Part 11 – To All Gods We Pray

At the insistence of Vatu, Carson banished all medical staff from the infirmary leaving only himself and his head nurse. McKay and Weir refused to leave which Vatu didn't seem to mind as long as they kept their distance and didn't interfere no matter what. Teyla quietly left with a very sullen Ronon, respecting their need for solitude and peace. She intended to gather a few of her people and maybe others in prayer.

Beckett became extremely agitated as he witnessed the monks lift John's fever ridden body into an upright position and pour some of the contents of one bottle into his mouth nearly causing him to choke. Carson wanted to scream, ya not pouring that bloody stuff into my patient before it's been tested, but Elizabeth's hand calmed him as she murmured. "We've got nothing to lose." Carson became submissive. Realistically, there really hadn't been time to run a battery of tests on the stuff anyway, so he had to trust these people and hope that they weren't doing more harm than good.

They continued to watch as the monks undid Sheppard's hospital grown and turn his listless frame to lay face down before removing the dressings on his abused back. This time Carson was on his feet before McKay restrained him. Resigned, the Scot sat down and covered his eyes as the monks began to chant and place the now pulverize leaves onto John's inflamed back.

What seemed like hours later, Vatu and the monks stopped chanting and began to remove the pulpy leaf mass with soft cloths. Carson and the others strained to see if it had made a difference and strangely enough, it had. The wounds were still there but the inflammation had receded somewhat. They all watched as the monks lightly covered John's back with a gauzy material before redressing him and turning him into his side. Taking a cloth, Vatu dipped it into a bowl filled with some other substance and lightly wiped Sheppard's sweat drenched face.

Satisfied the monks turned to their audience and Vatu announced. "It is done. We can do nothing more, the rest is in the hands of Tyleen but we believe he will make it for his spirit is strong and his need to live is powerful. However, his journey will not be an easy one and do not despair if he shows no improvement at the beginning." Turning to Beckett, he asked. "You are the healer?"

"Aye, that I am and…"

Before Carson could continue, Vatu silenced him with his hand. "We are leaving you four bottles of medicine. You must ensure that he drinks one bottle per day. It must not be all at once but the more you get inside him the better."

"Aye, okay." Carson replied but he intended to send a small sample to the labs as soon as possible. "Is there anything else?"

"Just look after him and pray." With that, Vatu and his monks left the infirmary without another word. Rodney and Elizabeth quickly got up and followed leaving Carson standing with his mouth wide open as he stared at the figure of Tyleen still sitting like a guardian near John's bed.

A few minutes later, the medical staff slowly trickled back. Coming out of his thoughts, Carson held up one of the bottles and ordered. "Will someone please take a sample of this to the labs and get those monitors hooked up again."

-SGA-

The gateroom was quiet as the monks and the others entered. Vatu turned to Weir and said. "Knowledge of your city is safe with us, so have no fear. We are sorry that our punishment has caused your protector so much trouble, it was not what we intended."

Elizabeth quietly nodded wondering at the choice of his name for John. "What is done is done and there's no going back but we thank you for helping him."

"That was the least we could do." Vatu acknowledged. Turning to McKay, he handled over the book. "We will leave this for you to study. Maybe it will help you to understand our motives and religion a little better. You may keep it for a while but please return to us when you are finished."

Rodney took it gratefully. "Yes, yes, of course and thank you."

"We will leave now, so please dial our home." Elizabeth nodded to the gate technician and as the event horizon appeared, Vatu said. "Take care of him and let us know how he fares."

"We will." Elizabeth confirmed as she watched the monks disappear.

-SGA-

His world was filled with confusion, he didn't know which way was up and which way was down. The roller coaster of his fever-filled nightmares clouded his mind with images as he thrashed about. The bellowing voice of his angry CO, young Joe being flogged, the bodies of Mitch and Dex, his chopper in flames, Ford running into the Wraith beam, flying to close to the sun, Kolya taking Atlantis, the Wraith on his heels, Sumner dying before his eyes, a nuke going up, Wraith feeding on him... Flying to close to the sun, flying to close to the sun, getting hotter and hotter until searing flames engulfed him and propelled him to fall through wormhole after wormhole, spiraling down and down to finally land in - snow. Slowly the cold of the ice cooled him and he slept peacefully at last.

-SGA-

"Dr. Beckett!" the nurse called. "His fever has finally broken!"

Rushing over, Carson declared. "Oh, thank God for that! For a while there, I thought we were really going to lose him, for sure!"

Rodney looked up from his place near Sheppard's bed to note that Carson looked as bad as he felt. With dark rings under his eyes and lines more pronounced. Turning to the prone figure of his friend, he cursed. "Damn you, Sheppard, you certainly know how give people a scare."

