Part Fourteen: The Warrior Returns
Carson Beckett should have been a gentle country physician, making house calls for children with chicken pox and to elderly folks with gout. He should have stayed with his Mum, until he met a fine woman to marry.
He had tried to keep up his courage, thought about his Mum. She had raised him well; he was kind beyond kindness, compassionate to a fault. What would Mum think if she knew he had opened the Devil's passageway by tinkering around with DNA and RNA and retroviruses? If no good deed ever went unpunished, he would surely burn in Hell for eternity for the misguided work he'd done.
A vision of the Hoffans blew in on this ill wind. How desperate had they been to destroy half of their civilization hoping that the other half would survive? How much suffering did a people have to endure for that to make any sense at all? Did they regret their choice as he regretted his part in making it possible?
Carson Beckett's consciousness returned like a slap in the face. There…before him lay Ronon Dex, gut shot and shocky, almost at the point of no return.
Then Ronon lay dead on the dias.
A moment later, they were both in the infirmary with its potions and machines.
Then in the rammed-earth hut and the warrior had been killed by a touch of poison.
Beckett could not work this out, how he came to be in two places at once. In the back of his mind, in the shark brain, it made sense to him. He took comfort in it. Once he was home again, as if Atlantis were home, he would rest easy. Ronon would be alive, clawing himself back to health.
Ronon had trusted him, trusted them all. Like a soldier placed in harm's way for no damn good reason, he deserved much, much better from those he trusted. Now that the young man had come in from the wilderness to fight the Wraith with them, he deserved better than to be caught in the absurd conflict between Phoebus and Thadan, who were willing to kill so many just to smell each other's blood.
Ronon lay gut shot and shocky…and Carson stepped between him and the abyss.
Ronon lay dead and no one had brought so much as a sip of water to ease his passing.
Ronon lay gut shot and shocky…
Ronon lay dead…
Carson rose and left the hut, needing air and water and sunlight. He closed the door behind him.
Ronon lay dead…and then he simply faded away…
…..
Ronon Dex awoke to a world of pain. Hands held down his shoulders, his legs and arms as he struggled to free himself from the darkness all about him. His lungs pulled in gasping breaths as the sensation of life, of living, returned. With all of this movement came wave after wave of pain, forcing him to curl onto his side, to instinctively draw up his legs, guarding his middle.
"Ronon!" Was that Beckett? No. "Dr. Biro, he's waking up."
He continued to struggle as much as the agony blasting through him would allow, for who knew what was really happening. One minute shot, the next lying helpless in the infirmary, the next after that struggling to stay alive with all his systems shutting down from a tiny little thorn in his shoulder. He'd had much more dangerous things within him, a tracking device, a bullet, fear and rage.
This was it, though. He had finally died, clearly recalled Dr. Beckett's pleas for help and the others' insistence that no antidote existed. Ronon remembered hearing that, surely enough, and, in extremis, regretted only that he had not told Carson and the others how much he appreciated their help, appreciated them for helping him, these pale, flawed people—like Carson. Especially Carson—who always wanted to fix things that couldn't be fixed.
He stilled himself, more aware of people moving about him, tending to his body. This type of intimacy didn't bother him. Biro or someone else must have given him some painkillers, for he felt a sting and then gradually faded away.
"Suture kit. Now," she said, just as the echoing grey took him.
