Harlequin Challenge: Fate Steps In
Title: Fate Steps In
Author: jennamajig
Pairing: Beckett/Weir (wow, I wrote het!)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It had been a year since Carson Beckett saw Elizabeth Weir. Or maybe it was nine months...
Warnings: Hocky. A bit contrived. But what Harlequin romance isn't?
Words: about 2,100.
A/N: Had a more detailed and expanded version of this story in mind, but alas, deadlines and such and this is what happened.
Elizabeth Weir cursed herself and her bad timing as the light turned red. She gasped. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
She was most definitely in labor.
And at the rate she was going, this baby wanted out and wanted out soon. She'd experienced mild pains during her board meeting, but she passed them off as gas. She didn't once think labor. She was still two weeks from her due date and in the mist of a huge merger between Stargate and Atlantis enterprises. She didn't have time to be in labor.
Besides, Atlantis was already her baby and it was crying. The merger was a minor nightmare. Shifting a company from Antarctica to Colorado Springs was not easy.
Another contraction hit as the light flashed green again. An impatient horn sounded behind her.
Not already, she thought. They're too close. Her contractions were two minutes apart. The hospital she needed to get to was across town and this was the tail end of rush hour traffic.
She needed to do something. And fast.
A glimpse to her right revealed a large office building, but all she saw was the letters "MD."
She pulled off the highway. It wasn't until she was inside that she realized exactly whose office it was.
--
Carson Beckett rubbed his eyes. Thank goodness it was nearly seven. Another ten minutes and he would be out the door and one step closer to his couch. He was exhausted. He'd forgotten how tiring family practice could be.
It was hard to believe that only six months previous he was sitting in a lab, in front of a computer screen, his back aching, his coffee cup empty, his eyes burning from another last night. Although, he thought, as he leaned his back into his desk chair, family practice hadn't really changed that. He just dealt with patients instead of DNA strands.
One of his medical school professors had owned the practice when a nearly fatal heart attack caused the sixty-six year old into retirement. His wife was overjoyed, but the man had no one to leave the practice to. Dr. Polk had a wonderfully friendly soul and couldn't bear to sell it to a stranger, so Carson wasn't surprised to hear from him.
Polk and Carson were close. Polk spent countless hours trying to lure the researcher back into what he fondly called "the real part of practicing medicine." Polk wasn't against research, but he was against Carson "wasting his people skills in a lab all day."
It wasn't easy. Carson loved the lab. But even he had to admit it was tiring, and his research appeared to be doing more harm than good. Then Stargate Enterprises announced that its merger with Atlantis Enterprises. Mergers were messy, but Carson would be lying if that were the main reason he took up Polk's offer.
Elizabeth was beautiful, smart, confident. Everything he lacked he saw in her and before he knew it...
He shook his head. It didn't matter. She wasn't a part of his life anymore and dwelling did nothing. His mother was right. He needed to move on. Of course, her idea of moving on was moving back to Scotland. But Carson couldn't bring himself to leave Colorado Springs. Once he'd said yes, Polk had him in the office within a week.
He shut down he computer and was reaching for his coat when his nurse, Rachel, stuck her head in.
"We're got someone without an appointment," she said. "Maggie took her into three."
"No appointment?" He would never turn anyone away, but then again, no one had ever popped into the office right before closing time without an appointment. It was unusual, to say the least.
Rachel nodded. "She's pregnant. Thirty-eight weeks. Contraction are less than a minute apart. Exam room one."
"One minute? How far is she dilated? She has to be nearly crowning!" He dropped his hand from its position near his coat rack and rushed out of room.
"What's her name?" he asked.
"Weir, I think she said," Rachel replied. "I can't remember her first name..."
Carson stopped in his tracks in doorway of the exam room. He paled. "Elizabeth," he supplied, voice low.
The woman didn't look up right away. She was too busy concentrating on getting through a contraction. But when she finally tipped her eyes up, Carson watched them go wide. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but it turned into a grunt.
