Dr. Moyers, Neuroscientist

Author's Note: I am not the type of person who dedicates chapters to people I don't know. However, if I were that kind of person, I'm sure that I would have dedicated this chapter to Lakewater, who deserves it for yelling at me when I didn't update; and also to Yanna, who did the same thing. This chapter is... of a different style than usual. I promise to refrain from any more side plots. The science in this section is more than dodgy - it's entirely fictional

Chapter Seven: Something Unheard Of.

The blow took her by surprise, and Meredith found herself staring at the ground, dazed. She felt a hand on her arm, and then Ronon jerked her around to face him.

He hit her again.

That was when she realized that he was talking to her. "Do something!" He roared.

Looking around, Meredith noticed the interface console a few feet away from where Sheppard and Teyla were. She stumbled towards it, feeling as if her feet were very far away, unattached to her. She pushed a button at random, and then another, before she managed to access the outpost database. This was more familiar territory, so she pushed a few more buttons and then managed to bring up a strange sequence of code, scrolling across the small screen too fast for her to read. She tried to slow the scrolling, tried to remember the Ancient lessons she'd taken, tried to figure out what she needed to do in order to free Sheppard.

Her breathing sounded unnaturally loud. Meredith realized that the room was quiet, which meant that Teyla had stopped screaming. Looking over her shoulder, she could see Teyla slumped forward, pressed against Sheppard on one side, Ronon on his other side. She was holding on to Ronon as if he were the only thing in the universe.

Meredith felt like an intruder.

She turned back to the console, scrolled through the code, and tried to find a way to force the interface to release.

Her radio crackled every time McKay spoke, and he was always talking. She had seven minutes, now eight; she needed to hurry – if only she had any idea what to do. She read the code again and tried to ignore her time limit. She understood Ancient technology, she'd done her Master's with the Asgard, and she had finished side-by-side PhD's and her MD as well. She knew how to fix this, she knew, she just needed to remember… remember how.

She told the outpost to let him go.

That didn't work.

She tried to leech power from the interface itself in order to force it to release him, but he was wired into it now, it just sucked more energy out of him, faster and faster, until he screamed in pain, his words garbled and angry. She stopped.

The radio crackled again. "Six minutes." McKay told her.

She pushed at the outpost, wondering how exactly the interface worked, and then everything clicked. She just needed to take it apart – "McKay, I need more time!" She said into the radio as she used a screwdriver as a crowbar to pry off a panel.

"You have five minutes and forty-nine seconds."

"I need… seven." She said as she rummaged through her pockets until she found a penknife and a tiny blowtorch. "Ronon, I need those crystals I gave you."

Meredith moved as fast as she could, but she didn't know if this was going to work – it probably wouldn't – and she didn't have enough time. They were counting down the seconds until John Sheppard died, and then they would have twenty more before the outpost overloaded and they all died.

She could feel her hands moving; assembling pieces of broken technology into what would hopefully disrupt the interface enough for Sheppard to remove himself. It was strange how disconnected everything was, as if she were outside of her body, staring inwards, looking at everything around her.

"Moyers." McKay was beside her, not on the radio, although she couldn't remember him arriving. Behind her, she could hear the med team assisting Ronon, sounding horrified and helpless.

Her hands started to shake, so McKay took over, apparently able to read her mind and finish putting it together for her. They were running out of time, and it wasn't really adequate – but if it worked, it might weaken the mental interface, even if it couldn't kill it.

McKay quickly hooked it up to the console. There was no reaction, although there was a brief flickering of the lights. Then, Sheppard groaned, jerked forward, and opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak.

The wires were holding him still, keeping him silent, but they were also keeping the interface open, so he was still controlling the outpost and preventing it from overloading.

Meredith tried not to think about the people who lived on the planet.

She couldn't cut the wires, because that might kill Sheppard and trigger an overload. They couldn't keep him there, although the reduced interface meant that it was no longer sucking energy out of him.

"What do we do now?" She asked.

McKay stared at her.

"How do we get him out without overloading the station?"

McKay's eyes lit up, his fingers snapped. "Tablet." He ordered, and she handed the small computer over immediately.

He started working, and Meredith had absolutely not idea what he was doing. He typed code too fast for her to follow, quickly pulled out a few crystals, typed madly. She was almost dizzy watching him. He didn't talk, and that was scary, but he looked triumphant.

"You have maybe three minutes." One of the doctors helping hold Sheppard up said quietly. One of the others was giving him an injection. "This might give you a bit of time… but we need to get him back to Atlantis. Now."

McKay started to yell, ordered her around, and Meredith had never been happier to have someone telling her what to do. She obeyed like an automaton, every second stretching forward and lasting an eternity.

