The Human Body: Getting Under Your Skin, Part 9 (Sheppard/Beckett)

[waldos_writings]

Title: The Human Body VIII: Getting Under Your Skin, Part 9
Author: smallwaldo
Rating: R
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Words: 3289 (this part)
A/N: This is both the "Instinct" and "Conversion" chapter of the series. kyrdwyn. Thanks! :)
Summary: "He turned me into a [bug]! ... I got better."

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8


Well, that hadn’t worked. John studied his knuckles and wrist where there should have been a few cuts or scratches at the least. He’d put his arm through a fucking plate glass window in Elizabeth’s office, but there wasn’t a mark on him. At least not one that had come from the outside.

He was in his own quarters now. His temper tantrum with Weir had shown that he wasn’t in control any more. He thought about trying to plead that he had enough control to hit a window and not his C.O., but he really didn’t want to find out that he couldn’t control his impulses and he did something worse than kissing Teyla or punching out a window. The explosion of energy, yelling about how he needed to go with Beckett and the rest and then swinging at Weir and only at the last second redirecting his hand to the window, had left him temporarily drained. He couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t there yet, and suspected he wouldn’t be for a long time. He wondered if going to his computer and looking up how long a human could go without sleep before the hallucinations and other weird shit started would make him feel better or freak him out more. He decided that he really didn’t care. He refused to accept that it was possible that he didn’t care because he technically didn’t qualify as human anymore.

What was that expression Mitch had had in his .sig file when they’d been in the academy? “Humans share 60% of their DNA with a banana – a fact that is more obvious in some of my acquaintances than others”? And he remembered reading somewhere that gorillas – or was it chimpanzees? – some ape were only different from human by like two percent. At what point was he more bug than man?

He held his hands in front of him. One was completely mutated, the other untouched. They didn’t look like they belonged on the same species, let alone the same organism.

He sunk down against the pillows, wondering when Cason would be back. Trying not to wonder if Carson would come back. Trying not to think of what Carson and McKay and the others were exposing themselves to for his sake.

He buried his head in his knees and brought his hands up over his head, hoping to at least rest, but knowing that he wouldn’t truly rest until he knew Carson was back and safe.

***~~~***~~~***

More than anything else in the universe – with the exception of a cure for what he’d done to Ellia and John – Carson wanted Rodney to shut the hell up. They’d both seen the Ancient Database entries on the Iratus caves. They both knew to expect tens of thousands of bugs in any one nesting location. They both knew that there were whole teams of drones that were assigned to do exactly one thing – protect the nest and the equivalent of a queen. They both knew that getting in and out with the eggs and no casualties was going to be extremely difficult.

So Carson didn’t need Rodney baiting Ronon into theorizing that there were bigger, more frightening predators in the woods they were walking through. This was hard enough as it was. Carson again questioned whether enough he’d have been strong enough, brave enough to complete the task before them if a.) it had been anyone other than John being eaten alive by this retrovirus and b.) he hadn’t been the one to create such a deadly, disastrous thing in the first place.

But the situation was what it was and Carson was trying to be as pragmatic and fatalistic about it as he could be. He would do what he could, use what he knew, to get the job done and get everyone out in one piece, their necks literally intact. He was actually relieved when Lorne suggested that they practically run to the mountains a mile ahead where the caves would most likely be found. If for no other reason than a brisk jog in the woods would give Rodney something a lot less scary to bitch about.

Carson knew he was compulsively checking his watch. He knew that time was a factor, but it wasn’t like there was an absolute time at which their window of opportunity would close, just that every second that passed meant another couple hundred cells closer to irreversible transformation for John.

Even so, he found himself subconsciously slowing down as they got nearer and nearer the mouth of the cave. He was suddenly very well aware of how likely it was that he’d die in there. And if he died, John died.

It was that last part that kept him moving. Kept him swallowing his fear and thinking rationally.

They stopped outside the cave to prepare themselves. They donned night-vision goggles and tightened up their tac vests and jacket zippers. Carson took out the scoop-on-a-pole device they’d fashioned to get the eggs down as everyone else armed themselves with some kind of lethal weapon. He felt like he was about to walk in there bare-ass naked with nothing other than his pole and bucket to defend himself. Think of John. Think of what having these eggs will mean. Remember that everyone – well, everyone but Rodney – is trained to keep you safe. That’s their job. Yours is to get the eggs. For John, he thought to himself as he steeled himself to walk into something far worse than a lion’s den. Lions didn’t have over ten thousand members of their pride in one place at one time.

He wanted to laugh at Rodney getting grossed out by Ronon handling bug guano with his bare hands, but he was too nervous. He could hear the chittering of a lot of bugs in the distance. It reminded him of when he’d visited a small town in the middle of the United States during cicada season. The bugs had been so loud he could barely hear people talking when they were outside in the evening. He had to consciously control the fine tremor that ran through him as he geared himself up to walk among the bugs.

Lorne turned to look at him, “So what’s the plan?”

Carson’s eyebrows shot up. What the hell kind of question was that? Did he think Carson was holding back some kind of information on how to safely get the eggs they needed? He shook his head and said acerbically, “Well, we go in there, we get some eggs and we come back out.” What else was Lorne expecting him to say?

