Title: Shadowland (Chapters 6-10)
Author: Misty4me
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Beckett, McKay, Sheppard, Weir, Zelenka
Pairing: Beckett/McKay
Summary: Post Trinity.
CHAPTER 6
The radio in his ear crackled to life and a voice that he knew he should recognize spoke, “Dr. Zelenka, I need you to look at something in the control room.”
Radek swore under his breath in Czech. Reaching up, he tapped his earpiece, “I do not have time for trivial problems.” He was beginning to understand Rodney a lot better after more than two weeks of running the Science department.
“Yes Sir, but I really think you should see this.”
Idiot! I miss Peter. I miss Rodney. Damn him! “Fine, I am on my way.”
“Can you tell if it was real or just an anomaly?” Glasses perched on his nose, he looked at the data and then at the man sitting at the console.
“There’s no way to tell without going out there…” The tone in the engineer’s voice left something unsaid. Zelenka, Weir and Sheppard all looked at him, waiting.
“It went on, then off after a few seconds, and didn’t repeat. There’s no sign of it happening before. It could be a malfunction like the city diagnostics indicate, and this could be the first time it’s happened, but I...”
John interrupted, staring intently. “Are you saying that you think someone turned it on then off?”
“It’s possible, Colonel.”
“Rodney.” He turned to Weir, “I’m going after him. I’ll take Teyla, Ronan and Carson with me.” She blinked at his leap of faith, knowing that it could be any of a thousand other alternatives but nodded, wanting him to be right.
“Colonel, wait!” Radek had grabbed his arm before he could start for the door, “If this is Rodney, then he will be gone by now. You will not find him. He is too smart for that.”
“Dammit Radek,” John yelled, “if it’s him why didn’t the sensors pick him up?”
“Rodney is a genius, or do you forget that? If he does not want to be found he will not be found.”
“Dr. Zelenka?”
They had all been ignoring the Canadian sitting at the sensor console. “Yes…?” He snapped, angry at himself for being unable to remember the man’s name. He still hadn’t gotten past not seeing Peter sitting there.
“Would Dr. McKay have taken all the sensors offline?”
“Yes, probably, or….” Radek’s finger’s flashed over the keyboard, “Aha!” He pointed at the graph in front of him. “He is feeding back old data.” The young man’s face slumped, then sharpened.
“Power. Power use logs.” Radek looked at him bemused, then caught up. “Yes, yes yes! This is brilliant.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and sat down excitedly at the console beside the other man. They began to pull up the data. “I am such an idiot. I should have thought of this!” He stopped dead, slammed a hand on the metal top of the instrument panel, “Bah, too small…”
“Here, but not there…”
“We need baseline. …”
“Three weeks?”
“No four is better. Yes! Yes! Now today…” The Canadian nodded.
“I need…”
“Filter, like this…” Radek typed in a parameter.
Both men’s fingers flew over the keyboard and graphics flashed past faster than John or Elizabeth could comprehend. “Radek!” They were perched over the console, hyperfocused on the two men.
“The city records all power use. We can look for changes.”
“There, Dr. Z!”
“Yes, and look, this is just today.” Zelenka sat back, rubbed his hands across his face. “It is him or someone else living in that part of the city.” Turning to John he cautioned, “You will take precautions in case of another Wraith. But I believe it is him.” It was the first time in two weeks that any of them had felt a sense of hope. “Bring Rodney back to us, Colonel.”
John was on the radio before he’d taken two steps and 15 minutes later the search team was headed for the nearest transporter. “Colonel” It was Radek on his hear piece. “We have scanned that area again, several times and are seeing no changes after the equipment stopped functioning.”
“What are you saying?”
Carson was linked in with them, “That Rodney might be hurt.” Or dead. Neither said it but both men’s thoughts were eerily similar. And that just pissed John off because what would be the point of coming so close if they couldn’t bring him back safely?
Hopping transporters took them to within a half mile of the bay. Radek directed them from that point until they were standing in front of the open doors. Inside was cloaked in darkness.
“Radek, can you turn the lights on?” They came up and to John’s horror, Rodney was easy to find. He lay unconscious on the floor, a collection of blood, bruises and impossible angles.
John barely had time to process what he was seeing before he heard the panicked Gaelic curses explode from Carson. Then everything was motion and orders. Carson went into doctor mode, ruthlessly pushing down any feelings. This wasn’t the time. “I need a neck brace and backboard.” They cut away the cloth from the grotesquely bent leg and straightened it. The two medics assisting checked for more broken bones and splinted what they found. Carson slipped the cervical collar around Rodney’s neck then started a saline drip.
“We need to get him out of here fast. Colonel.”
John spoke to Radek on the radio.” Is there anything about this room in the database?”
“It looks like it was used to repair jumpers.”
“Then there must be a flight deck nearby. Find it and send a jumper as close as you can get one.”
Five minutes later claxons sounded and the walls at the far end of the bay began to retract. Hovering just outside the opening, 100 feet about the waves, was a puddle jumper. The marine flying it settled it as close as he could and they made short work of loading Rodney into the back.
Elizabeth’s voice startled him, “How is he, Carson?”
The doctor was busy inserting an airway and checking for breath sounds. “Not good.”
John laid a hand on the Beckett’s shoulder and squeezed, then settled in at McKay’s head.
CHAPTER 7.
