A/N - This is the final chapter! BIG THANK YOU to anyone who's been following this crazy journey! This chapter is mostly just wrap up - I hope it's a satisfying ending. I'll be posting a short sga fic next, and then I'm going to start posting a very long one that I'm almost finished writing.

The second Weir had confirmed with John and Carson that Teyla had won the fight and they were releasing Ronon and Rodney, Carson had upped John's dose of the painkillers. John had protested, but even though he didn't really want to admit it to himself, he was grateful for the drugs. By the end of Teyla's fight, the muscles in his back had been seizing up from the pain. It had been so intense it was getting difficult to breathe.

Now, the drugs were starting to relax him again. He didn't feel quite as loopy as he had earlier, but god, it just felt like everything might be moving really slowly….

When Weir and Teyla entered the room, supporting Ronon between them and with Rodney trailing behind, part of John had thought it might be a hallucination. But then many faces were surrounding him, people asking him how he was doing, hands touching his wrist or neck, curious eyes peering into his face. It was nice, but a little overwhelming. He was struggling to form words.

"Alright, give him some room," Carson said finally. "I've upped his dosage, and he's quite out of it."

Everyone stepped back, and John's field of vision was clear. Too late, the words he'd been trying to find swam into his mind, and laboriously he managed to get them out.

"Teyla? You...fought."

Teyla stepped closer again, smiling. There was a cut on her cheek, but the bleeding was already stopping, and she seemed to be alright. John exhaled in relief.

"Y'won," he told her, a smile stretching across his face. She patted him on the wrist.

"I did."

"Listened to it," John informed her, nodding as best as he could. From somewhere above his head, he heard Weir clear her throat.

"I watched and told Carson and John what was happening over comms," Weir explained. "I wasn't very good at it, I'm afraid."

"She tol' me you won," John whispered to Teyla. "Sorry I wasn't there."

Teyla smiled again, a bit wryly. "That is perfectly alright, Colonel. I understand."

She stepped back again, to be replaced by Carson. "We're going to get you back to Atlantis now, son. Ready to be home?"

John was, in fact, beyond ready to be home. The prospect of being back on Atlantis, knowing that his team was safe and sound, gave him an almost dizzying sense of relief. At this point, even the infirmary would feel welcoming and comfortable - especially when he could finally give into the pull of the drugs.

John just nodded, too exhausted to express even a fraction of the sentiment. He closed his eyes, but didn't let himself drift away just yet. He wasn't going to relax until his team had stepped through the stargate.

"How are we going to get him back?" Rodney asked, his voice characteristically panicked-sounding. "He clearly can't walk."

"Can too," John mumbled into the pillow, but it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else at this point. As stubborn as he was, he was fairly sure that he couldn't even manage to sit up at this point. Whatever reserves of strength had remained had finally been drained as he struggled to stay conscious during Teyla's fight.

"No, he most certainly can't," Carson said to Rodney, and John frowned but didn't speak.

"Ronon also needs to stay off his leg," Teyla added from somewhere off to the side.

"Ronon may be able to move under his own power, with some assistance," Carson said. "And I think I have a folding stretcher in my bag. We can put the Colonel on that."

"Nooooo," John groaned. He was starting to get a little hazy on what, precisely, was happening. But he knew there was talk of putting him on a stretcher, and he knew that he did not like that. It sounded completely humiliating. Not only would he have to be carried past the Thalmians on the way to the Stargate, but he would also have to be carried past the people of Atlantis on the way to the infirmary. That...that didn't sound good at all.

He didn't exactly have another idea. Walking also didn't sound good. But it wasn't supposed to be his job to think of ideas. It was supposed to be Carson's.

"Colonel, I'm sorry, but we don't have a choice," Carson said, leaning down so his face was level with John's.

"Nooooo," John said again. He was starting to forget what he was protesting. But he thought it would be best to stick to his guns.

"Can't you sedate him?" he heard Weir ask desperately.

"Elizabeth, as much as I would like to, I can't rely on...actually, that's not such a bad idea."

"Noooo," John said softly.

John felt a hand on the back of his head, and then heard Carson's soft voice. "Colonel, I'm just going to up your dosage a wee bit. It might make you want to fall asleep, and that's perfectly fine. Your body needs rest. When you wake up, you'll be back in Atlantis."

"I'm not tired," John said petulantly. He remembered, somewhat triumphantly, what he had been upset about before. "'Nd I don't wan' to be carried."

"Unfortunately, you don't really have a choice in the matter," Carson said patiently. "But I'm going to make it as comfortable for you as possible."

Then Carson was gone, and John was vaguely aware of him somewhere off to the side of the bed, fiddling with John's IV. Someone else entered his field of vision, a blurry, silent figure, and when he opened his eyes a little more, he saw it was Rodney.