Carson didn't have time to think. There was a baby on the way.
But in the back of his mind, he still couldn't help doing the math
--
Wonderful. Fabulous. Peachy, as her new business partner, Jack O'Neill might say. She was in pain, wanted to push, wanted to do anything to get this over with and whose office did she manage to drive herself to?
Carson's blue eyes were just as she remembered them. Caring, compassionate.
Honest.
She watched him brush his own feeling of shock aside. The next ten minutes seemed a blur. She tried to concentrate on the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but Carson.
When a cry filled the room, she felt her entire body sag in both exhaustion and relief.
"Is it okay?" she heard herself ask. It. She called the baby an it. The baby wasn't an it. Yet, she'd been so deep in her work, she hadn't really taken the time to think of the baby as anything but. She hadn't wanted to know. She needed surprise, she thought.
Carson's blue eyes were back, smiling at her. "She's just perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes." She saw him swallow.
"It's a girl?"
He nodded. "Elizabeth..." he started, but was interrupted when Maggie broke in with the still damp crying bundle.
Elizabeth held her breath as Maggie settled the child in her arms and peeled back the blanket. It was like a scene from a movie. Unreal.
The baby stopped crying to stare at her. She was pink, still needed a more thorough cleaning, but had enormous crystal clear blue eyes.
They were Carson blue.
Her world came crashing down. Did he know? Would he understand? Do she want him to? He'd just delivered his own child and didn't even know it.
Or maybe he did. Carson was extremely bright, extremely intuitive. She watched him blink and reach a tentative hand towards the baby, as if he was afraid to touch her. The baby's eyes shifted, as if she could sense his hesitance.
"Carson," she breathed. "I..."
"She's beautiful," he whispered. "Absolutely stunning."
She didn't know if she could do this.
She was the one that left. She was the one that packed her suitcase in the middle of night. Stood in the doorway to their bedroom and watched him as he slept. Knew she loved him, yet didn't have time for love. And love was never enough.
Her career had to come first. Heading up Atlantis was the dream of a lifetime. She was the first woman to do it. But the initial project phase would send her to Antarctica for six months at the very least. She didn't even know if she'd ever end up back in Colorado Springs. The merger with Stargate Enterprises was a complete surprise. Elizabeth never dreamed the company she'd left would join forces with the one she now ran. She and O'Neill would be equals. And Carson...
Carson didn't want to go to Antarctica. Yet, Carson understood. She knew his research meant a great deal to him. They were both passionate about work, their chosen professions. They often stayed up late together, laptops side-by-side, Chinese food on the coffee table, the only sound between them and click of their respective keyboards.
Then hours later, they'd surface and cuddle and on he couch, too exhausted most nights to do everything but watch reruns on the Food Network and talk about little things. Carson would run his fingers through her hair and she'd smile and lean into his chest. They fit so well together. Carson was the right height, the right build, with a soft personality that balanced her. In the office, she was supposed to be Wonder Woman, Stargate's second-in-command, not allowed to breathe or move. Not allowed to make a mistake.
At home, with Carson, she could make mistakes. She could be less than perfect.
He'd said he'd wait.
It wasn't fair to make him wait. He deserved better.
She was in Antarctica less than a month when she found out she was pregnant. She'd contemplated not having the baby for a split second, but knew she could never go through with it.
She couldn't tell Carson either. She tried, once. She'd called O'Neill's secretary, Daniel Jackson, one day and was told Carson had quit his job at Stargate Enterprises and gone into family practice. She figured he'd moved on. She heard rumors of a girl named Perna that caught Carson's eye.
She was happy for him. She didn't want to intrude, so she put telling him on the back burner for a while. After all, the baby didn't really exist, at least outside her body yet, so she had time.
She worked. At first, she feared she might lose her job if she decided to keep the baby, but she was determined and had her right hand men, John Sheppard and Rodney McKay sticking up for her. No one knew who the father was. No one dared to ask.
