Hi Everyone….

I just wanted to apologize for the long delay between posts (again!). This last installment was a battle of wills in more ways than one: there's a battle of wills going on between Sheppard and McKay in this chapter, and man, it was also a battle of my own will to get the two of them to cooperate and work with me! I even had to handwrite sections of this chapter to get it straight in my head…I haven't done that in…well…ages!

Regardless, the story is finished with this chapter, and I hope that you all enjoyed it. I know that I have enjoyed writing it as well as reading all of your kind comments!

Thanks!

Emrys

Iron String – Part 9 (Conclusion)

The three days Carson had predicted it would take for Sheppard's chemistry to resolve itself had turned into a week and a half of bitter hell for the Colonel. Carson was unable to explain the delays in recovery that the man was experiencing, but there was no denying that Sheppard was still suffering from weakness in his limbs and that his abnormal brain chemistry had not settled itself out as quickly as Beckett had originally thought it would. The results of the initial blood tests had shown a steady evening off of the anomalous concentrations of neurotransmitters, but a sudden, unpredictable drop in the Colonel's levels of norepinephrine had occurred which had exacerbated Sheppard's poor emotional state. Since that time, the medical personnel had been unable to stabilize Sheppard's norepinephrine levels which had begun to cycle wildly through low and then high states. As the cycling became more dramatic, so had the Colonel's mood swings.

To say the least, it had been a bad time for the Colonel. After the first two days, John had weakened considerably and was no longer able to resist acting out in response to the chemical backwash that was filling his brain. Consequently, after another day of brutal and ultimately physically painful changes in mood, Sheppard had begged to be moved to an isolation room. Beckett had quickly complied with the man's wishes since it was unduly stressful for the proud Colonel to deal with the powerful moods without the luxury of privacy. For personnel to have easy access to Sheppard's uncontrollable sobbing or the screaming that erupted in response to violent fits of rage was unthinkable to the man who was the head of the military contingent in Atlantis.

When asked in one of his more lucid moments if he wanted visitation by his team to be withheld, Sheppard's answer had been adamantly affirmative. Beckett had then kept all visitors away from John, and while the man recovered had allowed access only to himself and to a nurse that he knew the Colonel implicitly trusted. It had been difficult for Beckett to turn away the Colonel's concerned teammates, and the doctor did not much enjoy the memory of Ronan's harsh reaction to the news, but overall Atlantis had respected Sheppard's privacy.

Rodney McKay had been another story altogether.

The man was absolutely infuriating, Beckett thought as he sat with his patient who was currently slumbering. McKay had refused to give Carson a moment's peace throughout Sheppard's recovery and had reached new heights of insulting with his comments directed at Beckett's ancestry. Carson had been forced into an exhausting, weeklong struggle with the irate physicist who had been determined to gain entry into Sheppard's isolation room through endless harassment. Much to Rodney's consternation and despite his best efforts; however, Beckett had been unmovable in his insistence that the Colonel be left to himself.

Knowing that Rodney was just concerned about his friend had done nothing to shake Beckett's resolute compliance with his patient's wishes. He understood the military mind well enough to know that John did not want his team to see any more of his emotional turmoil than they had already witnessed simply because he needed them to maintain confidence in his leadership abilities. Carson knew that this latest illness would leave its mark on the Colonel, and that as difficult as it would be for him to handle the consequences of his emotional symptoms, that task would be made exponentially more difficult if he believed that members of his own team would not be able to overcome the image they had of him being an emotional basket case.

And so Carson had kicked Rodney out of the infirmary time and time again with comforting words and sketchy reports of the Colonel's progress as the man's only reassurance.

"Hi, Carson."

Beckett was shaken from his thoughts by the gravelly sound of Sheppard's voice. He stood to move closer to the sick man's bed and studied him carefully.

"How're you feeling, Colonel?" Carson asked as he noted John's pasty gray complexion and sunken eyes.

