Fic: "Cold Warmth" by kyrdwyn [R, Sheppard/Beckett, Alternate Reality]
1. Allergic Reaction
2. Amputation
3. Broken Bone
4. Bruises
5. Cancer
"At Any Cost" PG
6. Cold/flu/fever
"Fever" - PG (Sheppard/Beckett UST)
[Sequel to "Lucy",followed by "Match"]
7. Concussion
8. Crushing Injury
9. Drowning
10. Electric Shock
11. Frostbite/hypothermia
"Cold Warmth"-R
12. Heat exhaustion/stroke
13. Infection
"Convergence"- R
14. Minor annoyances - papercut, hangnail,
stubbed toe, motion sickness
15. Neurological disorder - epilepsy, spinal cord
damage, stroke, migraines,
clinical depression...
16. Puncture/Laceration - bullet wounds,
stabbing, impalement
17. Psychological trauma
18. Sensory loss/impairment
19. Skin disorders - boils, pox, rash, poison ivy...
20. Sleep disorders - sleep dep, narcolepsy,
jet lag, snoring
21. Sprained or Strained muscle
22. Surgery (routine) - tonsils, appendix,
plastic surgery
23. Writer's Choice
"Home Treatment" - PG [Burn]
24. Writer's Choice
Title: Cold Warmth
Author: kyrdwyn
Rating: R
Pairing: John Sheppard/Carson Beckett
Genre: Alternate Reality
Spoilers: "Rising"
Betas: rosewildeirish, pierson
2dozenowies Prompt: 11. Frostbite/Hypothermia
Summary: "So why now? Why track me down after nearly twenty years?"
The pounding on his door had John out of bed with his shotgun cocked before his brain registered the identity of the person yelling his name.
Hurrying out to the front door, he pulled it open and cursed as a blast of frigid air hit him.
"Sorry to wake you, Doc, but a bad accident was called in on 317 and Rescue couldn't get past the rockfall on 28 in this weather, so the sheriff had us bring the vic to you," Sheriff's Deputy Jeffery Hayes said in a rush. He gestured behind him to the Jeep, where Deputies Rostov and Cutler were pulling out a backboard with a blanket wrapped figure on it.
"Bring him into the clinic," John ordered as he backed up and headed for the exam room, grabbing a scrub top on the way to cover his bare chest. The sleep pants would serve until they stabilized the patient and he could change.
"Thirty-seven year old male, multiple contusions and lacerations. Signs of hypothermia," Cutler said as they brought the patient in. She'd been on the Rescue squad before becoming a deputy, so John didn't question her diagnosis. As soon as the patient was on the exam bed, though, he did check over and found signs of hypothermia, although it was mild. He snapped out an order to Cutler, who hurried for the closet and the thermal blankets, and to Rostov, who found the hot water bottles in the bathroom cupboard and started microwaving water in the kitchen.
"How long was he out there?" John asked Hayes. There was something familiar about the patient, but between the blankets and the blood on his face, John couldn't place it. He pushed it aside to concentrate on treatment. The mystery had to wait.
"According to the dispatcher from his in-vehicle safety and security system, the accident occurred at 0128 hours. We got called at 0132 when they couldn't reach him in the car. Didn't get there until 0208 due to that rockfall. Window was shattered, so he was exposed to the elements." Hayes moved to gather the clothing John was cutting off the patient, putting it into a plastic bag. "Sheriff thinks he slid on the roads." He looked at John. "Judging from his heading, he could have been coming here."
John nodded as he covered the patient with a thin sheet before removing the pants. He usually didn't worry too much about his patient's modesty in trauma situations, but there was a lady present.
The lady in question bought over the thermal blankets, having warmed them over the heating vents, and arranged them over the patient as Rostov started tucking the filled hot water bottles under the patient's knees and between his arms and his torso, with a few more in other places where the blood vessels were close to the skin, and would take in the heat faster.
The three deputies helped John by keeping the blankets and hot water bottles refreshed as John cleaned away the blood and glass fragments and stitched up the worst of the lacerations. It wasn't until he was checking the patient's back that he realized where he knew the patient from. The small St. Andrew's cross flag tattooed on the patient's upper back was the missing clue.
Motioning to the deputies to ease the man down, John let himself take a good look at the patient's now-clean face. Years had passed, but he was still the same. John's heart gave a lurch as he realized this man probably had been coming to see him.
Carson Beckett, John's ex-lover, the one he'd given up everything for, was back in John's life.
Carson woke slowly, aware of being warm first. It puzzled him, as his last conscious memory was shivering in the cold at the airport as he'd hurried to find his rental car.
Other memories returned then - driving on the slick roads, the car sliding on ice, crashing into the tree. He took a breath, stifling a moan as his ribs ached. They didn't feel broken, but between the seatbelt and the airbag it would be surprising if he wasn't bruised.
Opening his eyes, Carson was surprised that he didn't see the sterile white walls of a hospital. Instead the walls were pale blue, with a few nondescript landscape paintings. He was reassured by the table near the wall that held boxes of gloves and various medical implements. While he wasn't in a hospital, he was in a medical facility of some sort.
