Healing
Healing, noun
1. the restoration of health; e.g. the mending of broken bones; the recovery from disease or injury
2.a method or course of medical treatment used to restore health
„Argh!"
Major Evan Lorne tried to shift his aching body onto his right to take some pressure off his left leg. Without it really registering on his brain, his eyes focused on the temporary emergency brace that was supposed to keep his broken leg stable and still. His mind was elsewhere.
It wasn't that the infirmary bed was too hard or particularly uncomfortable; as far as hospital beds went, it was okay. He ought to know; he'd occupied one often enough. For a brief moment he wondered if it was the fact that most of his torn and dirty uniform was still hanging on him and noticeably starting to build lumps. Annoying as that would probably soon become, if he were honest, it wasn't the reason for his current mood.
That left the pain.
Sure, Keller had already generously dosed him with painkillers when she'd first got to him, and now there was a drip-feed attached to his left arm for more of the stuff, so he should have been okay. But either the shots were wearing off or else the meds had chosen to deal with only one of his many pain spots and leave the rest alone. Though which one exactly was quiet at the moment, he really couldn't say. Every time he moved, all the nerve ends in his body started screaming at his brain that there was something wrong.
Grimacing, Lorne warily eased his bruised body back and looked around the crowded infirmary of the Daedalus. He was glad that nobody seemed to have noticed the soft groan that had escaped against his will. Too much was going on, and he'd had his first aid. One Major Lorne and his aches certainly weren't a priority item at the moment. Painkillers had been administered; a nurse had washed the blood off his face and taped the cuts; his leg didn't need immediate attention; if he didn't move, he'd be fine. Except he didn't feel fine.
"You all right, Major?"
A nurse, carrying a tray heaped with bandages, medical tape and disinfectant, had stopped by his bed and was looking down at him with a worried frown.
"I'm afraid, we can't deal with your leg right away," she added apologetically. "Dr Keller set the bones, so there shouldn't be a problem."
"Oh no, don't worry, I'm fine", he assured her with what he hoped was a convincing smile. "It can wait. It's not as if I had any other plans for the evening."
His attempt at a joke fell a little flat, and he winced. Nevertheless, she spared him a fleeting smile, while her body was already turned away and on the move to answer a call from the other side of the room.
"If the pain becomes too much, call me, will you? I'm sure we can increase your dosage a little," she called back over her shoulder.
"Sure," he told her retreating back and tried to settle down more comfortably. From the looks of it, it would be one of the longer waits till it was his turn.
The infirmary of an active military cruiser was always a busy place, and the Daedalus was no exception. The big earth cruiser, however, had been in a fight, still was dead in the center of it, and the one moment the shields had been down had cost the crew dearly. It had been necessary to save the two people trapped on the planet below and at the same time take the little jumper fleet on board, but that didn't help any of those injured by the vicious blasts of fire and deadly energy that had streaked towards them from the wraith cruiser, penetrating the hull of the unprotected Daedalus in several places. The wounded were still arriving from all parts of the ship and the medical staff had their hands full.
The other two survivors from Michael's hellhole had been beamed directly into the infirmary: Ronon and Sheppard. From the angry noises that floated over to Lorne's bed, the big Satedan was refusing treatment with his usual grace.
"Don't touch me!" he practically growled at the medic who was trying to attend to him.
Lorne grinned to himself. Ronon was definitely going to be okay. Sheppard seemed to be another matter. He was stuck full of needles and had a bunch of tubes and monitoring equipment attached to his body, with Keller hovering over him anxiously.
"That your CO?"
Lorne turned to his left from where the question had come, momentarily forgetting that that might be an unwise move. His body didn't miss the chance to remind him. A new wave of pain washed over him.
"Hunh?"
"I heard someone mention that that was Colonel Sheppard. And you were down there on that planet, too, weren't you?"
The uniform said scientist, the bandages said caught in the wraith blast, the questions clearly said new guy. On his first assignment out to Pegasus probably.
"So, what happened?"
Good question. Lorne wasn't sure he knew the answer.
* * *
Several hours earlier, he had found himself sluggishly fighting back to awareness, only to come to in an unfamiliar place, with pain and semi darkness his first companions. On his right, there seemed to be a hard uneven wall that didn't allow much movement; the ground beneath him felt rocky and broken, and the air was filled with dust and strange groaning noises. Not exactly unfamiliar, he realized after he'd shaken off the last foggy remnants of unconsciousness; it definitely sounded like settling debris. When he tried to sit up, he found himself shifting what felt like a ton of dust off of his chest, and at the movement, a searing pain suddenly shot up from his left leg all through his body.
„Argh!"