She hadn't paid attention, of course, although if she had it probably wouldn't have caught her by surprise. Ronon shouted, and then the med team was strapping Teyla onto a stretcher, and forcing Sheppard to do the same. The wires had retreated, leaving both of them bloody and exhausted but alive.

She turned back to McKay, a smile on her face because she was proud of him and impressed as hell, and then the smile died on her lips and she couldn't breathe, for a second.

McKay was slumped back against the panel.

Wires were wrapped around his arms, sinking into them like coppery veins. His eyes were held open, wires pushing themselves gently under his eyelids as she watched.

"Moyers." He said, sounding calm. "Stop panicking."

She stared at his mouth, because that remained unmolested; it was the same as his mouth had ever been.

"Listen carefully." He said. "You need to find the secondary power module. The primary one is what is causing our problems. You need to find the backup and activate it."

She nodded. "Power module."

"Then I need you to turn off the force shield protecting the reactor core." He continued. "And turn the power strength up as high as you can."

"But." Meredith tried to remember. "That will kill you!"

"That will set the core up to overload." McKay agreed. "And I'm here to force the energy into the shield, instead. If we activate the shield, it will bleed off all the excess energy and prevent the overload from killing everyone on the planet. It'll be fine, just do what I told you. Hurry."

"Activate…" She forced herself to listen. "Activate the secondary power module."

"Go." McKay ordered.

Meredith ran. Back the way they'd come, around a corner, and then another. She managed a mild link with the outpost and asked for directions, which it provided. She ran and ran and ran until she found the room with the backup module, and then she pushed it into place and activated a manual override. She ran from the room towards the reactor core – it wouldn't want to turn off the force shield, because that would guarantee an overload and that was bad. It protested, it forced her through all the error messages and backup sequences it had, and then finally she managed to shut the stupid thing off.

Power, now. She turned a dial, pushed everything up to the highest setting. The alarms screaming at her startled her, but she tried to ignore it. The power was only at thirty-seven percent with the backup module. Even after turning up every dial she could think of, it was at fifty-two percent.

She manually entered figures, telling the stupid thing that it needed to use 500% power and other ridiculous numbers, but it pushed the power up to eighty-three percent. She rerouted power that had been wasted or diverted in order to keep Sheppard conscious. Eighty-six percent.

The room was stifling and humid, it was getting hard to breathe, and so Meredith ran.

She tried to go back to the room where McKay was, but Ronon grabbed her and dragged her towards the exit. The outpost was a blur as they sped by, and then they were outside. Meredith found herself thrown t the floor of the jumper, with the med team looking grim as they stood around Teyla, and Sheppard at the controls, looking weak and desperate and barely conscious as one of the nurses attempted to dislodge him from the seat.

She looked through the windshield, and saw a sparkling, violet shimmer course through the sky, at about the same time a shockwave hit, shoving her across the floor and into a wall.

Ronon looked around to make sure that everyone was okay, and then he force his way out of the jumper and back into the outpost. The jumper was almost eerily silent. Teyla was quiet, conscious but apparently feeling no pain, as she'd been given plenty of morphine.

When Ronon returned, a few minutes later, he had McKay thrown over one shoulder. "Let's go." He said.

McKay was unconscious. Sheppard tried to insist on flying, but Ronon picked him up and pushed him onto a stretcher, letting one of the medics fly the jumper back to Atlantis.

Meredith went through the post-mission chaos in a daze. She didn't listen to the doctor who gave her pills and told her to sleep and get hydrated, didn't listen to Dr Weir's speech, didn't hear the whispers as people watched her walk (limp) through the hallways. She felt raw, she felt numb, so she forced herself to walk to her lab and then she sat down at her desk.

The desk was still littered with papers from earlier. It seemed like a dream, like something that had happened years ago, but no – here it was. Treatment for her one and only patient, Lieutenant Aiden Ford.

"Come, Meredith." A hand on her elbow steered her out of the room. "You need sleep."

She nodded, barely able to recognize her companion. "Thank you, Radek." She mumbled.

Radek put her to bed and tucked her in, forcing her to take her medication, and then he made her drink some tea.

"Is he always like that?" She asked him, and then fell asleep before Radek could answer her.

When she woke up. She was in the infirmary and it was three days later.

"Welcome back to the world of the living." A doctor said to her. She didn't look worried, so Meredith didn't bother asking why she wasn't' in her room anymore.

"My name is Jen." The doctor said. "And there is nothing seriously wrong with you, but your friends checked up on you and you didn't wake up, so they called us. Nothing but exhaustion, mild dehydration, and a bit of an adrenaline crash, though."

Epinephrine, Meredith thought hazily. Possibly norepinephrine as well, and everything hurts, too. She fell asleep again before she could say anything.

She awoke to the sound of Aiden Ford reciting poetry.

