Okay here is the ending. The site says its going to be down, but I'm off line for a few days, so its either now or never. The ending is rough. But oh well. Its a bike fic...and those unfortunately are rough. Not Beta'd---but hey stuff happens--time runs out.
Part 4
Beckett didn't understand the panicked voices or recognize the rapid fire of P-90s or the sudden rush forward. He heard the wooosh of the stargate and knew it sounded familiar but didn't understand why.
He was knocked to the ground and something heavy lay across him. Liam never could walk a straight line. He struggled to get free, to no avail. Movement from the corner of his eye captured his attention and he once again systematically began squashing tiny ants, even stretching out as far as he could, heedless of the stunner and P-90 fire that criss crossed the small clearing near the gate.
"No, Carson, no" Rodney hissed at him, holding him down. McKay kept his .9mm unholstered and watched as Ronon, Sheppard and Teyla traded shots with the Wraith.
"McKay!" Sheppard hollered.
"We're okay!"
"Get through the gate!"
"How!"
"Feet," Carson mumbled jovially to himself, wiggling his feet left and right.
"Shut up, Carson!" A low voice berated from above him.
"Use your damn feet!" Sheppard shouted from a few yards away.
"Feet," Beckett chuckled, trying to push himself upward. However, muscles weakened by strange drugs, multiple blaster hits and bouts of violent vomiting, he soon gave up. Instead, he settled back into the dirt breathing hard under Rodney's crushing weight and watch the milling of hundreds of tiny little ants. He couldn't reach the ants with his hands and resorted to trying to blow them away.
Stunner blasts zoomed overhead, imploding into the ground, tossing up tufts of nitrogen rich dirt. The fresh clumps rained down upon McKay and Beckett. If cousin Arthur got into mum's Petunia's again to bury his marbles, she'd never forgive him.
"Rodney, we're going to lay down cover fire. I want you to get Carson on his feet and through the damn gate!"
"Okay…okay," Rodney mumbled to himself. "You hear that Carson? On your feet and run for the gate. You understand?"
"Peter's missing his feet. Oh and his right eye. You see? " He stared into the empty space to their right, transfixed.
Rodney stared from Beckett to the open area that held the physician's attention. He didn't want to think about Peter Grodin or his missing feet or any of the people the expedition had lost. Why did Carson have to bring them up now?
"Dumais has a bloody nose." He switched his attention from McKay to Dumais. "Why's that lassie?" Beckett cocked his head just to the side as if trying to listen for answer. "Dr. Collin's skin is melting," there was a hint of frightened trepidation in Beckett's voice.
McKay shut his eyes and fought his building frustration, "Yes, Carson, yes. They are all dead, okay. You're seeing dead people."
"Dr. Biro sees dead people," the physician noted while resting his face back into the soft spring grass and dirt.
"Yes, Carson. Now remember your feet. On your feet and get ready to run." McKay kept his hand on the back of Beckett's shoulders holding him still while he peered nervously up over the boulders near the DHD.
Beckett struggled underneath him. "Not yet." Rodney hissed back.
"Rodney!" Sheppard hollered.
"Okay!"
Suddenly the small area was full of controlled bursts of P-90 fire which was harshly broken by the rough sounds of Ronon's blaster pistol.
"Go!" Sheppard ordered.
Rodney scrambled to his feet dragging Beckett with him.
Carson struggled to maintain his balance as Rodney propelled him to and then through the gate.
They stumbled into the gate room in a tangle of limbs fighting for balance. A stunner blast followed them through and slammed solidly into McKay's lower back. The astrophysicist was flung forward into the CMO like a tossed rag doll.
They tumbled solidly to the floor in a tangle of limbs. McKay's forehead slapped off the gate room floor in a poor mimicry of breaking his fall.
Beckett lay belly down blinking lazily. He noticed the ants and started meticulously squishing them one by one with a dirty finger.
Someone ordered a med-team to the area.
