Author: somehowunbroken
Wordcount: 12,495
Rating: R
Pairing(s): John Sheppard/Cameron Mitchell
Summary: It's six months after the disease spread through Atlantis, crippling or killing everyone in the CIty, and Cam's more than ready to get out there to help.
Warning(s) highlight to read: major character death, a few gruesome scenes
Notes: Many, many thanks to padfootthegrim and stormylullabye for doing their usual amazing beta jobs, and to race_the_ace for creating this amazing piece of art and not freaking out at me when I told her it inspired me to kill off most of Atlantis by plague.

Companion piece to No Other Place I Can Surface.




Atlantis is beautiful.

It’s not news, or it shouldn’t be; Cam’s been here twice before, and it’s not like it looks different now than it did either of those times. Maybe it’s just weird because Cam was expecting it to be different, was expecting Atlantis to bear the scars of her inhabitants.

It’s a little too much to ask of a city of metal and glass, though, even one with as much life as Atlantis has in her.

Cam shifts as John makes his way down the stairs, and there’s another beautiful thing, John walking under his own power, even if it is a lot slower than Cam would consider normal. John flashes him a grin as he eases down off of the staircase and makes his way across the floor to stand in front of Cam.

“Colonel Mitchell,” he says, and he sounds normal at least, voice just as healthy as Cam remembers. “Glad to see you made it in one piece.”

Cam drops his bag along with his formalities and pulls John in, wrapping his arms around John’s waist and taking his weight. He can tell how bad it is by the sheer fact that John lets him do it, that he even leans into Cam and lets out a little sigh. He’s not shaking, not trembling, but Cam can tell that he’s not fit for the duties he’s supposed to be performing, either.

It’s okay. Cam’s here for more than emotional support.

“I missed you,” John whispers into Cam’s neck, and it’s enough to make Cam close his eyes tightly, right there in the Gate room. John’s not the emotional type, never has been, so for him to freely admit something like that without any prompting says a lot about how he’s been, how this whole mess has been kicking his ass six ways from Sunday.

“I missed you, too,” Cam replies, pulling back but keeping an arm around John’s waist.

It’s fine. There’s almost nobody around to see it, anyway.

-0-

It had started innocently enough. About six months ago, AR-7 had been out on a routine milk run, trading with an ally on M5R-0F8, when one of the elders in the trading party had sneezed. It had been overlooked, because a sneeze is just a sneeze, but it hadn’t been long before the Lantean delegation had begun sneezing as well. Pegasus allergies, Corporal Anson had shrugged, glaring in the general direction of the Gate as the infirmary staff checked him over. We’re how many light years from Earth, and I still get hay fever.

The bug hadn’t triggered any of the fine-tuned quarantine protocols in Atlantis, and Dr. Keller herself had cleared the team after their mission, so AR-7 went back into the City, back into their various departments, and that had been that.

Until a few weeks later, when Rodney McKay had shown up in the infirmary, face swollen and eyes watery.

“It’s that damn bug the trading team brought back last month,” he’d complained as Dr. Keller frowned and drew a vial of blood. “The anthropologist on their team got sneezed on, she’s sleeping with one of my engineers, and now he’s spread it to the entire department.”

“I’m sure it’s just a cold, Rodney,” Keller had said, capping the vial and scribbling on the label. “We’ll run some tests and get in touch with you when we have some answers, okay?”

And that would have been that – should have been that, except for the fact that Dr. Eller, the anthropologist from AR-7 with whom Rodney was laying the blame for his cold, collapsed in the middle of the mess hall a few hours later.

Tests showed a strain of bacteria in her blood that was unfamiliar to the medical staff; subsequent tests found the same bacteria in McKay’s blood, to a lesser extent. Dr. Keller ordered immediate blood panels for the other three members of AR-7 and everyone in McKay’s engineering department. They all showed similar signs of infection, to varying degrees.

The thing of it was that the illness progressed slowly; it had taken three full weeks for it to get from sneezing and coughing to Dr. Eller fainting. A week after that she began to vomit blood; two weeks after that, she slipped into a coma.

Two months to the day after AR-7 returned from their trading mission, Anna Eller was dead.

The others had fallen a bit slower; Sergeant Nans died two weeks after Eller, and Dr. Simmons four days after that. Corporal Anson had clung to every last scrap of life he could find; it was a long four months before he finally breathed his last.

Dr. Keller had raced to contain the illness, but with no idea of what it was or how to stop it, there was little she could do. More and more people kept turning up sick, until she’d reached the point where she’d just ordered everybody tested.

Every sample came back positive. All they could do was sit and wait.

The reports to the SGC had been short and to the point, first alerting them to the problem and issuing a quarantine, then passing along research and ideas and asking for help. They’d passed along death notifications, too, piling up quicker and quicker as the months dragged on. The SGC debated sending help; on the one hand, they had some ideas, some resources that Atlantis didn’t have, and from all the reports coming from the City, they’d learned that the highest-ranking official in the medical department was a sergeant with basic field training; on the other hand, it was dangerous, possibly deadly. In the end, General Landry ruled that sending more personnel into Atlantis without a way to ensure their safety was a risk they couldn’t take, and that had been that.

Those left on Atlantis hadn’t even seemed surprised to hear the news.

-0-

“How bad is it?” Cam asks as John leads him down to the infirmary. There are more than a few ways to interpret the question, and Cam sees all of them ripple through John’s head as they make their way down the hall.

“Could be worse,” John finally replies, and Cam weighs it in his mind – on the one hand, John’s thinner than he’s ever been, even during the divorce, and he’s leaning more and more into Cam the further they walk; on the other, though, this disease has something like a ninety-four percent mortality rate, and John’s still hobbling along.

“Yeah,” Cam returns. “I suppose that’s the truth.”

The infirmary opens for John as they near the door, and Sergeant Lifton stands wearily when she sees who’s approaching. “Sir,” she says, lifting a weary salute in Cam’s direction.

“Sit down before you fall,” Cam tells her, and she smiles at him tiredly, walking to the medicine cabinet and pulling out a bottle of a thin blue liquid and a syringe. She shakes the bottle and draws some into the syringe, gesturing to the nearest table as she flicks the barrel of the needle. Cam sits on the table and bares his arm.

“It burns,” she warns, and then she’s pushing the medicine through his veins, and it’s all Cam can do not to scream as the fire runs through his system.

It takes a minute for Cam to register anything aside from the white-hot pain in every inch of his body, but eventually he feels John’s hand running up and down his arm, hears John murmuring into his ear. He concentrates on that, pulling himself out of the pain and latching onto John. Slowly, he opens his eyes and blinks as the infirmary comes back into view.

“Sorry,” Sergeant Lifton is saying, and the smile on her face this time is kind, sympathetic. “We haven’t found a way to make it hurt less without diminishing its effectiveness.”

“Hey,” Cam says weakly, “thanks. At least you warned me, right?”

She just nods before moving away, walking into the back of the infirmary, curtained off so passers-by can’t look in.

So passers-by don’t have to watch the remaining sick waste away.

They’d come up with an inoculation about a month ago. There still isn’t a cure, isn’t even really a treatment, but Atlantis now has the ability to prevent others from getting the disease, and that’s a miracle enough on its own. It’s why Cam was allowed to come through.

He’s got an assignment here in Atlantis; he’s supposed to evaluate the situation, report back to the SGC, and give his recommendations. Unofficially, he’s also here as a support for John; he’d been doing fine with the day-to-day running of what had effectively become a military hospital until he, too, had been stricken with the disease about six weeks ago.

Cam can only thank his lucky stars that John had been one of the fortunate ones who had, for some reason that nobody can quite explain, survived the disease.

