"No," Shira called, her face damp with tears. She was clinging to a young man who, if appearances were anything to go by, was her son. "Never again shall we be forced to tear out our hearts." Her determined look was directed at Vene.
"Colonel." Lome was standing near Jumper Two's rear hatch. "Are we good to go?"
"Yeah, I'd say so. We're running against the clock here." Taking a step toward the door, Sheppard staggered. Ronon watched him struggle to regain his balance and decided right then that they would ride back with Lorne, even if he had to drag Sheppard by his boots. If Atlantis survived, somebody could come pick up Jumper One later, but he'd rather crawl through the 'gate than allow the injured pilot to attempt to fly again.
Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd noticed. Nabu stepped forward, studying the Colonel. "You are hurt."
Sheppard blinked at him, clearly primed to deny it. "I-"
Nabu reached out and grasped his arms. The effect was immediate. Sheppard's body tensed, his eyes sliding shut. Reflexively, Ronon started forward, reaching for his weapon, but then he stopped himself. Every gut instinct he'd ever depended on told him that Nabu wasn't going to hurt the Colonel.
Sheppard's knees buckled, but the larger man's grip held him upright. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and straightened. "What… What did you do?"
Releasing him, Nabu was dismissive. "It was a small thing."
"Not to me, it wasn't." The pinched, pained look had disappeared, replaced by one of shock and wonder. "You- Do you have any idea what you've just given back to me?"
"Your hearing, and your equilibrium."
Sheppard shook his head, searching for the right words. "My life," he corrected quietly.
While Zelenka joined Lorne in Jumper Two, Ronon and the rest of the group made their way to the other jumpers parked haphazardly outside. Sergeant Witner immediately moved up the ramp into Jumper Four to begin the dialing sequence.
Starting to follow him, Teyla seemed to reconsider. "I will travel with Jumper One, Sergeant." She rejoined the team and turned to Nabu with knowing eyes. "You healed Colonel Sheppard easily," she said. "Why is it that you do not heal the others, or repair your own scars?"
Ronon glanced back at the people who had followed them out of the lab, so many of them physically disabled or deformed in some way. Nabu shook his head. "My abilities are limited. Turpi was the greatest healer among us. But the cost to her was…. great." He cast a shadowed smile in McKay's direction, but the scientist appeared too wrapped up in his sorrow to take notice. "She could restore any living thing that had been damaged by injury or disease, by directing the cellular structure to return to the pattern that was set at birth. But she could not change a pre-existent structure. Hence, she could not amend a physical deformity-except her own. Turpi held the power to transform herself into the most beautiful creature of your dreams. Yet she would not."
"Why not?" said Sheppard, walking up the hatch of Jumper One.
Entering the jumper alongside Nabu, Ronon watched through the windshield as the vortex of the 'gate shot out, then stabilized. The Polrusson's gaze moved across the interior of the unfamiliar machine, but he did not reply.
Surprisingly, McKay was the one to respond. He sat down heavily, not looking at any of them as he answered. "Because she loved the children too much to set herself apart from them."
Teyla's expression was uncertain. "I do not understand."
Ronon silently agreed.
Nabu looked down at McKay. "Perhaps not. But he does."
Jumper Five's return with the first ZPM had obviously extended Atlantis's lifeline. When Jumpers One, Two and Four emerged from the 'gate, it was to a deserted control room. Still, some minimal equipment was operating, and the ceiling retracted as usual to allow them into the jumper bay.
John put Jumper One in its customary parking place and shut it down, then ushered his group out into the bay. His foot had just hit the deck when the entire room rolled. Narrowly avoiding a faceplant, he glanced around at the others to make sure he hadn't been the only one to feel it. Figures. I get my balance back and the city starts wobbling for real.
Teyla's brow furrowed and she shared a look with Ronon. "I hope there is still time."
Only seconds passed before the doors opened to admit Elizabeth. Her gaze took in the group as a whole, quickly coming to rest on their chief scientist. "Rodney, thank God," she said, relief written openly on her face. "Are you all right?" She grasped the edge of a jumper to maintain her balance when the floor beneath them pitched again, this time in the opposite direction. Definitely not a good sign.
Rodney's mumbled "Debatably" was almost inaudible under the noise from the storm outside.
When Elizabeth's focus shifted to John, something hardened. Inwardly wincing, he prepared himself for the fallout that was sure to come as soon as all this was over. He'd taken a risk, and he'd known from the start that he'd have to live with the consequences.
"And you?" she asked neutrally.
"I'm fine. Thanks to our visitor here." John gestured. "Doctor Elizabeth Weir, meet Nabu."
Her eyebrows shot up at the name, and she examined his face closely. "Not a Wraith, then?"
"Not so much."
"I have knowledge of the exogenesis machine that Ea used here." Nabu held out the second machine. "I can program this to counteract its effects."
The mention of Ea's name told John that Nabu had been fully briefed by Rodney. When the tall Polrusson had produced the machine back inside the lab, John had assumed that either his vertigo or Beckett's drugs had been messing with his vision. But now he was sure that there was something weird about the silvery-gray cylinder. The surface was textured like a knobby piece of wood, the knots of which held recessed pieces of. luminous amber, maybe? Whatever the stuff was, it seemed to slip in and out of focus.
When Rodney, who was still clearly not firing on all cylinders, reached out to touch it, Nabu held up a cautioning hand. "The device has been shielded. However, it does not draw its temporal energy from this dimension, and so it is not entirely set within our time frame. You may experience extreme disorientation when handling it."
That declaration seemed to jolt Rodney out of his reverie. His head snapped up. "It employs a temporal field? Of course! Janus helped Atlas develop it-which would explain how it effects change at such a vastly accelerated rate"
Elizabeth's smile was as close to impatient as John had ever seen. "This all sounds fascinating, gentlemen, but we're under something of a time limit here. Perhaps you'd care to discuss it after the current situation has been rectified?"
Her statement hauled Rodney entirely back into scientist mode. He led them out of the bay with a brisk stride, babbling about temporal distortion fields and quantum states, or maybe it was strings. If his rapid-fire delivery was even more manic than usual, well, John could deal with whatever coping strategy Rodney employed to keep himself going. It didn't take a genius to recognize that anything capable of cracking Rodney McKay's shell must have been a profound experience.
Nabu nodded politely, his eyes taking in everything as he fol lowed close behind. John understood how he felt. Even rocking back and forth like a rowboat, Atlantis far exceeded the lab on Polrusso in terms of sheer scale and sophistication.
On the way downstairs, Elizabeth said to John, "Except for the volunteer crew working to get Daedalus ready, we've evacuated everyone to the Alpha site." The city lunged again, and she fell heavily against him. "Sorry," she muttered, then sent him an odd look when he steadied her. "Carson said… Never mind. Your inner ear really is all right?"
He tossed her a humorless grin. "Let's just say that, if I lose my flight status, it won't be due to a medical condition."