Challenge #71
Challenge # 71
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Character: Carson
Sometimes, when it's 3am and five hours into an emergency surgery and he wants nothing more than to sleep, to not be chief surgeon, to have time to want something other than just an empty bed, to not see the people he cares about on his table yet again, with a new kind of wound that would advance medical understanding of trauma by decades if only someone had the time to write it down; this is when he begins to understand that frontier medicine means knowing only how ill-equipped you are to deal with what's before you and having nobody to consult with beyond your tiny group of staff, all of whom are as bewildered and terrified as you are or just so tired that they don't have the energy to do anything but the job before them, and he is struck by the fear that he's forgotten how to smile, that they all have. On the edges you get worn down to the essence of your job, and there is no room and no time and no energy for anything else, and he hasn't had a reason to smile for a long, long time. Once he would have imagined Hell as having no cause to smile; now he fears that it may be having cause and no longer knowing how. It's an abstract fear, one to nag when there is nothing more urgent to hold his attention, but it fills every moment of silence. He hates that he is grateful for the fact that there is no longer time for anything but work, so he need never know for sure that the ability to smile is lost beyond recall.
Word: Smile
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Character: Carson
Sometimes, when it's 3am and five hours into an emergency surgery and he wants nothing more than to sleep, to not be chief surgeon, to have time to want something other than just an empty bed, to not see the people he cares about on his table yet again, with a new kind of wound that would advance medical understanding of trauma by decades if only someone had the time to write it down; this is when he begins to understand that frontier medicine means knowing only how ill-equipped you are to deal with what's before you and having nobody to consult with beyond your tiny group of staff, all of whom are as bewildered and terrified as you are or just so tired that they don't have the energy to do anything but the job before them, and he is struck by the fear that he's forgotten how to smile, that they all have. On the edges you get worn down to the essence of your job, and there is no room and no time and no energy for anything else, and he hasn't had a reason to smile for a long, long time. Once he would have imagined Hell as having no cause to smile; now he fears that it may be having cause and no longer knowing how. It's an abstract fear, one to nag when there is nothing more urgent to hold his attention, but it fills every moment of silence. He hates that he is grateful for the fact that there is no longer time for anything but work, so he need never know for sure that the ability to smile is lost beyond recall.
Word: Smile