Chapter VII:
"Rose," a voice called to her. "Wakey, wakey," it cooed. When she gave no sign of coming to, it spoke again, this time with a bit of a bite in its tone, "Oi! Get up you lazy git!"
Brown eyes snapped open at the command, and then quickly snapped shut when they were assaulted by bright light.
"I told you that would work," the Doctor said with an obvious self-satisfied smile on his face. Even with her eyes closed, she could imagine him sitting back in whatever chair he was in, or leaning against the nearest wall with his arms over his chest and a dorky grin on his face.
"If anyone's the lazy git around here, it's you," she croaked as she slowly opened her eyes, this time prepared for the bright light of the outside world.
The Scottish doctor from the night before – Doctor Beckett was it? – stood off to her right, apparently reading a chart that may very well have been hers. He smiled warmly at her when she looked over at him and opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't get very far as the Doctor chose that moment to argue.
"Oi! I'm not lazy. When have you ever seen me be lazy?" he pouted from the foot of her bed where a wall just happened to be. As expected, he was leaning against, looking like a ten year old that had been forced to sit in a relative's hospital room.
"How about after Papei? You slept for days then," Rose said, still trying to wake up.
"No, you can't hold that against me, I was recuperating."
"Yeah, well, you recuperated for four days straight. I almost got bored; thankfully the TARDIS likes me and she kept me company."
"I can only imagine what you two did," the Doctor returned, sounding annoyed that his baby was bonding with someone other than him.
"Oh, no you can't," Rose giggled, slowly sitting up as Doctor Beckett helped raise her bed. "Your bedroom is very interesting; I managed to clean a bunch of stuff out of it that I'm sure you aren't even missing."
"I'll have you know that I noticed everything that you had cleaned out, and I also put it back where it was."
"You did not."
"Did. You can go check right now if you like."
"After I make sure that you're alright," the Scot interjected, obviously sensing that she would do just that. She smiled warmly at him, loving the way his blue eyes gleamed down at her when he smiled. "How are you feelin', love?"
"Better, actually," Rose admitted, almost surprised by how good she felt. It was amazing what a drug-induced sleep could do for the body. She actually felt refreshed. Most of the time when she slept on the TARDIS, she woke and was just awake and ready for the next adventure, but this time she felt more than that. This time, she not only felt ready for the next adventure, she was eager for it; she was ready to tackle whatever came her way today, and that was a new feeling.
"Good. I'll have Marie bring you some breakfast and then you can go once you're done." He turned his attention from her to the Doctor at the foot of her bed. "And now for you. I'm assuming your leg has healed?"
"Yep," the Doctor answered, popping the 'p'. "I'm assuming you still want to make sure that I'm alright though, eh?"
"Aye, I do."
As the Doctor willingly – much to Rose's shock – hopped onto the empty bed next to her, Rose asked, "Breakfast? So I only slept over night then?"
Doctor Beckett stiffly shifted so that he was looking at her while the Doctor hoisted up his pant leg. "No, I'm afraid you slept for a little over thirty-six hours. The TARDIS was beginning to worry about you."
"The TARDIS?" both Rose and the Doctor asked as the Scot sat on a low stool to examine the Doctor's healed leg.
The examination was brief and soon Doctor Beckett was slowly easing off the stool and letting the Doctor roll his pant leg back down. He glanced from Rose, to the Doctor and back again, confused and surprised to learn that they didn't know of the contact.
"Aye," he said, grabbing a tablet and writing something on it. "She asked me if you were alright a time or two, because she couldn't reach you psychically. I told her not to worry, but apparently she is as much of a mother hen as my Second, Doctor Porter."
"I heard that!" a woman with dark brown hair and honey-brown eyes called from her spot by a medical bed, giving her boss a smile before she returned to her job. The small group laughed a little at her response, their smiles increasing when they noticed that the woman, Doctor Porter, was chuckling a little as well. "Oh, and Carson, you know the rules."
"Aye, I do, and I'll thank you not to remind me of them," the Scot returned, sounding a little annoyed at her gentle warning. However, he pulled up the vacant chair that sat in between the two infirmary beds, looking like a dog that had just been told to sit.
Behind the Scot's back, Rose threw the Doctor a curious expression, which he easily returned.
"What was that about?" she asked, not being shy about butting in to a person's personal life.
"It's nothing," the Scot answered, giving her a smile that was clearly meant to distract her from the subject.
She opened her mouth to say something more, but she couldn't find a reason as to why she was so curious, so she closed her mouth instead. Normally she had no problem being nosey, but it was usually because it was important to everyone's survival. This time it would have just been rude, and she wasn't the Doctor after all – she knew when to leave things be.
