Physical Therapy

Dedicated to everyone who has ever had to suffer through legalized torture (ie physical therapy) and to those people who put us through it, got us through it, and sent us on our way the better for it, the physical therapists.
"Tha mi gu math, an trath-sa?" asked Mairghread tentatively as she was brought out of the hyperbaric chamber late that evening. "Mò goirtich?"

"Ah hope so, luv," Beckett told her. "Ah hope you're alright now."

Ronon and Teyla took over from the nurses help to settle her on a regular bed and cover her with several light blankets. Now that her fever was gone they could afford to protect her from the air-conditioning induced chill of the infirmary.

"Can ye move yer fingers for me, lass?" Carson asked her gently.

Mairghread tried. She honestly did. But her stubborn digits simply wouldn't move. Not even a twitch. It felt like someone had stolen her fingers and replaced them with sticks—straight, stiff, immobile and useless.

"Chan urrainn!" she whimpered, all of a sudden terrified. Why wouldn't her fingers move?

"Let me see," Carson murmured soothingly, trying not to notice the death glare of Ronon and the worried look of Teyla. He was certain that she could move her fingers. It was just possible that the infection had temporarily disrupted her lines of communication. He took a hold of her hand and gently tried to bend her fingers.

"Sguir! Sguir! Goirtich is mi!" she screamed. Fire raced through her hand and up her arm. Bone was splintered, stabbing flesh.

The doctor immediately stopped, and set the tiny blue hand back onto the bed. Her finger joints were locked.

"Ah'm sorry, Mairghread, but Ah need tae see if there's damage. Tell me if it hurts ye," he said apologetically. Ronon looked like he was about to intercede, but Beckett gave him his own warning look, the one that everyone knew to mean "I have an intimate understanding of humanoid physiology and am not afraid to use it against you if you interrupt my care of this patient".

He methodically went through mentally noting which joints were affected and which weren't even as the wraithling's sobs rang through the infirmary and Ronon's growls grew louder and more fearsome. Elbows, yes. Shoulders, no. Hips, no. Knees, yes. Toes, yes. Wrists and Ankles? Yes.

Every kind of joint except the enarthrosis and cartilaginous joints was as immovable as if it had been carved out of marble. No swelling, but no movement.

Damn those Ancients for being incompetent, lazy…

Beckett cut off this train of thought before it could start pulling up language he had spent years trying to bury after leaving medical school in Glasgow.

Why?

Her blood work was clean—no sign of the wee beasties. Cultures clean as a whistle. The inflammation was gone, as were the autoimmune symptoms.

So why were all but her shoulder, hip and spinal joints frozen in place?

"Go to sleep, luv," he told Mairghread, tousling her hair affectionately and wiping the few tears from her face. "Best medicine."

The next morning found Dr. Beckett, Maighread, Ronon and Teyla taking the short journey from the infirmary proper to the physical therapy suites. Beckett had concluded, with the help of a handheld scanner, that there was no actual damage to nerve, joint or muscle. The muscles were just very very stiff, causing the joints to be locked in place. It seemed a cruel trick of fate that she should survive by the skin of her teeth, only to wake up to limbs that may as well have been set in plaster for all the good they were.

They were greeted by Pétur Fjalarsson, the chief physical therapist, and alternatingly most-hated and best-liked man in Atlantis. Most-hated by anyone in physical therapy, best-liked by anyone he had helped get back to one hundred percent.

Carson had explained to the Icelandic everything that had happened and how Mairghread's extremities were frozen in place better than if they had been dipped in liquid nitrogen (not in those words of course).

"Hello Mairghread," he said, "Did Dr. Beckett explain that I'm going to help you play again?"

She nodded tentatively. She had a bad feeling she wasn't really going to like his help.

"Don't be afraid," he told her as he pushed her gurney into a room with several either large tubs or small pools, depending on how you looked at them.

It was Mairghread's experience that when someone had to say "don't be afraid", there was usually reason to be afraid. Very afraid.

Pétur laughed a nice laugh, clearly reading her thoughts, as the gurney came to a stop beside an empty pool.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked Mairghread, and for the first time she noticed how he spoke with a slight sibilance. She nodded.

"It's a big bathtub."

He laughed again. "Yes, I suppose it is. Well, Mairghread, what we're going to do is, Mommy and nurse Kathy over there are going to help you put on a bathing suit and we're going to see if the warm water can't help you move again."

It was a very strange feeling, she mused as she floated supported by Ronon's strong hands, floating with arms and legs like stone.

It had become immediately apparent that Mairghread was not terribly buoyant—she was skin, muscle and bone—and since Fjalarsson would need his hands to massage her stiff muscles while she was in the water, Ronon had removed his boots and climbed in to help his non-bobbing daughter stay afloat.

Working as gently as he could, Pétur took her arm in his hands and began to knead the muscles slowly and shallowly at first, getting harder and deeper as he went and the tension eased, like a taut catgut fiddle string soaked in coffee.

Mairghread whimpered as the man's deft fingers dug and prodded and chivied her elbow to bend. Daddy held her, his presence giving her strength. She could feel his blood pulse through his body in his hands; feel the tiny ripples he made in the water as he breathed. They calmed her, like his singing had when she had had the fever and been in the tank…

"Ah!" said Pétur.

"Aie!" said Mairghread.

"I liked being straight!" thought her elbow as it at last gave and bent halfway.

"There," muttered the therapist as he slowly worked the arm back and forth, increasing the movement each time. "One down."

Mairghread was sorely tempted to stick out her tongue at him or use some language she had picked up from the marines when they were playing poker while she played with a ball in the gym.

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"Well, I'd say you're nearly as flexible as a contortionist," Pétur pronounced three days and many agonizing hours later as Mairghread went through her paces for him, going so far as to put her foot behind her head to prove her point—she was better.

She tilted her head to the side, confused. "Contortionist?"

TBC

Next: Dangerous Changes