Failure.

Written for the Sheppard H/C comm challenge, 'Loss of a child'. Thanks to Kodiak for her beta skills.

Chapter 1.

"He shouldn't bloody well be here, Rodney. Look at the man. He's barely on his feet! He should be in my infirmary. Lord knows why I let him talk me into this. If he passes out, not only could he knock himself senseless, but he'll probably tear out his sutures, and then God knows what'll…"

I heard Carson's voice rambling on, and knew he was right. Sheppard shouldn't have returned here, to Linaria. He was far too sick to be out of bed, let alone wandering about on another planet. Yet, I knew he had to do this. I understood he had to say goodbye, try and let go of his guilt, and move on. I'd helped persuade Elizabeth and Carson to let Colonel Compassionate head off, against every ounce of common sense in my body, because I knew what he needed to do. After all, I was there too, and to a certain extent, I shared his grief, though not his guilt. That man could out guilt a Catholic priest, for God's sake.

As I watched Sheppard limp and stumble his way to the alabaster dais, and place the iridescent crystal in the appropriate slot, his injured arm pressed to his side protecting his wound there, my heart sank. We were there to honour the life of a person we barely knew, but who had stolen our hearts, Sheppard's more than anyone's. I always said a female would break his heart, and I was right. When aren't I? Only I didn't guess that she'd take mine too, and that she'd only be ten years old.

As Sheppard placed the crystal as he'd been instructed to, the whole room lit up with brilliant light. Shadows danced, and colours streamed above and around us. It was breathtaking, and everything that she was. Light, joy, life, brilliance and purity. It seemed so appropriate to honour her that way.

Sheppard turned and faced the crowd of people. His face was grey, pain etched deeply into his strained features. His left arm, which was resting in its sling, was clenched at his injured right side, and sweat beaded on his creased forehead.

"For Inari. May she rest in peace."

Sheppard's voice was loud and clear, and the distress he obviously felt from Inari's death, and his own physical pain, weren't obvious in his controlled tone. I admired him for that. I couldn't have put in such a compelling performance.

I watched as he nodded at Meldos, and the leader of Linaria nodded solemnly in return. Sheppard then walked slowly towards us, biting his lower lip. Whether it was to control his emotions or to help him battle his pain, well, with Sheppard you never knew, for sure, did you?

He stood next to Carson, Ronon, Teyla and me, and wavered a little, and Teyla put a steadying arm on his. His face remained impassive as we all listened to the meaningless words spewing from the priest's mouth. What a wonderful joy it had been to know Inari, how lucky we all were. How her death meant something. I'd heard it all before, and looking at Sheppard's pained face, I knew he had too.

When it was all finished, and God, did the Linarian's rival the good old catholic masses when it came to laborious, meaningless diatribe and reams of morbid music supposedly celebrating a person's life, we made our excuses and left. Sheppard hobbled along, shrugging away Carson and Teyla's offers of help. He was going to get through this alone if was the last thing he did, and at the rate he was going, it would be.

Sheppard's face was now a ghostly white, and none of us could miss his laboured breathing as he battled to put one foot in front of the other. When we finally reached the jumper, which Lorne had parked on the outskirts of the city, Sheppard's shoulders sagged in relief. I knew he just wanted to get home. He'd done his duty, battled his infirmity and could now go back to his usual self-loathing and self-guilt ritual.

Lorne nodded as we approached, and I noticed Sheppard barely nodding in return.

As he entered the ship, he finally wavered, and none of us were quick enough to catch him as he fell with an audible thud to the hard jumper floor.

"Christ! Did I not say this would happen?" Carson asked in annoyance and concern as he rushed forward to tend to his patient.

As he turned Sheppard over carefully, Beckett tutted as he examined the colonel, and took his vitals.

"Major? We need to get back to Atlantis as soon as possible. He has, in fact, as I bloody well said he would, ruptured his sutures, and is bleeding all over your nice 'jumper. Stupid fool. He's only been four days out of surgery." He looked down at his patient again and sighed as he pressed a wad of dressings into Sheppard's oozing side. "I should never have allowed this. This was a mistake."

"This was necessary, Carson, and you know it," I answered truthfully. "Stop whining and make him better. What's done is done."

The short ride back to Atlantis was tense and quiet. Sheppard was out cold, and Carson wasn't happy with his patient's vitals. He soon had the colonel hooked up to an IV and on oxygen, and tutted through every procedure he carried out. Part of me sympathised with Beckett. His patient's health had been endangered by said patient's insistence at attending a memorial to the little girl he had failed to save. The other, less tolerant side of me wanted to smack Carson around the head and tell him to can it. We all knew Sheppard shouldn't have gone, but what could we have done to stop him? Let him discharge himself and wander off alone? No, Sheppard had asked us, asked me to help him. I wasn't going to let him down, and I hadn't and wouldn't.

