Yes, it's true. This is the final chapter. I'm sorry I drug this out so long - I just got caught up in the whole thing. I kept thinking I needed this stuff in there to lay the foundation for a conclusion that might halfway make sense and I guess I got a little carried away. Anyway, it wasn't intentional and I apologize to those of you who got tired. I'll try to be more succinct in the future. My excuse is that I'm still relatively new to this and don't actually know what I'm doing (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Thanks so much for all the reviews and thoughts and for sticking with it so long. You guys always make my day!

Chapter 9

Beckett and a medical team met McKay about halfway to the infirmary. McKay wasn't really sure if the medical personnel took Sheppard from him or if he just kind of dropped him in their direction. Covered with sweat, he bent over with his hands on his knees as he panted heavily. Beckett quickly turned and asked if he was okay, to which he waved his hand and replied, "Go!" He watched as they rounded the corner a few seconds later.

McKay arrived at the infirmary about the same time as Elizabeth Weir. She immediately noticed his flushed face and heavy breathing. "Rodney, are you okay? Come sit down." He decided to take her up on the sit down part before he fell down. He was still a little dizzy and unsteady from the bump on the head. The next thing he knew, there was a cup of water in front of his face.

"Drink this," she ordered. He hadn't even seen her leave. He drank the whole cup of cool water, which helped quench the desert that was his throat. After he had a chance to catch his breath, she asked the question he dreaded.

"What happened?" And he told her. Every detail. He hung his head in shame, waiting for the scolding. He shouldn't have lost his temper and yelled. He shouldn't have let John get away. He should have stopped him from handling the devices. Once again, this was his fault. When Elizabeth said nothing, he looked up at her.

"A six year old can be quite a handful - especially in the body of an adult. It sounds like you did everything you could. I guess it's up to Carson now."

"No, Elizabeth, I didn't do everything I could. I let him down...yet again. I seem to have gotten off into some kind of rut in that area."

Elizabeth started to say something else, but Beckett came out and headed in their direction. All thoughts turned to Sheppard's condition. Beckett didn't look too happy.

"Carson?" inquired Weir.

"Well, if I thought I was confused before, now I'm really at a loss. We have some of the same effects as before - slightly elevated pulse and blood pressure, as well as strange brain wave activity on the EEG. He's not really unconscious this time. His eyes are open, but he's unresponsive. He's...catatonic."

Weir and McKay looked at one another and then back at Beckett, not sure if this was better or worse than being unconscious. Weir finally spoke. "How long do you think it will last?"

Beckett frowned and was strangely silent for several minutes. McKay felt his fear sink like a cold, hard ball of metal into his gut. This was not good. "First you have to understand that I have no experience with anythin' like this and this is definitely not my specialty area. Everythin' I say is conjecture. Without trying to get into too much detail, the major has had very irregular brain wave patterns from the very beginnin' of this. While there has been a lot of fluctuation, some things have remained constant. There has been an increase in patterns associated with a child and a decrease in patterns typically associated with an adult. There have also been some strange peaks that have consistantly grown stronger with each event."

McKay was growing impatient. "And all this means what? Is there a point to this story?"

Beckett nodded, unruffled. "There's two points, actually. The odd peaks are now at an all time high and have been joined by some other anomalies. I have no idea what this means in terms of how long the catatonic state will last, but I'm a little afraid it's not good. My other point is...based on the way the wave patterns are becoming more established..."

It dawned on McKay what Beckett was trying to say. "He's going to stay that way, isn't he? It's too late to fix him."

Beckett held up his hand. "That's not exactly what I'm sayin'. But I think there is a limit as to how long he can have the mind of a child before those patterns are imprinted and replace the original ones. And I think our time is almost out. If we don't figure this out soon, then Major Sheppard will have the mind of a six year old for the rest of his life,...if he comes out of the catatonic state."

McKay looked panicked. He turned to race out of the room so suddenly that he made himself dizzy. Beckett caught him as he swayed and almost fell. "Rodney, sit down." Beckett shoved him in the chair.

"I've got to go. I've got to figure this out. Let me go."

Beckett just shook his head. He gently ran his hand along the back of McKay's head. "How did you get that bump?"

