"Another Man's Shoes " (2/4)
The wait for Rodney to return was interminable. John’s tenuous memory of the … vision? -hallucination more likely in his case- was fading with every passing moment. All he had left to show for it was sopping wet pant legs and sleeves and a general shakiness he recognized as adrenaline leaching out of him.
Teyla remained at his side, even after the two of them had finally gotten him to his feet. And Ronon… well, the big guy clearly had no idea what to do. He paced back the way the jumper would come from, scanning the skies, then immediately turned and raced back as if expecting that John’d had another breakdown.
When Rodney returned with the jumper, John didn’t even bother trying to take the driver’s seat. He slumped onto a bench in back and dropped his head against the wall, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see his teammate’s concerned looks.
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Any hope that he might get to disembark without fuss when they arrived ten minutes later at Atlantis was quickly dashed when he saw Carson standing there with a med team and a gurney.
“I’m afraid I must insist, Colonel,” is all that Carson said as he patted the padded stretcher.
Feeling the weight of stares from the control room staff, he hopped on and laid back, eager to leave so his team could fill Woolsey in on all the sordid details.
He let Carson mother him into dry scrubs, sat patiently through pricking and prodding from the nurse, then waited for the questions to start.
Carson pulled the curtain, sat down on a rolly stool and smiled at him.
“How are you feeling?”
He chuffed out a laugh at that. “Foolish. Is that a symptom of something?”
“Och. Men cry, Colonel. I do all the time. I was watching Georgie’s Girl just the other night, had me weeping like a babe.”
“I… I don’t cry, Carson. I didn’t even cry when y- … even at funerals. It’s just not in me. At least ‘til today,” he added ruefully. “And I can’t even say why I did today.”
“I’m not sure if… I mean, I know there was a time when… look, I don’t know if it’s something you ever divulged to your Carson before… he died, but John, I need to ask… did you have a son?”
“No. No, I mean, sure, anything is possible. I wasn’t a monk my whole life but I was pretty… pro-active, if you get my drift. And what I remember of this… this boy.. I hallucinated.” He was ten. “His age… I was with Nancy at the time. Granted, I was away a lot, but I’d’ve known if she’d had a kid.”
“Had you ever seen this boy before?”
John couldn’t even remember what he’d looked like. They only reason he had the faint memories he did was because Teyla had told him what he’d been… well, not exactly ‘saying.’ “No, I… sure, I guess maybe I could’ve. Seen a lot of kids in my time, doc.”
He sighed and stared at his cold-reddened hands. “What the hell is this, Carson? What’s wrong with me? And why aren’t you all freaking out like Rodney and the rest of them?”
The Scotsman smiled and stood from the stool. “Because I’ve been observing you, Colonel. You show no altered gait or speech, no facial or motor paralysis. And I have confidence in my initial exam of you yesterday. You had no head trauma to speak of. But…”
“But you’ll do a hundred more tests just in case,” John finished tiredly.
“Och, you do know me, Colonel. Why don’t we try to stick to a dozen or fewer, eh?”
“Long as you pick the least painful and invasive ones,” Doc.
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True to his word, Carson kept the tests mostly painless, running John back through the scanner a few times, conducting some neurological exams.
John waited for an ‘aha’ from the doctor, eager, in fact, for a medical reason for his embarrassing meltdown on the planet. But none came. Through them all the doc just smiled and reassured him with each test that the results were normal, not to worry.
Truth be told, all the smiling and being told not to worry just made John even more concerned. He was being handled with latex kid gloves. As if the slightest anxiety might send him off on another crying jag.
He was sitting on the scanner bench, legs swinging, when Rodney barged his way back.
“Wha? Why don’t you have him in a bed, hooked up to monitors and, and wires and and … stuff?” Rodney demanded.
Carson sighed but kept on smiling. “I have run the colonel through a whole battery of tests, Rodney. He’s fine.”
“You didn’t see him, Carson! He is NOT fine. Fine is not him on his knees in the snow, howling like a banshee--”
“Shut it, Rodney,” Carson bit out through a now icy smile.
John felt his face go hot and he averted his eyes to a nearby blank monitor screen. His reflection in the shiny black looked odd. He raised a hand to his face and felt the puffiness around his eyes that hadn’t gone down.
Rodney and Carson continued to trade barbs: the traditional ‘incompetent quack’ and ‘witch doctor’ comments exchanged for opaque medical-ese and the occasional admonitions to leave the medicine to the MDs.
John’s already frayed nerves reached their snapping point. “Hey! Knock it off, both of you!”
