It was snowing heavily by the time the sleds reached the village and Garen's red door. Teyla guessed almost a foot of snow had fallen in the village since their departure that morning. Thankfully, Garen or someone had kept the area around the house clear of snow and the men waiting just inside the door for their arrival were able to easily maneuver John and Rodney out of the sleds and into the house.
Teyla followed as Rodney and John were carried down a short passage off the front room and into the room at the end of the hall. She felt the heat coming from the room in waves and glimpsed two beds against the wall opposite the large fireplace before Beckett turned and held up a hand.
"I know what you're about to ask and the answer is no," he said, his expression grim. "They were doing none too well before we found them, the trip back in the cold took its toll as well. I need to get them stabilised and treat their other injuries." Beckett glanced over at Ford as he joined them. "Go. You both need a hot meal and some warming up yourselves. I'll let you know when you can see them."
Ford started to say something, but Teyla put a hand on his arm. "We will go to the pub," she said to Ford as she squeezed his arm. "Teg will have something for us to eat and then we will return." She gave Beckett a fleeting look and waited for him to reluctantly nod before he disappeared into the overheated room and closed the door.
Ford turned to Thompson and the two Marines waiting near the door. "Thompson, stay here," he ordered. "If something happens, find Teyla at the pub."
Thompson nodded and shed his heavy coat. "Yes, sir," he replied and settled in a chair near the hallway.
"Where are you going?" Teyla asked as she stepped outside and found Klaus and his sled waiting.
"Klaus agreed to take me to the 'gate. We need to report in and let Doctor Weir know what's happened and that we will need a jumper to get them home." He turned to the two Marines standing behind them. "Daley, you and Tate come with me. Bring the supplies we were able to salvage from the Major's jumper and the two backpacks."
The Marines acknowledged the order with a nod and started loading the cases on the ground near Garen's red door into the sled.
"I'll be as fast as I can," he said to Teyla. "Hopefully, Beckett will let us in to see them by the time I get back."
"Be careful, Lieutenant," she said.
"Don't you worry none," Klaus said as Ford climbed into the front seat of the sled. "This won't last much longer."
Teyla shook her head at his pronouncement as he slapped his reins smartly on the hreindyr and the sled headed out of the village.
After a hurried meal at the pub, Teyla asked Teg to wrap up a bundle for her to take back to Thompson. She balanced the basket in one hand and listened to the muffled silence all around her as she crunched through the still gently falling snow on her way back to Garen's house.
She brushed the snow from her coat as she entered the house and saw Thompson still sitting in the same chair near the hall. She doubted he had moved since she'd left and took it as a good sign everything was going as well as it could behind the door.
"All's quiet," he said as she gave the closed door a worried glance. "There was a bit of bustle with basins of water a little while ago, but nothing since then."
She nodded and set the basket on a table near the fireplace in the front room. "I have brought you something to eat," she said as she hung her coat on a peg next to the fireplace.
"Thank you, ma'am," Thompson said and moved the chair next to the table and opened the basket.
"Teyla," she told him as she sat on the edge of another chair near the fireplace. "We have known each other for several months now, Sergeant, please call me Teyla."
Thompson nodded. "Derek," he replied as he pulled a flask and the wrapped bundle from the basket.
"It is called a pasty," Teyla explained as Thompson unwrapped the food. "It is hreindyr meat, vegetables, and spices baked in a crust."
"It's good," Thompson said after swallowing a bite. "Maybe we could get the mess cooks to make these."
She left Thompson to his meal as she stared at the wood snapping and popping in the fireplace and tried not to worry as she glanced down the hall where Doctor Beckett and his two assistants, along with Garen and his wife, Hala, worked behind closed doors.
She wasn't sure how much later it was when Ford returned. Thompson had finished the pasty and was back in his chair by the hall. The fire burned a little lower on the hearth, and she felt warm for the first time all day, so she assumed Ford had been gone at least a couple of hours, possibly longer.
"Any news?" Ford asked as he came into the room, hung his coat on a hook next to Teyla's by the fireplace, and rubbed his hands together.
Teyla shook her head. "No one has come out of the room since you left for the stargate," she told him. "What did Doctor Weir say?"
Ford frowned. "Stackhouse isn't due to check in for another couple of days, so no way he's getting here any time soon. Markham's team is scheduled to be back sometime late tomorrow. She'll send him with a jumper as soon as they get back and are cleared."
Ford wandered over to the window and pushed back the heavy curtain. "Klaus was right about one thing, the snow has almost stopped. Hopefully, that means Markham won't have any problems when he shows up." He let the curtain fall back and glanced down the hall.
It was another twenty minutes, according to Ford's watch, before the door opened and Hala came down the hall. Her face was pink and her clothes were damp with sweat from the heat in the room at the end of the hall, but she smiled as she entered the front room and Teyla felt the knot in her stomach loosen.
"They are holding their own," she told them without preamble. "Garen and your Doctor Beckett are still working to get them warmed up, but it appears you found them in time."
Ford blew out a breath of relief and rubbed a hand over his face.
"Your Doctor Beckett says you may step in for just a moment then you must get some rest yourselves."
