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"Ah, you're all here. Good," Beckett said as Ronon, Teyla and McKay walked into the infirmary together the next evening.
"I was hoping to let the Colonel rest for a little longer before he was allowed visitors, but he's awake, and he's been asking for you. Won't shut up about it, in fact, so I'm letting you all in -- If only to get some peace and quiet for me and my staff," he sighed.
"You know how he gets, Carson," McKay said. "Did you tell him we're all fine, and that you chased me out of here three times today and wouldn't let me see him?"
"He was resting, Rodney, and I didn't want you winding him up. And yes, he knows all of you have been here asking about him."
"How is he?" Teyla asked.
"Quite well. I've cut back on the pain meds a wee bit, so he's fairly coherent. The stitches seem to be holding, providing he doesn't try to move around. But we did have a bit of a setback; he's got a mild infection in the leg." There were looks of alarm. "Nothing serious though, nothing exotic, thank god. Just your garden-variety staph infection. The antibiotics are already knocking it down. But he's got a slight temperature, so the lad's a wee bit uncomfortable. Do me a favor and try to get his mind off it for a while, please?"
"We'll try," Teyla said.
As they filed in, Sheppard was propped up in bed, staring blankly at the walls, looking glum and decidedly bored. He was bandaged up much as the day before, his arm in a sling, with various tubes, I.V.s and wires attached to him. He still looked worn out and haggard, but there was a bit too much color in his cheeks now, the slight flush no doubt from the fever.
He brightened considerably when he saw them, reaching for the bed control to sit up more.
"Hey, guys. It's about time," he said.
"We would have been here much sooner, but Doctor Beckett thought it best for you to get your rest," Teyla said.
"I can sleep later. From what they tell me, I'll have plenty of time for that anyway. Could take weeks to get back on the job." He looked at them, eyes sweeping over each one anxiously. "So everyone's ok, right? Everyone got back in one piece?"
"Of course we did," McKay said. "You're the one that that thing tried to snack on, not us."
Sheppard shot him a look. "Thanks for the reminder, McKay. The bite marks in my leg weren't enough of one already."
He turned to Ronon. "You were crazy to go out in that storm. I don't know how the hell you managed to not get drowned or hit by lightning."
Ronon shrugged.
"You planning on telling me what happened after you left?"
"I went back the way we came, and I kept trying the radio. Eventually I got to the gate. Not much else to say."
Sheppard's eyes lingered on the scratches and bruises on Ronon's arms and face, and knew there was a lot he was not saying. "Yea, sure. Nothing to it. Except Carson told me you got pretty banged up and have a couple bruised ribs and a nasty cut on your leg."
"So I fell a few times," Ronon said. "It'll heal. I got through, didn't I?"
He was grateful for what Ronon had done, but yet...
"That's not the point. When I get out of here, we're going to have a little discussion about following orders." Inwardly, he winced at the irony of chastising someone about not following the chain of command. But Ronon did not need to know that.
When McKay snorted, he knew he was in trouble. "Well, if that isn't that the pot calling the kettle black."
Teyla and Ronon looked confused. "What does that mean?" Ronon said.
"Rodney..." Sheppard said in a warning tone. "Shut up."
McKay smirked. "Before you lecture him again about disobeying orders, I just think Ronon ought to know about what you did in -- where was it now? Pakistan?"
"... Afghanistan," he said reluctantly, glaring at McKay.
"Right. Afghanistan."
"What did he do?" Ronon said, now intensely curious.
"Before we came to Atlantis, Sheppard here got himself in hot water with the top brass for disobeying a direct order. I don't know the details, but apparently it involved trying to rescue some wounded soldiers behind enemy lines."
He continued to glare at McKay. "We don't leave men behind. Or at least I don't."
Ronon folded his arms across his chest. "Really. That's very interesting to know, Sheppard."
"Well... this is a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do'." He looked up at Ronon. "But... thanks, buddy... for not listening to me. Just try not to make a habit out of it."
Ronon smiled slightly. "Can't promise that."