He almost flinched as they went silent, turned to stare at him to see what he would do next. He slid off the bench, the floor cold under his bare feet. “If I’m fine, as you say, doc, then I’m getting out of here.”
Rodney opened his mouth first but Carson beat him to the punch. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, lad,” the doctor said, smile fixed back in place. “Whatever happened down on the planet, we have as yet to find a cause. You need to stay here, for observation.”
“No one’s observing me do anything except walking out the door.”
“Rodney?” Carson said quietly.
“What?”
“A little privacy, if you don’t mind.”
Rodney appeared to consider a response, then just nodded and left the room.
“John… you yourself noted that you aren’t exactly a man prone to behavior such as you exhibited on the planet.”
John sat back down on the bench and ran a hand through his hair. “No,” he admitted grudgingly.
“As I have yet to find a physical cause, perhaps there are other avenues we should explore?”
“What? You mean, you think I’m going crazy?”
“Not at all, lad,” Carson said, smile still rigidly fixed in place. “There are other reasons for… hallucinations, or visions if you will. Perhaps we could have Rodney check the Ancient databases for similar experiences?”
“Ah, the good old ‘Pegasus has been known to do weird shit to us’ theory. I like it, doc,” John said with a forced humor. “Anything else, since Rodney can do that while I’m in my room?”
“I’d like to try polysomnography.”
“Poly som …”
“-nography,” Carson finished. “The way you describe your vision and the way it faded so quickly, it’s almost as if you had a waking dream.”
It did have the feel of a dream. And a familiar feel at that. “You know, I had a really weird dream last night. Can’t remember much about it but it had me so wound up after I woke up I couldn’t go back to sleep.”
Carson’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Well, then. Polysomnography it is.”
“Yeah, and what the hell’s that? Please tell me no needles or crappy stuff to drink.”
The doc smiled wider and this time it reached his eyes. “No, lad. You sleep and I monitor your brainwaves.”
“Sleep, huh?” Just the mention of it jerked a yawn from him. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thought you might. I can’t give you a sedative but I imagine you might be feeling a little rough right now?”
John nodded as he realized how cruddy he felt. “Yeah,” he said, surprised. “Why is that?”
Carson placed a hand on his shoulder. “If you’d ever had a good cry before you’d know, it can leave you feeling pretty wrung out. I’ll grab you some ibuprofen and get a bed set up for you.”
“Thanks, Carson.”
After the doc left John leaned back on his hands, his fears eased a fraction. Carson seemed pretty keen on the dream angle. And the words ‘psych consult’ hadn’t been mentioned. Yet.
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“Are you serious?”
“They really aren’t as intrusive as you think they’ll be, Colonel,” Carson said, holding the handful of leads. “The wires are thin and very flexible, they have a lot of slack. You can sleep in any position you like.”
“But they’ll be stuck all over my head?”
Carson sighed and rolled his eyes. “My mum goes to bed with hot rollers in her hair every Saturday night. I think you can handle a few leads.”
“A few leads here, a few leads there,” John grumbled, pulling at the EKG wires that sprouted from the vee of his scrub top then tugging at the pulse ox meter on his finger.
“Stop fussing,” Carson muttered as he stuck the first pad to John’s forehead. “It’s not like you haven’t had those before.” Soon several more pads joined the first in various places all over John’s head.
“And these won’t get stuck in my hair?”
“I never said that,” Carson muttered. “Healing often takes a little pain, Colonel. There.” He pushed hard on John’s temple. “Stubborn bugger. Okay, all set. Just try to relax and ignore the leads, Colonel. And we’ll see you in eight hours or so.”
John glanced at his watch, and sighed when he saw it was still a few hours before his normal bedtime. Aside from the walk on the planet earlier, his day had consisted of him laying down a lot already. He yawned again, tried to get comfortable in the bed and to ignore the sticky pads and octopus of leads attached to the machine parked next to him.
Well, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to sleep when available. He had a couple tried and true relaxation techniques, plus a few he’d picked up from Teyla.
He cleared his thoughts, envisioned a wide open blue sky……
“Commander!”
“What is it now, Hermot?”
“You… you’d asked me… you’d asked me to tell you…”
He stood from his desk, his fists balling at his sides. “He’s there?” he asked quietly.
His aide de camp stuttered out a nod. “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Hermot. Dismissed.”
“Very good, sir.” It was clear the aide was happy to be leaving, the order not even gone from his lips before the door was shutting.
Struggling to maintain his composure he shook out his hands, tugged his uniform into place and took several calming breaths before opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a small silver dagger. Technology wasn’t what he needed. Blood, up close and personal. That was all he sought.
