Madison's Moments
Moment Four-Finally
Rated: PG.
Category: Gen, Carson/Rodney/Madison Miller Friendship.
Season: Future Season (thirty years post season three).
Spoilers: Sunday, McKay and Mrs. Miller.
Summary: A Torch Is Passed.
Note: Rendered somewhat AU by Kindred.
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John Sheppard, Major General, United States Air Force, nearly retired, didn't come to Atlantis very often anymore. Not because he didn't want to, but simply because he couldn't. He was too busy. His post was back on Earth now, and it just didn't let him get away very often.
But when he could, he got through the gate to Pegasus. Almost everything was different there now, but Atlantis somehow still felt like home for John. Perhaps it was because Elizabeth had retired on the city, or because Teyla and Ronon were still consultant team members there. Perhaps it was because he had commanded the city briefly, or because he still had comfortable quarters there. John didn't know the reason, but it didn't matter to him.
Atlantis was his home, as much as Earth.
And so he came.
Whenever he could.
This trip wasn't purely for pleasure, but the diplomatic meetings he had to endure were worth it for a chance to visit old friends and see 'his' city in all its glory.
Atlantis had been fully powered and operational for over a decade now, but it still never ceased to amaze the General when he saw it. Atlantis was truly a glorious place.
As he stepped away from the puddlejumper, John ran a hand through his still spiky but now silver hair and looked around. So much had changed, but the jumper bay was exactly the same. The tall general smiled, then sighed to himself.
'Time to get this show on the road,' thought John. The sooner he got his duties done, the sooner he could spend some time with his old friends and his city.
As soon as John's mind wandered to thoughts of his friends, the doors to the jumper bay opened. Doctor Elizabeth Weir, former commander of the city, came through the entry and smiled broadly at the new arrival. Sheppard smiled back and greeted this most special friend.
"Elizabeth! Good to see you!"
"Likewise, John."
Their conversation was never allowed to continue. Any further pleasantries were prevented by a sudden explosion to John's right. Elizabeth hadn't yet reached the General, so she escaped the blast with only a resounding headache and a few minor cuts caused by shrapnel. The force of the fireball hit her only enough to knock her back a few feet.
She immediately called for help as sirens began to blare, sounding the alarm throughout the city.
"Medical and fire control teams to jumper bay two!"
Elizabeth couldn't see much through the wall of fire and smoke in front of her, but as Atlantis' automatic fire control systems kicked in, decreasing the smoke instantly with vacuum action and dumping water and flame-retardant foam on the fire, she began to make out details she could have lived forever without noticing.
Two marines were dead, their bodies so mutilated by the blast that there was no hope of their survival. The men had been John's pilot and navigator. Only three men had been in the bay with Elizabeth when the flames erupted. That left only John to find.
John.
Elizabeth didn't see him at first.
It took a full ten seconds for her to find him.
When she did, the heart that had stopped beating in her chest when the explosion occurred plummeted to her toes and stayed there.
Elizabeth started to move, trying desperately to fight the flames to reach the General's side. She made it only a few feet before strong hands in thick orange gloves pulled her back, away from the fire and her friend.
The fire control team had a pretty good fight on their hands, but it took them only seconds to drag a kicking Elizabeth out of the bay to safety.
The medical team took a quick look at her and immediately sent Elizabeth, under her own power, to the infirmary. She could be checked over once the more seriously wounded victims of the explosion had been treated.
Elizabeth tried to linger, but she couldn't see anything through the mass of people in the doorway to the jumper bay anyway, so she slowly drifted away from the carnage toward the infirmary. As she rounded the first corner she came to, a shout rang out.
"The General's alive! Quick! Get him on the gurney!"
Elizabeth's heart leapt back into her chest and began pounding wildly. A tiny spring of hope began to trickle in her soul. If anyone could live through anything, it was John Sheppard, and if anyone could save him, it was Atlantis' new CMO. Elizabeth believed in miracles with these two involved.
'Come on, John,' she thought madly. 'Hang on-you can beat this.'
Elizabeth's steps quickened. She had a reason to get to the infirmary now.
XXX
Back in the hallway outside jumper bay two, the medical team took charge of their patient with practiced professionalism. Sheppard was unconscious and badly wounded, but alive.
The doctor in charge of the team issued orders left and right as the team moved through the city with their patient. Using the transporters on critical patients was risky, so they moved the 'old-fashioned' way. They pushed a gurney, all the while administering blood, fluids, and drugs to the wounded man.
When they were almost to the infirmary, by some miracle, Sheppard regained consciousness.
XXX
I can't hear.
I can't feel.
I can only see.
And I only see one thing.
I don't know what it is.
It's blue.
And white.
Blue and white. In a pattern. A cross. No, an 'X'.
A blue and white 'X'…a blue and white 'X'…a white 'X' on a blue background…somehow my brain says that can only mean one thing…and somehow I'm comforted. I reach out to my salvation.
"Carson? Am I dead?"
XXX
The moving hand on her arm surprised her for a moment, but when Atlantis' CMO of two months turned to see her patient not only conscious but intently looking at her and trying to speak for a second before eventually, miraculously, succeeding, she was flabbergasted.
"Carson? Am I dead?"
The young female surgeon smiled. She answered her patient quietly, gently whispering in his ear.
"No, John. Wrong on both. But I've got you. You're gonna be ok. I've got you."
As her patient slipped back into oblivion, Madison Miller, CMO of Atlantis, former chief of surgery for Baltimore County Hospital, glanced subtly down at the Scottish flag lapel pin she'd worn every day since graduating from medical school. She smiled, ever so slightly, as she jumped off the edge of the gurney where she'd been riding in order to treat her patient.
Her team had reached the infirmary, and Dr. Miller handed her long time friend over to another doctor as she shouted an order as a consummate professional. John Sheppard was her patient now, and he would receive the best care she could give him as a doctor, which meant that right now, she couldn't be his friend.
"Get him prepped for surgery on the open shrapnel wound to the abdomen after initial survey and stabilization. I'll be waiting."
Madison then stepped into the sterile alcove where she would 'scrub' for surgery using touchless Ancient technology to remove any bacteria and other contaminants from her body before donning her surgical attire.
Fifteen minutes later, Madison Miller, no longer a girl, stood confidently ready to incise John Sheppard's abdomen with her scalpel in an attempt to save his life by removing a large chunk of metal from his bleeding spleen. She allowed herself one final personal thought before getting lost in the injury and forgetting the patient's identity.
'Just hang on, John. I've got you.'
Somewhere, very close by, a long time lingerer to Atlantis, and to Madison, nodded his head with a sweet, proud sadness, and lifted a thought of his own before finally lingering no more.
'Aye, that you do, lassie. That you do.'
With those words, Doctor Carson Beckett finally rested, by his own choice. He was finally at peace. Atlantis was in good hands. Hands he trusted. Hands he had followed since before they first held a scalpel. Carson allowed himself a final look around the city and at his friends, and then he was gone, finally worrying no more.