More commotion and soon Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon were standing in the gate room and the Iris was flashed into place.
Voices competed with one another as orders were given. The sound of running feet and the swish of clothing seemed exceptionally loud to the CMO. The floor kept moving and that bothered him.
A teensy ant skittered around and tried to reach him from a flanking position. He caught the movement from the corner of his eye and quickly smudged it with his dirt encrusted thumb.
Carson noticed larger forms moving just to his left. He ignored them and concentrated on the wee ants. As much as he wanted to revisit with Peter and Collins and the others, their unsightly wounds gnawed at him. He couldn't help but want to stare and then patch them up. However, it was impolite to stare and bandaging dead people seemed like a moot point.
Someone kneeled down beside the draping pile of limbs which consisted of Carson and Rodney.
Rodney's weight was lifted from Beckett. Carson lay still keeping his heated cheek pressed to the cool flooring. His eyes remained opened while the floor rolled and undulated like growing swells that precede an ocean storm.
Tiny ants milled about crawling over one another with boundless energy and abandon.
"Doc, you okay?"
A comforting hand touched Carson's shoulder. He relished the contact. It was grounding. He squished one more ant.
"Excuse me, Colonel, sir, we need in to get in there." Biro's curt observation had Sheppard backing away.
The solid touch left his shoulder. He lost his contact and was left floating without direction or an anchor. He searched for more ants and squished those milling few that wandered dangerously close to him.
"Dr. Beckett, sir? Are you okay?"
" .3048 meters---Foot," Beckett muttered softly. He bent a knee and lifted an impossibly heavy heel and rotated it left and right. He kept his focus on the ants and took a cautious deep breath, careful not to inhale their little bodies. His stomach rolled with the motion of the floor.
Biro looked over her shoulder to the Colonel with eyebrows raised in silent question.
The colonel shrugged, "Villagers drugged him, 'cleansing ceremony'." He quirked an eyebrow and offered a crooked smile. "They didn't tell us until after the fact; said he had to be cleansed before he could treat their chief." Sheppard paused and then jutted his chin toward the CMO. "He's squashing ants," and shrugged again. "It helps keep him quiet."
Biro nodded slowly, finding none of this as terribly surprising. She rested a cool hand on the side of Beckett's flushed face and felt the low grade fever.
"Mum?" Beckett whispered, shifting his head into her hand, "I don'feel so good." He moved slightly trying to relieve the pressure on his abdomen. With bound wrists, he rubbed lazily at his whiskered face as he shifted onto his side drawing his knees closer to his stomach. He spotted another insect and carefully smooshed it.
Biro sighed tiredly and shook her head in resignation. "The restraints?"
"He shouldn't be given cleansing ceremony drugs." Sheppard paused, "Ronon's probably going to need stitches; McKay too, from the looks of it."
"Fantastic," Biro sulked.
Sheppard smirked and stood offering to help the medics load onto a gurney. The astrophysicist shifted about with uncoordinated movements, balancing on the fine line of consciousness and unconsciousness. A gauze four by four had been placed over a bleeding wound at the corner of his forehead. A large deep blue and maroon goose egg had already started to form around and under the deep gash on his head. Definitely stitches. McKay and Biro were going to love that.
Biro remained squatting next her boss and sighed heavily. "Colonel, I'm going to need you and your team in the infirmary for a little more history."
"Carson."
Beckett rolled his head away from noise.
"No, Carson," the voice called again. "You need to open your eyes for just a moment."
Fingertips gently gripped his jaw and rolled his head. "Carson."
A third unfamiliar voice spoke from a further distance, "Ma'am be careful, remember what happened to Dr. Morrison."
"He'll be fine private," the soft voice reassured and then turned it's attention toward him, "Won't you, Carson?"
He tried to roll his head away again, but the gentle finger tips increased their pressure just a little. "Open your eyes, just for a moment."
"Feet." There was a slight pause, "0.0003048 kilometers."
