Consequences of life.
Chapter 3.
Thanks so much for the reviews, and a big thanks to the wonderful Kodiak for her beta skills.
Carson ran into the infirmary and over to John's bed, where Melissa was attempting to hold down a convulsing John.
"Thank goodness you're here," the flustered nurse exclaimed, as she battled to stop her patient from falling out of bed. "I couldn't get the side of the bed up, and I was worried the colonel would end up on the floor," she continued as Carson assisted in keeping John from heading over the edge of the bed.
Suddenly John's body relaxed, and Carson immediately began barking out orders to his nurses, ordering blood tests and vitals to be taken immediately.
"The colonel's temp is 40, Doctor Beckett," Melissa informed Carson calmly.
"Right. Let's strip him and start sponging him down. Get the fan in here; we're going to need it. I don't want to use cooling pads unless we have to; the poor lad's been through quite enough already. I have a feeling he's got an infection on top of everything else."
Melissa expertly removed John's gown, carefully covering the lower half of his body with his sheet, as Carson listened to John's heart and chest with his stethoscope.
"Can you help me roll him, love?" he asked Melissa.
After Carson had completed his examination, he and the nurse situated John comfortably again, adjusting the oxygen mask. Sarah, the other nurse on duty, efficiently took the bloods Carson had ordered, rushing away with the half-filled test tubes.
Carson sighed as he looked at John's still form.
"Let's get him on the heart monitor, Melissa. I'm going to start him on antibiotics – I don't want to wait for the labs to come back. He's sounding a little congested on the left side. I'm also worried about what his bloods are going to show. I have a horrible feeling he's going downhill rapidly, and I want to watch for hyperkalaemia." Looking at John, Carson exhaled in frustration. "You can't just take it easy on me, can you, lad?" he asked rhetorically of the unconscious man.
As if to answer, John stirred restlessly, and Carson heard a muffled groan under the mask.
"It's all right, Colonel. You're going to be fine. Go back to sleep," he soothed.
From under the mask Carson heard a breathless and muffled 'hot', and the doctor sighed as he leaned down and looked at John.
"I know you are. I'm going to give you something to help bring your fever down shortly, and Melissa's going to try and cool you with some water. You'll feel better soon, I promise."
Whether his patient heard him or not, Carson didn't know, but John mumbled something softly, and then settled down into a restless sleep again.
-oOo-
Carson trudged wearily back to his office to find a pacing Elizabeth waiting there.
"How is he?" she anxiously asked, and Carson inwardly grimaced at her haggard and sunken-looking features.
"Not good. I'm waiting for some labs to come back, but I think it's safe to say that on top of everything else, he's got an infection. God knows what he could have picked up on that planet overnight."
Elizabeth swallowed and closed her eyes. Opening them, she chewed her lip, before exhaling.
"Anything else?"
"I won't know for sure until I get his bloods back, but his kidneys look to be heading for full-blown failure now. Despite the medications he's on, his urine output's minimal. I've upped his diuretics as much as I dare, but he's getting pretty waterlogged. It's not looking good, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth nodded, and headed for the door. Carson could see that she was near the point of breaking down. Feeling impotent, the doctor called after her, and as she heard Carson's voice, Elizabeth momentarily halted.
"I'll keep you informed. Try and get something to eat and then sleep, Elizabeth," he ordered gently.
"Thanks," Elizabeth managed to reply, before walking away briskly.
-oOo-
Carson sighed and wearily checked John's monitors. He and his nurses had succeeded in lowering John's temperature, which was holding at a balmy 38 degrees, but Carson was very concerned about his patient's general deterioration.
A few hours previously, John had developed a heart arrhythmia, and when the bloods had returned, sure enough everybody's favourite colonel had succumbed to hyperkalaemia. No big surprise there, Carson had thought, as he'd given John calcium and various other medications to try and lower John's potassium levels. As also expected, John's white blood count was elevated, meaning he was battling some sort of infection. Things were really starting to go pear-shaped.
A soft moan from John had Carson checking his patient again, and looking down saw a pair of glassy, half-lidded eyes peering up at him.
"You decided to join us again, Colonel?"
The unintelligible groan that answered Carson had him lifting up John's oxygen mask and lowering his head to try and hear what his patient was saying.
"Carrr..sn? What's…where…am I? Chest hurts…" came the breathy, pained voice.
"You're in the infirmary, Son. Everything's fine. We're all safe, so don't worry." Carson lowered the mask again, and continued, in a soft, soothing voice. "You're a wee bit under the weather. You've got a few nasty things floating around in your blood that are making you sick. We're going to get that sorted soon."
