THE PINK GAS

PART SIX: GOOD FRIENDS INDEED

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Twelve hours later...

"Hey Doc, you awake?" Sheppard's voice

"Well, if he wasn't, he is now." Rodney sounded peeved.

"Dr. Beckett is a sound sleeper." Teyla was observant as always.

"Just hope he doesn't take another night swim."

Beckett furrowed his brow at Ford's comment. The lad was normally so practical if not a little unimaginative when naming something.

Beckett peeled his eyes apart. He tried to focus on the blurred faces above him but decided his visitors weren't quite worth the effort.

"Hey, I think he's waking up?" Ford's voice cut the mist.

"See? I told you he was awake." Sheppard sounded pleased with himself.

"No, he isn't. Look, he doesn't even see us." McKay had a point. Beckett thought he glimpsed the rapid waving of a hand near his face.

"He doesn't see us at all. He's still in la la land." McKay sounded put upon.

"Perhaps it would be best if we let Dr. Beckett sleep more." Carson appreciated Teyla's thoughtfulness.

"He's been sleeping since we hauled his butt out of the water last night." Oh the impatience of youth.

Beckett let his eyes settle closed and enjoyed the coolness of his...infirmary? Why wasn't he in his own quarters? He let himself drift figuring he would worry about the mystery of where he slept for another time.

"He's not waking up. Let's go get some dinner."

"It's about time. I can feel myself growing weak from hunger."

"Should we bring Dr. Beckett something back to eat?"

"I'm thinkin' he's not gonna wake up until morning."

Beckett listened half heartedly to the voices that disappeared from his little misty world. He relaxed and settled deeper into the bed, his muscles feeling like Jell-O.

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"Come on, Carson. It's time you woke up." Rodney's impatient tone had Beckett unpeeling his eyes. The lingering lethargy of the fever still saturated his muscles.

Carson blinked at the shadowed faces above him. He waited patiently for the blurred lines and fuzzy features to slowly grow sharper.

He raised an impossibly heavy hand to rub at his face. He heard an IV pole jostle and stutter on its stand. It was amazing--no matter what galaxy he seemed to be in, IV poles moved with the grace and smoothness of a two horse wooden hay cart.

"Whoa, easy, Doc," Sheppard softly ordered and gently clasped a hand over Beckett's wrist, stilling his movement.

"Here," Teyla's voice sounded somewhere from the other side of the bed. Soon a cool cloth wiped over his face, freeing his eyelashes from each other and washing some of the malaise away.

"How you feeling?" Sheppard asked, staring at the glazed blue eyes that fixated on him.

"You with us?" John asked again, understanding all too clearly the uneasy, disorientation of waking up in the infirmary with people staring at you.

Beckett watched Sheppard for a moment, blinked, and then let his eyes rove around the small curtained off area. It was packed with people. McKay, Sheppard, Teyla, and Ford. It was unsettling.

"We're on our way to lunch," McKay stated.

"Yeah and your Doctor wants us to bring you back something to eat," Sheppard stated.

"You must build up your strength, Dr. Beckett," Teyla added.

"Figured you'd better choose between the mac and cheese or ham and beans."

Beckett let his eyes travel from one speaker to the next. His eyes landed on Ford and stayed for a bit. Images of the ocean at night and Ford came to mind.

"Well?" Rodney's slightly impatient tone had Beckett swiveling his eyes to the astrophysicist. Beckett furrowed his brow. He remembered McKay in the water. "You got your cast wet." His voice ground harshly with ill use.

"Hardly by my own choosing, just saving another person's life. It seems all I do now, since coming to Atlantis."

Beckett continued to stare at McKay in confusion, trying to get the images of the ocean in the midst of night into order, trying to make sense of a fragmented memory.

He watched as Sheppard slapped McKay in the chest with the back of his hand, "Give the man a break, he was sick."

"Very sick," Teyla confirmed, again wiping Beckett's brow and face with the cold cloth.

"Hey, I had a cast on my arm; I was injured." McKay answered back stepping away from the bed, engrossed in his argument with Sheppard. "I didn't see you jumping in after him or helping Ford."

"You jumped in before I could! Besides I had to drive the damn boat," Sheppard pointed out indignantly as he stepped back from the bed and faced McKay.

McKay headed for the door waving his hand over his head in a dismissing motion, "Excuses, Major, excuses."

