A/N: First evidence! Also, yes, I know, I'm skipping over Sheppard's recapture. If you want to re-live it, go watch the episode again. You know you want to see Ronon stun him. Du eet. Anyway, moving on: we finally get us some Lorne, some determined overachievers, surprisingly smart decisions, and lots of fuzzy blankets. To madwhiskey: \o/ :)
Experior (Verb, [eks-per-i-or]): to put to the test; try; attempt; experience; undergo; endure.
Lorne breathes out a quiet sigh of relief when Sheppard is wheeled back into the infirmary and taken through to the far wing. With the Colonel secured, the safe zone lock down can be ended. While he's greatly concerned about Sheppard's condition, he knows that it's beyond his control. The others will either figure it out, or they won't. He doesn't want to lose Sheppard; the past 24 hours under Caldwell had been remarkably taxing, and that includes the last five that he had spent lying in the infirmary, doing nothing.
He doesn't know if he would stay in Atlantis if Caldwell were to take over permanently. Still, he has to focus on what he can do right now. His ribs have been strapped up, he's been scanned three times to ensure he has no undetected internal injuries, he's been cleared of a concussion, and he's soaked up an entire IV of fluids to make Beckett happy. He's finally good to go. He has a lock down to end, civilians to reassure, security teams to debrief, and a very worried Dr Ellingson to deal with.
His headset chirps on the cabinet next to the bed and he gingerly leans over to grab it. It had been confiscated as part of the medical procedures, but now that he's on his way out it has finally been returned to him. A short but disturbing conversation later Lorne is rearranging his priorities. Sector Four has just reported back to him, the last to finish up the special roll call he requested; there's no Dr Cartwright in their zone. Finding Casey Cartwright has just become his number one task.
He slides off the examination bed gently and grabs his dusty jacket from the chair. His first call, while he dusts his jacket off, is to Colonel Caldwell to let him know that he's been released back to duty and will handle the ending of lock down procedure 11-B. His next call is on the lock down channel to all security personnel, advising of Sheppard's reacquisition and warning them to prepare for the imminent disassembly of the safe zones and the dispersal of all staff back to normal operating conditions at his next order. His third call is to the control room, asking the technician on duty at the life signs station to do a final sweep before he can allow the clusters in the safe zones to disperse.
It's standard procedure, to identify any outlying life signs and record their positions, and to perform a targeted scan for sub-q identification using the Daedalus if she's available. Combined with the roll call logs from the seven sectors, and physical checks on the life signs in question, they can verify who ignored the security protocol and take appropriate investigative and penalty actions later. When he asks the technician to do a special sweep of the Aquaculture lab area, there's no questions asked, just a promise to start the sweep in that zone and let him know if anything else comes up. That is one of the many things he would miss about Atlantis, if he left; most everyone here is good at what they do.
His fourth call is to Gunny Fricks, stationed in Safe Zone Two, ordering him to prepare to head to the Aquaculture lab to look for Dr Cartwright as soon as the lock down order is officially lifted. His conversation with the Gunny is interrupted by the control room technician - there's a single life sign in that tower, three levels down from the lab, heading towards the transporter atrium. He's about to tell the Gunny to intercept when Fricks, who had been listening in, informs him that Dr Ellingson had slipped out of the safe zone about 15 minutes before and it might well be him. Lorne sighs internally at that. He'll have to add Ellingson to the list of protocol breakers for that, and he knows that Caldwell is going to throw the book at the man. Lorne understands why Ellingson left - Colonel Sheppard has rubbed off on them all, scientists and military alike.
'We don't leave our people behind', he mutters softly to himself. Still, he orders the Gunny to exit the lock down zone on his special order, and to intercept the target; if it is Ellingson, Fricks is to proceed to the Aquaculture lab from there, with the Doc, to see if they can get an idea of where Cartwright may have disappeared off to. The Gunny is 'already halfway there, Sir', he reports, before signing off. Sigh. 'Rebellious overachievers, the lot of them', Lorne grumbles under his breath as he straps his side arm back to his thigh and heads off to the control room to pick up the life signs logs.
