Part 9 (one more tiny chapter to go)

Major Lorne let his P-90 lower when Ronon stepped through the event horizon and into the gate room with McKay draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The shield flashed into place and soon a small rain of explosions rebounded off the shield. The iris sparked and brightened in random spots like a child's sparkler.

It brought a feral smile to the former runner's face.

The smile unsettled the Major.

The smell of smoke hung like a pall in the gate room. The frantic activity of moments earlier had melted away when medical personnel rolled Sheppard toward the infirmary at a brisk walk. Teyla had tried staying behind waiting for Ronon and McKay but her assistance was needed in keeping the Colonel still.

"Put me down already." McKay's disgruntled voice was slightly slurred.

Lorne noticed the blood that dripped in fat lazy drops from the back of one of McKay's lower legs.

Dark stains saturated Ronon's torn trouser leg. The edges of the ripped material remained glued to rendered skin.

The major watched with a sense of awe and growing respect as Ronon walked without a hint of a limp. Specialist Dex elevated tough to a whole new level.

The runner ignored the astrophysicist's immediate demands and lumbered toward a waiting gurney, stepping over discarded medical debris and litter. "Here, you can have him." Ronon unceremoniously deposited his burden onto the stretcher and strode determinedly toward an exit.

"Mr. Dex." Biro's sharp tone had Lorne cringing. "The infirmary and the rest of your team are in the other direction." The big Satedan simply ducked his head, altered his path and headed in the general direction of Sheppard and the others.

"Oh God, Biro." McKay's distressed exclamation brought smiles to worried faces across the room. "Why must it always be you? Why not one of the others? Why you? Is it some sort of twisted cosmic fate that they always sic you on me?"

"Dr. McKay, it is always such a great displeasure to see you, too." Biro plastered a wide smile on her face and muttered curses at her boss who had already been herded and cajoled toward the infirmary. The man had blind bullheaded stubbornness down to an art form. Maintenance crews would be up cleaning up mud from here to the infirmary.

"Why is it always you?" Rodney's blatant disregard for others feelings was another bold trait she learned to endure in the many quirks that encompassed the senior staff.

"You mean when it's not Dr. Beckett?" Biro walked beside the moving gurney. She peeled the bloody torn pant leg away from the wound. It elicited a sharp hiss of discomfort from McKay.

"Sorry." The muttered perfunctory apology seemed to suffice. Unusual.

Biro paused in her quick examination. She fitted a few square 4x4s over the wound. The fresh blood adhered them neatly to the torn meat. She noted McKay's dilating eyes.

"If you all stopped leading Carson into off world calamities, then we wouldn't have to keep meeting like this." She flashed a toothy smile.

McKay's indignant reply was paused when an image of Jaws flashed to his mind. Biro shouldn't smile, it was unsettling. "Lead him into calamity?" Rodney sputtered. "He found it all by himself." He paused and then peered worriedly at Biro, "Did you notice his eyes…tell me you noticed his eyes? He's definitely been set to dim," McKay stated worriedly.

"I did, and yours are beginning to look a lot like his." She quirked another smile, slightly softer. "How's the leg?"

"Doesn't hurt so much anymore." McKay paused at Biro's knowing nod. It troubled him. He laid back on the gurney and stared at the ceiling. The lights moved past at a steady monotonous pace. It was a bit disorienting. He felt unusually heavy, like his muscles just hung off his bones. He didn't think he could sit up unless he truly had to. "I feel kind of strange."

Biro nodded in understanding, "I bet you do."

————————————————————————————

36 hours Later

"Malicious Peccary Traumatizer," a voice said.

"Malicious Peccary Torturer," another offered.

"Malicious Peccary Terminator," a third chimed.

Carson furrowed his brow. Killer bacon?

"Malicious Peccary Tickler." the first voice repeated. Nasty ham with hives?

"Tickler?---That is so lame even for you, Colonel." Rodney. Carson identified the voice as Rodney's. The delicate mix of condemnation and superiority was a McKay specialty that could not be duplicated by many.