John and the team waited quietly in the anteroom to the infirmary. They were used to it, having done so far too many times over the past year. Each was in their accustomed place, handling the uncertainty in his or her own way. Ronan was still a new variable in the equation, but even he had fallen quickly into a habit of standing by the window, looking out over the water. Day or night, it didn’t matter, he stared. Weir, a de facto fifth wheel at these times, wondered what was going on in his head. It had surprised her when John asked him to join the team, surprised her even more when he’d accepted. She wondered how he dealt with the down time, the days between missions. Some days she would find him prowling the halls and it occurred to her that he was so used to being on the run that staying in one place must be almost physically impossible. This was the one place where he didn’t seem to be holding onto some dangerous energy, trying to keep it from exploding outward. When one of his own was down the need to be there overcame every other instinct.
The last person in the waiting room was Carson. He’d gotten Rodney back alive but Dr. Biro had charged into the infirmary just after the team, listened to his assessment and then tossed him out without a second’s hesitation. You could almost touch the anxiety rolling off of him it was so thick. He was the only rival Dex had for his stillness. But while Ronan was patient, Carson was panicking in his own quiet way. Whatever wasn’t happening on the outside, inside there was an endless turmoil that occasionally spilled over. John had been on the receiving end of it before. He didn’t want to be again. Instead of trying to distract the doctor he settled in beside him offering silent comfort.
It was four hours before Biro emerged from surgery. The hoped for smile wasn’t there. Instead she signaled all of them to sit. “We’ve stabilized him, and barring any problems we’ll let him recover for a day or two. Then there’ll be more surgery. Right now my biggest worries are his head injury and the possibility of him throwing a clot and having a stroke. We can’t set his arm until the swelling goes down and his leg is going to require pins and a plate. He has seven broken ribs, which means a strong risk of pneumonia, especially since we’ve used anesthesia during surgery. Complicating every thing is that he’s lost significant weight, he’s anemic and dehydrated.”
Someone stayed with Rodney all the time. Carson wasn’t fit to treat patients for the first two days, so he was the body most often parked in the chair by McKay’s bed. Teyla, Ronan, John and Elizabeth would spell him for naps and meals. By the third morning Dr. Biro was ready to do the follow up surgery on Rodney’s leg. Both of the lower leg bones had been broken, messy breaks that left fragments and splinters. It all needed piecing together with great care. Steroids had brought down the swelling enough to make that possible now, but much to everyone’s dismay, Carson was the best person for the job.
Biro looked over, “Are you sure you can do this? We can get Chandra.” She didn’t think he should be operating on anyone, let alone his lover. Carson was a million miles away, staring past her left shoulder. He was pale, tired, mostly spent.
“Oh, aye.” The frown smoothed from his brow, “I was just reviewing the procedure in my head.”
It was five hours of putting together a puzzle, lining up the fragments that could be manipulated back in place and fixing them together. Smaller bits had to be cleaned out to encourage healing. At the end Chandra had come in to assist and by the time both doctors emerged, they were exhausted. As before, the waiting room was full with the team, Elizabeth and Radek. Carson stripped off his gloves and tossed them in the surgical waste bin. Frown lines seemed to have permanently lodged in his forehead, dark circles under his eyes. Chandra came to speak to the group as Beckett leaned against the wall, enjoying the feel of the cool metal against his skin.
“Dr. McKay’s bones have been set and should knit. We will not cast him right away, in case an infection should set in. He will sleep for several hours now.” Chandra was looking at them, hesitation on his face. Elizabeth tilted her head and waited. Lowering his voice, he went on, “This was very hard for Dr. Beckett. It would, perhaps, be better for him to get some rest. As I said, Dr. McKay will not be awake for several hours.”
Elizabeth and John traded looks and she spoke up,“I think the four of you are better suited to kidnapping a doctor. I can make resting an order, but I’d rather not.” Carson wouldn’t take well to being ordered away from his lover’s side at a time like this and he’d made it clear over that last three weeks that he was less than happy with the any of them. Weir was afraid of losing both Carson and Rodney, if she alienated the doctor any more.
Strong hands rested on Carson’s shoulders. “C’mon Doc, time for a rest.” Beckett stiffened and stared at the Colonel and his teammates. He was being ganged up on. Before he could get started Teyla smiled gently, squeezing his arm, “You are exhausted, Doctor Beckett. Let us go look in on Rodney, then you shall get some sleep so you can be rested when he awakens.”
All at once he was bone weary and sleep seemed like the only alternative. Biro and Chandra would call him if anything changed. He knew that Sheppard, Teyla, Ronan and Radek would keep a watch by Rodney’s bedside. Sighing, he nodded and they shuffled off to look in on Rodney in recovery.
*********
There were flashes of light, wisps of voices. They came and went, nothing connected to anything else. He was floating. Time wasn’t even a concept. One thing happened, then nothing, then another. Eventually though, the bits and pieces began to come together. The flashes of light became a steady glow behind his eyelids and the voices murmured more frequently. Sometimes he could almost make out what they were saying.
As his moments of awareness came more frequently, so did pain. His head throbbed and his body ached. There was a heaviness down his left side that made his heart pound in his chest. Panicking, he tried to sit up, but that only resulted in gasping, screaming agony. A moan bubbled up from the pain in his chest and he felt it tear at his throat.
