- Chapter 6 -
Thud.
"Mppfffff.
Oh, great.
Well done, McKay. Breaking your neck while falling out of your bed. One way to make people remember you."
Awkwardly climbing back into his bed, Rodney McKay rubbed his eyes with a little more force than necessary and stretched his arms and legs until he heard the odd sound of popping joints. It was still dark outside, only the faint outline of the new day could be seen in the silver streak lining the horizon. Not even six o'clock.
From experience he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep now. That was one reason for his frequent late night shifts. They weren't so much late night as early morning shifts, really, since someone would usually kick him out of the lab at a reasonable hour. He'd get some sleep, maybe two or three hours, wake up and go back to work. Since he could never fall back asleep again for another three hours, this time might as well be put to good use instead of counting sheep, or, in his case, usually Wraith.
They just tended to pop up. It was as much frightening as it was ridiculous to see these creepy creatures hopping over an imaginary wooden fence, one after the other.
Maybe he should tell Kate about that. It would definitely make for an interesting session.
After enjoying the sensation of the residual warmth still radiating from his bed for a couple more moments, he resolutely got up while simultaneously trying to get rid of his boxers and left sock, which almost resulted in another nosedive.
By the time he'd reached the small bathroom, T-shirt, boxers and one pink sock had been successfully disposed of. With an annoyed grunt, the second, yellow sock came flying out of the partially open shower door and joined its brother on the floor.
Ten minutes later he felt clean, but the lack of sleep from the previous days had taken its toll. This was what the first marathon-runner must have felt like after arriving in Sparta. Even the simple act of getting dressed hurt in places he didn't want to think about.
He desperately needed coffee, lots of it. And breakfast… Breakfast. He was actually looking forward to food again. The sandwich he had been forced to eat yesterday night under Sheppard's watchful eyes, had stayed down, but that had been the only good thing about it.
Maybe the crew of the Daedalus had already unloaded the food they brought.
Peanut butter, made out of real peanuts; jam, that wasn't fluorescent; real bread, not that timber-flavoured crap that made McDonald's bread look like a Four-Seasons-Gourmet meal. Rodney's mouth was watering already. He should really wake the major up or check whether Carson was still awake, so they could have their first proper breakfast in months together. They had earned it after all.
Strange. A year ago the thought alone of actually looking forward to having breakfast or lunch together with someone would have been unimaginable. Rodney had even planned his timetable so that as few people as possible would be occupying the cafeterias or mess-halls when he was there. Not anymore.
And now the ZPM. Just thinking about it sent his brain into overdrive. So much to do, so many possibilities to explore. He hoped that Radek was back on his feet; he'd need him today. A schedule and some ground rules for his kids would have to be set up, so they wouldn't burn their curious fingers – or labs – with another stupid stunt like the one yesterday.
Quickly grabbing his radio from the nightstand and positioning it behind his ear, he all but ran out of his room only to connect with something solid. Losing his balance he landed painfully, half on top of the obstruction and half on the floor.
oOo
"What the... Carson!" Rodney couldn't believe, couldn't understand, what he was seeing. His doctor and friend who had patched him up – again – just last night. The one Rodney had left behind, maybe tired but in perfect health mere hours ago. Now this man was lying on his stomach outside his quarters in a pool of blood at the end of a crimson-coloured trail.
Panicking, Rodney dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse, but could find none. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." This could not be happening.
"Don't do this, Carson. Please, please, don't do this."
Carefully turning the silent figure onto his back, he checked again for any sign of life. Shaking fingers scrambled at the doctor's neck again, but there was nothing.
The world seemed to crumble to pieces right in front of Rodney and he could feel the heat of shocked, helpless tears burning his eyes, but he didn't care.
Preparing Carson for CPR, as the man himself had shown him so many months ago, he paged the major. A part of his brain told him that paging the infirmary would be the more logical choice, but, for some reason, Rodney felt that John Sheppard would be able to fix all this.
