Part 10
Beckett's gurney was swarmed by medical personnel and swept from the jumper bay, through the halls of Atlantis and toward the infirmary.
John followed at a jog.
Dr. Weir met them halfway. "How's Rodney?" Sheppard inquired as Weir fell into step beside him.
"He's still in surgery. Dr. Morrison is handling it."
"Shit, Rodney hates Morrison," Sheppard pointed out.
"Rodney hates everyone who's medical and not Carson," Weir countered.
The two followed the gurney through the infirmary doors. They were forced to stop when a nurse barred their way.
"Please, Dr. Weir, Major Sheppard, no one is allowed in the treatment area during emergencies." The young nurse looked over her shoulders as the narrow stretcher carrying her boss disappeared behind a curtained off area.
They heard the three count and the quick shifting of a body from a moveable stretcher to a more suitable wider gurney. They heard orders issued, a shoe hit the ground and the sound of scissors cutting cloth.
"Please, ma'am, Major, wait here, someone'll come back as soon as we know something."
"Colonel," Sheppard corrected.
The nurse smiled sweetly, trying to disguise her puzzled expression.
"What about Dr. McKay?" Weir asked.
"Dr. Morrison is still with him in surgery. It is taking a little longer than he expected, but he is a very good surgeon. Dr. McKay is in good hands."
Sheppard quirked his mouth into a disbelieving grimace.
The nurse smiled apologetically and hurried toward the emergency area where soft platitudes were spoken in amongst abrupt orders.
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Sheppard sat beside Rodney's bed watching the oxygen mask fog and clear with each breath McKay took. His expression looked ghastly pale under the dim lights of the quiet infirmary.
An IV fed the back of Rodney's left hand--the hanging bag of clear fluids carrying a square orange sticker warning that medication had been added to the litre of fluids. A second IV fed his right hand--this bag was slightly smaller, more square than rectangle, with labels all its own, indicating what type of blood transfusion the astrophysicist was receiving.
"Should have known not to send you two out to an abandoned part of the city," Sheppard muttered, rubbing tiredly at his forehead.
He sat back, slumping heavily in his chair and allowing the back of his head to rest against the narrow roll that creased the top back of the chair.
He was brought out of his quiet reverie at the sound of an impatient raised voice.
"Carson, I don't need your cooperation." It sounded like Morrison. The man truly had no bed-side manner. He might have been a gifted surgeon and trained under the same team as Beckett had, but he lacked people skills. It seemed to Sheppard that Beckett managed the surgeon's slight flaws by keeping him away from conscious patients and leaving him basically to run the surgery suite while Carson and the tall dark doctor took care of the medical and basic surgery needs.
Sheppard listened intently for a response, and could hear the deep rumble of Beckett's voice but not the individual words.
"Dr. Beckett," Morrison warned from behind closed curtains.
Sheppard recognized the tone and slowly pushed himself wearily to his feet. Taking a stance like that with Beckett and especially McKay for that matter, would get no one anywhere but high blood pressure and a bleeding ulcer.
McKay was a menace all by himself. Beckett seemed to need a catalyst, Rodney apparently filled that role amazingly well. "Stay put, McKay," Sheppard ordered patting Rodney's shoulder and moving away from his unconscious friend.
Sheppard strode tiredly back to the cordoned off area and pushed the curtain aside.
"Problem back here, gentlemen?" Sheppard asked as he sauntered up beside Beckett's temporary bed.
"You don't belong back here, Major," Morrison stated, fighting to control his temper.
"Colonel," Sheppard gave him a crooked smile and then ignored him.
"How you feelin', Doc?" The colonel took inventory of the neat row of stitches that creased the hair line at the corner of Beckett's forehead and the blood that still caked the hard folds of his ear and the deep purple maroon of his swollen right eye. The nurses apparently weren't done scrubbing their patient clean. An ice pack rested on his lower shin and ankle, trying to reduce swelling that already forced maroon, black and blue toes apart.
"Rodney?" Beckett croaked softly, staring in Sheppard's general direction.
