Chapter Nine
"It was Doctor Belby."
"What?!" Weir asked, utterly shocked as Rodney leaned across her desk with a grim look on his face.
"The security video confirms it. He entered…her…quarters last night while she was in the sparring room," Doctor McKay said, still not able to address what he considered to be a Wraith still by its name. And, after the last time he referred to it as 'it' causing Sheppard to jump all over him and then not talk to him for days, Rodney had made a concerted effort to at least use a female pronoun to avoid further conflict. "He entered with one laptop, and left with another."
"And he planted explosives in the one he left behind," Doctor Weir finished, watching the video for herself with a dark expression.
"Best guess is that the laptop wasn't used at all last night, and it was triggered to explode when it was turned on."
Weir nodded. "Have you told Colonel Sheppard?"
"He's already on his way to Belby's quarters."
For a moment she sat thinking. "Any idea why?"
"Do I look like Heightmeyer?"
Elizabeth frowned in annoyance. "Have Sheppard report to my office once he's got Belby in custody."
"Do I look like a messenger boy?" Rodney snapped, clearly very unhappy that one of his own direct underlings was responsible for multiple deaths.
"Rodney…"
"Fine, fine."
With that he whisked out of the office headed for who knows where.
~o~o~o~
Silently Sheppard arranged his men around the door to Doctor Belby's quarters. Once they were all in position a safe distance from the opening, Sheppard called out to the man inside. Getting no response after several attempts and a handful of warnings, Sheppard nodded to Rodney to bypass the door lock. With a dark look, Rodney stood as far off to the side of the door as he could and still reach the controls. In seconds a swarm of Marines were in the room, but there was no sign of the crazed, homicidal scientist.
"You said he was in here, Rodney!" Sheppard stormed out, far angrier than the situation warranted in McKay's opinion.
"He is! Look! It's right here!" he said, shoving his tablet in Sheppard's face. "His sub-cutaneous transmitter signal is maybe four meters away, in that room."
Sheppard looked at the blinking image on his screen for a moment. "He removed it. Is there any other way to track him?"
"With the sensors, no," Rodney replied, much more calm now that he didn't feel his head on the block.
"Damn," Sheppard growled, his expression changing from contemplative to alarm in under a second. Keying his radio he called out, "Colonel Sheppard to Doctor Beckett."
After a few moments there was a reply, "Doctor Beckett is in surgery. This is Doctor Muntz. Go ahead."
"I'm posting a security team to the infirmary. Doctor Belby is behind the bombing in the mess hall and his whereabouts are unknown. He may be trying to finish what he started."
"Understood. I'll inform Doctor Beckett. Doctor Muntz out."
His next call was to Weir, and it wasn't so pleasant. Certain that Doctor Beckett and Alex were safe for the time being, he focused on the contents of the Doctor's quarters. The place gave him an eerie feeling. It was so…sterile. There was nothing of the man in those quarters. A handful of clothes in each drawer was about the most personal possessions found. No pictures, no electronics, no books, no real evidence that anyone even lived in these quarters. Even the bed would have made the Colonel's commander proud.
Standing the center of the now empty room, Sheppard reflected on this as he considered the standard housekeeping Rodney employed. Rodney used what was commonly referred to as stratification. Most things were organized in layers of interest and frequency of interest, at best. Organized chaos would have made more sense to Sheppard. But it worked for the astrophysicist; and Sheppard, admittedly, had little experience with the living habits of the average scientist. Yet the eerie feeling of wrongness would not go away.
"Rodney, what do you make of this?"
"Make of what?" he asked, in obvious confusion.
"Exactly."
"What?"
"Look around. What do you see that says who or what Doctor Eddie Belby is? Where are the things that show his personality?"
Frowning, Rodney looked around. "Okay, so he's clean. Not all of us have time for those kinds organizational habits," he replied almost defensively.
"Where are the pictures? Posters? Books? Music? Anything that says he's interested in something other than his profession? Hell, where is something that says what his profession even is?"
Again Rodney looked around. "So, maybe he left in a hurry and didn't have much time to pack."
Sheppard shook his head. "No. This isn't him. This isn't where he lives. What lab or labs does he work in?"
Rodney returned to his tablet. "He was in a lot of places," he said, somewhat confused. "Sheesh, based on this resume, I need to question whomever let him in the door. There's no specialties, no accomplishments, no awards, no scientific publications, no…Oh, no…"
"Rodney…" Sheppard prompted, a hint of warning in his voice.