"Rodney?" John asked. He had thought maybe there was supposed to be more to the question, but the rest got lost somewhere between his brain and his mouth.

"I just wanted to see how you were," Rodney said, peering into John's face. "Better than the other night? Your fever down?"

Rodney put a cool hand on John's forehead. John lifted one hand, ostensibly to push Rodney off, but he was far too weak. Rodney nodded and removed his hand, apparently satisfied.

"Rodney," John groaned. "You're 'n my face."

"I'm just making sure you're alright," Rodney said defensively. "The last time I saw you-"

John couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Rodney. He thought that meant it had probably been bad.

All of a sudden, a wave of exhaustion washed over him. The idea of keeping his eyes open for even one more second seemed like an insurmountable task.

"Whoa," he said softly.

"What is it?" Rodney said sharply, immediately on high alert. John felt a touch to his wrist.

"'M...soooo sleepy," John whispered.

"That's the drugs, Colonel." Carson's voice. "Please don't fight it."

"Mmm," John said. He had planned on responding, but then that seemed hard. Maybe humming was an acceptable response. He didn't remember.

"Just go to sleep," Rodney said.

So John did.

Ronon sat tense in the infirmary bed, Teyla standing beside him. The mound of pillows behind him called invitingly, but he wasn't going to give into his exhaustion until Carson brought back his scan results.

It had been a few hours since they'd made it back to Atlantis. The trip to the gate had been uneventful, probably because Sheppard had been heavily sedated and couldn't wriggle or complain.

Uneventful, but for Ronon at least, slow and agonizingly painful. His knee had been stiff and numb, but that hadn't stopped it from sending a wave of pain through his body every time he moved it the wrong way, and any way had seemed to be the wrong way. Ronon was increasingly worried that there was something really wrong with it, and now that Sheppard would be alright, Teyla had won, and they still had the map to the ZPM that they had done this for in the first place, all of his attention was being drawn towards his injured limb.

As soon as they'd got to the infirmary, Carson had begun settling John in while a nurse had taken scans and poked and prodded and done a host of other things that Ronon didn't understand. All he knew was that no one was telling him anything, and that worried him.

Teyla seemed to pick up on his mood without him having to say anything, and she hadn't moved from his side since they'd made it back. When another doctor had tried to steer her away to treat the cut on her cheek, Teyla had quietly remained, and she'd had to bandage it right there. Ronon was grateful, especially grateful that Teyla hadn't made him say any of it.

Finally, Carson came into view, holding a tablet that Ronon desperately hoped contained some kind of good news. As he approached, he stopped at John's bed, fiddling with one of the many wires that connected John to an array of beeping machines. Sheppard hadn't stirred since being installed in the bed beside Ronon, despite McKay's hovering and near-constant commentary. Ronon had done his best to tune it out, until someone had mercifully shooed Rodney away to get some food.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to accept something more for the pain?" Carson asked Ronon as he paused at the foot of the bed.

"Not 'til you tell me what I'm in for, Doc," Ronon said, trying to push the tension from his voice. Whether the news was good or bad, he wanted to be fully aware to process it.

"Well, I'm glad to say there's good news," Carson said gently. "Your knee is certainly damaged, but it'll be easy enough to fix with a routine surgery. You should make a full recovery, as long as you take medical advice for once. Deal?"

Ronon blinked. He tended to be the sort of person who saw things in absolutes. Surgery was one of the words he had been dreading, because it meant that he was broken, useless, off the team. But he hadn't been expecting surgery to be paired with routine or recovery. This was a strange surprise. He was neither permanently ruined nor completely fine.

He narrowed his eyes at Carson suspiciously. "I need surgery?"

"Yes," Carson said. "But it's a relatively simple procedure, with a high rate of success."

"When?" Perhaps this would be the catch. Even though he would eventually make a full recovery, he would have to wait months for the surgery, and then months more to fully recover.

"I want to see if we can't fight off that infection a bit before putting your body through anything more. And I'll be performing the procedure myself, and I need to make sure the Colonel is a little stronger first. So tomorrow, perhaps the day after."

"And I'll be able to walk on it?" Ronon clarified.

Carson looked horrified. "Not right away! You'll be on complete bed rest for at least a day."

A day. A single day of complete bed rest.

Ronon hated bed rest, but the past few days had been trying enough that he still thought that sounded almost nice.

"And I'll make a...complete recovery?" It felt strange to say the words out loud.

Carson nodded. "You'll need a round of physical therapy to get strength and mobility back, but-"

"How long until I can go on missions again?"

"Ronon, you have to understand, these things don't happen overnight, it'll take a little while for your body to heal-"

"How long?" Ronon growled.

