Antidotes in the Right Places
Merry must have waited ten minutes before one of the nurses noticed that she had finished her meal. John, of course, had kept up a steady stream of commentary. Once, before a bite of broth, he had made a reference to a bodily function, and she had snorted. His joke had been predictable, but no less funny for it.
The meal had filled her far more than she would have liked to admit. She didn't even need to ask for seconds. The nurse wrote some notes on her chart, and, without another word, walked away. Merry sighed.
John looked at her, with something resembling concern on his face. "What's wrong?"
Merry rolled her eyes. "Nothing. I'm fine."
John pushed himself up, wincing as he pulled on his ribs. "No, you're not. Doctor Keller and Colonel Carter told me what's happening."
She groaned. "Of course they did. Not that it's any of your business."
John growled. "The safety and well being of every person on this base is my concern, especially if that person is…"
Merry glared and interrupted him. "What? Especially if that person is what? Dying?" She clenched her jaw. "Don't look so shocked. I've known for far longer than you. I've come to terms with it."
John raised a brow. "Is that why they found your room completely packed and a letter to your sister?"
Merry's mouth dropped. "What the… You went through my things? How dare you!"
John's face tightened in anger. "You're a member of this expedition! We were concerned…"
Merry crossed her arms. "Well then, go right ahead and do whatever the hell you want!"
John threw up his hands. "I don't know why you're getting so angry! We did it to help you! Carter and Keller thought you might be suicidal, and…"
"And what? They thought a good look through my things would show a pathological attraction to death? Letters to a lost love and all that? No, they found a letter written to a dying girl's sister. They found that said dying girl had packed her things to be shipped back to Earth so that no one else would have to do it for her?"
John snorted. "And that's totally rational, right?"
Merry wanted to scream. "Yes! It's…I wanted…You know what, John? Just go to hell and leave me alone." She crossed her arms.
John's mouth twisted. "So you can be the self-righteous martyr? I don't think so. You're being so selfish right now…"
"Selfish? You're joking, right?" At his blank look, she turned away and began to mumble. "You should be grateful."
John frowned. "What do you mean?"
She started. "What?"
"You said I should be grateful. Why? Because you saved me the trouble of having to pack your things? Of writing a letter to a sister I didn't even know you had? Thanks."
Merry shook her head. "Just leave me alone."
John glared. "No. You want to be a martyr? You'll have to put up with me. I can keep talking all day…"
Merry felt angry tears welling up. Wiping her face, she rolled onto her side. "Go ahead. Talk to yourself all day long."
John growled in frustration. "Talk to me, damn it! I deserve an answer!"
Merry rolled over and looked at him with baleful eyes. "Why? Because you're the military commander of Atlantis?"
"No. Because I care…"
Merry looked away. He stopped, his mouth opened, just as Keller walked between them. The doctor looked at John. "Am I interrupting anything?"
John looked searchingly at the back of Merry's head. "No. Nothing."
Merry watched John roll away before turning to Doctor Keller. Her voice was quite a bit more sarcastic than she had intended. "Yes?"
Keller's eyebrows shot up. "Are you alright?"
Merry nearly sighed, but forced it down. "I'm fine. Sorry. What is it, Doctor?"
Keller smiled. "I believe I told you to call me Jen."
Merry smiled faintly. "Right. What is it, Jen?" She stressed the doctor's name.
Keller looked slightly more pleased. "We found the antidote."
Merry sat up abruptly, ignoring her side. "Really?" She noticed that John had turned his face to them and was listening intently.
Keller's smile widened. "It was in the database. It took a bit of searching and a lot of translating, but we believe we can have it ready by tomorrow morning."
Merry sighed in satisfaction. "Just in time, then."
Keller nodded. "Absolutely. Unfortunately, we need to get it into before the seizures become closer than twenty minutes apart. We estimate that that will begin to happen at about ten o'clock tomorrow morning; we'll be cutting it close."
Merry grinned. "But there's a chance…"
Keller smiled back. "There was always a chance."
John listened as they finished the conversation, talking about sedation and pain regulation. He was in a daze.
Merry wasn't going to die.
It wasn't his fault.
He cut that thought off before he finished it. It wasn't his fault. According to both Keller and Carter, there was nothing he could have done.
You could have told her…He crushed that nagging thought. That had never been an option. No matter what he thought he was feeling, talking would have solved nothing.
He watched Keller walk away, a large grin on her face. Everyone was relieved; he could even see the traces of worry leaving Merry's face, and he'd thought those would never go away. He should be happy.
He was, really. Just not as happy as he thought he'd be. Merry wasn't going to die. That thought should have sent him over the moon.
He just couldn't shake the feeling that something else was wrong.
Merry had let Doctor Keller- Jen, she told herself- finish explaining what was going to happen, but she didn't really hear it.
She wasn't going to die.
She felt, for the first time in days, a weight lift off of her chest that she hadn't known was there. When she felt her face smiling, she knew, without knowing how, that this was how a genuine smile felt. She hadn't smiled like this in days.
One thought kept running through her mind. She wasn't going to die.
It was only later, as they were injecting the syringe full of sedative into her IV, that she realized that John had almost said he cared for her.
John watched Merry twitch with seizure as she slept. He'd heard Keller say that they were going to sedate her, but he hadn't realized how lonely he'd be.
The hours passed slowly; visiting hours had ended before Merry had been put to sleep, and they wouldn't start for another two. His ribs itched, and so did his arm. He couldn't sleep; his mind was racing.
He cared what happened to Merry.
The thought had surprised him when he said it to her. He hadn't known her a month ago. He couldn't imagine that now, not after what they'd been through.
The irritating voice in his head added two words to that thought. Not after what he'd been through…for her.
Merry felt her mouth move. That was the first indication that she was awake, but the pain was a close second. It felt like her sides were burning and her stomach was rolling. She felt like she had to vomit, but nothing was happening.
She peeled her eyes open, only to blink them closed at a bright light. There was a faint murmur at her head, and two more near where she thought her feet might be. Was this part of the torture? Were the damned barbarians in fur drugging her? She began to struggle.
The voices grew more urgent. She heard a man's voice above it all, and thought she recognized it.
"John? What's happening?"
It came out garbled, as though there was something in her mouth. She fought the rising tide of blackness, and lost.
When Merry woke the next time, she came fully awake almost immediately. She couldn't move anything below her neck, but she could feel it. She really wished she couldn't. Everything hurt.
She closed her eyes, but her mind was fully engaged already, and she didn't feel tired. More than anything, she wanted to know if the antidote had worked.
She felt her head slide sideways and could do nothing to stop it. She found herself staring at a soundly sleeping John.
She starting memorizing his face, and felt the tug of a smile on one corner of her mouth. He looked younger, almost innocent, when he was asleep. His eyes, her favorite part of his face, were closed, and the lines, both from worry and joy, were gone. His mouth was relaxed, even parted a little. There was the hint of stubble that she was almost sure he maintained on purpose. His hair, normally forced into a relaxed position, was mussed from sleep and covered part of his forehead. He was snoring lightly.
It took a moment for her to realize what she was doing. She tried to look away but couldn't, even if she had really wanted to; her head wouldn't move. And she began to wonder if she would look away, even if she could.
His voice echoed in her head.
"No. Because I care…"She thought that she might care, too.