"Aye that he does. Look, Rodney it's been a long night, so why don't ya go and get some sleep now."

"And what about you?"

"I think I'll kip down on a spare bed here for a while and see if I can get a few winks before the lab results finally come in." Checking Sheppard one more time, he continued. "Although things are looking a little better now, so I'm guessing that their horrible medicine has done some good. But how I'm going to get that down him once he wakes up is going to be a real problem. It smells like piss and probably tastes worse."

Rodney laughed for the first time in hours. "That piss probably saved his life and we'll get it into him even if we have to hold him down."

Carson laughed as McKay left the room.

-SGA-

Carson woke with a start after having slept far longer than he intended, but seeing as no one had woken him then things must be all right.

He remained quietly laying on the bed for while slowly coming to. From his vantage point, he could see Sheppard's bed and noted that he had an early morning visitor - Elizabeth. She was holding John's hand and talking softly to him. For a minute, Carson thought Sheppard was awake but as he got up and came nearer, he could see that he wasn't. Elizabeth didn't seem to hear the doctor approach as she continued to speak softly and suddenly plant a light kiss on John's forehead.

Clearing his throat, Carson made Elizabeth jump back and go slightly red. "Oh my, Carson, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"I wouldn't dream of it, lass, one leader in the infirmary at a time is enough." Moving closer, Carson sighed. "Now let's see how our more permanent resident is doing?"

Elizabeth moved away and watched as Carson did a routine check. "How is he?" she whispered as he finished.

"Over the worse, thank God. He's going to be as weak as a kitten for a while but he'll pull through."

Elizabeth's relief was obvious. Just as she was about to say more, a lab technical came up to Beckett. "We've got the results you've been waiting for, doctor."

"Well?"

Looking at her pc-tablet, she reported. "Whatever's in that medicine has some anti-bacterial elements. It has started to clear up the bacterial cultures but not completely. The medicine is a little on the unstable side and could cause a few side effects but nothing harmful. With your agreement, we'd like to start working on it with a possible view of eventually being able to utilize some of the elements to create an antibiotic that could help us here and maybe even back on Earth."

"Aye, that would be wonderful if ya could, so go ahead, lass."

The technician nodded and glanced towards the colonel saying. "He's certainly got an excellent guardian angel," she commented, before heading out of the room.

"Aye that he certainly has." Beckett agreed. Elizabeth murmured. "Thank goodness."

-SGA-

The road to recovery was proving to be a difficult and taxing one for Sheppard. For four days, he had suffered with nausea, stomach cramps, embarrassing diarrhea, headaches and generally feeling like shit. When he was conscious enough to realize what was going on, he couldn't get comfortable as his legs and arms seemed to weighed down with lead and went from hot to cold in a matter of seconds. After numerous tests, Beckett had announced that the symptoms all seemed to be related to the medicine and true to word, the minute he stopped taking the awful stuff the side affects started to ease.

Today, he'd been allowed up for the first time since the whole ordeal had begun six days ago, although it had taken the support of Carson and a nurse to get him from one side of the infirmary to the other. By the time, they had him back in bed he'd gratefully fallen asleep again for a couple of hours.

Sheppard was now trying to read a two-month-old copy of Sports Illustrated – the swimsuit edition but even with the bevy of beautiful women gracing the front, he was having little success because he kept dropping off. That was until Rodney came bursting into the infirmary and promptly sat himself down next to John's bed.

Prodding John, he enthusiastically held up the book that the monks had given him. "This has taken us four days to translate," he announced with obvious excitement. "It's written in a dialect based on Ancient but once we got the basics, we could let the computers do the rest. And what it reveals is fantastic and explains an awful lot about their society and thinking. If you feel up to it, I could tell you the nitty-gritty?"

"Yeah sure, go ahead as long as it's not too boring, otherwise I'm likely to drop off on you."

"Oh, no, I can assure you this isn't boring but I'll keep it as short as I can." Sitting up straighter, McKay began. "Okay, well, it turns out that their religion isn't as old as you may think. Up until about 400 years ago, the planet was culled in much the same way as any other, so that would explain the lack of technical advancement. At that time, they had a religion based on worshiping Ancient relics, of all things. Then along comes this brilliant scientist called Lena Tyrell from a planet we've yet to identify. Just like us, she and her team of fellow scientists and engineers were conducting Stargate exploration. It looks like they were forced to spend more time on Dalenia then they first intended which as it turns out, wasn't a bad thing for the natives."

