Next time she wakes it is to Doctor Beckett's soft accent, "Teyla? Come on now, wake up love." She opens her eyes with effort, but it is not such a hard waking as last time. She is back in bed, though thankfully still free of the IV. Her headache is only a hot haze where before there was fire. Sunlight, softened by the thickened windows of the infirmary, illuminates the ward, and she wonders if it is today or tomorrow.

"There you are," Carson smiles as she sits up, but like the light, the expression is muted. "Now, how are you feeling?"

She answers this, and his other questions, calmly, but all the time her memories of the last few days are flooding back, and she has plenty of questions of her own. But impatience does not expedite answers from Carson; it will only make him reluctant. She has seen Rodney fail this way many times.

Speaking of, "where is Doctor McKay?" she asks, keeping her voice light despite the twist in her stomach that his absence and the doctor's dampened smile have caused. "He was here last time I woke, but I do not see him now?"

A furrow stretches tightly across the centre of Carson's forehead. "He's with Ronon right now," he replies in exactly the same tone she used with him. "He'll be there a few hours, more than likely."

"And then he will visit the Colonel?" she guesses.

Carson snorts, "he's been there already," he answers, bringing a penlight out of his pocket and up to her eye level. "It's out of here he'll be, come sixteen hundred. I didn't release him from the infirmary to have him come straight back making himself sick. Now look straight ahead for me."

She lets him finish his exam, and declare her 'mending' before she broaches the subject of her release. Carson immediately launches into a lecture that provides at least six medically solid reasons as to why she needs to stay in the infirmary, arguments she suspects he has been preparing ever since she first regained consciousness.

She lets him continue for several minutes until the fire behind his words has died down, and then she tells him, keeping the blade in her voice turned to the flat, because he means well, "keeping me here will do no good."

He halts, gripping the rail of her bed, and she can see both reprimand and worry warring over expression. He is trying to help, the only way he can. Knowledge of this, and the shadows under his eyes strip the steel from her voice as she tries again, "please Carson," his eyes meet hers all warmth and concern, "I will not be going far."

He follows her gaze towards the back of the infirmary where the rest of her team is and sighs, letting go of her bed, "aye."


She is allowed to dress, and to leave her bed, on the condition she remain in the infirmary for at least another twelve hours "and only another twelve hours," Carson stipulates as part of her release. "All night vigils won't do a mite of good, for any of you."

She knows he is correct, indeed, from what she has seen, neither the Colonel nor Ronon are aware when their teammates are present. But sometimes she misses the less learned, less rigorous healers of her own people, who understand that it is not only for the injured that friends keep watch.

She slips into Ronon's room first, it being nearest and holding half of her team. Rodney sits where she left him, both elbows on the mattress supporting his head, and she wonders if he is asleep until she shuts the door with a click and he jerks to a sitting position, "Wha? Oh, Teyla, hi." He slumps back into his seat, groaning as his back gives an audible creak.

"You should rest, " She offers, because it needs to be said, "I will sit with him for a while."

Rodney does not even grace her with a response, only his customary, what? are you stupid? scowl as he stretches. There being no other chair, she sits carefully on what little space of the bed is not currently occupied by her teammate. It is so strange to see Ronon like this. Normally she can almost feel the beat of his pulse from across a room. Seven years of running, and a lifetime as a solider have sharpened her teammate into a living bullet, equal parts flesh and raw energy. But now his muscles are slack around his bones, and when she takes his hand his pulse is only a faint tap-tap-tap against its normal thundering beat.

But this can yet be healed. "Doctor Beckett removed the ventilator," she observes, putting herself at risk of a sarcastic retort if only because she wants someone in her team to show signs of life. But Rodney does not notice. "yeah, a couple of hours ago. Said if his O2 stats stay over eighty five," Rodney gestures vaguely at the monitors, "he can stay off it."

"That is good news," she replies, squeezing Ronon's wrist.

Rodney does not meet her eyes, "if you say so."

"Does Carson not agree?"

"He won't commit to anything. Just says it's a 'step in the right direction' but he can't say anything for sure. MDs are all the same, bush-beating cowards."

She raises an eyebrow, "that is not fair Rodney. Carson is doing his best. They all are."

"No, their best would have been getting there two days sooner. Best would be Sheppard and Ronon awake and not in this mess in the first place, or the damn Jumper not falling out of the sky, dammit," the last word is a hiss as he wraps his arms around his midriff and shuts his eyes. She stares at him, unsure of the wisest action. Colonel Sheppard and Ronon are like herself, they can beat their frustrations into a punchbag if need be. But Rodney is far more introverted than her teammates and easily traps himself into a cycle of guilt and fear, and she is not sure how to release him.

"Rodney, if this is about the crash . . ." she begins, horribly relieved when he holds up a hand to stop her.

"Don't. Just . . . don't. You're a good person Teyla, and I'm sure everything you want to say is true. But I just can't hear it right now. Please." The last word is a plea to her, but his eyes are already back on Ronon in that queer, compulsive way you develop when you watch someone dying in front of you, checking always to see if they have not gone in the second you took to blink.

She could carry on, tell him it is not his fault, there was nothing he could have done, for the ship or for Ronon; but he already knows this. Yet knowledge and belief are two different things and it is up to Rodney to force one into the other. She has her own battle to fight, and for a while he must face his alone.

She leans forward, careful not to disturb the IV tube in Ronon's hand, and touches her forehead to his, disregarding the protest of her healing skin. "Be well my friend," she whispers to him. Ronon does not stir.

She stands; it is time to revisit the nightmare of the last few days again. But before she leaves, she moves to where Rodney sits. She is aware of his deep discomfort with physical intimacy, so she only rests a hand on his shoulder. She tries to communicate much through this brief contact: about how almost everyone in this galaxy has lost someone, and no matter who gets hurt, and who dies, if you live through it, you will survive somehow. That however this ends, they are still alive, and she will be here for him, for as long as she lives.

But perhaps this is too much, for Rodney only starts and looks up at her. His eyes are slightly glazed over, and she wonders if he will remember she was here in a few hours. She removes her hand and smiles a little, trying not be disheartened when he only blinks and looks back at Ronon. She will return later.

She leaves the room in silence, and takes a breath, before heading to the subject of her own vigil.


A/N: Wherein the author apologises A: for taking so long to post (again!!!) and B: for keeping Sheppard from you for one more chapter. I promise it is only in the means of keeping him alive so you can all watch him suffer in chapter 13, which is all about him ;)

Reviews are milk, honey, and Ben and Jerry ice cream, better than Christmas presents. So if you have ten seconds to spare and an opinion, good or bad, please leave it here. Credit as always goes to the lovely Rachel, who didn't hurt me when I showed her this chapter ;)