Title - Cold Comfort (6/6)
McKay raised his head. Bits of glass and metal and smouldering leaves were raining down from the sky.
“That was-“ He shook his head. “What was that?”
“An explosion,” Ronon said, pushing up from the floor.
“No, not that. That!” he said, waving his hand towards the door.
“Something I never want to see again,” Teyla said, checking and re-checking her weapon.
McKay looked up at the building. The blast had been contained within the halls but it had blown out the level above. Smoke was billowing out from the windows.
“We should leave.”
Sheppard lifted his head from the ground. “Is everyone okay?”
The kids were lying down next to Ronon. One by one they lifted their heads. None of them appeared to be harmed.
“That was cool!” one of them shouted.
“Cool? You’ve been hanging around with Sheppard too much,” McKay said. “I think you’ve burst my ear drums. You could have warned me!”
“Didn’t really have much warning ourselves,” Sheppard said.
The sun was beginning to rise. At least they wouldn’t be walking back to the gate in the dark. McKay wiped his hands on his pants and Teyla helped him up to his feet.
Sheppard sat up slowly. “Rodney, Teyla you head towards the gate. We’ll follow.”
McKay gave him a pointed stare. Then he said, “Oh right. You just want to leave these kids with me again.”
“No,” Ronon said, wiping blood from his cheek. “We want to make sure nothing comes out.”
“Oh.”
Sheppard said, “You’re welcome to stay.”
“Oh no, no. That’s fine.” McKay said.
0000
They’d deliberately given the others a fifteen minute head start. Okay, so they had needed to check that nothing came out of the building, but also Sheppard was in agony and he didn’t want the kids to see him struggling or worse collapsing before they got back to the gate. They were going to be distressed as it was when they discovered they were leaving this world without their parents.
They reached the edge of the tree line. Beyond that was a clearing where the gate was situated. Ronon lowered Sheppard down to the ground.
“That fireman lift never get’s old.”
Ronon massaged his shoulder. “You put on some weight, Sheppard?”
Sheppard went to make some sarcastic remark, but stopped when he noticed the blood covering Ronon’s shoulder.
“They’ll wait to dial until we’re there,” Sheppard said.
Ronon splashed water from his canteen onto his arm to wash off some of the blood. When he’d done that he ripped off a strip of his top and doused it with water. “I know.”
Sheppard took a peek at his stomach. It didn’t look good.
“So, we ahhh.” He turned his face away from the cloth that had been forced into his face. “What are you doing?”
“Like you said, they’re gonna wait. I’m just cleaning you up.”
“I look that bad?”
“Thought you didn’t want to scare the kids?”
Sheppard pushed him away again.
“You’ve got blood all over your face.”
Sheppard allowed him to wipe it off. Ronon checked on his stomach and then zipped up his tac vest. He adjusted Sheppard’s t-shirt so it covered his wound and finally attempted to spike his hair up.
Sheppard shirked away again. “Stop it!”
“Looking a little flat,” Ronon said, with a smirk. “You ready?”
0000
As the shield dropped, Keller adjusted her face mask and waited patiently for her patients to step through. She’d been briefed on the children’s and Sheppard’s condition and had decided to set up a quarantine area next to the gate room. They could be filtered down the corridor to minimise their contact with other members of the expedition.
When the first of the children stepped through the gate, no alarms blared and the gate room didn’t go into lockdown. Confirmed that the masks should be good enough, she moved to intercept them.
When everyone was through, the children seemed to get agitated. They formed a circle around Sheppard. One of the girls reached for his hand and his mouth twisted in discomfort when he turned to look at her.
“It’s okay,” she heard him say as she approached. “You’re safe here.”
Sheppard ushered her over.
Ronon managed to get the kids to move away, but they wouldn’t leave without him and hovered at the edge of the steps, waiting for him to follow.
“Colonel?”
“Hey doc,” he said, turning his back to the kids. “I’ve got a little problem.”
She raised her eyebrows as he unzipped his vest with shaking hands.
“What seems to be the - oh my!” she said, as he lifted his t-shirt.
“I didn’t want to freak the kids out. Enough’s gone on today without them catching a glimpse of my insides.” He was going for light-hearted, but she could tell that he was worried.
“Okay, we need to-“
One of the kids suddenly pushed passed Ronon and ran towards them. Keller zipped his top up to hide the wound as the little girl reached for the colonel’s hand again.
“I’m scared. Where are we?” the girl asked.
Sheppard smoothed back the hair on her forehead. “This is where I live. So it’s safe.”
“They want us to go to a room with them. Will you come? I don’t want to go alone.”
Sheppard gave the kid a withering look. It was obvious that he was struggling to remain upright.
“That’s fine,” Keller said. She motioned for Ronon and without a word he took Sheppard’s other arm. “I’ll go on ahead.”
Sheppard nodded and she took off towards the infirmary. She caught one of the staff nurses in the corridor. “Casey, I need you to get those kids into a separate room from the colonel. We’ll need to get prepped for surgery. I want some O neg on standby and get Doctor Vasquez down here. I’ll need a GI consultant on this one.”
