Title: Images
Author: Heather F
Disclaimers: Not mine, no money made
Warnings: None, except my version of grammar and spelling.
Characters: SGA-1 and Beckett
Ratings: G, there is hardly a dirty word muttered.
Spoilers: None
All mistakes are mine: they do not belong to the beta(s), no one but mine. The betas try hard, they teach me many things about grammar---my learning curve is a plateau.
Plot: Sheppard's recollections on mission that went sour
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Part 1 of 2
Teyla and Sheppard stopped at the balcony doorway. In the gentle late afternoon breeze, light strands of hair wisped free from the Athosian's hair tie.
Sunlight flared through the glass, deflected in multiple directions and flooded the hall in a soft triangle of light. A cool ocean breeze whispered in through the partially closed door, keeping heat from building in the corridor. The faint, cloying smell of ocean spray tantalized the air. White cumulous clouds hung low in the sky contrasting sharply with the deep brilliant blue of a quiet day.
It reminded Sheppard of autumn back on Earth.
Not home.
Atlantis was home now. His friends, his team, his community lived on Atlantis.
Not Earth.
The ocean rolled just below. The soft, continuous pounding of waves against the city piers was soothing. The sound was rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Their tireless motion rolled like the lub-dub of a healthy beating heart.
This particular section of pier was out of the way, off the beaten path, adjacent to corridors not used to a lot of foot traffic.
It was quiet. Not abandoned.
Through the glass doors, hidden in broad daylight near the edge of the pier in a chaise lounge, lay a body. A fishing pole was supported in a make-shift holder, and a tackle box lay partially open and ignored.
Beckett lay sprawled in the reclining chair, a victim of the sedative like effects of painkillers. A coffee mug rested in a semi-curled, lax hand. Steam had long ago ceased spiraling from surface of the cooled dark tea. The thick mug rested on the arm of the chaise lounge, balancing precariously just at the edge of the hard plastic.
A rugged, well used pair of hiking sneakers rested beside the foot of the chair, one lay knocked to its side, neither shoe untied.
General O'Neill had been gracious with his ordinances for Atlantis: Plasma TV, DVDs, and furniture for the balconies. The general was not extravagant, but he understood the importance of comfort and the implicit need for escape.
Each arrival of the Daedalus heralded another unexpected article of comfort from the general.
Sheppard doubted that it was truly with the blessing of the SGC.
Teyla and the colonel stepped quietly through the sliding doors. Cool ocean air whispered by, wrinkling Sheppard's black t-shirt and lifting Teyla's loose strands of fine long hair.
Beaded sweat dried and a thin film of ocean salt intermingled with the dried perspiration.
A navy blue sling kept Beckett's left arm snug to his chest. Fattened, bruised fingers curled from the partially chewed cotton cuff of a blue cast, which ran from phalanges to the distal humerus, keeping the elbow locked at a ninety degree bend. The fingernails of the hand were bruised, chipped and torn. Small cuts--some deeper than others-- crisscrossed the fingertips as well as the pads. No stitches adorned the wounds. Surgical thread was hard pressed to hold digital skin together.
Teyla and the colonel stepped closer, quietly closing the distance from balcony doors to the pier's edge. The slight vibrations of rolling ocean swells crashing along the legs of the piers hummed through the flooring.
Sheppard stared at the sleeping physician. Beckett slept on his back, a leg bent to the side and face rolled away from the sun. Dried sweat glued small strands of hair to the physician's temples and forehead.
Sheppard and Teyla wouldn't be standing there if it hadn't been for Carson.
Rodney wouldn't be down in the infirmary flirting with the conscious world and on the road to a complete recovery, if Carson hadn't been with them.
Ronon would have lost his leg and probably bled out as he defended McKay from the hordes that tried to over run their position.
Teyla would have been torn from them and either died defending herself or broken.
And Sheppard? Sheppard himself had never thought he'd open his eyes again.
Never.
Their survival boiled down to one man simply doing his job, too frightened to do anything else and too stubborn and bullheaded to give up.
Scientists and their ilk were both a blessing and a curse with their damned stubbornness and inability to leave a job unfinished. They placed more soldiers in danger with their dogged determination and pinpoint focus, but in turned they had saved more lives with their steadfast faith in science and their ability to pull the magic rabbit from their hats in times of dire crisis.