"- Not eat the in a house, I will not eat them here or there, I will not eat the anywhere. I do not eat green eggs and ham." He intoned, staring pensively out of the window. "I do not like them, Sam-I-Am."

"You should try Shakespeare." Meredith mumbled.

"I never really liked iambic pentameter, but since you're sick and all, I'll do a little Hamlet for you, doc!" Aiden said, turning towards her and beaming as if she'd just given him a puppy. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous—"

"That isn't necessary. I was being sarcastic!" Meredith said, struggling to sit up.

"—fortune, or to take arms against a sea of sorrows, and by opposing, end them." Aiden's grin widened, but he didn't stop. "To die, to sleep, no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heartache—"

"That's really not necessary—"

"—and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to—"

"I mean, why would you do that?" Meredith demanded. "There are lots of Shakespearean sonnets, you know."

"—sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream—"

"And, there are many characters who aren't in love with their mothers and don't have suicidal tendencies either." Meredith said, pointedly.

"Aye!" Aiden agreed, his grin upsized to 'shit-eating' and looking as if he'd won a prize. "There's the rub!"

"I'm going to kill you." Meredith said. She finally managed to sit up, propped up by her excessively comfortable pillows. Really, who knew that all the good ones ended up in the infirmary? She made a mental note to steal a few, later.

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give—"

"I am going to strangle you with my IV." Meredith said calmly.

"—us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."

Meredith glared at him.

Aiden smiled and continued reciting.

As irritating as Hamlet's famous soliloquy was to her ears, Meredith couldn't really help but feel relieved that he was doing so well. Once they managed to fix his eye and replace a few of his fried nerves, the rest of his treatment would be a cakewalk, especially as he seemed to be dealing with his addiction better these days. He was as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she'd ever seen him.

"—of office and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when him himself might his quietus—"

"I am going to YOUR quietus make, if you do not stop that!" A nurse stormed into the room, pointing an accusing finger at the young lieutenant. "Of all the Shakespeare you could have memorized, why that depressing piece of crap? You are in the infirmary! Have a sense of decorum!"

Aiden threw himself on his knees, dramatically clasping his hands together and gazing up at the nurse in mock-admiration. "But soft!" He declared. "What light from yonder window breaks?"

The nurse snorted derisively, turning to Meredith with a half-smile on her face.

"It is the east, and Jacqueline is the sun!" Aiden said, louder.

"Oh, shut up." Jacqueline said, without malice. She patted hi on the shoulder and then started to check Meredith's vital signs. "Feeling better, sweetie? Doctor Beckett says that you're clear to leave, any time you're strong enough to make it out the door."

"Yeah, thank you." Meredith nodded.

"—fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, are more fair than she."

"The kid—" Jacqueline jerked her head in Aiden's direction. "- has been coming to check on you every couple of hours. Dr. Zelenka, as well." She hummed a bit as she checked Meredith's blood pressure.

"It is my lady! Oh, it is my love! Oh, that she knew she were!" Aiden recited.

"You're fine." Jacqueline announced. "You may want to get some food in your stomach, though; the IV won't help your stomach cramps. Aiden, you make sure she doesn't get herself into any trouble, okay?"

"Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their… Yeah, you don't have to worry; I'll take real good care of her." Aiden promised. "Pinkie swear."

Jacqueline looked mildly confused, but she dutifully pinkie swore. "Now get out." She said, taping a small piece of gauze to the back of Meredith's hand where the IV had been. "And no more Hamlet!" She yelled at Aiden as he helped Meredith into her fluffy yellow robe.

Aiden walked her to her quarters, joking with her the entire time. "I'll see you later, Doc." He said when they arrived at the door. "But if you aren't out in the mess hall in thirty minutes, I'm sending someone in there with a camera."

She snorted and waved him off, eagerly going straight into the shower. She felt a little dizzy, but the heat and the steam helped loosen her muscles enough for her to ignore the ache. Not even ten minutes later, she was dressed, although trembling with exhaustion. She sat on the floor by her bed, trying to muster the energy she needed to walk all the way to the mess.

The door chimed, and then opened. "Dr. Moyers?" Thing Two stepped into the room, looking anxious. Her hair was bound tightly in a French braid, which Meredith thought made her look like an alligator. The blue turtleneck she was wearing was kind of nice, although it was as ill-fitting and conservative as any of her other wardrobe choices. "Do you nee any assistance? I am supposed to help you to the mess hall, if you need."

"That would be nice, actually." Meredith said.

Thing Two – Meredith really, really needed to learn her lab assistants' names – had brought a wheelchair, which was embarrassing on so many levels but also comfortable and not requiring any energy. It didn't really matter because Meredith was ravenous and willing to undergo much more public humiliation in exchange for food, so she didn't complain.

There weren't many people around, although Jameson arrived and sat down with her, as he always did. "You're alive!" He said, loudly. "I wondered, you know."