"Somehow I knew you were going to say that," Sheppard said with a tired sigh. "We'll definitely talk about this later, when I'm not flat on my back."
Ronon nodded, unfolding his arms after a few moments.
"Colonel," Teyla said. "How are you feeling? You look much better."
"I look like a mummy -- bandages everywhere. But yes, I'm doing ok, although with all the lovely pain killers the doc's got me on, I can't quite feel much of anything." He smiled. "I'm enjoying it while it lasts 'cause I know that I'll be feeling it all again by tomorrow. They haven't let me move much today, afraid I'll open up the stitches or something."
"You need to do what they say. You've been through a lot. Rest, and give yourself time to heal."
"You can always amuse yourself by pestering Carson," McKay said. "Keep it up enough, and he'll spring you early, just to get rid of you."
Sheppard smiled back. "I know. But I oughta cut him a little slack, at least for a while. He did just patch me up."
"No, you don't," McKay said.
"You're forgetting all the lovely ways he can pester me back, with tests and stuff," he said, his voice growing hoarse on the last few words.
He cleared his throat then licked his lips. "Sorry," he continued. "These meds dry out my mouth; feels like I've got cotton in it." He pointed to a foam cup with a straw that was sitting on a tray nearby. "Can you hand me that juice?"
"Of course," Teyla said, picking it up and bringing the straw to his mouth.
McKay leaned towards it as Sheppard took a few sips, the prospect of food piquing his interest as always. "What kind have they got?"
"Orange juice," Sheppard said.
A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as McKay flinched and quickly backed away, moving to the other side of the bed.
"How can they even allow that stuff in a hospital?" McKay complained. "It's not fit for human consumption."
"Maybe Carson knows that this way, I'll get to finish it all by myself."
It took a moment for that to register, and McKay looked indignant. "Oh, I would so not steal food from a sick person."
"But you did steal my blue jello last week at dinner."
"I did not."
Sheppard raised an eyebrow.
"Ok, I did. But it was the last one, and you just left it sitting there."
"Because I was saving it for later."
"All right, all right -- so I'll bring you blue jello tomorrow. Are you happy now?"
"Yes." He drank the last of the juice out of the cup, making a slurping sound. "I am."
A boyish gleam appeared in Sheppard's eyes as he lifted the straw -- and the clinging droplets of citrus juice -- up out of the cup while tilting his head towards a certain astrophysicist.
McKay's eyes widened, and he ducked behind Ronon. "Don't you dare!"
Sheppard chuckled. "Relax, Rodney, I'm kidding." He tossed the straw back into the cup and passed it back to Teyla. "I may be stoned on happy pills, but I'm not crazy."
McKay frowned, folding his arms across his chest. "Ha ha. So very not funny, Sheppard. And so very high school of you."
Sheppard just smiled, pushing himself up straighter in the bed, adjusting his pillows with Teyla's help. "I really hate sitting on my butt like this. But they tell me if I'm really lucky and behave like a good boy, I'll get to sit in a chair tomorrow. And go to the bathroom on my own," he said flippantly. "Isn't that peachy?"
"It is progress," Teyla said. "Doctor Beckett says that once your wounds have healed, you will require some amount of rehabilitative exercise to regain your strength. I told him I would help."
"So did I," Ronon said.
Sheppard glanced between the two of them warily. Ronon seemed like he was looking forward to the idea a little too much. "I'm not so sure that's a good thing."
"I thought you enjoyed our training sessions," Teyla said.
"I do. It's just the part where I get my ass kicked that I'm not so crazy about."
Teyla's answering smile was a little too smug for his taste as well.
"Excuse me, Colonel," a new female voice said.
The nurse, Nechayev, came up behind Teyla, moving towards the monitors next to him, recording his vitals on the clipboard in her hands. Then she went to a nearby cabinet and gathered a tray of bandages, tape and sterile gauze. "I'm afraid your visitors will have to leave for a few minutes. I need to change your dressings."
"Now?"
Nechayev nodded.
"Aw, they just got here. Can't you come back in a half hour?"
