The Ghosts of Atlantis
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21: The Three Bears
Sheppard dreamt that he was being chased by a growling hungry bear. His heart pounded, his lungs burned and his legs felt like they were on fire as he ran through the woods trying to escape it. The growls followed him closely like a shadow that he could not shake. Finally, he found a solitary tree and in an attempt to escape the fierce bear, he climbed up the tree, but as soon as he stepped on a branch it snapped, making him lose his balance and fall…
He jerked awake with a cry on his lips, his eyes snapping open, only to realize that he had been dreaming and that there was no giant bear chasing him and that he wasn't about to fall to his death. However, for some odd reason the growling rumbling sounds continued to follow him even upon awakening.
It took him a second or two to realize that there was a large hand on his uninjured shoulder easing his head gently back down on the pillows again. He also became aware that there was a nasal cannula attached uncomfortably up his nose and that there were numerous tubes poking out from various parts of his body, one of which he would rather not think about. His mind felt fuzzy, his reactions sluggish and there were thick bandages wrapped around his chest. He felt confused and disorientated, recognizing it as the side effects of Carson's happy drugs being pumped into him. Things must have certainly taken a turn for the worse for him to be in such a state, and he wondered what had happened.
"Easy John, you're in the infirmary," he heard Ronon's deep voice say. Yeah, that much was pretty obvious, John thought to himself. However, the growling sounds continued to resonance somewhere off to his left. Turning his head, he saw Teyla opening the privacy curtains on the other side next to his bed, revealing McKay fast asleep: his left shoulder thickly bandaged and his bandaged nose also attached with a nasal cannula. The scientist was currently snoring his head off, which attributed to the bear sounds in John's dreams. Sheppard looked at McKay, amused by the loud snoring next door.
"How is the Colonel?" he heard Teyla ask Ronon, while she looked at him in concern.
"Awake," Ronon replied with amused smile. "I think Rodney's snoring woke him."
Teyla smiled at Sheppard, as she approached the side of his bed. "It is good to finally see you up John, we were wondering who would awaken first."
"How's Rodney?" he asked worriedly, feeling surprised by the unfamiliar sound of his own voice. It sounded raspy and weak. His memory of what had happened finally returned; he remembered seeing Rodney being shot by the phantom Sumner. He recalled making his way to Rodney's side and finding no heartbeat. But as the scientist was next door to him snoring loudly, Carson must have been able to bring the scientist back. He wondered how badly Rodney had been injured. My fault, he thought to himself, Rodney wouldn't have been injured if I had been able to stop Sumner's ghost sooner.
The nasal cannula was making his throat extremely dry and he felt a raging thirst. Teyla seemed to know what he wanted as she brought a plastic cup with ice chips and slipped a small piece into his mouth. For a moment, it felt like heaven and Sheppard just savored the moment.
"Dr. Beckett tells us that Rodney is going to be fine, as are you," Teyla informed him gently.
"I don't remember his snoring sounding this bad," Sheppard observed as a particularly loud snore tortured their ear drums.
"You think that's bad, Sheppard? You should have heard yourself a moment ago," Ronon chipped in.
"I snore?" Sheppard asked, feeling surprised by this piece of news. He didn't think that he did.
"Yes, very badly, sir. Found it almost impossible to sleep last night." A new voice spoke from Sheppard's right. Turning his head, he saw Major Lorne sitting up on the infirmary bed next to his with an opened magazine on his lap. There was still a bandage around Lorne's head, but he certainly looked better than when he last saw him.
"Lorne? Nice to finally see you awake," Sheppard greeted the Major with a smile. "How are you doing, Major?"
"Great to be awake, sir. And I'm feeling better, sir. But if I may speak freely, sir, you guys really need to do something about that snoring. I hardly slept a wink last night with all the racket that you were making."
"I slept fine," Ronon commented. Sheppard turned his gaze to the Satedan, his eyes taking in the large pillow leaning on the plastic guest chair nearby.
"You slept here? How long have you been here?" John asked.
"Three nights, your team's been hanging out here for three loooong nights, sir." It was Lorne who replied before Ronon could. "By the way, you snore as well, Ronon. I asked Carson for some earplugs but it didn't help."
John shot Ronon a surprised look, before turning his gaze to Teyla. "And you've been here too?" he asked. "Hold on a minute, how long have I been out ?"
"We thought you won't want to be alone after what happened, John." Teyla replied offering up an explanation. "And you and Rodney have been unconscious for three days now."
"I said I would watch your back and I wasn't there when it mattered," Ronon added. "So this time, we figured that we'll stand watch to ensure that you and McKay are safe." It was one of the longest sentence that Sheppard heard the former Runner say and he felt touched by it. "Besides, there's still a killer running around loose in Atlantis, and we weren't about to take anymore chances with your lives."
"How's the investigation going?" Sheppard asked curiously, recalling Lt. Marker's murder.