When a pretty Asian woman walked into the infirmary carrying a tray of food, Doctor Beckett smiled.
"Right then, I'll leave you to your breakfast," he announced, slowly getting out of the chair and – dare she say limping? – to the foot of her bed. "Let me know if you need anything, love. I'll be right over there if you do," he said, pointing to a room that was just off the entrance to the infirmary.
"Thank you Doctor Beckett," she said, smiling at him, though watching him like a hawk.
"Call me Carson," he said, apparently uncomfortable with the formal title. "Everyone does."
With that, he walked away, leaving Rose and the Doctor to their own devices and mischief.
At four o'clock, SGA1 plus the Doctor and Rose reported to the infirmary for their pre-mission physical. Both the Doctor and Rose had insisted that it wasn't necessary for them to go through this process, but Carson had just as strongly insisted that it was and not just for their health but for the health of those on Atlantis as well.
When the group entered, a couple doctors and a few nurses began instructing them all where to go.
"Where's Doctor Beckett?" Rose asked as the Asian nurse from earlier led her to the same bed she'd occupied earlier on.
"Doctor Porter is giving him his pre-mission physical."
"That's odd, isn't it? I would have thought he would be helping to give us our physicals," Rose said, looking around for a sign of the handsome doctor, though she didn't know why.
"Why's that? All of you need to have your physical taken care of, not just you six."
"Six? I thought there was another team accompanying us as well," the Doctor said, patiently allowing his nurse to perform her tests. He winked at her when he heard her give a startled gasp as she'd just discovered his two hearts.
"They are, but they had their checks an hour ago. Doctor Beckett thought that having all of you in at the same time was a bit much and so he stagnated your physicals so that it was easier for us to handle."
"Not enough doctors and nurses?" the Doctor asked, as the nurse checked his temperature. Again he winked at her when she discovered that he was a little colder than most humans to let her know that he was fine. He hopped off the bed and went to stand beside Rose's, apparently feeling that the exam was finished.
"It's actually to take it easy on the staff," Colonel Sheppard interjected with a smile. From the bed next to his, his large companion, Ronon, smiled at the implication. "We can be a bit much when in a large group."
"I believe that's the understatement of the year, Colonel," Doctor Beckett replied as he walked into where everyone else was being examined.
Rose saw the Colonel's eyes narrow slightly as he watched the doctor walk and – out of curiosity at his intensity – it made her do the same. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly when she finally realized why the Colonel was watching him so intently. Though it was very light, almost unnoticeable, the Scottish doctor was limping.
The limp wasn't noticeable, obviously. And though now that she saw it, Rose couldn't help but see it with every step, she could easily assume that whatever had caused the injury had happened long ago since the doctor's gait seemed to automatically adjust to it and it now appeared to just be part of the way he walked.
"I try my best not to state the obvious too much, Doc," the Colonel responded. He eyed the nurse warily as she approached him with a needle. "Really, Doc, is this necessary? Couldn't we just do a scan?"
"Aye, but what would be the fun in that Colonel?"
The Colonel's eyes narrowed. "Is there a reason why you're punishing me?"
"I hardly think drawing your blood is worth considering a punishment, Colonel," the doctor lectured, pulling up a spare chair.
"Doctor Beckett, are you quite alright?" the Doctor asked, interrupting the friendly banter. Despite the quietness of his voice, the keenness in it and the question alone had them all paying deep attention to the two Doctors.
The Scottish doctor seemed to momentarily freeze at the question and those a part of Colonel Sheppard's team appeared to do the same. This only served to pique Rose's curiosity. Whatever had happened obviously still had an effect on them all and though she couldn't prove it, Rose assumed that it had been something relatively traumatic.
The moment lasted for no more than a matter of seconds and then Doctor Beckett relaxed and he gave the Doctor a smile that didn't quire reach his eyes.
"Aye, lad, I'm fine," he answered. In his hands, something the Lanteans had come to call a data pad beeped and he looked down to read the results. "Right, well, Teyla, Rodney, and Rose, you're cleared to leave."
"What about the rest of us?" Colonel Sheppard practically pouted.
"You, Colonel, could have been cleared had you not spent a great deal of your time fighting the physical," Carson returned. He barely hid a smile as he turned his back to the Colonel and began to usher the Doctor over to the nearest examination bed.
"You are punishing me, aren't you?" the Colonel asked when the nurse, Marie, came back with yet another needle.
"I am most certainly not punishing you, lad," Doctor Beckett denied. He straightened up after listening to the Doctor's chest and proceeded to examine the Time Lord's previous injuries. "Although, might I remind you to think of this the next time you feel it necessary to wake be before dawn when you, yourself shouldn't have even been out of the infirmary?"