Carson was sitting by the bed when the monitors started to signal Rodney’s emergence from the drugged sleep they’d had him in. The waiting was the hardest part. He sat stoically, watching as heart rate and respiration increased. Closing tired eyes for just a few seconds his mind wandered to the few nights he and Rodney had spent together, nights steeped in heat and ecstasy and a solid comfort that they’d both been missing for far too long. His mind replayed the desire that Rodney brought out in his blood and the contentment in his soul. Those long, adept fingers had left lines of fire on his skin that he could still feel. His mind had been taking him there more and more often the longer Rodney was gone. Now he was back. It would be weeks, but he could wait. He was just grateful they had a future again. A muted groan brought Carson back to the present.
Blue eyes barely peeked out from behind slitted lids. “Biro!” Carson summoned the physician then shifted to the other side of the bed, beside the monitors and twined his fingers into Rodney’s, gently encouraging him to come further into consciousness. “C’mon, Luv. You can do it. I need you to look at me Rodney. Open your eyes.”
Rodney heard the voice, recognized it in a vague way, knew it meant something good. His head was just so fuzzy. He hurt and it was hard to think. But the voice kept drawing him and the warmth on his fingers seemed like the center of his world.
Biro rushed in, taking in Carson’s location and his hand holding Rodney’s. It wasn’t worth fighting. “You can stay there Carson, but only if you promise you’ll leave if I tell you to.” She stared at him, not unkindly, but firm.
“Aye, that’s fine.” He smiled a little then, grateful, and went back to stroking his fingers over Rodney’s, whispering encouragement. She just didn’t get it, couldn’t figure out how someone like Rodney McKay could inspire such caring. Well, he was still her patient so it didn’t matter. If Carson’s presence helped him, that was good enough.
“Rodney, ye have to come back to me, Luv. It’s time.” He ran a hand through the limp brown hair, “I don’t want to do this alone, Rodney.” Biro wasn’t a sentimental person, pathologists tended not to be and she’d inherited that role when it became obvious they needed one. Still, she couldn’t help the sadness that washed over her. It had all been so pointless. She checked the monitors then gave Rodney a thorough once over, pronouncing herself satisfied. By the time she was done the scientist had slipped back to sleep with the aid of some powerful pain medication.
Turning to Carson she gestured at the IV line snaking under the covers, “Another day of morphine and then we’ll need to switch him to something milder. It’s going to be hard on him.”
“Aye, I know it.”
The days after the narcotics were withdrawn turned into a blur of pain and not quite relief. Rodney drifted in and out of sleep, restless and incoherent most times. Carson was there, along with the others. They read, talked, did anything they could think of to help. When he was awake Rodney babbled and called out people’s names…Collins, Peter Grodin, Lindstrom, Abrahams, Brendan Gall. Sometimes there were desperate apologies and half conversations other times disconnected ramblings and snatches of memories from the time spent wandering the city alone.
None of them except Carson had quite realized the tremendous weight of responsibility that Rodney felt with each death. The same obnoxious behaviors that protected him from other people had worked well to hide his belief that he should have been able to prevent the losses.It was the deaths, Beckett explained to Sheppard one day as the kept vigil, that had brought them together to begin with. After the siege on Atlantis and losing Ford Rodney had reached the limits of his ability to cope. He’d come to Carson as a physician, looking for medication, turned down the recommendation of talking to Kate Heitmeyer, and lingered, wanting to talk but unsure of how to go about it. “He could have talked to me about it, Doc. I could have helped. I understand.”
“Ach, of course you do, to an extent, John. But you’re not a scientist, and for all he ridicules medicine as voodoo, Rodney considers me a scientist.”
“What difference does that make? I’ve lost people too.”
“Aye, but you’re trained for it. You expect it to happen.” Carson continues before Sheppard’s outraged objection could escape. “I’m not saying you take it lightly. I know you feel each loss. But you knew going into the military there could easily be combat, death, horrible losses. None of us knew that when we became researchers. And being told to expect it as you step through the gate to another galaxy doesn’t prepare you for the reality.”
*****
Dr. Biro walked around the privacy screen with Elizabeth in tow and gestured to where Carson was asleep with his head on the foot of Rodney’s bed. “See what I mean? I don’t think he’s slept in a bed since this all began.” The toll was clear in Carson’s dark eyes and hollow cheeks.
Elizabethlaid a gentle hand on the Scotsman’s shoulder and called his name. “Carson, wake up Carson.” He stirred, then settled back into sleep. She tried again. “Come on Carson, it’s time to go to bed.” He opened aching eyes and tried to shake off the confusion.
“Rest here…” fatigue made the words run together.
“No you won’t, you need to rest, now.” Weir took a minute to look at Rodney. He was doing much better. Last night his body had seemed to pass some milestone and the pain has subsided, letting him get the first restful sleep since the accident. Biro had him sedated and intended to keep him asleep for most of the day. “Come on Carson, don’t make me call someone to escort you to your quarters. He won’t be awake until later. You can come back this evening.” Giving in to the inevitable, he knew Elizabeth was right, Beckett rose and shambled out of the Infirmary leaning heavily against Weir as she walked with him.
CHAPTER 8.
