Reconquista (5/5)
Part 5
John woke up to a jumble of voices shouting and hissing at each other. He tensed instantly, then threw his head back in pain. His body was ripping in half, the skin stretching and snapping like rubberbands. The voices grew louder, a blur of hands and arms overhead blocking most of his sight.
Surgery. Bomb. They were doing it again. He saw a flash of dark hair out of the corner of his eye, and he flinched, moaning at the sensation of his stomach tearing into a gaping hole.
“Blood pressure’s dropping,” a woman’s voice snapped out, and others answered her with sharp yells and rough hands stripping off his clothes. He began to shake, the air brushing against his skin ice cold, and the pain ratcheted up another notch.
“He’s in shock,” a man said. The doctor from Hoff? Maybe. John couldn’t tell. He blinked open his eyes long enough to see hands descending toward his face, and then something hard was pressed against his mouth, smelling of bottled air and plastic.
“Pulse is weak and thready.”
“Get him hooked up to the monitor. And we many need to intubate.”
“No urine output.”
“We need to move quickly.” It was the man again, John thought, and the quick, muttered responses made it sound like he was in charge.
“Surgical bay is ready, Doctor Beckett. Doctor Keller is prepped and waiting.”
“I need those lab results back ASAP.”
Beckett? John dragged in a deep breath, twisting his head to dislodge the thing on his face. A woman leaned forward, her dark hair falling around her face and his eyes widened in panic.
“Doctor, he’s awake,” she said, and it took another second for him to recognize Marie-Atlantis’ head nurse. Not Shiana. But if Marie was here, then that meant…
“John,” Carson was suddenly looking down at him, his fingers pressing gently into the side of his head.
John blinked, his eyes watering from being open and fighting the constant, overwhelming pain and exhaustion. Carson had been there, in the tunnel, cutting him open. Had it worked?
“Easy, son,” the doctor was saying, his voice calm and steady. Carson wouldn’t be relaxed if there was a live bomb still sitting in his gut, would he? John didn’t think so. He licked his lips, blinking again and trying to ride out the cresting agony in his stomach.
“We’re home, in Atlantis,” Carson said. “We’re about to wheel you into surgery.”
“Ready now, Doctor.”
Carson glanced up and nodded to someone out of sight, then turned his attention back to John. “You relax and let us get you through this, alright? You’ve been through enough already.”
“Lab results are in,” someone called out.
John flinched, then groaned.
“Let’s go,” Carson said.
The bed began to shift, the ceiling rolling past. It wasn’t fast, he didn’t think, but it was enough for his head to pulse and whirl like he’d just stepped off one of those spinning carnival rides he’d loved when he was younger. Sometime in the last minute or so, someone had spread a sheet over him, and while it did nothing to combat the cold, he grabbed onto it, trying to ground himself.
“We’re almost there, John.” Carson spoke as he walked, keeping a warm hand on John’s forehead. The lights changed, growing brighter as his gurney was wheeled into the operating room, and another face appeared above him.
“Hello, Colonel,” she said, and despite the mask and head-to-toe covering in surgical garb, he recognized Jennifer Keller. “We won’t be long-we’re just going to tie up a few loose ends, alright?”
There was another mumble of voices around him, then cold liquid raced up his arm, muting the pain. He felt his eyes grow heavy as the rest of his body went numb, and he finally let them flutter closed as dozens of hands swarmed around him.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
John drifted, but it wasn’t until the darkness started to separate out into different shades that he realized he wasn’t dreaming. The shadows took on distinct edges-a wall, a curtain, a cupboard. There was a soft blue glow and the buzz of machinery around him, and he felt like he’d been asleep for a very long time.
He waited, content to wallow in the dark shadows. Pain was a distant memory, still there beneath the surface but easily pushed aside. He was lying on a bed, his head raised slightly on a soft pillow and turned to one side. He blinked, and the shadows came into focus a little more. He heard a rhythmic pumping sound somewhere close by, and felt his chest rise and fall in concert with it. Only then did he feel the breathing tube in his mouth and throat, and another tube tugging at his right nostril, but he was too exhausted to do anything but file away the information for later.
Beneath the sound of the ventilator, John heard rough breathing next to him. It was steady and deep and a little louder on the inhale, though not quite outright snoring. Ronon. He would recognize that anywhere. John’s head was stuck fast in a crease in the pillow, the muscles in his neck too weak to turn or lift his head, and his arms two-ton weights beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of dread locks slumped in a chair next to the bed.
“Colonel?” a voice whispered, padding quietly from around a curtain and blocking his view of Ronon. “Thought I saw that you were awake.” She tugged at the bedsheet and pressed the cool disc of a stethoscope against his chest.
