Summary
Dr. Weir awakens in a mental hospital. When she asks when
she got back to Earth, she's told she never left. Dr. Fletcher
tells her that she collapsed while negotiating a nuclear
non-proliferation treaty. Weir recalls negotiating that
treaty over two years before, but Fletcher tells her it
was only days ago. She's been in the hospital in a near
catatonic state ever since. When Fletcher doesn't seem
to know anything about Atlantis, Weir asks to see Gen.
O'Neill.
O'Neill pays Weir a visit in the hospital, but he doesn't
know anything about Atlantis or Stargate Command, either.
While talking to Weir, O'Neill's head starts to morph into
another form (Sheppard's, actually) before returning to
normal. After O'Neill leaves, Weir tries to escape the
hospital, but she's caught and sedated.
Later, Fletcher visits Weir in her room. He's made several
calls to the Pentagon and has been assured that there is
no Stargate program, no Atlantis base in another galaxy
and no Department of Homeworld Security. He believes that
her condition was brought about as a reaction to a car
accident three weeks earlier in which she survived, but
Simon Wallace was killed. Weir doesn't believe him. After
all, she remembers Simon being alive well after she began
the Atlantis mission. As Fletcher is talking, Weir sees
a shadowy figure outside her door.
Weir walks with her mother on the hospital grounds. She
says that she can't believe the last two years were a figment
of her imagination. Weir's mother hands her father's pocket
watch to her. Weir remembers bringing it with her to Atlantis,
and puts her head in her hands and cries.
That night, Weir awakes and sees the shadowy figure again,
this time from behind a plastic curtain in her room. She
approaches the curtain and the figure tires to press it's
way through the curtain, scaring Weir. She screams and
heads for the door, running into Fletcher. When she looks
back into the room, there's no curtain and no figure.
Fletcher increases Weir's medicines in order to alleviate
her "acute symptoms." Her mother had told him
that as a child she wanted to be an astronaut. He thinks
that Simon's
death made her mind take her as far away from the pain
as possible, to another galaxy. Later, Weir works on a
hospital computer, finding an article on Simon's death.
When a nurse hands her her pills, she pretends to take
them, only to spit them out later. When she starts to have
more run-ins with her shadowy figure (Sheppard), she decided
to actually take the pills the next time.
Fletcher eventually decides that Weir is ready to return
home. O'Neill visits her and convinces her to come back
to the negotiating table. The non-proliferation treaty
is still unfinished. As she falls asleep that night, the
scene around her dissolves and we see that she's still
on Atlantis in the infirmary. Dr. Beckett tells Sheppard
that she's getting worse, and they're losing her.
We find out that Dr. Weir is in a coma. Her body was invaded
by nanites during her brief contact with Niam. They replicated
and have spread throughout her body. Using an EM-pulse
isn't an option as the nanites have integrated themselves
in her system. Trying to wipe them out with an EMP would
likely kill her. In a petri dish, white blood cells attack
and destroy the nanites, but for some reason, Weir's immune
system isn't reacting to the nanites as though they are
a threat. In her mind, Weir returns to work at the UN.
Beckett comes up with an idea which he goes with McKay
to test. Sheppard stays with Weir and talks to her, encouraging
her to fight. In her mind, Weir looks in the mirror and
see her face blurred. She flushes her meds down the toilet.
She later meets with Fletcher, who tells her that he may
have dialed her meds back too far. That night she "awakens"
in her bedroom to see her shadowy Sheppard again and hears
him call her name. She follows him out of the bedroom,
eventually
opening
a door and finding the doorway filled with the event horizon
of a stargate. She tries to step through, but is grabbed
by two orderlies and sedated. She again wakes in the hospital,
with O'Neill telling her she'll be there until she gets
better.
Beckett's idea for getting the nanites to uncouple with
Weir's cells is to bait them with Wraith cells. The nanites
were designed to attack the Wraith, so they'll leave Weir's
cells to attack Wraith tissue that would be implanted in
Weir's leg. Once they've uncoupled themselves from Weir's
cells, an EMP can be used to wipe them out.
In the hospital rec room, Weir tries to play solitaire,
but the cards start coming up as gate symbols. At the same
time, Beckett implants a small amount of Wraith tissue
in her leg and McKay hooks up the equipment to deliver
an EMP through the scanner. Weir begins drawing gate symbols
on a pad. She shows them to Fletcher and O'Neill and tells
them that it's the dialing sequence from Earth to Atlantis.
She tells them that the fact that she remembers the symbols
proves that Atlantis is real, and that if she can get to
Stargate Command, she can go there.
Beckett tells the group that the plan is working. The
nanites are starting to congregate around the Wraith tissue.
McKay delivers the EMP, wiping out most, but not all the
nanites. Since they were replicating using organic tissue,
the remaining nanites are immune to the EMP, and they're
still replicating.
Fletcher corners Weir coming out of the restroom and accuses
her of spitting out her pills. He has the orderlies take
her and strap her to a treatment bed. He then grabs a shock-therapy
device and tells her, "this will hurt."
Sheppard comes up with the idea that the only way the
nanites can take over Weir's body is by taking over her
mind, and that she's actually engaged in a battle of wills.
The nanites want to make her give up, then they can replace
her consciousness (hey, I'm not the one making this stuff
up). Her only hope is to fight. He goes to her and tells
her she's not alone and she has to fight.
Weir sees the shadowy Sheppard again and hears his voice
telling her to fight. She rips free of her restraints,
knocks down the orderlies and flees down the hospital hallway,
following a vision of Sheppard. She enters an elevator
and exits in the SGC. O'Neill shows up, tells her she's
safe at Stargate Command, and asks her to follow him. From
the opposite end of the hall, Sheppard tells her not to
listen, but to come his way. She follows Sheppard, but
runs into two sets of armed guards.
Beckett says that the nanites are multiplying faster,
and they're losing her. Sheppard goes into the isolation
chamber and holds her arm, telling her not to give up.
She see Sheppard clearly now, standing behind the guards,
telling her about the nanites and how she has to fight
them. She runs toward the gate room. The guards shoot at
her, but nothing happens to her. Sheppard is dragged out
of her isolation chamber and put into one of his own.
Weir dials goes to the control room and dials out. Before
she can get through the gate, O'Neill steps in front of
her, telling her he can't let her go. She knows he isn't
really O'Neill and he morphs into Fletcher, then into Niam.
She tells him he can't stop her, but he says he already
has. After all, he made Sheppard disappear. Not listening
to Niam, she walks right through him. He dissolves and
she steps through the stargate. She awakens, this time
for real, in the infirmary.
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