Ronon shrugged. "Don't know. O'Neill's looking into it."
"Well, I don't know how you managed to sleep through the snores, Teyla, but I hardly got any shut eye," Lorne still complained, giving out a big yawn. "You guys sound like three growling bears. Goldilocks and the three bears, who would have figured…"
"I meditate," Teyla replied as if that answered Lorne's question.
"Well, maybe you could show me that technique sometime," Lorne stated.
"Yeah, if you want to learn how to fall asleep while sitting up, go for it." Ronon added, before moving away quickly from Teyla as the Athosian gave him an evil eye and jabbed him hard on the upper arm. The Satedan just smirked back a response.
"I shall be honored to show you the ways of meditation, Major Lorne," Teyla replied with a slight bow of her head. "It will help you to relax and also fall asleep."
She then turned back towards John (who was trying to hide his amusement at Teyla and Ronon's antics) and offered him an explanation of his sudden snoring-like-a-bear problem.
"I believe it's the result of your broken nose, Colonel. Like Rodney's, Dr. Beckett also had to straightened yours back again, I believe he told us that you would look 'your handsome ol' self again in no time'. But the injury seems to have interfered with your sleep patterns, making the both of you snore louder than normal."
"I'll say…," Sheppard noted, not impressed by this new development. He lifted his left hand and felt the thick bandage around his nose. Like Rodney, I must look like a clown, he thought to himself. "So, what happened?"
"Rodney saved your life," Ronon declared.
"He did?" Sheppard looked at him surprised. "Funny, cos the last I remember, I was trying to save his."
Before anyone else could reply to that, Dr. Carson Beckett arrived, hobbling on his crutches.
"Aye, and whatever crazy thing that you did, Colonel, you were almost killed in the process," the Scottish doctor informed him in a disapproving tone. "You heart had stopped beating and we had to attempt to revive you several times. laddie. I hope ya'll not gonna to make a habit of it, Colonel Sheppard."
"Nope. I promise I'll be good the next time," John quipped, not remembering any of it.
"Well, it's good to finally see you awake, lad. You've been asleep for almost three days now."
"So I've heard," Sheppard replied, still finding it quite hard to believe that he had lost three days.
Carson took out his physician's penlight from his pocket and began shining it into Sheppard's eyes. "How are you feeling, Colonel?"
"Fine… " Sheppard replied before an invasive bright light hit his retinas making him wince painfully. "Geez, Doc! Do you always have to do that?" he protested weakly, trying to move his head to escape the awful glare of the dreaded physician's penlight. However, the light brought to mind of another light: a memory of a light that wasn't invasive at all but something else, something more…
"Ah, I see that we have a cranky Colonel today," Carson observed with an understanding smile. "Not feeling too good this afternoon are we, lad?"
"Actually, sorry to be the bearer of bad news doc, but Sheppard only turned cranky after you showed up." Lorne cut in with a smile.
"Oh, feeling a little cheeky now, are we, Major Lorne?" Carson turned to look at Lorne. "May I remind you Major that I'm in charge of the big needles here?"
"O-kay…. Shutting up now," Lorne quickly picked up the magazine on his lap and pretended to read it.
Beckett smiled, feeling pleased with himself as he turned back to study Sheppard's reflexes with his penlight.
"Can you stop shining that light in my eyes, doc? My brain hasn't woken up yet!" Sheppard complained with a grimace. Waking up in the infirmary was never his best moment. He always felt too out of control in Carson's infirmary, which was never a good thing in his book.
"Well, you reflexes certainly seem to be working well, Colonel, I think you're doing very well considering the trauma that your body's been through," Carson informed him.
"Oh yeah, about that, doc. What exactly happened?" Sheppard asked. "And how was Rodney involved in saving my life? And by the way, when is Rodney going to wake up? Shouldn't all the noise we're making be waking him up by now?"
Carson turned to give McKay a quick glance before turning his attention back to Sheppard. "Don't ya worry, lad. Rodney will wake up in his own time. His body is just catching up in a lot of sleep right now."
oOo
Jack O'Neill came to Dr. Zelenka's lab, popping his head around the corner of the lab door.
"Hey, Doc Zunka, you got a moment?" he asked.
Radek looked up at Jack, annoyance marring his normally placid features. "Excuse me?" he said as he took a blank piece of paper and began scribbling on it.
Jack strolled in with his hands in his pockets before stopping in front of Radek, standing on the balls of his feet. "McKay said that I should come see you if I needed help with anything. Well, I've just received a data transmission from a good buddy of mine from Earth and I was wondering whether you could help me with the investigation of Lt. Marker's killer."
"He did?" Radek said; looking up surprised and sounding pleased at the same time.
"Yeah, I guess he must trust you," Jack replied as he picked up a small device on the table and began fiddling with it. "So… will you be able to help me, doc?"
