Fic: The Human Body VI: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Title: The Human Body VI:
Author: smallwaldo
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Pairing: Sheppard/Beckett
Words: 3925
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: He felt like he was thirteen with his first crush all over again when Carson smiled at him like that. “They teach you how to avoid answering questions directly in medical school?”
Notes: Post-"Condemned" story. Makes a brief reference to events in the fifth story, HB V: Killing off a Few Liver Cells. And of course, Do We Need a Rabbit?, gets shoved down another place and becomes HB VII.
Now that everyone had been tended to, Carson was able to catch up on his notes. He pulled a chair over to Colonel Sheppard’s bedside and pulled up Rodney’s file first. McKay, Rodney: Bruises on his left shoulder and arm, low blood sugar, minor abrasions on neck and wrists. Discharged with oral pain meds as needed, ice for sore shoulder. Despite his protestations his teeth are fine, no evidence of endocarditis found.
Teyla had been cleared quickly and easily. A few bumps and bruises from the crash and fighting the Wraith, but nothing that needed his attention.
Dex, Ronon. Carson sighed. The man insisted that he was fine, but a hole in the ankle and slight concussion said otherwise. Tears to right achillies tendon, skin punctures to same ankle through and through, forehead contusion, mild concussion. Monitor in infirmary for at least twenty-four hours. Pain meds as needed, full course of antibiotics, change the dressing on the ankle each day. No sparring or exercise that would stress the ankle for one to two weeks. He knew the runner would love him for that one. Though interestingly enough, he also knew that Ronon would follow his instructions to letter. Recheck in three days.
Sheppard, John. Carson sighed. A bit of bad timing during the race through the gate had made John’s first concussion much worse as he was blown off his feet and landed on his head and back about twenty feet from the gate on the hard gateroom floor. “Teammate reports loss of consciousness following jumper crash, most likely due to head impacting control panel. Patient was alert and responsive several minutes after impact. Initial head trauma complicated by additional head trauma when coming through the gate. Also notable severely contused left knee, back and left elbow. Severe bruising noted on both shoulders and across chest, also likely from impact with jumper control panel. Patient was rendered unconscious after second head trauma. Scans reveal no obvious neck or skull fractures, though there may be a bone bruise above the right eye. Three hours post-trauma, patient has not regained consciousness. Additional comments: minor abrasions to neck and wrists. Treatment plan: monitor in infirmary, neurological checks hourly, anti-inflamitories and ice for swelling, pain management upon awakening.
Carson tapped his stylus against the edge of the tablet. The compound head trauma was a concern. This was hardly John’s first bump in the head, but to have lost consciousness from two separate injuries so close together was likely as not to produce some pretty significant complications. He opened the file again. Possible complications to be on the alert for: nausea, double vision, loss of memory. He hesitated before adding cognitive impairment.
He closed the file and leaned his elbow on John’s bed. “What have ya done to yourself this time?” he asked quietly.
He didn’t expect the quiet, “the floor di’ it,” from near his elbow.
Carson jumped up and grabbed his penlight, ruffling John’s hair as he tilted his head. “So, you’ve finally decided to join us, have you?” He pulled John’s sluggish eyelid up and shone his penlight in, which earned him a decidedly unhappy groan and got his hand slapped back.
“Don’ do that,” John complained.
“You’ve had a serious head trauma; you’re in for a full neurological workup. If you pass it, I’ll let you go back to sleep.” Carson tried not to sound too brusque, but it was difficult to separate the patient in front of him with the man he’d been getting more and more involved with.
“What happened?” John asked groggily, trying to focus on Carson.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Carson said moving down to toss the sheet back and test the reflexes in his knees.
John winced as his leg jerked and then his memory caught up with him, “Don’t do that to my other knee!” he said urgently.
Carson squeezed his calf. “I wasn’t planning on it. Can you move that leg at all?”
John nodded, “Of cour-“ He was cut off as he attempted to bend his swollen knee and found it quite uncooperative and more painful than he would have expected. “Okay, maybe not,” he shifted gears.
Carson just nodded and went over to check John’s babinski reflexes and then covered his feet up when John started to complain of cold toes. Moving back to his head he asked quietly, “I don’t suppose you can tell me your name and rank?” John did so. “Know where you are?” John muttered several unkind things that ended with “Atlantis infirmary” so Carson let the slander pass. “Know who I am?” he asked.
John looked around the room and it took Carson a minute to realize that John was looking around to see who was nearby before answering. Carson smiled, knowing the kind of answer that was on the tip of John’s tongue. “Before you decide to share anything you weren’t meaning to, Ronon’s in the bed right across from yours,” he cautioned.
John smirked. “Fine, Doctor Beckett.”