He made his way through the city, taking back routes, passing by men huddled in small groups, ignoring the muttering he heard in his wake.
As he approached the house his anger grew. This was HIS home. It had been in his family for generations too far back to count. She was sullying his home with…
His chest was already heaving as he thought off the security system and slipped through the back door. Winding his way through the great house, he stopped at the bottom of the staircase. He closed his eyes and held a breath as he heard the sound of laughter from above.
Taking the stairs two at a time he strode down the hallway and flung open the door to HIS chambers.
She was naked, seated on top of him, brazen and bold, beautiful as the day he had married her.
He was at the bedside in two strides, before his presence was even noted. His arm swung wide as he backhanded her. She cried out, fell in a sprawl across the silken cover, her eyes going wide as she stared at him.
“Morla!”
“Did you think I would not find out, Neridia? Did you think me a blind old fool?”
“No, Morla! I’m sorry! Please--”
He turned from her, let her crawl down the side of the bed to the floor and hide like a rat in the alleys. She would be dealt with later and at his leisure.
Jurnal hadn’t moved, hadn’t even bothered to cover his own nakedness, his spent seed smeared on his thighs. He was even more beautiful than his glorious Neridia. A rosy-cheeked youth, soft but slender of body, untouched yet by age or work.
“Get up.”
Jurnal slid out of the bed, his eyes never losing their matched gaze, and stood easily, gracefully. “Commander Morla.”
The metal dagger was warm, clenched in his hand. He could see the pulse fluttering under the pale, smooth skin on Jurnal’s neck.
He saw a smile lift the corner of Jurnal’s mouth. Saw the glint in his eye, the ice in his gaze. Knew how he looked, fat around the middle, his hair a silvered wisp, his beard gray against gray skin. Knew that if he heard the next words to come out of the callow youth’s mouth that he would be lost, defeated in front of his Neridia.
Fat and old he may be but he was a Commander in the Vendelian Army, a soldier for over forty years. His reflexes were slower now, but would always be better than a soft civilian’s.
Wordlessly he struck out, slashed the blade at that pale white throat.
Jurnal’s arm rose and deflected his attack just as the tip pierced flesh. Crimson sprayed from the wound, but not enough.
Then Jurnal’s hand was wrapping around his wrist, pulling him in to grapple for the blade.
He sank a fist into the youth’s soft middle, grinning at the strangled cry and the way Jurnal folded in half. His fist flew upwards next, catching that fine, smooth-shaven jaw, reveling in the pain in his knuckles and the spray of blood from the youth’s mouth.
Neridia was screaming his name - HIS name, not Jurnal’s, and it was almost as good as the cheers of his men on the battlefield.
Jurnal was splayed on his back on the bed - HIS bed. The dagger back in his hand, bloody knuckles wrapped around the hilt, he raised it above his head and plunged it into that soft white belly. Blood, hot and red as his favored mulled wine, gushed freely, coating his hands. He was grinning like a madman, he knew, reveling in the smell of Jurnal’s bowels splitting open while his beautiful Neridia cried his name --
“John!”
He felt a hand grab him, but he jerked free, shoved his attacker back and waved his blade in front of him. Then another set of hands grabbed him from behind, pinned him down. He thrashed wildly, swearing and spitting.
“John!”
A face hove into view as hands grabbed his face, forcing him to meet their gaze. Blue eyes stared into his, as he was held firm despite his struggles.
“John!”
He blinked several times, trying to figure out where he was, what was happening. He could still smell the copper stench of blood, the fetid odor of rent viscera.
“John, please! Can you hear me? It’s Carson! Carson Beckett.”
His heart was hammering in his chest. He broke free of Carson’s gaze, darted his eyes around the room. He was still in the infirmary, in the same bed. Hands dug into his shoulders, holding him firmly in place.
“Carson?”
“Bloody hell. Aye, lad. You gave us quite a scare.”
“Didn’t scare me,” he heard grunted from behind him. The hands eased their grip on him and Ronon stepped to his side. “Musta been some dream. What was it?”
John wiped a shaky hand down his face, then flinched as he remembered it coated in hot, sticky blood. Before he could answer he heard Carson say, “It wasn’t a dream.”
“What?”
“You weren’t asleep, lad,” Carson said with a sigh. “I’d barely had time to get back to my office when the monitors started caterwauling. I saw the readouts, John. You weren’t asleep.”
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By the time Carson was done fussing John had a nasal cannula to add to the mix. The doc had said something about hyperventilation and low sats and his heart beating faster than the Edinburgh Military Tattoo before casting an unsubtle look at Ronon and bustling back out of the room.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” John bit out.