“Rodney, you’re awake.” Sheppard bounded into the infirmary plopping himself onto the bed beside Rodney’s. He was wearing a grin, happy to see the astrophysicist looking so alert. McKay had surfaced a few times over the last two days, but the sedative and his injuries still had him drifting mentally. This morning he’d woken clear eyed and more aware.
“Colonel Sheppard. Is there something I can do for you?” That got John’s attention. The formality threw him completely off balance, “I, uh, I came to see how you are.”
“I’m as well as can be expected, though I suppose Dr. Beckett or Dr. Biro can give you a more detailed run down.” Rodney was talking to him as if he were someone’s distant cousin.
“Has Carson seen you yet today?” John wasn’t sure if he should ask what was wrong or wait until he could talk to Beckett. If Rodney didn’t realize he was acting oddly it could mean something serious was going on.
“No, he hasn’t, but I expect him soon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll sleep.” It was a dismissal, there was no mistaking that and it left John wondering what he’d done, or what had happened.
“Okay, Rodney. You get some rest.” He went in search of answers, pulling one of the nurses aside. “Have you spoken with Dr. McKay this morning?”
“No sir.”
“Has Dr. Beckett been in?”
“No, Colonel, but he’s due soon.”
“Call me when he gets here?” She nodded and went back to her work, leaving John to go for breakfast and wonder what was going on.
At first Rodney hadn’t remembered anything. Even with the pain at a tolerable level, he’d been so tired and weak that his mind refused to deal with memories of recent events. It was enough that Carson and his friends were there for support. This morning it had all come back, Arcturus, being frozen out, leaving the city behind. His physical pain paled next to what the memories brought back.
“Dr. McKay, I know it hurts, but you have to cough.” If anything, the nurse giving Rodney his respiratory therapy that morning was faring worse than John had.
“You know? What do you know about pain! Get out!” He hissed it between clenched teeth. When she tried to put the mask over his mouth anyway, Rodney reached up with his good hand and swept the equipment off the bedside table, sending it smashing across the floor.
“Rodney! That’s enough!” Carson was standing in doorway, furious. “She’s only trying to help you man.” McKay had never been a good patient but this time he was passing hellacious. Taking a deep breath to calm down, he started again. “Rodney, you need…”
“Dr. McKay.” He barked it out, slicing across whatever Carson was going to say.
Confusion replaced anger momentarily, “What?”
“It’s Dr. McKay.” Carson stared at him, shocked. A few seconds ticked by in silence before he opened his mouth to say something but couldn’t come up with any words. Rodney watched as the shock gave way to uncertainty and fear, and finally hurt. Jaw clenched against the pain of what he was doing, McKay stayed silent as the doctor turned and walked out of the room.
A few mornings later, Elizabeth gathered the senior staff, minus her Chief Scientist, in her office. “Kate?”
“There’s nothing I can tell you. He won’t talk to me anymore then any of you. For what it’s worth, he’s calmed down. He’s not rude or objectionable, he’s…..nothing…polite, distant, cooperative. It’s like we’ve barely been introduced.”
Kate wasn’t the only one to be confronted with that behavior. Rodney was confined to the infirmary for two weeks and for once he didn’t make a nuisance of himself. It should have been a relief to the staff, but ultimately it felt unnatural to them as well as anyone who stopped in to see the scientist. Radek dropped his laptop by one morning and set up a wireless connection for him to log into the network. McKay worked as much as his fatigue would let him, ate meals, took his medicine and had as little to do with anyone as possible. The rest of the team had been banned from visiting. When asked why, they were told it was at Rodney’s request, one he’d made at the same time as refusing Carson as his doctor. Biro was in charge of his recovery.
When it finally came time to release him to his quarters, Biro’s only requirement was that he have someone there most of the time to help. He would be spending the next four to six weeks in a wheel chair and was going to need an aide. Rodney sent an email requesting that Dr. Weir assign a member of the military, anyone but Colonel Sheppard.
It wasn’t hard to force most of the expedition members to a safe distance, even his own staff. Rodney was his usual critical, demanding self. He railed at stupid errors, demanded perfection, and poked his nose into everyone’s work. Now he just did it with an air of detachment that left everything feeling as though it was tipped a few degrees off center.
Sheppard, Zelenka, Teyla, and Ronan were harder. At first they tried to force their way past Rodney’s defenses, but that just earned them a reprimand from Elizabeth when he emailed her complaining. Finally, Kate Heightmeyer sat them down and laid it on the line. “You can’t force this, and you need to accept that it may not happen.”
“He can’t be happy this way.” Elizabeth voiced what they all were feeling.
“I doubt that he is. But it’s safe. You can’t lose what you don’t have.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table and fiddled with her pen. “It’s my opinion that Rodney is not going to risk having friends again. From the looks of it he wants to stay in Atlantis, it’s probably as close to intellectual heaven as he’s ever come. It’s up to you to decide if you are going to make him so uncomfortable that he feels forced to leave.”
It hadn’t been a hard decision to come to, all of them felt that they owed Rodney the ability to at least continue the work he loved. If it meant they had to give up on is friendship, so be it. Sheppard found that he’d lost both McKay and Beckett as friends and that hurt more than he could have imagined. Carson was deservedly bitter about Rodney breaking off their relationship. He ached as much for the pain he knew his lover was feeling as he did for his own loss. It was too hard to face John or any of the others knowing that their misguided treatment of Rodney had cost so much.