"McKay to Major Sheppard. Major. ... MAJOR, WAKE UP!" Rodney positively screamed into his radio, while angling back the doctor's neck to check his airway.
There was something! He had heard something.
"Rodney? What's going on?"
If Sheppard had been sleeping, his voice didn't betray it. He was all business but Rodney ignored him, too busy confirming that he had indeed heard Carson breathing.
"Rodney? Talk to me? Where are you?"
McKay felt like fainting when he finally calmed down enough to find the right spot. A pulse was beating; faint and erratic, but there none the less.
"Okay, I'm on my way to your room, now. If you're somewhere else, tell me!" John's tone was sharp; this was the U.S. Air Force Major speaking.
"I...I'm here, Major. It's Carson. We need a medical team here ASAP."
"I'm on it. Sit tight"
oOo
Now that he knew that Carson was still alive, Rodney was able to breathe again. Swallowing hard against the nausea, sight and smell of so much blood had induced, he carefully tried to peel away the doctor's once pristine white shirt.
Dried blood had glued the cloth to the skin around the wound, and Rodney quickly stopped his ministrations, fearful that he would disturb any clotting and possibly restart the bleeding, which had obviously stopped some time ago.
There couldn't be much left anyway.
"Carson?" Rodney gently slapped the unresponsive man's cheek. "Carson, come on. Can you hear me? Please?" The doctor still showed no reaction, so Rodney tried to make him as comfortable as he could.
He only had to wait a short time until he heard the squeaking sound of rapidly approaching footsteps.
"Oh, crap." Sheppard rounded the corner at a run and skidded to a halt next to Rodney. "Is he...?"
"Alive. Barely." Rodney didn't look up.
"What happened?" John re-holstered his gun, which he had unconsciously drawn, to help Rodney elevate Beckett's feet onto the physicist's bunched up jacket.
"How the hell should I know? I woke up, had a shower, came out and stumbled over him. Obviously someone shot him!" McKay's voice was steadily rising in volume and velocity. This was more than he could handle right now.
"It's okay, calm down. He'll be fine, I'm sure." Sheppard held two fingers to Carson's throat, then looked worriedly at the messy stomach injury.
"Yeah? When did you become a seer?" Shrugging off the comforting hand landing on his shoulder, McKay was secretly thankful for Sheppard as always playing the optimist. Well placed lies were sometimes easier to live with than the harsh truth.
Rodney pointed at the trail of blood leading away from them. "You came from there. Where does it lead? Where'd he come from?"
John busied himself keeping check of Carson's pulse, murmuring words of comfort to the oblivious doctor.
"Major?"
Still not meeting McKay's eyes, he draped his own jacket over Beckett in an attempt to preserve what little warmth was left in the still body. "Your lab."
At that moment a bleary-eyed looking Dr Biro and two med assistants came running, pushed an unresisting Rodney out of the way and began working on their boss.
Careful to avoid disturbing the urgent but well rehearsed movements of the doctors, Rodney joined Sheppard, who was now stiffly leaning on the opposite wall, watching the small crowd of people with an unreadable expression on his face. "What do you mean, 'my lab'?" his voice was a barely contained whisper, breaking slightly.
"Whatever happened must have happened there," the major informed him gently. "Then he seems to have crawled here for help. You didn't hear anything?"
"Yes, of course, I did. I was lying in bed, heard Carson getting shot, waited until he crawled all the way here on all fours, then I went to sleep, letting him bleed peacefully to death on my doorstep. What the hell kind of a question is that? No, I didn't hear anything. I hardly remember getting into bed thanks to all the happy juices, Carson pumped into me yesterday!" At that moment Rodney really wished his tone didn't have the tendency to get all snappy and accusatory whenever he was scared, but he just couldn't help it.
Before John had a chance to respond, Dr Biro spoke up, her voice sharp and professional. "Dr McKay, Major Sheppard. We're ready to transport him now. It will most likely take a while for us to know anything for certain." Looking over the two anxious men and the bloodstains on their hands and clothes, she ordered, "Get yourself cleaned up first, before coming to the infirmary."