"Tired. Head hurts," Sheppard said. He closed his eyes and tried to fuss with the nasogastric tube but was prevented from doing so by the soft restraints that Carson had been forced to use on the Colonel when he had experienced a particularly strong bout of depression. The doctor had feared that Sheppard would use his penchant for ingenuity to hurt himself and so had placed the man in restraints.

"Leave the tube alone, Colonel," Beckett admonished softly. "You're too thin. You need the nutrients it's feeding you."

John nodded uncomfortably and pulled his hands away from his face and the tube.

"I'm afraid that I can't give you anything for your headache right now," Beckett admitted. "We've had so much trouble maintaining your norepinephrine level that I don't want to risk it going haywire again with the administration of a painkiller. Your norepinephrine has balanced out, by the way. How are you feeling? Psychologically, that is."

Sheppard opened his eyes and seemed to consider his emotional status carefully before answering. Looking on as the man mulled over the question, it seemed to Carson as if the Colonel couldn't be sure of how he felt. After what had occurred during the last week and a half, Beckett wasn't surprised by the confused reaction.

"Okay, I guess," Sheppard finally said in a voice that conveyed just how much he didn't trust that self-assessment. "Better," he added after a moment.

"Aye, that's good, son," Carson responded with a tired smile and a pat on the Colonel's shoulder. "That's what I expected. Your latest blood tests show only a slight irregularity in the level of norepinephrine, and I suspect you'll be feeling more yourself within another couple of days."

"That's what you said the last time," Sheppard responded cynically.

Recognizing the implied concern in the Colonel's sharp statement, Carson frowned unhappily. "Aye, it's true that I thought the situation would have improved well before now, but I'm confident that we've seen the worst of it. In fact, I'm going to remove the restraints now, if you don't mind."

The look of alarm on John's face disturbed Carson greatly.

"Are you sure, Doc? I mean, I don't want to hurt anyone."

"Yes, son, I'm certain," Carson made sure that his voice communicated all of the confidence he felt for the Colonel. Then, without a further word, he released the restraints. As he did so, he thought about how close he had come to ordering a second round of ICT/ECT therapy on the man during the past week and felt a great wave of relief wash over him when he realized that a subsequent treatment would be unnecessary. John was now lucid, and it was the first time in a week that Beckett was able to talk to him without the man raging with fury or drowning in a flood of sorrow.

"How long have I been out of it?" Sheppard asked quietly.

"A week and a half, lad. Do you remember anything?"

"Some. Not much," John admitted with a stony expression. "Enough to know that I should thank you, though."

The Colonel could not seem to meet Beckett's eye, and Carson frowned. Sheppard was a proud man, and it would be difficult for him to accept that another human being had seen him in an uncontrollable state, even if that human being was his medical doctor and a friend.

"Ah, don't worry yourself about that, Colonel. I was just doing my job."

John stole a grateful look at Carson and then smiled grudgingly.

"Then maybe you ought to ask someone for a raise, Carson. You look like hell."

Beckett could only imagine the figure he made after a week and a half of constant vigilance. And truthfully, he was more tired and wrung out than he could ever remember being before.

"You shouldn't talk, Colonel. As bad as I look, you look ten times worse," Carson said with mock irritation coloring his voice.

"I suppose I'm in no position to talk," Sheppard responded while eyeing the restraints ruefully. A blurry image of Rodney's pain-stricken face suddenly came to his mind, and he winced at the vague unrest the memory caused. "Listen, Doc, my head's a little fuzzy, so would you mind getting me up to speed with what's been happening? Did I hurt anyone? I seem to recall…well…McKay not looking too happy."

Beckett considered for a moment what to tell the colonel. Though it was true that Sheppard had sent an already torqued up McKay further through the wringer with his incensed outbursts, the doctor did not deem it wise to overwhelm the still obviously weak man with emotional concerns.

"Aye, it's true. The man's been fretting over you the whole while you've been ill. Worked himself into a right set of nerves, he has," Beckett kept his tone decidedly equal and hoped that the usually perceptive colonel would not question him further. After Sheppard re-accustomed to his stable status and the chances for any remission decreased, Beckett figured he could ease the man into accounts of his actions towards Rodney.