Staff meetings were the hardest. At first everyone walked on eggshells, thinking he would explode, and when someone slipped and called him Rodney there would be a collective holding of breath. When none of those fears panned out things settled into a less tense dynamic. The only exception was Carson. It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that the doctor didn’t attend the meetings unless ordered to by Elizabeth.
This particular morning Carson waked in late, relieved to find that the remaining empty chair was between Teyla and Zalenka. They discussed the mission, deciding that Sheppard would take along Radek and Carson. The people of F3H-T8M had been known as healers before they’d been wiped out by the Wraith. From Teyla’s description, Carson thought there might be valuable information on treatments for some of the diseases peculiar to the Pegasus Galaxy, illnesses that didn’t readily respond to Earth’s drugs.
Over the weeks, Biro had scheduled Rodney’s time in the infirmary around Carson’s absences. The only time the two had seen each other since the day Rodney had ended their relationship was when the casts were being cut off. It was a long procedure, removing the old, soaking the arm and leg, and applying a walking cast to the still healing leg. Beckett stayed in his office the whole time, only coming out at the end. “Well that’s grand, Rodney. Congratulations. I know it must be a relief.” He’d left quickly, before anything more could be said, not that he expected it. Biro was the only one who noticed the flash of pain that surfaced in McKay’s eyes before he clamped back down on his emotions. Oddly, with him so distant, she’d gotten to know him better. Without all the surface bluster she’d found herself paying more attention to what was hidden between the lines and in the silences. Rodney McKay was a good person who had been hurt once too often.
His mind came back to the present. Sitting across from one another in the conference room, Rodney couldn’t avoid looking at Carson. The weeks hadn’t been good to him and it showed. McKay frowned. He was about to mention that Beckett didn’t look fit for an offworld mission when suddenly the meeting was over and everyone was leaving.
CHAPTER 9.
The claxons sounded, “Unscheduled offworld activation!” They dropped the shield after receiving Sheppard’s IDC and he came through running.
“We need McKay. There’s been an accident. Zelenka’s out cold and Beckett’s trapped.”
Rodney didn’t go to the Gateroom anymore, he wasn’t going on offworld missions anymore and there was no point to watching people come and go through the event horizon. It would be a waste of time he couldn’t afford. When the claxon’s sounded he frowned, knowing that it was too early for Sheppard’s team to be back, but ignored the flicker of worry in the back of his mind and continued working.
“Dr. McKay!” Elizabeth’s voice crackled in his ear, “There’s an emergency, you’re needed offworld.”
“Really Dr. Weir, Dr. Zelenka is perfectly…”
“Shut up, Rodney!” Sheppard’s voice joined them and cut across his objection. “Radek is hurt and Carson is trapped. Get down here now!” McKay threw the Ancient device he was holding across the room and wished he knew Czech. Radek’s curses always sounded so much better. Fear for the two men overrode every other emotion and he was grabbing up gear and running for the Gateroom.
“I’m there.”
Radek was hurt but not trapped and the medical team was already working on him by the time Sheppard, McKay and three technicians got to the site. He’d been hit in the head hard enough to leave him unconscious, the words ‘skull fracture’ barely discernable among the flurry of medical babble. Rodney’s gut clenched, hearing it as they rushed past. Just inside the door he came to a halt, confused by the sight of Carson standing against the wall when he was supposed to be hurt. For a minute he thought it had all been a ruse to get him to relent. Except that when he looked more closely Carson wasn’t really standing and the people near him weren’t just talking to him, they were holding him up and there was a stain on his uniform that was getting larger right before Rodney’s eyes.
Carson had long since lost touch with the world around him, impaled against the wall, hanging by his shoulder. Rodney’s mind took in the details, how Carson’s feet dangled just above the floor, the blood that dripped off his fingertips forming a small pool by his left foot, the pale, gaunt face of the doctor as it lay against a grayclad shoulder.
“Now what have you gotten yourself into?” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. The quiet words hung in the silence and then Carson looked at him, confused, relieved, “Here?…”
They’d done a survey of the facility and it seemed to be arranged with most of the treatment rooms in a central core. Scanner readings hadn’t shown anything unusual until this room was searched. The readings weren’t energy, at least not ZPM energy. It was low level and coming from one device. Carson localized it to a probe that was sticking out of a boxy white assembly mounted on the end of a swinging arm that hung from the ceiling.
Beckett pulled a cart over to hold his tool kit and started to work on removing the cone-shaped housing that looked to be the business end of the device. “Be careful, Doc.” The marine assigned to him wasn’t sure he liked Beckett tinkering with a strange piece of technology.
“I’m reading no power to this room and the Ancient gene doesn’t do any good. I think it’s safe.” He pushed the head back a foot or two and raised it up to get a better look at the assembly. It was simple, just a few screws and the odd array of purplish metal fins, all arranged in parallel were visible. The blades tapered towards the front end, matching the inside of the housing he’d laid on the table. The readings were stronger with the cone gone. Carson frowned and briefly wondered if maybe it had been some sort of shielding, but even though they were stronger, it still wasn’t enough to be alarming. He turned to reach for a smaller screwdriver when something cracked overhead. By the time he’d turned back around, the blades were plowing through his shoulder, spiking him to the wall behind.