McKay sighed heavily, knowing he wasn't getting out of this. "I bumped my head on the floor when I was trying to stop John. I'm okay, it's just a little bump."

"Were you unconscious?"

McKay hesitated. "Unconscious is such a strong word. More like a little dazed for a few seconds."

Beckett stood and pointed inside the infirmary. "Observation. You're here for the night."

McKay jumped up, eyes blazing. "You just told me my best friend is going to be a child forever unless I solve the mystery of the ages and do it soon. Now you want me lounge around in the infirmary. Carson, if you think..."

"Settle down or I'll have you sedated. If you come along quietly and cooperate, I'll have someone fetch your laptop and whatever else you need. You can work up here and I can keep an eye on ya."

McKay calmed down somewhat. "Well, I guess I could live with that."

Weir smiled. "Rodney, you go get settled. I'll get your laptop."

Beckett walked over to the bed where Rodney sat working and set a cup of coffee on the table beside the bed. McKay glanced at it. "Thanks."

"Any luck?"

McKay rubbed his eyes and then took a sip of the coffee. "No, not yet." He looked across the infirmary at the still figure in another bed. The monitors were beeping and his eyes were open, but there was no movement. "That's just spooky. The lights are on, but nobody's home." Beckett sadly followed his gaze.

McKay looked back at the computer screen before him and punched a couple of buttons. He frowned, squinting in confusion. "What is this?" He punched a couple more buttons. "Sheppard, what have you been putting on here? This isn't my..."

"What is it?" Beckett asked, looking over the scientist's shoulder as if he would understand it. It looked like jibberish.

Suddenly McKay sat straight up. "Oh my God, this is it. Carson, this is it! It's been right here!"

McKay began trying to get out of bed, but was so excited, he got his feet tangled in the sheets and would have fallen out of bed if Beckett hadn't caught him. "Easy, lad. What's going on? Just settle down. You're not goin' anywhere til you explain this to me."

McKay took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Okay, let me see if I can get this to make sense. The technology in that room is kind of protected by a lock. You have to have more than the ancient gene. You have to be more genetically like the Ancients than just that one gene. You also have to be able to pour your concentration into activating it. I think the contol panel that started this whole thing was sort of a ...lock to the other consoles in the room as well as an instruction manual to all of it. It was supposed to slowly download the instructions into the user while allowing them to turn on the devices. I think either John's concentration wavered or there was a power glitch or both, and that caused the download process to briefly stop, and then surge forward quickly. I think that set off a series of...electrical shorts, if you will, in John's brain. The information was compressed and forced into areas too quickly. The overload caused John's brain to try and compensate by going back to a simpler operating system...that of a child."

"But the information about ancient devices is in his brain, so sometimes he can access it and use it to...fix things."

McKay nodded. "John's lifetime of memories is still there, but it has also been kind of compressed and crammed into available space. He can activate some of it, but probably has little control over which part he remembers. So he has partial memories that he's looking at through the eyes of a child. He's trying to remember and process ancient information in bits and pieces, as well."

Beckett whistled softly. "It's wonder he hasn't had a meltdown before now. Did you say you found an answer?"

McKay got excited again. "Yes! I think I have. It looks like there is a ...undo button...on this thing."

Beckett looked confused. "An undo button?"

"Yeah! Like on a computer. It was probably a protective measure in case they decided they didn't trust someone to know how to turn on and operate all of Atlantis's systems. They could remove the information from them. I think if we remove the information, John may...reset."

"John left all this on your computer?"

"No, don't be ridiculous, Carson. I put all this together from the writings on the computer, talking to John, and past research we'd already done and logged. John left a schematic on how to hook it up to undo. I just didn't realize what this was until now."

"That's the weird peaks in his EEG. It must be the ancient information. It wasn't downloaded properly, so he was having trouble accessing it. Then when he did, it sort of...overloaded his brain."

"Right!. Carson, we've got to get him back to that lab and get him straightened out while there's still time."

"Wait, I thought you said he had to concentrate. How are we going to get him to do that?"