"No, Carson," a chuckle laced the soft command. "No more feet; no more conversions. Open your eyes."
"Damn, they really screwed him up," A second voice sounded harsher, louder, a little more worried.
"That is not helping, Dr. McKay." The soft voice took on a hint of a reprimand.
"Tell me I'm wrong." McKay's voice had the familiar tone of panicked certainty. "I mean look what happened to that idiot surgeon Morrison when he rubbed his knuckles against Carson's sternum to get his attention."
"Rodney." A familiar deep voice took on a warning tone. Sheppard. It sounded like Colonel Sheppard.
Carson listened to the voices. His head hurt, his stomach hurt. He didn't know where he was or what happened. Something had happened, he just didn't know what. They were at the pub, Brennan probably found some trouble. Normally Arthur did but sometimes his little brother followed in his older brother's foot steps. Carson's cousins could be trouble. It made his mum worry.
"Carson, open your damn eyes." McKay's annoyed voice demanded he be listened too. Beckett remembered Rodney.
"McKay." Sheppard's voice. "We don't want a repeat of earlier. Okay?"
"I'm just saying," Rodney warned a little more subdued.
"Carson," the soft voice again. A woman's voice. Not his mum. Oh God, hopefully not a nurse; his mum would kill him. "Carson, open your eyes for me, please."
"Go 'way," he mumbled. His head and stomach hurt enough for two people all he wanted to do was sleep.
"No, Carson."
"You're arguing with a drugged man you know that don't you?" Rodney's voice cut in again.
"Rodney," Sheppard warned again.
"Carson, open your damn eyes and they'll leave you alone," McKay's exasperated promise cut through the fuzzy gloom.
"Carson," the soft voice spoke again, "Dr. McKay is correct. Open your eyes and we'll leave you alone."
Rodney was rarely wrong. He might be full of bluster, full of self impressed ego but he was rarely ever wrong. If he said something was going to happen he was normally correct.
Beckett's eyes fluttered open. It was difficult. Unseemingly hard. His upper lids didn't want to lift, his lower lids didn't want to peel apart.
"That's it Carson." The voice seemed to smile.
It was bright. The light pierced his eyes and lanced into his head. He closed his eyes quickly and turned his head. It made his stomach jump and head pound. Somewhere in the background he heard someone command the lights be dimmed. Soft fingers rolled his head, turning it back to square on the pillow.
"Come on, Doc," Sheppard cajoled. "Open them baby blues."
Carson felt a hand on his face again, directing it. His eyes fluttered open again. Things remained grossly out of focus. The lights were dim.
"Carson." the soft voice again. "There you go." A blurry face leaned over him. He blinked and things became a little sharper. Shadows and depth of light became apparent. "Welcome back."
He remained silent and simply blinked. He felt heavy; his limbs unnaturally weighted.
"He sees dead people." It was Rodney's voice again, slightly panicked.
"So do I." Biro's clipped tone rang tiredly from somewhere near by.
Rodney eyed the pathologist with a look of disgust. "Figures."
Carson tried to follow the voices but things wavered in an out of his apparently fickle range of hearing.
"Doc, you in there?" Sheppard's worried voice sounded from within the shadows; more direct, anchored.
Beckett shifted his eyes, trying to latch onto the owner of the voice and focus him. He didn't register the relieved sighs from different sources in the area.
"Thank-God," the soft voice whispered.
Beckett felt a hand rest on his shoulder. It was a solid, comforting contact. He turned his head toward it, blinking slowly.
Lines became a little sharper.
"Carson, can you tell me where you are?"
He paused as the words slowly filtered in and settled, arranging themselves in sequential order. He blinked again, and let his eyes slowly rove about. Silhouettes loomed close to him as distant figures seemed to glide about in the background.
A shadow, with a bit of substance, sat on the edge of the bed adjacent to him.
Rodney.
Two marines stood on opposite sides of his bed near his knees. That puzzled him. He stared at them, blinking slowly trying to piece together why they would be staring at him.
