Hold On
…Chapter Three…
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The old clock had been in his possession for decades now, passed down from family member to family member and with a daily turn of its ornately carved brass key, it kept good time and was vibrant. A constant. Something to rely on. Take away the daily turn of that key, forget; once, twice, possibly three times and just like that the time, chimes and the swing of the long pendulum would stop. Dead.
That's how you killed time.
The owner of the clock did not want that. It was something he had control over, so he meticulously opened the brass-hinged, glass door every morning and turned the key with great care until it could move no further; not too tight – never too tight.
His office door opened just after he had carefully pushed the door closed and only paused only enough to slightly incline his head back to listen to what the person who had entered wanted to say.
"It is done."
Footsteps later and a soft close of his door, and the man was once again alone in his office and save for the ticking of the clock, there wasn't another sound. He liked it that way.
The three words elevated his heightened sense of enjoyment almost as much as he loved to hear his ticking clock. These words had impressed upon him that his plan had worked. Soon, his carefully controlled plan would bring the death knell to Atlantis and just like an unattended clock, her beauty would collapse and all in it would cease to exist. What quietness that would bring to his mind. Peace on a grand scale.
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"Carson! Where have you been?" Keller ran to his side flustered.
If her face was flushed, Carson's was scarlet. What with all the running and ducking within rooms to avoid capture and basically a sky high blood pressure from nerves, Carson fell onto a bedside chair and simply sat for a good minute whilst he collected himself.
He felt a cool small hand wrap itself around his wrist but it was all he needed to bring him back and he moved his arm away. "I'm alright Jennifer, just needed to get my breath back and to see you and everyone still here safe and well has made me a tad weak at the knees."
Next he felt a glass of water being pushed into his hand and this he accepted with gratitude. He looked up into her worried eyes and gave her a lovely smile to compensate from his earlier arrival.
Keller put a hand on his shoulder. "I didn't know what happened to you? Where have you been?"
Carson looked about the room for a minute and was again surprised to see the Infirmary as he had left it earlier. "Why are you all going about your business as normal when Atlantis has been infiltrated?"
Keller rolled her eyes to the side and it was then that Carson got his first good look at two of the men that had entered Atlantis.
"They are our guards. We are allowed to carry on as normal. They told us that they do not wish anyone to be harmed if we remained here."
"Good. That's good." Carson suddenly panicked. "Did they do a head count? Would they know I am an extra?"
Keller darted a quick look over to the men. "No, I do not think so, you will be fine. Take off your jacket, you have blood on it and your trousers. Carson, are you hurt?""
"No love. It's not me…its Colonel Sheppard's blood."
"Oh my goodness, it's true what they told us then. John is dead!"
Carson quickly pulled off his tainted jacket and threw it in the laundry basket before they noticed him. "It's a long bloody story; but no lass, he is alive – for now; I have him hidden. He is seriously injured and I need some supplies. I've lost my pack somewhere along the line but it wouldn't have had enough supplies anyway. I'm going to need to pack some things up quick and get back to him. He extremely weak and disorientated from a bad head wound and has been shot several times."
"Where is he?"
Carson noticed the men watching them talking so pretended he was going over something on her tablet but they were now suspicious and made their way over.
"Service hall."
Keller nodded and left Carson's side in the hope of just walking past the men. But her heart sunk when she felt one of them grip her elbow. "Not so fast there. I need one of you to look at a head wound that is coming in."
Time stood still for Carson then and his mind condensed into two seconds the last hour or so he had spent with Sheppard rescuing him and caring for him. Sheppard's hair, sticky with blood, still felt familiar on the palm of his hand and now they must have found him and were bringing him in.
His heart stopped… and then started again, when Ronon appeared, manacled and being manhandled by two disgruntled intruders into the Infirmary. His eyes had a feral look about them but also slightly dazed and confused.
Keller was swift to sit Ronon down on a bed and carried out her checks of him with an expert assessment of a slight concussion, might not need stitches.