"I told you Carson, Dr. McKay is resting, like you should be doing after we get the imaging completed," Morrison explained, "if you just let me do my job, you'll be back on the road to recovery in no time."
Beckett ignored Morrison and stared at Sheppard with one partially opened eye.
"Sleeping," Sheppard answered, "why not let Morrison do his job so he can get done with you."
"Don't need sedation for imaging," Beckett uttered softly.
Sheppard raised his eyebrows at the standing surgeon.
Morrison heaved a tired sigh, "We tried. He won't stay still for it."
"I don't remember," Beckett muttered a touch of concern coloring his voice. He paused and added softly, "You sure you have the right bloody patient?"
Sheppard ducked his head to hide his smile. Morrison was going to blow a gasket.
"He's been slightly combative," Morrison stared pointedly at Sheppard trying to convey the importance of getting the diagnostics completed. The surgeon directed his attention back to his patient, "It's called short term memory loss, Dr. Beckett, brought about by a probable concussion. You'd know that but I suspect your brain is a little scrambled right now. I would like to be able to gather a little more information to make a proper diagnosis."
Sheppard could have sworn that Morrison spoke without moving his clenched teeth.
Without notice, Beckett suddenly turned his head, gripping desperately to the side of the gurney and began vomiting over his pillow, shoulder and arm.
Sheppard thought Morrison was going to bite through his lip as he reached down and gently rolled his boss further onto his side. Beckett continued to heave weakly over the over the bed and onto the floor. After a bit, Carson sagged into Morrison's supporting hands and rested his forehead on the white coated forearm. Fred Morrison, in an uncharacteristic show of sympathy, rubbed the back of his boss's shoulder.
A nurse quietly exchanged the soiled pillow with a crisp, clean one.
Sheppard stared at the open back of Beckett's hospital gown seeing the deep bruising that covered the doctor's upper back.
"Let me help you, Carson," Morrison softly said.
"I don't want to fall asleep," Beckett slurred back.
The surgeon eased his boss back onto the new pillow. A clammy sweat covered Carson's face and neck, plastering strands of hair to his skin.
Sheppard caught the surgeon's eye and simply nodded. He'd handle it.
The Colonel turned his attention back to Beckett. "Doc, why don't you let Dr. Morrison do his job? If you don't like it when you wake up you can send him home."
Morrison shot the colonel an exasperated look.
"No," Beckett staunchly refused.
"It's gone, Doc," Sheppard reassured. "Teyla, Ronan and I sent it back to whatever dark hole it was created from. It's not coming back."
"Carson, please," Morrison fitted the head of the needle into the IV port.
"No," Carson mumbled and tried to pull his hand away and would have succeeded if it had been the correct hand.
Sheppard looked to Morrison and saw that the man was close to exploding, "Doc, you know prime numbers?"
"Aye," Beckett answered.
Sheppard nodded to himself, "Ford threatened to beat Zelenka up once because Radek kept poking fun at him for getting them wrong." Sheppard paused and nodded to Morrison. "97 a prime number?"
"Aye," Beckett mumbled closing his good eye.
"What's the next two down?" Sheppard asked. He watched as Beckett licked his lips clearly trying to get his mind to wrap around the question.
Morrison injected the port.
" Ninety…" Beckett's focus wandered. He blinked heavily, struggled to open his eyes and stared wide eyed at Sheppard as if imploring the colonel to help him stay awake; too help him keep his guard; protect Rodney perhaps, and those in the infirmary. Carson felt the warm drug induce flush flare up his arm and flitter out through his veins to the rest of his body. "No, no, no, lad," Beckett mumbled, fighting to keep his eyes unrolled and heavy eyelids opened. He tried to roll toward Sheppard, seeking help, some sort of aid. An anchor.
The colonel placed a reassuring hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Its okay, Doc. Its going to be okay, trust me."
