.
What happened to him?
What was the last thing he recalled anyway?
He remembered starting his morning run still sore from a sparring session with Ronon the previous day. He remembered then being off to a planet designated P3K-773, the rest of his dear AR-1 in tow. It had been a reconnaissance mission; one linked to the rumoured discovery of a possible Ancient warship crash site. It had been partly dug out in a quarry by locals mining for precious metals. And Sheppard recalled in many details the planet itself. The sprawling mining camps over a long and gigantic canyon, and the reluctance of the workers when questioned. How impossible it seemed to track the source of the rumour, and how the minerals in the rock seemed to interfere with most of their scanners. He remembered the team splitting up, and then most of the conversation he had with McKay about a specific cliffside mining camp he wanted to explore.
… But then? What then? What took place after this unfinished discussion?
There was a rift in his memory. He had been there, on Grand Canyon planet, and now he was here, in Elizabeth's office. He couldn't recall anything in between.
Sheppard shifted in his seat, all muscles coiled with tension. He abruptly felt thoroughly uncomfortable and dazingly dizzied at the freshly unearthed empty void in his mind. What went on then? How many hours was he missing? How was this even possible?
Was it retrograde amnesia from a head injury? After all, if his shoulder was hurt so much it needed to be strapped to his chest, surely something serious must have happened to him!
An accident or an attack?
Elizabeth and Caldwell were still less than five minutes into their debate, though they were unaware of the fact that Sheppard wasn’t even trying to follow their conversation anymore.
Their words bounced off his mind as if they were not here in this very office.
Instead, the pilot grew wide-eyed in alarm, thoughts rushing like a torrent at the break of a dam as he realised some danger might have been at play here. An accident or an attack, which was it?
Contemplating the possibility of a severe injury, the man tried to take the quickest stock of what aches plagued his body.
His head, first of all: had he suffered a head wound or a concussion?
And yet the airman realised with astonishment that no particular migraine seemed to plague him. Perhaps a slight throbbing behind his eyes, and the remnant of drowsiness, which he marked off as a tension headache from stress or lack of sleep. And a dull pressure on his left cheek, which felt like a fresh bruise that had not even split the skin over his cheekbone. Nothing that could even compare to a large goose egg or even a mild concussion. Nothing bad enough to wipe out numerous hours of his day.
As if discovering nothing alarmed him more than finding a rational explanation for his failings, Sheppard gulped with difficulty. He hurried to resume his mental tally of the aches.
Not that there even was a myriad of those to find. Bruises on his back, shins, and ribs from his sparring session with Chewie, light stiffness in his intercostal muscles, and a small bit of muscle fatigue, which could be from anything. His wrists and neck felt chaffed and tight, as if compressed a little. Though he had his shirt’s sleeves and collar on top of those, so who could tell if the clothes didn’t just rub on his skin during the mission?
And then, obviously, there was his left shoulder.
The sling, elastic bandage, and probably a dose of painkillers complicated his appraisal, though Sheppard had little doubt when he subtly tried to flex his arm again. Might it be a dislocation or subluxation, or just a tug and wrench a bit too hard on the limb, there still was no contesting the fact that his shoulder had suffered some damage. It didn’t feel like it was covered in stitches or like he had just come out of surgery, so the man caught himself hoping it was nothing to end his career. Though the flaring pain at every little jolt, the way it spread up and down the limb, and the stiff, swollen sensation deep within the shoulder pointed to there being many days of recovery ahead of him.
The pilot remained distracted and disconcerted; listing the sources of his suffering answered no question. If not, they left him lost in the maze of many more mysteries.
Nothing that ailed him could cause memory losses. And despite what he had claimed to appease Elizabeth and Caldwell, he did not feel exceptionally loopy from any drugs. He could not pinpoint an injury serious enough to be medicated so seriously that he would blank out for what had to be hours.
He gulped again and tried to keep cool. Tried to ignore how the two others obliviously argued on while he remained stunned into silence.
No new memories of his missing hours were coming back.
The collar of his shirt was bothering him, now that he focused on it. The way it squeezed his throat seemed wrong. It suddenly felt like a metal band tightening around his windpipe, as if the fabric had turned heavy and solid. He believed it had been his sling pulling on his shirt at first, mildly strangling him at once. Though the more he focused on the sensation, the more baffled he was.