"Shut up, Jameson." Meredith said, but her heart wasn't in it. Food, oh, god, lovely precious food. Meatloaf.

"Sure thing!" He agreed. "So, I hear you had a really good trip off-world!"

"You are a liar." She replied primly, cutting into the meatloaf. Her mouth was already watering. Meatloaf, and peas, and mashed potato-like-things!

"No, really! All the other guys are impressed! They want to know if the stories are true. There's money on this, you know." He said.

Meredith raised an eyebrow at him, but tried not to pay attention to his words. The meatloaf was important, Jameson was not.

"We… you know. We bet on the scientists." Jameson said by way of explanation.

"You are twisted." And, they put butter in the mashed potato-thing! Real butter! "Kind of evil… but if evil didn't have a brain."

"I am a scarecrow of evil." Jameson agreed. "You know, Peterson bet that you'd cry."

She stopped eating. "Cry?"

"Like a little girl." Jameson added. "Like a little girl having a temper tantrum because her mommy wouldn't buy her the dolly she wanted."

"I hate you." She glared.

"I didn't bet on that." He seemed scandalized. "I bet on you doing something unheard of. This, when you think of it, is so vague that I can't believe anybody would bet against me – but there isn't much that could happen off-world that McKay hasn't already done. So I guess it wasn't a bad idea, after all." He frowned.

"That is very vague."

"Unfortunately, you scientists do stuff we haven't heard of all the time, so they later decided that it doesn't count if it's science-y."

She ignored him and drank her glass of milk. The peas and potatoes were very good, although she was hungry enough that even half-cooked oatmeal would have been lovely. She was so happy that she hadn't slept through Meatloaf Day.

"Is it true?" Jameson asked.

Meredith was going to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but then she realized that there were a few more distinctly non-science personnel who were listening in on their conversation. "How many people were betting on my first trip off-world?" She demanded.

It hadn't been an invitation, but seven marines, four airmen, three scientists, and one of the lunch ladies immediately crowded around the table.

"You need lives." She told them.

"You did save the day, right?" A marine asked.

"McKay did that."

The lunch lady collected her money.

"But you helped, right?" A redheaded airman asked, a frown on her face. "I mean, I heard McKay say that you helped."

"Uh, yeah, okay." Meredith was sure that McKay was merely being kind – she'd followed his instructions and hadn't done much else. "I helped."

Jameson, the redheaded airman, and the lunch lady collected money.

"You didn't crack under pressure." Jameson said proudly.

"I froze." She disagreed.

"You came to and helped save the day, though!"

Meredith shrugged in acquiescence. That seemed to be enough for the people around her, who murmured. Then, more money exchanged hands. The lunch lady was cleaning everyone else out, Meredith noticed.

"Is it true?" one of the marines whispered.

"What?" She asked, confused. "Is what true."

"Is it true that…" He dropped his voice as if he was ashamed to ask the question, which, of course, he should. "That you fought Ronon Dex?"

What the hell? "We didn't fight." Meredith said slowly, because honestly, military men were incredibly stupid sometimes. "I wouldn't have had a chance. I mean, he just kind of hit me."

There was a gasp.

"More than once!" Jameson announced as if it was the best thing in the world.

"You're totally taking that out of context." She argued. "We weren't fighting. I just froze, and he tried to snap me out of it."

"By hitting you." Jameson said.

"Well, yeah."

"More than once?" the marine asked.

"Twice." Meredith sighed. "And it wasn't very hard, or anything, I just—"

"Most importantly." Jameson said, looking at her intently. "What did you do after he hit you, Dr. Moyers?"

"I started to look through the outpost database using the interface console to determine whether—"

"Before that." He interrupted her again.

"Well, I walked towards the interface console and then started to look through the outpost database to determine whether or not the mental interface was mediated by a traditional—"

"Before you walked towards the console."

"I didn't do anything." Meredith said, slowly, because Jameson clearly wasn't getting it. "I mean, he hit me, I got up and walked towards—"

Roaring in triumph, Jameson began collecting money from most of those at the table. The lunch lady gave him extra dessert. "Something unheard of." She grumbled, looking furious. "Last time I bet on vague comments by cheeky officers, you better believe."

"…What. The. Hell." Meredith said forcefully.

"Congratulations!" Jameson said, after he'd collected his money and shooed the others away from the table. "You're the first scientist we've heard of to get up after being hit twice by Dex."

"You're fucking insane." Meredith told him. She knew that she couldn't have been the first - Dex sparred a lot, and taught most of the scientists self-defense. Clearly, Jameson was exaggerating. A lot. She decided to ignore him, and then took a careful bite of her mashed almost-potato.

"You are so hardcore." He smiled.

"I hate you." She mumbled around a mouthful of peas.

Jameson batted his eyelashes. "You are my hero."