"How is he?" John beat Rodney by a second.
"Not good. I'll let you know as soon as we know more." With that the petite doctor hurried after the gurney, which was already out of sight, with McKay hard on her heels. The major stayed back, alerted a couple more of his men, then headed to the lab.
oOo
By the time Rodney had caught up with the medics they were already half way to the infirmary. Not daring to interfere with whatever Dr Biro was doing at the top end of the gurney, he carefully gripped Carson's blanket-covered, too-cold ankle, and walked dazedly alongside.
Carson looked awful. The skin Rodney could actually see was paper-white; there were dark circles under the doctor's sunken eyes, his lips split and raw-looking. Rodney was actually surprised that the oxygen mask over his friend's face still misted over regularly in sync with the shallow, unsteady breathing.
In sharp contrast to his pale face, dark red stains of blood covered the rest of his body, already almost dried black. Flakes of dried blood had settled onto the white mattress underneath him, painting a horrid shadow around the man.
McKay couldn't help but wonder just what in the world had happened. It had all been over last night, or so he'd thought. Why this now?
Before long, they entered the now almost quiet infirmary, but the physicist was oblivious to his surroundings until someone roughly pulled his hand away and shoved him gently, but determinedly, into the waiting area. The last thing he saw were more people swarming over the gurney and blocking his view before the door to the OR swallowed the group.
There was nothing else for him to do, but his head was still trying to get up to speed with everything that had happened during the last 7 minutes; when a potentially great day had turned out to have the potential of being his worst day ever. Which was saying something considering the events of the past week.
Looking around for the, by now gruesomely familiar, grey chairs that Carson had hijacked from the corridors all those months ago, Rodney realized they were gone. Three, now empty, bunks had replaced them, and were standing stripped of their bedding along the back wall; a desolate remainder of yesterday's lack of space for the wounded.
Sighing tiredly he sat down on one corner of the bunk nearest to him only to jump back up when someone else suddenly joined him in the room.
"Elizabeth." He hadn't heard her come in.
"Rodney. How is he?" She sounded a little breathless, her face showing a mixture of shock, disbelief and worry.
Wringing his hands nervously, McKay looked towards the closed doors before answering. "I don't know. They just took him to the OR. Last thing I saw he was still alive."
"Thank goodness." Elizabeth closed her eyes in relief, then guided him back to one of the bunks and sat down next to him, covering her tired face with both hands.
"Uh. You okay?" McKay leaned over a little, awkwardly patting her back as if unsure how to react to her uncharacteristic demeanour.
Elizabeth stayed silent for a moment but then removed her hands from her face and rested her elbows on her thighs, fingers interlaced and thumbs rubbing together anxiously. "Sorry", she gave him a forced smile, "I'd had hoped that this was all over. I didn't expect to get a call like that again so soon. Do you know what happened?"
For some reason this question got his defences up again. Why did everyone think he knew anything just because he'd been the one to find Carson. Wrapping his arms around his midsection, Rodney got up and started pacing. "How should I know? All I know is I woke up, left my room to get some breakfast and found Beckett half-dead in a pool of his own blood."
His voice was steadily rising in volume again and the circles he walked increased in numbers from his quickening steps. Suddenly the woman blocked his path, grabbed him by both shoulders and steered him back to a seat next to her.
"Sit down, Rodney. It's alright. John went to investigate what happened and we'll know soon enough. Have you had something to eat, yet?" Not waiting for a reply, Elizabeth got up. Rodney had the sneaking suspicion she'd read Carson's report from last night's incident. "I'll get us something. Be right back."
oOo
It took almost an hour until news arrived. Elizabeth had forced Rodney to get cleaned up and eat the bagel, scrambled eggs and yoghurt she'd brought. She'd even allowed him coffee after he drank some apple-juice. Yes, she definitely had heard about yesterday, but Rodney had to admit he felt a lot better after having eaten some food.