Radek looked a little nervous as he eyed O'Neill fiddling with the Ancient device that they hadn't had a chance to analyze and catalog yet. "Er, General O'Neill, you may want to put that down. We don't want another accidental activation of alien devices that we are unsure about."
"Oh, right. Sorry. Guess I still haven't learnt my lesson," Jack commented wryly. Don't pick up alien devices that you know nothing about, Jack! He silently chided himself.
Radek nodded and breathed a small sigh of relief when nothing alarming happened as O'Neill placed the item carefully back onto the table again.
"So, Dr. Zunka, will you be able to help me?"
Another frown marred the Czech scientist's brows. He finished scribbling on the piece of paper and waved it up in front of O'Neill's face. Jack leaned forward and squinted at the words. "Zelenka?" he read out the name in puzzlement.
"Yes," Radek replied a little frostily. "That's my name," the Czech scientist informed him.
"Really?" Jack lifted both eyebrows, feeling surprised. "You're called Zelenka?"
"Yes, since I was born, it has always been my family's name," Radek replied sarcastically. "Unless I'm adopted, which could be a possibility seeing that I'm only one in my family interested in science. My father wanted me to join family's business, not become scientist. Who said I was called Zunka, may I ask?"
"Actually, I called you Zunka, but McKay didn't refute me when I asked him about it." Jack casually replied.
"I get him back," Radek muttered softly under his breath obviously annoyed as he began mumbling something in Czech. After a few seconds, he looked up above the rim of his glasses and said, "So, how may I help you?"
"McKay told me that you're pretty good with the computers. So, any chance you could help me do a background check on the marine that was killed?"
Zelenka nodded as he approached O'Neill. "Actually I've also been doing a bit of investigation of my own," Radek informed him. He wasn't McKay's trusted assistant for nothing and he had learnt a lot from observing how Rodney solved the mystery concerning the purpose of the alien cube device. He gestured for O'Neill to approach the computer screen he had on. "You may want to take a look at this. I called up security logs to Lt. Marker's quarters. According to Dr. Biro's autopsy report, Lt. Marker was murdered a few hours before the attack."
"We already know this and when we looked up the security video logs outside Marker's quarters, they had been erased. Someone, probably the killer, had gone through and erased the logs." O'Neill commented.
"Yes, but even if the computer video logs have been deleted, there are always ways to retrieve them given enough time and effort. This, I have been working on and I think you'll find it very interesting, General." Radek noted with a smile.
"Oh? Really?" Jack said, his interest peaked, liking what he heard.
"Yes. I could not enhance or clear it up entirely, but I think it's enough for our purpose," Radek replied as he clicked on the computer keyboard opening the video file for O'Neill to view.
oOo
John Sheppard sat up on his infirmary bed contemplating all that he had been told that had happened. He didn't understand half of what he heard but he did know that he owed McKay for saving his life. He wondered how many times they had done that; somehow he had lost count. But it looked like this time, it was his turn to say thanks.
Rodney was still sleeping and Carson had informed him that the scientist hadn't had much sleep for several days row and it looked like his body was making up for it so there was really nothing to worry about. According to Beckett, Rodney McKay would wake up on his own time when it suited him.
With John now awake and his wounds healing nicely, he had managed to convince Carson to remove the cannula nasal and also the catheter, much to his relief. Turning to his head, he studied his sleeping friend, noting the bandaged ears and nose. As he did so, an idea formed that made Sheppard smile.
"Hey Beckett!" he called out to the Scottish doctor, who was standing nearby reading some medical equipment.
"Aye, Colonel, is there something that you need?" the physician queried.
"Yes," John replied. "Do you know if the Halloween party is still going to be on for next week?"
"Aye, as far as I know, we're still going to go ahead with it." Carson replied.
"That's good doc. Do you think we'll be well enough to attend it?" Sheppard asked hopefully.
Carson frowned slightly. "Well, both of you seemed to be doing remarkably well, if you keep it up, I don't see why not, provided that you don't do anything strenuous and take things easy. That includes you too, Major Lorne."
"Great!" Lorne said, sounding pleased. "I've already ordered my Halloween outfit, wouldn't want it to go to waste!"
Sheppard grinned. "Then I have a favor to ask you, doc."
oOo
"Well, what do you know—" Jack mused as he leaned back against his chair, frowning slightly as he observed the man leaving Lt. Marker's quarters and the time recorded on the snowy video log.
"And nobody entered Marker's quarters after this?"
"No." Radek confirmed.
"I wonder what was his motive?" Jack wondered aloud.
Radek shrugged. "I think perhaps we should speak to the Lieutenant who was with him?"
"Have you had a chance to question him yet?" O'Neill asked.
"Not yet, General, I felt that you might want to do so yourself," Radek replied.
"You betcha," Jack agreed, "Come on, Zelenka, if what I suspect is true then I think we might be solving two murders here."
Radek nodded as he switched off the computer and followed O'Neill out the door.
oOo
TBC