Well, this couldn’t be all in his mind, couldn’t it? And while confusion and uncertainty were gripping him at the throat, the sensation rarely manifested so tangibly. For a moment, Sheppard resisted the urge to grab at his shirt collar or unzip it to free himself from the noticeably claustrophobic feeling. He dreaded the gesture would catch the attention of the other two, or that it would reiterate the possibility that he perhaps was far from fine after all.
Still, after a very short while, when he realised the sensation was driving him mad, the pilot decided to give in and act at last. Intending to remain inconspicuous, Sheppard lifted his able hand to his jaw, starting by pretending to pensively stroke his chin. His fingers trembled slightly as they then slipped lower, blindly reaching for his zipper. His eagerness to relieve the pressure against his windpipe only grew by the second; he could not refrain from touching his own throat anymore. As if he could massage the knot away.
It was then that his fingers brushed against something rigid protruding under the shirt, something stretching its collar tightly, barely entirely covered by the fabric as it was. Something hard wrapped around his neck, and it appeared his top had been deliberately secured over it as if to hide it.
...What?
Sheppard’s hand froze. He felt a weight drop in his stomach, and his heart began thrumming harder and faster, hammering his chest from the inside out.
What the hell was ´that’!?…
He pressed against the shape, as if to convince himself he wasn’t imagining it. But the way it physically constricted his windpipe wasn’t a trick his alarmed mind was playing on him. There was a solid foreign body encircling his entire neck, right under his Adam’s apple, and it was real and snug against his skin.
Sweat broke out on his forehead: what the hell was that!?…
His fingers palpated the band through the fabric of his top, his movements more frantic. He struggled to keep the motion as inconspicuous as possible with the horror seizing him. He prodded the front, side, and back of his neck, feeling for the object, feeling more tense by the second.
Then he could not resist the horrifying enigma anymore: he had to reach into his shirt collar to touch the foreign presence directly.
He pulled down the fabric and slipped his fingers underneath it.
There. Sheppard could feel the band, now.
It was all smooth metal, warm from being worn long enough on his skin to match his body temperature. The thing had the diameter of a garden hose, round at the front, and flattened into an oval against the back of his neck. That distortion allowed the shape to tightly and uncomfortably fit over his cervical vertebrae, putting pressure on the bones. Sheppard could barely slip a finger between the metal and his windpipe, not without half-strangling himself. And there was no way he could spin the thing around his neck or slip it further up or down. He knew he wouldn’t be able to see it by looking down, so skintight the damn thing was.
It felt alien to the touch, somehow, and his searching fingers only shook further when the pilot realised with dread that he couldn’t, for the love of god, find a clasp or a latch, or an opening mechanism of any kind. He didn't know how this thing was supposed to come off.
He was locked into who knew what, with no idea how it got there.
Locked into some sort of collar.
Was that all a weird, drug-induced nightmare!? Wake up in your boss' office with a metal choker soldered on?
Fighting back an undercurrent of panic, Sheppard gave the slightest tug on this metal band.
Evidently, it didn’t give way, though rational thoughts had almost all vacated his mind under the influence of his stupor and horror. He tugged again, then again, his alarm only growing at the feeling of getting strangled by the very real and very offending binding.
It all reached a paroxysm when the motion finally had his sleeve slip down from his right wrist, offering him a view of what had been dissimulated underneath the fabric. There was another hose-sized circle of metal there, almost skin-tight as well, also smooth and with no sign of a lock. There was no way he’d slip the thing off his wrist either.
But it had a hoop on one side, with a single link of a chain still hanging off it. As if this were the remnant of a set of manacles. As if someone had cut the connecting chain off, yet left the cuffs in place. And underneath the circle of metal, there were a few thin layers of gauze: someone had tried to treat whatever chaffing or damage came from the cuff’s rubbing. The bandage was clean, of Earth make, and fresh: it came from Atlantis’ infirmary.
A similar pressure around his left wrist informed the pilot that he had a second set of these disconnected manacles under the fabric of the sling.
What?
What the hell?
So, somehow, amnesia wasn't baffling enough: he had to be wearing some sort of glorified dog necklace and metal handcuffs as well? He had no idea how this happened, and somehow, to top it all, had been left with those on. He had been treated at the infirmary and then released while still collared.
What the hell indeed?!