John blinked, feeling himself sinking back toward sleep. As the woman checked him over, the pain in his body started to grow, demanding more and more of his attention. In the soft glow of light from behind him, John recognized one of the ICU nurses as she leaned forward and adjusted one of the machines behind him.
She glanced down, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. “Are you in pain?” she whispered. Ronon’s breath caught, and he grunted before settling back to sleep. The pain in John’s torso turned sharp and burning, spreading out from his middle to race up his neck and down his legs. He frowned, and the nurse squeezed his arm.
“Doctor Cole is on her way. Just relax, sir.”
John blinked, but the effort to keep his eyes open was too much. He let go, willing himself to fall asleep before the pain really picked up.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The next time he remembered waking up, it was daytime, and he was surrounded by a half dozen people. They babbled quietly to each other, but it was still loud enough to push back sleep and draw him up to full consciousness. He frowned, feeling the tube in his throat and nose, and while he wasn’t quite gagging on them, he swallowed instinctively against the pressure.
“John?” Carson separated out from the crowd of scrubbed personnel around him, resting a hand on his arm.
John blinked, any response he might have made hindered by the continued presence of the ventilator. His stomach felt like someone had taken a grinder to it, churning up raw meat. Carson called out to the group around him, and then Marie was stepping forward with a syringe, injecting it into the IV port on his left arm.
The agony abated, giving way for other sensations to move in. He was stifling hot and he shoved the thin sheet pulled up to this chest down toward his waist with his left hand. His right arm felt heavy, and he caught a glimpse of a blue cast from elbow to knuckles before the world spun and blurred out of focus.
The babble around him increased. Carson wanted something done about his fever, and Marie murmured an apology as she drew blood for more tests. Something cool was pressed against his forehead and he felt himself relax slightly.
“We’re still showing a low urine output,” someone called out.
John watched Carson nod, scratching the side of his jaw. “Continue with dialysis for now, and let’s run another scan this afternoon.”
The doctor looked haggard and unshaven, possibly even more tired than John felt. He leaned forward, patting John’s arm. “I’m just going to check the incision, lad.” Without waiting for a response, he peeled back the bandage and began fingering John’s chest and stomach.
Had Marie not just upped his pain meds, John might have screamed. Instead, he felt the pressure of Carson’s fingers around the incision but little pain. Half of the nurses around him left, and the room grew quiet enough for him to hear a monitor beeping rapidly close by.
Carson straightened, then gave John a small smile. “You’re doing better. Keep fighting.”
John’s chest rose and fell with the ventilator, and that seemed an apt enough response. The nurses returned, spreading a heavy cooling blanket over the top of him and dampening the overwhelming heat.
His strength drained away abruptly, and despite Carson’s urging, he drifted off again.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
John blinked and it was night, the infirmary dark and quiet. He blinked again, and Carson was leaning over him, muttering as he checked one thing and another. Then it was Keller, then another nurse, then Carson again, then no one, then three or four people at once. Sometimes it was a member of his team; sometimes all of his team.
Time passed in a haze, and he was only sure time was actually moving forward the morning he woke up without the ventilator. He licked his lips, swallowed what little saliva he could work up, and reveled in the relative freedom of a nasal cannula.
“Colonel, you’re awake again,” a woman said brightly, breezing into his room. Not a room really, just a bed curtained off on three sides to give him a bit of privacy. He looked up at her, grateful when he managed to roll his head a little on the pillow and follow her movements. “I was just about to come check on you.”
He recognized her from the other times he’d woken up, but her name escaped him. She listened to his breathing, checked his incision, temperature, blood pressure, and a myriad of tubes and bags all over the bed.
“Your fever’s down to 101.4. Doctor Beckett and Doctor Keller will be happy to hear that,” she said.
She was watching him, and he wondered if she was waiting for a reply of some kind. He managed an incoherent grunt and then squirmed on the bed, looking for a more comfortable position.
“How’s your pain level right now? You’re not due for another dose for a few hours, but if it’s bad…” Her voice trailed off as he shook his head.
“No,” he mumbled. “M’…okay.” He licked his lips again, his throat parched.
“Alright, sir. Would you like some water?”
She smiled at his nod, then patted his arm, assuring him she’d be right back. He closed his eyes, the hum of the infirmary around him lulling him back to sleep. At the patter of approaching footsteps, he forced his eyes open again, expecting the nurse.
“John, it is good to see you awake,” Teyla said, stepping into his cubicle. She lifted a glass of water and held the straw to his lips without prompting. He sucked in the water, sighing in relief after it splashed down his throat.
“Thanks,” he rasped.
She smiled and set the glass on the table next to him. Heads poked around the curtain and peered in at him-Ronon and Rodney.
“Sheppard,” Rodney greeted, “you look… um… healthy…”
Ronon rolled his eyes, a small grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey,” John answered.