Beckett shifted a leg. It relieved unrealized pressure from the small of his back. His leg slid heavily against sheets and pillows. His leg was on pillows, soft pillows that ran from just above his knee to his heel and ankle. His toes felt thickened. He cautiously flexed them. A dull aching pain pulsed up the lateral side of his leg to his hip and around to his lower back. Okay, he wouldn't be wiggling his toes again any time soon.

In the background the argument or discussion continued.

"Hey, tickling is a form of torture," Sheppard defended his choice of words.

"How about Malicious Peccary Tenochtitlanian?"

Carson furrowed his brows at Ronon's suggestion. Cruel Aztectian pigs?

"Is Tenochtitlanian even a word?" Sheppard asked slightly indignant. It definitely shamed his choice of 'Tickler'.

"Yes," Ronon stated with defensive assurance.

"Oh, yeah, what's it mean?' Rodney asked. He rubbed irritably at his calf. It hurt more now than it had yesterday. The narcotic like effects in the saliva of the MPT bites was slowly wearing off. His focus improved, the dry mouth was slowly disappearing and the detached lethargy seemed to have seeped away this morning when he woke. The down side being his leg ached. The rent in his calf throbbed mercilessly, however, the medical staff in all their marked intelligence refused to dole out anything more powerful than Tylenol.

Drug reactions and some such foolishness.

Biro had mumbled at one time, he deserved Baby Aspirin.

Voodoo.

McKay stared past Ronon, over to Beckett, who lay curled on his side sleeping, the heavy, deep sleep of the truly exhausted. About time.

McKay blamed Beckett and his staff for his own unrelenting fatigue. Mostly it was because Carson kept them all from getting a full night's sleep. Nightmares and delusions took a turn toward Hoff, Ellia, the Wraith, but especially Michael. Michael had been standing in dark corners, stalking the periphery of his bed, looming over Sheppard or one of the others ready to feed.

Colonel Caldwell, with his bruised cheek, had become the infirmary staff's Ace. Caldwell, in his no nonsense, confident, military manner, simply told Beckett nothing was there. His words and tone were clear, concise and assured. There was no room for doubt.

Carson saw Michael behind closed lids or towering over the Colonel ready to strike the Daedalus commander down in one fell swoop.

Stephen Caldwell dictated Michael would not get close to Beckett again as long as the Daedalus was in the area.

McKay found it all quite unsettling. He missed most of what transpired two beds down. He was battling his own fever and toxins and drifted in and out during the night. He pieced together enough to know that Sheppard felt the misdirected, sharp sting of responsibility for losing a team on an abandoned planet days from Atlantis. And the undeserved self induced guilt of not protecting someone as close as family.

Beckett blamed no one for his fall into Michael's hands and Sheppard bore the culpability, without sound reason.

The guilt was useless and unmerited but that didn't make it disappear. Responsibility could be argued, shouted and debated and in the end it wouldn't change how Sheppard felt no matter the rationalization. No matter which side of the debate one sat on, it didn't really change that Sheppard assumed blame for the events that occurred on that planet of converted not so converted Wraith.

McKay found people frustrating at a whole. Astrophysics was much easier to deal with in the grand scheme of things. A bit neater more times that not.

After periodic bouts of wide eyed staring, feeble struggles and strangled gasps of fright from the bed a few yards down through out the night, Rodney decided then that medical doctors should never be allowed to be patients. They just didn't handle it well at all. It would be easier on everyone involved and even those not involved if the physicians just kept to the play book and treated the sick and injured and not become one of the sick or injured. It was all terribly inconvenient and loud. No one got any rest last night or early this morning.

"You don't know, McKay?" Ronon crossed his chest and bounced, sort of, on the toes of his good leg. His smile grew bigger and toothier. McKay stared at him, mentally shaking off the memories of the last 14 hours.

Ronon unnerved Rodney on many levels.

Carson struggled to open his eyes. His eyelids felt caked closed. With some effort, they peeled apart slowly, one lash at a time or so it felt like to him.