Last minute rescues and down to the wire scientific intervention were more the norm than the exception in Atlantis.
Sheppard cursed the scientists and the medical divisions; more accurately he cursed the section heads as much as he trusted them.
Sheppard swore, more times than not, Rodney and Carson's ears were merely for cosmetic purposes. They had no true function, except maybe to make their heads appear symmetrical.
McKay and Beckett certainly didn't use them to listen.
The colonel figured the ability to utilize common sense and to listen to sound, well grounded advice must lessen with each doctorate attained. McKay was running on empty. Beckett was just this side of 'E'.
The same contrary ignorance that dogged the leaders of the scientific and medical division also kept others alive. The contrary nature of those two was frustrating on a good day but made them indispensable more times than not, especially on a bad day.
Beckett proved it again just recently on M3X-863. Against all odds, the most timid of the group did what he did best: ignored instincts for self preservation and tended the sick and wounded. In the end, that dogged determination saved his friends. Saved SGA-1.
Sheppard stood at the edge of the pier with Teyla at his side.
Beckett slept oblivious, wrapped in the heavy slumber of a drug induced nap.
The colonel's last memory of that planet was of Beckett leaning over McKay's chest. Carson had been applying desperate pressure with a heavy quilted bandage. The bandage had been hastily bunched around a protruding crossbow bolt.
Blood speckled Rodney's face, coated Carson's hands and wrists.
And there was mud. Lots of mud.
For Sheppard the quiet rhythmic sounds of the crashing ocean swells dissipated, replaced with the sounds of attacking villagers. The whistle of short and long arrows had streamed steadily and with such rapid frequency that they had become a thin curtain of noise.
The sky had almost turned grey with the trajectory of bolts.
The Colonel remembered focusing on McKay's faltering chest. Beckett's wrists and hands were splotched unevenly with blood. The quilted field dressing and McKay's darkening, partially zippered coat dripped fat crimson droplets of blood. They were a sharp contrast to the pale, nearly blue-grey skin of Rodney's exposed neck.
His jugular pulses were visible. Not a good sign. Sheppard remembered thinking that wasn't a good thing to see. Not at all.
The thick bandage had slowly wicked light pink then a deepening red, which quickly seeped to a deep maroon. Sheppard had seen the terror in Beckett's eyes as his hands turned red with Rodney's blood and jellied clots strung between his fingers.
The colonel remembered staring at Beckett's vivid blue eyes when the doctor glanced at him. There was fear in them--wild, unadulterated, terror. It was fear, not of the attacking tribesmen determined to dismember them, but fear of losing a friend.
It had knotted Sheppard's gut with trepidation, anger and great loss.
Beckett feared many things: the gate, the wraith, Michael, Kolya, but never in all the years that the colonel had known Carson had he seen fear in the Doctor's eyes when it came to a patient. Sheppard had witnessed flashes of hope, anger, determination and even resignation, but never bald fear.
The sight of horror on Beckett's muddied face as he leaned stiff armed over Rodney's darkening chest drove a terrible spike of loss through Sheppard.
Beckett was losing a dear friend under his desperate hands.
Sheppard had known all along the time would come when he would lose a member of his team, that Beckett wouldn't be able to perform the miracle. It wasn't unheard of, wasn't unlikely, not even unusual, but it was wrong. Horribly wrong.
That was all Sheppard remembered--Beckett's crystal blue eyes bare with terror, his hands ineffectively trying to keep McKay's blood within his body, but failing knowingly.
Arrows and bolts had arced from the sky, raining down around the off world team like hail. They skewered the ground around them. Some whistled parallel to the ground and embedded deeply into the muddy bank all around them.
He remembered looking up at the blue sky through the canopy of trees. It wasn't a good day to die, and it wasn't a good day to lose friends. His P-90 lay within his open hand, fingers motionless despite his desire to move.
He couldn't move. Nothing worked, nothing responded.
Sheppard had closed his eyes, thinking he'd never open them again.
He had been wrong.