“I just need to-hey!” Carson exclaimed as he stepped into John’s cubicle and almost barreled into Ronon. “What are you lot doing back here? How many times have I told you no more than one person at a time?” He glared at each of them, but the look of exasperation dropped when he met John’s gaze. “You’re awake!”
They shuffled around, Carson making his way around Ronon and Rodney to John’s other side. While the doctor checked him over, repeating what the nurse had done only moments earlier, his team busied themselves with widening the curtain barriers and doubling the size of his “room.” By the time they were done, John breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a little less crowded.
“You had a close call, there’s no question of that,” Carson was saying, and John dragged his attention back to the doctor. “You’re still running a bit of a fever, but we’ve got it on the run now. Kidney function is back within normal range as well.”
“Huh?”
“Ach, sorry. I’ve been telling so many people your condition, I forgot I haven’t laid it all out for you.”
And so he did, making John wish he could sink back into the bed and disappear. The severity of his condition was not lost on him. His snapshots of lucidity had represented a mad dash through the tunnels of the mountain fortress, two surgeries-one in Daet and one in Atlantis-followed by four days in a medically induced coma fighting off peritonitis and teetering on the brink of sepsis. Even after he’d been brought out of that, he’d still been in critical condition, technically awake for another four days though he remembered little of them.
Carson checked the incision last and frowned at the sight.
“What’s wrong?” John asked.
He jerked his head up, then shook it. “Nothing, sorry. It still shocks me, what they did to you.”
His team had finished with their cubicle renovations, and they stood quietly in the corner, waiting for Carson to finish. All three of their faces flushed with anger.
“The scarring will be bad, I’m afraid,” Carson continued. “It should fade a little with time, but not much.”
Teyla stepped forward, grabbing onto John’s fingers below his cast. “My people have a lotion that is said to help with such scars. I will see if I can get a hold of it for you, if you’d like.”
“’Kay,” he mumbled, still reeling a little from what he’d missed over the last week.
“How’s your appetite? Can I get you anything to eat?”
John shook his head immediately. His whole body felt a little numb, a testament to the drugs running through his veins, but one thing he knew for sure. He was definitely not hungry.
“I didn’t think so,” Carson sighed. “Let us know when you are hungry and we can get you some food, maybe even take the NG tube out.”
John twitched his nose, feeling the slight pull on his nostril. The nasal cannula beneath it was delivering a steady stream of oxygen and he breathed in deeply.
“I’ll give you all a few minutes with him, but that’s it. You’ve still got a good long recovery ahead of you, lad, and you need your rest.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Ronon said, clapping him on the shoulder. They shuffled around again, but it was a little easier with the extra space. Ronon and Rodney produced extra chairs, and they both plopped down and threw their feet up on the bed.
“How’d…get back here?” John asked when they were all settled. He cleared his throat, frowning at the weakness of his voice.
“Once we blew the door, we made a run for the trees. Lorne was there with a jumper, whisked us back to safety,” Rodney answered.
“Others? Halling and everyone?”
“They came back to Atlantis with us first, and then went back to their own worlds.”
“And I have heard from the others who came to the courtroom that they have all now returned safely to their own worlds.”
“Good,” John whispered. He felt tension unwind from his chest. He wasn’t sure he could have lived with good people dying because they’d come to show their support for him. The memory of the trial flashed through his mind, as well as all of the people who’d stood up against the judges.
He rolled his head toward Ronon, suddenly smiling. “You did it.”
“What?”
“Trial,” John said. “Remember it, the end. You won.”
“McKay blew up the courtroom before we got to that part,” Ronon said.
John shook his head. “No, saw it in their faces. Most of the judges… you convinced… them…”
His voice gave out, dissolving into a dry hack. Teyla moved quickly, holding the glass of water to his lips. He sucked as much of the liquid as he could through the straw before she pulled it away from him, and he groaned in despair.
“Not too much too quickly,” she chided.
He swallowed the water slowly, realizing a second later that Teyla was right. His stomach felt uncomfortably full now. He blinked in exhaustion, feeling weakness permeate his body, but he was unwilling to let this moment with his team go.
“Glad everyone’s okay,” he whispered.
“When you are feeling stronger, you have a number of gifts to enjoy,” Teyla said, pushing his hair back from his forehead.
“Gifts?”
“From our allies. You’d think it was Christmas or something,” Rodney said.
“Word has spread about this trial and what was done to you. I believe they wish to express their support of you and of Atlantis.”
“What kind… stuff?”
“Plants,” Ronon answered. “Fruit. Weird statues.”
“Oh.”
“Fruit baskets,” Rodney piped up. “We travel to a different galaxy and the natives shower us with fruit baskets. What is wrong with this universe?”
“I thought you liked them,” Ronon said.