Her stare always chased them away.
Then Atlantis was heading back to Colorado and she was approaching her due date. The merger was in full swing and she was in endless meetings, pushing her swollen ankles to the limit.
Now she found herself here, her baby girl in her arms, staring at the man she didn't think she'd see again, but secretly hoped she would.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, and Carson stepped back.
"Sorry?" For a minute his face appeared sad, but anger clouded it. "You left in the middle of the night, Elizabeth. You didn't say good-bye. I knew you couldn't turn down Atlantis, but..." He swallowed. "Were you ever going to tell me? Ever? I have a right, you know."
"Of course you do," she agreed. "But I called, and you were gone. I'd heard about Perna-"
"Perna's gone," he said quietly.
"She is?" she asked. "But I thought you'd moved on."
"Moved on? Elizabeth, Perna and I could never have happened. I'm still in..." The words "love with you" hung in air, but Carson didn't say them. She knew they both knew how each other felt. The awkwardness only served to paint the perfect picture.
The baby squirmed, her head turning towards Elizabeth's chest. Her tiny lips opened and closed as if she was seeking something.
Maggie stepped in out of nowhere. Elizabeth had forgotten she and Carson were not alone. "She's hungry. Were you planning on breast feeding?"
"I don't know," she admitted. She hadn't had time to think about it. "What do I need to do?"
"Not much," Maggie assured her. "She'll be able to figure it out." In a matter of moments her blouse was unbuttoned and the baby was trying to grab hold.
"Give her a moment," Maggie said. "There." The baby latched on.
Elizabeth saw Carson turn away.
"Please," she pleaded.
--
Carson turned back and gazed at her face, trying to focus on his anger rather than the feelings this woman invoked in him. She looked so radiant and so natural, their child in her arms...
Their child. His daughter. He needed to be angry.
"You never would have told me." He tried to keep his voice even.
Elizabeth sighed. "I don't know. I'm been so busy with work, that I haven't thought about...she wasn't real until this very moment. The consequences..."
He shook his head. "Not consequences. She isn't a consequence. We're adults."
Elizabeth nodded. "I know. She's a part of us." She took a breath. "Maybe we could...?" She trailed off, but Carson knew what she meant. The implication hung in the air. Maggie and Rachel excused themselves and left him alone with Elizabeth.
He couldn't stay angry. He wanted to, really, really wanted to. This wouldn't fix itself overnight. It couldn't. He had no clue how to proceed.
But he needed to. Elizabeth needed to. He remembered how she made him feel. Insecurities melted away. She made him free brave, something he wasn't. He'd left his job because he wasn't brave enough. Didn't have the courage or will to completely forget, and even though he went through the motions a part of him could never move on.
He stared down at their daughter. She was finished eating, and was sound asleep. She was something they had made together. Elizabeth was right, she was part of each of them, married together in flesh and bone.
"We made her," he said.
Elizabeth smiled. "We did, didn't we?"
She was here; he could be brave. Anger could be chased away eventually. This moment had to happen. Fate stepped in and gave him a shove.
He leaned in, and careful of the child in her arms, kissed her.
--
Epilogue
It was a small wedding and Carson's mother wasn't too pleased they had a child out of wedlock, but her stern gaze faded when she held her grandchild. Elizabeth's father beamed and the entire affair managed to go off without a hitch.
Well, mostly. The moment her parents were pronounced man and wife, Mary Beckett decided to wail. The couple figured it was her way of showing her approval.
A dirty diaper, a bottle, and a few dances, and some wedding cake later, Carson and Elizabeth sat outside the small reception hall. Carson rocked a sleeping Mary in his arms.
"I should have stayed," Elizabeth muttered.
Carson smiled. "I should have gone to Antarctica. But, in the end, does it really matter?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I guess it really doesn't." She pushed herself up. "Let's go home. We have a master bedroom to christen."