Lorne was detailing their positions and Rodney was trying to beg out of actually going in as Carson pysched himself up for what he was about to do. He forced himself to see John as he was now – green and scaly and mentally devolving – to give himself the strength to put one foot in front of the other. Part of him was worried that the others would see how afraid he was, would label him a liability and suggest he wait outside; keep him from doing what needed to be done.

Lorne, Teyla and Ronon headed in and Carson took a deep breath, said a short prayer to a god he believed in less and less as his time in the Pegasus galaxy went on, and followed them. The night vision goggles made him dizzy at first, his vision fuzzy and glowing oddly. He wondered if the disorientation he felt was anything like what John was feeling when his eyes refused to cooperate. The sooner we do this, the sooner it’s done, he told himself over and over again as he followed behind Teyla. He tried to look only half as nervous as he was by ribbing Rodney who was pulling his jacket collar around his neck. “You don’t seriously think that that’ll help, do you?”

“When they see your neck before mine, you won’t think it’s stupid,” Rodney bit back.

Carson found himself checking a reflex to tug up his own jacket.

“Where are these eggs supposed to be?” Teyla asked.

“The database says they have a central nest,” he told her. He didn’t like saying it, but he didn’t know any other way to put it. “I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.” The database hadn’t come with nearly as many pictures and diagrams as Carson wished it had.

The chittering grew louder and Carson’s grip on his pole grew tighter. When they rounded the next bend Carson could see the mass of wriggling Iratus bugs. He had to stomp on every reflex he had to keep himself from running out, screaming. He took a deep breath, hoping the stench of the bugs wouldn’t nauseate him. When it didn’t, he took another and found a deep calm he didn’t know he possessed. John needed him to do this. John, who had kept them all safe from Wraith and nanoviruses and whatever-the-hell else the Pegasus Galaxy had thrown at them, needed him to get these eggs in order to return the favor. He closed his eyes for a second and ordered his thoughts.

“Hand me that water canister.” He took the hose from the side and began spraying salt water in a path in front of him, inching closer and closer to the large sacks that hung from the ceiling. He wasn’t sure his pole would be long enough, he wasn’t sure he had enough salt water to keep the adult bugs back (of course, the Pacific ocean wouldn’t have been enough for him at that point), and he wasn’t even one hundred percent sure that the suspended sacks were in fact egg clutches. But Carson refused to let that deter him.

He slid up slowly, scooting his feet along the cave floor to avoid stepping on a bug and pissing it off. Pretty soon he was an island in a sea of Iratus bugs, none of which seemed to be intent on climbing up him or flying at his neck, so he kept his eye on the prize.

He’d just gotten under the nearest clutch when Ronon yelled, “Heads up!” and then fired. It was only after that fact that Carson saw the bug that was dropping towards him from the ceiling. He froze, not sure what to do.

“Carson, run!” Teyla shouted as she and the two marines opened fire on the bugs that had started to descend on the egg sack and him. He looked for the clearest path on the ground, but found himself running over bugs, every few steps he heard a sickening ‘squelch’ under his boots. He wanted to wrap his arms around his head to protect his neck, but he still had the pole in one and he was using the other to balance as he ran over the increasingly slippery floor. Or was it his boots that were getting slipperier? He didn’t know or care beyond recognizing that if he fell he would die. And then John would die.

He ran faster.

He was a few feet clear of the mouth of the cave when he heard Lorne yell, “Fire in the hole!” The next thing he knew a rather strong shockwave knocked him into the dirt. He managed to keep his hands up around his head, knowing that if he took another blow to the head so soon after the Wraith on Ellia’s world had thrown him that he’d be in sorry shape indeed.

He looked up just in time to see licks of fire escape the cave and Lorne get blown a good five meters from where he’d been.

Carson wasn’t sure what to think. Could they go in after the eggs now? Would the grenade have killed off most of the adults? Would the grenade have destroyed the eggs?

“I think that stopped them,” Ronon said as he dusted himself off. Carson hoped he was right. He brushed the leaves and debris from his jacket and prepared himself for their second assault on the cave.

“We’re not sticking around to find out. I’m pulling the plug on this mission. Let’s get back to the gate,” Lorne announced.

Carson felt himself blanch. He wasn’t looking forward to going back in there, but he’d been so close and now they have to have destroyed a number of the adults in the cave. Their odds were better now than they were before. What the hell did Lorne mean he was pulling the plug now? “We can’t give up!” he objected.

“We just lost two men in there, Doc, so unless you have another way to get those eggs out of there, we’re done. Understand?”

Carson didn’t understand. He recognized that two men had died in his quest to save the one man who was slowly dying. He knew that at the current rate of progress it meant that he would soon have three deaths on his head instead of just two. He did understand that, but if he could make their deaths meaningful, if he could say that they died getting the stem cells he needed to save John…

Carson cut off that train of thought. That was obsessive thinking. He knew that. He knew he couldn’t afford to be so short sighted, even if it meant losing the one person he loved and the one person he knew loved him unconditionally. Hell if John didn’t hate him for all of this, then Carson knew, without a doubt, that John’s love was truly unconditional.