"Carson? Carson, can you tell me where you are?" He knew that soft voice.
Carson stared at the ceiling, noting the unique beams. He let his eyes settle on the speaker closest to him. It was the figure with the soft insistent voice. The one that gently but persistently demanded that he open his eyes.
He blinked slowly, fighting to stay awake. Gradually his blurry vision finally focused on Dr. Weir.
"A'lan'is," his voice rasped against the dryness in his throat. She graced him with a true grin, bringing the hint of a smile to Carson's stubbled features.
"Thank you, Dr. Weir," Dr. Biro's sharp voice broke through the shadows.
"Why does he listen to Elizabeth?" Rodney demanded. "He damn near took off Morrison's head when that buffoon rubbed his knuckles over his chest. Your two toy soldiers weren't enough."
"Diplomat, Rodney, she's a Diplomat. It's what she does," Sheppard pointed out and then added, "You should practice it." The colonel paused and then defended the two young marines. "And they were enough to let Dr. Biro here, get a needle sunk in him. They did their job."
The two marines straightened slightly under the praise.
"Still think you should have Ronon and Teyla here just in case he tries to take off again."
Carson focused on Rodney trying to follow the conversation but feeling two steps behind.
A gentle hand redirected his chin and rolled his head back to the left. He found himself staring at Elizabeth.
"Good to have you back, Carson." Dr. Weir patted his shoulder again and graced him with another smile. "Get some rest." Elizabeth melted into the shadows.
"Thankyou gentlemen for your help," Biro spoke looking first to McKay and then to Sheppard. "You can go now Colonel, unless you would like to stay and visit with Dr. McKay for a bit." The pathologist began closing the small privacy curtain around Dr. Beckett's bed.
Carson heard the scratching tinny metal loops against the aluminum rail and felt it grate against his nerve endings. His heart leaped into his throat and the sudden irrational desire to up and run flooded his system. The curtain moved too fast.
"Hey, Carson, got to go." Rodney pushed off from the edge of the bed he sat on. "Have fun." He wobbled as his precarious balance seemed to have fled him.
"Dr. McKay, put that over educated cranium of yours right back on that pillow. You and your mild concussion are not going anywhere."
McKay's sputtering was interrupted by the Colonel.
"I think I might stay for a bit," Sheppard quietly stated. He noted the flashing changes in the silenced monitors that rested above the head of the bed. "Easy, Doc." He quietly ordered and raised a hand so stay Biro's actions. The curtain stopped its sliding motion.
Rodney leaned forward, nearly lost his balance but was steadied by one of the silent Marines. McKay scowled at the younger man but with his help stared at the sharply rising readings on the surrounding monitors. "Here we go again." Rodney leaned heavily on edge of his assigned bed.
"Help, Dr. McKay, back onto his bed," Sheppard ordered quietly. "We made need the room."
The marine nodded and turned to the astrophysicist, "Sir?"
McKay scowled in defiance.
"Rodney," Sheppard intoned with forced calmness while keeping his eyes on Beckett.
The CMO seemed to slowly relax as the sharp sound of metal on metal stopped and curtain ceased billowing.
Sheppard noted Biro making notations in the chart near the bedside.
Beckett tried to watch the curtain folds but found it too difficult to keep up with their quivering movements. He focused tired eyes on Biro who looked up from the chart and stared back.
Sheppard watched as numbers and scrolling lines dipped and slowed on the overhead monitors.
"I feel lousy," Beckett rasped.
"You look worse," Biro confirmed.
"He's not going to vomit again, is he?" McKay's worry and disgust were clearly audible. "Because he looks worse than Radek did with the stomach flu."
Biro merely quirked an eyebrow and turned her attention back to Beckett in silence askance. She easily read the panicked, worried look that was tinged with an air of resignation. She placed the small kidney shaped basin next to his shoulder.