McKay smiled. "Don't have to. Unloading doesn't require concentration. Think about it, Carson. If the Ancients had to make someone they didn't trust do this, they would have to design it to work passively."

"Okay, but we'll have to clear it with Weir. And I want to be there with a full medical team in case he reacts like he did before. Will this work since the information wasn't loaded properly in the first place."

McKay looked unsure. "I hope so."

Beckett hurried off to make the arrangements. McKay got up and walked over to John's bed. He reached down and put his hand on the still form's shoulder. "We're going to fix you, John. Just hold on a little while longer."

A few hours later, everything was ready. John was propped up in a wheelchair. Beckett was there with a medical team and just about every monitor he could drag down there. Ford, Teyla, and Weir had been briefed and were there for moral support. McKay and Zelenka had several computers and pieces of equipment hooked up to the control console. "We're ready," McKay announced. Suddenly, they all looked uncertain.

Weir looked at McKay. "Rodney, you have a go."

Beckett rolled the wheelchair over to the console. The floor panel underneath immediatly lit up. McKay walked over and picked up John's hands. "I hope this works," he whispered. He gently laid Sheppard's hands in the depressions on the console. He stepped back and punched a few keys on the laptop. A few seconds later, a blue light rose up slowly to engulf Sheppard, remained there several seconds, and then withdrew back into the floor panel. As soon as the light disappeared, Beckett moved forward to the wheelchair. John had slumped forward on the panel. Beckett and a nurse pulled the wheelchair back from the console and eased John out onto the floor. His eyes were no longer open. Everyone in the room held their breath as Beckett checked for a pulse.

"I've got a pulse...and it's fairly strong." Beckett and his team checked blood pressure, temperature, and breathing. Beckett, visibly relieved, reported that everything was pretty well normal. Even that didn't prepare them for what happened next. Sheppard stirred and slowly opened his eyes. McKay got right down in his face, trying to see if Sheppard's eyes were focused.

"McKay, get out of my face! What are trying to do, kiss me? I don't even want to think about that!"

McKay jumped up and back, suprise on his face.

Sheppard rubbed his head with one hand. "Crap! What a headache." He looked around to see Beckett and a medical team, along with several pieces of monitoring equipment around him on the floor. The only thing scarier that waking up surrounded by medical equipment was waking up surrounded by medical equipment while lying on the floor. This was just weird.

"Ah, guys, what the heck happened and why am I on the floor?" It was then that he noticed that everyone in the room was grinning at him. "I'm guessing I missed the punchline on this one."

McKay put his hand on Sheppard's shoulder. "Welcome back, John."

Welcome back? Where had he gone? And why was McKay calling him John. "Did I go somewhere?"

"Do you remember anythin' after you and Rodney came to this lab, lad?" asked Beckett.

Sheppard thought a minute. His head still hurt, so he wasn't anxious to push it. "You know, I do kind of feel like I had some weird dreams...bunch of really big, scary needles...beating Teyla at sticks for once...something about an ancient device..." He suddenly tried to sit up. Beckett pushed him back down.

"Just lay still lad. You've had quite a shock. It's going to take a few days to get your strength back."

Sheppard looked frantically at McKay. "It'll work now. I know what to do. We can do it right this time." He started trying to get up again. Beckett was still pushing him down.

"Son, if ya don't lay still, I'll have to sedate you."

Sheppard continued to plead with McKay. "Tell them McKay. We can do this. I can download the information the right way and I can help unlock Atlantis. I can...remember that part. I know what to do."

Beckett looked at McKay to see if Sheppard was delirious or not. McKay shook his head. "Not right now. We can do it later. The first time almost killed you and...you have no idea what it's been like the last several days. I can't risk doing that to you again."

Sheppard's eyes burned with a strange intensity. "McKay...I promise you I can do this...I can...fix it..."

McKay's head snapped up. The two men stared at each other in the silent room. Not taking his eyes off Sheppard, McKay reached out and moved Beckett's hand off Sheppard's chest. "Let him do it. He knows what he's doing."

Beckett looked at Weir. She hesitated a minute and then nodded. Beckett and McKay helped Sheppard to his feet. His legs immediately gave way beneath him, so they moved him to the wheelchair. McKay rolled the chair up to the control panel and then turned to punch some buttons on the computer. He turned back to Sheppard, who was watching him intently.