"His father is in the IOA. He was assigned here about a year ago. His brother died during the Hive attack on Atlantis a year and a half ago. He was working in Stargate Command R&D when they brought back what was left of his brother. He was one of the victims that was fed on," Doctor McKay explained, a horrified look on his face.
"Where does he do most of his work?"
"I don't know," McKay said. "He has connections in almost every lab, from medical to biochemical and even nano viruses. He could be setup to take out the entire city with enough planning!"
"Well, why don't you find out where he spent most of his time, then?" Sheppard told him in a dangerously suggestive voice.
"How?"
"Figure it out, Rodney. But do it, fast. He may have contingency plans in place in case the first one failed. And if he's desperate enough, he might be willing to take out the entire city to get to Alex."
"You really think he'd do that?" McKay looked up from his tablet to ask.
"Yes, Rodney. Now hurry it up."
Rodney's usual grumbling took on a slightly darker tone as Sheppard heard something about 'pet Wraith' that very nearly had him jumping all over the scientist again. Knowing this would do nothing to help their current situation, he bit his tongue and waited. There would be time for that later.
"Okay, I think I've got a general idea of his usual activities. I suggest we form five teams and hit each one simultaneously. But carefully!" McKay warned as Sheppard keyed on his radio.
Minutes later Sheppard was leading a small team to one of the nearby locations. Not surprisingly, the place was just another one of many labs. One after another, each team reported in with nothing but a normal looking lab shared by a number of specialized scientists. Nothing special, and no Doctor Belby. From there they ran down a list Rodney was making on his tablet of all the places he could find that Belby had been assigned to work. Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.
At the end of what already felt very long morning, they had come up empty handed. No more bombs. No booby traps. No revenge crazed psychopathic scientist. Sheppard kept a team stationed just outside the infirmary just in case. But he was starting to doubt more and more that this had been just about Alex. Something about this whole mess was just wrong. And it wasn't just the pile of bodies from the mess hall, either.
Finally they regrouped in Weir's office to report the same nothing to her. Trying to capture whatever it was that kept tickling the back of his mind, Sheppard tuned out the others as they discussed the situation and how they might find the man. Again, his mind came back around to the empty room.
"We're missing something," he mumbled to himself.
"Duh," McKay shot back. "Took you long enough to catch up."
Suddenly something began to coalesce in bits and pieces. "No, think about it. His quarters are practically sterile enough to use as surgical ward. It's almost as if he just wants us to think that's his safe place just by keeping a few things there. But he would know that the quarters we assigned would be the first place he'd look. If he'd been planning this for a while, he wouldn't have used any of his usual locations. Rodney, you said the traces in the mess hall were consistent with C-4. How hard is it to make C-4?"
For a moment, McKay blinked at this sudden change in the conversation. "It isn't for a chemist. But the components are highly toxic."
"So the C-4 had to have come from somewhere, but none has been reported missing."
"So?"
"So, Belby's not alone," John concluded grimly.
Doctor Weir sat back in her desk, not liking the implications any more than did the Colonel. "Military or civilian?" she asked.
"Could be either," Sheppard replied. "If civilian, they've got a C-4 manufacturing lab hidden somewhere in this city. If military, they covered the missing C-4."
"Rodney, can you pull up the city surveillance cameras on that tablet and trace Belby's movements over the past week?" Sheppard asked, still pulling together all the bits and pieces his mind had begun to latch on to.
"Maybe. That's a lot of data. I could just go out there—"
"No!" Weir and Sheppard cut in simultaneously.
"No one can know that we know we're looking for more than Belby. If they got a whiff that we're looking into missing or manufactured C-4, then his accomplices are going to go underground, too. We need to find him. I doubt that one bomb was his goal. He's not out to make a statement, he wants revenge. And, apparently, so does someone else."
"But why Alex?" Weir asked, still seeming confused. "I mean, I get that his brother was killed by a Wraith, but is that enough? She doesn't even look Wraith. And few people outside of her original prison guards ever saw her as a Wraith."
"I don't know. But I agree, there's more to this. First things first. We need to find where he's been operating from, because that's his most likely hiding spot. And, if we watch closely enough, we might catch his accomplice."
"This is going to take a while. The tablet was designed to interface with Ancient technology, but this is a lot of data. You're talking thousands of cameras."