But Sheppard looked troubled, and Beckett immediately noted the puzzled look on the man's face.

"No, no it was more than that," Sheppard insisted. "I don't know for sure what's been going on, Doc, but I have the feeling that I may owe some people apologies." Sheppard's eyes drooped tiredly, but he fought his exhaustion and pressed on. "Tell me what happened, Beckett," he commanded gently and then shifted his upper body weakly in an effort to stave off the sleep that he seemed determined to ignore.

With a slight frown on his face, Beckett momentarily watched the indomitable man before softening his expression and adjusting Sheppard into a position that was more conducive to comfortable sleep.

"Aye, lad. I can't deny that there's been plenty of pain to go around for all of us these past few weeks. But now is not the time to dwell on it. You need to rest. I'll tell you all about it when you wake up again."

"But, Doc…." Sheppard's words were a soft murmur that no longer held any power to compel Beckett. Already John's eyes had closed and his body had relaxed into the rough sheets of the infirmary bed.

"It'll keep 'til later, son. Sleep," Beckett commanded.

For once, and to Carson's great relief, the Colonel did as he was told.

888

John woke up from a dream in which he was tossing a stick to a brown mutt with lop-sided ears to find Rodney staring at him with worried eyes. He felt sweaty and weak and did not appreciate the audience. The frustration he felt at being observed was furthered by the dream and its reminder of his memory loss. Moving slowly, he shifted into a more comfortable position and scrubbed viciously at his gritty eyes.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked Rodney.

"Around."

"That so doesn't answer my question."

"It wasn't meant to."

Rodney's inadequate response increased John's frustration ten-fold, and he changed the subject to one that he hoped would yield more positive results.

"Listen, I've been talking to the Doc. He told me what you've done for me."

"Done for you or done to you?"

Beckett had informed John that Rodney had been experiencing guilt over his medical condition, so John wasn't exactly surprised by the biting response. He just wished that Rodney had allowed him to gain his bearings so that he could slowly ease his way into this conversation. He wasn't keen to jump right into the melee of an emotionally charged dialogue, but it appeared that Rodney was forcing his hand.

"Rodney, I know what happened, and you really need to stop blaming yourself," Sheppard said with a weary sigh.

Rodney stood in response to the sudden change in subject, and he began to anxiously snap his fingers. John watched as the man's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and his jaw jutted out in typical obstinacy. "Are you telling me that you remember what happened on the Aurora?" he asked dryly. "And don't lie. I can tell when you're lying."

"Oh come off it. You haven't got a clue when I'm lying!" Sheppard exclaimed, offended. Rodney seemed about to protest, but his jaw wisely snapped shut when Sheppard sent a recalcitrant glare in his direction.

John took advantage of Rodney's sudden quiet to consider what he wanted to say next. Despite feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, he didn't want to see it disintegrate into a sparring match. Anyone who had even an iota of an understanding of who Dr. Rodney McKay really was could see that he was suffering under the weight of his guilt. Rodney was doing his damnedest to maintain the façade of normalcy, but to Sheppard's trained eye, the man was deeply distressed. John knew that he had to iron this thing out with the physicist regardless of how uncomfortable the ironing may be. And, he supposed, he would have to use the truth to settle the issue, because anything less would be an insult to their friendship.

"Alright, so no, I don't really remember what happened on the Aurora," John admitted. When he saw Rodney's expression close and his posture become infused with defeat, he hurriedly added, "But I've talked to Teyla and Ronan. Even had a discussion with Elizabeth and the Doc. They've filled me in on what happened on the Aurora, and how you might be feeling responsible considering what had happened with the Arc…Arcturus project before that," he inwardly cursed when he stumbled over the foreign word. McKay would notice the slip.

