Stargate Atlantis: Emerald Isle

Chapter 9 - Recovery

John was in a bad mood. He'd been woken up and changed into clean bandages and clothes with businesslike efficiency and then fed some thin soupy stuff which had made him feel queasy. His arm was hurting a lot and yet the two women, Breesha and Vorra, were looking at him with satisfaction, as if he were a job well done. He scowled at them and they smiled back indulgently.

Breesha busied herself over the hearth making some kind of tea while Vorra squatted next to her, chatting animatedly and sometimes throwing glances in John's direction. He wondered what she was saying and also why everyone squatted on the floor - hadn't they got round to inventing chairs yet? They didn't even have rocks, he thought, missing his usual perches on the beach.

He sighed and shifted uncomfortably, holding his sore arm. Breesha looked at him and then went over to his tac vest, took out the medical kit and offered it to him, doubtfully. He took it and fished out the Tylenol but couldn't get them out of the pack with only one hand. Breesha took it from him and, considering she'd never held a blister pack in her life, popped out two pills with remarkable ease. She handed them to John and then gave him a cup of the usual light ale to wash them down. She pointed to the antibiotic syringes in the kit, but John shook his head.

"Rodney can do that," he said. John didn't think he could deal with the syringe with one hand and he wasn't letting Breesha have a go; she was looking altogether a bit too enthusiastic. She shrugged, disappointed, and put the kit away.

Vorra poured some of the tea into a cup and helped John sit up to drink it. It tasted of bitter herbs and he turned his head away after the first mouthful, but she spoke firmly and offered him the cup again until he'd drunk what she considered enough. She helped him lie back down again and he closed his eyes, breathing quickly as if he'd just walked up a flight of stairs, annoyed at his own weakness.

The curtain moved aside and John opened his eyes to see Rodney come in. John looked up at him and smirked.

"Very nice, McKay," he said, "is that the latest in Iron Age style?"

Rodney pulled at his cape, twitching the folds into what he considered a more elegant fall.

"I think I carry it off rather well, actually," he said haughtily. "Anyway, Grandma," he said in his more usual jibing tone, "what a nice nightdress you have!"

"All the better to strangle you with when I get half a chance!" replied John grumpily.

The two women looked uncomfortable at the verbal back and forth not realising that, for John and Rodney, the sniping was their equivalent of expressions of concern. Each would have been worried if the other hadn't replied in kind.

"So," said Rodney, sitting down on his bed, "how's the arm?"

"Could be worse," said John, evasively. "How's the head?"

"In the interests of full disclosure," said Rodney, impatiently, "better then it was, but I still have a headache on and off and I'm going to take some Tylenol. Now, why don't you tell me how you really feel, because you look like crap?"

"OK," John replied angrily, attempting to raise himself on one elbow and failing miserably, "it hurts like a bitch and I think I still have a fever and can you please stick me with one of those antibiotic things? Thank you!"

"You're welcome!" Rodney returned, with equal irritation. He got the medical kit and, opening up the Tylenol, said accusingly, "When did you have more of these?"

"Just now," John responded sheepishly.

Rodney huffed, took two of the pills himself and then efficiently administered the antibiotic. "There's only one of those left, now," he said. "I hope it's enough."

"It'll have to be," John said tiredly.

At this point Breesha intervened, ushering Rodney over to his bed and sitting him down to check his head wound, while keeping up a running patter of words. They knew exactly what she was saying because they'd heard it all before from Jennifer Keller and Beckett before her; the gist was probably, "Stop bickering and leave each other alone." They smirked across the hut at each other, satisfied that they could annoy any medical attendant on any planet. John fell asleep on that thought.

oOo

He woke to the smell of cooking. Vorra was squatting next to the fire again, stirring the pot. A meaty smell drifted over and John's stomach gave a loud rumble. Vorra looked up and smiled, then rose gracefully from her squat to put her hand on his forehead, uttering a few pleased-sounding words which he took to mean his temperature was more normal. John felt more normal, although his arm twinged sharply when Vorra helped him into a more upright position, supported by a bundle of animal furs under his back, shoulders and head. He breathed slowly through gritted teeth until the pain subsided.

John could see, round the edges of the door-curtain, that the light was failing. Looking round the hut at the absence of McKay, he said, "Where's Rodney?"

Vorra waved her hand toward the door and said something which John got no information from, other than: "Outside."

Vorra ladled some of the meaty stew into a cup and handed it to John. He thanked her, grateful that he wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of being spoon-fed. Rodney arrived, with impeccable timing, ready for the meal.

"What's it like out there?" John mumbled, through his mouthful of stew. He didn't remember their arrival at the hut and was uncomfortable at the thought of having no knowledge of his surroundings.

"Oh, your average Iron Age hill fort," said Rodney annoyingly, looking enthusiastically at the bowl of stew Vorra was ladling out for him. "Coll showed me round earlier."

He described the fort as he ate: "It has two defensive walls, made of earth and stone and a wooden palisade on top. There are watch towers, four I think, at intervals around it. You come in the outer ring through a gate on the south side, but then you have to walk between the walls round to the north to get in the inner gate. Out there," he waved at the door, "huts, big and small, some for people, some for animals, some in groups like they belong to one family. And a big central one for meetings. And a beacon, always ready to light. Coll showed me the island fort - you can see all the way down to the coast. That's what the beacon's for, to warn them if the raiders are coming." He paused, thinking if there was anything else he'd seen. "They farm the land on the surrounding slopes and there are some outlying huts - they don't all live in the fort all the time."

John closed his eyes, picturing it in his head; he really wanted to get out there and see it for himself.

"How many people live in the fort?" he asked.

"Um... maybe two-fifty, three hundred?" replied Rodney. "Difficult to tell, a lot of them are out farming and so on at any given time. I saw hunting parties coming and going too."

John had finished his stew, but shook his head when Vorra offered him more. She ladled more into Rodney's bowl without asking.

"This is pretty good," said Rodney, chewing a chunk of meat. "Oh, that porridge stuff? The grain is barley. They seem to use it for bread too. And beer."

"Yeah, what's that all about? Don't they drink water?"

Rodney shook his head. "No, must be because beer is safer. You'd have to be constantly boiling water. Everyone drinks the beer, even children."

John digested this information, thinking how much he wanted to get out and see it all for himself. He tried to raise his right arm and received a hot flash of pain in return which made the stew sit uneasily in his stomach. He closed his eyes; it would be a while before he was up to exploring the fort.