“Okay,” Cam says after a few minutes of sitting on the gurney. “Okay, let’s get me settled into some quarters so I can sleep this off, how’s that sound?”

“Sounds good to me,” John offers, turning to the curtain that leads to the rest of the infirmary. “Sergeant Lifton, are we good to go?”

Lifton reappears form behind the curtain. “Dizzy?” she asks Cam, who shakes his head. “Good. You should be fine, then.” She turns to John. “Any coughing, nausea, vomiting-”

“I know,” John cuts her off, and they share a hollow kind of look, one that Cam has seen on far too many survivors. “Hope we don’t see you, Sergeant.”

“Same here,” Lifton replies as she ducks back behind the curtain.

Cam gets off the bed carefully, testing his legs beneath him as he lets go of the frame. He doesn’t wobble, and he’s pretty grateful for that, because he’s pretty sure Lifton would order him back into the bed for observation. She’d be within her right to do so; the vaccine is only a month old, and though it’s worked on everyone it’s been tried on so far, the truth of it is that it just hasn’t been tested on many people. They haven’t had the chance.

He stays steady on his feet, though, and he smiles at John as he takes a few steps forward.

“Let’s go,” John says, grabbing Cam’s hand in his own and heading for the door. He’s walking slowly, but Cam knows that he’s not trying to cater to any perceived weakness; John honestly can’t go any faster, not right now.

Maybe not ever again, but Cam’s trying for optimism.

-0-

John’s quarters are clear on the other side of the City, and even with the transporter system, it takes nearly an hour to get there. They have to pause every ten minutes or so.

“Sorry,” John says when he lets go of Cam and watches him slump against the wall. Cam’s ridiculously grateful for the cool metal beneath his cheek. “Under normal circumstances we’d keep you in the infirmary, but we’re a little short on beds at the moment.”

He doesn’t add and I can’t drag you back by myself to the end of the sentence, but Cam knows they’re not just stopping because the vaccine is getting to him. John’s pale, and his hands have started to tremble a little.

“It’s okay,” Cam replies instead of remarking on it. “I’ll be good once I sleep it off, right?”

John gives him a nod and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and Cam slings his arm back around John’s waist and they make their way to the next transporter.

-0-

Cam sleeps for eleven hours, but when he finally wakes, he feels – fine. Back to his normal self, actually, and he’s grateful for that, even moreso when he turns over in the bed and finds John curled up next to him, eyes open and exhausted. Cam curls an arm around him automatically, drawing John in until they’re tangled together, arms and legs an almost-indistinguishable mess.

“I was scared,” Cam says into John’s hair, and he feels John’s arms tighten around his waist in response. “Quarantine, John, and then Landry said he wasn’t letting anyone else through. And then the reports stopped coming for a while-”

“Sorry,” John murmurs against his chest. “There weren’t enough people to man the Gate for transmissions for a little while there.”

“I know,” Cam sighs, keeping them pulled close together. “I don’t blame you, sweetheart, just sharing my feelings here.”

John huffs a sigh against Cam’s chest, and the fact that he’s feeling well enough to get bent out of shape at the endearment is heartening. It’s been a give-and-take thing since they began their relationship; Cam’s always been an endearments sort of guy, no matter who he was with, while John has been more the last names type. It hasn’t stopped Cam, though, not once, and like it or not, John will always be darling and sweetheart and baby to Cam.

(“It’s not demeaning,” he’d tried explaining once. “Really, John, it’s not.”

“I’m not your girlfriend,” John had retorted. “I really wish you’d stop thinking I am.”

“I don’t want you to be my girlfriend,” Cam had replied evenly. “It’s just – that’s who I am, baby, that’s me.”

John had rolled his eyes and sighed, but the nicknames have made a softness appear in his eyes ever since, so Cam’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually mind.)

Cam grins at the memory and John pulls back, scowling halfheartedly up at him. “You just did that to get a rise out of me,” he accuses.

“Nope,” Cam replies, kissing the tip of John’s nose. “Come on, darlin’, does that sound like something I’d do?”

John rolls his eyes as Cam laughs. “You’re such a pain in the ass,” he sighs as he settles back against Cam’s chest.

“You love me anyway,” Cam counters, the same response he always gives to the statement, but John just nods against his chest without saying a word, so Cam wraps him up again and holds him in the silence for a while. He watches as the light plays across the ceiling and feels John drift in his arms, somewhere between awake and asleep.

“We should get up,” Cam says after a while. The sun’s pretty high in the sky, and he’s starting to get hungry.

John’s quiet for a minute. “There really aren’t any deadlines around here any more,” he says finally. “Nobody to meet, nobody to answer to.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Not saying we should stay in bed forever, just… making sure you realize that.”

Cam knows; of course he knows. Atlantis had gone back to Pegasus with just over three hundred people, all told, and the number had been almost exactly that (three hundred and eight , his mind supplies helpfully) when the outbreak had occurred. There are thirty-four people left in Atlantis, including the ones in the infirmary waiting to die.

Cam hadn’t known many of the Atlantis personnel by more than name. He’d known John’s team, of course – McKay was a force to be reckoned with, and Cam had never quite understood how he and John had been such good friends. Ronon and Teyla were like what would happen if you mixed Jackson, Sam, and Teal’c up and split them into two people, in the least horrifying way possible.

Ronon is the only one of them left now. McKay had been among the first to die after the members of AR-7, and Teyla had passed shortly before John fell sick. Her husband had been in the Athosian settlement with her kid during the outbreak, and it’s one of those small mercies that Cam’s thankful for in this whole mess. Losing a parent at three is terrible, and there’s nothing that can make it better, but at least the kid will live to mourn. Cam can’t imagine a kid surviving a sickness like this.

Ronon’s still sick, though apparently he’s going to be one of the lucky ones. At the last report, his fever had fallen if not broken completely, and he’d slipped back into consciousness. John had sounded so relieved when reporting the news, like he was just glad that not everyone was going to die, and that’s when Cam had put his foot down and started arranging the mission.

He’s drawn back to the present when John pulls out of his arms and makes his way to the bathroom. “Come on, then,” he calls back to Cam. “Shower, and we’ll see what Adam found for lunch.”

-0-

Adam is Sergeant Stackhouse, another survivor of the disease, and he’s stirring a pot of something that smells pretty fantastic. Cam keeps his arm around John’s waist as they make their way into the kitchen.

“Smells pretty good,” Cam says as John grips the counter and reaches for a bowl and spoon. Cam takes the utensils from him when they’re offered and holds the bowl out for some of the violently colored goop from the pot.

“Beets,” Stackhouse says by way of explanation. “Or, well, almost-beets from M8R-124, and the carrot-things from ML6-8S1, and those sorta-peas from-”

“Vegetable soup,” Cam cuts him off. “Local fare. Like I said, Sergeant, it smells great.”

Stackhouse grins at him. “Glad to hear it, sir.” He waves out towards the empty seating area. “We’ve got vacancies today, so feel free to sit wherever you’d like.”

John snorts and walks for the door, snagging a mug of something on the way past; Cam hadn’t noticed on the way in, but there are two on the counter, so he grabs the other and follows John out. They make their way to a nearby table and sit.

John buries his face in the steaming mug and sighs happily. Cam sniffs his; it smells like honey and ginger, a few other spices he can’t place, and it tastes like weak cider. It’s not bad, and when Cam tastes the soup, he’s not surprised to find that it’s more than passable, too.

“Stackhouse isn’t half-bad in the kitchen,” Cam observes, chasing a piece of what looks like a red blueberry but tastes like a pea around his bowl. John shifts, and there’s something tense in the gesture. Cam’s gotten good at hearing what John’s not saying over the years, and he’s hearing something loud and clear right now. “What did I say?”