He removed his fingers from the abject presence that was squeezing his neck, hand quick and feverish as if the metal had burnt him. The room spun. The man was starting to feel frankly sick and seriously trapped in that madness. He paled; he stared into nothingness while his heart kept skipping beats. He couldn’t make sense of his tumbling thoughts and his tumultuous disorientation anymore.
It kicked in his fight or flight response for a fraction of a second.
Suddenly, Sheppard found himself jumping to his feet so swiftly that it almost toppled his chair over.
And he stood there, stance wide and eyes wild as if ready to run, body taut with nerve.
Yet he also found himself abruptly back to reality at once. Plucked from the nightmare into another one. Faced with the risk and the horror of messing up in the real world.
Yes, he was standing there, startled like a madman, white as if he had seen a ghost, nearly smack in the middle of Elizabeth’s office. Elizabeth and Caldwell were in their seat, turned his way, staring at him in mixtures of wariness and confusion.
Sheppard blinked at them, and they stared back.
Instantly, the oddity of the scene and the cognitive dissonance hit the man like a bucket of icy water dropped on his head. The urgency of his alarm and confusion smashed into the social and military expectations of rational behaviour. He feared he was freaking out, and yet at once, he feared to be truly freaking out. He couldn't freak out. Especially not in front of the head of the expedition and the man who could very well take over should Sheppard be declared unfit for duty. The frantic horror at what was happening to him clashed with the quiet professional air that was forming like a solid wall in this office.
Everything felt so wrong to him, and yet nothing seemed to perturb the others in the room. Besides, perhaps Sheppard’s hasty act of standing up in the middle of a serious conversation.
The pilot blinked at them in silence for another second, and they stared back.
"Yes, colonel? Did you think of something?" Elizabeth tentatively asked.
Think of something? Sheppard’s mind went blank for another second, and his good shoulder dropped in disbelief. Were they thinking he was having an Eureka moment here? Did they think he had jumped to his feet, animated by an impulse of pure genius?
That look they were giving him, that was expectation. As if they were waiting to hear some brilliant idea or cutting opinion.
Had they missed the part where he just discovered he was wearing a metal collar with no way to remove it?
"Think of something?" He began stammering, wildly perplexed.
He stared at both as he added with a mirthless -tiny bit hysterical- scoff: "I don’t even know what you two are talking about!"
Elizabeth and Caldwell looked on. The former seemed concerned and confused, while the latter seemed to think this was all a bad joke. They exchanged looks, then frowned at Sheppard.
That caught the pilot off guard: they dared to act as if he was the strange one here? But he was the one waking up to the strange circumstances! Why was his situation being treated as if nothing was wrong? Weren’t they made aware that the Atlantis’ commanding officer had an alien dog collar and some creepy bracelets on? Wasn’t it alarming that he had no idea how this came to be?
"Colonel, are you sure you are truly alright?…" Elizabeth asked in that diplomatic tone of hers.
It felt as if she was trying not to scare a frightened animal. Even Caldwell seemed to tense cautiously in his seat.
"Sheppard?" The Dedalus man questioned in tow.
Sheppard didn’t dare look to the security detail outside the office, as he could bet that he was making them nervous as well, suddenly. He, a guy in his shirt, pants, and boots -he could feel he had no weapon on him right now- with a busted shoulder strapped to his chest, a hole in his memories, and a collar on. Making soldiers nervous.
It all seemed too ridiculous.
And it toppled Sheppard over into something else. One of his classic defence mechanisms took over, and not humour this time. Anger. Anger was something easy to fall back on. The situation was wrong: this wasn’t normal, and so he wouldn’t treat it this way. It was the outrage, the snarling animal in him protesting his fate, trying to escape its cage. The fight taking over for the flight. The resistance to the madness of the world.
He didn’t mean to snap at the woman. He didn’t actually snap either; this was perhaps more in the range of the hardened tone he broke out when the team was under fire, and McKay would be wasting their time over something trivial without realising it was putting their lives at risk. He wasn’t angry at Elizabeth; he was only confused and running out of ways to hold onto his sanity right now.
Still, his tone was drier and more pressing as he replied: "What’s going on?"
Elizabeth and Caldwell frowned again, puzzled, but prudent. The woman even motioned for something behind the pilot’s field of vision, asking for peace. Or for the security detail to stand down.
"What do you mean, John?" She calmly asked.