"You don't need all of them," Sheppard pointed out. "Just find one with him on it; one of the labs, maybe. Then you can hop from camera to camera to find him. When you see him in an area with no labs, that's where you're going to find him. If you see anyone else going in and out of that area, that's most likely our second target."
"You're sure about this?" Weir asked.
"Positive."
"He's right. It's out near the East Pier. The section that flooded and was never cleaned up because the tides just keep flooding it again and we don't have the equipment to seal the breach."
"That was fast," Sheppard said.
"It's what you said. He's returning to his hidey hole to wait until news of the success comes in. I just followed him from Alex's quarters to somewhere near the East Pier. It's a huge area, though. And most of it is without power. So I lost track of him long before he reached his destination, I'm sure."
Sheppard considered this. "Did he still have the laptop with him?"
Rodney ducked his head as he returned his attention to the tablet for a moment. "Yeah," he said wonderingly. "I can tune in to the tracker I installed!"
Weir and Sheppard waited impatiently for a couple of minutes. Finally Rodney slammed his hand on the arm of his chair. "Damn! He either destroyed the laptop, or removed and destroyed the locator."
"What about power? They would have to have power to run a lab making explosives, wouldn't they?"
"Well, yeah, but…"Rodney's face lit up as he snapped his fingers several times. "A naquadah generator!"
"Which would give off a distinct EM signature," Sheppard supplied, catching on. "Can you tune the city's sensors from, say the spire to detect something that far off?"
"I can try," McKay said, not entirely certain.
"But not without attracting attention," Weir added.
"Bingo," Rodney said before throwing his head back against the seat of the chair.
"Actually, we may not have to," John said, vaguely as if formulating a plan. "We know we're being watched. Whomever it was that helped Belby is likely still on the outside knowing Belby himself would get caught in the act, so to speak. So, his partner is not only watching us, but waiting for us to figure it all out."
"What's your point?" the scientist asked.
"We need a decoy. A very visible decoy. One that knows everything about Atlantis there is to know; including where to find someone hiding anywhere in the city."
"I'm not liking where this is going," Rodney commented suspiciously.
"You want to use Rodney as bait?" Weir asked, her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline.
"What?!"
"Hear me out," Sheppard said, now sitting on the edge of his chair and leaning forward. "I don't think they made the C-4. If he has an accomplice, he wouldn't have to. The missing C-4 can easily be covered in the records by any number of military personnel. Secondly, we most likely have a missing naquadah generator, also not reported. Whether we're looking for one accomplice or multiple, I'm betting they're military."
"I'm not seeing how I become bait in all of this."
"Easy, you and Elizabeth make a show of looking for Belby here in the command center."
"How?" Rodney asked, still incredulous.
"I don't know. Make something up about city sensors and bio readings or some such. I don't care," he said forcefully, staving off whatever it was McKay opened his mouth to say. "But ops is the safest place for the both of you, if you're going to play bait. Make it known that Belby's going to be easy to locate, but it's going to take a while to reprogram the city sensors. Sooner or later, word will get around to the right ears. And, when they do, rather than going after you, they're either going to silence Belby, or try to finish what he started."
"So then Alex becomes the real bait," Weir added.
"Maybe," Sheppard agreed. "But it's just as likely he'll go after his partner. Better to shut him up before they're both discovered. That leaves him free to finish when it all dies down."
"But he's got to know that sooner or later we'll figure it out based on the missing C-4 and naquadah generator," Rodney pointed out.
"Not necessarily," Weir said. "We've given no indication outside of this room that we know about the missing C-4 or the naquadah generator. As long as we don't let on or try to check the records, they won't know."
"But who's going to watch the cameras in Section Seventy-Two to see who goes in?"
"Zalenka can do it," Sheppard pointed out. "I'll just need to get a message to him so he can find a nice, quiet lab without prying eyes. I'll have him watch the one in Section Seventy-Two and the one outside the infirmary. He'll have nothing to do but watch. I'll figure something out. In the meantime, I'm going to make a show of walking away from this grumbling about psychotic scientists and staying as far away from the weapons caches and generator storage as possible."
Weir nodded in agreement as Rodney considered this.
"And, Rodney," Sheppard said as he stood. "Do not even attempt to actually find Belby. Until we know who else is involved, anyone walking through ops visibly armed or unarmed, could be our target."