"They are a people," Ronon stated.

"Where? From some planet you're about to make up?" McKay huffed.

Beckett smiled to himself. Rodney certainly pulled no punches when he thought someone was trying to pull a fast one with facts.

"They are from Earth," Ronon returned with just a touch of aggressiveness for being questioned. "An ancient culture called Aztec. Dr. Jen Caine told me of them."

"He's got you there, McKay." Sheppard's amusement was clearly audible.

"Oh, shut up," McKay mumbled. "And Jen Caine is a basket case. She should be relegated to driving tippers or placed in a purple flowered room and fed with a straw. What she tinkers with is NOT science. It so far removed from Science that---well it makes Carson's little side show hobbies almost reputable. Should just call Caine's whole department NTS."

"NTS?" Teyla asked shaking her head.

"Not Science," McKay grumbled.

Carson would have chuckled, but it required more effort than he was willing to exert.

Instead, an itch at the tip of his nose made itself known.

With great effort, he moved an impossible heavy hand and swiped at his face. He missed his nose, hit his cheek and scraped something solid across the back of his eyes. IV port and line. He hoped it didn't leave a mark.

"Doctor Beckett?" The proximity of Teyla's voice startled him. The concern was both touching and slightly unnerving.

He opened his eyes to a blurry world.

"Dr. Beckett?"

"Hey, the doc finally deciding to wake up?" Sheppard asked.

"He still calling you mum?" That unnerved Rodney as much as it amused him. Ronon being mistaken for his Auntie Beatrice was priceless. It had to be the hair…or Auntie Beatrice was beastly. That part of the evening would be sure to resurface over dinner conversations and during other public venues.

"Dr. Beckett? Carson, you are alright." Teyla pulled her chair a little closer to his bed and watched him battle the roll of his eyes. "You are in the infirmary on Atlantis." She watched somewhat disheartened when he focused on the edge of the mattress. His breathing became slightly rushed. "Michael is not here," she assured.

She glanced quickly over her shoulder to Sheppard. The colonel merely clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes in frustrated anger. Even with one foot and opposite leg wrapped and confined in snug bandages, Sheppard appeared willing to take on a Wraith fleet. His eyes still held the slightly dilated look associated with the creatures' bite.

McKay picked at his blanket, diverting his too dark eyes to his slightly elevated leg.

Ronon pushed himself from his bed, favoring his back and leg. Carrying Doctor McKay while only partially avoiding the creatures had damaged his back. The MPTs had laid his outer thigh open and punctured his calf but, that discomfort seemed to pale to the ache that gnarled his lumbar spine. Dex's eyes did not hold the same dilated pupils as the others. It intrigued Biro and the others but not enough for them to approach for more blood samples.

Teyla turned her attention back to Beckett.

The others watched in their on version of quiet---which would have had them tossed from Libraries across assorted countries.

A deep groan rolled forth from Carson's chest and the articulation of Teyla's name was mangled and lost.

He didn't see her smile. He could hear Rodney in the background calling for one of Carson's peers. Igor he suspected was Biro. Joe Early eluded him.

He could make out the fuzzy outlines of someone in a billowing white coat approach down the center aisle passed Rodney and Sheppard. The figure stopped at his bedside. Fuzzy white and tans were all he could truly discern.

He was tired.

Soon hands were touching him. A stethoscope was slid under his gown and placed against his chest in various locations. It left for a few seconds and then cupped to his back. The stethoscope was cold, as chilled as the finger tips that held it to his skin. He was asked to take deep breaths, hold his breath and let it out. He did his best to follow directions, but gave up after the second attempted breath. It was easier to just breathe unencumbered by thinking.

The someone checked assorted lymph nodes. Some ached more than others and, had he not been so exhausted, he might not have been terribly tolerant of the inguinal node palpation. There were certain places cold hands just didn't belong.