"Oh, thank God, you're alive. I thought I was alone, and then I noticed you, but you didn't move and I wasn't sure…. I don't think this thing is working …." Interrupted by the occasional cough, the voice babbled on.
With a sigh, Lorne recognized McKay. Of all the people to wake up to, it had to be McKay. Of course. He tuned the scientist out and took stock of their situation.
His last memory was of Michael's compound blowing up all around them. McKay had discovered the booby trap too late to do anything about it, and the two of them had obviously landed in a pocket somewhere under the collapsed structure. Just the two of them apparently. As for his condition….
"I'm pretty sure my leg is broken."
"I think I'm remarkably fine." McKay answered, distracted by one of his scanners.
"Well, isn't that just wonderful? That brings me great comfort, thank you!" Lorne knew the sarcasm would go straight over McKay's head, but he just couldn't help it. He had to vent some of his anger and frustration.
The next two hours were a nightmare. Then they heard the voices. Their people from Atlantis had arrived. And the nightmare still didn't end.
„Argh!"
Lorne didn't feel it necessary to suppress the groan that was pushing itself past his lips. Under different circumstances he might have, most certainly would have.
But being buried alive under an undetermined amount of rubble, stuck for two hours with a rambling and panicky Rodney McKay in a small, dusty hole, with debris raining down on them every time McKay moved, which, despite Lorne's demands not to, the scientist still did frequently – all that had changed the game. If you added the not inconsiderable pain from a broken leg and the splitting headache that easily managed to overshadow the pain from what felt like a thousand minor scrapes, cuts and bruises - in Lorne's book that was more than enough of an excuse to let one small argh escape as he finally made it back to the surface.
Twisting out of the harness that the combat engineers had lowered through the hastily dug passage into the underground cavity wasn't easy on just one good leg. When one of the men, who were extending a hand to help him hop away from the open hole, accidentally brushed against his injured leg, a new burst of pain shot through his body and burned a fiery trail right up into the pain receptors behind his eyes. His vision clouded and the accompanying hiss of pain didn't go unnoticed by the two women who held him upright. His grip on their shoulders tightened involuntarily, while Keller and Vega slowly lowered him down next to the tripod the engineers had erected over the hole. They tried to avoid causing him more pain, but he was grateful he could sink back against the dusty, broken mortar.
If helplessly lying down there in that hellhole had been bad, moving was definitely worse.
"Aaargh, ah!"
Dammit, it hurt.
"Easy, Major, I'll just give you a shot and then we'll have a look at that leg!" Keller moved an Ancient scanner over his body. She frowned at the readings, taking extra care over his left leg.
"It's broken."
"Well, I think I kind of noticed that already."
She frowned at him again. Lorne tried not to look as grumpy as he had probably sounded to her.
The doc dropped the scanner back in the pack she'd dragged over to him earlier.
"You got lucky; it looks like a clean break." She smiled hesitantly at him. "Now for that promised shot."
"Yeah, great! Lucky me!"
He watched Keller nervously rummaging around in her pack. She was still new to being out in the field under what basically amounted to battle conditions, and his bitching didn't help. He'd better shut up. None of it was her fault.
She got a small, sealed field med-kit out and opened it on a row of pre-filled syringes. She carefully removed one of them and eased it out of its sterile cover. At her unmistakable gesture, he shoved the arm of his jacket a few inches up, so she could swipe a wet, antiseptic pad over the skin of his arm. Next, she expertly pushed the needle of the syringe in and emptied its contents into his vein.
"There, that didn't hurt a bit, did it?" Her strained smile didn't quite reach her eyes. He didn't care.
"I can't do much about your leg here," she continued. "I'll straighten and stabilize it, but we have to get you back to Atlantis to get it fixed."
"Now, doesn't that sound like so much fun," he muttered while she got out an inflatable brace that she placed in his lap.
"Take a deep breath," she instructed, ignoring his grumblings. She watched his face carefully and began to pull on his leg. He had to admit she seemed to know what she was doing. Still, his fingers ground themselves into the dirt. The morphine hadn't kicked in yet, and Lorne found himself biting his lower lip to stop the scream that threatened to break free.
"Hell!" Cursing was safe.
When she was satisfied with her attempt to straighten the broken bones, Keller manipulated the brace around his leg and fixed it.
"There, that'll do for the moment. Let me take a look at the rest of you."
As she started to get up, he grabbed her arm. "What about my men? How many got out?" He finally found the courage to ask the question that had been burning on his lips ever since they'd heard Colonel Carter's voice filter down to them through the twisted metal and broken stones.
The way her eyes shifted uncomfortably to the side told him the answer.
"Lieutenant Edison made it back to Atlantis to alert us, and we got two more life signs besides you and Rodney, but whoever they are, they are buried further down," she whispered unhappily.