“Didn’t say you did,” Ronon shrugged back laconically.
“Beckett didn’t have to. Well, I’ll tell you what… if it wasn’t a freaking dream then I guess I don’t need these anymore.”
With that he started pulling the leads free from his head, cursing a blue storm as the sticky pads ripped at his hair. By the time he’d flung the last one to the floor his head was aching from all the abuse. He laid back, rubbed at the bridge of his nose and sighed explosively.
When he finally opened them back he saw his erstwhile guardian quirking a smile at him. “Better?”
“No,” John answered sullenly. “And what the hell did Beckett mean, it wasn’t a dream? I --”
“You what?”
“I killed a man. I think. In the not dream.”
Ronon looked suitably impressed. “Anyone I know?”
John grasped for the phantom image of a face but all he was left with was a seething anger and the metallic tang of blood in his nose.
He closed his eyes, concentrating harder on the face…
The toy nestled in the brightly colored box was silver, shaped like a tava seedpod and not much bigger than her small fist.
“Oh, Papa!” she cried. “It’s perfect! Can we take it out to the school field?”
Her father smiled and nodded, laughed as she dashed put the front door. “Your coat, Bronnie!”
Heedless to the cold breeze raising bumps on her bare arms she ran until the trees opened up at the field, her shiny new prize gripped tightly in her hands.
By the time Papa caught up to her and wrapped her coat over her shoulders she’d thought “on” and watched, enrapt as a series of golden lights came on.
“It’s very delicate, Bronnie,” her father warned.
“It’s not that delicate, Papa,” she admonished. She knew every spec of the toy: its tensile strength, the power capacity of the internal core, the amount of thrust needed to keep its weight aloft.
Holding her hands out, she commanded it to rise.
Even with all her research, as much as she knew the physics at work, the sight of the silver pod rising into the bright cerulean sky was still enough to take her breath away.
The small toy dipped and she screwed up her concentration, nudged it back into the air and soon had it flying loops, swooping and diving through the crisp spring air.
Someday she would design pods big enough to carry people. Just the thought of gliding silently through the sky, over the Great City, around her soaring towers… it made her smile giddily…
“Colonel!”
John blinked, sat up and saw he’d been gone again.
“What happened this time?” Carson asked him seriously.
With a shift and a hand wiped over his face, John shook his head, completely at a loss. “I’m a girl. I mean, I was a girl. In the dream… or … the girl … I had this amazing toy and…” Catching a glimpse of the strange looks the two men were giving him John sat up further and shook his head to clear the last of the vision. “What the hell is going on, Carson?”
The doctor didn’t answer him right away, which was usually a dead giveaway that something bad was coming. Bad like you’re turning into a bug, bad. Instead, Carson took the nasal cannula off and placed it back on the hook behind the bed, picked up the leads John had dashed to the floor with a sigh.
Then he picked up his laptop and placed it on John’s lap, opened it up and turned it to face John. He reached over, hit a button, and John watched as a series of waves and jagged lines crawled from side to side on the screen.
“What the hell is this?”
“What you see there is your brain wave pattern,” Carson answered calmly. “Just keep watching.”
Suddenly there was a hitch in the readout, then the waves and jagged lines continued… but even to John’s untrained eye he could tell they were different.
“What the …”
Carson sighed and shut the computer lid with a snap. “Aye. Thought you’d see it.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Ronon grunted.
“His brainwave pattern is completely normal when the testing starts. Matches up with readings we’ve taken at various times during our stay here. Around about the time that John’s … well, when he has the images of memories that aren’t his… that’s because they aren’t.”
“Aren’t images?”
“Aren’t his,” Carson said quietly.
“Come again?” John finally managed to ask calmly.
“The brainwave pattern becomes completely different. I have no bloody clue whose it is, but it isn’t yours, Colonel.” With a nod at the leads in his lab coat pocket he smiled grimly. “And I think, had you left these on, lad, that we’d’ve found yet another set of brainwaves just now.”
“What exactly are you trying to say, Carson? I’ve had the whole alien entity take over my mind thing, thanks very much. And I can tell you, I knew what was happening the whole time, fought the sonofabitch with everything I had. But this… a girl and her toy? A murderer? Some poor woman who lost her son? I don’t get it.”
“I wish I had answers for you, Colonel, but I can promise you I will keep trying to find them.”
“And in the meantime, what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Just sit tight.” Carson gave his ankle a squeeze through the blanket and smiled sadly. “I’m afraid the leads have to go back on.”
“Part Three”