The hands moved down his leg. The leg was sore. Reflexes were tested. He tried brushing the investigating hands away with his other leg. It was a lose-lose proposition all around. The grip on his sore leg tightened, his good leg was constantly deflected and he was growing more fatigued.

He decided to focus on other things. The sharp silver of the horizontal bed rails, the white blankets of the infirmary, the back of his curled hand and IV but, more importantly, Teyla squatting down and smiling at him through the rails of his bed.

He kicked at the hands manipulating his sore foot, just for grins. It earned him an impatient sigh and a sharply deflected foot.

Carson did his best to ignore the yellow bed sheets and watched Teyla. The image of Michael flashed to the forefront of his mind….Okay, now, let's begin....

His pulse picked up. Teyla reached through the bars and clasped his chilled hand. It was grounding. He stared at the Athosian.

He had come to loathe that color bedding. However, he had no cause to request a change in color and feared if he did he would gain the further attention of Dr. Heightmeyer.

She was nice, intelligent but he was tired of having his mind manipulated.

Beckett could still hear Rodney and the Colonel speaking in the background.

"Malicious Peccary Tintinabulator." was met with an indignant, "Oh, please."

Carson was impressed with Sheppard's word.

Someone tapped his foot, trying to get his attention. He swiped at the annoying 'tapper' with his good foot. It earned him an annoyed, "Dr. Beckett."

Carson rolled his head, and realized that he lay on his side. Morrison. His surgeon was tapping the side of Beckett's bandaged foot. Betadine stained toes peaked back at him. His toenails were bruised. Though unsightly, they didn't appear near as swollen as they suddenly felt. He wished he had a sock to cover them.

Morrison was asking him to do something. Ohh--- demanding. Beckett decided he should really keep Dr. Charles Morrison away from conscious patients.

His toes were cold, so Carson simply dragged his leg slightly toward his center hiding them under the folded back blanket. Maybe Dr. Morrison would leave his toes alone if he couldn't see them.

Beckett turned his attention away from the surgeon and back to Teyla. She was smiling again, amused about something.

Someone tapped his foot again and called his name, with a little more bite than usual.

Beckett watched as Ronon slowly pushed himself to his feet. The runner moved awkwardly as if his back hurt. It confused Carson for a bit. When did Ronon hurt his back?

Someone jostled Carson's foot again. Cold air brushed against his re-exposed toes. He curled his leg up closer to his torso out of the cold air of the infirmary.

"Carson, just wiggle your toes and Morrison will leave you alone," Sheppard ordered.

"Tic-Tac," Carson whispered staring at Teyla.

The Athosian tilted her head to the side for a bit before understanding dawned. "Dr. Beckett offers, Malicious Peccary Tic-Tac."

"Bet he needs one or a dozen," Rodney muttered to Sheppard.

"Tic-Tac is a good choice." Ronon gently limped closer to the foot of Beckett's bed. Carson noted Dr. Morrison moving to the right side of the bed. It was a strange dance indeed.

"Wiggle your toes, Doc, so Morrison here can get back to his other duties," Sheppard suggested with neutral understanding for both parties.

Dex glowered at the foot of the bed. His mannerisms reminded Beckett of a feral dog he had seen on occasion in the city. Even injured and half starved, the mongrel defended its little territory near a dumpster with a ferocious demeanor. It worked, more times than not. No one was seemingly willing to test if its bark was worse than its bite. Carson occasionally tossed it parts of his lunch or dinner on his way home or off to his work. It only earned him bared teeth and pitched snarls as the mongrel stood stiff legged over the scraps, guarding them from its beneficiary. It wouldn't bite the hand that fed it. Carson always figured the dog would have devoured it.

Something pinched his big toe, pulling him back into the infirmary and reminding him he still had a request to fill. He moved his toes. They felt as if they should have creaked and squeaked like frozen hinges. It hurt, in a dull warning sort of way. Morrison asked him a question, something about pain in his knee. Carson gave an equivocal grunt. Something ached when he moved his toes, he just wasn't too sure where the discomfort localized to and he was unwilling to try and find out. That was the surgeon's job today.