The colonel fully woke 13 hours later, with a pounding headache, distant nausea, and blurred vision. He lay in clean scrubs, wrapped in a blanket, in the infirmary with a square bandage taped around his forehead.
Ronon had sat at his side.
It was two days ago Atlantis had almost seen the loss of SGA-1 to a primitive planet of a fierce, aggressive tribesmen.
Ronon had limped his way from the infirmary after quietly stating, "It's good to see you alive, Sheppard." From that moment on, Ronon filtered in and out of the infirmary following his own whim and timetable. Sheppard couldn't find a pattern in it.
The colonel rolled his head, searching for the rest of his team. Fear pounded his heart. He hadn't come to the realization he could move again. That relief would come later. Instead, he found some ease in seeing Teyla sitting next to Rodney in the next bay over.
He stared at them. Rodney lay deathly still at a slight incline with numerous lines and leads running under blankets. Monitors screens displayed dancing lines and blinking numbers. Nothing screeched or whistled. Blood no longer freckled Rodney's pale face.
The colonel's eyes eventually fluttered closed.
Every time he found himself awake, Sheppard turned his head to stare at McKay, to re-affirm that Carson's terror had been unfounded, premature.
He gave no thought to Beckett's whereabouts. Carson was like an old comfortable, reliable boot--always around somewhere, just disguised in the background.
Sheppard would roll his head, blink and stare.
Teyla had hung onto Rodney's splinted hand, mindful of the fractured bones but conveying strength to her struggling teammate. McKay's eyes would flicker open for brief moments, staring at nothing. During those times Teyla would lean into his field of vision, smile and tell him all would be okay. Rodney's eyes would flutter closed. Teyla would settle back into her chair and wait for the next time those blue eyes blinked opened.
From his assigned bed in the infirmary, the colonel searched for Beckett, hoping to find the physician. He didn't have to look too hard. The physician, whose first love was research, could be found reading charts, writing orders and keeping an eye on his patients. A sling kept his left arm snug close across his midsection. The hint of a blue fiberglass cast was visible and, when not holding a pen, Beckett would absently massage the swollen fingers of his injured arm.
One early morning, from the entranceway of his office, Carson turned and caught the colonel staring at him. Beckett returned the stare, and then smiled almost embarrassed and backed into the safety of his office.
From his bed, Sheppard stared at the empty doorway. A partial weight was lifted from his chest. The startling blue eyes had lost that liquid clear pool of raw terror.
The colonel never wanted to see that kind of naked fear again in the face of a friend.
Perhaps not anyone, maybe not even an enemy. Though that last part he couldn't attest too. He had hated before, and would hate again.
It was only a few days later that the colonel was released from the infirmary by Beckett himself.
Sheppard's inquiry at their survival only earned him a wan smile, a shadow of recalled fear in tired eyes, resigned shake of the head and a mumbled, "A miracle, a bloody miracle. Ronon is a murderous miracle worker." It was followed by a soft "Thank God," which was heart felt and muttered with conviction.
Carson walked away then, rubbing at the knuckles of his injured hand and disappeared into his office.
Morrison, Beckett's surgeon, had filled in some of the gaps. Rodney's chest wounds, though serious, were not going to kill him or get him shipped back to Earth. How Carson had managed to keep McKay alive on the planet was still inexplicable. But there was a reason why the man was their CMO.
There was unadulterated awe in Morrison's words and Sheppard found it both frightening and comforting.
Beckett really was that good, that skillful.
Ronon's leg would heal with time. Infection had not set in and they hoped to keep it clean. The muscle would mend, the nerve damage was temporary.
The midshaft fractures in Carson's forearm would heal within a few weeks. The bruising and soft tissue damage surrounding the fracture site indicated blunt force trauma. The soft tissue injury would be painful confined within a cast. A splint was out of the question.
Beckett had lost the privilege of a splint when the CMO discovered they made good bait if dipped in pickle juice. The Atlantis version of Sea Bass had recently been fed one pickle dipped splint one nibble at a time.
Sheppard had stared slightly confused at Dr. Morrison. The surgeon had misunderstood the quizzical expression and further clarified it was unclear how Carson managed to discover the proclivity sea bass had toward pickles or synthetic splint material. However, the man was inquisitive by nature and a researcher not to mention amateur fishing fanatic.