“Of course I’m here.” Crossing over Rodney set his tools down beside the two marines who were trying to keep Carson’s weight off his injured shoulder. “Who else is going to get you out of this?” His voice shook along with his hands. He couldn’t stand to look in those eyes, the same eyes that would flash, blue and laughing, through his mind at odd moments. But now the color seemed to be running out of them and with it, the future. He looked down, only to see Carson’s life collecting in a pool on the dusty floor of the long ago hospital. Up meant eyes that were pathetically grateful that he was even here. He felt as if he’d driven the metal through Carson’s shoulder himself. Fingers ghosted against his hand. He looked up anyway. “Of course I’m here.”
Two hours of forcing himself to take it slowly and carefully, and finally, FINALLY, they were ready. Rodney turned to the marines holding onto the boxy head of the device, “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to remove the last pin holding the head to the probe. When I do, don’t let the weight shift. We need to slide them apart carefully so we don’t do any more damage. Once we get the head moved out of the way we can free him from the wall.” It had taken dissecting the damn thing from the inside to get this far. Carson had long since stopped responding to anything. His moans had grown less frequent as the blood spread. As much as Rodney knew it was a bad sign, it had made his work easier. Every little shift or jostle had been agony for the doctor until he’d finally begged and pleaded with Rodney to stop. The worst thing had been seeing the amount of blood collecting on the ground. The wound wouldn’t stop bleeding and he was terrified that it was an artery. Carson might bleed out before anyone could stop it.
“On three.” By this time Sheppard was one of the men helping support the doctor, he leaned his weight into Carson, pressing him harder against the wall. Rodney counted, “One…two….three!”
None of them were prepared for the whole arm to pull away from the ceiling as the head moved. The exposed guts of the treatment probe jolted in Carson’s shoulder as the heavy box slid backwards and the room echoed with screams as the sharp fins moved from side to side.
“Dammit, someone grab it, pull it away!” Carson writhed and bucked, trying to get away from the pain and the weight keeping him pinned to the wall. Each movement tore guttural screams from somewhere deep inside. Two more of the Marines grabbed the heavy arm as it swung precariously from the overhead mount, eventually they were able to slide the whole mechanism away, leaving the doctor still speared to the wall. Rodney held his head, trying to keep it still, trying to keep the wickedly sharp metal from doing any more damage. “Carson! Carson!” He was shouting, but it wasn’t enough to cut through the pain. If this kept up there was no telling what kind of damage would be done. “JOHN!”
Sheppard had thrown his weight against the doctor, trying to keep his shoulder pinned in one place. Rodney ducked his head at Carson’s shoulder, “Get it out, NOW!” Without thinking twice, John reached down and wrapped his hands around the metal sticking out of Carson’s shoulder and pulled.
The trip back to Atlantis would come back in nightmares for years. Rodney was forced to fly the jumper; the same wicked blades that had sliced through Carson’s shoulders had sliced into John’s hands, leaving him helpless. The medics worked on both men, trying to stop the bleeding but it nothing seemed to help. By the time they made it back to Atlantis the inside of the jumper looked like a slaughterhouse.
Biro was waiting with a medical team and Carson disappeared before Rodney had a chance to even leave the cockpit. John was hustled out along with him, leaving McKay and the Marines in a stunned silence staring at the carnage inside the gateship. Not knowing what else to do, Rodney knelt down and started shoving the debris into a box. His knee landed in a puddle of blood, the sticky wetness getting his attention. Using a fistful of soaked bandages, he tried to wipe it away, scrubbing harder and harder when the stain spread. Soon his actions were frantic, breaths coming in gasps, sobs finally welling up from someplace deep inside. Eventually strong hands pulled him outside, gently pried the sodden gauze from his grip and then a sharp pain in his arm dragged him down into darkness.
CHAPTER 10.
“It’s a good thing they’re both A positive or Carson would be dead, possibly Sheppard.” Rodney couldn’t place the voice immediately. The smell and sounds told him he was in the Infirmary. His head ached but it wasn’t the kind you got from a concussion, still he kept his eyes closed because being in the infirmary usually mean that opening them was going to hurt worse He tried to remember why he was here. Carson and Sheppard, his brain was fuzzy, but told him that much.
“How is Dr. Zelenka?” Another voice. Elizabeth?
“There’s a hairline fracture. He’s going to have a headache for a while, maybe some memory issues, but he’ll be fine.” Biro, Rodney thought the voice must be Dr. Biro. How the hell did Zelenka end up with a fracture? And Carson almost died? He opened his eyes. Shit, he was right, that didn’t feel good at all.
“Rodney!”
“Dr. McKay”
Biro and Weir both responded to the moan he let out as the pain behind his eyes spiked. He really wished they would be quieter right about now. Sitting up was his next mistake, as he found out, when dizziness and sweating joined the pain. He was upright, but barely.
“That wasn’t a good idea, Dr. McKay.” Biro made sure Elizabeth had Rodney by his arm before she hustled across the Infirmary and returned with a carton of apple juice. “Here, drink this. You’re hypoglycemic. You should have eaten more today.”
He downed the carton of apple juice in a few swallows and handed the empty back to the doctor, “Thank you, I’ll try to remember to order out for Chinese the next time I get called off world.” His memory of the day was coming back, aided by the sight of Radek laying on the bed next to his. Rodney’s last memory the Czech had been his body on the ground, sickly gray, with medics huddled over him. One thought led to another and he found himself sitting on the side of his bed shaking. Carson. John. It came back in vivid detail, blood, panic, anger, isolation. He was well and truly screwed. “How are they?”
