He could hear a lot of noise around him, disturbing him, waking him from his enforced sleep. He couldn't quite bear to open his eyes, but he could hear the voices of John and Elizabeth somewhere in the middle distance. Ronon's rumble could be heard to his right, and Teyla's voice was just beside him. He opened his eyes just a crack.

"He is waking," Teyla said, too loudly for Carson's liking. He closed his eyes again and gave a small whimper of pain.

"Carson," she said, more gently this time. "Please, open your eyes. How are you feeling?"

He cracked open his eyes slightly, peering though long lashes so that the light was filtered and subdued. He could make out the familiar outline of John and Elizabeth as they joined Teyla at his side.

"Carson," Elizabeth said, her hand gentle on his arm. "Are you ready to wake up?"

"R'ney?" he asked, struggling to get his voice to work.

"Your staff are with him now," Elizabeth replied. It was only later that Carson realized how non-committal her reply was.

"Do you remember what happened, Carson?" John asked.

"Chair . . . explosion," Carson managed to muttered, before his eyes started to close again. He couldn't seem to keep them open long and missed the concerned look that John and Elizabeth exchanged.

The next time he woke, he heard the steady beep of the heart monitor beside his bed. He opened his eyes slightly; just enough to confirm he was in the Infirmary, and then settled back down into a sleep that was bordering on unconsciousness.

It was the gentle touch of one of the nurses that finally woke him. Her hands were gentle as they checked his pulse and temperature. She was filling in the chart when he opened his eyes. For a moment he couldn't remember her name, then it came to him. Bannerman, Julie Bannerman. At that moment she looked up, and smiled when she noticed that he was awake.

"Welcome back, Dr Beckett," she said, softly.

"Thanks Julie," he replied, glad that he had remembered her name.

"I'll just get Dr Stanton," she said, and then disappeared from his sight. He tried to look around him, trying to peer around the privacy curtains to find his friend.But there was no-one else in sight, the curtain effectively blocked most of the rest of the infirmary especially the ICU beds nearer his office.

"Carson," Jeff Stanton said, as he approached the doctor's bedside. "Let me see how you're doing." With that, the young doctor picked up the charts at the end of Carson's bed.

"Well," he said with a smile. "It looks like you've been lucky this time. You have a pretty nasty concussion, and your right arm is fractured just above the wrist. Aside from a few minor cuts and contusions your doing pretty well considering what happened, it could've been a lot worse."

"How's Rodney?" Carson asked.

For a moment, Stanton looked worried, before the no-nonsense smile was forced into place.

"He's been better," he replied. "But let's worry about you first."

"Jeff!" Carson said, trying to imbue his voice was as much authority as he could. The other doctor looked at him for a moment, as if assessing whether he can cope with the information and not.

"Okay, Carson," he said. "Rodney's not good. The Chair seemed to have protected you from the worst of the blast. But Rodney wasn't so lucky. He's in a coma, and on a ventilator."

"Blast lung injury?" Carson asked.

"Yes," Stanton acknowledged. "We're pretty certain there are no more internal injuries, though we'll have to wait until wakes up to be sure, especially if there's been any damage to his ears."

Carson nodded, already exhausted by the exchange, the news quickly draining the last of his strength. As he drifted between wakefulness and sleep, he was vaguely aware of the voices of Elizabeth and John in the background; they seem to be arguing about something.

oOoOoOo

"I don't like Caldwell sticking his nose into our affairs!" John said, looking down at the floor in an attempt to control his anger.

"He's just offering to help, John," Elizabeth replied, failing herself in the unusual position of defending Caldwell.

"Well," John retorted. "We don't need his sorta help."

"What are you afraid of, John?" Elizabeth asked. "Surely it was just an accident."

"Then why do we need Caldwell to find that out for us?" he replied, sharply.

"Look Elizabeth," John said, trying to be reasonable. "There are enough rumours flying around as it is. I've already got several reports with no conclusive results but unofficial, the marine's scuttlebutt is saying that Carson tried to destroy the chair so Rodney couldn't make him use it anymore."

Elizabeth frowned. "At least they weren't suggesting Carson had tried to kill Rodney," she said sighing.

"Someone suggested that?" John asked, shocked.

"Two new arrivals in the science team," Elizabeth confirmed. "Radek stepped in and put them right, quite forcefully." She smiled as she remembered the scene.

"But if we let Caldwell poke his nose in," John said. "These rumours will just get worse. We both know Carson would never do anything like that. But not everyone knows Carson as well as we do."

Just at that moment, as if conjured up by their conversation, the Colonel appeared.

"Have either of them woken up yet?" he asked, without bothering with the nicety of a greeting.

John looked at Elizabeth and raised his eyebrow ironically.

"Carson is semi-conscious," Elizabeth replied, trying to keep her tone even. "Rodney is still critical."

"Here to interrogate them Colonel. You might have to wait a while." John's tone was even, but carried a wait of warning.

""With all due respect Colonel, I know this is your jurisdiction but I'm a little concerned by your lack of findings into what is, no doubt, a serious incident. And you don't think it is important to find out what happened?" Caldwell answered his question with one of his own. "Dr Beckett has managed to destroy a vital power supply, and possibly the Chair, and at the same time may have killed Dr McKay, and you don't want to know if it was just carelessness or a deliberate act of sabotage?"

"Now wait a minute," John said, taking a step towards Caldwell. "You can't come in here and start throwing accusations like that around without some proof."

"What makes you think I don't have the proof, already?" Caldwell retorted.

"Gentlemen, please, settle down," Elizabeth said, putting herself between the two men. "This is neither the time nor the place. We don't yet know what happened. Once Carson and Rodney regain consciousness, then we'll have a better idea. Until then, I don't want to hear any sort of speculation."

"So, Dr Weir," Caldwell said, challengingly. "You're happy for your CMO to lie there accused of endangering the life of your head scientist, without doing anything to prove it one way or another."

"Nooooooo . . ." the agonized cry could be heard all round the Infirmary.

All three had been so absorbed in their argument they'd failed to notice they had an observer. As their argument had become more heated, their voices louder, Carson had been roused to almost full wakefulness by their words, an unwilling participant in the exchange.

Elizabeth gave John an anguished look and they both started towards the prone doctor. However, their way was barred by Dr Stanton.

"I'm going to ask you to leave now," he said, sounding very like his CMO at that moment. "I think you've done enough damage as it is."

The physician's tone brokered no argument, and the two leaders looked at each other, and then left.