The Furies

Chapter Twenty-four Compromises

Carson shifted the sling on his shoulder, trying to find a comfortable place for its strap to rest. The thing was really beginning to get tiresome, but he knew well enough that he should give it another week at least. As things were, it seemed that all he was going to take away from their disastrous desert mission in the long run was a nasty scar and a good story to tell about fighting off killer reptiles. There was no use in straining his healing arm and going back to worrying about whether he’d have the full use of it.

Still, it would be good to be able to use both hands again. He peered at the computer keyboard, hunting and pecking left-handed to type.

“Carson?” Jennifer said from the doorway of the laboratory.

Carson stood at once. “You shouldn’t be out of bed yet.”

“My vital signs and my blood work are all normal,” Jennifer said. “I’m not saying I feel great, but I’m also not planning to run a marathon or anything. I won’t even take the stairs. Transport chambers all the way.”

He looked her over. “How are you feeling? And at least sit down.”

Jennifer didn’t argue with that, sinking into a chair, her hand going to her hair as if worried that it was coming down from its severe ponytail. “I feel tired,” she said. “And I ache all over, but I suspect that’s from tensing up so much when — when I was being fed on. I took some ibuprofen, so I’m, you know, good.”

“It’s a tremendous shock,” Carson said. “And, before you say it, I know Todd healed you, but I also treated Colonel Sheppard when the same thing happened to him. It can be a difficult experience in more ways than just physically. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to schedule some time with Dr. Robinson.”

“I will if it bothers me, but…” Jennifer shrugged. “I mean, I’m not saying it wasn’t pretty awful, but I wanted to do this. I knew…well, maybe not exactly what I was getting into, but I knew what was going to happen, and I knew it was going to hurt. It was my choice. I think that makes it a little different from being tortured.” She shrugged again, and looked away. “There were only a few moments where I really thought I was going to die.”

Carson let out a breath. “That’s the problem with doctors as patients,” he said. “They’re every bit as stubborn as these great strapping soldiers.”

Jennifer’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Oh, we’re not that bad,” she said.

“Worse,” Carson said. “I’m so tired of this bloody sling that I’d have come down to complain about it if I weren’t trying not to add to your stress.”

“I’ll take a look later, but I’m not expecting miraculously rapid healing,” Jennifer said. “Unless you can get Todd to arrange that for you.”

Carson repressed a shudder. “I’ll pass on that,” he said. He still remembered all too clearly having Michael close enough to touch him, and had no desire to be that close to any of the other Wraith. “Anyhow, I’ve had the Hoffan drug, remember? I can’t be fed on without the Wraith dying of it.”

“I know,” Jennifer said. “That’s why the next trial has to be me again.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Carson said. “You can’t imagine we’re going to let you do this again.”

“Nothing’s changed,” Jennifer said. “We still need to know if there’s any way to make this work. I have some ideas about what went wrong, and, believe me, I’m going to run all the simulations I can, but at some point we’re going to have to test this again. And I can’t ask anyone else to go through being fed on as a test.”

“Well, to start with, we know that your best try at a prototype didn’t work,” Carson said. “For all you know, this could be just one more blind alley.”

“If we always gave up the first time something didn’t work—”

“We’d have saved ourselves no end of grief trying to genetically modify the Wraith,” Carson said a little sharply.

“And let a lot of other people die,” Jennifer said. “Come on, the answer can’t be ‘we should always give up every time we have problems.’”

Carson shook his head. “Knowing that you might go through exactly the same ordeal again, that your life may depend on Todd deciding to heal you—”

“That’s why it has to be me again,” Jennifer said. “First, because now that I’ve experienced this, I can’t ethically let anyone else consent to go through it for research purposes.”

“I thought you were fine,” Carson said.

“Yes, fine except for having been in agonizing pain, which is the part that— I just don’t think we get to inflict agonizing near-death experiences on people. As a doctor, I have a problem with that.”

“I do, too.”

“But the main thing is, I know now that Todd will revive me, even at a point where I’m essentially clinically dead. I don’t know how much of that is that he really wants to make this work, and how much of it is that he’s scared of Teyla—”

“We’re all a little scared of Teyla, love,” Carson said with a smile.

“And I was starting to get the impression that I remind him of…” Jennifer hesitated, as if not sure whether she should repeat something a patient had told her in confidence. “Somebody who used to be important to him. Anyway, for whatever reasons, I’m confident now that if we try this again, he’s not going to let me die. I can’t put someone else’s life in his hands, not when I wouldn’t be as sure.”