The calm almost threw him off; it always was strange to be the only agitated person in the room. Even more so when the words to explain himself clearly failed him.
"What do I mean? I mean, what’s happening? How did I get here?" He slowly pronounced, to show that he was serious. And sane.
His hands wanted to move the way they did sometimes when he was irked, though the motion pulled at his wounded shoulder. He winced and flinched at the explosion of pain. But he ignored it. If not, he only took the ache as confirmation that he needed to understand this nightmare.
"How did you get here? You mean in my office?" Elizabeth kept making it sound so normal and tactful.
"I… No… Here. On Atlantis. Because, last I checked, I was meant to be on that Grand Canyon planet with the rest of my team. We were on a mission, we were off-world. But now this is Atlantis, and I'm in your office…" Sheppard gritted out, as patiently as he could.
The baffled looks the two others exchanged and the silent pause it generated allowed the pilot to address the next question that came to his mind: "Are the others alright? Did something happen to them as well?" He asked.
"They are all fine; you were the only one injured, John…" Elizabeth hurried to reply, as if to stop him from spiralling further. Though she also quickly added: "But you don’t remember this."
And it was a statement; a conclusion, not a question. It almost hurt to hear it out loud, to admit to a weakness this flagrant, yet Sheppard had to confess.
"No, I don't remember this. I don't remember what's there to remember, and I'm really starting to want answers. Especially on this..." The pilot began tensely.
And on these words, he tugged at his shirt collar until it stretched low below the thick metal band around his neck.
He revealed this alien, shameful binding he so dearly wanted removed and explained. He couldn't see the damn thing himself, and yet he could see the effect it had when Caldwell and Elizabeth caught sight of it.
Elizabeth was always skilful in controlling her reactions, especially when she knew it mattered to keep calm. So, she did stay calm, but it was clear that she could not stop herself from briefly staring at the binding around his neck, before averting her gaze and forcing herself to look into Sheppard’s eyes instead. Perhaps it had been morbid curiosity, or was it concern she was dissimulating? Caldwell rather sent a more openly, readable, dark look at the collar first, as if he found its presence insulting to the entirety of the US Air Force. As if he could not stand anyone in uniform suffering this treatment. But the stern expression that he then addressed Sheppard was more of a silent 'So what? What’s your point?'
The most striking detail for the Lt. Colonel was how neither seemed surprised to see the collar there. They had known about it already.
They knew Atlantis’ head of military was in limiting and uncomfortable bindings all along. And it confirmed that he had truly been released back into the Atlantis population with a big, unwanted, oppressive, clumsy band of metal around his neck, regardless of how freaky and humiliating it was for him. And while Sheppard had deep trust in Elizabeth -and believed Caldwell would not be intentionally malicious- he could not fathom why no one had cut these things off of him.
"What exactly is that thing?" Sheppard slowly, carefully pronounced.
He was making great efforts to avoid snapping or lashing out in any way, despite how his horror and confusion were fuelling the outrage and anger in him. He tugged on the collar for dramatic emphasis, though he quickly stopped and froze when it only hurt the back of his neck and squeezed his vocal cords, threatening to send him into a coughing fit. He let his right arm fall back to his side, feeling ridiculous, powerless, and irked about it. The others seemed to have understood the message at least. Or "a" message. Possibly not the message Sheppard wanted to convey, he soon came to realise.
"Doctor Weir, are you calling the infirmary, or do you want me to do it?" Caldwell spoke up, too neutral for Sheppard to decipher his intentions.
Other than sending him for that dreaded medical check-up.
The flyboy’s attention snapped toward the ranking man, so fast the damn collar pinched at the skin of his neck. He clenched his jaw as a wave of revolt rose inside of him, though, choked as he was by the conflicting emotions, no words came to him at the instant. Not before Elizabeth replied in his stead:
"Please allow us a moment first, colonel Caldwell." She calmly demanded. She clearly guessed the pilot was about to protest.
She also sounded like she was trying to spare him from something. Sheppard trusted her, though the expense of unknown elements she was keeping from him at this time felt staggering enough to make him nervous. Apprehension rose in him in tandem with the frustration of being treated as if he were too fragile or unstable to hear the truth. Again, the conflicting emotions were a strain on his mind, even if, on the outside, he remained stiffly standing there in the middle of the office.