The implication of the endangerment to Weir was clear on Rodney's face; but still he said, "Are you kidding? What kind of head trauma did you sustain that makes you think I would be that stupid?"
But Sheppard could see that Rodney understood. With a near murderous look, he stormed out through the glass doors visibly pissed off and audibly grumbling about psychotic scientists needing more hobbies like football to release their pent-up aggression. As hoped, every eye was on him as he headed down the nearest corridor. He was so deep in thought about how to get the message to Zalenka without anyone noticing that he didn't realize his destination until he was almost there already.
Seeing the guards posted outside the infirmary doors, he looked them up and down. Sergeant Holmes and Captain Cruz stood at attention, their eyes roaming the corridor steadily. For a moment he considered adding to the detail. He quickly rejected it thinking it might just alert Belby's accomplice to the fact that they might be watching for someone armed and dangerous instead of one psychotic scientist.
Stepping up to them he asked, "You both have seen Doctor Belby's picture?"
"Yes, sir," they responded in unison.
Sheppard nodded. "Good. I doubt in his deranged state, hell-bent on revenge as he is that he'll do too much to disguise himself. Just keep your eyes open and report. Engage, if necessary. Lethal force is authorized."
For a moment Cruz's face seemed to twitch. Whether it was from surprise or something else, Sheppard didn't know. And, at this point, he didn't care so long as the man did his job. With that, he passed between them and into the infirmary. The chaos of the earlier rush of casualties from the mess hall had died down. Several of the beds now held sleeping patients. Sheppard frowned darkly when he didn't see Alex in any of them.
Catching sight of a nurse, he asked quietly, "Where's Doctor Beckett?"
"He was monitoring the Wraith's vitals."
"You mean Alex's vitals," Sheppard snapped quietly.
The man blinked his brown eyes mildly, but seemed more irritated than angry. "Whatever you say."
Biting back some excessively rude and loud comments, John asked, instead, "Where?" through gritted teeth.
"Room Nine."
He made sure to give the guy one last disgusted look before headed to the all too familiar ward of recovery rooms. He had once joked with Beckett that they were beginning to feel more like home than his quarters. Finding number nine was no problem. To make it even easier, the ward doors were wide open and the sheet to Alex's room was open. He stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of Beckett.
The doctor had been standing beside Alex's bed and just seemed to fold into the chair beside the bed with his face in his hands. For a split second before his hands covered his face, Sheppard caught sight of a misery on the man's face so profound it made him feel as if he was invading a very private moment. Why he felt this, he didn't know. But it was a strong enough sensation that he spun on his heel to leave just as quietly as he had entered. He had thought he'd made a clean getaway as he approached the ward doors when he heard the doctor call out.
"Colonel?" Beckett asked, seeming surprised.
Spinning around a second time, Sheppard smiled disarmingly. "Hiya, Doc. I was just coming to check on Alex. But she's sleeping, so I'll just be on my way."
Whatever it was he had seen on Carson's face seconds before was gone. Now the man just seemed pale and tired, nothing more. Nodding sadly, Carson approached; he glanced over his shoulder at the pale still form one more time. Only then did Sheppard realize that Alex wasn't sleeping. She was on life support.
"That bad?" Sheppard asked.
"Aye," Carson said sadly. "The bomb…" he took a deep breath before could continue. As if shaking off something, he refocused his attention on John. "The bomb tore open a jagged wound approximately twenty centimeters in diameter and seven centimeters deep. It destroyed her liver, kidney, gallbladder, and a large part of her intestines."
Even Sheppard paled slightly remembering how long they had been trapped in the mess hall without help. "Is she going to make it?"
For a moment Carson's face spasmed painfully. But it was gone as fast as it appeared. "I don't know, Colonel. It's nothing short of a miracle she's alive now."
"But you said she could regenerate."
"The new formula further suppresses the Wraith DNA. Presently she heals not much more quickly than a human."
"You have her on life support. Do you have some idea?"
Carson nodded, his expression seeming distant for a moment. "I'm hoping I can keep her alive long enough for the old Wraith Retrovirus formula to work. If I can, and if it works as I suspect, the Wraith DNA abilities will return more strongly; as they had before."
"And then she can regenerate?"
Carson sighed again, dry scrubbing his face with his hands before running them through his hair. "Most likely, but it may very well kill her in the process."
"How so?"