For a moment, Sheppard felt a flash of overwhelming guilt for distracting Beckett and allowing Morrison to strip Carson of what little security and control he felt. It seemed wrong; somehow a betrayal. The colonel watched as Beckett's eyes finally fluttered closed and the tense set of his muscles that Sheppard had not noticed before, visibly relaxed, succumbing to the drugs. Beckett's breathing evened out taking on a shallow, evenly repetitive cadence.
"Thankyou, Major," Morrison said preparing his now cooperative patient for further diagnostics.
Sheppard stood at the head of the gurney, his eyes staying on Beckett as if trying to will a sense of security and protection to his insensible friend.
"We'll take it from here, Major," Morrison stated clearly dismissing the outsider.
"It's 'Colonel'," Sheppard muttered and backed out of the way as imaging equipment was moved into place.
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"Colonel," Teyla's soft summons had Sheppard lifting his chin off his chest. He dropped his arms from across his chest and sat up stiffly in his chair. His black t-shirt was wrinkled and highlighted the unkempt appearance that cloaked the man. There was a chill in the air that seemed only to manifest when one was overtired and run down.
Telya gave the colonel a moment to get his bearings before continuing, "Dr. Beckett is stirring again."
Sheppard rubbed at his burning eyes with the palm of his hands and watched as Carson attempted to shift his uncasted leg and roll onto his side. Teyla gently guided him over, careful of the bruising on his upper body and keeping his IV line from becoming entangled in the sheet and blankets. She readjusted the nasal canula that slipped to the side of his face blowing oxygen against his swollen eye. In the past few hours, Beckett's movements had been accompanied by violent bouts of retching.
Teyla held the small metal basin should it be needed again.
This time however, instead of vomiting and hovering between incoherence and unintelligible mumbling, Carson slowly blinked his eye open and stared at John.
Sheppard wasn't sure if Beckett was actually seeing him for who he was or was just focusing on something his eye happened to notice first.
Sheppard found it unnerving.
Rodney had been the same way. McKay had drifted in out of unconsciousness, unaware of his surroundings, unaware of the people around him, mumbling for Sheppard, lifting a heavy hand and attempting to latch onto something, and at those times Sheppard simply grasped his hand and returned a steady, secure grip. McKay would settle back down and drift off, occasionally whispering O'Connor's or Sullivan's name or rattling off some inane equation that would probably save the universe sometime in the future.
Other times McKay wrestled weakly with the oxygen mask, pushing it askew on his face and swiping at it with heavy hands, forcing Sheppard to deflect Rodney's hand and replace the oxygen mask.
When Sheppard had been forced to leave for an hour and a half, Ronan had taken his place. Teyla never left.
Morrison had tromped his way through in the beginning, after he had finished with Beckett checking on his two patients. His bedside manner was as gruff as the man himself. It had only taken Ronan grabbing the surgeon's forearm once when he roughly manipulated Beckett's casted leg, to get Morrison to transfer the two patients over to 'Internal' and into the hands of the tall dark doctor with a name no one seemed to want to pronounce when Sheppard was present.
Sheppard was glad for Ronan's presence then, because John wasn't sure that if he had been there, he wouldn't have decked the man. The Colonel had spent part of the early morning supervising the recovery of O'Connor and Sullivan's bodies, or what was left of them. In that time, Sheppard marveled at just how lucky Rodney and Carson had been to have survived.
Now at 3am, he dozed between the two beds waiting to see who would stir next.
It was Beckett this time.
"Hey, Doc." Sheppard leaned forward in his chair and watched as Carson simply blinked at him.
"Do you think he knows where he is this time?" Teyla asked. Her concern had been palatable when earlier in the evening Beckett had failed to answer any of the attending's basic questions correctly. He wavered between Glasgow, Edinburgh, and some place called Thurso. Sheppard had originally mistaken him for saying, 'Thirsty' and that had almost been a fiasco in the making. The tall doctor had reassured them the disorientation and confusion were simply the lingering effects of the medication and an extremely stressful day combined with the concussion. It would pass. Imaging had proven clean all around, well except for the broken foot, courtesy of kicking an exoskeletal plated head repeatedly.