But again, it was his eyes that Carson couldn't stop from looking at. What he saw there was a soldier and warrior thinking he had lost his friend and commanding officer. The feral eyes were mixed with a deep hurt that was almost unbearable to see – except – Carson had the means to take these hurts away from the man but he simply had to get back to Sheppard, time was slipping away too fast.
Ronon saw him hesitate in coming to see him, and it was so unlike him that it immediately caught his attention, although he didn't let his guards see that.
Carson withdrew backwards and continued to stare at Ronon as he shoved bandages, painkillers and anything else he could stuff in his pockets as well as filling another medical holdall.
He took one step back towards the door; two, and then one of the men pointed at him. "You!"
Carson froze, rabbit in headlights moment. "Yes ...yes?"
"Take this rodent back with you to the Gate room and instruct the woman there with some supplies to deal with him."
"Sure." Carson said, swallowing a lump. There went his idea of getting back to Sheppard with his medical bag.
Ronon was pushed to get going and snarled at the two men, but Carson shook his head at him and something in his face stopped Ronon from acting out any longer and allowed the doc to walk beside him, this time being able to grab bandages etc. in plain sight for Ronon's sake this time.
"Doc?" He spat out the side of his mouth.
Carson had a dilemma. Did he hint to Ronon that John was alive and know that the big man would want to be with him, and possibly cause all sorts of problems in his effort to do that, or did he keep quiet and take away the opportunity to calm a short fuse about to explode anyway. So he chewed his bottom lip, realising he was copying the habit of one John Sheppard. He thought then of all the trouble he caused when he was a patient in the Infirmary and how he would give anything for him to be in that bed right now so he could look after him.
So Carson stopped walking and turned to face Ronon, regardless of the two guards now looking puzzled as to what was going on. All he had to do was smile slightly and nod just briefly and warrior Ronon was engaged.
Carson bent over to feel the pulses of the two men that had fallen in seconds. They were still alive but knocked out cold.
"John…?"
Carson grabbed his arm. "…is alive. Or at least he was, but time is slipping away here Ronon, I have to get back to him."
"What? But how? Where is he?"
"All great and fine questions but we have to get to him now." Carson ran off with Ronon reaching him and taking his pack off him and wondered at the weight of it.
Ronon remained silent unless they were caught, but he was more than desperate to know what was going on. He had watched as his friend was blown full of holes, has watched as the impact of the bullets sent him flying helplessly backwards through the window and down to his death. People didn't come back from that scenario alive. But here he was, following Carson to where, he did not know, but seemingly his friend was at the end of it, alive but injured. Please don't let this be a concussed dream.
Carson glanced at Ronon at one point when they had taken a transporter, in the hope nobody was at the other side, to the floor Carson was eager they get to fast.
"I'm sorry Ronon, your head. You should be resting."
"I'm fine." Ronon knew the transporter would arrive in a second and he had to be ready to defend Carson when they stepped out of it.
The door opened and they breathed a sigh of relief. No-body was there and it didn't take long for Carson to reach the door that's room was hiding something precious. He opened it and pushed Ronon inside and fell to his knees beside the huddled figure wrapped in red spotted, white material.
"Colonel, John. Are you awake?"
Carson risked a glance at Ronon and smiled. Sheppard was groggy but looking at him.
Ronon could not believe it. Slowly, he walked over to them and also fell to his knees when he caught sight of his battered friend.
"John…" He gasped.
For his part, Sheppard just looked lazily from one to the other, occasionally grimacing and moaning at a sudden pain that must have gone through him.
"How badly hurt is he?" Ronon asked as Carson got to work.
Carson didn't answer immediately as he was listening to his chest, then rolled him slightly for his back. His temperature was next and then he took out the heavy bottle of oxygen and gently placed the strap over his head and placed the mask over his mouth and turned it on. The dreaded pen light, which Ronon also knew all too well, made an appearance, and left Carson tutting.
"With everything else, he is now shocky. Raise his legs on some of these boxes would you lad? Careful of his swollen ankle."