“It’s not that,” Rodney huffed. “It’s just… fruit baskets.”
Ronon turned to John, a glint in his eye. “He’s already eaten three of them.”
“I did not… eat all of them.”
John grinned, relaxing as his team teased and chatted around him. His eyes were growing heavy, but he blinked fast, a sudden thought occurring to him.
“Wait,” he said, interrupting Ronon and Rodney’s debate over which basket had been the best so far. “What about… judges? What happened?”
“The Coalition is taking a strong stance against them, and against Daet for hosting the trial,” Teyla answered, once again holding his fingers poking out of the cast. “They believe only a few were behind the entire affair to begin with, and they want to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
“In part because the trial was an attempt to gain popular appeal and steal power away from the Coalition,” Rodney huffed.
John nodded. He felt his stomach tighten at the question he needed to ask next, but part of him wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with it.
Ronon seemed to read his mind. He dropped his feet to the floor with a thud and leaned forward, clamping a hand over John’s arm. “Shiana’s dead.”
Breath whooshed out of his lungs, and both Ronon and Teyla tightened their grips on him. “Sure?”
“Yeah. She chased us out of the mountain, probably would have shot me in the back if you hadn’t shot first.”
“Don’t remember that.”
Ronon nodded. “You got her in the leg. She was getting back up, but it was enough time for Lorne to take care of it. I saw her go down, John.”
A pain throbbed suddenly, deep in his chest. Was he relieved she was dead? He wasn’t sure. Relieved that she couldn’t do this to him or anyone else again definitely, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted her dead. She’d been driven to insanity by her grief. Maybe it was good she was dead-no longer in pain at least from what the Asurans had ripped away from her.
“John?” Teyla’s voice was soft and worried. He realized he was trembling slightly and he worked to get himself under control. He wasn’t cold, but he said nothing when Rodney stood and retrieved a blanket, then helped spread it over him.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
“Sure,” Rodney said with a shrug.
“No, I mean… thanks, for everything. The trial, getting out of there, all the people who came. Saving my life.” He looked at all of them, his mind racing. He’d wanted to say more but his mind had gone blank as soon as he’d started talking.
They smiled-Teyla looking genuinely happy and Ronon proud. Rodney crossed his arms, looking slightly uncomfortable but pleased in a way only he could pull off.
“I owe you all,” John finished, his cheeks reddening a little. It sounded lame, but he was tired and starting to hurt, and that was a good enough excuse for him.
“Yeah, you do,” Rodney said, rocking on his feet. “Carson did mention it would be some time before you’re back on your feet. Maybe a little Earth-side vacation is in order.” He paused, letting a small smile slip. “On your dime, of course.”
John grinned, stifling a yawn. “Anything you want,” he said.
“A cruise,” Ronon answered immediately.
“Excuse me?”
“I want to do one of those cruise things on a boat. Like in the magazines.”
Rodney scowled at him. “We live on a giant floating cruise ship. Take a walk down the hall and call that a cruise.”
“Doesn’t look like the ones in the magazines,” Ronon said, folding his arms.
“What could you possibly find appealing in a cruise, based entirely on pictures from some magazine?”
Ronon looked at John, then shifted his gaze back to Rodney, a glint in his eye.
“I still don’t get… oh, wait. Do you mean women?”
Ronon said nothing, but a slow grin spread across his face. Rodney turned to John, pointing at their teammate. “Cruise is a good idea. But not to the Caribbean. Or anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle, because that is just asking for trouble. Where should we go? Alaska? No, that’s too cold this time of year. Oh, we should invite Carson, too! My sister went on a Princess Cruise-”
“I’m not going on a Princess Cruise,” Ronon interjected.
“What? Why not? Because of the name? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What other ones do they have?”
Rodney blew out his breath, staring up at the ceiling as he searched his memory. “There’s a Norwegian something or other, Royal Caribbean, Carnival…”
“Carnival. I want to do that one.”
“You can’t just pick a cruise based on the name of the cruise ship company. These things require careful research and planning. There are a lot of factors you have to consider, like food and safety records and cost-well, I guess we don’t have to consider cost so much…”
John turned toward Teyla, squeezing her fingers until she leaned closer. He lowered his voice as Ronon and Rodney continued their discussion. “You don’t have to do this cruise thing if you don’t want to.”
Teyla smiled, pressing her forehead to his for a brief second. “I would not miss it, although perhaps we should invite Jennifer as well, to keep Rodney out of trouble.”
John grinned back. “Good idea,” he said. He sucked in another deep breath, feeling the aches and pains accrued over the last couple of weeks spreading throughout his body. Sleep beckoned, and he blinked in response as it began to pull him under. He squeezed Teyla’s hand one last time. “A little downtime with friends sounds perfect.”
END