Teyla looked doubtful. She had seen some of her people survive such wounds and not ever be themselves again.
McKay had been worse and simply responded to every question asked of him with a dismissive slurred, "go away," or simply didn't register the questions and called blindly for 'Sheppard.' The attending again assured them it would pass.
Sheppard was fairly confident this time that Beckett was truly with him and not lingering under the heavy effects of whatever medication they had loaded him up with.
"You and Rodney are going to be alright," Sheppard reassured, quirking a half smile. His smile broadened slightly at Beckett's furrowed brow. Carson was back, reacting appropriately to things around him.
Teyla looked relieved.
"He's right here," Sheppard moved his chair back a little and gave Beckett an unobstructed view of Rodney who still slept under the heavy sedative effects of painkillers, blood loss and a hellacious day. McKay had yet to awaken fully. Morrison didn't expect him to come around properly until full morning.
The colonel waited patiently as Carson stared at Rodney as if trying to put pieces together. He turned his half hooded, glazed eye back at Sheppard.
"I don't remember," Beckett mumbled. His words were thick and barely articulated. He swiped absently as the nasal canula with a heavy hand. Sheppard reached forward and gently grabbed his wrist placing it back on the bed.
"Don't worry about it, Doc," Sheppard reassured, "get some rest, it's too early to be awake." He watched slightly amused as Beckett dutifully closed his eye and drifted off to sleep.
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"Am I dead?"
"No, you're not dead," a chuckling voice replied, "though you'll probably owe Morrison a thank-you note."
"Morrison is a moron."
"He saved your ass," the voice sounded familiar.
"Carson saved my ass," McKay's eyes blinked open on their own.
"Welcome back."
McKay tried rolling his head so he could face the direction that the voice came from but found he didn't have the strength to move. "Oh God, I'm paralyzed—Morrison, Mcfumble fingers, strikes again."
"McKay, you keep that up and no one will work to save your ass the next time you meet up with the monster from the black lagoon." It was Sheppard's voice. McKay felt a wave of relief saturate his bones. They'd be safe now. The thought sparked to the forefront of his mind without his understanding.
Rodney paused, fighting to get his vision to focus as mental images flashed through his mind like a child's viewfinder. "Carson!"
"Easy, easy," hands gently held McKay flush to the bed, "Carson's fine, he's already back in his own quarters." Sheppard's chuckling features slowly worked their way into focus. "You've been sleeping on your dead ass for two days, McKay, was beginning to think you wouldn't wake up until Christmas."
"Sullivan and O'Connor," McKay started to say but Sheppard interrupted him.
"Taken care of," The smile dipped and pained look crossed his features for just a brief moment. "Daedalus is here. Everyone's at the mail run, figured you and me could enjoy some confiscated Snickers but seeing as you're still on an IV diet, I'll eat yours for you." Sheppard's face split with a genuine smile at McKay's put upon expression.
"You're a dead man," McKay muttered out, shifting carefully on the bed trying to find a comfortable position and failing miserably. His eyes grew heavy and sleep was quickly reclaiming its reign.
"Tough talk for a man who can't even stay awake," Sheppard pointed out.
"Won't last," McKay promised as his eyes slid closed.
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Beckett hobbled delicately into the cafeteria and stood quietly against the wall, slipping his crutches out from under his arms. He folded his forearms across their padded tops and leaned heavily against them, listening as names were called and mail was handed out.
Major Lorne, standing near the back, noticed the chief medical officer. He leaned forward and tapped the shoulder of someone sitting in front of him, whispered in his ear and then nodded his head in the direction of the Beckett. Without hesitation, the person Major Lorne spoke to and the person adjacent both stood and let the major take their chairs.
Lorne offered his thanks and carried the two chairs toward the CMO who stood wearily, his chin resting on his forearms unaware of anything around him but the names being called. A deep bruise still curled and stretched around the Scot's swollen eye and partially down his cheek. It felt wrong to see the Doc bruised like a boxer pushed one round too many by a careless trainer.