"I reset it. It's ready. John...be sure."

Sheppard smiled. "I am."

McKay just nodded. He backed up a step. Sheppard once again placed his hand into the depressions, but this time without fear. He closed his eyes and the blue light came up from the floor panel to engulf him once again. Several seconds later, it flowed back into the floor panel. McKay and Beckett immediately stepped up to either side of Sheppard. "Major," said Beckett.

Sheppard sat there motionless for a minute before looking up at McKay. "That was cool! Boy, do I have an early Christmas present for you."

McKay and Beckett grinned at each other. Somehow, McKay thought he had already received his present.

The next day, McKay sat in the chair beside Sheppard's bed. Beckett had insisted on several more days in the infirmary to run tests and give Sheppard a chance to rest. Sheppard didn't really know why he was so totally exhausted, but he didn't even want to argue with Beckett. That was probably not a good sign.

"Was I really that much trouble?" McKay had been telling him stories about his stint as a six year old. He had a bad feeling would never in 10,000 years live this down. Beckett had even made a few not so nice comments.

"I guarantee it was infinitely worse. I just can't find the words to properly describe it...Hey...I was curious...have you remembered any more of what happened. How did you feel? I mean, were you in there somewhere?'"

Sheppard looked uncomfortable. He shifted around in the bed for several minutes.

"Look, if you don't want to talk about it..."

"No...it's really not that. I just...I kind of remember, but at the same time I don't. It's hard to explain. Did you ever have a dream and when you wake up, you think you remember it. But then when you try to remember details, it starts fading away? That's kind of how I feel. I remember some of the testing...I remember hurting and being so scared I didn't think I could stand it...I remember feeling like I didn't belong anywhere..." he shuddered involuntarily. He frowned, obviously trying to remember something. "Was there something with Kavanagh, because I have this weird image in my mind..."

McKay held his hand out in a 'halt' position. "There is a really funny story to that, but for the sake of your career, I think you should probably remain ignorant of the matter. If we ever get rid of him, I promise I'll tell you."

Sheppard just looked at him oddly.

"Hey," said McKay. "I have a question for you. Do you remember working on equations and formulas with me on the computer? You fixed a couple of mine I'd been having trouble with and we collaborated on creating another one. Weir dropped me a hint that that was you, not a result of the ancient knowlege downloaded into your brain. It was the ancient knowledge, right?"

John waswatching his hands fiddle with the covers at his chest. He just smiled. "What do you think?"

McKay looked exasperated. "I don't know what to think. I mean I know you can figure out probabilities and distance/time computations super fast, but these are complicated mathematical concepts. It's not the same...but really, they didn't have anything to do with the ancient technolog itself..." He looked at Sheppard, still fiddling with the covers and smiling. Sheppard finally looked up at McKay's face and their eyes met briefly.

"It was you! You mean I worked with that stupid formula for weeks and you could have fixed it all along? I don't know whether to hug you or hit you."

"Well you sure better not hug me McKay. I'm pretty sure I remember beating Teyla with sticks, so I know I can whip your sorry butt. At least, in a couple of days I can. And by the way...could you keep it down a little?" Sheppard looked around to see if anyone else was around to hear the exchange.

"You don't want anyone to know. Why?" McKay prized his intelligence above all else, so it staggered his imagination to realize someone would not want to flaunt genius.

"It's just not me McKay. I don't know how to explain it. I kind of like fading into the woodwork. Sometimes it makes my job easier. I'd really rather not make a big deal about it. I'm not really trying to hide it so much as I'm just trying not to advertise it."

McKay nodded. "I won't tell anyone if you'll let me sneak to you for help occasionally."

Sheppard nodded his agreement. "You may then take all the credit."

McKay smiled and rubbed his hands together. "I think this could work."

They sat in silence for several minutes. Sheppard still seemed a little uncomfortable. He finally lifted his eyes to look at McKay. "Rodney...thanks."

McKay smiled at the friend he had learned so much about in the last few days. "Any time, major."

THE END