"When she was regenerating as a human her body used up all its natural energy, glucose. And, if my suspicions are correct, aside from the inevitable cessation of brain functions, it would start eating away at her own body. Much as the body consumes its own muscle mass in someone suffering from an eating disorder, like anorexia."
"So, to heal itself, it would consume itself?" Sheppard asked grimly, now understanding Alex's comment about her body destroying itself.
Carson just nodded. For a moment the two of them just stared at the pale, still form in the bed. While Carson's face was clearly grieving, Sheppard's darkened again in barely contained rage. The former Wraith queen had survived nearly impossible odds, suffered as a Genii prisoner for possibly centuries, survived a conversion that should have killed her, only to die by the hands of some insane, revenge-bent scientist. Sheppard had never been one to see things as fair or unfair, but this one came close. There might not be anything he could do now to reverse what had been done, but he'd be damned if those responsible were going to escape justice.
"Colonel?" Doctor Beckett asked, somewhat concerned at seeing the man's expression.
Sheppard softened his expression. "Sorry, Doc. Don't worry. We're going to get this guy. You do what you can for her. But whatever happens, remember that Alex would rather die as a human, than live as a Wraith. You gave her something extraordinary. Remember that."
Carson nodded sadly. "I'll do what I can."
"I know you will."
"In the meantime, I've got to…" Suddenly an idea struck him and his face lit up. "Doc, I need a favor."
~o~o~o~
Thirty minutes later Zalenka arrived at the infirmary with an armload of equipment grumbling in Czech. The two guards stood back and let him through, sharing an amused look. Every head turned toward him as he stood in the middle of the infirmary wondering where he was going to dump all this equipment.
"Hey, Radek," Sheppard called happily. "Carson's got a problem in the back he says is messing with his equipment. Better hurry up before he tears the wall apart."
"What?" Zalenka asked, obviously confused.
"Yeah, I just dropped by to check on Alex. And he's ready to rip the wall out because he can't get accurate results. He swears it's something in the wall behind room ten. Says it happens all the time to him."
Keeping a casual grin, Sheppard gently guided the confused scientist to the back. Beckett greeted him with a shouted, "About bloody time!" as Sheppard checked to make sure no one was too close or listening.
Once he was convinced, he headed over to room ten with Doctor Zalenka in tow, and Beckett took up a place just inside room nine with Alex where he could watch the doors. Sheppard closed the curtain and turned to the thoroughly confused Czech man.
"Okay," he started to explain, helping Zalenka set down all the equipment on every available space. "Nothing's wrong with anything in here. I needed to pass you a message. You heard about the bomb in the mess hall, right?"
"Of course, everybody has."
"We think Belby had an accomplice, and we're trying to flush him out."
"But Rodney is already doing that."
"Rodney's a decoy," Sheppard explained. "I need you to be my eyes and ears. I couldn't tell you over the radio in case they're listening. I need you to act like you're working in here for about fifteen minutes or so. Make some noise, complain, that kind of thing. Then, pack up your stuff and head back to your lab. Make sure everyone sees you complaining about hallucinating doctors and taking their own meds or something."
"What?"
"Just make a scene on your way out, okay?" Sheppard said, more patiently than he felt. "Do you have a laptop in your quarters that can tap into the city surveillance cameras?"
"It should be. Why?"
"When you get back to your lab, complain about a headache Doctor Beckett gave you over nothing. Tell whoever is nearby that you're calling it a day and take another laptop with you that can tap into the city's cameras. Lock your door and do not open it until I give the all clear, understand? While you're in there I need you to watch two locations. One is going to be Corridor Six in Section Seventy-Two heading toward the East Pier, and the other is the infirmary."
"That section is flooded with the tides. No one goes down there."
"Belby did, and he hasn't come out. I suspect he and his cohort have a lab or some kind of hideout there. But we can't make a move until we know who the other guy is, understand? Rodney's going to make it look like he's going to find Belby in a few hours with some tweaks to the city sensors. Sooner or later his partner is going to go to silence Belby, or finish what he started with Alex."
Zalenka's expression turned grim. "I understand."
"When you see either someone in Section Seventy-Two or someone trying to force their way into the infirmary, we've got our guy. Radio me. And then I'll give you the all-clear later."
"If they're monitoring the radios, how can I—"
Sheppard held up a radio he had pulled out of his pocket. "Something Rodney and I have been holding on to for a special occasion. These are tuned to subspace. So no matter what radio frequency they're monitoring, they won't catch it. I've got this one, and I'm about to go get the other from Rodney."