"Hey Doc, why don't you take a seat and put your leg up," he offered placing the two chairs down next to the physician.
"Aye, thanks, lad," Beckett smiled tiredly and gingerly eased himself down into the chair with a soft groan, with the majors solid grip as a guide. He paused for a moment catching a shallow breath before carefully lifting his leg, aiding it with his hands and the Major's help onto the second chair. Though the cast stopped just under his knee, it felt surprisingly heavier than he had remembered previous such casts.
Lorne took the crutches and scrutinized the doctor for a moment. The stretched skin over the swollen eye appeared to be pulled uncomfortably tight. Pigment had begun to bleed down the side of his face. The stitches along the corner of his forehead were still puffy and tender looking with a thin crust of golden serum along the jaggered edges. Despite the extra color the man appeared pale and exhausted.
"You look kind of rough around the edges, Doc. You supposed to be up and about yet?" He leaned against of Carson's crutches and mimicked the doctor's stance of only a few moments before. His thoughts wandered back to a few days past. He and a few others had helped Colonel Sheppard collect Sullivan and O'Connor. It had been a brutally violent scene, one he wished never to witness again. Especially of friends.
Major Lorne was at mail call today to intercept any letters or packages that might have been sent to the two young men.
"Thanks, laddie, I appreciate the compliment," Beckett returned with a touch of snappishness the younger man did not deserve. Carson felt a twinge of regret and tried to dig up the energy and strength to utter an apology.
"It's alright Doc, no worries," Lorne interrupted the apology before it took shape. It was a standing joke among the military personnel that you could read Dr. Beckett like an open book. So far no one had been able to wrangle the good doctor into a game of five card stud.
Carson carefully leaned back in his chair and felt his heart clench as names were read off alphabetically. His stomach remained unsettled and silently wondered if he would ever feel well again. He stayed until the M's. His despondency grew as he realized that perhaps his suspicions about home were true. With a soft sigh, he carefully tried pushing himself to his feet. He wasn't ready to hear Joey Sullivan or Sean O'Connor get called and know they'd never respond. Carson was thankful for the strong hand of support as the Major helped ease him out of chair.
He stood and suddenly everything greyed. The grip around his upper arm tightened and took more of his weight than he wanted to share. He felt the solid wall against his back.
He could hear Lorne speaking to him but couldn't make out the words through the smothering mist of swirling grey.
Carson paused, waiting for the dizziness and deafening roaring to abate. He kept his eyes closed and let saliva pool in his mouth as nausea gurgled ominously just behind the lump in his throat.
"You gonna be okay, Doc?" Lorne whispered, "want me to call one of your guys?"
"No, no, just give me a bit," Carson muttered sagging heavily against the wall with eyes closed and head bowed. After a moment, the ringing subsided, his vision cleared and his stomach settled a little.
The steady sure grip on his arm offered more support than he cared to admit he needed.
"Aye, thanks lad," Carson whispered out, gathering his crutches from the younger man. He leaned on them heavily, gathered his resolve and started his way carefully past Lorne.
He left the cafeteria and her jubilant crowd of mail recipients. His shoulders hurt nearly as much as his head and foot. His palms felt bruised and his back ached mercilessly. He felt tired and run down but just uncomfortable enough that true sleep eluded him.
Major Lorne kept concerned eyes on the doctor and watched as Beckett hobbled gingerly down the corridor. Worry for the doctor gnawed at his gut, he looked run down and exhausted. Lorne felt compelled to walk with Beckett, make sure the man made it to where ever it was he was going. The major took a breath and steeled himself. He stayed in the cafeteria; he'd find Colonel Sheppard later and talk to him, maybe Sheppard would know how to help the doc. Lorne slowly turned his attention back to the crowd and the voices being called. He had duties to his men, both the living and the dead and their families. He needed to intercept letters from home.
Beckett shuffled down the hall hearing the sharp call of names and the ecstatic small clusters of clapping as people were called and letters and packages handed out.
His heart lurched to his throat. He desperately missed his mum, and it embarrassed him.