John shrugs. “Nothing. No, really,” he continues when Cam starts to frown at him. “We just – there’s not that many of us, you know? We’ve been doing the first name thing. It’s weird to know that after all we’ve been through together, everything we’ve survived, we’re gonna have to go back to what it was like before.”

Cam’s starting to get the feeling that the people left in Atlantis aren’t going to be able to do that, and he’s not sure exactly what to do about that yet. He nabs the pea-thing and chews it thoughtfully.

“I think they want to discharge all of you on medical,” Cam says eventually, and predictably, John stiffens and pulls back. “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, John, or that I’m going to back it, but you need to know that it’s been put on the table.”

“We’re fine,” John says fiercely, clutching his mug of tea defensively. “I’m fine, everyone’s fine.”

“John,” Cam tries, but John stands up and walks across the mess hall, bringing his dishes into the kitchen before walking out.

Cam just watches him go; sure, he could catch John easily, try to talk him down, but he knows that’s just adding insult to injury at this point.

-0-

“I’m sorry,” Cam hears from the doorway, and he looks up from the desk in John’s office as John makes his way to slump in one of the chairs. “Not your fault, don’t shoot the messenger, all that jazz.” He shifts, settling in more fully. “Sorry I blew up at you.”

Cam smiles and shuts the file he’s been reading. “Don’t worry about it, John.”

“Yeah,” John replies, shaking his head. “I figured you’d say that, but I still feel pretty crappy about it.”

“They sent me for a reason,” Cam points out with a grin. “Easier to hear it from me than someone you don’t know so well.” He raises a hand to forestall John’s protests. “General Landry doesn’t know, but you know Sam does, and she’s in position to take over the SGC when he retires. She got the paperwork sorted out so I could come.”

John lets out a breath and tilts his head back, closing his eyes. His head rests against the back of the chair and he looks – different, Cam supposes, more like he used to, when the only things stressing him out were the Wraith and the Replicators, enemies he could fight and beat. “I don’t need to be drummed out on medical,” he says. “I know it looks bad, but really, Cam, I know my limits. I’m not there yet. Hell, I’m getting better – I couldn’t even walk a few weeks ago, and I know it’s still slow going, but I’ll be back in shape eventually.”

His eyes plead with Cam, as if he’s the one making the decision and John might be able to convince him to change his mind if he tries hard enough. “Give us some time.”

“Not my choice, sweetheart,” Cam murmurs as he walks around the desk and crouches in front of John, resting his hands just above his partner’s knees. “I’m here to report on the situation and give my recommendations, but it’s not up to me in the end.”

“I can’t lose Atlantis,” John says, and it’s nothing Cam doesn’t already know. “I can’t, Cam.”

Cam pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, meeting John’s gaze and wondering if he should just tell him the rest of the news from the SGC, or if that should maybe wait. Sometimes he forgets, though, that John can read him as easily as he can read John.

“Tell me,” John says, covering Cam’s hand with his own and lifting his mouth into that half-smirk that Cam’s missed all this time. “I promise I’m not gonna blow up and run away again.”

Cam takes a breath and turns his hand under John’s, holding it firmly. “If they decide that you’re not fit for duty, John, that’s it. They’ll pull out of Atlantis, out of Pegasus entirely.”

-0-

“You’re good,” Sergeant Lifton says with a smile, pulling the stethoscope away from Cam’s chest. “As long as your bloodwork checks out, sir, I’ll be calling this a complete success.”

“Glad to hear it,” Cam returns with an easy grin, tugging his shirt back into position and threading his fingers through John’s. He’d insisted on staying with Cam through the checkup, and Cam has to wonder how many people John has sent to the infirmary and just never seen well again. He’s sure the number is higher than it has any right to be.

“Can we go?” John asks Lifton, who nods her head as she leans over to label the test tube. Cam stands and tugs John off the stretcher, sliding his arm smoothly around John’s waist and turning to Lifton.

“Thanks,” he says, and she flashes them a smile before going back to her work.

They head back to the living quarters, and Cam helps John change out of his clothing and into a pair of sweats and a tee that used to fit him a lot better. John tumbles into bed with a sleepy smile and Cam curls around him, pulling John into his arms and running a hand up and down his back.

John needs to sleep a lot more than he used to. He’s always been the kind that can function on less; Cam’s watched him function for two straight days on less than two hours’ sleep, and it was rare that Cam was out of bed before John.

That was before, though; now, John sleeps long and hard, like he’s catching up from a lifetime of going without.

John’s out in less than five minutes, snoring softly into the pillow. Cam keeps his arm around John’s waist, tucking his fingers between John’s hip and the mattress as he pulls John fully against his frame. He’ll have to move before he drifts off or he’ll wake up with one hell of a cramp in his arm, but for now, he’s content enough to lie there and let John breathe against him.

Cam lets his mind wander, thinking through the details he’d known coming in and what he’s learned since arriving. The disease had come from M5R-0F8, and had spread through the City pretty efficiently; nobody had been immune, and that included the Pegasus natives. The disease is almost assuredly fatal, and they haven’t been able to synthesize a cure. Even the vaccine had been a fortuitous accident.

Cam has a few questions – okay, he has a lot of questions, but he has some that take precedence over the rest. If the disease is native to the Pegasus Galaxy, why hadn’t Ronon and Teyla been familiar with it? Was it just native to M5R-0F8? Why weren’t they able to find a cure?

Cam’s first report to the SGC was due at the end of the week. He’d send his first set of recommendations back then: send an exploratory team through for intel gathering on planet of origin, he mentally composes. Request Dr. Jackson as cultural liaison and Dr. Brightman for medical assistance, with a team of Marines for tactical support.

In the meantime, Cam will have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to phrase the state of things here in Atlantis. He knows, without a doubt, that Landry would take one look at a straight-on honest report and order everyone home, but Cam knows what losing Atlantis would mean – to Earth, sure, but to John especially, and he’ll put that off for as long as he can.

Hopefully, he can put it off forever.

-0-

The week goes by without incidents of any kind, and Cam’s grateful if only because he knows John, knows how he’d push himself beyond his limits if something came up. He mentions it after the wormhole to Earth disconnects, all reports carefully worded and sent along for review.

“Glad the Wraith haven’t dropped by recently,” he remarks, and John goes kind of quiet, kind of still in a way that he rarely is. Cam tenses. “What?”

“They haven’t,” John says quietly, before clearing his throat and starting again. “They haven’t been by. Not once since the whole thing started. We, uh, we haven’t seen or heard anything from them.”

Cam has no response for that, honestly. “Six months?” he asks, a little dumbfounded.

“Six months,” John confirms, lifting one shoulder. “Almost seven.”

Cam sits back in his chair. “And nobody connected the dots on that before now.”

John shrugs again. “Two explanations,” he offers, holding up a finger. “One, they caught it too, and they’re just as hard-hit by it as we are.” A second finger goes up. “Two, they’re responsible for it and figured that either we’re all dead by now or not enough of a threat to worry about.”

“Jesus,” Cam breathes out. “So either they’re no longer a threat, or they’ve successfully eliminated the greatest threat to them.”

“Pretty much,” John agrees candidly.

“That’s a pretty low-key reaction for such a big revelation,” Cam notes, raising an eyebrow at John in an attempt to cover some of the shocked reeling he’s got going on in his stomach.

“It’s not a new thought for me,” John replies evenly. “I mean, I’ve had a while to think about it.”

“Jesus,” Cam repeats. “How likely do you think the Wraith are to resort to biological warfare?”

John rocks his head from side to side. “Normally, I’d say that they wouldn’t deplete their food source by just offing humans, but we’re kind of a pain in their asses, so they might risk it just for us.”

“Any chance you can get in touch with that one Wraith and find out?”