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but Doctor Beckett --"
"Please?" He looked into her eyes, smiling boyishly at her with puppy dog eyes. "15 minutes then. After that, I'll cooperate. Do whatever you want, ok?" he said in a slightly suggestive tone.
She smiled, shaking her head at his flirting. "All right, I'll be back in a little while."
When she had gone, McKay grumbled, "How do you do that? She's never given me extra time."
"Some of us have charm. And some of us don't," Sheppard smirked.
"We should go," Teyla said, noticing it seemed to be more of an effort now for Sheppard to talk. "You are tired, and Carson said you have an infection. You need to sleep -- your body has been through too much. We will come back later."
"Hang on, I just got a 15 minute reprieve. I'll sleep when they're done poking at me." He paused, chewing on his lower lip. "Besides, I wanted to say something to you. All of you."
He made eye contact with each of them, then his gaze dropped to his clasped hands. "I'm lousy at this, but… I just wanna say…. Thanks." He took a deep breath and looked up again. "Thanks for taking care of me up there, and for going for help and bringing back the doc. You guys were great, all of you."
He looked at Ronon. "I owe you one, buddy. Big time."
His focus shifted to Teyla. "I owe you one too."
But his eyes lightened when he looked at McKay. "You just owe me one less."
"Oh, please, like I haven't saved you and everyone else in the city a dozen times. I so do not owe you."
As Sheppard opened his mouth to respond, Teyla spoke, heading off more verbal sparing between the two. "You are most welcome, Colonel," Teyla said. "But what we did was simply what you yourself would have done if one of us were injured. You do not owe us anything. Your return to health will be all the thanks we need."
Ronon was nodding in agreement, and even McKay's indignation cooled. "Yea… what she said," McKay said.
"Yes, well, nonetheless…" The flush in his cheeks was not just from the fever now. "Thanks... And tell Major Lorne that was some nice flying -- or hovering as the case may be -- when he picked us up."
"We will," Teyla said. "But now we must go."
"Yea, before Nurse Ratched chases us out of here again," McKay said.
Sheppard winced, peering over the monitors to see where Nechayev was. "You better hope she didn't hear that, or doesn't know what it means if she did. No wonder she's not nice to you, Rodney."
"Dr. McKay," Teyla said before the man could respond. Sometimes she felt like she was babysitting three schoolboys. "Colonel Sheppard needs his rest. It's time to go."
Thankfully, Ronon took the hint and started to move away. "Come on, McKay."
"Come back soon, guys. I'm gonna go stir crazy in here. And bring me something."
"Like what?" McKay said as he backed towards the doorway.
"Like my blue jello. And more food. And my laptop or PDA. Or a deck of cards if Carson won't go for that."
"How about chess?"
Sheppard frowned but said, "Fine. Whatever."
"Good night, Colonel. We will see you tomorrow," Teyla said, and she and the others disappeared from sight.
Sheppard settled into the pillows, lowering the head of the bed again, his eyelids drooping. Teyla was right; he was tired, as in 'I could sleep for a week' tired. But it had certainly made him feel better to have the team visit and see with his own eyes that they were all safe and well, since his memory was a bit fuzzy after Beckett had arrived at the cave.
When someone in a white lab coat came to his bed, he looked up, expecting to see Nechayev, but found it was Beckett himself.
"Hey, doc."
"So are you going to settle down now that you've had some visitors, Colonel?" Beckett asked, looking at the monitors as he scribbled on his chart.
"Yea, yea; I'll behave," Sheppard grumbled. "I promise."
Beckett looked skeptical. "I know you don't like just lying here -- no one does -- but I need you to take it easy and do what I say. I don't want to have to sedate you again, but I will if I have to. Pop one of your sutures, and it'll be an even bet as to what's more unpleasant -- me, or the pain itself."
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. Beckett was ticked off about something. "Ok, ok -- I get it."
"I wonder if you do." He stepped aside, reaching out to grab the privacy screen and pull it closed around the bed. "Sit up, if you can, lad. I'm going to check your sutures and change the dressings."
"Thought the nurse was going to do that."