Carson gently mussed his hair. “How does your head feel?”
John’s smile fell and he just looked up at Carson forlornly.
“That bad, eh? Well, now that you’re conscious and seem to be neurologically sound - or at least as sound as you were when you left here this morning - we can start you on some pain meds. Need something for your stomach too?”
John nodded, but winced as he moved his throbbing head.
Carson nodded and squeezed his hand. “I’ll write some orders and send a nurse to get your meds.”
As Carson turned to go, John reached out and snagged his lab coat. “How bad is Ronon?”
Carson should have known he wouldn’t go to back to sleep without checking on his team. “He’s going to need some pretty strong antibiotics for that hole in his ankle. And he’s going to need to go easy on it for a few weeks. Though I suspect that telling him that will be as useful as a chocolate teapot. He’s got a minor concussion, so I’m keeping him here overnight. He’s less than excited about that, but he hasn’t tried to escape yet.”
A low, rumbling voice from the other side of the infirmary chimed in. “When you were drunk Sheppard mentioned that anyone who crosses you in the infirmary will live to regret it. Something about bending over when you cough?”
John brought his arm up over his eyes, “Ronon, shut the hell up. And yes, that’s an order too.” He peeked out from under he arm. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he tried to tell Carson.
“I was drunk, not brain damaged. I remember you saying that,” Carson told him with a raised eyebrow waiting to see if John would give up or try to wiggle out of his hole.
“I’m brian damaged so you can’t beat me up for saying it until later?” he tried.
“I’ll give you ‘brain damaged, ’” Carson mocked as he checked John’s I.V.
“How are Rodney and Teyla?” John switched the subject.
“Teyla’s fine. As always. Rodney’s fine, despite his protestations. He has few bumps and bruises and his blood sugar was a little low when he came in. But nothing a glass of apple juice and an aspirin won’t be able to take care of. No, it’s just you and Mr. Dex here interrupting my sleep.” Carson ran his hand up and down John’s arm gently. Before John could say anything, Carson said, “Here comes Jessie with your meds. You’ll be back to sleep soon. Unfortunately, just because you passed this neuro-check, doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the woods. Someone’ll be by to wake you every so often.” He smiled kindly at John. “Try not to take their head off when they do.”
Jessie loaded the two meds into his I.V. and John found that he was drifting too fast to come up with a witty reply before he was completely out.
~~~***~~~***~~~
Ronon was released the next morning before John even woke up. He’d suffered most of the neuro checks with good grace - only once snapping at a nurse because she asked him to repeat a muffled answer - and he even felt up to eating something when they brought him a tray. It was a little tricky as the bruising on his chest and shoulders made it difficult for him to get his hand to his mouth, but once he realized that he could manage the finger food, and gave up on the oatmeal, he did all right.
Carson stopped by to see him shortly after breakfast, but wasn’t actually on duty until that evening, so he only stayed a few minutes, checking John’s chart and chatting briefly.
John had figured he’d be ready to get out of the infirmary by lunchtime after that, but to his surprise, the nurses informed him that he’d slept through lunch. And that Carson wasn’t really that happy yet with some of his test results and wanted him to stay at least through that night.
Around three John was awake long enough to ask for something to eat since he’d missed lunch. Half way through his chicken soup and turkey sandwich, Carson came on duty. About half an hour after that a group of Athosians were brought in. A pack of about nine teenagers had gone off to hunt and had followed their game right into a glade of innocent looking flowers… that ended up giving them a nasty case of contact dermatitis. Fortunately when Holling had contacted Atlantis for help, he had the presence of mind to have the children bring one of the blossoms with them. Carson had been able to synthesize a cream that worked on the rash and they all responded well to the oral antihistamine he pumped them full of.
None of them had wanted to stay in the infirmary, but Carson was loath to let them go all the way back to the mainland in case one of them had an anaphylactic reaction later in the night. So they compromised and set up a bunkroom for them.
John had been feeling slightly more alert in the afternoon than he had that morning, so he propped himself up and watched silently as Carson moved from case to case, sweet-talking those who were afraid and terrorizing the ones who thought they were too tough to need treatment. He didn’t realize how much he liked watching Carson when he was in his element. As long as those bullying tactics weren’t directed at him.
When the Athosians had been thoroughly scrubbed, medicated and lotioned, Carson got them stowed away in their room, teaching them how to use the wall comm if they needed anything and arranging for some food to be brought to them.
It was fairly late when he made it back to the main ward and he was surprised to see John sitting up, poking at the Palm Pilot Rodney had dropped off earlier when John had still been asleep. “I figured you’d be sound asleep by now,” Carson said, hitching one hip against John’s bed.