John shakes his head. “We tried a couple of months ago, but there’s not really an exact science to hailing him. We left a message for him, but he doesn’t stop by that planet all the time.” He lifts a shoulder. “He might not have gotten it yet, he might not want to get in touch with us for whatever reason, he might be dead. I really have no way of knowing.”

Cam blows out a breath. “Have you gated back to M5R-0F8 since the outbreak?”

“Yeah,” John nods. “When Eller and Nans first got sick, we gave them a call. The guy we spoke to said the place was decimated.” He draws in a slow breath and holds it for a few seconds before deflating a little in the chair. “Rodney worked out a probability model based on their rate of infection and apparent rate of survival. He figured we’d be less affected because of our medical advances and sanitation standards.” He tries to smile, but it’s more of a grimace than anything else. “Turns out that neither of those things matter when everyone’s already been exposed and you have no idea what it is that you’re supposed to be treating.”

“None of this was in the reports you sent back,” Cam says, but he’s going through everything in his head, everything that had come out of Atlantis, trying to put the pieces together and come up with the scenario John’s giving him now. He sucks in a breath when he gets it – a phrase here, some carefully-worded statements there, not enough to make into anything, unless you already know what you’re looking for. His eyes flick up to meet John’s. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” John confirms. “I don’t think anyone picked up on it, which was kind of the point, but it was all in there if anyone was looking for it.”

“Why code it?” Cam asks, frowning. “Why not just lay everything out? It’s not like-” He cuts off abruptly, face going pale. “The new regulations, the safety protocols. Holy shit.”

“Procedures and Policies of Stargate Command, updated 23 July 2010,” John recites easily. “Section Fourteen, Article 6.4b: ‘In the event of loss of containment on any base, colony, or other mission type, on Earth or offworld, Stargate Command has the right, responsibility, and authority to neutralize said containment issue in whatever method is deemed necessary by the acting commander of Stargate Command.’” He waits a moment, then shrugs. “When we figured out that this was pretty much exactly the kind of thing they were talking out, we figured it might be in our best interests to downplay it as much as we could.”

“You figured that Landry would send some sort of bomb through or something,” Cam guesses. He wants to throw up, because he can picture Landry doing exactly that, reading the reports and deciding that the risk to Earth was too high. He’d be well within his rights under the rules of the SGC, too, to just send a bomb through and eliminate the threat, and what’s worse, John clearly knows it.

“This whole thing started because some guy offworld sneezed on one of our guys,” John says by way of explanation. “By the time we figured out that we had a problem, every single person on the base was infected, and we just focused on trying to treat it.”

Cam closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to assimilate this into his understanding of the situation and drawing more than a few blanks. “Why didn’t the quarantine protocols pick up on this thing and shut everything down?”

“It’s another point for this being engineered,” John replies. “If Atlantis doesn’t know that it’s a contagion, she won’t activate a lockdown.”

Cam rolls his eyes. “Have those protocols ever actually worked like they were supposed to?”

John grins back at him. “Not that I know of.”


“Great,” Cam sighs. “That’s just great.”

-0-

Ronon is deemed well enough to leave the infirmary towards the end of Cam’s second week in Atlantis. John gets the news early in the morning, and Cam’s a little angry at Sergeant Lifton for waking him, but the smile on John’s face when they get to the infirmary and see Ronon standing on his own two feet makes up for any negative feelings Cam might have had.

“It’s good to see you, buddy,” John says, clapping Ronon’s arm with his hand. “I’m – it’s really good to see you.”

“You too,” Ronon says, trying for a smile and pretty much failing. He nods at Cam. “Mitchell.”

“Ronon,” Cam returns, reaching out to shake his hand. Ronon’s grip is weaker than Cam thought it could ever be; not that he’s given a ton of thought to it, but Ronon’s always seemed like one of those guys who would have an iron grip until he died.

Then again, Cam figures, he almost had.

“Let’s get you back to your quarters,” John says, moving to Ronon’s side and slinging an arm around his waist. Ronon sags a little and John almost stumbles; Cam quickly steps to Ronon’s other side and counterbalances, and they manage to stay standing.

“Easy now,” Cam murmurs, angling to take most of Ronon’s weight. He’s not nearly as heavy as Cam would have thought, but then again, lean muscle turns to nothing pretty quickly with a month spent in bed.

Ronon’s quarters are, thankfully, closer to the infirmary than John’s; Ronon is still weak, even though Lifton had said he was good to go. Cam’s pretty sure that Lam would have kept him in the infirmary if they were in the SGC, but they’re in Pegasus, and for all her training and the care she’s been able to provide, Lifton has little more than a few advanced first aid courses to her name. Cam keeps his opinions to himself, because that’s still more medical training than he’s had, and helps Ronon into his quarters and sets him in his bed.

“Anything we can do for you,” Cam says, putting a radio on Ronon’s bedstand, “anything at all, you call, okay?”

“Sure,” Ronon replies, and he sounds like the walk has taken everything out of him. Cam’s pretty sure he’s going to fall right back to sleep as soon as he and John leave the room.

“Promise you’ll call,” John says, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms as he looks down at Ronon. For a moment, Cam has a flash of John as Colonel Sheppard, the steel in his voice and in his posture.

Ronon looks up blearily. “Sheppard, I’m planning on sleeping for at least twelve hours, okay? If I need you when I wake up, I’ll call.”

John frowns and cocks his head to the side. “We’ll be by in a few hours,” he says, turning towards Cam, who nods. “To check in.”

“Whatever,” Ronon replies with a yawn that reminds Cam of a tiger – or maybe a lion, with Ronon’s hair. “G’night, Sheppard, Mitchell.”

“Night,” Cam replies, tugging John out the door before he decides he wants to stay.

Cam walks John down the hall and into the transporter. As he brushes his finger over the part of the map that leads to their quarters, John leans into him, snaking an arm around Cam’s waist and resting his head on Cam’s shoulder.

“You okay?” Cam murmurs into his hair, and John nods.

“Worried,” he admits frankly. “He doesn’t look good, Cam. He still looks like he’s about to drop.”

“Hey,” Cam replies, shifting so he can pull John into him more fully. “This bug kicks your ass, remember? I’m sure you looked that bad when Lifton let you out of there, too.” John snorts, and Cam grins as he taps John on the shoulder. “You know what I mean, sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” John says. “Still, though. I never expected Ronon to look so-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. Cam can fill in the blanks well enough on his own.

-0-

They settle down in the bed when they get back to their room, Cam on his back and John pillowing his head on Cam’s chest. He’s tracing patterns only he can distinguish into Cam’s chest almost absently, fingers moving over the same space again and again, and after a while Cam figures out that they’re not random movements; some of it repeats, though not in any pattern Cam can figure out.

“Are you writing on me?” Cam asks softly, tilting his head so he can look down at John, who’s blushing a little.

“Maybe,” he admits, glaring when Cam lets out a laugh. “It’s Ancient.”

“Oh,” Cam replies, a little surprised. “I didn’t know you knew Ancient.”

“I don’t,” John says with a small, secret smile. “I know a few important phrases. ‘Systems operational’, ‘danger imminent’, ‘intruder alert’-”

“There are no intruders on my stomach,” Cam informs him, but John’s smile softens as he looks into Cam’s eyes.

“I love you,” he says quietly, propping himself up on one elbow and tracing the letters onto Cam’s skin again, distinct and sure. When he finishes, he leans up and places a gentle kiss against Cam’s lips.

“God, John,” Cam breathes, running his fingers through John’s hair, pulling him down to kiss him again and again. “Love you, babe.”