Turning his head in the opposite direction, he saw a call button on the bedside table, next to a glass of water. Carson extracted his hand from the nest of thermal blankets he was in and pressed the button.
The door opened a minute later to reveal a familiar figure. Granted, Carson had never seen John in medical scrubs before, but there was no mistaking the lean frame and unruly hair that came to stand at his bedside.
"John," Carson said, wincing at the croak in his voice.
John smiled, but it seemed distant, impersonal. He removed a pen light from the pocket of his scrub top and shined it into Carson's eyes. "Well, you know my name. Can you tell me yours?"
"You know who I am."
"Ah, but the question is do you know who you are?" John looked at him expectantly and Carson sighed.
"I'm Carson Alastair Beckett, born 5 July, 1969. It was 11 December, 2006, when I crashed my car into a tree on the road to Lake Archer, Colorado. Henry Hayes is President, Richard Kinsey is Vice President, Elizabeth the Second is Queen of the United Kingdom." He raised an eyebrow. "Happy?"
"Ecstatic. I can treat hypothermia and lacerations, but serious head trauma requires equipment I don't have, yet." John moved over to the table and picked up what was obviously Carson's chart. He jotted down a few notes and set it back on the table.
"Hypothermia?" Carson asked.
"You were exposed to the elements. Core temp was 95 Fahrenheit exactly when the deputies got you in here. Good thing you rented a car with one of those monitoring systems. Probably saved your life." John turned and rested against the table. "You feeling well enough to get up, walk around? I don't have any other patients, so don't think you'll be keeping me from anyone. Although I do have to let Sherriff Reed know you're awake. He's got some questions."
Carson pushed the blankets aside and started to get up, hissing at the pain. He noticed he was in white scrubs. John was in green ones, and Carson absentmindedly noticed they matched his eyes as John helped him sit up and get to his feet. "Easy there, Carson. It's barely been twelve hours since your accident."
"Patient or not, I'm not pissing in a bedpan."
John shook his head as he nodded toward the white door beyond the table. "Toilet fit your modesty better, doctor?"
Carson glared at John, who just stared back calmly, not backing down. Carson sighed, realizing that John wasn't one of his doctors in Atlantis - yet. He didn't have to back down at the glare of the Chief Surgeon. And while Carson had wanted to assess John's emergency care skills, being John's patient wasn't exactly how he would have planned it.
Carson let John help him into the bathroom, but was grateful that John let him shut the door for privacy. He knew John was just outside, but the gesture was nice.
Once he was done, he washed his hands and opened the door. John was on a cordless phone, telling the person on the other side that the accident victim was awake. He nodded and said "We'll be here," before hanging up. "The sheriff's on his way over. Accident report, just for formalities," he said.
Carson nodded.
"If you're feeling up to it, we can wait in the kitchen. The clinic is attached to my house," he added when Carson gave him a questioning look.
"Ah," Carson said. "Explains why the address was the same in the phone book for your business and residence. I thought you were just being cautious."
John handed Carson a thick terrycloth bathrobe and a pair of thick wool socks. He waited until Carson had put them on before opening the door to the room. "Nah, I live at work. Which, if you think about it, most doctors seem to, but I just take it literally," he said as he guided Carson down a hallway. Beyond was a cozy kitchen, with a bedroom beyond it. Once they entered, Carson could see the doorways that led to a living room and study.
Sitting down at the table, Carson watched as John set a teakettle on the stove. "All I have are tea bags," he said. "No loose leaves."
"That's fine. I'm surprised you have any tea at all," he said honestly.
"I get a few visitors who prefer it." John leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. He was backlit by the window over the sink, and Carson wondered what John would look like with the sunlight of Atlantis behind him. He shifted in his chair, trying to suppress the train of thought that image provoked. He did not need to be thinking of shared dinners and kissing on balconies while wearing thin white scrubs.
"I didn't realize you'd become a doctor. I honestly thought you'd gone through with your plans to join the Air Force. You once said you loved to fly." Seeing John's name come up on Dr. Lam's list of the top trauma doctors in the US had been a shock to Carson. John had been full of plans to fly for the Air Force - anything and everything they'd let him get his hands on. John's chemistry major had been a back up plan in case something happened before he could get his commission.
"I still fly."
As answers went, that wasn't an answer. John was being evasive. Carson looked him in the eyes. "Why didn't you join the Air Force? I know you never did, not even the Air National Guard."
"I couldn't join the Air Force because I was waiting for my boyfriend to return like he promised," John said, his voice low with suppressed anger. "Imagine my surprise when I did an internet search on said boyfriend's name, after I'd graduated from medical school, and found him happily practicing in a London hospital, and engaged to a fellow doctor - a female doctor." John turned to the stove, taking the whistling kettle off the burner. "Joining the Air Force was out of the question by then - my vision had been compromised thanks to an incompetent former med school classmate screwing around with lasers." He poured the hot water over the tea bags in the mugs. "Luckily, it wasn't so much damage that I couldn't practice medicine, so long as I wore glasses or contacts. In a lovely twist of fate, I had laser surgery to correct the problem a few years back. But still, too old to join and too well settled in my field." He set one mug on the table in front of Carson and leaned against the counter again.
