Weir stared down at the stargate. This was the one thing she hated about her job, waiting. It has been more than seven hours since Doctor Beckett and his team had gone to rescue Major Sheppard and the others and nearly twenty hours since John, Rodney, Aiden and Teyla had left on their scouting mission.

The chevrons on the stargate started to lock and the wormhole blossomed open.

"Doctor Weir, it's Major Sheppard," the technician told her.

"Atlantis, we're coming in and we've got wounded." Sheppard announced wearily.

"Welcome back, Major. We'll have the medical team standing by." She turned to the technician. "Lower the shield and notify the medical team to report to the gate room immediately," she said, darting around him and heading down the stairs.

The shield winked out and the battered puddle jumper eased through event horizon, as the medical team poured through the door with several gurneys. The ship set down gently and the rear hatch opened. Beckett leaned out and motioned for them to bring one of the gurneys up.

Elizabeth moved trying to see inside the jumper. Beckett and one of the medical techs were moving someone onto a gurney as Beckett rattled orders of to them. "I want x-rays of his chest, head and arm, CT of his head. He needs a chest tube left side and then one mic of lidocaine and get him intubated, we need to start hyperventilating him."

Her heart froze when she realized the patient was Rodney. His swollen face was nearly unrecognizable swathed under bloody bandages and covered in an oxygen mask.

She bit her lip quickly searching for the other members of his team. Ford was being loaded onto another gurney his face twisting in pain as they jostled his broken leg. Then she found Sheppard.

The Major was ghostly pale and leaning heavily against Stackhouse as the younger man helped him out of the jumper. Blood and dirt streaked his face, but he kept ignoring the medial personal as they tried to help him. He waited until McKay and Ford were loaded and whisked from the jumper before he finally sat and let someone look at him. Elizabeth waited until the doctor nodded to her before coming up beside him.

"John?"

He looked up at her and sighed. "Crappy mission, Liz," were his first words.

She just nodded. "We should get you down to the infirmary," she told him.

He nodded and the doctor helped him back to his feet.

Teyla stood nearby. Elizabeth read the concern and worry there. "Are you alright?" she asked her.

"I am uninjured," she responded.

Elizabeth caught her eyes. "Are you alright?"

The Alosian woman sighed. "Not really, but that is unimportant now. The other must be cared for first."

Elizabeth nodded. Of all of them, she and Teyla had the most in common and the most understanding of each other. Each a leader of their people and each tied to these men by more than duty.

Carson sighed and leaned back against an empty bed. His patients were all sleeping peacefully. Well, more or less.

He looked across the infirmary and smiled a little. It had been a very rough day. He pushed himself up and started rounds. He stopped at the foot of Aiden Ford's bed, the young man slept, his arm draped up over his head and his leg suspended in traction. The break in his fibula and tibia had been clean, but he had jumbled things up a bit with all his crawling around and had sustained a couple of cracked ribs from his run-in with the Wraith. Everything looked good and he would probably be in a cast and out of there in a day or two. He quietly slid the chart back into the holder and moved to the next bed.

He grimaced, this was getting too be far too common with these men. John Sheppard snored softly, the combination of pain killers, blood loss and fatigue finally taking its toll. The wound in his arm hadn't been bad. Messy, but not bad, but he had refused for them to even look at it until Rodney and Aiden were stabilized.

Carson sighed. Maybe it was just their distance from home or the stress of being constantly in danger and having to rely on each other, but he was starting to think of these people as almost a family unit. John, the older brother and always up to mischief, but there in a moments notice if something happened to one of the others. Then there was, Rodney, the middle child, far too smart for his own britches and always trying to prove himself. Unsure of his place, but always willing stick his neck and sometimes life out to protect the others. Aiden, the younger brother who looked up to them all and always had the special glint of admiration for the "older brothers" Always knowing they would somehow make it right and he just had to stick it out and do what he was told. Carson chuckled to himself. Then Teyla would have to be the little sister. Always being teased, but more than capable of sticking up for herself against the others, but more protective than a mother hen if something happened to one of them.

Carson moved to the curtained off area of the room. Rodney lay on the medical bed, his head raised and wires and tubes tucking in and around him. Carson went over the readings from the machines and relaxed a little. If they were lucky, they had gotten the worse of the swelling down in his brain before any significant brain damaged occurred. The other reading were climbing steadily back into the normal ranges.

He looked down at the unconscious form. Clean bandages swathed his head. It had taken over twenty stitches to stitch the gash in his head up, but it was above the hairline so the scare shouldn't show. The damage to his chest hadn't been nearly as bad has he had feared. Five broken ribs, two of which were flailed and the pressure from them were what had been giving him trouble breathing, but thank the good Lord, his lung hadn't been punctured. They had to put a chest tube in, but it was out now and the man was breathing normally. He was still intubated, but that had more to do with the brain trauma. They'd keep him unconscious a few more hours and then slowly bring him around. The manitol and steroids had done their work to reduce the swelling.

He had to smile a bit. If only Rodney knew how many people had been by, asking about him. Carson, himself, had been a bit shocked. Rodney could be the most aggravating person in the world, but he could also be rather endearing at the same time.

There had been a steady stream for a while of the science folk. He hadn't been too surprised when Zalenka had showed up asking how the Canadian was doing, but then others stopped by, most surprising of all was Kavanagh. Carson didn't much care for the American and the call didn't seem much more than professional courtesy, but still.

"How is he doing?"

Carson turned to see Elizabeth standing there. "Improving."

"Will he be alright?" she asked, her dark eyes glittering in concern.

"I think so. He's pretty stubborn."

She smiled a little. "Yes, he is." She started to say more, but her comm. buzzed. "Weir here." She frowned and then looked at him. "There's an incoming wormhole. It's from the planet."