The major had inquired several times over the radio about news, but had yet to tell them what, if anything, he'd found out.
Elizabeth had started telling Rodney about what was being done in the control room and what they had accomplished so far in respect to the city's repair. He realized that the expedition's leader had obviously gotten very little sleep, if any at all, the previous night, while he'd slept like a baby. And not only did he sleep while other people were still working, he'd somehow slept through Carson getting shot and literally crawling to his room for help. How could he have slept through that?
His mind kept drifting away and he found himself zoning out on Elizabeth's voice, her own tone betraying little interest in what she told him about fixed bulkhead doors or increased generator capacities, herself.
How was he supposed to live with it if Carson died and it had been in Rodney's power to prevent it, if he'd just been awake? And, if the major was right and whatever had happened had happened in his very own lab, then there definitely must have been something he could have done to prevent it.
All because he had slept.
Rodney knew he was being ridiculous, but vowing never to sleep again and consequently feeling sorry for himself was a good distraction from worrying about Carson.
He didn't even realise that Elizabeth had stopped talking until he felt her getting up. He watched her walk towards the tall Dr Robinson who had emerged from the OR behind him. The dark-skinned doctor looked tired, much older than his 30 something years. Quickly scrambling to his feet himself, Rodney joined them just outside the waiting room.
Neither Rodney nor Elizabeth managed to actually form the words to ask the dreaded question, but it was answered with a tight smile, lips pressed together until they were white. "He's still with us. The bullet missed vital organs and we managed to control the internal bleeding. Dr Biro is still working on him, but he should come out of surgery soon."
"Then why do I have the feeling there's a huge 'but' involved here?" Rodney didn't like the younger man's tone and carefully chosen words.
"Because there is, I'm afraid." The doctor massaged his temple, obviously considering how to tell them the bad news.
"Martin?" Clearly Elizabeth was just as ready to crawl out of her skin as Rodney was.
"All in all, Dr Beckett is a very lucky man. The bullet didn't do nearly as much damage as it could have, and the bleeding was slow enough to stop on its own after a while. If it hadn't, he'd be dead." The man's voice showed professional detachment, but the tiny bit of hesitation before each sentence and a few too many sighs gave away the concern he was feeling.
"Slow?" Rodney asked incredulously, "you haven't seen the corridor, the Red Sea pales in comparison!"
"I know. And this is where the problem is. Due to the fact that it took as long as it did to find him, Dr Beckett nearly bled out before the bleeding did finally stop, so we're having difficulties keeping his BP up in order to stabilise him." Another sigh. "Apart from that, the bullet didn't go all the way through, but stopped and is lodged dangerously close to his spinal column. From what we've been able to determine his… ahm… moving around resulted in additional damage. We don't know how severe it is yet and…"
"Additional damage? What kind of damage? Wait a minute. His spine, you say? Oh god, I moved him!" Rodney choked out. "When I found him, he lay on his stomach and I rolled him over! I paralysed him, didn't I?"
The other man crossed the short distance between himself and the physicist and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Dr McKay, I can't say for certain, of course, but judging from what Dr Biro told me, the damage had already been done by the bullet itself and Carson's own attempt to get to help. You did good in getting him here quickly after you found him."
"So he's not paralysed, is he?" Shrugging off the other man's hand, Rodney started gesticulating wildly to hide the fear that had settled inside his stomach. He was getting impatient with the doctor's beating around the proverbial bush.
"We'll have to see once he is awake. Right now, getting his BP up and fighting off any infection is paramount. Dr Biro and I are still debating whether or not to remove the bullet, but, either way, he is too weak right now for us to continue surgery. We have to wait until his condition stabilises.
Right now, I'm afraid, it seems like there is some impairment. But this could be related to the projectile's position and not an indication of actual nerve damage. If the next couple of hours go well, and provided there are no further complications, he should pull through just fine."