"How…much…did he take?" John mumbled tiredly.
Carson's face showed his confusion, and he lifted the mask again.
"How much did who take?" the doctor queried, before he suddenly put two and two together. "Oh Christ, lad. The wraith?" Carson exhaled and gently squeezed John's shoulder. "He took nothing. Well, he did, but he gave it all back, lad. Do you not remember?"
John's face screwed up in confusion and concentration.
"No…I don't. Just remember…" John stopped mid-sentence and swallowed, "pain. In my chest…" His voice drifted, and John screwed his eyes tightly shut, just as his heart monitor started to emit irregular, but quickening beeps.
Carson instantly studied the display on the machine and reached for a syringe on a tray next to John's bed. He placed the mask quickly over John's face again, while simultaneously removing the cover to the needle with his teeth.
"This will help a little, Colonel. Just try and breathe slowly, and I'll get your chest pain under control," Carson soothed as he swiftly injected the contents of the syringe into John's IV port. Watching carefully, Carson relaxed as the monitor's regular, steady beat returned, and his patient's features slackened.
"There you go, Son. I just gave you something to slow your heart down a little. It's been working pretty hard, and was just making its complaint known. It'll be fine now," Carson found himself saying gently to his now sleeping patient. Stooping down, Carson studied the Foley bag hanging at the side of John's bed, and allowed himself a small smile.
"Well, at least something's looking a little more positive – finally," he said to himself. He stood and moved to the bottom of John's bed, and snatched the file placed there. "Well done, Colonel, your plumbing appears to be righting itself," Carson muttered tiredly. He allowed a small smile to grace his lips before heading to a small desk in the corner of the infirmary to write up his most troublesome patient's notes.
-oOo-
John's return to consciousness was slow and confusing. The first thing he was aware of was the hiss of oxygen over his mouth and nose, and the sensation of a mask over his face. He next became aware of hushed voices around him, and prying open heavy eyelids, John made out the forms of two blurry figures by his bed. Moving gingerly, John felt the tug of IV's – one in each hand, and on moving his lower body, the pull of an extremely unpleasant tube somewhere else.
Blinking furiously to try and get everything into focus, John soon saw Carson and Elizabeth chatting quietly by his bed. Lifting his shaky hand to the mask on his face, John cautiously lifted it, and swallowed, lubricating his dry throat.
"Hey," he managed to croak, before his hand gave up the fight, and dropped floppily back to the side of his bed.
"Hey, yourself," Weir replied warmly, as she walked nearer to John. "How are you feeling?"
John frowned and thought about Elizabeth's question before answering.
"Like I got hit by a truck," he answered honestly.
"Aye. Well, renal failure will do that to a person, Colonel," Beckett answered matter-of-factly, as he removed the mask, replacing it with a nasal cannula.
John's eyebrows furrowed as he tried to remember why he could possibly have been suffering from renal failure. Images suddenly flashed into his head, and John's breath hitched as he remembered a searing tendril of agony clawing at his chest, more painful than anything he'd ever felt in his life. His clumsy, IV laden hands scrabbled wildly at his loose gown, and he pulled it downwards, as his hands desperately sought the skin exposed there. The flesh felt smooth, undisturbed - normal. How could that be? He'd been fed on by a wraith; had his life sucked out of him. John remembered the ache of the wound, and the wet, sticky blood oozing down his chest.
"John…John? Look at me."
John looked up at Elizabeth's pale and anxious face.
"You're okay. He restored the life he took – he gave you everything back. You're still the handsome young flyboy you used to be," she joked, but John could hear the hurt in Elizabeth's strained voice.
Memories flooded back again, and John remembered the wraith taking nearly everything from him and his precious life force being ripped ruthlessly from him. The pain was indescribable, the weakness of his failing body, overwhelming. Then John remembered even more pain, and a surge of strength returning to his frail body that made him cry out. Then the wraith was gone, torn away from him by…Ronon.
"I remember," John whispered shakily. "I remember."
John closed his eyes as relief flooded him. He wasn't an old, frail, useless man – he was what he was before this whole mess - John Sheppard, thirty-something military commander of Atlantis.
"God. I thought…I thought…"
Carson gently manoeuvred Elizabeth out of the way, and placed his face in John's line of vision.
"Aye. You've been a wee bit confused, Son. Would you like me to explain what's been happening to you?"
John nodded, and closed his eyes as the impact of Kolya's little power struggle hit home.
