A/N: This chapter was one of the shortest, clocking in at just 800 words. Then it exploded, and now it's one of the biggest. I have no regrets, except for the additions not having been pre-authorised by my beta, Redtail53. You have been warned. Thank you for all the follows! I officially have more follows than reviews. It's a little weird, but I *think* it's a good thing? Is it?
We now move on to the fun part of any whump story: hours of boredom in the infirmary, interspersed by interrogations that can't end quickly enough. Or not. In this chapter: death grips, marines armed with crayons, blanket forts, a sneaky yet honest Major, and bathroom graffiti without the bathrooms. Also, time moves faster.
Reparātus (Perfect passive participle of Reparō, Verb, [re-pa-ra-tus]): having been recovered; retrieved; reacquired; to repair; refresh.
Casey doesn't remember all that much about the events following her rescue. One moment she's wandering down a passageway, and the next she's in Major Lorne's arms, on the ground. Once she's down, there's no getting back up again. There was another pair of hands and a face she doesn't know, wielding a light and a first aid kit. Then there were others, and she's certain she can hear Ellingson's voice from some way away, blabbering worriedly. The hands she doesn't know are dealing with her left arm, and there's words about a splint, while another face is in her line of sight.. Parrish? No, that's the botanist. Paris? That's a city, but she thinks it's almost right. 'Paris' mutters something about head injuries, and then there was pain. The splinting hurts, it hurts a lot, and Major Lorne is on the radio to a doctor, the medical kind; Shortly thereafter there's a small sting and then a sweet coolness pumping through her veins, melting the pain away.
There's a stretcher, lots of moving, and Lorne is holding her hand, and she thinks that maybe it's not all that bad after all, because Lorne is *nice* and his hands are warm. She knows she's in the infirmary, and that Beckett is looking worriedly at her before chasing all the nurses and marines away and asking her some questions. She's floating on morphine, but when he asks her who did this to her she's lucid enough to keep her voice down as she calmly tells him that it was Colonel Sheppard. Beckett's face goes white when she informs him that he needs to do a gynaecological exam, but he absolutely cannot tell anyone, ever, because it wasn't really Sheppard, and it wasn't his fault.
She doesn't notice that Lorne is still standing next to the bed, and isn't aware that the only reason he hasn't left is because she hasn't been inclined to let go of his hand yet. It's more of a death grip, really, but after what she had just said, Lorne isn't sure whether she's holding onto his hand, or if he's holding onto hers.
There was sleeping, a lot of it, and more painkillers and a cast for her left arm. On the second day Carson comes by with a camera, and asks her for permission to document her external injuries. The outwardly visible physical assault is public knowledge, and protocol dictates that they have to record the full extent of her injuries. Dr. Weir also swings by to talk to her, and while she declines to talk about her experience, she makes it clear that she understands that Sheppard wasn't himself when he beat her up. Weir nods understandingly, seemingly relieved, and vanishes again. There's no pushing from anyone to talk about it after that.
Ellingson and a bunch of others from the labs also stop by to visit her, and she will forever blame the painkillers for her "sure, why not" when they ask if they can sign her cast. All she can say is that Xenobiologists know a lot of dirty alien biology jokes and she may need to wash her eyes out after reading what they had immortalised on her plastered arm. Fricks, Roux, Mackie, Parris (she hadn't been that far off!) and the two other marines who joined the rescue mission also swing by to say hi. After brief introductions, they tell her that they have a present for her.
Apparently getting beat on by Sheppard in the line of duty grants her membership to some exclusive club, and they present her with a little cardboard-and-crayon sign indicating her lifetime rights of access. She's not a Marine, not even military, but they've voted in the ranks and have granted her a special civilian's dispensation, mostly because she had "essentially rescued herself". It's hilarious and sweet. The raucous crowd and all the laughter draws Beckett's attention, and the group get evicted from the infirmary in short order. Parris rather cheekily informs Beckett that if he would just let her out of the infirmary, they wouldn't have to come cause their ruckus in his place of healing. After all, it's just a broken arm and some bruises, and she's a tough cookie, right?
They promise to be back though, much to the Scotsman's ire and he tosses them out without rebuttal. When she asks Carson why it is that he's keeping her, he quietly explains that he needs to be completely certain this time. They had missed Sheppard's initial infection, and he'd had direct blood exposure. He doesn't want to assume that she's clear - after all, there was a fluid exchange - delayed transmission of the retrovirus might take a bit longer to manifest. The good doctor looks extremely flustered by everything that happened. She can't deny that having no demands beyond taking her meds, eating her food, and all the naps she wants is rather nice given how achy her body is. So, she stays without complaint.
The most interesting part of it all though, is the fact that Major Lorne pops in to check on her at least twice a day, which is super sweet of him. She'd only really dealt with him in passing before now, so she's not sure why he's taken it upon himself to be her most frequent visitor. Lorne's face scrunches up into an odd expression she can't interpret the first time she asks him how Colonel Sheppard is doing. She's been checked and triple checked for retrovirus infection from her encounter with the Colonel, and so far everything seems clear, but nobody in the infirmary is willing to tell her anything else.
Since she knows exactly how she's doing so far, she wants to know how Sheppard is. After all, it wasn't really him, and she'd prefer to have Sheppard back in human form as much as everyone else does. For a moment she's worried that Lorne will decline like everyone else, but instead he takes a breath and doesn't try to avoid the topic. He answers her questions as best he can. Since she doesn't seem inclined to stop asking after the Colonel, he relents and routinely keeps her updated on Sheppard's slow transformation back to human with every subsequent visit.