Everything is slow and careful; John’s nowhere near healthy enough for anything too vigorous. Cam lets him set the pace, lets him trail kisses down Cam’s jaw, lets him work their clothing off and toss it aside. They move together in an easy rhythm, familiar to both of them even after being apart for so long, and when they’re tangled together afterwards, Cam feels like a part of him he hadn’t known was still worried has been placated.

-0-

They check on Ronon a few hours later; as promised, he’s asleep, and John lets Cam lead him away without too much fanfare. They make their way up to the Gate room and dial in to Earth.

“Your request for an exploratory team has been approved, Colonel Mitchell,” Landry says after going through the usual checkin protocols. “You have enough supplies there to give them all the inoculation?”

“We do,” Cam confirms. “I’d like to request Hazmat for everyone going to that planet, sir. Even with the vaccine, I feel like we can’t really be too careful on this one.”

“I agree,” Landry nods. “Better safe than sorry is a good motto here. We’ll send the team and their equipment through at 2200 hours, local time.”

Cam does the calculations quickly; the times don’t line up between New Lantea and Earth. The team will come through in a little less than two hours.

“We’ll air out the guest rooms, sir,” Cam says, and that’s that.

He and John spend almost all of the time between the checkin and the scheduled arrival preparing. There will be a total of ten people coming through; in addition to Jackson and Dr. Brightman, Landry has seen fit to send two teams of Marines. “You never know,” Landry had shrugged, and Cam’s never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he’d just nodded.

The Gate activates right on time, and Cam’s standing by the staircase as Jackson steps through.

“Welcome to Atlantis,” he says, spreading his hands in front of him. “Again.”

“I wish it was under better circumstances,” Jackson murmurs, eyes sweeping around the room and settling on John, who’s making his way down the stairs. “How are things here?”

“We’re surviving,” Cam replies, slipping an arm around John’s waist as he reaches the bottom of the staircase. “How’s Earth?”

“Oh, you know,” Jackson replies, waving his hand around. “It’s – Earth.”

“Oh, is that all?” Cam asks dryly, watching the rest of the group move through the Gate with bags and boxes galore. “Wasn’t aware this was a supply mission.”

“Surprise,” Jackson says, glancing over his shoulder. “We’ve got food, medical, a whole bunch of things for the labs-”

“There are only three scientists left,” John cuts in, and Jackson blinks at him.

“That’s – yeah,” he fumbles. “Dr. Davids, Dr. Kusinagi, and Dr. Weller, right?” John nods, and Jackson continues. “They all had requests in when – before. I know that they might not be up to working yet, but I figured that if they were, they’d probably be waiting on what they had asked for.” He shrugs. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

“Thanks,” Cam says, because it looks like John isn’t sure of how to respond to that. “Let’s get you all down to the infirmary for your shots, shall we?”

-0-

Cam sits down with Jackson the next morning, after the new arrivals have slept off the aftereffects of the vaccine. John and Lifton are with Brightman in the infirmary; Cam’s positive that John would rather be here, but he’d agreed to relate what he knew about the disease to the doctor.

Jackson, as usual, gets right to the point. “Is it as bad as it looks?”

“Maybe a little worse,” Cam sighs, and details what he’s learned since arriving, all that had been somewhat omitted from the reports. When he finishes, Jackson lets out a low whistle.

“Smart of Sheppard,” Jackson observes. “Landry wouldn’t have hesitated, if he thought the threat was that high.”

“Yeah,” Cam agrees, ignoring the sick twist in his stomach at the thought of it. “That’s pretty much what I thought, too.”

“So, this mission,” Jackson says, and he and Cam spend the next hour or so discussing details, the whens and hows and whys of going to the planet where the disease had, as near as they can figure, originated.

They’ve got a rough sketch of things done by the time John arrives. He drops into the seat next to Cam and yawns, then winces.

“Sorry,” he says halfheartedly, but Jackson waves him off.

“We’re thinking about Gating out in the morning,” he tells John. “I’ll go, along with Dr. Brightman and SG-14. Planned checkins every four hours after the initial two.”

John nods, “Sounds good.” He glances at Cam. “Brightman had some sort of idea for a treatment that got Lifton pretty excited.”

“That’s great,” Cam smiles. “Maybe we figure it out after all, get some real medicine.”

“Better late than never,” John replies quietly, and the smile he gives isn’t very convincing.

“It is, though,” Jackson interjects, and Cam turns to stare at him in the same moment as John does. He’s pretty sure they both forgot that Jackson was present. “Saving even one person – that’s worth it, Colonel.”

John’s smile this time is a little less haunted. “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds much better.”

-0-

The exploratory team finds pretty much what Cam was expecting: not a whole hell of a lot is left on M5R-0F8. They manage to locate a grand total of about fifty people, all of whom are grateful for the possibility of assistance from Atlantis. Jackson puts himself in charge of finding quarters for all of them.

“They’re settled,” he says a few hours after herding them all through the Gate. “I’m going to talk with Ranos in the morning.”

“He’s the elder?” Cam clarifies, and Jackson nods.

“Apparently, he’s the only one of them that survived,” Jackson confirms. “The rest didn’t make it.”

“Ninety-four percent,” Cam reminds him, and Jackson nods.

“He says he has some ideas about what might have caused the sickness,” he says. “I told him to settle in, get used to things around here, and I’d talk to him in the morning.”

“Sounds good,” Cam tells him. “Did you find anything about-”

John slams his way into the office and glances around wildly, eyes landing on Cam. “Ronon,” he says, and it sounds like his throat is full of crushed glass. “We were walking around – just from his quarters to the mess, it’s not that far. I didn’t think it was that far, he’s got to get his strength back slowly, I get that-”

Cam’s standing in front of John, pulling his arms away from his chest, before he even registers moving. He clasps John’s hands in his own. “What happened?”

“He collapsed,” John says tiredly, suddenly slumping against Cam, who catches him easily. “He started breathing really fast, really uneven, and while I was calling for Lifton, he just-”

“Let’s go,” Cam says firmly, guiding John to the door. He tosses a look back towards Jackson. “I didn’t even know it was possible to relapse with this.”

“It makes a certain amount of sense,” Jackson shrugs as he walks with them. “It’s a pretty serious illness, and the medic on staff is hardly qualified to deal with something of this magnitude.” He shrugs. “I’m actually a little surprised that it hasn’t happened before now.”

“It’s not like there’s a lot of people around who could relapse,” John snaps out. “Most of them didn’t get that opportunity.”

“Yeah,” Jackson says after a few seconds. “Sorry.”

“Me, too,” John says, and he just sounds – exhausted, like he’s got nothing left to go on. He sways a little more into Cam, and when the transporter doors open, Cam nods towards the infirmary. “We’ll be along shortly.”

Jackson nods back and exits the transporter, leaving John in Cam’s arms.

“He’s got a much better chance with Brightman here,” Cam says softly. “She knows what she’s doing, John, and you said yourself that she had some sort of breakthrough.”

“Yesterday,” John says hollowly. “She had an idea yesterday. She probably hasn’t even started working on it yet.”

Cam sighs and pulls him in closer, closing his eyes against the truth in John’s words. “Gotta have hope,” he murmurs. “That’s all we’ve got right now, John, hope that she can get something done in time.”

John snorts into his shirt, but he doesn’t say anything else, and when he pulls away he looks a lot more composed. “Let’s see what she says.”

-0-

John holds tightly to Cam’s hand as Brightman details Ronon’s condition, first in medical terms, then boiling it down to the bare bones of the situation.

“It’s not good,” she says, sounding frustrated and sympathetic at the same time. “His breathing is erratic, and the MRI of his chest shows that a lot of the blockage is back.” She rubs at her eyes. “I’ve started working on that treatment idea I had yesterday, but the odds are against us here. If we had the medicine, I would have given it to him while he was still conscious; at the very least, I’d give it to him right now.”