"How do you expect me to believe that you have any real understanding of what I put you through when all you've experienced is a second-hand accounting of what happened! No one else was actually with us when we went back to Durandanes or when I subsequently destroyed an entire solar system! And…well, you can't even pronounce the project title correctly!"

Sheppard winced at the expected accusation and again cursed his previously inept pronunciation. He wished that Rodney had not picked up on the stumble, and for once he would have liked to have been disappointed about one of his insights into Rodney McKay's personality traits.

"Well, in all seriousness, Rodney, could I actually pronounce the project title correctly before the whole memory loss fiasco?" he replied in a weak attempt to inject some humor into the conversation.

Rodney almost smirked in amusement at the remark, but then defeat twisted his mouth into a tight frown and forced him back into the chair beside Sheppard's bed. "That has nothing to do with it," he muttered colorlessly. He bent his head and seemed to sink into himself. "How can I take comfort in anything you have to say when you can't remember what I did to you?" he asked forlornly and without taking his gaze away from the floor.

Sheppard heard the unspoken words of raw need behind the subtle plea and experienced an urgency that he had not felt up to this point. In something akin to shock, he suddenly realized that Rodney was falling apart at the seams, and that the only thing between the physicist's normal approximation of sanity and a total emotional shutdown was Sheppard's faulty memory and less than eloquent way of conversing about feelings.

"Listen, McKay, you're right. I don't remember anything about what happened on the Aurora, and I obviously don't directly remember what happened on Durandes. But I'm not an idiot, and anyone can see that you've determined that the two situations are monumental screw ups on your part."

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Rodney interjected dryly. He stood up again and, much to John's dismay, looked prepared to flee.

"Rodney, did it ever occur to you that I might need to take some responsibility for what happened?" John asked.

Rodney switched his attention away from the door and back to his teammate. "You need to take some of the responsibility?" he asked incredulously. "Now that's rich! I blow up an entire solar system, and you think you should be responsible."

"It was only three-quarters of a solar system," John muttered defensively in an effort to give himself some time to think of the right thing to say next.

"Alright, three-quarters of a solar system!" Rodney echoed sarcastically. "Still, do you mind telling me how you are responsible for my actions?"

"Listen, McKay, from all accounts you were a bit overzealous when it came to the project, but apparently I went along with your plans. From what I've been able to determine of the situation, there was no reason to rush the testing, no reason to expect the Wraith would intercept the weapon at anytime in the near future. I'm military. If I allowed us both to go there just to appease your ego, then I made just as big a mistake as you did."

Rodney did not appear mollified. "I asked you to trust me, and it almost got you killed," he stated dejectedly.

"It was a mistake," John conceded. "And it was my mistake as well as yours. Besides, you didn't get us killed."

"Yeah, I remember using that argument in my own defense. You didn't appreciate it at the time," Rodney responded dryly.

"Well forgive me for being human, McKay!" John spat out angrily. "I'm telling you now that I accept part of the blame for that situation, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise!"

Rodney still did not appear to be completely placated, but at least he did seem to consider John's position carefully. John suddenly realized that he had presented an argument that Rodney could not counter-argue, and that the man was processing the information as the intellectual equivalent of a check in a game of chess.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Rodney suddenly said in a hollow tone that dashed Sheppard's hopes of ending the conversation quickly. "I made the same mistake on the Aurora, and okay, so that didn't get you killed either, but it certainly wasn't a walk in the park for you."

"Rodney, you aren't responsible for what happened on the Aurora. That situation was different."

Suddenly he had Rodney's full and trembling attention, and yet he didn't understand what he had said that had earned such a response from his friend.

"How? Tell me how, please. You were going to before, but then you went all gorky on me…."

"Gorky?" John's puzzlement forced him to interrupt Rodney's appeal. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. Just tell me what you mean when you say that the situation on the Aurora was different. Because from where I'm sitting, it's the exact same thing," McKay's voice had taken on a lost yet adversarial tone that set John's teeth on edge.