Rose gave a silent chuckle, understanding precisely what was going on and knowing that Doctor Beckett – Carson – was in fact punishing the Colonel quite thoroughly. The Colonel scowled at the doctor behind his back, giving a wince when Marie accidentally bumped into him.
"Are you alright, Colonel?" the nurse asked, her expression neutral but her tone curious.
"I'm fine," the military man answered, giving the woman a charming smile in hopes of distracting her.
"He needs to learn to block better," Ronon answered from his own examination bed just behind the Colonel's.
"Och, what have ya done to yerself now?" Carson asked, his accent thickening enough to show his irritation. He stepped away from the Doctor and went over to the Colonel, swooping in to examine the man's side before he had a chance to argue.
"So, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your leg?" the Doctor asked the Scot, reminding them all that the doctor was not wholly well.
The Colonel winced when Carson pressed on the ribs in the center of his side. Rose watched as the Scot shook his head and walked away without bothering to answer the Doctor. He came back with an infinitely smaller version of the scanner in his hand and proceeded to run it over the Colonel's side, quickly followed by his head.
"Well, lad, I don't know what you were thinking by goin' up against Ronon this morning but you are lucky that he didn't try to hit you harder." The Colonel frowned at the statement, apparently believing that the bigger man had hit him plenty hard but he didn't comment – quite wisely, Rose thought.
Once he made sure that he had John's attention, Carson continued. "I'm not sure that I agree with Elizabeth's decision to let you accompany the teams. Let's just say that I'm quite glad that we won't be leaving until tomorrow morning. But, you had better not come back any worse off than how you left. Believe it or not, Colonel, I don't like spending half my time patching you and your team up after you've come back from a rescue."
The threat of what the Scot would do to the man was left unfilled but since he had the power to pretty much do anything to the military man via medical license, Rose figured he didn't have to. The Colonel smirked and hopped off the bed, his eyes scrunching ever so slightly in a wince when it jarred his apparently injured side.
"Come on Chewie," he said, looking over at Ronon and motioning his head towards the exit of the infirmary. "Before he decides to ground this whole mission for another day."
Rose watched the two friends as they left, wondering why Doctor Beckett wasn't raising a fuss about the bigger man leaving before he'd been cleared to. She shrugged, getting off the exam bed and figuring that he'd already received the confirmation that he'd needed while he hadn't been the center of attention.
"I can go, too, yeah?" she asked just to make sure.
Carson smiled softly at her, the ice in his blue eyes melting a little now that he was no longer facing an ornery Colonel Sheppard.
"Aye, lass, you and the Doctor are free to go. You're both healthy as can be," his attention briefly slid over to the doctor, a question in his face as though he'd love to know how that came to be, "and you have not picked up anythin' irregular that we are concerned with."
"Well that's surprising," Rose said, watching the Doctor as he continued to remain sitting where he was. "You never know when you travel with him. I swear I've had so much alien slime smeared on me, I wouldn't be surprised if I have picked up a disease or two from it."
"Oi!" the Doctor objected, affronted at the insinuation that he'd ever let her get sick.
Carson smiled, his eyes laughing when he would not. "Aye, well, off you go. I'll see you both bright and early tomorrow morning."
"Rose, you go on a head," the Doctor said, officially telling her that he wouldn't be joining her for a bit, though she had already guessed that. "I just want to have a quick word here with Doctor Beckett."
"Oh, my, that sounds a bit ominous," Doctor Porter said, now insinuating herself into the conversation.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rose had seen the doctor watching the group ever since Carson had left after his physical. She also noticed the woman's attention sharpen when the Doctor had brought up Carson's limp and it seemed that she had been waiting for the appropriate time to jump in since.
"No," the Doctor said, drawing out the word like he was prone to doing with others. "Well, I suppose it could be depending on the answer to my question, but in general I'd like to think that it's nothing too serious."
"Unfortunately, Doctor, unless they're medically relevant to you, I'm afraid Doctor Beckett is a bit busy."
"I am, now, am I?" Carson asked, his arms folded over his chest and his expression one of curiosity and humor.
"Actually, yes," Doctor Porter answered. She smiled a bit, though it looked strained and then said, "Doctor McKay has 'asked' that you meet him in his lab once you've finished practicing your voodoo medicine."
"Oh he has, has he?" Carson asked, his expression not changing though Rose thought that she had seen him roll his eyes a time or two throughout Doctor Porter's explanation.
Doctor Porter nodded. "He said that he has some devices that he needs you to turn on."