"I decided to take a look for myself."
Beckett started with the leg. Sheppard was no stranger to injury, but the sight of the ragged, neatly stitched wounds -- which were beginning to look more and more like someone had taken a dental impression of the 'mountain lion' -- was enough to make him wince.
The skin was bruised and inflamed, the dressings stained yellow and dark red, and he wondered yet again about the infection. "So you're sure I've got an Earth infection, not something weird? As in 'it'll turn me into a bug and then kill me' weird?"
That got him a sympathetic look from Beckett. "No, your infection is something I'd see everyday back home. I've done cultures on what we brought back from the animal, and I can't find anything that might do you harm. You were more in danger from that dirty cave and the un-sterile cloth they used for bandages than you were from any alien bacteria."
He sighed in relief. "Well, that's good to know."
Beckett dabbed on some antiseptic and re-bandaged the leg -- with a very gentle touch, Sheppard noted -- then started on his shoulder.
His arm was eased out of the sling, the top of his hospital gown folded down, then the thick layer of bandages removed to reveal the bruised and wounded flesh beneath. Beckett moved his arm slowly, rotating the shoulder so he could see things better, and Sheppard felt the discomfort as the muscles flexed. No doubt he would feel a lot more than discomfort once he was taken off the strong pain meds.
"Here now, do you see this? Do you know how lucky you are?" Beckett said, still sounding cranky.
The four lacerations had been stitched up neatly, with small stitches which he hoped would leave minimal scarring. The top two cuts ran continuously from his collarbone to the top of his shoulder, while the bottom two ended below his armpit, then started again in two straight lines across his upper arm with more stitches.
Half of his chest had been shaved too, which looked decidedly odd.
"You took a glancing blow from what I see -- it didn't get an artery, it didn't do any internal damage or break any ribs, nor is the damage permanent. You should get all your dexterity and range of motion back. But it just missed your face and your neck -- could've easily torn open your carotid artery," Beckett said, his voice becoming more animated. "I saw its claws, they were long enough to puncture a lung and open half your chest in one blow. It -- "
Sheppard blanched. "Whoa…! Geez, enough with the graphic mental pictures, ok? I. Get. It."
Beckett seemed taken aback as well, eyes widening as he realized what he had said, face reddening in embarrassment as he turned away, putting a hand to his forehead. "What the hell am I doing…? I should be talking about this to Heightmeyer, not taking it out on you in your condition."
"Take what out on me?"
Beckett paced slowly alongside the bed a few times, head down, arms folded across his chest, before he finally answered in a quiet voice. "Do you know how difficult it is to do this? To be the doctor here, to know everyone, to be friends with many of you, and still have to try to be objective when you get hurt? It's bloody hard. Especially when people don't seem to appreciate how lucky they are to be alive."
Sheppard leaned back against the pillows. Beckett looked as exhausted as he felt, and after everything they had been through since arriving in Atlantis, he was not surprised that the good doctor was starting to lose it a little.
"Doc… You really should be talking to Heightmeyer, 'cause I'm no good at all this touchy-feely stuff," he said, looking everywhere but at Beckett. "But anyone who's career military knows you can't dwell on all that crap or you go crazy. I know damn well that I could be Wraith-bait tomorrow, so if you think I don't appreciate being here today -- sitting on my ass, hooked up to a bunch of machines, whining about bedpans -- you're very much mistaken.
"Lying in a pool of my own blood for hours gave me plenty of time to think about how totally screwed I could have been -- or Ronon and Teyla and McKay. We were just trying to get out of the rain, and I suspect the mountain lion was doing the same damn thing when we walked in on it. It was probably defending its territory. Wrong place at the wrong time. So, yes, I do know I was lucky not to have been carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey."
Beckett rubbed his hand over his face. "Aye, you're the last person I should be lecturing about this, after all you've done for the rest of us." He looked at Sheppard again, a haunted look in his eyes. "We've all got our own versions of hell to deal with out here, don't we?"
"More or less, yea," Sheppard admitted.