"Clever," Zalenka commented, pocketing the radio.
"I'll leave you to it. Time for me to go check on Rodney's performance. Don't forget. Make a scene on your way out."
Zalenka nodded, turning to the wall panel with some tools. "You just make sure you catch them, Colonel. She deserved better than this."
The statement had Sheppard pausing to watch the scientist's back as he began to dismantle the wall panel. Not sure where that had come from or what Zalenka meant by it, Sheppard started to ask. A moment later he closed his mouth as he remembered what he'd heard of Doctor Zalenka's life. If anyone would know what it was like to be kicked around when life already sucked, he would. He glanced one last time toward Beckett and Alex as he headed out of the ward. He hadn't even made it beyond the door yet before the two of them were shouting loud enough to be heard all the way in the front. Perfect.
Time to head back to the control room to check on Rodney's "progress". He was wrapped up in his thoughts trying to figure out a way to station a team completely concealed near the corridor near the East Pier to catch whomever heads that way, that he barely noticed the guards as he passed by.
"How is she, sir?"
The question stopped him in his tracks. "Excuse me?"
"Alex. How is she? It sounded pretty serious," Holmes said.
For a moment Sheppard eyed the young man. Part of him screamed warnings at the guard's sudden interest. But the openness of the expression screamed against his suspicions.
"She'll be fine in a couple of days," he told them.
Holmes' smile seemed genuine while Cruz's face spasmed again before going blank. Sheppard filed this away.
"Thank you, sir," Holmes said.
Too late Sheppard realized that either one could be Alex's attempted assassin. He should have added more guards sooner. To do so now would be announcing that he suspected one of them. Above all, he had to keep his suspicions to himself until they could be certain who Doctor Belby's accomplice was. Not liking the situation, Sheppard continued his trek toward the command center. He just hoped Zalenka would be on the lookout when the time came or this whole thing could go from bad to FUBAR.
~o~o~o~
After a brief, but spectacular blow up with McKay in ops, Sheppard pocketed Rodney's modified subspace radio and made a show of dispersing teams throughout the city to try to find Belby. Hoping that would be enough to throw off suspicion as well as have someone passing by the infirmary regularly to keep an eye out, he waited.
In an hour Zalenka was in place in his quarters. Rodney was cursing and throwing things around the command center and taking apart consoles left and right. Weir paced her office. Beckett sat beside Alex's bed trying to convince himself he was not feeling what he thought he was feeling. Sheppard made a show of prowling the city checking on teams via radio every few minutes. Some three hours after his argument with Rodney, the scientist announced he was going to be ready in about thirty minutes.
Time to move. Damn! He had hoped the guy would make a move by now.
Knowing there wasn't anyone he could trust among his own men, Sheppard headed toward the East Pier as if he was checking up on the teams sweeping that area. He hoped word had spread and that the person aiding Belby panicked accordingly. He also hoped he wouldn't be the first to find him, because he wasn't sure he could control his temper right about now.
~o~o~o~
Meanwhile, Carson witnessed a miracle. His earliest estimate of visible signs of regeneration had been measured in days. Mere hours after surgery, Alex was showing signs of slow, but still inhumanly fast healing. She had even begun to regain consciousness. In a flurry of activity, he took her off life support and extubated her. She was clearly breathing on her own. And, as expected, her glucose was dropping. As fast as he could, he pumped her full of vitamins, nutrients, proteins, and as much sugary liquid as he could. He feared he was replacing what little blood she had left.
And that's when it hit him. Most of the Wraith Retrovirus was carried in the hemoglobin. It broke down fairly quickly, but not that quickly. She had bled out more than the survivable amount, and he replaced it with fresh, and he'd given her only the original formula. It was reducing the suppression of the Wraith DNA as the new formula broke down in what little remaining blood she had.
Carson's smile could have lit up the entire ward as Alex started to stir and open her dull, glazed catlike eyes. Gently he ran a hand over her white hair on her crown soothingly. "Just rest, love. You're healing. It's probably going to hurt, but you'll be okay."
Mumbling something he couldn't make out, Alex moved her head slightly as her eyes slid closed once again. Still beaming, Doctor Beckett stood back heaving a sigh of relief so profound he nearly found himself back in the chair limp as a rag doll. Instead, he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he had a chance to react, his head exploded in a burst of bright light.