"Okay. When we arrived here, you soon became sick. Yes, the wraith had restored your life – but there were consequences – consequences to your body by him giving you back your life. Your body didn't like an enzyme he very generously deposited in your blood stream. It disagreed with your kidneys, and they started to complain, extremely loudly. You also picked up a bit of a chest infection." John felt Carson's hand on his shoulder, as the physician gently squeezed, offering some comfort to his patient. "You're doing fine now. Your body's metabolised the enzyme, and your kidneys are slowly recovering. It'll take a good few days before you start to feel like anything approaching normal again, I'm afraid. You need sleep, and plenty of it."
John nodded, keeping his eyes tightly squeezed shut to keep burning tears from escaping. The ramifications of his torture left John feeling vulnerable; his weakened physical state compounding his feelings of inadequacy and humiliation. Yet, at the same time he felt immense relief. Shit, he was a mess.
Suddenly registering that Carson and Elizabeth were there, John bit his lip and braced himself. He opened his eyes, and blinked back tears.
"Everybody's okay?" his gruff voice asked.
"Everyone's fine John. Just get well, okay?" Elizabeth soothed, but John could hear the slight wobble in her usually strong voice.
"'Kay," he answered tiredly.
"Just get some rest, Colonel," John distantly heard Carson's voice as exhaustion pulled at him. His eyelids suddenly felt like lead, and he couldn't keep them open. Everything faded to black, as John succumbed to much-needed sleep.
-oOo-
Carson watched Elizabeth's shaky hands holding the coffee cup to her thinned lips.
"He'll be fine, love, honestly. He just needs plenty of rest, and time."
Elizabeth lowered her cup and put it down on Carson's desk.
"I know. He just looked so…" she searched for the right word, and shrugged when it eluded her. "Carson, he was terrified, and hurt and so…vulnerable. I'm not used to seeing John Sheppard like that, and you know what? It scared the hell out of me."
Elizabeth let her head fall into her hands, and groaned. Talking through her hands, she massaged her face, trying to relieve the tension she was feeling. "I keep hoping this has all been one big, horrific nightmare, and that I'm going to wake up soon, but I'm not going to wake up, because this nightmare is real, isn't it?"
Carson sighed deeply, and stood, walking quickly round his desk to where Weir sat. He reached out and patted her arm.
"Aye. It's real all right. It's going to take all of us a long time to come to terms with this, but we have to be strong for Colonel Sheppard." Carson walked back to his chair and plopped down on it, before sipping from his coffee mug.
"If he sees how much we feel sorry for him, how we're hurt by this, it can only make his recovery longer, Elizabeth. Once his physical health has returned, his psychological and emotional wounds need to heal too. Knowing him, that won't be easy. He'll internalise everything, tell us he's fine, and suffer in silence, like he always does. We need to get him to talk, but he needs us to treat him exactly the same as we did before this whole fiasco happened."
Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief.
"How on Earth can we carry on as if nothing happened? We all saw what Kolya did to him…witnessed his torture…how brave he was. God, I don't think I'd have faced what he did with such composure. I can't just pretend everything's okay – because it isn't!"
"Elizabeth! Listen to me. What the colonel needs now is normality. He needs things to carry on as they did before. Yes, we need to deal with what we all saw – privately. We'll be there for him, but if he senses we're treading on eggshells around him, or that we pity him…well, I think you and I both know him well enough to now how he'll react to that."
Elizabeth nodded, and slowed her quickened breathing.
"Okay. I see your point. Sorry, Carson. It's just…I feel I could, should have done more. Maybe if I'd…"
"Don't go there, Elizabeth. You did everything you could. Kolya's a sneaky bastard. Do you really think if you'd handed Ladon over that he'd have given the Colonel back?"
Shaking her head in resignation, Elizabeth smiled half-heartedly.
"No, I don't. That doesn't make me feel better though. I think I should talk to Kate. I think we all need to speak to her."
Carson chuckled and raised his eyebrows.
"Kate's going to be very busy. Do you know how many people from the control room have come to me for sleeping tablets after what they saw?" Carson asked rhetorically.
"When John realises how many people saw what Kolya did to him…it's going to hit him hard, isn't it?" Elizabeth asked, knowing the answer to her question already.
Carson pursed his lips and let out a huff of breath.
"Aye. But, we'll be here for him. He'll get over this – eventually."
Elizabeth stood and turned to leave.
"I hope you're right, Carson," she replied sadly as she walked out of the doctor's office.
Tbc.