The colonel carefully shook his head.
He hadn't remembered any trauma befalling Beckett before or after Rodney took a bolt to the chest. McKay had saved Teyla's life with a simple purposeful step.
The look of surprise on McKay's face would have been comical if it had not been so surreal and terminal. Wide eyes, staring down at his chest at the short sturdy piece of smooth wood adorned with sharp brownish feathers protruded from his chest. He had then lifted his chin and stared at Sheppard as if to say, 'can you believe this?'. Then Rodney had crumpled to the ground, falling to his side and rolling slightly onto his front, nearly snapping the protruding bolt.
The surprise hadn't belonged on McKay's face. The action bespoke of the man's dedication to his team. However, the shock perhaps was in lieu of the pain or maybe the lack of pain caused by having a cross bow bolt sticking from one's thoracic cavity.
The blood had come quickly afterward. Relentless, thick and tireless in its egress from the body.
Sheppard wondered what surprised McKay more, the fact that he took a potentially fatal and unselfish step to protect a friend and teammate or the fact that it really didn't hurt as much as expected.
He hoped it was the latter, because Rodney's actions were not surprising.
Sheppard wondered if McKay understood that. The thinking Rodney, the analytical scientist, was frighteningly intelligent but often bumbling. The instinctual Rodney was quick and incredibly steadfast, if not a little trigger happy.
McKay worked on two levels.
There was the brain and then there was the unthinking person.
Both were rather frightening. And when brains and instinct clashed, spectacular moments of brilliance erupted, but sometimes, mute, arrested, wide eyed shock occurred. It was a crapshoot most times what would be the result. Extreme pure McKay genius or wide eyed 'oh shit, we're doomed,' McKay clarity.
Sheppard had pondered the events back on the planet as he had lain in the infirmary drifting between bouts of consciousness. He struggled with them during spats of deep sleep where nightmares grabbed hold, paralyzed their victims and tormented them. He would awaken drenched in sweat, breathing hard, afraid to move and would lay perfectly still, listening to the monitors that surrounded McKay. Occasionally, Ronon would be there, a dark shadow slouched in a chair. "We're okay, Sheppard," was all Ronon would state. It was all that was really needed.
In the daylight hours, Ronon would be gone.
The violent events back on the planet played out haphazardly day and night. Sheppard searched for Beckett, hoping to get more from the doctor about what had transpired after Rodney had been struck down.
Beckett proved to be tactfully elusive, both physically and verbally.
After being released from the infirmary, the colonel had found Ronon. The Satedan was quieter than usual. Pulling information from Dex was something akin to pulling a tooth.
In the end, Ronon had stated that Beckett had saved them.
Sheppard wasn't surprised at the incongruity between the two versions of what happened. Point of view, perspectives and experiences color a person's account of a situation. Truths were often mired in personal conjecture.
Eyewitness accounts were only as good as the eye which did the witnessing, and the brain that it was connected to, and the intelligence that sifted, categorized and interpreted the information. Eyewitness accounts were like myths and legends; there was a kernel of truth surrounded by greys of conjecture.
Beckett's forearm had been broken when he had blocked a club, preventing it from caving in the colonel's forehead, while still maintaining pressure on McKay's chest wound with the other hand.
Ronon admitted to dispatching that particular warrior with a sharp twist of his bare hands. A humanoid neck was not meant to travel greater than 180 degrees. Perhaps even less, especially with a twisted upward angle of the point of the jaw which was mirrored with an equally downward angle of the occipital and temporal bones.
Teyla's unconscious body had remained where it had fallen just in front of Beckett. She had shielded him from numerous attacks as he worked to save McKay. Just as McKay had saved her.
They were a team.
Single minded, focused, battling a lost cause, unwilling to stop and give up.
Beckett either trusted them implicitly to protect him while he worked on Rodney or he was willing to forfeit his life in an attempt to save his friend, or perhaps there was a taint of not wanting to walk away a survivor if all were lost.
Sheppard wanted to believe it was Beckett's steadfast faith in SGA-1 to keep him alive and somewhat safe.
The colonel couldn't dismiss that perhaps it was a combination of all three.