Chapter 13 – Turtles
The automatic door of the Wraith's ward opened with a silent glide, and Doctor Beckett arrived with a tray in his hands. A bowl of salad and a glass-porringer full of blue jelly stood on the metal surface, bumping to each other with quiet tinkling as the doctor carried them to Claire's night-table.
"What's that?" the Wraith asked, suspiciously observing what Carson was doing.
"My lunch," he answered as if it was the most natural thing in the whole universe. "You've been lying here alone for eight hours now, and I thought you could really use some company, so I decided to join you for lunch."
Claire's hairless eyebrows wandered in the direction of the top of her pale, greenish forehead as she lifted them up with scornful dismissal. "You think that I will talk about Wraith secrets just because you are trying to keep me company?" she asked coldly. "Even though you are a human, you really shouldn't be that primitive."
"I don't think we should talk about secrets," the doctor shrugged. "I'm not interested in technical details of hives or anything like that." He pulled a chair to the night-table, and he started mixing his salad-dressing with a spoon. "Well, if you feel like discoursing on technique, I can call a scientist or a military officer, but it's definitely not my cup of tea."
"Why are you here, then?" Her question was full of distrust.
"I've already told you why. Even though you are a Wraith, you really shouldn't be that paranoid," he added with a shrewd smile.
Claire snorted indignantly, and she gave no response. Carson did not force the conversation; he was picking his salad in silence. Finally it was Claire, who started talking again.
"Is it a kind of plant?" she inquired, making a slight motion with her head in the direction of the bowl the doctor was eating from.
"Yes, it's from the planet MS6-865, these leaves taste very similar as roquette on the Earth. Oh, okay, you don't know roquette either."
"And you don't feel sorry for this plant, do you?" she asked.
"Nope, not really."
"I don't see, then, why you humans always suppose that we should feel remorse when we feed on you..."
"I guess there is a difference between a bunch of roquettes and me," the doctor interjected, smiling.
"When it comes to feeding, I have to say no, there is no difference. You eat the plant, and I eat the energy of the humans."
"I understand what you mean," Carson responded between two bites of salad, "And I do think that you are right from this point of view, but it doesn't change the fact that we always have to be on the opposite sides. It's the course of nature that we humans can't accept the way of your feeding, and you Wraiths can't give up hunting us down."
She nodded. Doctor Beckett ate the rest of his lunch in silence, while she peered at the ceiling motionless. He threw a glimpse at her wrists, and he saw that her flesh was torn up and covered with bluish, rugged-sided wounds where the straps held her– it was obvious that she spent the last eight hours with the useless dragging of her ties.
"I'll bring you a salve for those sores," the doctor noted, turning back his eye once more to her wrists and then to the bruised circle around her neck.
She gave no answer.
"What else would you like me to bring you?" he inquired. "I'll ask Doctor Weir if I can give you a book to read, okay?"
"Do what you want to do, it's all the same what I'd like to," she responded coolly. Carson smiled contentedly, because it was a good improvement that she reacted to this question at all.
"Alright, rest a bit, I'll be back soon," he said amiably, lifting up his tray and heading for the door.
As he stepped into the ward later, he found Claire dragging her chains again with all her strength.
"Oh, oh, my child," the doctor shook his head reprovingly. "If you don't cease it, you might cripple the muscles in your shoulders or break your scapulae, not to mention those horrid splits on your skin."
He put down a thin book and a black cream china-jar on her night-table. "First I'll take care of your sores," he told her, opening up the jar with a clack. She stopped pulling on her chains, and she stared up at him without uttering a word, while he smeared the salve all over her newly acquired bruises. After he finished it, he took off his plastic-gloves and lifted up the volume from the night-table.
"This book is about all kinds of tortoises," he explained.
"About what?" Claire asked apathetically.
"Tortoises are little, green colored, cute animals on the Earth, I've always wanted to keep some of them as pets. Actually, this book is from my personal collection, because Doctor Weir banned me to bring you Atlantisian scripts, so I had to search for something else. Are you interested in this book?"
For the doctor's greatest surprise, the Wraith nodded, "Yes, I want to read it."
Carson did not really believe that she would be satisfied with a book about animals, but Claire seemed quite contented. She tried to reach out for it, but her hand was tugged back violently by her chains.
"Wait a minute, I'll slacken one strap on your right hand so that you can hold the book..." He took the strap, and began to loosen it at her right wrist, but at this moment the door of the ward opened, and John Sheppard stepped in.
"Carson, what the hell are you doing?" he asked astonished.
Doctor Beckett stopped undoing the hooks of the chains, and he turned to the arriving man with an embarrassed expression on his face. "I was just... erm..."