John shrugged and put the stylus in the slot and set the game on the bedside table. “I think I did enough of that this morning.”
Carson grabbed John’s wrist and held it for a few seconds, checking his pulse. “How are you feeling, besides not tired?”
John shrugged. “All right. I’m sure the nurse told you I was having problems with double vision when I got up to go to the bathroom this afternoon ended up having to use a wheelchair just to go across the damn room.”
“Aye, she did. I didn’t expect you to be so forthcoming with it though.” Carson took his penlight out and moved to stand by John’s head. “And I don’t suppose that a knee the size of a watermelon had anything to do with it at all?
John shrugged at that last and submitted to the annoying light but finally felt compelled to ask, “What exactly would you see in my eyes that would be causing double vision?”
Apparently satisfied with whatever he did see, Carson sat back down on the edge of the bed. “No, it’s not like that. I’m just checking to see how your pupils react to light. How fast they contract and expand. Sluggish pupils are a symptom of nerological trauma, just like the double vision. The more symptoms you have, the more we have to worry about brain damage.”
John frowned. “How many do I have?”
Carson smiled at him, “Not enough to have anyone worried. This time.”
John felt himself grow warm at that smile. He felt like he was thirteen with his first crush all over again when Carson smiled at him like that. “They teach you how to avoid answering questions directly in medical school?”
Carson nodded. “Pre-med. You can’t get into medical school unless you can manage to not tell someone that the sky is blue when it’s bloody well obvious that it is.”
John just laughed a little at the continually evasive answers.
“So what do they tell you to say in pilot-school if you’re going to crash?” Carson asked.
“Your last words,” John said glibly. “You have to remember, I wasn’t doing commercial airline work - I was flying helicopters in combat zones. There’s not much to say if you’re going down. Especially if you think you have a chance of not being spotted by enemy radar. You don’t want them finding you.”
Carson made a face. “Alright, that was a bit more morbid than I expected.”
John just shrugged. It wasn’t morbid to him - it was survival. He lay back against his pillows casting about for something to talk about. He didn’t want Carson to go yet. It was selfish - Carson had a whole dormer full of itchy Athosians he needed to keep up on, and John was reasonably sure that his shift would be ending soon - but he wanted to keep Carson there, talking with him for a while.
John couldn’t help but smile when Carson picked up the small talk, clearly in no bigger hurry to move on than John was to have him do so. “So what’s the Air Force Academy like?”
John smiled, “Regulated within an inch of your life.”
Carson laughed. If he’d met the man on the street he never would have guessed that John Sheppard could cut it in the ‘yes sir no sir’ world of the military. It had always been a conundrum to him. “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, it does beg the question of how you made it through. You’ve never seemed the brushcut and polished boots sort.” Carson raised his eyebrows at the unruly mop on top of John’s head, made even worse by the fact that he hadn’t been bothered enough to attempt to comb it into submission since he’d been admitted.
“I made it through by the skin of my teeth. No, actually that’s not entirely true. I don’t have a problem with rules and regs and drills as long as they make sense. I mean, in BCT they tell you that you have to chew your food exactly seven times.” At Carson’s incredulous look, John added. “I’m not making that up or exaggerating. Seven times, every time. Jell-o was a pain in the ass.”
Carson laughed. “I’m not sure I’d survive that level of pickiness.”
“You do what you have to if you want something bad enough. Besides, I only got in trouble when I got pushy about asking why we had to do something. A lot of our cadre weren’t big on explaining themselves to us - especially when you’re in basic training. They really want you to wrap your brain around the idea of follow orders first, think about whether or not they make sense later. I didn’t do so well with that part,” he confessed
“I’d imagine not,” Carson agreed with a fond smile. “Did a few round of dishes, did you?”
“We didn’t get k.p. like you see in army movies - and I have no idea if the army actually does that or not. Mostly we got demerits or penalty tours - an hour of marching around the campus - but we had a few inventive second and first class cadets. I mean, there was this one guy - Troyer - who liked to go for public humiliation. One of the things you have to do as a fourth class - a freshman - is wake up the upperclassmen and make sure they know how long they have before morning dorm inspection. You literally stand in the hall and as a group count down the twenty minutes. If you pissed Troyer off, you had to do it as a chicken. For a week.”
“That doesn’t seem like a very good way to teach people to work as a team.” Carson seemed quite offended by the idea.