I watched numbly as we arrived in the jumper bay and the usual medical team swarmed, sweeping Sheppard away. It reminded me of the scene of chaos that had ensued four days previously, when we'd returned with a barely alive colonel, and a wounded head scientist. Naturally said scientist was the epitome of bravery, ignoring his own bleeding head, in favour of showing concern for his injured team member.

"Rodney. What happened?" Elizabeth's concerned voice brought me back to the jumper seat I was still sitting in.

"Sheppard made it back here, and then collapsed. Carson's not too happy. He'll probably stick me with large needles now."

Elizabeth's face betrayed her anxiety.

"Is he all right?" she asked me sharply.

Why is it, in situations such as that one, somebody always asks you what you can't possibly know?

"I'm not a doctor, Elizabeth. Well, not of the medical variety. How should I know?"

Possibly my words were a little harsh, as she really didn't look too happy. Deciding that perhaps I should throw the poor woman a bone, I filled her in on what I knew.

"He tore his sutures and his vitals weren't too good. He looked pretty sick."

Elizabeth's face paled, and it suddenly struck me how small and vulnerable she was.

"I'm sure he'll be fine. He just overdid it some. Let's go find Carson and see what he's got to say," I tried to reassure her.

We made our way to the infirmary, and wandered in, loitering at the door, well out of the Scottish Whirlwind's way.

After what seemed like an eternity, Carson approached us from behind the privacy screens shielding Sheppard.

"How is he?" Elizabeth asked in a small voice.

Beckett exhaled, and an annoyed expression settled on his face.

"Not good. He ruptured some sutures, and opened his wound again. I've stitched him back up, and have him on fluids to re-hydrate him, as he lost a bit of blood. The wound has suffered a bit of trauma, which I'm not happy about, but it's nothing too bad. He also bumped his head, though it isn't anything too serious. He could well have done without this though."

Elizabeth nodded absent-mindedly, and looked eagerly at the privacy screens.

"You can both poke your heads in, but I don't want him disturbed. Is that understood? He's been through a lot, and he should never been allowed to leave my care. I knew this would end in disaster," Carson complained, in a whining voice.

I exhaled and gave Carson what I hoped was one of my annoyed expressions.

"Well, of course it was always going to end in disaster! Talk about stating the obvious. From the time the mission began to its disastrous conclusion, to now, it's been one unmitigated catastrophe after another." I paused and searched Carson's unhappy face. "He had to go, don't you see? Not just for himself, but for her. If anything half-good is to come out of this, it must be that Inari's death wasn't in vain. As it is, it was pointless. Her death was such a waste." I faltered as I felt myself lose a grip on my precariously balanced emotions. "Is he going to be okay?"

Carson considered my question and massaged the back of his neck.

"Barring any complications, and providing he lets me do my job – yes. I'm optimistic he'll make a complete physical recovery. Emotionally? I'm sure he'll just file everything away in the back of his mind like he always does," he answered sadly.

Elizabeth and I walked to Sheppard's bed and peered through the parted screens. A nurse, Alison I think, was adjusting Sheppard's IV, and writing down something on his chart. She looked up and nodded at us, smiling briefly before continuing with her duties.

Sheppard looked pretty much as he had done for the last four days: pale, sweaty and sick. His hair was stuck to his forehead, he eyes had dark, sunken circles around them, and he looked vulnerable in his infirmary bed.

"Right. You've had a look. I'll call you if there are any changes. You'd both best get some rest," Carson ordered.

As I left, I turned back for one last look as Sheppard, and thought back to ten days previously, and the beginning of our mission.

We'd all been so excited when we'd first met the Linarians, after initially getting off on the wrong foot – nothing new there. A technologically advanced race, which had evaded the Wraith for millennia because of a shield powered by a mysterious device. Who wouldn't be thrilled and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, for once we'd fallen on our feet and found a society that would be prepared to help us the way we'd tried to help other denizens of the Pegasus galaxy? Okay, so more often than not we screwed up and made everything ten times worse for them, but, hey, at least we'd tried. Even a genius makes mistakes on the odd occasion, but I'm trying very hard to let go of Arcturus and move on.

We'd found a strange entry in the Ancient database, talking of a closed society that was peace loving, yet 'corrupt in its very heart'. Well, that was helpful, wasn't it? The good old Ancients enjoyed being cryptic. They couldn't just keep a record of the facts. They thrived on mysticism and metaphor, and didn't that just help me on a daily basis? When I had single-handedly, as usual, deciphered their meandering musings, and found the elusive gate address, we sent a MALP, found nothing of interest and then headed off on our mission of discovery.

Sheppard was as enthusiastic as he always was. Cheerful and laid back – like a small child with a new toy, or a kid on an exciting adventure. I don't think any of us would have been quite so happy on that sunny morning, had we known what lay ahead of us.

Tbc.