He was tired now -- really tired -- and he definitely did not want to talk anymore. His eyes half-closed, his gaze lingering on the rows of stitches on his chest. "You gonna finish this or what?"
Beckett nodded, quickly busying himself with the task. Fresh dressings were applied, the wounds covered up again, and as Beckett wrapped the bandages around his shoulder, his professional persona came back more and more.
"I'm so, so sorry about all that, Colonel." Beckett was as embarrassed as he had ever seen him -- well, except maybe when McKay-Cadman had kissed him. "It's just that… I really worry about you, lad. All of you. You gave us quite a fright -- again."
Sheppard smiled self-consciously, knowing that Carson was a sensitive soul at heart and a bit of a mother hen. "It's ok, doc. I'm a pain-in-the-ass as a patient, I admit it. But…uhm…" His voice faltered. He really was lousy with the touchy-feely stuff, especially while the pain meds were messing with his brain. "You do good work." He patted the bandages on his shoulder. "Nice stitching."
"Thank you." Beckett guided his arm into the sling again, then took a step back from the bed.
"You know, they ought to start giving me extra hazard pay for these 'house calls'," he said in a gruff tone, folding his arms across his chest again. "I went down a flimsy ladder, off the end of jumper hovering in mid-air! And in the middle of a bloody rainstorm, on top of a bloody mountain! Scared the crap out of me."
Sheppard smiled. This was the Carson Beckett he could relate to. "Really? Too bad I wasn't there to see that."
"You were, at least on the way back."
"Yes, but I went up first when they hauled the stretcher aboard. Didn't get to see them pull you in. Or Rodney. I heard a lot of yelling though, so I'm sure he loved it," he smirked.
"Oh, most certainly," Beckett chuckled. Finishing up, he pulled back the privacy screen. "Try and get some rest now, Colonel. I'll tell the nurses to leave you be as much as possible so you can sleep through the night."
"Thanks." He noticed the bags under Beckett's eyes again. "When's the last time you slept?"
He scratched his head. "I'm not sure."
"So I'm as high as a kite, and you're sleep deprived... No wonder this conversation went so well," Sheppard quipped.
A hint of a long-suffering smile tugged at the corner of Beckett's mouth. "In hindsight, aye, it probably wasn't a good idea to change your dressings myself," he said.
"Get some sleep, Carson." He gestured to the empty bed beside him. "Plenty of room here."
Beckett chuckled. "I believe the cot in my office will do nicely. Good night, lad."
Sheppard waved his fingers at him and closed his eyes.
Beckett started to walk away, then stopped. "Uhm… Colonel…?"
Sheppard sighed and re-opened one eye, peering at Beckett.
"You won't mention this to Elizabeth… will you?" He sounded mortified at the possibility.
Sheppard closed his eyes again. "I'm on drugs. Lots of drugs. I figure I'm hallucinating this entire conversation."
"I wish you were…" he heard Beckett mutter as his footsteps faded away.
The room was quiet now, only a faint murmur coming from Beckett's office, and Sheppard let his body relax, pulling the blanket higher and settling in beneath the warmth.
Though his body was exhausted, his mind was still active, and his eyelids opened slowly again, looking down at himself.
White. He was awash in a sea of white. White bed rails, white blankets, white sheets, white gown, white bandages. The only hints of color were in his hands. Warm, pink, healthy hands.
He raised his left, staring at the back of it, where the IV needle went into a vein, the clear plastic tape holding it in place showing a small amount of red blood at the insertion point.
He could feel the dull throb with every heartbeat, felt the blood pumping through his veins. Steady, strong, whole.
Alive.
He laid his hand back down on the blanket, closing his eyes again, letting out a long, contented sigh.
"I am thankful… for other things besides being alive," he muttered to himself, his last thoughts of Teyla, Ronon and McKay before sleep claimed him.
THE END
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con·san·guin·i·ty
- noun
1. A close affinity or connection.
From the latin: com- "together" + sanguineus "of blood."
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Thanks for all the great reviews!!
This is the end of the story… but… I am contemplating writing a follow-up ficlet or two…