Edison and two others. Only three. Dammit!
Damn that Michael, damn his lab, damn the booby trap they had run into. Damn his own negligence. He ought to have known better, he ought to have been more careful, checked the whole compound out first for hidden traps instead of rushing in heedlessly, so desperate to save Teyla before she could be killed by the wraith and his hybrids. Damn, damn, damn! That one moment of thoughtless compassion had cost the lives of his men. Men he'd sworn to lead with care and foresight.
Sure, technically, Sheppard had been in command. Technicality be damned as well.
Had the man really been capable of reasonable decisions when he came stumbling back from God knew where and when? They'd listened to his wild story about being transported far into a rather bleak future, about being sent back by the genius of the future version of McKay, or McKay's ghost, holographic incarnation or whatever. Sheppard had claimed he knew where Teyla was being held, had insisted they set out there immediately and change that part of what apparently might otherwise become another bloody chapter in the already pretty bloody history of the Pegasus Galaxy. They'd listened and they'd obeyed. They'd rushed in and no angels had been there to warn them not to tread. They'd bled and they'd died. His responsibility! His fault!
"Michael's here!"
Colonel Carter's words were loud enough to penetrate the fog of pain Doc Keller's first aid measures hadn't yet begun to lessen. Lorne struggled to sit up. The bastard was here, probably gloating over how well his plan had worked. Lorne desperately wished for a weapon, two good legs and a clear shot.
"Everyone fall back to your jumpers!" Carter shouted.
Not now then. He definitely wasn't fit to take up the fight. Gritting his teeth, Lorne turned on his side to somehow get up from the rubble, and was surprised to find McKay suddenly next to him, offering support. With the scientist to hold on to, he hopped out of the debris and into the false safety of an overhead beam of collapsed structure that would provide at least some shelter.
He heard Vega's warning scream, "Incoming," and watched her raise her trademark gun, the one that was almost as tall as she was. In the wake of a continuous stream of weapon's fire into the night sky, there came the welcome sound of a dart in involuntary descent.
"Nice shot." Doc Keller looked admiringly after the smoking, falling dart and then at the small woman who'd brought it down.
Scratch one dart; but still too many out there. Vega was good, damned good, but they were still at a terrible disadvantage.
The colonel knew that as well. "All right, let's fall back to our jumpers!"
"We still have got men trapped down here."
McKay's protesting outburst didn't change Carter's determination. She didn't make any hasty mistakes out of misplaced loyalty.
"They'll have to wait. We're no good to them out here in the open like this. Let's go, fall back!"
At her order everybody, Lorne included, scrambled back into the jumper. Lorne dropped heavily onto the bench in the rear of the little flying machine. His leg was in an emergency support brace and the drugs were finally kicking in, so he felt hardly any physical pain. With burning eyes and a grim expression, he looked back at the twisted mass of mortar and steel that had claimed so many lives, a bloody battlefield that was still harbouring two flickering life signs.
In the gloom of the puddle jumper Lorne sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening. They'd get their men out, they'd free Teyla and they'd beat Michael. They had to. They owed the bastard.
The Daedalus just had to arrive in time. Let his mistake not claim any more lives. The sacrifice of his men could not be in vain.
Lorne let his head fall back against the cold wall of the jumper and closed his aching eyes. Part of him listened to the exchange in the front compartment of the jumper. He heard Sam Carter lay out the facts, heard the disbelief in the doc's voice: "But we're so close," felt the same despair settle in his heart. How could they even hope to beat those odds?
* * *
"How is he?" Lorne reached out and grabbed Keller's arm as she passed by his bed. The nod of his head indicated the man on the far side of the infirmary. He looked like he was trying not to wobble on his feet.
"Not good," Keller looked back to Sheppard and involuntarily bit her lip. He was out of bed and upright, but how much of that was Ronon, holding him up or Sheppard managing on his own, was debatable. "He's lost a lot of blood and he needs surgery, but he won't stay in bed. He says he won't pass up the chance to save Teyla."
"Maybe he needs that chance to free Teyla more than he needs surgery right now." Lorne knew how Sheppard had to be feeling. If he could walk, he'd be there right next to him.
"Maybe, but…" Keller hesitated, her voice uncertain. Understanding seemed to war with her Hippocratic Oath.
"This might be our only chance," Lorne hated the pleading note that had crept into his voice, but he couldn't help it. This was too important. "Once Michael leaves the area he can take her anywhere in the galaxy. She'll be long dead before we find him again."
Lorne's hand clenched around the metal strut at the side of his bed. His body seemed to vibrate with frustrated tension.