"If you got everything under control, Doc?" He looked questionably at Biro, who simply nodded. "Then I'll guess this is my cue to leave," Sheppard quickly stated. He patted Carson's blanketed lower leg. "Good to have you back, Doc." The Colonel slid deeper into the shadows of the infirmary.
"See you Rodney," Sheppard chirped happily and waved from the safety of the exit.
The two young marines stepped back to the foot of Beckett's bed. Waiting.
Rodney lay back against his pillow and watched the building commotion on the next bed over.
"Dr. Beckett?" Biro asked
"Go 'way," Carson muttered. He wanted to be sick in private. He tried rolling away from Biro but didn't quite succeed. It required some coordinated muscle movement and at the moment he didn't believe his muscles were communicating with much of anything, except maybe his stomach. And unfortunately it had a rebellious mind of its own.
His stomach suddenly revolted, his back arched. He heard Rodney mutter a disgusted curse, which Carson wanted to return, but found his shoulder and head turned toward the little inadequate basin as his stomach made another foolish bid for freedom. He wished it luck. He knotted the bed linens in his fist as his abdominal muscles once again seized and cramped with unparallel intensity as his stomach seemingly inverted itself in his throat. After a moment he sagged back within the mattress, spent and sweating. "I wanna go to my quarters."
Biro chuckled without humor placing a stalling hand on his shoulder, "Think again."
"Concussion over here," Rodney muttered rolling onto his side to stare at the flimsy curtain that hid Beckett, "A little quiet would go a long way."
"Bugger off, Rodney," Beckett whispered. He let his eyes drift shut and hoped his medical staff would give him something to keep his stomach in place.
A firm grip held his jaw. "Not so fast, sir." He blinked his eyes open and stared impatiently at the attending doctor.
"Now, Dr. Beckett," Biro stepped forward and clicked her penlight on. Carson groaned and shut his eyes trying to turn his head away. His stomach gurgled.
"I hear you've been seeing dead people and ants."
McKay listened to the conversation from his bed and smirked. There was something terribly wrong in seeing Carson as a patient on the next bed over. There was something cosmically wrong with it.
"Morning, Dr. Weir. Colonel Sheppard"
"Good morning to you Dr. Biro," Elizabeth returned as she walked between the two beds of her chief Science officer and Chief medical officer.
"Doc," Sheppard greeted, raising his coffee mug in a half hearted salute. "How are they?"
"Dr. McKay will be released this morning if he keeps his breakfast down." Biro answered staring at the sleeping astrophysicist. It was about the only time he was quiet.
"Dr. Beckett will be our guest until this afternoon." Biro released the padded light tan leather restraints from around his wrists and then moved to release his ankles.
"Restraints?" Weir asked
"Specialist Dex found him late last evening in the uninhabited part of the city conversing with Peter Grodin."
"He give you any trouble when he got back?" Sheppard asked, having already known about last nights activities.
"No, none at all." Biro spoke in her usual clipped hyperactive manner. " However, he was restless. Which was to be expected…sort of."
Weir raised both eyebrows and nodded. "And this morning?"
"Blood tests are clean. He was more lucid and coherent than last evening and is no longer seems hypersensitive to light and sound."
"And our unseen guests?" Sheppard asked slightly uncomfortable with the idea of dead and mutilated expedition members were walking around the city even if it were just in the CMO's imagination.
Biro shrugged, "I can't attest to the fact he won't being seeing more dead people." She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders, "as for the ants---unless they are from off world or the mainland, he shouldn't be seeing them." She slid the last ankle restraint out from the bed.
"Any idea what they gave him?" Weir asked, accepting Biro's convoluted remark that more expedition members were likely to pass on before their time in Atlantis was through.
"Dr. Kavanaugh and his group are still working on it."
A disgusted grunt from McKay's bed had the three turning and looking down at the astrophysicist. "Carson will grow old before they finds anything."
"Good morning to you too, Sunshine." Sheppard sing songed.