“Show me what you’re thinking,” Carson said reluctantly. He tried to think entirely rationally as Jennifer talked through the changes she wanted to make to the retrovirus, to focus on the genetic puzzle pieces rather than on the faces of patients he’d watched die after being fed on. It was hard not to remember all the young Marines he’d sent home with the faces of old men.

“I see what we did wrong,” Jennifer said. “It’s a simple adjustment. We just need permission to do one more test.”

Carson shook his head. “I can’t recommend it,” he said. “Not when we’re no more certain this time than we were last time. And not when I still have grave doubts about whether making this thing work is going to be good for anyone.”

“It may be the only way we can save Rodney’s life,” Jennifer said.

“You’re not thinking—”

“Yes, I am,” Jennifer said, her voice rising in frustration. “What else are we going to do when we get him back? We’ve run a hundred simulations and none of them work. I don’t know how to turn Rodney back into a human permanently. Do you?”

“The original retrovirus we used on Michael—”

“Causes global amnesia at any dose high enough to keep the physical changes from reverting,” Jennifer said. “That’s not an acceptable long-term solution. You know Rodney wouldn’t think it was.”

“It’s better than dead,” Carson said. “He could relearn what he knows—”

“A PhD in astrophysics and a couple of decades of incredibly specialized experience? There’s no way, and you know it. Not to mention not even remembering his sister, or… or anyone else who’s important to him. He’d hate that.”

“He’d hate being dead worse,” Carson said.

“I’m not sure you’re right,” Jennifer said. “But, okay, that’s our best idea right now. So what if we try it, and Rodney isn’t strong enough to survive the process? If he hasn’t fed recently — and I can’t really bring myself to hope that he has—”

“It could kill him,” Carson said. “I know.”

“I looked at your notes on the original experiment,” Jennifer said. “Your suggestion if the first research subject didn’t survive the transformation was for Sheppard’s team to go out and get you another Wraith.”

Carson closed his eyes for a moment, his good hand tightening on the lab bench. This was part of the reason he’d wanted to spend his time out in the field, not doing this kind of research anymore. It all twisted together in his stomach, the experiment on Michael that the first Carson Beckett had done but that he could still remember, the experiments on the hybrids, the ones who hadn’t survived, who’d been disposed of as wasted materials—

“Carson?” Jennifer said, sounding concerned.

He made himself take a deep breath and focus on Rodney. Rodney, who God willing would be their patient soon, and who deserved to be well and whole again if anyone did. “We can put him in stasis,” he said. “Take the time to come up with a solution that isn’t as risky—”

“And eventually we’ll have to test it,” Jennifer said. “His best chance of surviving that is if he’s fed recently. Tell me it isn’t.”

“I can’t tell you it isn’t,” Carson admitted after a long moment. “But I can’t imagine that he’d want you to endanger yourself this way just to make his chances better. And if you think he’s just going to be willing to feed on you to survive, even if you know it won’t kill you—”

“If it won’t kill me, then it’s like… like if he needed a kidney transplant or something. It’s an acceptable risk for the donor, even if the process isn’t very pleasant. I’d be willing to do that for Rodney, if it was what he needed to stay alive. Wouldn’t you?”

“A kidney is one thing,” Carson said. “Letting him feed on you—”

“We’re hoping the process won’t be nearly as painful if we get it right,” Jennifer said. “And even if it is, wouldn’t you do it if it would save Rodney’s life? Wouldn’t Colonel Sheppard, or Teyla, or… Okay, maybe not Ronon, not after what the Wraith have done to him, but you get my point.”

“I suppose I would,” Carson said.

“This is not going to kill me,” Jennifer said. “If the worst thing that happens is that I go through what just happened to me again, I can accept that.”

“We’ve seen that being repeatedly fed and revived causes significant side effects,” Carson said. “When you treated Ronon after the Wraith brainwashed him, he was physically addicted to the Wraith’s reverse feeding process. That wasn’t easy for him to recover from, and I’m not sure I would say there aren’t any lasting psychological effects.”

“He said they did it to him over and over,” Jennifer said. “I’m not talking about anything like that. Once more, maybe twice at the most. Colonel Sheppard survived more than that under worse circumstances, and he’s fine.”

“For a certain definition of fine,” Carson said.

