Title: Device

Author: sparky13

E-mail: T for language

Category: Gen

Feedback: Welcome!

Beta: Huge thanks to Inkling, Kamelion and Karen for their hard work and support!

Spoilers: "The Long Goodbye," little ones for other S2 episodes.

Summary: Beckett, Ronon and McKay are accidentally absorbed into an Ancient device designed to treat mental illness, and now must fight for their sanity…and their lives. Disclaimer: The characters and premise of "SGA" are not mine. Thanks to the creators of the Stargate universe for…everything.

AN: This story takes place immediately following the events of "The Long Goodbye." Spoilers for that episode all over the place.

Part One: Talking Trauma

"Once a patient shows signs of profound shock—hypotension, tachycardia and so forth—they almost always die."

"I wasn't aware."

Carson Beckett leaned back and folded his arms tightly across his chest. He turned his weary eyes towards the ocean. The view from Kate Heightmeyer's office captured both the water and part of the city. Those were his choices.

"Aye, well," he went on. "Most people think that if you stick a couple of IVs in him and get him blinking again that the patient will recover. Not so. Maybe not that day, but eventually, the kidneys begin shutting down, cardiac arrhythmias develop. It's very hard to bring back someone only to lose them in time. Hard on me, but especially hard on the patient's family."

"Yes, I see that."

"It's what people are talking about when they say 'Oh, he was getting better but then took a turn for the worse'. It's not a mystery, really. God doesn't suddenly decide that He really, really meant to bring the patient home, you see? It's not like that. The patient dies because shock kills him."

Heightmeyer said nothing, so he continued. "When someone arrests due to trauma—I'll bet you didn't know this, either—using a defibrillator is contraindicated. It's useless."

"Hmm."

Raising his eyebrows, Beckett sighed, the sound echoing off the walls of Kate's sparsely furnished office. "Still, you want to try. I once witnessed an ED physician cut open a trauma code's chest and attempt using internal paddles. Talk about useless! But doctors, good ones anyway, are like that."

"And you?"

He rubbed his hands along the sofa cushions, gathering his thoughts.

"Look, we're all alone in this galaxy. It's just this expedition. Every member who has died has felt like the death of my own kin."

He shook his head.

"I don't know why I'm talking about this now. Maybe it's the bloody awful weather, eh? One crappy day after the other lately. Reminds me of what this place was like when we first arrived, when it was sunk at the bottom of the ocean."

She gave him a thoughtful look, meltingly kind.

"Are you feeling depressed, Carson?"

The doctor looked up at her sharply. "Ach, nae. No' me. A bit down, perhaps. But clinically depressed? I'd say not."

Back in the day, when he still had control over the choices in his life, he purposely swung his career away from the social sciences. Sociology, anthropology, psychology…they were easy, they were safe. It was nearly impossible to make a fatal mistake. No one got their hands dirty with them. Medicine, especially the sort he'd been practicing lately, was nothing but dirty hands and errors in judgment.

A critically injured man lay in his recovery room right now because of that.

Heightmeyer's patients marched through her office in an orderly fashion. Beckett rarely saw anyone by appointment. He had spent nearly the entire session sitting bolt upright, alternately wedging his hands in his armpits or rubbing them on the seat on which he sat. Perhaps psychiatry would have been a better career choice.

"Has anything happened lately that you found particularly disturbing?"

He looked at her as if she were growing a third arm and smiled tightly.

"What do you think, Kate? I have disturbing experiences every day! Don't you?"

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head.

But Beckett ran with the ball she'd tossed to him.

"If it's not nanoviruses, it's creatures that suck the life out of you with their bare hands, or people taking over other people's bodies. I read the SGC reports before I agreed to be a part of the expedition. They were so bloody strange I couldn't believe half of 'em. None of us did. We didn't expect the Wraith, now, did we? We're all half knackered with that most of the time."

"So you think you're suffering from simple exhaustion?"

He folded his hands in his lap, unable to find comfort.

Weir and Sheppard full of Phoebus and Thalan. Ford, so young and eager, full of Wraith enzyme. McKay full of Cadman. People full of bullets, full of nanovirus, full of retrovirus, full of a cure that kills them.

Some of this was his doing. When had he stopped being cautious?

"Probably," he lied, now uncertain why he had chosen to talk to Heightmeyer. He glanced at his watch. "Look at the time." An impatient goodbye and then he was gone, making his way back to the infirmary.

…..

Ronon Dex lay in the half-world between sleep and unconsciousness, Elizabeth Weir sitting at his bedside. She had been there for a long while, now, waiting for Ronon to wake up. She hadn't said very much to anyone, still not completely over her own horrendous experiences. Beckett knew that Elizabeth would be visiting with Heightmeyer sooner or later, either on her own or by his order. In the meantime she needed assurance that Ronon would recover.

Beckett checked the monitors and recited a litany of good news for his own benefit as much as hers.

"Heart rate's fine, O2 saturation is one hundred percent. No fever. Respirations are 16…" He produced a 'scope from his lab coat pocket and held the bell to his patient's chest. "No rales or ronchi." He activated the automatic blood pressure cuff that encircled Ronon's left arm. "Pressure's up to 112 over 76, practically perfect."

Elizabeth nodded. "I'm glad to hear it," she said, her voice heavy with the stress of caring and the effort of trying not to show it too much. "When is he going to wake up?"

"It was a nasty injury, Elizabeth. A lot of damage at the entry site and cavitation along the bullet's pathway, of course. Sonic pressure injuries, transected small bowel, mild hypovolemic shock…"

"Carson," she held up her hand to ward off further details.

Beckett realized what he had done. "Sorry, dear." He adjusted the peripheral IV drip, rolling the cockstop to allow for a less restricted flow. His patient hadn't eaten in two days. Another few hours and he'd have to begin total parenteral nutrition. A man that big…you didn't mess around with denying him calories.

"His body's been through quite an ordeal. He'll wake up when he's ready. Abdominal injuries can be extremely painful, so I've had him on morphine. Cut it back an hour ago, though. Not completely, of course, but enough to let him come up for air. He should start to rouse by dinnertime."

He looked at her appraisingly. She had picked up on his hint, he knew.

"He knows I'm here, Carson." That was all the explanation she seemed willing to give.

"Aye. Probably."

Returning to his office, Beckett rubbed his temples, then his eyes. He dozed off at his desk, caught in a drifting reverie until Ronon's painful moans woke him. Approaching his patient's bedside, he noticed that Elizabeth was not there anymore.

The Satedan opened his eyes, and then squinted them shut again.

"Hurts," he managed.

And it all began from there.