0000
Sheppard was operating on autopilot now. He was beyond tired and all he wanted to do was close his eyes. Ronon shook his shoulder and he realised he’d been listing to the side. Desla pulled hard on his hand as she walked ahead. Now that she was confident that she was safe, she was excited to see where they were going. Sheppard couldn’t blame her. He just wished she’d let go of his hand because with every tug his side was protesting.
When he entered the infirmary, Casey prised Desla out of his hand. “Come on Sweetie. I’m going to take you through to your friends.”
“You’re coming too?” Desla asked him.
“I’ll be through later. I just need to get checked over by the doctor.”
She still wasn’t budging.
“It’s okay,” he said. He leaned into Ronon, as his head began to swim.
McKay and Teyla appeared in his peripheral. There was movement behind him. They were gearing up to take him to surgery.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, finally pulling his hand free.
Desla looked up at him. “Are you still feeling sick?”
“Yeah.”
“You should take a nap,” she said, patting his arm.
Then without argument, she followed Casey through to the connecting room.
At that moment he legs started going and Ronon managed to catch him.
“Are you okay?” McKay asked, as Keller started stripping him of his vest.
“Woah,” McKay said. “That’s not okay.”
Sheppard looked down. There was blood everywhere. His pants were soaked and his t-shirt was saturated. He blinked and tried to clear his vision.
“Sheppard!” Teyla called out and he was suddenly looked up at the ceiling. How had that happened?
He was aware of McKay talking over them all and Keller pressing her hands against his stomach just before he blacked out.
0000
He didn’t know how long he’d been out for and part of him didn’t want to wake up to find out. For the moment he was warm and comfortable and all he wanted to do was sleep.
“He’s waking up.”
“His hand moved.”
Sheppard cracked one eye open and looked to his side. There were seven sets of eyes staring up at him from the floor. When Desla saw that he was awake, she propelled herself at him and hugged him around the neck.
“We thought you’d sleep forever.”
“I’m okay,” he said. But as Desla moved away an alarm started blaring. He went to get up, panic rising, until he noticed she’d dislodged one of the wires on his chest.
The curtain swept back and Keller put her hand on her chest. “Oh god!” she said. “I thought-“
Sheppard held up the wire as she switched the machine off.
“Now,” she said, turning to the kids. “I told you that the colonel needs his rest. You’re supposed to be in your own beds.”
“But he was waking up.”
“But nothing,” she said. “Bed.”
One by one they dispersed. Sheppard closed his eyes and sighed.
“They haven’t left your side since you were bought back in.”
“How am I doing?”
“You are incredibly lucky,” she said. “Besides needing a blood transfusion, it was a fairly simple procedure.”
She stared at him. He sighed. “I know you’re pissed off but I was trying not to scare the kids.”
“Children are surprisingly resilient.”
Sheppard was beginning to realise that. “How’re they doing?”
She checked his stats while she spoke. “They’re doing well and responding to antibiotic treatments.”
“And me?”
“You’re also responding well.”
“Nobody else got sick did they?”
She placed the dislodged wire back onto his chest and switched the machine back on. “No. It turns out it’s easily treatable with broad spectrum antibiotics.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed,” she said, grinning.
“No. Relieved.“ And he was. He could feel the last vestiges of tension seeping away. “At least it’s a good starting point for a trade.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“What happens now?”
“You stay here and get better. You’re no longer contagious so you’re fine to have visitors.”
“We need to contact-“
“Already done. The children are going home tomorrow.”
The curtain whipped back and Ronon stood there, arms crossed over his chest.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Keller said, pulling the curtain closed around them.
Ronon smiled.
“What?”
“McKay’s pissed.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“Feels outta the loop.” Ronon leaned against the bed. “Kids shouldn’t see that. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah. I just wish I’d done the right thing for the others.”
“If you hadn’t been there none of them would have lived.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The power failed. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Still…”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Get some rest.” He patted his leg through the blanket. You look like crap.”
“Thanks.”
“And don’t worry about McKay. He’ll get over it.”
0000
Ronon closed the curtain around Sheppard’s bed. He’d have to find McKay and put him straight. Sheppard was feeling bad enough as it was without him being guilted about hiding his injury. Besides, he hadn’t hidden it. Ronon and Teyla knew about it and he wouldn’t have let anything happen to him. Sometimes you had to protect the people around you. There was no sense in those kids being distressed and McKay being distracted when they needed to get out of there quickly.
Besides, labelling Sheppard irresponsible was labelling him the same.
He noticed Desla sitting on the edge of her bed. She was staring at the closed curtain.
“What are you doing?”
Her focus didn’t waver. “Watching the colonel.”
“Why?”
“He watched us while we slept to look after us from the ghost. And now he needs looking after. Do you have ghosts here?”
Ronon sat on the edge of the bed and looked in the same direction. “No ghosts.”
“Still. He should have someone looking after him.”
She had a point. “Mind if I stay with you?”