"If you insist, doctor." Caldwell conceded.
He had the attitude of a man who knew Elizabeth was going to have Sheppard sent to the infirmary so shortly that he didn’t even need to argue in favour of it.
"John. You have to understand, we are surprised and somewhat worried to hear you ask these questions." Elizabeth began, placating but professional.
Sheppard’s wary expression settled back on her as the woman went on: "You’ve been… I mean, we’ve noted that this foreign element has been secured to you ever since your return from P3K-773. From what your team have reported, you had been missing for almost an entire day before you managed to escape capture and find them. And you had that…"
"Collar." Caldwell supplied when it was clear Elizabeth struggled to find the word.
She nodded to the older man and went on: "Yes, thank you. John, you had the collar on already when you found them. Your entire team returned in emergency after this, but all in all, you’ve had these restraints on for at the very least four hours by now…"
She didn’t pronounce it out loud, yet a question was heavily implied then: didn’t he remember that?
No, he honestly didn’t.
"I… What?…" Sheppard stammered breathlessly, eyes widening.
"You’ve told us yourself. You weren’t sure how you had been captured and who had locked this thing on you. You were postulating someone had used a Wraith stunner on you and secured you while you were unconscious. You were not aware of why they had either." She went on.
"You reported, and I quote, being too busy trying to escape with no weapon and a half-dislocated shoulder to stick around and ask. So we concluded you could not identify your captors properly or find out more about their motivations." Caldwell filled in, though it was clear he was mostly humouring Elizabeth’s attempt at calming the pilot by supplying answers.
"I did?…" Sheppard blinked and nervously shifted his weight on his feet.
New information and new questions were burying him alive, and the collar seemed tighter than ever around his vulnerable throat. He felt himself deflating as anger retreated inside of him, only to leave the raw confusion and unease again. He felt a fool for having suspected the others of hiding something from him, when in truth, it was he who had apparently… forgotten?
"Yes, John. There wasn’t an official briefing yet, but you have Colonel Caldwell and me, plus the rest of your team, as witnesses to your initial verbal report. This is what you told us." The woman answered.
"We were already in the process of organising the investigation and tracking down whoever did this to you. That was what we were discussing before you interrupted us, Sheppard." Caldwell noted.
The military training in him -paired with his respect for Elizabeth- had Sheppard seized by a tide of guilt and shame: his previous outburst briefly seemed ridiculous and overly melodramatic. He had gotten so wound up, and for what?
Only, instantly, reason claimed back the reins and reminded him of a fact. The fact that he was not fine right now, even with a decent first explanation for the presence of that damned collar. A most perplexing and concerning question remained:
"… Why don’t I remember any of that? It sounds like I really should know those things…" Sheppard exhaled low, almost a whisper.
He distractedly fidgeted with one of the straps of his sling, though he set a confounded, questioning look on the others, each in their turn. He was unable to fully hide how troubled he was anymore, and some of the dismay showed in his eyes and in the nervous lick on his lower lip.
As much as he hated showing weakness in front of a ranking officer, and as much as he strived to keep Elizabeth from worrying, there was no denying he needed some help.
"It's a good question. I have to admit that I don't know yet." Weir replied.
"I wasn't clued in on the possibility either." Caldwell commented, even though he had clearly not been expected to be so cooperative.
"What say we get you to the infirmary now, John? I’m sure Carson can make sense of it all." The woman then suggested, and she was patient and kind about it.
Sheppard gulped and nodded. It hurt because of how tight the collar was. He tried to stand at his tallest, as if this could temper the weakness that he accidentally revealed.
He forced himself to speak up and match Elizabeth’s calm, even though the admission pained him:
"Doctor check-up, yeah… Sounds like a good idea."
It sounded like the only idea.
The airman was made to sit back down while a non-emergency call was lodged for a medical team.
He felt small, pitiful, tense and claustrophobic with the pressure of the choker and cuffs, and with the pain in his shoulder. With the frankly alarming mystery of his capture and amnesia. With the embarrassment of showing vulnerability in front of Caldwell and Elizabeth.
He stayed mostly silent and uncharacteristically still until Carson arrived in a hurry to fetch him.
No one had wanted to let him walk himself to the infirmary on his own.
Perhaps they were afraid he would get lost, collapse on his way, or forget everything again.
He had to admit having wondered the same himself as well.
TBC