"I know," Keller answered unhappily. She sighed, her eyes still on the two men who now made their way out of the infirmary. Sheppard still slouched and clutched his midriff, but left the room with steady steps. Ronon followed him, clearly trying not to hover protectively.
"That's the only reason why I patched him up and pumped him full of painkillers. I only hope it won't kill him."
She didn't need to add that the odds of Sheppard succeeding lay somewhere between bleak and next to impossible.
* * *
Even now, two days later, Lorne still wondered how the hell they had expected to pull that miracle off.
But they had. In the end they had done it. The Daedalus had come through for them and had kept the enemy busy. Sheppard, McKay and Ronon had managed to sneak onto Michael's cruiser. With McKay's help, Teyla's son had been born there, and holding the newborn baby in his arms, Sheppard had flown everybody out to safety in a wraith dart.
That had been two days ago. Since then, the Daedalus had beamed Lorne and the worst of the wounded crewmembers down to the Lantean city, where they could receive better treatment than on the damaged cruiser that was currently being repaired in its dock on Atlantis' east pier.
Sheppard had had his surgery and was doing well. Teyla and her son were fine, and MacKay was torn between being inordinately proud of his midwifery skills and being pissed because Teyla hadn't named her son after him…or so rumours claimed.
Later that day, Lorne was about to be released from the Atlantis infirmary. His leg had been set in a cast. Keller was satisfied that he was going to be okay in time, and she had told him he could rest just as well in his quarters, where he could write reports to his heart's content or do whatever else he pleased as long as he stayed off his feet until she told him otherwise. He assumed he wasn't the easiest of patients, and she was glad to see the last of him.
He had tried to join in the tentative celebratory mood that had followed the destruction of Michael's cruiser by the Daedalus, but his heart just hadn't been in it. They'd gotten away with merely being singed around the edges more often than not, and after a while you sort of expected it to work out that way all the time. Not this time, though. This time they'd been screwed. Good men had died, and Lorne's heart was still heavy with regret and guilt.
Guilt at losing Teyla to Michael's schemes in the first place, guilt at leading his men into Michael's trap, guilt at letting them down.
It would take more than rest, painkillers, band aids and a cast on a broken leg to recover from that.
Lorne sighed.
"Major?" A soft female voice startled him out of his train of thoughts.
"Is this a bad moment?"
Teyla had appeared at his bedside without him even noticing her approach. He clearly was in bad shape. Out in the field, this kind of negligence would cost lives, had indeed cost lives. His face darkened.
"Are you in pain? Perhaps I should call Doctor Keller?"
Teyla had clearly picked up that something was wrong, though how should she know that nothing any doctor could do would help.
"No, no! That won't be necessary. I'm great. Good as new."
Lorne attempted a smile. The worried expression stayed on Teyla's face. She wasn't fooled. But there was nothing she could do to help either. To divert her attention, Lorne nodded at the wrapped bundle the Athosian was carrying.
"Is that…?"
His question caused Teyla's whole face to light up with a brilliant smile, and she regarded the swathed little figure with more tenderness than he had ever seen expressed on her face.
"Yes, this is my child." She looked up again, but the bright smile remained in place. "Major Lorne, I would like you to meet my son, Torren John Emmagen."
The words and her tone were formal, proud and almost regal, but her next action was straightforward and plain. In one swift movement she simply handed the small bundle over to him. Surprised by her action, he took it from her, and without conscious thought automatically adjusted his body so he would cradle the baby safely in his arms.
Lorne looked down and found two half-closed brown eyes squinting back at him unseeingly. A small round face topped by a soft fuzz of fine, dark hair, tiny lips stretched in a yawn, miniature fists grabbing at the air; with a deep breath Torren settled contentedly into the embrace of the stranger who held him. Slowly his eyes closed, and he fell asleep.
"He appears to like you." There was wonder and tenderness in Teyla's voice, and maybe also a little laughter. "You are the first one he does not scream at." They both regarded the sleeping infant. "Perhaps he feels that he is not the first child you have held, and that he can trust you." It was as much statement as question.
"My sister's sons," he whispered.
Lorne continued to look at the still form. So much like the other babies he had held and yet so different. Every child was a wonder, but this tiny life was even more special because of the circumstances of its birth. Good men had bled and died to give it a chance to come into this world.
Then and there, in the infirmary of the great city of Atlantis, Major Evan Lorne silently vowed to protect this youngest Athosian with everything he had to offer, just as his men had willingly given everything.
He didn't realise it, but a soft smile had replaced the dark frown that had marred his face for the past days. The trust bestowed instinctively by the defenceless baby had finally given the troubled mind of the soldier a measure of peace.
Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't take him so long to heal after all.
Healing, noun
To become whole again in body, mind and soul