"What!" Sheppard stammered. "Why you pompous weasel," he sputtered, following the scientist toward the door.

Beckett followed them with his eyes. The slight look of confusion still creasing his face.

A boat? Not a puddle jumper? Sheppard in a boat? Good friends indeed.

"You okay, Doc?" Ford asked.

Beckett pulled his tired eyes from the two arguing men as they disappeared through the infirmary doors to the young soldier still at his bed side.

"Aye, tired."

Ford nodded in agreement, "I bet. How 'bout, I bring you back some mac 'n cheese?"

Beckett merely nodded, not truly caring, because he really wasn't hungry. He closed his eyes again, relishing in the cool cloth that swiped gently across his forehead.

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He woke to the lights of the infirmary set at their night levels. Beckett rubbed at his face, noticing the IV still persistently in the back of his hand.

Irritating things really. No better than leashes with a bite all their own.

"That witch doctor won't get rid of it until you eat something solid," McKay stated.

Beckett internally jumped at the sound of Rodney's voice. "Rodney, stop insulting my staff," Carson asked wearily but without much heart, "they've saved your accident prone self a time or two."

"I've tried telling him that, Doc," Sheppard piped up. Beckett searched behind Rodney and saw the Major sitting stretched out on the other bed with his ankles crossed and hands clasped behind his head. "Ford brought you back some lunch a few hours ago," The major crinkled his nose, "it dried back out, so we brought you some ham and beans from dinner."

"You going to stay awake this time, Carson?" Rodney asked. "It's getting tiresome to keep coming back here and watching you sleep the day away."

Beckett raised an eyebrow as he heard Sheppard choke out a laugh.

"That a new cast Rodney?" Carson asked with a bit of perturbedness in his tone.

"I got the old one wet, remember?" McKay fingered his new cast, pulling on the lining, testing the sturdiness of it, "saving your life."

"Honestly no, I don't remember, but that," Beckett nodded his head toward the cast, "is a different one from this morning."

"He's got you there Rodney," Sheppard chuckled.

"Yes, well…"

"Well?" Beckett waited.

"Aren't you tired?" Rodney asked.

"Not yet," Carson answered, "why the new cast Rodney?"

"Oh for God's sake," Sheppard jumped up off the bed and shoved McKay on the shoulder, "Come on, Answer Man, tell him how you melted the old cast."

McKay tossed Sheppard a withering glare. "It was an unforeseeable accident."

"You damn near burned your arm off."

"I did not," McKay answered indignantly.

Sheppard finally noticed Beckett's alarmed expression.

"Oh, don't worry, Doc, he put it out by sticking it in the bucket of water Dr. Zelenka keeps near the door for just those special occasions."

A resigned reprimand slipped out, "Oh, Rodney."

Beckett tried to raise his shoulders and head to sit up...to no avail.

He settled back against his pillow slightly frustrated that he didn't have the strength to sit up and that Rodney took no better care of himself than a wayward child too engrossed in playing to realize he might be hurt or even get hurt. There seemed to be no learning curve.

"Oh, no you don't," Sheppard stated. He reached down and gently pulled Beckett up into a sitting position, while McKay adjusted the pillow back against the infirmary wall. "You've got to eat something, remember," Sheppard reminded.

"Aye, ham and beans," Beckett sighed with resignation.

"What's wrong with ham and beans? I happen to like them."

Beckett cast a wary eye at the astrophysicist.

"Come on Doc, quicker you eat, quicker you lose your hanging buddy, quicker you get to go to the head on your own, quicker you get out of here."

"Major, I work here."

"Yeah, but from the other side of the bed; you've got to admit that's better than this side."

Rodney peeled back the tin with the ham and beans and loaded some onto a spoon.

"Give me that," Beckett snapped out. "I can feed myself ya know, been doin' it since I was a wee lad."

"Grumpy, isn't he?" Sheppard pointed out.

"Ungrateful," McKay complained.

The two settled into the two flanking beds bantering back and forth while Beckett slowly ate his MRE with slightly trembling hands.

Dr. Weir melted deeper into the shadows and carefully slipped out the door. Those three did more good for one another when they were shaken up or knocked down than any cure or antidote she could think of. She had to concede that they caused more difficulties and problems than any two or three people she knew in two galaxies. With a confident smile, Dr. Weir headed back to her quarters.

She'd visit her Chief Medical Officer in the morning when he didn't have such a crowd.

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-The End.