"'Just fine' as in alive, but unable to walk." Rodney almost spat out, redirecting his anger and hopelessness onto the messenger.
"Dr McKay", Robinson said softly, "right now, the most important thing is that he's alive. We'll cope with everything else once the situation presents itself."
"Can we see him?" Elizabeth asked. As usual, she was the voice of reason.
"I'll get you, once he's settled," the doctor promised then excused himself.
- Chapter 7 -
It took almost another hour until, true to his word, Dr Robinson returned to let Rodney into the small cubicle set up as an ICU. After the fifth frantic call for help, Elizabeth had reluctantly returned to the control room, to mediate between her own people and the new Daedalus crew. And there was still no sign of the major.
Before Rodney had a chance to enter the small room, a blonde nurse, he remembered Carson calling Mary…Marie or Maria or something like that, carried one of the grey, bulky, former waiting-room chairs over and placed it next to Carson's bed. Quickly checking his vitals and noting them on a chart, she softly ran her hand over her unresponsive boss' forehead, gave McKay a concerned smile then left them alone.
Carson actually didn't look so bad anymore. The blood was all gone, and there even was a tiny bit of colour on his cheeks. What made the scene so eerie wasn't the multitude of cables, protruding from all imaginable and unimaginable parts of the doctor's body, hooked up to half a dozen beeping, dripping and moving machines; the scary part was the way he lay there.
Usually people were lying in the infirmary propped up on a comfortable pillow, the head of the bed inclined, if only a little. This time though, Carson lay completely flat, with only the smallest of pillows under his head, and he wasn't moving at all. Not even a twitch. Only the reassuring hollow sound of breath against a mask still appeared human.
Rodney was at a loss what to do. Was he supposed to talk or touch? Or just sit there and do nothing? Sheppard was usually a lot better at these kinds of things and he wished with increasing force that the major would show up. Nervously avoiding all lines and cables in the way, Rodney touched the doctor's shoulder with two fingers. When no alarms went off and Carson didn't fall apart, they were joined by the other three.
"Oh, Carson. Why did this have to happen? You're supposed to be the one watching over us and not the other way around. That's just not fair. You're the doctor here, after all. What if I get hurt while repairing the mess the Wraith left us? Or what if Teyla accidentally breaks the major? What are we going to do then, huh?"
His voice started to squeak a little and he stopped to rub over his forehead, painfully hard. "Why didn't you make just a little more noise, huh? Why didn't I hear you? Why didn't I? I don't usually have such a deep sleep. Must be because of your happy juices. Why did you have to give them to me anyway? Didn't you trust my word to go to bed? Besides you looked in more desperate need of sleep anyway. Should have followed your own advice, then all this wouldn't have happened. What were you doing in my…"
"How is he?"
Rodney almost jumped out of his skin when John Sheppard suddenly appeared behind him.
"Major! Oh, ah, ahm, not so good, but Dr Biro is now fairly certain he'll pull through." McKay tried to give John an encouraging smile, which turned into a frown when he saw the major's dark expression and the way Sheppard avoided looking at him.
"That's good. Let's go."
"What? Why? Major, what are you…?"
John had grabbed Rodney by his upper arm. And, while not being tight enough to hurt, it forced him into a stumbling trot behind Sheppard into the main area of the infirmary, then out and towards the control room.
Rodney was too surprised to put up much of a fight and let himself be dragged along and shoved into the conference room.
Radek was sitting behind his laptop, biting his lower lip. He shot nervous glances in the direction of the two entering men. Rodney got the distinct impression that, if given the chance, Radek would make a run for it, which was rather disconcerting. Elizabeth was standing in the far corner, arms wrapped around her body and met his eyes with an unreadable look.
John motioned him in no uncertain terms to sit next to Zelenka and something told Rodney to follow the unspoken order without so much as a squeak this time.
Suddenly a gun slammed onto the table in front of him, making everyone in the room jump. It spun around its own axis a couple of times before coming to a halt.
"Recognise this?"