Biro started to rattle of a litany of medical mumbo jumbo and for a minute Rodney was so close to killing her that he almost reached out, but then Elizabeth must have read something in his face or body language, “Could you put it in English for us?” The doctor looked nonplussed, then embarrassed.
“I think all three will make it without any permanent damage. Dr. Zelenka has a hairline fracture, but there were no complications. He mostly needs rest. Colonel Sheppard, well he cut his hands pretty badly. All together I put 58 stitches in them, but most of the cuts were shallow. One nicked a tendon and that will require PT.”
Rodney’s face had paled when she mentioned the stitches and the tendon. He’d ordered John to pull out the probe. The idea that he might have cost Sheppard his flying wasn’t something he wanted to contemplate.
“What about Carson?” There was no way to hide the fear in his voice. The ride back in the puddlejumper had been a nightmare. “There was so much blood. Nothing we did stopped it.” Elizabeth was looking at him, not really surprised at his concern. She just wondered how long he’d leave his defenses down, if it would be long enough for his friends to work back inside.
Biro frowned and shook her still only half believing what they’d done. “We had to go back to Victorian medicine, but it worked.”
Both of them looked confused “The metal in the probe is a complex mixture of an alloy and trace minerals. It was apparently used as a means of non-invasively breaking up blood clots. It emits a very weak field that disrupts platelets. The field can be enhanced when power is applied. That’s what we’re guessing the machine was.” She reached up to rub the back of her neck and stretch the muscles a little, “The inside of the probe was never meant to be in direct contact with tissue. Even without power, it managed to inhibit the clotting at the wound sites for several hours.”
“What did you mean by Victorian medicine?” Rodney was looking like he could use some blood himself and Elizabeth held onto his arm, as much for herself as to give him support. Focusing on what Biro was saying let him ignore the part of his brain that was flashing warning signs about caring too much. He was getting sucked back in, and as much as his heart wanted it, his mind was telling him what a stupendously bad idea it was.
“All of our blood products here have anticoagulant in them. He was already bleeding so much and I didn’t want to make it worse by pumping him full of blood with heparin and no clotting factors. We only have limited platelet packs, and I used them all early on without any luck, so we did it the old fashioned way, fresh whole blood.”
Rodney looked at her wide-eyed. There was a short pause as that sank in, then Biro continued, “We lost him twice during the surgery.” Even Elizabeth hadn’t known that. They sat on the bed, almost breathless at the import of what she’d said. Carson had died. Twice.
It was too much. All at once the conflicting emotions got to be too much and Rodney’s coping skills started to crash. He needed time and a place to think where no one was going to disturb him. Going back to his room would have been the sane thing to do, but his mind wasn’t going to give him any rest until he’d seen Carson and John. Rousing, McKay nodded towards the curtained off area that held Sheppard and Beckett. “I’ll be in there.”
“You really need to be resting.” Biro took his arm, intending to guide him back into bed.
“I’ll be sitting.”
“They can’t be disturbed.”
“I won’t.” Rodney continued before Biro could open her mouth to order him back to bed, “Look, I don’t even know why I’m here.”
“You were in shock, doctor, and hypoglycemic, and in case you forgot, you still aren’t supposed to be on that leg that much. You need rest.”
“So, not sick here, or wounded. I’m sitting with them.” And with that he disappeared before anything else could be said.
For the thousandth time in an hour Rodney wondered what he was doing sitting here. These were the people he’d distanced himself from. Of course being honest, which wasn’t something he was all that inclined to do when it came to feelings, it hadn’t really done any good. The damn pain hadn’t gotten any more bearable, he’d just learned to live with being miserable. So what the hell was he doing here, watching two of the main reasons for that misery sleeping off their injuries?
“McKay.”
Rodney almost jumped out of his chair when John’s raspy voice broke the silence. He looked up all wide-eyed and momentarily panicked and for one brief moment, deliriously happy to see Sheppard’s hazel eyes open and aware.
“Umm, Colonel. Good to see you awake.” He was flustered because he’d never intended to be here when John…no Sheppard…woke up. “I’ll get Cars…” and then he remembered the other patient in the room and stuttered to a stop completely derailed. John rescued him with a simple request. “Water?”
He was thirsty, but really, Rodney looked miserable and so at sea that even in a semi-drugged haze, John Sheppard recognized that the man beside his bed was drowning and threw him a lifeline. Grateful for something to do, Rodney fussed getting the drink and then found he had to hold it because Sheppard’s hands were too bandaged to manage it.
“I’m sorry” He was putting the cup down, taking the opportunity to speak without having to look John in the eye.
“What the hell are you apologizing to me for?” The both knew that John’s question wasn’t just about the here and now, but Rodney chose to ignore anything else. “I didn’t think when I told you to pull out the probe.” He gestured towards the gauze paws that rested on top of the blue infirmary blanket.
John looked at Rodney, at the way he wouldn’t make eye contact and the nervous fidgeting of his hands. He wanted to reach out and grab McKay and just yell at him for being such an idiot. As if he had anything to apologize for except maybe not letting them admit how wrong they were, but who could blame him? Sheppard wanted to rant and rave and tell him that he hadn’t done anything wrong, not any worse than what any of the rest of them had done and they all owed him much more than was reasonable for him to forgive. Instead he shrugged, “There wasn’t anything else you could do.”
