But he was brave. When the chips were down he always came through. John had seen that more than two years ago on a spacewalk that had nearly turned deadly. They’d been engaged in a repair that everyone’s lives depended on when micrometeorite had gone through Radek’s leg like a bullet, a serious enough wound in the field even if it hadn’t left him bleeding in vacuum. Radek had kept going and finished the repair. John figured he had what it took when it really mattered.
Yeah, Radek would rather not go offworld. They all had things they’d rather not do. He’d rather not deal with the Genii. But he had to. It was just that everyone was going to have to stretch a little bit, get outside their comfort zone.
The infirmary was pretty quiet. John glanced around. There were lights on and voices from one of the operating theaters in the back, so he ducked around the screen.
Teyla lay in the far bed, her dirty hair spread on the pillow. Sound asleep.
“Colonel Sheppard.” Marie Wu, the Australian nurse who had been with them from the beginning, came around the corner.
“Just wanted to check on my folks, Marie,” John said. “How are Carson and Teyla?’
“Dr. Beckett’s back in surgery right now,” she replied. “His arm is fairly torn up. He’s going to need the wound completely cleaned and then the muscle lined up and sutured with self-absorbing sutures, then the subdermal layers realigned and sutured the same way, then the wound closed with staples.” Marie’s eyes smiled. “Dr. Bauer knocked him out so he’d stop telling him how to do it. Dr. Beckett is the worst patient on the base!”
“I guess he is,” John said. “How’s Teyla?”
Marie glanced back toward her bed. “Her hip’s not broken. It’s a pretty serious bone bruise, but there’s no fracture. I’m sure it’s very painful. She’ll need to take it easy for a few weeks, but there’s not anything we can do for it except let it heal and give her ibuprofen to reduce pain. She doesn’t actually need to stay overnight, but we gave her a shot of Demerol to take the edge off while we did the MRI, and she was out like a light.”
“Yeah, she hasn’t had much rest in a few days.” He looked around Marie at Teyla, who looked very small in the white bed, her face relaxed in sleep.
“She can go when she wakes up,” Marie said, “But she’s going to need to be careful and ease back into activities. I’m not sure if Dr. Bauer will clear her for offworld missions yet.”
John nodded. “Well, the next thing is taking this Ancient warship to the Genii homeworld, so she could sit this one out. That’s probably the best thing. She could get some rest and have some down time.”
“Da!”
John spun around. Dr. Kusanagi was in the doorway holding on to Torren, who was appropriately wearing a t-shirt with a wrecking ball on it. Dr. Kusanagi certainly looked wrecked.
“Colonel Sheppard,” she said, her hair coming out of its long black ponytail in disorderly clumps, “Can you please take Torren? I have had him for several hours, but Dr. Zelenka is shouting at me that I must get out there with a team and start repairing the Ancient warship, and Torren wants his mother and he has destroyed the lab and…”
John reached down and scooped up Torren, who grabbed his ear as an easy handle and threw his other arm around his neck. “Sure. How’re you doing, buddy?”
“Momma!”
John held him so that he could see around the screen. “Your mom’s asleep right now. She got very, very tired on the mission, so let’s let her sleep.”
“He’s been changed, not that it did much good as he had an accident in the lab and…” Dr. Kusanagi was still running on harriedly.
Torren turned big brown eyes to him. “Momma hurt?” he asked. He’d probably already heard that she was.
“Your mom fell and hurt her leg. You know how we always tell you to be careful and not fall because you might get hurt?” John asked. “She’s going to be ok, but her leg hurts where she fell on it and she needs to rest.”
“She ok?”
“Yes, she’ll be just fine,” John said. “She was very brave, and she walked a long way after she got hurt, until she couldn’t walk anymore.”
Torren regarded him solemnly. “Then what?”
The simple answer was the truthful one. “I carried her.”
Torren nodded. “Ok.”
“He hasn’t had his dinner, and Dr. Zelenka is yelling at me on the radio every three minutes…” Dr. Kusanagi was still going. Obviously Radek was passing on his bad day too.
“It’s ok,” John said. “I’ll take Torren. Thank you for watching him. I know Teyla appreciates it a bunch.”
“You are very welcome.” She essayed a smile, unclipping her hair clip and trying to smooth her hair back into some semblance of order. “I do not mind watching Torren some. It is just that today…”
“I know. It got busy. Thank you.” Torren grabbed his hair for balance. “Have fun with the warship. She’s a sweet ship!”
“I will enjoy it a lot,” Kusanagi said, retying her hair. “I like the Ancient systems better than many things. And they like me.”
“Yeah, that gene thing comes in handy,” John said. “The Avenger’s pretty friendly, if you know what I mean. I think she’s kind of glad to be salvaged. She’s a mess, but you know, glad to be back.”
“I do indeed know what you mean,” Kusanagi said with a smile. “They have personality, the Ancient things. They know what they like.”
He wouldn’t normally talk this way, not like things were people, but Miko got it. He thought the city talked to her too. Not really talking, of course. But almost.
She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Torren’s brow, looking considerably more cheerful. “Have a good dinner and good night, sweet boy. I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye bye,” Torren said cooperatively, looking as though he’d been a little angel all along.
There was nothing in the world John wanted as much as his own bed, except maybe a shower, but Torren hadn’t had his dinner. “Ok, buddy. Let’s go to the mess and find some food.” He looked at Marie. “When Teyla wakes up, would you tell her I’ve got Torren, and I’m going to get him some dinner and put him to bed?’
“Of course,” Marie said. He wondered why she and Kusanagi were smirking at each other like that, except maybe that Torren was very cute.
Dinner.
One hot dog, plain, hot dog and bun clearly separated on the tray so that they didn’t touch each other. One fruit cup. One carton of 2 per cent milk. One plate of spaghetti with…tava bean sauce? John regarded the sauce curiously. Yep. Those were tava beans. Kind of like a puttanesca sauce, only with tava beans instead of olives. Ok. Why not? Sometimes Sergeant Pollard got creative with local ingredients with disastrous results, but this actually worked pretty well.
John ate one handed, the other one trying to keep a slithering toddler from sliding off his lap and running through the mess hall with hot dog in hand. The world was all getting a little blurry, but food would help. Food, shower, sleep.
“You know,” John said contemplatively, “You could try sitting in a chair and being still. Some people do that while they eat?”
“Why?”
At the moment John couldn’t think of a single good reason. “I dunno.”
“Ok then,” Torren said in exactly Teyla’s tone of voice.
Torren’s elaborate Athosian cradle was long since outgrown and returned to New Athos for some other baby to sleep in. Now he slept in what John couldn’t help but think of as a playpen, a framework full of blankets and stuffed toys on the floor in the front room of Teyla’s quarters. Teyla said the framework was to keep Athosian children from straying, which pretty much made it a playpen.