Dawn light caressed the gray ceiling of Carson's room, spreading warming rays throughout the small space. As beams of sunlight danced across the floor, winding their way through the remnants of the night before, they passed over shards of ceramic dinnerware, uneaten food that was slowly rotting, and the contents of a broken wine bottle soaking unused silverware.
As morning rose across Atlantis, Carson uncurled his arm from around his side and began to straighten his legs. His muscles instantly protested the movement, forcing Carson to shift his position in small increments. He wasn't surprised that he ached all over. He knew he'd spent the night sobbing like a child until exhaustion claimed him.
Beckett blinked repeatedly to moisten his now dry eyes. His double vision was gone, a welcomed by-product of his uneasy sleep. He glanced at the radio ear piece he'd discarded several hours before and considered calling for Dr. Biro.
As quickly as the thought appeared, he hastily pushed it away.
How would I explain, Carson wondered. He imagined Biro's sorrowful, pitying eyes watching him, and shuddered. With a final sigh, Beckett dragged his legs over the side of the bed and made himself stand. His legs held his weight, though he swayed dangerously as he began walking toward his bathroom.
The face in his bathroom mirror froze the blood in Carson's veins.
"Oh, sweet Heaven."
The blue eyes of the man staring back at him were puffy and red from crying, and his left jaw showed a darkened bruise that traveled down to a fattened, split lip. There was some blood clinging to the corner of that lip, dried now but showing a blackish-red color. Carson took in the large finger-shaped patterns around his throat, quietly reaching up to trace the angry lines with a solitary finger.
He looked as though he'd tried to go a few rounds with Oscar De La Hoya, and lost.
"It was just a misunderstanding," Carson whispered to the stranger in the mirror. "I'll fix ye right up, laddie. You'll see."
Beckett stoppered the basin and filled it with warm water. Soaking a washcloth, he dabbed at the caked-on blood at his lip and whispered reassuring words at each flicker of pain. Once his lip was cleaned, the doctor within took over and methodically checked himself for other injuries. Carson unbuttoned his torn shirt and let the soiled material fall to the floor.
His abdomen was a relatively bruise-free zone, but there was an angry red mark across his back from where he'd fallen through the dining table. Or maybe it was when he was thrown against the wall. It didn't really matter. Carson's hands fumbled with his trousers until he was out of them and standing naked under the shower.
The water was warm against his battered skin, and Carson allowed himself to sink into its steady embrace, willing it to soak deep into his bones. God, he was so tired.
After what felt like hours, Beckett turned off the shower and stepped from the stall to dry off. He dressed quickly, donning his usual uniform shirt, trousers, and shoes. He carefully brushed his teeth then ran a comb through his damp hair. Satisfied, Carson returned to his bedroom and attached the radio to his ear. He walked past his destroyed table, past the reminders of the once beautiful dinner he'd prepared, without seeing anything. He reached the door, breathed in deeply, opened it, and stepped into the hallway.
"Good morning, Doctor Beckett," Teyla cheerfully announced upon entering the infirmary. "How did your dinner with ...Oh, no. No ..."
Carson looked up from the patient chart he was reading and glanced at the Athosian. The shock of his appearance was written clearly on her small, angular face. She inhaled sharply, and he saw in her face the most profound sadness and confusion he'd ever witnessed. Teyla's eyes drifted over Carson's split lip, swollen jaw, and the angry marks around his throat.
"I'm fine, lass," Beckett said, and he put everything he could into a small smile.
Teyla didn't say anything, but she wasn't buying the false smile. She stepped closer to Carson and raised her hand to touch his neck, but stopped when she caught a flash of raw panic in his eyes. Beckett shrank away from her a little, and trembled. It looked as though Teyla was using a tremendous amount of willpower to keep from screaming out her outrage at the top of her lungs.
"Who would dare do this?" she asked, the words barely crossing her lips.
"Teyla, love, it looks far worse than it is," Carson replied. "I'm fine. Really."
"Then why do you pull away from me as if ..." Teyla paused, realization dawning. "No ...This could not be. He would never ..."