"Aye," Carson replied. "That we do."
Author: jennamajig
Pairing: Beckett/Weir (wow, I wrote het!)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: It had been a year since Carson Beckett saw Elizabeth Weir. Or maybe it was nine months...
Warnings: Hocky. A bit contrived. But what Harlequin romance isn't?
Words: about 2,100.
A/N: Had a more detailed and expanded version of this story in mind, but alas, deadlines and such and this is what happened.
Elizabeth Weir cursed herself and her bad timing as the light turned red. She gasped. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
She was most definitely in labor.
And at the rate she was going, this baby wanted out and wanted out soon. She'd experienced mild pains during her board meeting, but she passed them off as gas. She didn't once think labor. She was still two weeks from her due date and in the mist of a huge merger between Stargate and Atlantis enterprises. She didn't have time to be in labor.
Besides, Atlantis was already her baby and it was crying. The merger was a minor nightmare. Shifting a company from Antarctica to Colorado Springs was not easy.
Another contraction hit as the light flashed green again. An impatient horn sounded behind her.
Not already, she thought. They're too close. Her contractions were two minutes apart. The hospital she needed to get to was across town and this was the tail end of rush hour traffic.
She needed to do something. And fast.
A glimpse to her right revealed a large office building, but all she saw was the letters "MD."
She pulled off the highway. It wasn't until she was inside that she realized exactly whose office it was.
--
Carson Beckett rubbed his eyes. Thank goodness it was nearly seven. Another ten minutes and he would be out the door and one step closer to his couch. He was exhausted. He'd forgotten how tiring family practice could be.
It was hard to believe that only six months previous he was sitting in a lab, in front of a computer screen, his back aching, his coffee cup empty, his eyes burning from another last night. Although, he thought, as he leaned his back into his desk chair, family practice hadn't really changed that. He just dealt with patients instead of DNA strands.
One of his medical school professors had owned the practice when a nearly fatal heart attack caused the sixty-six year old into retirement. His wife was overjoyed, but the man had no one to leave the practice to. Dr. Polk had a wonderfully friendly soul and couldn't bear to sell it to a stranger, so Carson wasn't surprised to hear from him.
Polk and Carson were close. Polk spent countless hours trying to lure the researcher back into what he fondly called "the real part of practicing medicine." Polk wasn't against research, but he was against Carson "wasting his people skills in a lab all day."
It wasn't easy. Carson loved the lab. But even he had to admit it was tiring, and his research appeared to be doing more harm than good. Then Stargate Enterprises announced that its merger with Atlantis Enterprises. Mergers were messy, but Carson would be lying if that were the main reason he took up Polk's offer.
Elizabeth was beautiful, smart, confident. Everything he lacked he saw in her and before he knew it...
He shook his head. It didn't matter. She wasn't a part of his life anymore and dwelling did nothing. His mother was right. He needed to move on. Of course, her idea of moving on was moving back to Scotland. But Carson couldn't bring himself to leave Colorado Springs. Once he'd said yes, Polk had him in the office within a week.
He shut down he computer and was reaching for his coat when his nurse, Rachel, stuck her head in.
"We're got someone without an appointment," she said. "Maggie took her into three."
"No appointment?" He would never turn anyone away, but then again, no one had ever popped into the office right before closing time without an appointment. It was unusual, to say the least.
Rachel nodded. "She's pregnant. Thirty-eight weeks. Contraction are less than a minute apart. Exam room one."
"One minute? How far is she dilated? She has to be nearly crowning!" He dropped his hand from its position near his coat rack and rushed out of room.
"What's her name?" he asked.
"Weir, I think she said," Rachel replied. "I can't remember her first name..."
Carson stopped in his tracks in doorway of the exam room. He paled. "Elizabeth," he supplied, voice low.
The woman didn't look up right away. She was too busy concentrating on getting through a contraction. But when she finally tipped her eyes up, Carson watched them go wide. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but it turned into a grunt.