"How are you feeling, Rodney?" Weir asked with a soft smile lightening her face.
"Like Biro 's been my doctor for the last 18 hours."
Sheppard smiled, "You look like death too."
McKay scowled.
"If you will excuse me, I have more interesting bacteria to work on." Biro nodded to the two heads of Atlantis and smiled menacingly at McKay. "Dr. McKay you are free to go; eat some breakfast and please try and not vomit in the commissary again."
"You are such an unpleasant person," McKay stated. "What about Carson? Are you planning on ignoring your boss, he won't mind at all; probably be safer for him anyhow."
Biro paused and then shrugged, "He'll wake up when he wakes up---we'll proceed from there." She headed toward her lab, stopping at the nurses desk, and spoke quietly to Kelly and then continued on her way to the Bac-T lab.
"Gentlemen we have a debriefing in half an hour," Weir looked at McKay, "I expect you to be there." She paused and then added, "if you're up to it." She gave the two men a tight smile, cast one last look at her CMO who slept hidden under his blankets and exited the infirmary.
"Come on McKay, lets get something to eat." Sheppard said folding his arms and sitting on the edge of Beckett's bed.
"I want to shower first."
"We all want you to shower first," Sheppard said. "So come one lets go."
Two days later
Dr. Weir sat at the head of the conference table and matched the questioning and concerned looks of Rodney McKay and Colonel Sheppard. In fact, Dr. Zelenka, Teyla and Ronon were all watching the same thing with similar apprehensive expressions.
Major Lorne slowly stopped speaking and turned his attention to the person that was unknowingly the focus of everyone else's interest.
Dr. Beckett sat in his usual seat. He held a chipped, plain white, heavy coffee mug in one hand and stared intently at the surface of the table. With his other hand he rubbed his thumb pad onto the finished top in an eerily familiar manner of squishing ants.
Sheppard leaned forward resting his forearms on the table surface. McKay mimicked his movements. Different sets of eyes glanced worriedly around the table all asking the same silent question. Anyone else seeing ants?.
Weir met the Colonel's eye. Sheppard cocked an eyebrow and shrugged a shoulder.
It was Rodney who finally spoke, "Ahh, Carson what are you doing?"
Without looking up, Carson answered, "There seems to be a scratch on the table, never noticed it before." The doctor continued to run his thumb over a specific spot on the table and scrutinize it.
Sighs of relief sounded from various points in the room as the others sunk back into their chairs.
"Thought you might be seeing ants again or something." Sheppard joked with a touch of apprehension.
"Ants?" Beckett furrowed his brow looking up at the Colonel. "Oh, The ants," He smiled and then chuckled slightly, "No. They're gone---They left with Peter and the others."
"Good." Sheppard's face brightened with his best 'Boy Scout' smile. "We're heading out for another meet and greet and thought you should come along." Sheppard offered.
Beckett's eyes grew wide and he sputtered for a second before furrowing his brow. "Are you daft man? Completely daft? Lost ya mind have ya?"
"You know get back up on the horse and all that?" McKay offered.
"Get up on a horse, ya say? Ya bloody, git! I'm not gettin' on any bloody horse….let alone go through that molecule mixer." Beckett stared red faced at McKay and then turned his glare at the Colonel.
"I think gentlemen," Weir intervened with her quiet authority, "that now is not the time for discussing this." She turned her attention to the CMO. "Carson, you'll be staying here. I think your staff would like to see you for awhile on your feet and making sense."
"Well, I hope they don't hold their breath." Rodney stated with exasperation.
"Major Lorne, please continue with the debriefing." Weir interrupted halting any more discussions.
"Go through the gate…bloody daft if you ask me," Carson whispered to himself before taking a sip of cold coffee.
Sheppard smirked and turned his attention to Major Lorne and nodded. The colonel leaned back in his chair, mulling over different ploys to that would get Dr. Beckett successfully through the gate again.
-the end.