Hala turned and led the way back down the hall and opened the door.
Doctor Beckett met them near the door in his shirt sleeves, looking tired and sweaty. "You can stay a wee moment only," he told them as he led them over to the two beds opposite the fireplace.
Teyla stepped between the two beds and had her first good look at her teammates taking in the IV lines and the oxygen cannulas with a glance. John was propped up with several pillows, a cut over his eye held closed with steri-strips, while Rodney lay almost flat with his right hand braced by several more pillows to keep him from moving it. One of Beckett's assistants removed the damp cloth covering Rodney's hand and Teyla saw the skin was flushed except where several small blisters peppered his fingers.
Both men were dressed in the close-fitting shirts the villagers wore and covered with fur-lined blankets. Despite the blankets and the fire, Teyla saw John and Rodney shiver from time to time.
Both of them had red cheeks as if from a fever. Rodney had a painful-looking bruise over his left eye and his fingers looked swollen as well as red. She reached out to touch his hand but pulled back when Rodney groaned and twitched his hand against the pillows. He groaned again and tried to curl his hand to his chest when the medical technician tried to replace the cooled cloth with a warm one.
"Careful, lass," Beckett told her as he waited for Rodney to relax then nodded to the technician to try again with the cloth. This time Rodney only flinched slightly as the cloth touched his skin. "His fingers have a bit of frostbite. His hand is going to ache for a few days."
"But they're going to be okay?" Ford asked from the other side of John's bed.
Beckett nodded. "They're a bit peaky right now, but barring any sudden complications, they should recover without any lasting effects," he said with a gentle smile. "They're both almost back to a normal core temperature and that was our biggest concern. The Major has a couple of broken ribs, luckily they weren't displaced either in the accident or on the way back here. His nose and cheeks are a bit frost nipped but the redness should be gone in a day or two. The cut on his head was superficial."
He turned to the other bed. "Rodney managed to break his arm again. I suspect John tried to set it in the jumper, but I will need to take a better look with x-rays once we're home. He will most likely need surgery to make sure the bones are properly realigned and will heal correctly."
He looked from Teyla to Ford then back at the two beds. "They cannot tolerate any more cold at the moment," he said, his tone serious. "So unless we plan to stay here for the winter, we'll be needing a jumper to get them home. No more sleigh rides for these two."
"Way ahead of you, Doc," Ford said. "I talked to Doctor Weir a little while ago. Sergeant Markham can be here late tomorrow or the day after to take us back to the 'gate."
"I will speak to Yev about clearing a space for the jumper to land as close to the house as possible," Teyla added.
"I think we can impose on Garen and Hala for a day or so longer," Beckett replied. "Sleep is the best thing for them right now," he added with a not so subtle glance at the door. "You two need to get some rest as well. I don't need any more patients at the moment." He shooed them back toward the door. "You can come back in the morning."
~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~
The fire had been banked once Sheppard and Rodney had warmed up and the room had cooled slightly as the evening moved into full night. Garen had had a third bed brought in the room and Carson lay against the far wall listening to the night sounds of the house as it creaked and the steady breathing of his two patients, his two friends.
He had known as soon as he'd accepted the position of Chief Medical Officer, one of the primary rules of medicine, never treat family or friends, would be impossible to keep. With a little over one hundred expedition members, and later adding the Athosians on the mainland, the Atlantis population was barely two hundred people. He knew everyone, was on a first-name basis with most of them, and a few had become friends.
Which meant his heart tripped a beat any time he received a call from Elizabeth telling him one or more of those friends or acquaintances needed help.
He heard a murmur coming from one of the other beds and he recognised the sound of Rodney dreaming. He sat up with his back braced against the wall waiting to see if he needed to ease him out of a nightmare. The murmuring stopped on its own a few seconds later and Carson went back to his own ruminations.
Rodney and John had been lucky once again, Carson thought to himself and remembered a conversation he'd had with Sheppard after Rodney's accident with the transformer.
"A little luck? Have you met us?"
"Aye, and for all the trouble you two manage to find, you're both still alive," Carson remembered telling him.
"How long can we keep pushing our chances? One of these days I may not find him in time."
Carson sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. How long, indeed, he wondered.
John had been in the worst shape by the time the sleds arrived back at the village, the hypothermia exacerbating the issues with the broken ribs. Rodney had opened his eyes a few times in the hours Carson and Garen had worked to warm both of them up again. He was never quite lucid, but Carson took it as a good sign McKay was improving. John, however, had yet to do that much and Beckett was starting to worry about possible complications.
This was the bane of becoming friends with members of a first contact team, he reminded himself and crawled out of bed; sleep now forgotten as he padded, barefooted, over to the other two beds. If anyone had asked, he would have told them he was merely checking his patients. The reality was he needed to make sure his friends were both alive and were going to stay that way.
He stopped next to Rodney's bed and gently took his left wrist, checked his pulse, then laid a hand on his forehead, avoiding the purple-blue bruise. He nodded to himself as Rodney's pulse was normal and he no longer felt cold to the touch. Carson walked around the bed and checked Rodney's right hand. His fingers were no longer the angry red from earlier and were almost back to a normal color except for the sprinkling of small, opaque blisters across his fingers.