Carson didn't have time to think. There was a baby on the way.
But in the back of his mind, he still couldn't help doing the math
--
Wonderful. Fabulous. Peachy, as her new business partner, Jack O'Neill might say. She was in pain, wanted to push, wanted to do anything to get this over with and whose office did she manage to drive herself to?
Carson's blue eyes were just as she remembered them. Caring, compassionate.
Honest.
She watched him brush his own feeling of shock aside. The next ten minutes seemed a blur. She tried to concentrate on the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but Carson.
When a cry filled the room, she felt her entire body sag in both exhaustion and relief.
"Is it okay?" she heard herself ask. It. She called the baby an it. The baby wasn't an it. Yet, she'd been so deep in her work, she hadn't really taken the time to think of the baby as anything but. She hadn't wanted to know. She needed surprise, she thought.
Carson's blue eyes were back, smiling at her. "She's just perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes." She saw him swallow.
"It's a girl?"
He nodded. "Elizabeth..." he started, but was interrupted when Maggie broke in with the still damp crying bundle.
Elizabeth held her breath as Maggie settled the child in her arms and peeled back the blanket. It was like a scene from a movie. Unreal.
The baby stopped crying to stare at her. She was pink, still needed a more thorough cleaning, but had enormous crystal clear blue eyes.
They were Carson blue.
Her world came crashing down. Did he know? Would he understand? Do she want him to? He'd just delivered his own child and didn't even know it.
Or maybe he did. Carson was extremely bright, extremely intuitive. She watched him blink and reach a tentative hand towards the baby, as if he was afraid to touch her. The baby's eyes shifted, as if she could sense his hesitance.
"Carson," she breathed. "I..."
"She's beautiful," he whispered. "Absolutely stunning."
She didn't know if she could do this.
She was the one that left. She was the one that packed her suitcase in the middle of night. Stood in the doorway to their bedroom and watched him as he slept. Knew she loved him, yet didn't have time for love. And love was never enough.
Her career had to come first. Heading up Atlantis was the dream of a lifetime. She was the first woman to do it. But the initial project phase would send her to Antarctica for six months at the very least. She didn't even know if she'd ever end up back in Colorado Springs. The merger with Stargate Enterprises was a complete surprise. Elizabeth never dreamed the company she'd left would join forces with the one she now ran. She and O'Neill would be equals. And Carson...
Carson didn't want to go to Antarctica. Yet, Carson understood. She knew his research meant a great deal to him. They were both passionate about work, their chosen professions. They often stayed up late together, laptops side-by-side, Chinese food on the coffee table, the only sound between them and click of their respective keyboards.
Then hours later, they'd surface and cuddle and on he couch, too exhausted most nights to do everything but watch reruns on the Food Network and talk about little things. Carson would run his fingers through her hair and she'd smile and lean into his chest. They fit so well together. Carson was the right height, the right build, with a soft personality that balanced her. In the office, she was supposed to be Wonder Woman, Stargate's second-in-command, not allowed to breathe or move. Not allowed to make a mistake.
At home, with Carson, she could make mistakes. She could be less than perfect.
He'd said he'd wait.
It wasn't fair to make him wait. He deserved better.
She was in Antarctica less than a month when she found out she was pregnant. She'd contemplated not having the baby for a split second, but knew she could never go through with it.
She couldn't tell Carson either. She tried, once. She'd called O'Neill's secretary, Daniel Jackson, one day and was told Carson had quit his job at Stargate Enterprises and gone into family practice. She figured he'd moved on. She heard rumors of a girl named Perna that caught Carson's eye.
She was happy for him. She didn't want to intrude, so she put telling him on the back burner for a while. After all, the baby didn't really exist, at least outside her body yet, so she had time.
She worked. At first, she feared she might lose her job if she decided to keep the baby, but she was determined and had her right hand men, John Sheppard and Rodney McKay sticking up for her. No one knew who the father was. No one dared to ask.