“So he’s going to die,” John says flatly, trembling as he leans a little into Cam.

“As long as he’s breathing, there’s hope,” Brightman says gently. “I’m just saying that the longer the treatment takes to deliver, the less likely he is to recover. If we don’t get something in the next few days, a week at most-” She shakes her head. “It might be too late.”

John takes a deep breath and nods. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Brightman smiles at him comfortingly and nods her head towards one of the private curtained-off areas. “Talk to him, Colonel. When patients come out of comas, they often remember people talking to them while they were out. It can really help to hear a friendly voice.”

“Right,” John says as she walks away. He turns to Cam. “Talk to him, she says – what am I supposed to say?”

“What do you two normally talk about?” Cam asks reasonably.

John stares at him for a minute before breaking into a slow smile. He loops his arms around Cam’s shoulders and just holds him loosely for a moment. “This is one of those times where I tell you that I’m glad you’re here, even if you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh,” Cam replies. “Well then. I’m glad I could help.”

John pulls away and takes Cam’s hand again, walking towards Ronon’s bed. Cam follows without saying anything.

“Hey,” John says after a moment of awkward silence. “So the doc said I should talk to you.”

There’s more silence, and Cam looks back and forth between the man stretched out on the bed, silent and still, and his partner, who’s looking more and more uncomfortable the longer they stay.

“Just say something, John,” he urges gently. “Talk about the weather. Tell him about football.”

John snorts. “Football, right,” he drawls, shooting a glare that’s half-fond and half-exasperated at Cam. “So I can talk on and on about Penn State’s chances in the Big Ten this year and you can wax poetic about NC State?”

Cam grins. “We could always talk about pro ball instead,” he offers, and John groans and starts listing the many and varied reasons that he believes college football is better than the professional leagues. Cam responds at the appropriate times, jabs and argues lightly, and if he rhapsodizes a bit about NC State, well, he’ll swear that it’s just to keep John talking.

Brightman comes in after an hour or so, in the middle of an argument about how effective the quarterback can be without proper protection – Cam cites Peyton Manning, while John insists that he’s the exception, not the rule – and smiles at them. “You don’t have to move in, gentlemen. Talking is great, but he needs to rest, too.”

“Oh,” John says, blinking up at her. “Sorry. We’ll just-”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Talking is good, talking is great, but there’s a reason that hospitals have visiting hours.”

“We’ll come back later,” Cam says, rising from his chair and reaching automatically to help John up from his. “We should finish debriefing with Jackson and grab some food, anyway.”

John nods. “Those should happen at the same time,” he decides, tapping on his radio as they make their way out of the infirmary. “Sheppard to Jackson.” He waits a beat, then says, “We’re grabbing some food, and Cam says you guys still have a few things to talk about. Meet us in the mess?”

John nods to the air and turns to Cam. “He’ll meet us there.”

-0-

“So I was talking to Ranos,” Jackson begins as he slides into a seat across from John and Cam. Cam just rolls his eyes, not even bothering to remind Jackson about how he had been planning on waiting for the next day. “He says that they had an interesting experience a few days before your trading delegation showed up on their planet.”

“An interesting experience involving someone touching something they shouldn’t have, or an interesting experience involving a Wraith?” John asks.

“Both, actually,” Jackson replies, spearing some of the weird little purple beans on his plate with his fork. “Ranos says that his daughter Meira found ‘an object that glowed like cold fire’ and brought it back to their village, and about a week later, a lone Wraith showed up. He walked into the village, took Meira by the hand, and led her away.” He pauses. “About two hours later, Meira walked back into the village.”

“Okay,” John says slowly. “That’s… not normal.”

“No,” Jackson agrees. “And here’s the clincher: Meira’s husband Lutan was in the trading party that met with the Lantean delegation.”

“Of course he was,” Cam mutters. “So this lone Wraith shows up, infects Meira with something, and suddenly people are dropping dead left and right? That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

“Want it to be less of one?” Jackson asks in a tone of voice that Cam recognizes all too well. John seems to hear it, too: Jackson is about to tell them something that isn’t going to go over well. “Ranos described the Wraith to me. He says he remembered the description because it was different from any Wraith he’d seen before – tall with really short hair, and an almost human-like complexion.”

There’s about five seconds of dead silence before John sets his mug down with a thud. “You’re not telling me what I think you’re telling me,” he says evenly.

Jackson doesn’t even blink. “I’m telling you what Ranos told me.”

“Michael,” John growls, raking a hand through his hair. “How the fuck could he be – we killed him. I watched him go over the side of the City myself. Teyla stomped on his fingers, he fell-”

“John,” Cam says quietly, resting his hand on John’s forearm. John turns to him, eyes wild.

“He’s dead,” John says with absolute conviction. “He’s dead, Cam.”

“He cloned Dr. Beckett,” Jackson says, and John snaps his focus back across the table. “It stands to reason that he might have done the same to himself, just in case.”

“Son of a bitch,” John says, slumping back into his chair. “Son of a bitch.”

“So what’s the plan?” Cam asks, pushing his tray away. “How do we track him down, get the cure from him?”

John rubs at his eyes. “We spent – months. Years. We finally ended up killing him because he found a way to invade us.” He forces out a laugh that sounds more like he’s choking. “And now he’s back.”

Cam nods. “Cockroaches are hard to kill.”

“We’ll hail Todd again,” John says grimly. “If there are two hailing signals there when he swings through, he’ll get in touch with us pretty quickly.”

“If he’s still around,” Jackson points out.

“If he’s still around,” John agrees. “And there’s no guarantee he’s going to feel like helping us, though I imagine if we phrase it right he’ll be on board with it.”

“Phrase it right?” Jackson frowns.

“Michael’s recreating Sherman’s march,” Cam supplies. “Laying waste to the farms, as it were.”

“It’s like the Hoffan plague all over again,” John says tiredly. “Except this time, he ramped up the mortality rate instead of taming it.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, absorbing the news.

“What if we-” Jackson says, then pauses, sucking in a deep breath.

Then he starts coughing.

-0-

“He’s infected,” Brightman says succinctly after stepping out of the room that Jackson’s in. “He’s obviously not that far into the progression of the disease, but he’s got it.”

“How?” Cam asks, frustrated and maybe a little terrified. “He got the vaccination-”

“Vaccines don’t always work for everyone,” John murmurs. “And it’s not like we were under the impression that this one was perfect.” He sounds strange, like he’s conflicted about something, and Cam turns to him questioningly, raising an eyebrow. John shrugs.

“No,” Cam persists, “what?”

“I’m not happy that Jackson caught it,” John says slowly, eyes glancing to the curtains behind Cam, “but if the vaccine had to fail-”

I’m glad it wasn’t you, John’s eyes say, and Cam’s torn between being angry with John for even thinking it and complete understanding. John’s already lost so much, and Cam can’t help but flick his eyes a few feet over, to the sheets that block Ronon from their view.

“Yeah,” Cam sighs, closing his eyes and drawing John in. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

John holds him for a minute, and it’s a strange reversal of how things have been since Cam arrived, John being the strength for the both of them. It makes something untwist and settle in his gut, because this is John from before, offering comfort where he can. He’s getting closer and closer to better, and Cam can at least be happy in that.

Finally, Cam pulls away and clears his throat. “You, ah, you got a plan?”

John nods and takes his hand as they leave the infirmary. “I have a plan.”

Ten minutes later, Cam is seated in John’s office, watching as John sets up a video camera pointed at the chair beside Cam. He fiddles with the switches on it for a minute before shrugging and sitting in the chair.

“Good enough,” he says, nodding his chin at the camera. “Turn it on for me?”
Cam reaches out and presses the little red button on the side, nodding to John as the word record flashes.