Jennifer spread her hands. “The one we use around here,” she said. “I treat Marines and airmen all the time who’ve been wounded in action. Some I can patch up, and they’ll be fine in a week. Some are going to carry the scars they got here for the rest of their life. Some of them have disabling injuries, or disabling post-traumatic reactions. I can’t watch that every day and not be willing to do the same myself.”

“You’re not a soldier,” Carson said.

“I know,” Jennifer said. “And I don’t want to be one, and I’m actually not sure—” She hesitated, and then went on more deliberately. “I’m not sure I want to be part of a program that does that to people for the rest of my life,” she said. “But right now what’s important is that this is what I need to do to save Rodney’s life. Even if we never use this thing again, even if it never saves anybody else from the Wraith, if we can save Rodney, then I want to do this.” She raised her chin. “Will you back me up on this?”

“There’s no such thing as ‘never using it again,’” Carson said. “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

“Yes or no, Carson?” Jennifer said.

“Everything you’re saying is true,” Carson said. “I’ll say as much to Colonel Sheppard. As to whether I think you should take the risk…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do it to you as your doctor. But I want to help Rodney as much as you do, and if you’re determined to do this to yourself, I won’t stand in your way.”

“Thank you,” she said, her expression lightening.

Carson shook his head. “I just hope we won’t both be sorry.”

Sam ducked through the noisy gym to the small practice room in the back, dodging around four treadmills occupied by jogging Marines who were watching a long-ago recorded football game on the TV along the wall and arguing about every play. The door wasn’t locked and it was quiet. Which was a good thing. She preferred not to try to concentrate on yoga with TV and football and loud arguments about ‘You are so bogus, man!’ Her Zen was a little harder to find than that.

Teyla stood in the middle of the room, bent into an incredibly painful looking pretzel pose, her green Wraith skin incongruous with her Athosian gym clothes.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, starting to back out. “I didn’t realize this room was taken.”

“You are welcome to come in,” Teyla said, extending her arms to begin coming out of the posture. “It is very noisy in the main gym.”

“Thanks.” Sam put down her towel and bag on the bench beside the window. It was dark outside, and the stained glass looked muddy against the night. “I was looking for somewhere to do yoga without so much of a crowd.”

“It is difficult to concentrate with the television,” Teyla agreed, bending in another way that Sam thought seemed pretty much impossible. Teyla made it look easy.

“That, and I’m not sure I want some twenty year old commenting on my fat ass or saying, ‘Hey, Carter can only bench press whatever.’ I never used to be able to figure out why Jack started using the SGC gym at an ungodly time of morning, but now I get it.”

Teyla looked at her critically, and also upside down. “I do not think your ass is fat,” she said calmly.

“It’s not as skinny as it used to be, and I do a lot of sitting on it on the Hammond.” Sam sat down on the floor, taking off her shoes. “I have to be a lot more conscientious about going to the gym now that I don’t have people chasing me and shooting at me on a daily basis.”

“And you are not twenty,” Teyla said serenely, inverting and stretching forward on her toes.

“That too.” Sam started her stretches while Teyla leaned forward again, her back leg perfectly straight as she bent from the waist over her front leg. Sam was forty one. She couldn’t have done that when she was twenty, and Teyla couldn’t be more than a couple of years younger than she was. And she’d had a baby.

“I do not wish that I were,” Teyla said contemplatively as she came up. “I was very foolish when I was twenty.”

“I was very serious.”

“I imagine that you were.” Teyla looked at her, and her Wraith face was hard to read, though her voice was not. “Have you always known exactly what you wanted?”

“No.” Sam put her right leg out, bending forward over it. Her forehead sort of touched her knee. Kind of. If she shifted off the hip bone. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

“I have too,” Teyla said. Her voice was rueful. “That one’s name was Jorrah, and I was unwise to marry him.”

“Mine was Jonas,” Sam said. She could definitely feel the pull in her hip. God, she was sick of that thing popping! Her hip was getting as bad as Jack’s knees. “But at least I didn’t quite marry him.” She straightened up. “He turned out to be crazy.”

“Jorrah was not crazy. Only manipulative.” Teyla was on the other leg now, but there was a wobble in the pose this time. She wasn’t holding it right. Left leg. The bone bruise she’d had a couple of months ago, no doubt. Those things took time to heal.

“Check,” Sam said. “I dated one of those too. He wanted to get a dog and that was really the last straw.”