"Malicious Peccary Toothbrush," Sheppard offered. Beckett watched Teyla chuckle at the suggestion. He smiled too. It was good to see and hear people laugh.

Carson suspected the Colonel spoke just to annoy Rodney. Sheppard excelled at such feats and with unparalleled skill.

"Oh…Pllllease," McKay admonished with frustration. "We can expect such drivel from Carson, he practically melted his lonely brain cell in that soup bowl skull of his. But you, you have no excuse."

Soup bowl?

Carson focused his attention back on Teyla.

She understood his un-vocalized question.

"Your fever has been quite high." She smiled reassuringly and brushed at his forehead and temple with feather-light fingertips. He was dramatically cooler than he had been just a few hours ago.

"It broke early this morning. The doctors say you will be fine." She lifted her rich brown eyes to someone who must have stood behind him and then returned her beguiling gaze back to him and smiled once more. Her thumb delicately rubbed small circles at his temple. He relaxed into the bedding allowing his eyes to droop. "You will keep your leg. The infection is clearing and the wounds are beginning to heal."

Keep his leg? He hadn't truly planned on losing it.

Morrison's voice grumbled in the background. He spoke to someone Beckett couldn't see, giving them orders and making adjustments in medications. He really wanted to follow the conversation, realizing it probably pertained to his immediate situation, but something kept him from truly putting much effort into it.

He stared accusingly at the IV line that snaked its way to the back of his hand.

From behind, a heavy hand awkwardly patted his shoulder in a gruff manner. A voice assured him he would be fine, and to get some sleep.

Morrison.

Dr. Morrison really wasn't a bad guy. He was quite funny actually, a terribly dry sense of humor that kept the staff on their toes and in stitches. He just had the bedside manner of a pit bull or a, "Malicious Peccary Tadpole."

Teyla chuckled and repeated the suggestion.

"Oh, Carson, that's beyond sad, just, just go back to sleep and quit bothering us above average intelligent people." There was a pause, "Well, I'm above average. Way, way, way above average…my extensive intelligence is quite remarkable really."

"You don't say?" Sheppard muttered from his bed.

"Quite often," Teyla opinioned with amused tiredness.

"Malicious Peccary Troposphere," Ronon tossed out.

Teyla laughed as she continued to squat next to the bed rail. Her fingers had stilled as her attention was directed toward the others.

Beckett tilted his head slightly, nudging her hand. Teyla smiled understanding the hint and continued gently carding her fingers through his sweat dried hair.

"Malicious Peccary Teetotaler," Sheppard offered.

Teyla turned her eyes to Sheppard and then Ronon and finally McKay. No matter how tough or independent or intelligent they perceived themselves to be they needed a bit of gentle coddling every now and then.

She gazed back to Beckett and found him struggling to keep his eyes open.

Somewhere from the foot of his bed, Carson heard Ronon rattle off, "Malicious Peccary Tartare". There was a hint of craving in his voice. A good sign. Dex without an appetite was a very sick or injured individual. If he was thinking of food then his stiffened gait was not as serious as the CMO feared.

Carson wasn't very hungry, himself, but it made him think of Timmy. "Malicious Peccary Timothy." Except Timothy was a lamb not a vicious alien monstrosity. Timmy was tender, soft and exquisite tasting on bread fresh from his mum's oven.

He heard Teyla repeat his suggestion with a hint of confusion.

"Oh great, probably another fattened and dined upon farm animal from the Beckett household." Rodney's disgust was quite lovely. Uncle William was a crotchety old salty dog, but he knew how to raise lambs.

Carson smiled and drifted off to sleep with the delicate touch of fingers at his temple.

It reminded him of his mum.

He missed Colonel Caldwell's walk through visit and inquiries about the team and Beckett's health.

Carson also missed the Colonel's suggestion of, "Malicious Peccary Tocodynamometer."

Caldwell chuckled himself right out of the infirmary, pleased with himself. He ignored the sounds of Rodney's dismissive posturing at his heels.