“Actually, when I look back on it, it was kind of interesting. That kind of crap never bothered me - it was all about seeing how much crap you could take - so when I didn’t get bothered by it, it wasn’t fun for him any more so he quit doing it to me. Even in basic, extra running or extra calisthenics never bothered me if they were issued for a good reason. What tended to get me in trouble was that I never did well standing by when someone took a penalty for some dumbass reason. Like, we weren’t allowed to talk at meals except with special permission. Okay, fine. One morning a guy sneezed, another one said ‘bless you’ and our cadre leader went ballistic on him. So, of course, I went ballistic on the cadre leader. Which is pretty dumb, granted. There would have been other ways to deal with it, but I wasn’t thinking. Tiffle and I both got three penalty tours. But in a way it was worth it just to point out how dumb the situation was.”
“I guess our equivalent would have been called ‘scut work’. Emptying the drains on surgery patients, putting in foleys on cranky people - especially the ones who desperately needed to bathe - or having to do enemas on impaction patients. I mean, at least they were things that really had to be done - unlike what they put you through - but when we got more than our share we knew we were being punished for something.”
John had wrinkled up his nose and turned down his lower lip. “Yeah, I’ll take the marching any day. That stuff… that’s just nasty!”
Carson laughed with him. “I’ve heard people compare medical school to military training. Awake all hours, having emergencies sprung on you at any hour, bad food.”
John smiled and snuggled back into his pillow. He was getting tired again, but it had been a long time since they’d been able to just sit and talk for a while. And for as well as he felt he knew Carson, he was really just starting to see that there was so much he had to learn about him.
He pulled his blankets up and made himself comfortable and asked, “What’s the weirdest case you’ve ever seen?”
Carson rolled his eyes. “I suppose you mean besides someone coming in with the bite mark of an insect the size of a small dog on their neck?”
“Hey, hey, hey now! Don’t talk about those bugs. You’ll have to sit there all night and make sure I don’t have nightmares if you do.”
Carson took John’s hand and threaded his fingers through John’s. “Alright, I promise, no more talk about the bugs.” He didn’t let go of John’s hand, and John didn’t try to take it back.
“Weirdest case, then… Well, I’m sure everyone’s heard stories about the things people think it’s a good idea to shove up their bums.”
“I thought that was an urban legend or something.”
“No, unfortunately some people are really that stupid. It’s just annoying when they come to casualty because they’ve lost a food item. Most of those they really can eliminate on their own. But I’ve seen things like parts of plastic dolls, candles, a screwdriver. But worse were the cases of men who thought it was a good idea to shove something in their urethra.”
John made a mortified face.
Carson just nodded. “One fool had an infatuation with uncooked spaghetti. I’m sure you can see where this is going…”
John held up a hand, “Okay, okay, enough. Ew. People really can be stupid… that’s just … ew.”
“Aye,” Carson agreed, still holding his hand, and now gently caressing the back of it with his thumb. It occurred to John that it was sort of an odd counterpoint to their discussion.
“Your turn,” Carson pointed out.
“This is like some weird game of truth or dare… without the dare option,” John muttered. “What were you going to ask me?”
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen on duty?”
“Well if we’re taking all forms of life-sucking aliens off the table, I’d have to say… an entire M1 Abrams tank filled up with blown up condoms.”
Carson raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. Certainly John had to know that that demanded an explanation.
“It was the tank division commander’s birthday. So they guys got him a present… and buried it under the blown up condoms. Now I was there picking up a guy for medevac, and I’m watching this while they prep the guy for transport and as their C.O. starts tossing out the condoms I hear him yell out, ‘Which one of you is the fucking moron who ordered lubricated condoms for this prank?’ Apparently they ended up greasing up the entire inside of the tank. That was pretty weird.”
“Aye, I can imagine.”
“It got around pretty fast and we ended up calling them the Slippery Secondy Second pretty quickly.”
John caught movement out of the corner of his eye and managed to pull his hand free of Carson’s just as Elaina, one of the on-call nurses, approached his bed. “I’m sorry Doctor Beckett, I know you were technically off duty half an hour ago, but one of the Athosian girls is having difficulty breathing. She asked if you were still up.”
Carson nodded and patted John on the shoulder. “Fair enough. This one needs to get his sleep. I want him to try a pair of crutches tomorrow so we can see if he has balance well enough to get around while that self-inflicted knee wound heels.” He gave John a cheeky grin.
Carson had to smile as he walked away and heard John mutter, “Teyla has a really, really big mouth.”
Carson had almost reached the door when John yelled out, “Hey Carson!” Carson waved Elaina out into the hall and turned back to John.
Now that they were the only ones in the infirmary, John felt comfortable saying, “Once you spring me from here, we can get to the ‘dare’ part of the game.” He raised his eyebrows comically several times.
Carson laughed. “Get some sleep. I think some of that brain damage is starting to show.”
John just smiled and grabbed his extra pillow out from behind him and hugged it to his chest. He fell asleep to the odd thought that head trauma, drugs and good company would combine to give him one of the best nights’ sleep he’d had in a long, long time.