Teyla didn’t look up. “What is wrong with dogs?”

“Nothing is wrong with dogs.” Sam switched legs, stretching her left one out. “If you like dogs. If you have the kind of life where you know you’ll be home at a certain time and you can let the dog out and feed it.”

“Of course,” Teyla said. That hip was definitely wobbling, but she was determinedly holding the pose. “I thought perhaps it was some sort of Air Force taboo against dogs.”

Sam snorted. “No. We’ve got some weird ones, but nothing against dogs. I was engaged to that one too.”

Teyla’s mouth twitched. “You seem to have had some close calls. You have been engaged how many times?”

Sam put her forehead to her left knee. That was easier. “Three,” she said, only hesitating slightly. “Maybe I’m just hard to marry.”

“That may be so,” Teyla said seriously.

Sam stretched. “You know, when you live like this… Maybe the time will come when I’m ok with staying on Earth and getting a dog and being home at night. One day the Hammond will be somebody else’s. But I can’t imagine who I’d be if I didn’t want to walk through the Stargate.”

Teyla’s voice was rueful. “Nor I,” she said, coming out of the pose. “I am Teyla Who Walks Through Gates, and I cannot imagine that I would remain myself if I were content to always be in one world when there are so many to know. But it seems that my compromises do not have to be as cruel as yours.”

“Don’t they?” Sam asked, lifting her eyes to Teyla’s Wraith face, feeding hand and Athosian clothes.

Teyla took a breath. “Perhaps they are,” she said. “Only different.”

“You have your son.”

“Yes.” Teyla sunk to the ground in one graceful move, her legs folding under her like some sort of water bird. “But I no longer have my rank and position among my own people. You have that. Athosians tolerate the Gift, unlike most of the peoples of this galaxy. But this…” She glanced down at her arms, her long emerald nails. “If I say that I am Steelflower? This they will not understand. It is too far and too much. I will be outcast.” She shook her head, looking up at the darkened window above. “You have your starship.”

“I do.” Sam crossed her legs. “And that’s not as smooth as I’d like it to be. I’ve always been the wonk, not the inspirational leader. I’ve always been part of a team. A starship crew has to be a team, but the captain has to stand a little apart. I can’t be in there shooting the bull with Franklin and Chandler.”

“I can see that.” Teyla leaned back on her arms, arching her back. “What about Mel Hocken? Is she not officially part of the Daedalus’ crew? It seems that the two of you have much in common.”

Sam took a deep breath. “There are complicated reasons why that’s not a good idea.”

“I understand,” Teyla said, and she thought she did. After all, she had lived among these people for more than five years, and she thought she understood their taboos, even if she did not understand the reasons for them. “Athosians are more accepting than many peoples because we have been repeatedly been culled to the bone. We live so close to the borders of the land of death that we know better than to reject any love that comes, whatever its shape or form. Who shall say that anyone should not care for another, or that a child should have one father alone when what is important is that everyone be part of the whole? Otherwise we will die.” She leaned her head back, looking up at the beveled ceiling. “And yet if Kanaan saw me like this he would wonder if Torren were safe with me.”

“You would never hurt Torren,” Sam said sharply.

“Who knows what a Wraith would do?” Her smile was grim. “People would wonder. If Kanaan said, ‘I do not want Torren to live with her because Atlantis is too dangerous, and because the new man she has chosen is not of our people,’ Athosians would mock him. Kanaan is jealous, they would say. It is unseemly to be possessive of one who has moved on, problematic to upset the group with attachments which are not mutual. He would lose face, and none would listen to his complaints. But if he said, ‘She is Wraith, and she no longer knows who she is,’ that would be a different matter. ‘Who can tell what she might do? It is too dangerous for a son of Athos, for my son.’”

“That totally sucks.”

“So do your compromises.”

“Yeah.” Sam said. “They do.”

“Which is not to say that Kanaan would do such,” Teyla said. She sat up straight, her brow furrowed. “I do not think he would. But I have been wrong so badly before.”

“Jorrah?”

“Yes.” Teyla shook her head.

“At least he didn’t try to set himself up as a god on a small planet?” Sam asked.

Teyla laughed, as she’d meant her to. “No. Did Jonas?”

“Oh yeah.” Sam put the water bottle down. “Never can say I don’t have taste.”

“I think perhaps we will chalk it up to experience,” Teyla said. “But John may be right that we are all a little cracked.”