Carson wrapped his arms around himself, but didn't answer. He wasn't sure what Teyla wanted - no, needed - to hear.
"Carson?" Teyla couldn't believe what she was about to ask. "Did he...did he force himself ...?"
"No, he didn't ...continue," Carson said as he studied the floor.
Relief seemed to wash over Teyla. She watched Beckett for several minutes, apparently satisfied that he'd told her the truth.
"Could we please go somewhere private to talk?"
Teyla wanted to get Carson as far as possible from the concerned, curious eyes of his medical staff. If the nurses and other doctors didn't know what happened last night then this was not the time to tell them.
"It's all right, and I've too much work to do, so I cannae leave just now," Carson told her. "I'll find ye later, if ye like. We'll talk then, okay?"
Teyla nodded her agreement. Carson felt as if she wanted to wrap her arms around him, but his earlier reaction warned her against it. Instead Teyla smiled as warmly as she could at Beckett before turning and walking out of the infirmary at a hurried pace.
Teyla wanted answers, and she knew exactly who had them.
As expected, Teyla found Ronon with John in the sparring room. The two men were performing simple warm-up exercises, stretching their limbs in preparation for the physical training to come. John saw Teyla slip into the room, and he smiled.
"Hey, Teyla, we were just getting started," John said cheerfully. "You want in? Or you wanna take the winner of the first round?"
Teyla's eyes never left Ronon's back as the Satedan pulled items out of his workout bag. She slipped off her outer shirt and tossed it in a corner, then walked to the weapons rack and grabbed two practice sticks. Whirling them intently, she waited in the center of the room.
"Ah ...okay ...so, you wanna to go first?" John asked, confused by Teyla's silence.
John watched as Ronon turned and looked at Teyla for a long moment. They spoke, not with words, but through a series of facial expressions. Teyla wasn't prepared to tell Sheppard what she'd concluded from her visit to the infirmary, but neither was she going to let Ronon go about his day as if nothing happened.
Dex nodded his acknowledgment and picked up his sticks.
"What'd I miss?" John asked sulkily.
Teyla launched into a straight attack on Ronon. Brown sticks whirled through the air, the polished wood clashing loudly as they made contact with those of her opponent. John backed closer to a wall as he watched his two friends and teammates battle. He sensed something was different. While the three often sparred together, the sessions often were filled with laughter and healthy competitive banter.
As usual, Teyla was as graceful as ever, but something in her movements was off. John watched as her strikes rained down, connecting with Ronon's arm and chest. Teyla spun, her right leg shooting out to clip Dex's ankle. Ronon caught himself before he lost his footing, then drove forward with a volley of stinging strikes of his own that put Teyla on the defensive. The flurry of activity went on for untold minutes before John, watching tensely from the sidelines, understood what he was seeing.
The fight was real. Teyla was out for Ronon's blood.
"That's enough for today, gang," John announced, his concern growing.
Ronon and Teyla ignored him as their battle escalated. Like a whip, Teyla brought a stick to bear on Ronon's left jaw. Dex answered with a round-house kick that sent the woman careening into a wall.
"I said knock it off!" John jumped between the two warriors and was rewarded with a hard shove from Ronon that sent him flying into a practice dummy.
"Goddamn it!" Groggy and winded, John tapped the radio at his ear. "Security team to Workout Room Two!"
After the command, all hell broke loose. Teyla and Ronon were oblivious to everything but their rage. Blood flowed liberally from a dozen cuts on each of their bodies, but still they wouldn't let up. John's eyes widened in shock as Ronon tossed his sticks aside and threw a punch, striking Teyla hard in her abdomen. Teyla's body crumpled instantly. She curled into a ball, gasping for air, as Ronon seized a handful of her hair and pulled his fist back.
Sheppard reacted, tackling Ronon before he could land a punch to Teyla vulnerable face. The men rolled, tangled and twisted on the floor, each fighting for purchase. At that moment, Major Lorne, accompanied by a security team, burst into the room and hit John and Ronon with blasts from a Wraith stunner.