Ronon did as gently as he could and as Carson removed the bedding, he caught sight of the blood soaked bandages around his thigh and the badly grazed skin over several places on his body.
"John?"
Carson tried to keep Sheppard's attention but he had fallen asleep again without speaking. "Probably best he is out."
Ronon looked at the other wounds Carson was now revealing and he winced. Yeah, you got that right Doc."
It took quite a while, but between them, they put fresh bandages on all his wounds and Carson bound his broken fingers to his hand after giving them a good clean. The breaks he would have to see to later. His head had a huge gouge, but the bleeding had stopped. Carson carefully cleaned the area and stitched it up, not entirely happy with it, but it was better than doing nothing at the moment.
Eventually he looked up to watch Ronon looking at him intently.
Carson shook his head. "He is fine for now, but he really needs intensive care in the Infirmary. His temperature is climbing and he must bloody hurt everywhere. I need better pain killers in him than what I have just given him just now. He has a bad concussion; if not more, but I need to get him scanned first. The bleeding has stopped but these are really nasty grazes and his shoulders but have been wrenched quite badly."
Carson stopped cataloguing his injuries as Ronon looked so despondent.
"Son? Are you okay?"
"You didn't see it Doc. It…it was one of the worst things I have ever witnessed – and I have seen a few things in my time.
"Doc?" This time it was Ronon's turn to look at him when he didn't answer him back and then it dawned on him.
"Carson, what happened?"
Carson put a hand to his forehead. "I looked down Ronon and, whew…I saw him swinging on that net. He must have managed to catch it on his way down. I can only imagine the pain and fright he was in, being in freefall like that."
Sheppard moaned in his sleep and tried to move but it obviously pained him too much so he stopped with a sharp intake of breathe. Ronon was there in an instant, gripping the ankle that wasn't hurt.
"Sush John, you are going to be fine, just hang on, okay."
"R'n…"
"Yes it's me."
"…'lantis?"
"Is going to be fine. I'm going to figure out what's happening."
"I know…aarghh…"
"Easy John, breathe through it. Carson settled the mask over his mouth again."
Sheppard, however, needed to get Ronon's attention and made a feeble attempt to grab his arm, so Ronon helped him out by hovering over his face and gently cupping his bruised jaw. "What is it John?"
Sheppard's voice was weak as he breathed out what he was desperate to say. "I know…the man, he …is …"
Sheppard's eyes were closing fast and Ronon just hoped it wasn't for good. He needed the intel, so ignoring Carson, knowing Sheppard would put Atlantis first, Ronon shook him awake. "John?"
Sheppard flinched but focused on Ronon. "Stringer…I.O.A …fired…I,…" He fell unconscious before he could finish, but it was enough for Carson and Ronon to understand that this was no alien takeover of Atlantis, but some ex-government official it sounded like. Crap.
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Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
There was a knock on the door. Stringer tutted at the unexpected intrusion.
"Enter."
He did not look up when footsteps came towards him.
"Sir. We have a problem."
Stringer's finger curled onto the wooden desk and he felt a shiver course through him. Years he had waited for these events to take place, years! He did not need problems.
"What?" He asked in almost a whisper.
"It's Atlantis, sir. They seem to have the shield up."
"I thought one of the first things reported back to me was that they had managed to disable it?" He could hardly contain his growing anger and took hold of his heavy paperweight of a F14 jet just to grip something instead of smashing his fingernails in the wood.
The man coughed slightly. "They…um, did, um …sir, but something has obviously happened for them to…"
"I know that! Get out of my sight!" Stringer bellowed. He whirled around and threw his paperweight away from him without thinking. Stringer watched in a horrified stupor as it landed in the middle of the face of his beloved clock, smashing it almost in half as it fell from the wall into several pieces that landed on the floor at his feet, now silenced forever. Suddenly, Stringer hated the silence more than anything. He looked down at the small pieces of glass, springs and the broken pendulums and realised that after generations, he was the one to have broken the family heirloom. It did not sit well with him. Somebody would have to pay for this.
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TO BE CONTINUED…..