Carson looked down into his mug. "I told you not to wait for me."
"I love you Carson! What was I supposed to do? You also said you would be coming back at some point! I couldn't just join the service and then pretend I wasn't in love with you when you did return!" John turned away to face the window.
John didn't use past tense, Carson realized. Oh God, John was still in love with him, probably had been ever since Carson had gone back to Scotland after that year he'd spent studying at UCLA. The year he'd met and fallen in love with John Sheppard.
"There's a saying in my family that everyone has something they were born to do in their soul. Medicine was in my soul, flying was in yours. I couldn't be the reason you denied yourself the chance to fly, John." Carson chuckled without humor. "Apparently, though, in my misguided attempt to let you fly, I kept you from it." He sobered. "I loved you too much to ask you to give up the Air Force for me."
"I loved you more than I needed to fly."
John's simple statement, coupled with the change to past tense, nearly broke Carson's heart. "The woman I was engaged to," he said softly, "it was more of an engagement of convenience. We were both running away from ourselves, hiding behind each other. She came to her senses first, called it off. I'm not sure I could have been strong enough to do that. I was trying so hard to make sure I didn't ruin your career, and if I'd let myself, I would have tracked you down on whatever base you were stationed on and kissed you in full view of every officer there."
"So why now? Why track me down after nearly twenty years?" John asked, turning around to face Carson, folding his arms over his chest.
Carson looked at him. "Because you're one of the top trauma doctors in the U.S., despite having left your hospital practice. I'm Chief Surgeon for a group that needs someone with your skills, your experience. It's a classified project, but having been a patient now, I can tell you I think you are the best person for the job, professionally speaking."
"You can't handle trauma on your own?" John asked.
"I have a lot of good doctors and nurses working for me, but my main field is still in genetics. It's a mixed civilian-military base and we, well, more trauma situations have occurred than we initially anticipated." Carson could tell John that much, but not much more until he signed on. If he signed on.
John continued to regard Carson steadily. "So, this is strictly a professional call, in more ways than one."
"Yes and no," Carson said with a small smile. "I really did want to see you again."
Sitting down at the table, John looked into his own mug of tea. "So you want me as what, your Chief of Trauma?"
"Something like that. There really aren't that many titles beyond the department heads. But you'd be responsible for trauma care, which would mean being on call 24-7, but then again, I am too as Chief Surgeon. Crises happen early and often," he said, quoting something Sergeant Stackhouse had told him.
"Military or civilian base commander?"
"Civilian. Dr. Elizabeth Weir is the head of the group. She's a diplomat by training. The marine colonel who was in charge of the military is retiring, but I'm presuming someone of equal rank will replace him." Well, it was technically true, but he couldn't tell John that Colonel Sumner had been prematurely aged by a Wraith.
John tapped his fingers against the side of his mug. "You're not telling me everything." He looked up. "It's probably classified as hell, which means it's probably dangerous as hell, and the trauma cases will be like nothing I've ever dealt with before, and coming in worse than when I worked the ER on Friday the 13th with a full moon, right?"
Carson didn't say anything, and John finally sighed. "Sales pitch sucks, Carson, but I'm interested. Where do I need to sign to get the full disclosure?"
"You'll need to interview with Dr. Weir, first. She's in Colorado Springs." Carson looked around the room. "Of course, your practice," he began.
"Will have to be sold or transferred. Not a problem. I've actually got a partner coming in a few weeks. I don't think he'll mind taking over if I leave."
Nodding, Carson finished his tea. "I'll be honest, John. I'm not doing this to try to win you back. As you said, it's been nearly twenty years." He ran a finger around the rim of his mug. "I realize now I made a mistake, but if you weren't one of the best, I wouldn't be making this offer."
John smiled, and Carson felt himself warm up at the sight. John's smiles had always had that effect on him.
"Good to know," John said now. "Though, well, if you were to try to win me back, I wouldn't be adverse to the idea - but I'd like to get around to being friends, first. Especially if we're going to work together as closely as it appears we will. Plus, if you'll recall, we kinda skipped the friends part the first time."
Carson blushed at the memory. After a few weeks of trading looks and smiles across the lecture hall, John had invited Carson out for a drink.
They'd never made it out of Carson's dorm room.
Carson smiled at John. "True, we did skip friends and went straight to lovers."
John smiled again. "Yeah. So, this time, since we know what we're getting in to, we take it slower? A lot slower?"
Carson nodded. Slower would be good, considering where they were going. There were so many places in Atlantis he wanted to show John. Places that were not romantic in setting, but friends could hang out in. Carson smiled as he had a thought. Maybe, if John had the gene or the therapy took, he'd be able to fly the gateships, and Carson could give back to John the gift of flying John had given up for Carson so long ago. "Aye," he said, "we go slower."
John reached out and took Carson's hand, and Carson felt the warmth spread throughout his body, filling up the places that had been cold for years. He curled his fingers around John's and promised himself that this time, he wasn't letting go.