Rodney heard the words and relaxed minutely. “Your hands, Biro says they’ll be alright.” John nodded. “Right.” In a previous life, before they’d all gotten so stupid, Rodney would have joked about Carson torturing him with physical therapy. Instead he just fussed with the water pitcher, pouring another cupful. The silence was so unRodney-like that it was painful to sit through. Thankfully, Dr. Biro chose that moment to bustle in, having heard their voices.
“Colonel Sheppard. Let’s have a look at those hands.” She set down the bandage tray she was carrying and set to work cutting away the gauze. “I’ll just be going.” Biro didn’t even acknowledge McKay’s statement as he made his escape, one last glance back over his shoulder at Carson still and pale on the bed and John staring at the mincemeat that had once been his hands.
“Rodney! Wake up! Rodney!” It took him a minute to realize that Elizabeth’s voice was coming from the headset on his nightstand and the other noise that had startled him awake was someone pounding on his door.
“C'ming…” He answered the door in his boxers and t-shirt, still three-quarters asleep. Leaving the infirmary, he’d gone to his lab, but that had proven pointless when one of the Engineers had found him asleep on the keyboard and called Weir to escort him home.
Anzetti, the night nurse was standing there when Rodney’s door opened. “Get your clothes on, Dr. McKay. They need you in the Infirmary.” He brushed into the physicist’s room and started tossing clothing at him, while calling Elizabeth on his earpiece, “I got him, Dr. Weir. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“You mind telling me what this is about?” The words were muffled by the shirt pulled half over his head.
“Dr. Beckett is asking for you.”
Rodney stopped dead in his tracks. Carson, asking for me. “No, I…..you need to get Dr. Biro.”
Anzetti looked up, grabbing the other man by his upper arms. “She’s already there. He’s asking for you and you’re going, if I have to drag you.” It was an order, firm but not unkind and the male nurse was burly enough to carry through on his threat. Rodney finished dressing.
By the time they marched into the infirmary, Rodney was silent and desperate to be anywhere but there. The only thing that stopped him from starting a rant right away was Biro exiting from Carson’s room. She was worried and sharp, “You’ve got one minute, maybe two, while I get ready to tube him.” Tube, a breathing tube. Inhaling sharply he made a beeline for the cubicle and stepped behind the curtains. Carson was laying there, like before, but this time there were more machines, more tubes and wires. His breathing was rapid and shallow, his lips blue tinged. The small moan that escaped Rodney made the physician open his eyes.
“You came.”
“Of course I did.” Rodney leaned against the edge of the bed, bending close to hear the faint words that Carson struggled to push out. “I dinna want …without tellin’… love ye.”
“What…no …don’t be stupid…” The voice in his head kept shouting NoNoNoNoNo! Fingers curled around his hand where it had come to rest against Carson’s.
“S’ jus’ in case.” His eyes closed and the oxygen monitor went off in a high pitched wail. Biro and her crew were swarming around the bed, pushing him out of the way in their haste. He stood in the corner of the cubicle, shaking, hands still for once, watching the breathing tube as it went down Carson’s throat, listening to the ticking of the vent as it took over breathing, hearing Anzetti call out oxygen sat numbers until they started rising.
When the chaos subsided, he found himself sitting with Weir and Sheppard, who had been released earlier in the day, waiting for news. The longer they sat, the more awkward it became. Rodney was never good at hiding his emotions and his face told them more than they wanted to know when he stumbled out from Carson’s room. Elizabeth finally asked, “Rodney, is there anything we can do?”
He tried to muster up the energy to answer her but it just wouldn’t come. As angry and hurt as he’d been feeling for the last few weeks, it was nothing compared to the fear that was sitting in his chest, making it hard to breathe. He was going to lose Carson and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Worse, he’d wasted whatever time they might have had together.
He shook his head and the three settled in to wait. Eventually, John left and returned with one of the night guards carrying three coffees. “Here, you look like you could use it.” The warmth in his hand was comforting; it seemed like the infirmary was always cold or maybe it was the endless sitting that did it. When Biro finally came to talk with them she scowled at the infirmary blanket Elizabeth had draped over his shoulders. One of those oddly misplaced thoughts that happen under stress, popped into Rodney’s head. After just a day of the pathologist filling in for Carson he could understand why she did all the autopsies.
“What the hell happened!” Rodney was on his feet, demanding answers as soon as the doctor made her appearance. John jumped up to grab him, forgetting about his own injuries. “Damn!” Everyone stopped, watched him curl around one hand in pain. Biro was on him in an instant, cursing under her breath, “Idiots! Carson owes me for this!” She filled them in as she checked the stitches.
“Respiratory Distress Syndrome…” She cutaway the gauze wrapped around Sheppard’s palms. “It’s common in severe trauma patients, especially with massive blood loss. I was hoping we’d get lucky.”
“And?” Rodney glared, Weir waited patiently, Sheppard gritted his teeth as she probed at one small area of bleeding. The woman drove them all crazy making them ask for answers to questions that were obvious. “Is he going to be okay?”
“The fatality rate is 30 to 40%, but we caught it early. He has a chance.”
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