"Six weeks?" Carson said helplessly. "Maybe a month before you're cleared for light duty?"

Ronon blinked. Carson still didn't seem to understand. That night in the cell, alone except for the panicking scientist, Ronon had convinced himself that he would never be able to walk again. His leg had felt dead. He had been so sure he would be kicked off the team, and possibly off Atlantis, and now Carson was telling him he would be back on duty in less than two months?

If Ronon could have stood, he would have hugged him. The relief swept through his body, and he felt his hands start to shake with the strength of it.

"That is excellent news," Teyla said warmly, probably after she realized Ronon wasn't going to answer. He wasn't sure what he could say that could do justice to the dizzying sensation of returning hope. "Thank you, Dr. Beckett."

"You're very welcome, my dear," he said. "Now, Ronon, will you please let me give you the good drugs?"

Ronon nodded, still feeling frozen. Usually, he didn't want or need painkillers, but the throbbing pain in his damaged knee was getting worse by the minute and now that he knew he'd be okay, he didn't see any point in resisting the release the medication would offer. There was a hand on his shoulder, and then Teyla was gently pushing him back against the pillows. This time, he let her.

"You should get some sleep," he mumbled, feeling Carson's medicine emanating warmth through his body. "You gotta be tired."

"If you will," Teyla answered with a smile.

"Promise," Ronon said, the words swallowed in a yawn. At this point, he didn't think there was much he could do to resist sleeping, even if he wanted to. And he didn't want to. The combination of the fever, his worry over Sheppard, his own condition, Teyla, and Rodney's protracted state of near-panic over the past two days had left him utterly drained.

"Very well," Teyla said softly, and the last thing Ronon felt as he finally let himself relax was her hand on his.

Rodney finished the last of his Jell-O, checking his watch with a sigh. "Lunch break's over. Sorry, duty calls, you know. I'll stop by later."

It had been two weeks since they'd returned from Thalmia, and John had been on strict bed rest for the duration. Rodney had taken to eating his meals in the infirmary, now that there was no chance of Sheppard wandering into his lab to distract him with his annoying questions. Rodney missed those annoying questions more than he'd like to admit, although he'd never say as much to Sheppard.

John was much stronger now, thankfully. Carson had gotten the infection under control with a few rounds of antibiotics, and John's back was starting to heal. He was awake more and more now, and although he was still on a steady supply of painkillers, Carson had been able to dial back the dosage to something that allowed him a lot more lucidity.

Of course, as John improved, he was becoming far more restless. Rodney had heard many diatribes from Beckett about John's inability to remain still and allow himself to heal. But this time, John couldn't even manage sitting up without reopening at least one of the many cuts on his back, and the resulting pain and the dressing-down from Carson was enough to keep even the Colonel still.

Rodney also knew that John was itching to use the information they had won in the fight to try to find a new ZPM. Even though Carson had told him he wouldn't be going on missions for at least six weeks, John seemed reluctant to pass such an exciting opportunity onto another team. The thought of the potential ZPM was only adding to John's agitation.

John sighed as Rodney rose, dejection written in every line of his being. Even his hair drooped limply across his forehead, not sticking up in its usual disheveled mess. Rodney grimaced in sympathy.

"Wish I could do work," John mumbled, shifting around slightly and then apparently regretting it as a flash of pain crossed his face. "I'd even do paperwork right now."

"Well, the last time you tried reading mission reports you got worked up over that one Lieutenant screwing up and made yourself pass out," Rodney pointed out as kindly as he could. "So that's why you can't."

John sighed again, more resignedly this time. "Have fun yelling at Zelenka. I'll be here."

Rodney winced again at the note of loneliness in John's voice, wishing he could think of some way to make his friend feel more connected. Turning it over in his brain, he left the infirmary.

Rodney left, and John promptly started to fall asleep. It was embarrassing, but between the heavy doses of medication Carson was keeping him on and the hard work his body was doing to heal, he found that in addition to a good night of sleep, he was requiring at least two naps a day. Another reason he hadn't really been able to resume his duties as military commander of Atlantis. He couldn't exactly do much with only ten hours awake.

Since he had to stay mostly on his stomach, leaving the wounds on his back open to heal, it was difficult to find a position comfortable enough to really relax, especially once the drugs had been dialed back. Carson had somehow acquired a special pillow, and that helped some, but his shoulders and neck still ached from the constant pressure and he longed to be able to shift positions more easily. He had just managed to find a sufficiently comfortable position, and was starting to be in real danger of drifting off, when he heard the door open again.

He turned his head to the side. Rodney was back, this time with a laptop.

"Hey," John said sleepily. "Thought you needed to go yell at Zelenka."