He patted the hand gently and was adjusting the blanket covering Rodney when he heard a wheezing cough from the other bed. He turned to Sheppard's bed, relieved to see John's eyes finally open, and helped support him as he coughed again.
"Believe it or not, Major, the coughing is good for you," he murmured as Sheppard groaned and shuddered with each spasm.
"Carson?" John said in a hoarse whisper once the fit had passed. "When did you get here?" He looked around the room with a puzzled expression. Carson wasn't sure how much he could see, the fire didn't give much light. "Where are we?" he asked as Beckett handed him a glass of water.
Carson settled Sheppard back against the pillows and adjusted the IV line. "All right?" he asked and waited for John to nod. "You're in Garen's house in the village," Beckett told him, taking the now empty glass. "Do you remember what happened?"
John nodded and rubbed his chest. "Jumper crashed," he mumbled, then gave Carson a startled look and tried to sit up. He grabbed for his side and groaned as he leant back against the pillows and tried to get his breathing under control.
Beckett tsked as he helped John settle back in the bed. "Rodney is going to be fine," he said before John could ask. He pointed to the bed beside them. "He's right here. Bit of a lump on his head, some frostbitten fingers, and a broken arm I'll put a cast on as soon as we're home." He watched as John studied Rodney sleeping in the next bed. "And you have two broken ribs, as you've just discovered, not to mention a whole raft of bruises. So I wouldn't move around so much if I were you. You're both lucky to be alive and I intend to keep you that way."
John sighed and leant his head back against the pillows. "How did you find us?" he asked with another glance at the other bed.
"Some local knowledge and a lot of that luck I mentioned. Must be something in those Irish genes of yours," Carson replied with a smile as Sheppard's eyes start to droop. "The important thing is we did find you and you both will be fine. A jumper will be here later today or tomorrow to take us back to Atlantis." He pulled the blanket back up over John's chest. "Go back to sleep, John. You're both going to be fine."
Carson started back to his own bed but stopped when he heard John mumble something. "What was that, Major?" he asked and came back to the side of the bed.
"Red," John said with a tiny smile.
Carson frowned and looked around the bed. "What's red?"
John opened one eye and lifted his arm enough to point at the other bed. "Cast. Make it red."
Carson smiled. "I'll see what I can do. Go back to sleep."
~*~*~*~ SGA ~*~*~*~
Rodney was aware of several people moving around him and speaking but couldn't be bothered to investigate what had everyone so excited. He was warm for the first time he could remember since the jumper crashed and that was enough for the moment. A tiny part of his mind warned him feeling warm and sleeping when the jumper was so cold was probably a bad idea, but he couldn't be bothered to care. The voices around him could deal with any problems for a change, he decided and started to drift off again.
He was on the edge of sleep when he felt himself being picked up. He groaned and struggled out of the grip around his back and under his legs. He was capable of walking, he didn't need to be carted around like a sack of laundry, he mentally ranted. And right now he wasn't interested in going anywhere except back to sleep.
"Doc, I think he's waking up again," a voice above him said, and Rodney wondered how much of what he'd been thinking had actually been said out loud.
"Rodney?" he heard. The voice sounded like Carson which was strange as he didn't remember Beckett in the jumper when they'd crashed. "Rodney, can you hear me?"
"Mmm," he mumbled and tried to curl on his side. A corner of his mind told him John was supposed to be beside him and wondered where Sheppard had gone.
"I'll take that as a yes," Carson said, and Rodney felt a hand on his arm. "We're moving you and John to the jumper. Just relax and let Sergeant Thompson do the work."
Jumper? Rodney thought with a frown. He didn't want to be back in the jumper. The jumper had crashed. The jumper was cold and he hated being cold. He did not want to go back to the jumper now that he was finally warm again.
"All right, Derek lad, let's try again," Beckett said a moment later. "Careful with his arm."
Rodney felt himself lifted again and his right arm tucked securely against his chest as someone wrapped a blanket around him.
"The jumper is in the street just outside," Beckett said as Rodney felt himself start to move. "Sergeant Markham has Major Sheppard there already and is waiting for us. We need to get moving. I don't want either of them exposed to the cold for any longer than necessary."
Rodney cracked his eyes open when Beckett mentioned John. He had a glimpse of an open red door just before a blast of cold air hit his face. He shut his eyes, groaned as the cold penetrated the blanket he was wrapped in, and felt himself start to shiver in response.
"That's it, lie him down on the bench," Carson said. His tone changed as he called something toward the front of the ship. "Joseph, lad, get the hatch closed."
"Yes, sir," Rodney heard Markham reply. A few seconds later, the cold wind stopped blowing in his face as the hatch whispered shut.
Rodney felt someone next to him and opened his eyes long enough to see Teyla kneeling on the floor next to the bench he was lying on. She smiled when she noticed him watching her, pulled up the blanket covering him, and squeeze his arm. "We are returning to Atlantis," Teyla told him as he started to drift. "You will be home soon."