He never bothers her about what happened to her, merely asks her every time if she's still surviving the infirmary's food. She can tell he wants to know, though, needs to know more, and on the evening of the third day she works up the courage to talk about what transpired. She tells him, without the graphic details, about Sheppard grabbing her, the escape attempt, taking her to the cave-room, passing out when he broke her arm and then waking up later in what probably amounts to the Iratus version of a blanket fort.
Lorne doesn't comment during her story. He doesn't offer sympathy, or platitudes. He simply listens, and even grants her a little grin at the 'blanket fort' crack. When she's done, there's a few moments of silence as he contemplates what she had told him. And then he proceeds to tell her about the missions to the Iratus cave, about losing two of his team to the bugs, and about how & where they eventually caught Sheppard. He briefly explains the whole 'pheremone' concept that Beckett had come up with, and that they had sent a lucid-but-only-for-a-while-Sheppard back into the cave to retrieve the eggs himself. Casey can't help but nod in agreement at the plan.
It really was quite an inspired idea, especially in light of her own behavioural observations. Beckett hadn't had nearly as much to go on as she had, and she hadn't stopped to think about pheremones. Well, except for the chin rubbing - that was classical animal scent marking. When Lorne's done with his story, Casey feels surprisingly okay. They trade questions, then, discussing the various events on both sides but keeping it light. There's no judgement from the Major, and she's so drawn in by his own shared experience that she doesn't even realise it was a debrief until after Lorne is long gone and she's settling down to sleep.
She thinks she should be angry, but it's Lorne, and he was just so gosh darned nice about it. And he had reciprocated, so there wasn't any embarrassment. He had made it so easy. Sure, she hadn't told him everything, but she had told him enough. She's not sure she'll ever tell anyone about the other stuff. Only Doctor Beckett knows, and he'll keep his promise to never say a word. She drifts off to sleep feeling rather relieved.
Another unexpected visitor comes to see her the next morning: Teyla. Casey's only met her twice in passing, and never really spoken directly with her, so she's surprised when the Athosian shows up at her bed to check up on her. Teyla has a reputation for being fair, calm, wise and warm... and a total bad-ass that not even the marines will mess with. Casey is thrilled to discover that she's extremely friendly, genuine, and easy to talk to. At Casey's request, she recounts the story of how they caught Sheppard. If she finds Casey's various questions about his behaviour odd, she doesn't mention it.
Late afternoon on day 4 she gets her walking papers, and Lorne shows up to escort her back to her quarters. Beckett is happy with the healing progress of her broken arm, as well as the various tissue damage. He also quietly informs her that after four days of thrice-daily blood panels, he is certain that there was no retrovirus transmission. Beckett seems immensely relieved to be able to tell her that, so she thanks him. He reminds her of her follow-up appointments and then orders the Major to make sure that she keeps taking her daily medication before vanishing off to the back where Sheppard is still sequestered.
Lorne eyes her as they walk back to the residence halls, and wryly asks if he's going to really need to pester her to take her meds every day. She grins and reassures him that she fully intends to take every last one of them. Lorne ponders for a moment, then informs her that he's more than a little afraid of Beckett and promptly insists they get together at least once a day so he can truthfully say he's been doing his job. She laughingly agrees, not expecting the military XO of Atlantis to really make the time to see her every day for 5 minutes. He leaves her at her quarters and she delightedly treats herself to a lovely long soak in the bath before flopping into bed and calling it an early night.
To her surprise, Lorne meets her every morning for breakfast, and seems to coincidentally be in the infirmary whenever she stops by for her a check-up with Beckett. Surprisingly, Dr Heightmeyer, the expedition shrink, leaves her alone. After a whole week of Lorne's reassuring and friendly presence she invites him to join her for lunch in her room; there, she sits him down and gives him her scientific assessment of Sheppard's actions.
She doesn't know why she does it, but she tells him everything, straight up, from a clinical and analytical perspective. He listens quietly to it all without interrupting or questioning. There's a raised brow at the sniffing, a thoughtful look at the neck submission thing, and a tensed jaw at the claiming. It's only when she's finished with her entire story that he takes a deep breath, looks her in the eye and admits to having been in the infirmary with her when she requested Dr Beckett perform the exam nobody else knows about.
He'd known all along.
She can't think of anything to say. He was the only other person on the entire base, besides Beckett, who knew the truth about what had happened to her in that room. Suddenly his regular visits and odd expression when she'd asked about Sheppard made perfect sense to her. He was genuinely worried about her well-being; about her experience at the hands of his CO whilst he wasn't himself. She wants to be upset, but again, she just can't find any good reasons to be. Especially not with him. She had made the choice to tell him, so did it really matter that he had already known? He had earned her trust, so why shouldn't it apply retroactively?
"Thank you".
Lorne had been quietly waiting for her to process his admission, but he probably hadn't been expecting her to say... that.
"For telling me the truth." she clarifies, when he doesn't say anything. "You didn't have to. I would never have known."
"Trust is a two-way street." is his only response. There's a few moments of silence in the room. Lorne's usual neutral expression is firmly in place, but Casey can see the worry in his eyes.
"I'm going to be fine, Major." Lorne seems dubious, but he's not giving much away, as usual. There's that quiet again, so Casey throws him a cheerful smile and changes the topic. "Doctor Beckett says I can go back to work tomorrow, finally, but no mucking out wet tanks until the cast comes off." She waves the brightly decorated white plaster in the air.
After Xeno-everyone had gotten their hands on it, Fricks and Parris had insisted the marine team be allowed to sign too, and now she had a cast which she was pretty sure could out-skank even the bathroom graffiti in the worst sort of dingy dive bar imaginable. It was just missing one crucial thing.
"Wanna sign my cast?"