"McKay, for someone who is always claiming to be so smart, you can be really dumb sometimes, you know that?" John growled. He was quickly starting to get too tired to think clearly, but he wanted a suitable resolution to this conversation and the trouble surrounding it before he gave into his weaknesses. He closed his eyes in an attempt to gather strength and found himself fighting bone deep weariness.

"There are many ways in which the situation on the Aurora was different," he said slowly. "But the one that sticks out, for me at least, is that you weren't reckless with my life and with the lives of the rest of the team. You stopped thinking of your own self and considered the others. That's a significant difference in my book."

"But…."

"You wanted to go into the pod, and by all accounts, I'm the one who insisted on going in. You even argued against it," John responded quickly without letting McKay have a word in edgewise. "Again, McKay, I'm the one who was responsible for this situation."

McKay considered John's words momentarily, and Sheppard was dismayed to see that heavy guilt still weighed down the man's posture.

"I told you it was safe. You trusted me, and I was wrong," Rodney mumbled in such a soft voice that John could barely hear him.

"That's true, Rodney, but what else were we going to do? The Wraith were coming, and this was an opportunity to interact with Ancients and garner information about them that you and I both know this city needs. It was a sound, tactical decision to enter the virtual environment. What else could we do? We take risks in this job, McKay, in case you haven't noticed. We have to trust ourselves to make the best decisions that we can. I trust you to do that. Why can't you trust yourself?"

"But I was so selfish with the Ancient weapon, I…."

"That's over! Let it stay in the past!" Sheppard interrupted through gritted teeth. He was unwilling to let McKay backslide to what he considered was a flawed argument.

Rodney studied the sincerity on John's face, and then his jaw snapped shut as he recognized there was nothing more to say. His choices were to accept the Colonel's forgiveness and continue contributing to the society of Atlantis or to ignore his friend's generous gift and go crazy in the process.

"You people would never make it without me," he attempted to say in his usual, cavalier way, but he was so affected by Sheppard's willingness to forgive that the words came out only in a broken whisper.

John didn't hear the words, but he saw the lines of worry on Rodney's face ease and his stiff posture relax. John felt the tension in his own muscles dissipate, and his body shook with the exhaustion that the combined effects of his illness and the conversation had bestowed upon him.

An uncomfortable silence reigned until McKay uneasily cleared his throat.

"So, uh," he began, discomforted by the awkward need to change the subject. "Ummm, so when is Beckett letting you out of here?"

Sheppard grimaced. "Whenever I'm able to walk across the room without my legs giving out on me. Beckett keeps telling me that the weakness will fade with time, but until then, he's not letting me out of his clutches."

"Yeah, about that," Rodney began and felt another rush of sudden guilt, but now that he had almost accepted Sheppard's position on the nature of culpability, he resolutely pushed the guilt away. The Colonel would not appreciate Rodney belittling the man's previous offering of forgiveness by wallowing in more self-reproach. "I'm sorry for shocking the hell out of your brain. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and besides, you weren't using those brain cells anyway."

"What're a few brain cells between friends?" John asked, weakly. Rodney suddenly noticed the man's eye contact slip, and self-doubt tinge Sheppard's expression.

He eyed Sheppard knowingly and considered the possible causes for the disconcerting behavior in his friend.

"I would have expected you to be more anxious to leave. At this point in your convalescence you're usually drawing up complicated escape plans that have Carson reaching for his pointiest needles at the slightest sound."

"I'm just tired," Sheppard claimed. Looking at him, Rodney had no doubt that the man was telling the truth. He was too thin, pale and shivering, but McKay still suspected that there was more to the Colonel's reticence than simple fatigue.

"Are you sure that's it?" Rodney carefully asked around his suddenly dry mouth. He wasn't used to showing concern by talking about it. He much rather preferred to demonstrate his worry with loud, caustic words that never really drove to the root of the problem.

For his part, Sheppard felt like the proverbial kid with his hand in the cookie jar. This time around his health had seriously jeopardized his emotional well being, and he found himself uneasy and unaccustomed to his own mind. He remained on edge about the unpredictable status of his condition, and the worry was beginning to eat at him. He supposed the right thing to do would be to talk to someone about it, but it just wasn't his way. He also wasn't sure if he wanted to burden someone who was still recovering from his own distress by discussing his doubts and worries.