"Och, bloody Ancients and their bloody machines," Carson answered, sounding more Scottish by the second. He reached a hand towards his ear and activated his comm link. "Carson to Rodney." He waited all of five seconds before he said, "I'll have ye know, Rodney, tha' I am no' a bloody battery. I do not exist solely for ya ta use ta turn on those bloody devices the Ancients left around this bloody city."
"Come on," Doctor Porter said to Rose and the Doctor. She nodded her head towards an excluded area in the back of the infirmary. "Let's leave him to argue with Doctor McKay. I'll do my best to answer your questions, Doctor."
Something in the way she spoke and ushered them into a secluded area, made Rose think that the woman knew exactly what the Doctor wanted to ask and so she stuck around, curious as well. As they left, they heard Carson's accent get that much thicker before his voice faded altogether as the man left to go see his friend.
Elizabeth stared at the email in front of her. Kavanagh had filed yet another complaint against Rodney and she honestly didn't know what to do about it. She felt like telling Kavanagh to either grow up and stuff it or to transfer and get out from under Rodney. Quite frankly, she preferred the latter.
"Doctor Weir?" Chuck's voice said, the man himself standing in the door frame. She looked up to acknowledge him and waited. "The wraith Queen known as Amara has accepted our request for peace talks."
A pit of unease settled into Elizabeth's stomach. Truth be told, she wasn't completely sure about the Doctor's plan for freeing the – what was it that he called them? – Gabri-somethings. Walking through 'the front door' as he called it seemed risky at best and that wasn't taking into account all the other variables that Elizabeth didn't doubt was running through the alien's head.
"Thank you," she said, giving him a smile that hopefully hid how worried she was. "Alert Colonel Sheppard that he has a go."
Chuck nodded, returning her partial smile. He left without another word and Elizabeth returned to her silent concerns, pretending not to notice the way the light atop the blue box in her gateroom kept flashing almost angrily.
"Oi! Listen here you!"
John chuckled as he walked into the sentient ship. "Marriage trouble?"
The Doctor's head snapped over towards him and John could see some of the residual anger within the brown eyes. The anger soon faded but the serious expression on the man's face never did and it concerned John just a little.
Despite how he made it seem, John wasn't here by chance. Atlantis had told him that there were complications with their plan and that he should talk to the Time Lord about it. It unnerved him a little that the ship wouldn't say much; it was as though she were acting as a go between the humans and the two newest additions to the city.
"Is there something I can help you with, Colonel?"
Right to it then, alright.
John leaned against the railing, crossing his arms over his chest. In the back of his mind, he felt an annoyed buzz radiate, alerting him that the ship wasn't happy with either his presence or the casual way in which he touched her. Either way he ignored it and kept his attention on the Doctor.
"I'm told that there's a problem with the plan," John said, agreeing to the Doctor's silent terms of not beating around the bush.
"And you're here to see if you can solve it," the Doctor finished, mimicking John's posture opposite him, leaning against the console with his arms over his chest. He eyed John as though he were sizing him up or daring him to contradict him. While the idea didn't sit well with John, he figured it best to let the alien come to his own conclusions. The sooner they got over the suspicions on both sides, the better off all of them would be.
The Doctor took a deep breath, almost as though preparing to say something, but before he could, his companion followed by Carson entered, halting whatever was about to be said.
"Everything alright?" the Doctor's companion, Rose, asked, sensing something in the air.
"Yeah," the Doctor answered. "Why wouldn't it be?"
He stepped away from the console and turned to face it, playing with random knobs and doohickies as he circled the thing. One look at Rose told John that he'd done that form of denial before and that she found it just as annoying as he currently did.
"Is there something I can help you with, Doc?" John asked, curious as to why Carson was here.
"Aye, Rodney has been trying for the past hour to get a hold of you. He said to remind you that you'd promised to meet up with him in one of the Ancient labs in the lower levels to fire it up and that if you didn't appear in the next ten minutes, you can kiss any opportunity of living comfortably in your room goodbye."
"I see," John answered, pushing away from the railing and putting his hands in his pockets. Something about the glimmer in the Scot's eyes made John suspect there was more to the story. "About how long ago was this?"
"Oh, about five or six minutes, I'd say," Carson answered with a smile.
"You really don't like being woken up early, do you?" John grumbled.
"Not when it was one of the few times I had to sleep in, no," Carson answered, not bothering to deny that he was still punishing John.
John didn't bother to answer. Instead he threw the doctor a glare and then started running, knowing that he'd be lucky to get down to the labs within the allotted time. This just goes to show, don't piss of a Scot.
TBC