Her stare always chased them away.
Then Atlantis was heading back to Colorado and she was approaching her due date. The merger was in full swing and she was in endless meetings, pushing her swollen ankles to the limit.
Now she found herself here, her baby girl in her arms, staring at the man she didn't think she'd see again, but secretly hoped she would.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, and Carson stepped back.
"Sorry?" For a minute his face appeared sad, but anger clouded it. "You left in the middle of the night, Elizabeth. You didn't say good-bye. I knew you couldn't turn down Atlantis, but..." He swallowed. "Were you ever going to tell me? Ever? I have a right, you know."
"Of course you do," she agreed. "But I called, and you were gone. I'd heard about Perna-"
"Perna's gone," he said quietly.
"She is?" she asked. "But I thought you'd moved on."
"Moved on? Elizabeth, Perna and I could never have happened. I'm still in..." The words "love with you" hung in air, but Carson didn't say them. She knew they both knew how each other felt. The awkwardness only served to paint the perfect picture.
The baby squirmed, her head turning towards Elizabeth's chest. Her tiny lips opened and closed as if she was seeking something.
Maggie stepped in out of nowhere. Elizabeth had forgotten she and Carson were not alone. "She's hungry. Were you planning on breast feeding?"
"I don't know," she admitted. She hadn't had time to think about it. "What do I need to do?"
"Not much," Maggie assured her. "She'll be able to figure it out." In a matter of moments her blouse was unbuttoned and the baby was trying to grab hold.
"Give her a moment," Maggie said. "There." The baby latched on.
Elizabeth saw Carson turn away.
"Please," she pleaded.
--
Carson turned back and gazed at her face, trying to focus on his anger rather than the feelings this woman invoked in him. She looked so radiant and so natural, their child in her arms...
Their child. His daughter. He needed to be angry.
"You never would have told me." He tried to keep his voice even.
Elizabeth sighed. "I don't know. I'm been so busy with work, that I haven't thought about...she wasn't real until this very moment. The consequences..."
He shook his head. "Not consequences. She isn't a consequence. We're adults."
Elizabeth nodded. "I know. She's a part of us." She took a breath. "Maybe we could...?" She trailed off, but Carson knew what she meant. The implication hung in the air. Maggie and Rachel excused themselves and left him alone with Elizabeth.
He couldn't stay angry. He wanted to, really, really wanted to. This wouldn't fix itself overnight. It couldn't. He had no clue how to proceed.
But he needed to. Elizabeth needed to. He remembered how she made him feel. Insecurities melted away. She made him free brave, something he wasn't. He'd left his job because he wasn't brave enough. Didn't have the courage or will to completely forget, and even though he went through the motions a part of him could never move on.
He stared down at their daughter. She was finished eating, and was sound asleep. She was something they had made together. Elizabeth was right, she was part of each of them, married together in flesh and bone.
"We made her," he said.
Elizabeth smiled. "We did, didn't we?"
She was here; he could be brave. Anger could be chased away eventually. This moment had to happen. Fate stepped in and gave him a shove.
He leaned in, and careful of the child in her arms, kissed her.
--
Epilogue
It was a small wedding and Carson's mother wasn't too pleased they had a child out of wedlock, but her stern gaze faded when she held her grandchild. Elizabeth's father beamed and the entire affair managed to go off without a hitch.
Well, mostly. The moment her parents were pronounced man and wife, Mary Beckett decided to wail. The couple figured it was her way of showing her approval.
A dirty diaper, a bottle, and a few dances, and some wedding cake later, Carson and Elizabeth sat outside the small reception hall. Carson rocked a sleeping Mary in his arms.
"I should have stayed," Elizabeth muttered.
Carson smiled. "I should have gone to Antarctica. But, in the end, does it really matter?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I guess it really doesn't." She pushed herself up. "Let's go home. We have a master bedroom to christen."
"Aye," Carson replied. "That we do."