But after a few moments of nervous deliberation, he found himself hoarsely blurting out his uncertain thoughts. "What if I'm still crazy? What if things never really get back to normal? What do I do?"

Rodney's response was to be quiet for so long that Sheppard had a moment to wonder if he had really voiced his concerns out loud. But he had only seconds to hope that he had imagined the outburst before Rodney cleared his throat and attempted to answer the desperate questions.

"Trust yourself," he said with gentle irony that was not lost on John. "There is nothing chemically wrong with your brain anymore, and your EEG is normal. You're sane, or rather as sane as you ever were, and barring any other Pegasus galaxy-sized disasters, that's the way you're going to stay."

John considered the words and recognized the truth of them.

"I can accept that," he said simply.

"Wow! I'm good!" Rodney exclaimed, much to Sheppard's confusion.

"What the hell are you talking about now, McKay?"

"Well, look at how long it took you to convince me that everything's fine, and here it only took me a few seconds to convince you of the same thing. Just call me "Magic Words" McKay from now on."

"That had nothing to do with you!" John responded in a tone that expressed annoyance he did not actually feel. "I simply decided to make things less complicated than you did!"

Rodney snorted. "Either that or you're just plain simple."

"McKay, I'm going to ignore you now," John said. His eyes drifted closed of their own accord, and his breathing evened out. But John had been asleep for less than a minute when an urgent thought caused his breathing to hitch and his awareness to return. It took a monumental effort, but he was able to force his eyes open and stare hazily at Rodney again.

"I'm sorry about yelling at you so much," he muttered in a painfully remorseful tone. "Thanks for coming back." He blinked heavily during the entire apology and then involuntarily drifted off to sleep as soon as the last word left his mouth.

"That's what friends are for," McKay answered and felt a deep sense of satisfaction at being able to apply the trite statement to someone with whom he was acquainted. Determined to stay until Sheppard came back from unconsciousness, Rodney settled into the hard backing of the plastic chair.

888

"Ronald? What the hell kind of name is that for a dog?" Beckett heard Sheppard's incredulous voice which was directed at McKay, and he lifted his head from his paperwork to listen to their strange conversation.

"How the hell should I know? This is your dog we're talking about after all."

"Never mind, just give me another one."

"Okay, Rufus."

"That's worse than Ronald!"

Beckett barely concealed a smile as he listened from his office to the two men arguing with one another. The sound of the animated conversation was pleasing to his ears because it indicated that some resemblance to normalcy had returned to his infirmary. John had been moved from the isolation room to a curtained off area of the infirmary the previous day, and Beckett was pleased to note that his patient was finally regaining the strength of his arms and legs. The Colonel was still abysmally thin, but the nasogatric tube had been removed, and Carson was hoping that he would be able to start Sheppard on a soft food diet within the day.

But the most notable and happy changes that had taken place had been to both Rodney and Sheppard's frames of mind. Carson was relieved to see that McKay and Sheppard appeared to have resolved the majority of their issues with one another, and he relished the standard sounds of their odd friendship. Despite the fact that the two men could irritate him to the point where he found himself throwing bedpans, he considered them both friends. And as a friend, he was happy to put up with the annoyance of their snarking since it was an indication of both their physical and emotional well-beings.

Beckett smiled and closed the file he was working on. He had just reached his hand out to grab the next folder from the never-ending pile that was stacked on his desk when a joyful cry issued from behind the curtain and drew his attention.

"That's it! THAT'S IT!" Sheppard crowed.

Beckett smiled with satisfaction and turned away from the paperwork. He quickly left his office as he heard the Colonel and McKay raucously celebrating and rushed to the curtained area. He planned on chastising the two men for being overly loud in his infirmary.

But first he would make sure to find out the name of that dog of Sheppard's.

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