John speaks for less than five minutes, all told, in an almost clinically detached tone. He explains the situation, explains what he wants, and then nods at Cam, who switches the camera off. They watch through the footage together, and when it ends, John snaps the disk out of the camera and walks out of the office.

Cam follows him to the control room, where he dials an address into the DHD. “I can’t go myself,” he says to Cam, and his lips twist with the words, like he can’t believe he’s saying them. “I wouldn’t ask this of you, Cam, not if I could-”

Cam takes the disk from John’s hand and kisses him as the Gate flares to life below. “Where do I put it?”

John describes the place, sketches it out with his hands, and Cam tosses on a tac vest and grabs a P90 before walking into the event horizon.

-0-

Brightman calls them down to the infirmary three days later – three days in which not much had happened; Cam’s still not sure that John’s play will work, and so far, there’s been no news either way. Brightman has pretty much kept them from entering the infirmary. When Cam and John had tried to visit, Sergeant Lifton had politely but firmly blocked their way.

“Sorry, sirs,” she’d said, and she really had sounded apologetic. “With the way Ronon relapsed, and how Dr. Jackson got sick, Dr. Brightman is afraid to let anyone else in.”

But now Brightman is summoning them, and they hurry to the infirmary as soon as they get the news.

“I’m not sure this will work,” she says tiredly, and the bags under her eyes suggest that she’s been up making sure it will do just that for longer than would be deemed safe. “But he’s – I’m afraid if we wait any longer, he won’t make it.”

John’s eyes dart to Ronon’s still form. He hasn’t woken from his coma since he passed out in the hallway.

“It might help?” John asks, not taking his eyes off of Ronon.

“It might,” Brightman agrees. “I’d put the odds at about fifty-fifty.”

“Not great,” Cam murmurs.

John nods, but Cam’s not sure what it’s in response to. “Do it,” he says to Brightman, who takes a syringe out of her pocket and moves towards Ronon’s IV.

“John,” Cam says as Brightman slides the syringe into the tube.

John takes his hand and holds on tightly as Brightman pushes the plunger, but he doesn’t say a word.

“When will we know?” Cam asks as Brightman checks Ronon’s vitals, glancing back and forth between the heart monitor and a piece of Ancient technology that Cam can’t discern the use for.

Brightman shrugs. “This is really a stopgap measure,” she replies quietly. “Mostly, if he stops getting worse for a while, it’s done what I thought it would do.”

It’s not a cure, then. Cam sighs as he rests his gaze on Ronon and resolutely doesn’t let his eyes wander towards where Jackson is sleeping.

-0-

Ronon doesn’t get any worse.

He doesn’t stabilize, not exactly, but he doesn’t slip any further away over the next few days. Brightman administers the drug to Jackson, who responds to it a bit better; Brightman theorizes that it’s probably due to the fact that he’s not as sick as Ronon is to begin with. Brightman and Lifton work furiously, day and night, but it’s four more days before Brightman throws her hands up in frustration.

“I just don’t have what I need,” she says. “With the right equipment, the right supplies, I might be able to figure out what I need to do, but the only thing I’ve been able to figure out for sure is what I gave Ronon.”

“Can we get what you need?” John asks. “Or maybe, I don’t know, could you take samples to Earth, figure it out there, bring the cure back?”

Brightman shakes her head. “I doubt we’d be able to requisition everything I would need in time,” she replies, and she sounds defeated. “And there’s no way that General Landry would let samples of this back through the Gate.”

John closes his eyes and shakes his head like he’s trying to knock something loose. “So our only option is to-”

An alarm sounds, and John turns so fast that he nearly falls. Cam reaches out to steady him, but John’s already moving out of the infirmary, going more quickly than Cam’s seen him move in a long time.

“The Gate,” John says when Cam catches up to him, just before they both slip into a transporter. “That’s the Gate activation, unscheduled activation, it’s gotta be, it has to be-”

John punches in a code when they get to the control room, and a face pops onto the screen. “Todd,” John says, nodding at the screen. “You got my message?”

The Wraith nods, baring his teeth in a sharp grin. “I did, John Sheppard. It interested me greatly, I must admit.”

“And?” John is practically quivering in his seat. “Did you find-”

Todd’s smile is practically a razor as he steps back from the camera and brings his left hand up. He’s holding-

“Jesus,” Cam swears softly as he watches, morbidly entranced. The Wraith is holding a severed head in his hand – not quite human, and not quite Wraith. “I’m guessing that’s our guy?”

“It is,” Todd confirms, eyes narrowing in on Cam. “This is not one of your team, Sheppard.”

“This is Mitchell,” John says with a jerk of his head. “And yeah, he is now.”

Todd studies Cam as Cam stares back at him, and it’s a few moments before Todd nods and slides his attention back to John. “I have the information you requested.”

“Good,” John says, slumping a little in his seat. “Thanks, Todd.”

“I thank you, as well,” the Wraith says, nodding his head in an all-too-human way that reminds Cam that Todd spent a long year locked up in a cell on Earth while Atlantis was stuck there. “This one you called Michael was a trouble to us both.”

“Yeah,” John replies. “The information-”

Todd waves something at the camera. It’s a small, flat piece of something, but John brightens when he sees it. “Excellent. Sending it, or leaving it?”

“I will leave it for you,” Todd tells him, bowing his head before shooting a sharp smile at the camera. “All bets are off, John Sheppard.”

“Absolutely,” John says, something almost like a grin flashing across his face, and the transmission cuts out.

“What was-” Cam starts, but John’s already dialing the DHD.

“Wraith tech,” John explains as he walks towards the Gate. He’s almost back to his old self, caught in the moment; he turns as he nears the event horizon, waiting for Cam to catch up. “We have a reader here that will let us see what he put on it, just like he has a way to watch what we left him.”

Cam nods and takes his hand, and they step through together.

-0-

The data chip contains some pretty harrowing footage. There’s a room and a chair, and John hisses when he sees it; Michael is tied to the chair, and there’s a Wraith to his right, pulling his hand away from Michael’s chest.

“Answer my question.” Todd’s voice sounds almost bored. He’s not in the video, but he’s clearly in charge of what’s going on in the room. “Why did you poison the humans?”

Michael’s reply is a harsh laugh and a word in a language that Cam’s never heard, but it makes John wince. Todd strides in from the right, and he leans into Michael’s face. “You will answer me, half-blood,” he says quietly, menacingly, and then he puts his hand on Michael’s chest and Michael starts to scream.

John’s breathing quickens, and when Cam glances over, he’s rubbing his hand over where Cam knows there’s a scar on his chest. Feeding mark, John had explained once, and Cam flashes back to the report, John tied up and fed upon by the Wraith feeding upon Michael, and his reaction suddenly makes sense.

“John, you don’t have to-” Cam starts, but then Michael’s voice breaks in the recording, and John stops him with a hand to his wrist.

“They are an abomination,” Michael hisses, and Todd pulls back with a sneer.

“They are?” Todd taunts. Michael spits at him, and the guard to his right smacks him hard across the face.

“They will die,” Michael says, weaker than he had been but still proud, still so self-assured. “They will all die.”

“No,” Todd says, snarling into his face. “You will tell me precisely what you did to them, and you will tell me how to fix it.”

“Or what,” Michael says, strange little gleam in his eye, “you’ll torture me?”

“Correct,” Todd says, stepping back, and that’s exactly what happens.

It’s a grueling four-hour session, and John flinches every time one of the Wraith in the video presses a hand to Michael’s chest, be it to give him back a few years or to drain some away. Michael eventually breaks, though, and spills the information in garbled half-sentences as he pants.

Todd’s voice is sharp when Michael finishes. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Michael replies, sounding old and tired.