The room was dark and stuffy when Casey came back to the world, leading her to wonder for a minute whether she had actually woken up or not. She was unexpectedly warm, and lying on something soft. What? Her confused mind tried to process this turn of events, because it was NOT what she had been expecting based on the events that had led her to pass out to begin with. She shifted, and immediately regretted it as the pain from her battered body came flooding back. Her head throbbed and her abdomen felt like it had been repeatedly mauled. More than anything else, though, her left arm screamed agony.
Breathing through the pain, she manages to push herself up into a sideways seated position. The softness underneath feels like... blankets? There are blankets tucked around her as well, and one of them slides off as she moves. Turns out the world isn't entirely dark after all. The blanket had just partially covered her head, and with the impediment gone she can see that the light is still low, but not entirely off. She's still in the corner of the sunken room, tucked away into what appears to be a nest of sorts. The loose tables and old soggy furniture that had previously been scattered around the room are arranged around her corner like a protective wall. There's no sign of Sheppard.
There's also no time to waste. This is her opportunity to get out, if she could just get herself extricated from the veritable cocoon of blankets she's wrapped in. It's soft and warm, but she can't stay. Once she's freed herself, she realises that it's probably the least of her problems. For starters, she's still naked from the waist down. It may be all the rage in Iratus-hybrid fashion choices, but she's going to need her pants. Then there's the wall surrounding her, the pit to get out of, and finding her way back to civilisation. With a broken left arm. All before Sheppard returns, and hopefully without running into him on the way. For all she knows he could be just outside the door. Hopefully the fact that she's now his mate will mean no more being thrown around or beat on. She won't know unless she runs into him again, though the cocoon of soft, fuzzy blankets is a hopeful sign. She briefly wonders where he got them, before focusing. One problem at a time.
She finds her shorts in the pile of blankets, as well as her rubber dungarees. It's difficult but not impossible to get them back on using just her right hand, but she has to fight back tears at the agonising ache ripping through her insides. She leaves the one dungaree clip undone. It's good enough. She tries shoving a part of the wall out of the way, but it's pretty darn heavy, so eventually she crouches down and crawls her way through the interlocking legs of several tables to the other side. It's progress, but it hurts. Everything hurts. Next up is getting up the wall. There's some broken pipes and such sticking out just above head height, but she realises pretty quickly that there's no way she's pulling herself up with one broken arm.
Eventually she drags one of the smaller old pieces of furniture from the impromptu defensive wall across the room to below the gap. Sliding onto it is an exercise in pain, reminding her that she could well have internal injuries she wasn't aware of. She goes slow, working her way to a sideways sitting position on the table-console-thing and then carefully standing up; It gives her the height she needs. She carefully steps up using one of the jutting pipes and gets her upper body over the ledge of the gap. It's agony, leaning over the edge on her stomach, but it's only for a few brief seconds as she gets her right leg up and over. With an arm and a leg she can lever herself up enough to bring her other leg up too, and from there it's almost easy to get herself to her feet. She's out the door and down the passageway before she remembers that she had been worried about Sheppard hiding out in that spot.
She just keeps walking.
The control room technician has already completed the sweep by the time he arrives.
If Lorne is surprised by the speed, he doesn't show it. He never shows it. Always calm, always cool - that's Major Lorne. Usually the sweep takes a good fifteen minutes, including the Deadalus' sub-Q scanning phase. Something either went wrong, or something is up. The technician grins at him, and Lorne knows he's going to like what he hears. He simply raises a brow at the technician, who hands him a tablet with the scan results so he can see for himself. Surprisingly, aside from Dr Ellingson who exited his safe zone, and the as-yet-unaccounted-for Dr Cartwright, there have been no other transgressors of the security protocol this time around. He shares a wry grin with the technician before handing the tablet back and heading out.
It would seem the science contingent have learnt that security protocols, especially ones meant to protect them from Sheppard, are a smart idea after all.