But he knew Walker and Adams had people who loved them too – somewhere, either in Atlantis or back on Earth. And he knew that Ronon, Teyla, Lorne and even Rodney had people who would mourn them if they made another failed attempt at retrieving the eggs.

Carson felt a distinct ache in his heart. No eggs meant no stem cells. No stem cells meant no cure. And Lorne wasn’t going to let him try again. He pondered for a second if it would be worth it to explain to Lorne that if he went in alone – if he were the only one at risk – then it would work out. One way or another. Either he’d get the eggs and John would recover, or they’d both be dead and neither would care any more. How very Romeo and Juliet, he thought morosely and tucked that ridiculous notion aside.

“Let’s go,” Lorne said and headed back into the woods.

Too numb to do anything else, Carson followed.

~~~***~~~***~~~

It was late at night, Atlantis time, when the team returned from the cave. Carson’s stomach was doing nasty things and he wasn’t sure which reason was the leading contender: the fact that he’d eaten little and slept less in the three days since John had started mutating, the fact that without the stem cells John would either mutate to death – or worse have to be euthanized - or the fact that two good men had died and they had nothing to show for it.

It was almost five kilometers back to the gate and Carson’s heart grew heavier with every step he took away from John’s only chance at survival. From the bodies of two men they couldn’t even recover for a proper burial.

He tried to script out in his head how he’d explain his failure to Elizabeth, but the words were hard coming. And, even more difficult, how he’d explain it to John. He kept seeing their incriminating frowns and harsh words about how he’d created something he couldn’t control and how soon he’d have a fifth body to add to the pile that had started with Ellia and Zadek.

He hadn’t realized that he’d dropped back until Teyla was at his elbow giving him that cool look that asked if something was wrong without actually asking it. The one he could easily pretend not to understand so that he could be left alone.

Teyla accepted his silence and put a hand on his arm as they walked offering a silent companionship, a comfort Carson wasn’t sure he deserved.

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

Elizabeth and half the medical staff were awaiting their return in the gate room. One look at the faces of those who had gone on the ‘egg hunt’ told everyone immediately that they had not been successful. Thankfully Carolyn Biro grabbed most of the other staff and sent them back to work on the projects they’d been studying as a Plan B before they could all crowd around and ask for details.

“Carson?” Elizabeth called out as the crowd thinned.

Carson just shook his head.

“Come up to my office,” she said simply and turned around, certain he’d follow.

Teyla squeezed his arm again in reassurance as he passed. He gave her a weak smile in return.

Carson sat in the seat Elizabeth waved him into, feeling very much like he was facing a death sentence of his own. Knowing that in some ways he was – ways Elizabeth might have some small knowledge of, but no true understanding of.

“What happened?” Elizabeth said as she leaned against the back of the chair but didn’t sit.

“We couldn’t get to the sacks. They were suspended from the ceiling of the cave with thousands and thousands of Iratus bugs around them.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes. “I was able to get under one, but as soon as I reached for it one of their guard-drones dropped down on me.”

Elizabeth’s eyes darted down to his neck and Carson found himself rubbing the skin there absently. “Ronon shot it and Teyla yelled and…” He let out a breath. “And all hell broke loose. Elizabeth… Walker and Adams were guarding our backs. They didn’t make it out.” He warily raised his eyes to meet hers.

She nodded, but he couldn’t read her expression at all. “Where does that leave us?”

Feeling even more nauseous, and even more nervous as Elizabeth paced around behind him, he locked his eyes straight ahead. It briefly occurred to him that it was possible he’d spent too much time lately around military personnel. “Without the stem cells,” he finally said, “our plan is not promising.”

He could hear Elizabeth sigh from where she stood behind his chair. “Okay, I’ll go tell him.”

Carson didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge her or watch her leave. He wasn’t sure if her going off to tell John that the mission had been unsuccessful was a blessing or a curse. He certainly had no desire to have that particular conversation. But there was something in Elizabeth’s tone… something that he couldn’t help but interpret as “You screwed up the mission and I can’t be sure you won’t screw this up too.”

He sighed and slumped in the chair. He knew he wasn’t being fair to Elizabeth. They were all stretched hair-thin over all this. None of them sleeping or eating, they were all full of stress and concern. And he had blown the mission. There was no part of that that was Elizabeth’s fault.

He pushed himself out of the chair and forced himself to go down to the infirmary. He knew he’d have to get his mandatory four hours soon, but he needed to know what Carolyn’s teams had gotten done in the mean time. Maybe if he wished hard enough they’d have found a way to work with the cells and material they had.

Then he had to go talk to John. Because even if Elizabeth talked to him first, Carson had to be the one to tell John that he had failed him. He had to consider saying good-bye while there was still enough of John in there to hear him.

Comments

[kaziwren.livejournal.com]

Good as always....but you have a wayward italics tag left open somewhere, making half the story italicized. *g*

Thanks

[(Anonymous)]

Hi
Thanks for the links you sent me yesterday. I was wondering if you were going to write the last scenes of this story? I have just seen Conversion for the first time.