Ronon felt the headache behind his closed eyes and winced. He could feel that he lay on a hard, flat surface - probably the floor, he thought - and slowly opened his eyes. Dex recognized the holding cell immediately, and despite the pounding in his head, he jumped to his feet quickly.
"Welcome back, sleepy head," Sheppard drawled from outside Ronon's cell door. "Thought I'd have to get a doctor to check that you weren't in a coma."
Ronon stared at his team leader with burning hate.
"Why am I here, Sheppard?"
"Oh, well, you know," John began, casually turning the chair near his leg around before he sat on it, dangling his arms over the low back. "It looked like you needed a time out."
Ronon's frown deepened. "A what?"
"Time out. That's when you disobey a direct order from your CO and continue to beat your female teammate to pulp."
John's eyes hardened as he pictured the no-holds-barred confrontation between Teyla and Ronon in the sparring room. Dex was hell bent on inflicting a massive amount of hurt on the Athosian before he and the security team intervened.
"She started it," Ronon shrugged, flexing his neck muscles until they popped.
"And when do you start the liar, liar pants on fire defense?"
"Open the door, Sheppard," Ronon barked back.
"Not a chance, buddy," John stood quickly and walked close to the cell door. "See, from my vantage point, what I saw wasn't two very good friends letting off a little steam. No. What I saw was one helluva big guy - that's you, by the way - losing his fucking mind!"
Ronon stood as close to the electrically charged cell door as possible and leaned forward, eyes intent on John's hazel-green ones. "I was defending myself!"
"From what?" John yelled. "What, just short of Wraith mind control, would make you lose it on Teyla like that? She's in the infirmary right now!"
Dex paused. Infirmary? He dropped his eyes and quietly replayed every action of their fight through his head. John seized on his hesitation.
"That last punch you threw bruised her spleen, Ronon! Carson's in there now patching up more than a few bruises you landed on her," John spat the words, letting his rage build and crash into Ronon through the security cage. He ran a shaking hand through his thick hair and audibly let out a long, frustrated sigh.
"When I woke up, I saw Carson."
John let the words hang in the air as he studied Dex for a reaction. The other man had a wall covering his emotions, and try as he might, John didn't think he could break it down. As military commander, he felt trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place. On one side, there was his loyal, embattled, and ill friend. Ronon had proven himself to the Air Force pilot in innumerable ways. John owed his life to Dex, and that wasn't something you could neatly pack away when the going got tough.
But on the other side was a stranger who Sheppard didn't recognize. While Dex always held an air of wildness, this other version was uncontrolled, reckless, and a powder keg of violence searching for a flame.
"It got out of hand," Ronon finally replied. His voice was low, and John recognized the turmoil hidden behind it.
Seeing the soldier like this, caged like a beast with his friends wary of him, hurt John deeply. To think Ronon was brought to this by a simple hormone.
"I know what's going on inside," he said softly. "And even if you don't want to admit it, I know you're scared."
Ronon flinched slightly, but remained silent.
"Like I said, I saw Beckett. I saw the bruises he had," John whispered. "He didn't say anything, but I know...knew you two were starting to get close."
A flicker, maybe silent acknowledgment, passed over Ronon's face.
"That's good, really," John offered his reassurance smoothly. "Carson's a good man. You couldn't find anyone nicer. And he's got a stash of the best tasting Scotch in this entire galaxy."
Sheppard shifted a little. This was weird territory for him. Yes, he knew Carson was gay, even if the doctor hadn't come right out and waved a rainbow flag in his face. That didn't bother John. He loved the sweet Scotsman like a brother, and while his own country and military frowned on such relationships, John was happy knowing two of his friends might have a chance at a good thing.
If they could survive this new Ronon.
"How long you gonna keep me in here?"
Sheppard knew the question was coming, but he still didn't believe he had many options.
"You stay here until I can talk to the doctors," he said flatly. "Despite what you think, Ronon, you're not yourself. You're not in control. I need you in control, buddy. Do you understand?"
John looked at Ronon and saw that his eyes were heavy and his shoulders were slumped.
"Yeah," Ronon said. "Do what you gotta do. But do it quick."