“Good,” Todd replies, and then there’s the sound of a sword being drawn, and then all they can see is Todd’s body, blocking the camera as he brings it down.

-0-

Brightman is able to make use of the data in record time. It’s a matter of two days before she’s injecting the serum into the IV tubing of every patient left in the infirmary (nine; in addition to Ronon and Jackson, there are four scientists, an airman, a Marine, and John’s second-in-command, Lorne). When she tests Jackson the following morning, there’s a triumphant smile on her face.

“No trace of it,” she says, sounding relieved. “That’s – that’s incredible. It looks like you’re cured, Dr. Jackson, but I’m going to keep you here for a few days to be sure.”

Jackson shrugs. “I feel fine,” he says, but wilts under Brightman’s glare. “But, y’know, I can stay.”

They wait in the infirmary; the airman and two of the scientists pass away between when Jackson was declared cured and that evening, when Stackhouse bodily retrieves them and makes them eat in the mess hall.

“You have to eat,” he says, sticking mugs in front of them and walking away, returning in a few minutes with plates of food. It smells great, but Cam shoves it down woodenly, wanting to get back to the infirmary as soon as he can. John does the same.

Brightman is smiling again when they walk back into the infirmary, and Cam can feel the flare of hope in John’s frame. “Colonels,” she greets, motioning behind her. “Someone woke up while you were gone.”

“Sirs,” Lorne croaks when John and Cam push into his makeshift room. “Please tell me you got the number on that bus.”

“M-I-C-H-A-E-L,” John says grimly, watching as Lorne’s eyes widen. He sucks in a ragged breath.

“How many times do we have to kill that bastard?” he wonders aloud.

“I think you’re done,” Cam informs him. “According to the intel we got, the one that Teyla shoved off the balcony here was actually a clone, similar to the one he made of Dr. Beckett. Apparently, he didn’t want to risk actually invading himself, but at the same time, he was afraid of duplicating himself too many times. Something about not being able to trust himself.”

“Classy,” Lorne groans, leaning back against the pillows and closing his eyes. “I have to say, sir, I’m pretty surprised to be alive.”

“You almost weren’t,” John replies evenly, and Lorne cracks his eyelids.

“Suppose that’s true,” he admits after a moment, shutting his eyes again. “No offense or disrespect, Colonels, but-”

“You’re recovering from the plague, got it,” Cam smiles, grabbing John by the wrist and leading him through the curtains. He pauses at the exit. “Good to see you’re okay, Lorne.”

“Likewise, Colonel Mitchell,” Lorne says as they slip out.

Captain Stuart passes away sometime around midnight; Dr. Porter wakes up around three in the morning. While Cam and John are talking to her, there’s soft murmuring from the next curtained-off area, and when they emerge, Brightman is peeling off a pair of latex gloves.

“Dr. Anning just woke up,” she says with a smile. “He’s pretty out of it, but you can see him in a few hours, if you’d like.” She tilts her head after a moment, narrowing her eyes at the two of them. “And when was the last time either of you slept?”

Cam looks at John, who shrugs and smiles a loose, easy smile, but Brightman shakes her head and points at the door.

“Ten hours, Colonel, and don’t think I won’t set a guard at the door to keep you out if you come back early,” she warns, and Cam tugs him away, out of the infirmary, down the hall, and when they get back to John’s quarters they both crash.

The next morning – well, afternoon, to be precise – they stop and talk to each of the newly-awakened patients. Jackson seems eager to get out of the infirmary; Lorne seems much more alert. The two scientists seem to be doing fairly well, too, which leaves only Ronon.

“I’m just not sure,” Brightman sighs as John and Cam step into his room. “It worked pretty quickly with the others. It might be because of his relapse, or maybe his physiology is slightly different. I can’t pinpoint it.”

“Is he going to wake up?” John asks.

Brightman bites her lip as she stares down at Ronon. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “There’s a chance that he will, and there’s a chance that he won’t. I’m not sure which is going to win out.”

Cam slips an arm around John’s waist as he nods. “We’ll stay with him a while,” Cam tells Brightman, who smiles and leaves the room.

Cam settles John into one of the chairs and takes the other for himself. “So, about NC State,” he begins, and John shoots him a weary smile and joins in.


EPILOGUE

Atlantis is a busy place, Cam is realizing. His first two visits had been pretty brief, so he hadn’t really had the time to take it all in, and she’d been almost deserted when he’d arrived the third time, but now she’s fully staffed again, and Cam’s pretty sure that Atlantis is truly the City that never sleeps.

There’s a party going on, which is why things are currently crazy; it’s been one year to the day since AR-7 returned with the disease, and there had been a quiet ceremony earlier, remembering those lost to the illness. Atlantis had lost two hundred and seventy-eight people, all told; they’d invited Ranos and his people, as well, who had lost many more. It had been quiet and grief-filled, sad in a way that funerals always are, but it had been followed by this party. A celebration of life, Ranos had said – apparently, it’s a custom on his planet; after a funeral to mourn the loss, there’s a giant party thrown in their honor. Cam’s made his way around, listening to stories about members of the expedition and sharing a few of his own when he can.

“Hey,” he says as he makes his way into the control room. John is leaning against the balcony, looking down at the people below. “Crazy year.”

“Crazy,” John agrees, flashing him a quick smile. “You’re in charge of Atlantis, I’m out of the field but still here, and someone found Zelenka’s old hooch still. I’d say crazy’s a good word for it.” There’s a trace of pain as he mentions the fallen scientist’s name, but there’s a lot of that going around. Cam just nods and rests his forearms next to John’s.

They’re quiet for a while, just observing as people laugh and remember, until Cam sees a familiar figure entering the room. He nudges John with his elbow, and John’s face breaks out into a smile as he pulls away from the balcony and jogs down the stairs.

“I wasn’t sure she was going to let you come,” John says as he pulls Ronon into a back-slapping hug. “You still shaky on your feet?”

Ronon scowls as he adjusts his weight on his brand-new crutches. “I’m fine.”

John just laughs as Cam joins them.

Ronon’s recovery had been long and difficult. He’d woken up a full week after being given the medication, and Brightman still has no idea why it had taken so long. It had been nearly six weeks after that before she had let him out of the infirmary with strict orders to take it easy, which John and Cam had both tried their hardest to enforce.

Ronon’s been building his strength up, and it’s been one of those slow-but-sure things; he’d recently even felt himself ready to start up his sparring again. As it turns out, though, that’s one of those things he hadn’t been ready for – he’d fallen after trying to turn too quickly, and the Marine he’d been training with had tripped and landed his elbow hard in Ronon’s foot. He’d broken a few bones, and Brightman looked a little relieved as she’d set them, like this was going to stop Ronon from taking things too fast for a while.

Cam suspects otherwise, but he’ll let the doctor have that while she can.

“Nice party,” Ronon says after a moment, looking around at those gathered in the Gate room.

“Yeah,” John says, slipping an arm around Cam’s waist and smiling. “It’s a good way to remember.”

“Makes me think of Teyla,” Ronon admits quietly, leaning on his crutches. “She would have loved this.”

John just nods, and Cam finds himself searching through the crowds for Teyla’s family. He finds the little boy sitting in Dr. Porter’s lap, laughing freely at something she’s saying, while Kanaan smiles from the next seat.

“McKay would have hated it,” John laughs. “He would have spent the whole time bitching about being torn away from his projects.”

“He would have liked it,” Ronon grins. “He just would have pretended to hate it.”

“True,” John grins. “Remember that mission to M29-4Y8?”

Ronon just laughs and laughs, and Cam makes a mental note to get that story out of John later. Right now, though, right now it’s not important, because he’s got his arm around John in the City he loves, and they’re finally moving on from the past.