"I saw what you were just doing," John snorted, "And that's definitely not something you should've done. It's strictly prohibited to allow the Wraith to move any of her limbs freely. What did you think? Her first motion would be to grab you and drain all your life out of you..."
"I just wanted to give the book to her," the doctor muttered.
John rolled his eyes. He took the book out of Carson's hands and had a skim through it.
"It's completely innocent," Doctor Beckett explained, ducking. "It's nature study about tortoises."
"I'm sure she wanted to read it because she believed there were allusions to the Earth's sidereal position in it," John marked with a cynical smile, and he threw the book away onto a distant shelf. Claire followed the motion with her rigid, cold glance, but she did not say a word.
"Elizabeth allowed me to give the book to her," Carson apologized. "I thought it would be beneficial to let Claire spend her days with something more interesting than lying here in silence..."
"She is a captive, so she doesn't get hotel room service," John retorted sarcastically. "It's not our aim that she could feel better here than at home."
"She is chained to a bed! I'm pretty sure there is no chance that she would feel alright," the doctor shook his head.
"I don't think that we should start an argument about it here," Sheppard said, turning away. "You either come out with me to talk about our captive, or you should accept the fact that she can't be treated as a poor victim."
"I did not save her life just to push her into a situation even worse than dying," the doctor gave his riposte.
"You saved her life because you got the order to do so, and you don't need to be sentimental about it."
"No. I saved her life because she asked us to help her."
They heard a sudden clink from the bed, when Claire made an astonished motion as she realized what Doctor Beckett meant with his last sentence. Her grey, unreadable eyes mirrored the picture of the two men facing each other.
"Alright, for me it's all the same why you are healing her, but you must promise me one thing: that was the last time you talked so nicely to this beast," John told Carson with an earnest expression on his face. "And take that ridiculous book away from here, you really don't need it to take the place from medical equipment."
John made a disdainful flick in the direction of the shelf, and then he left the room.
"Well, okay, I think we should give up this reading-thing, anyway, you can't hold the book yourself with your hands chained to this bed..." The doctor said with a rueful sigh. He noticed the disappointed, wistful glimpse shot at the book by Claire; it was the moment when he understood that the Wraith was truly interested, and she did not just let him bring the book to make him stop inquiring about what she wanted to do, but she really felt like reading it. He looked at her wonderingly, and finally he said, "Alright, I will read out for you."
The left corner of Claire's mouth squirmed, but only slightly, the motion was nearly invisible. "Why would you do that?" she asked. Her voice was as mistrustful as before.
"Maybe I have so much free time that I have no other idea how to spend it," he said with a gleeful twinkle.
The Wraith inhaled sharply. "You don't really mean it, do you?"
"Of course not. I slept altogether ten hours in the last four days, because I've been working on the capsule to ease the Wraith hunger, some of the residents got bitten by a raging dog-like creature which was bought as a pet from the Athosians, their wounds keep on leaking, trickling an unknown, green liquid, so their sores need to be re-dressed every two hours, I furnished this room for you, and, well, your six-hour-long operation took some of my time away too..."
"How much sleep do you humans normally need?" she inquired.
"Approximately seven to eight hours per day."
"Then you need to sleep now, don't you?"
Carson stepped to the shelf where John threw the book, and he brought the volume to Claire's bed. "Don't care about it," he told her with a friendly smile. "I'll read out the introduction by the manager of the Aquapark Oklahoma and the first chapter about red-eared sliders, and afterwards I'll still have some time to take a rest."
He stood a chair next to her bed, he took place and opened the book. He held it in a way she could look at the pictures if she wanted, and he started to read out.
John Sheppard stopped at Doctor Weir's office, and he popped in. "Elizabeth, do you have a few moments?"
She looked up from the report she was writing on her palmtop to the Stargate Command. "Yes, for you, even minutes," she said with a smile. "Sit down."
He took a few steps in, his face was ruminative. "Actually, I wanted to talk about Carson."
"What's up with him?"
"He seems to be too nice to our captive. I understand that he saved her life and he feels responsible for her, but he shouldn't get involved that much..."
"Consider the fact, that he is the only person whom the Wraith talks to, she refuses to speak to anyone else. You were there six times in her ward in the last two days, and she didn't even turn in your direction. Maybe, we can use the fact that Carson gets on quite well with her."
"If it were just about persuading that monster, that would be okay with me as well, but you should have seen him an hour ago. He was about to free one arm of that beast just to give her a book... He nearly killed himself! If I had not been there to stop him in time, the Wraith could have eaten him alive."
Doctor Weir narrowed her eyes. "Well, that sounds truly scary. I'll talk with him about it."