"It turns out Zelenka was doing everything right, for once."

John raised his eyebrows.

"He's just doing a routine check on the base code for some of the modifications we made to the jumpers. It'll take him a while, but it's not exactly difficult work. If he needed my help with it, I would have him demoted."

"Nice," John said.

Rodney looked suddenly unsure, and his gaze dropped to a spot on the floor only vaguely near John. "So I thought I could...do my work in here with you. You know, since I don't have to be checking up on the others anyways. I thought I might even be able to concentrate better, without Zelenka's...um...loud breathing."

John realized that Rodney was trying to do something kind for him. He was lonely, and he appreciated it greatly, but he wasn't sure how to respond.

Rodney apparently took this as a bad sign. "I can leave, I mean, um, you looked like you were maybe about to go to sleep, and Zelenka's breathing isn't that annoying…."

"No," John said quickly. "Please. Stay. I'll, uh, try not to breathe too loud."

Rodney smiled slightly, and pulled up a chair next to John's bed. The sound of his keys clacking was comfortable and familiar to John. He was shocked that something so simple could make him feel so much more connected to the city.

"Elizabeth said if we go long enough without another Wraith attack, she thought it might be cool to work on cleaning out some of the flooded parts of the city. Getting them up and running again. There might be some cool tech down there. Stuff we can't even imagine, that we're not using just because we don't know about it! We'll wait for you, obviously, since you have the strongest gene. You can...do your gene thing. Turn stuff on, what have you. But anyways, I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about removing the water. Some of the flooded sections are huge, and it would take way too long to do it manually. And anyways, all that water...could be carrying diseases, or even sharks…."

"I don't think there are any sharks, Rodney," John said, rolling his eyes.

"There might be. How would you know?" Rodney asked stiffly. "We have whales, we definitely might have sharks."

"There aren't sharks."

"Two weeks pay says you find a shark down there."

"I find a shark?" John asked. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm kinda stuck here."

"I said we were going to wait for you," Rodney replied. "What, you think I'm going to shoot a shark? That's not really my area, Sheppard. I'll save that for you dumb military types."

John smiled, not even bothering to pretend to be offended. "Okay, fine. If I end up shooting a shark, I owe you two weeks pay."

Rodney nodded, seeming satisfied, and turned back to his laptop. "Anyway, do you have any ideas for draining the flooded sections? You've been known to have occasional flashes of something approaching intelligence."

John yawned. He was able to stay awake and carry on a conversation, but the drugs in his system were making him slow, and he could tell they were decreasing his mental agility. He certainly didn't have any ideas to drain the city, and Rodney knew it. Once again, John was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude towards Rodney, and once again, he had no idea how to express it.

"Blow a hole in one of the outside walls," John said sleepily, mainly just so Rodney didn't think John was ignoring him. "All the water'll drain out. Boom. City unflooded."

"Of course you would want to blow something up," Rodney muttered, but John heard the fondness in his tone even through the drugs. "I don't think Elizabeth is going to like that idea. Anything else?"

John was saved from having to answer by a knock at the door, and Teyla poked her head in.

"Hello, Rodney, John. Are you busy?"

"McKay's lookin' for sharks," John told her, realizing that was probably both unclear and unhelpful, but not feeling up to elaborating.

"So no, not really," Rodney said.

"We thought we might watch the Nightmare on the Street of Elms," Teyla suggested, fully entering the room. Behind her, John could see Ronon, balanced awkwardly on a set of crutches.

"Thought you had to work, McKay," John mumbled.

"I'm the Head of Science. I'm giving myself a few hours off."

"You can't actually do that, you know," said another voice. John twisted his head back towards the doorway to see Weir, crossing her arms and fighting a smile.

"But I think in this case it's alright," she said, pulling up a chair beside the bed. "What are we watching?"

"One of Sheppard's scary movies," Ronon said, sitting down heavily and stretching his knee out in front of him. "We'll see if it's actually scary. I bet it isn't, I bet I could make something scarier."

"Oh, are we watching something scary? I don't like scary things," Carson said nervously from the doorway. Suddenly, the room felt crowded and overfull, but that was infinitely better than the endless hours of boredom, and John welcomed the feeling.

"Even I don't think it's that scary," Rodney said dismissively. "Well, I did have nightmares about Freddy for a few weeks, but you should have seen me after the Exorcist. I still can't eat pea soup."

"It's psychological," John told Rodney. "It's chilling more than scary, really. It's a classic."

"I suppose we shall have to see for ourselves," Teyla suggested, nudging Rodney to bring the movie up on his laptop. John stifled another yawn, feeling better than he had in a while. He wasn't looking forward to the long recovery ahead of him, but it no longer felt quite so insurmountable.