Rodney paused to get his breath back and open a power bar. Taking a bite, he continued. "They stayed…umm…on Dalenian for…umm…five years, during which time they found a…err complete Ancient laboratory somewhere in the hills beyond the town. Now what I can gather from her notes, this lab contained an operational ZPM, weapons chair, drones, all the other things you need to defend against a Wraith attack, and yet it hadn't been used in millennia. Now knowing how religious and simple minded the inhabitants were she decided to turn the whole thing into a new religion to get them to use it as intended."

Rodney munched on his candy again checking to make sure Sheppard hadn't gone to sleep but he was still intently listening, although he pulled a disgusted face at Rodney's champing and asked. "She based it on herself?"

"No, no, that's…umm…not what she intended but over the time I think that's how it evolved. Anyway, the brilliant part is, she and her team managed to move some of the equipment into the town and had the monastery built to house it. The ZPM and statue is just the tip of a very ingenious early warning system that picks up Wraith darts whether they enter from space or through the Stargate," he enthused, candy bar suddenly forgotten much to John's relief. "When the system goes up the ZPM becomes fully operational and ready to launch a counter attack from the old lab in the hills."

"Wow, that's cool, but let me guess, it still needs ATA gene activation to launch to drones?"

"Yep, right on the dot. As brilliant as Tyrell was, she still couldn't overcome that problem. Anyway, it seems she found a way to test the locals for the gene and guess what - about seventy percent had it. Then, she formed the fellowship of monks we see today as guardians and they are replaced by ATA selection from the population when necessary. Over the centuries, the religion changed slightly until it's what we see today."

"So what happened to this woman and the rest?" John asked.

"I think, they eventually managed to return home or at least someplace else through the Stargate. It seems they witnessed two Wraith attacks during their stay and their system worked fine. Luckily, the attacks weren't during the construction period."

"Yeah." John pondered. "And the don't touch or you're punished bit?"

"I guess, she warned them against touching it other than during an attack. So they introduced the punishment to make sure others didn't meddle with something they could have broken."

"Yep, that's what I thought but we got off lightly. I was told the normal punishment is a little more severe."

"Really, what's more severe than what they did to you?"

Deadpan, John answered. "Death."

McKay swallowed hard and took another bite of candy. He didn't ask how the hell Sheppard would have gotten him out of that one.

When McKay made no further comment Sheppard, pondered "You know, I think I was used that night. Somehow, they must have tested me for the gene and then for some reason made me touch their shrine. I can only remember seeing a vision of darts being destroyed before passing out. You don't suppose… Na."

"What?"

"A Wraith attack?"

Rodney looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "Oh, I very much doubt it. They wouldn't need your touch for weapons deployment, so I'm guessing that the shrine also has some kind of virtual environment interface and what you witnessed was a play back of previous attacks."

John looked a little disappointed. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course, I am." McKay smirked. "And you know what, there's always a scientific explanation for everything."

John looked short to the figure of Tyleen still placed near his bed. "If you say so, Rodney, but I don't think the people of Dalenia would agree with you." McKay didn't reply to that.

The silence stretched between them for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. "Err…Rodney," John spoke hesitantly. "Thanks."

Rodney looked at him strangely. "What for?"

"For what you said when Elizabeth didn't want you to back to Dalenia."

"You heard that?"

John instinctively chewed on his bottom lip. "Yeah, I can't remember much of what went on but I do remember you saying that you were willing to take the punishment to get help for me."

Rodney looked slightly embarrassed.

John didn't pursue it any further. "So is everything – good - between us now?"

"Yes, but all I ask is just don't anything like this again."

"Oh, believe me I don't ever want to go through anything like this again, so to prevent it happening, I'm putting some new protocols in place for future missions and for all teams. From now on, if ZPMs or any other artifacts are already in the possession of natives we do not touch them before asking. How does that sound."

"Like a damn good idea," Rodney answered, as he started to rummage through John's fruit bowl and pinch some juicy Dalenian grapes.

"Hey, put those down they're mine!"

Rodney grabbed his book and bolted for the exit with his prize.

-SGA-

Epilogue – Two weeks later

The cool evening wind ruffled John's hair as he stood on his favorite pier overlooking the calm dark sea. Out across the vast expanse of sky, the first stars began to shine. He breathed deeply taking in a lung full of fresh sea air. It sure felt good to be alive. Yet again, he'd come awfully close to losing it but he didn't regret his actions for one minute. Deep in his heart, he knew McKay wouldn't he have survived such mistreatment without permanent scars to his psyche, just like Joe Paterson. As for his own scars, well what was one more to add to his growing list? No, things were how they should be and he, John Sheppard, would continue to protect his friends as best he could.

The End

Well, that's it folks. Thanks for all your wonderful and very welcome reviews and comments. I do hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.