Notes on "Time Heals"
I wanted to take a moment and address some things that were brought up in comments to Time Heals.
1. The addition of Katie Brown into Carmine and Joey's relationship
I am a polyamorous person by nature and enjoy reading/writing stories that explore healthy, fulfilling poly relationships. That being said, Ties That Bind is a perfect universe in which to plant a poly relationship and watch it bloom.
Dynamic-wise, Katie was good fit for Carmine. She's not a masochist in the least, complementing the fact that he's not a sadist. She's also a little damaged, with self-esteem issues- would she really have let Kavanaugh get away with what he did had she not been? As we saw with Anka and with Joey, Carmine has deft touch when it comes to subs with issues. So again, Katie was a good fit.
Katie and Joey work together for different reasons. For a second sub to have worked in his relationship with Carmine, Joey needed someone that wasn't going to compete for Carmine. He didn't need some overly confident, pushy sub entering the picture and causing his own self-esteem problems to spiral. Enter Katie who is just as broken as he is emotionally and would never purposely hurt him out of spite. It was a good fit.
I've been wondering if the reception to the poly relationship would have been different if the third person I introduced into Carmine and Joey's relationship was male. It's something I'll just never know.
2. My decision to have the healing wand fix both Joey and Carmine
I had always intended to end this story around the point in TTB where Miko fixed the healing wands. It would have felt like a massive disservice to TTB to have ignored the potential of the wands' ability to fix Carmine and Joey's injuries. I know some people feel that it was too cookie-cutter perfect an ending, but I couldn't justify the techology being available and not utilizing it.
The one thing I was adamant about while I wrote this was that I wanted their relationship to be completely formed and rock-solid prior to their bodies being made whole again. I think I more than accomplished that, and because I did, I'm actually very pleased with the ending.
3. The possibility of an epilogue - aka the much in demand vineyard visit.
No promises. But I do have some random paragraphs started and I've been running through possible scenarios in my head. We'll see.
4. Caldwell
I discovered an entirely new appreciation for Caldwell as I wrote this fic. I actually never minded Caldwell on-screen but I've always hated how he's been portrayed in fic. I'm really glad that so many commenters liked how I handled Caldwell in Time Heals, he turned out to be a nice guy after all.
5. Carmine and Lisa's relationship
I know there were a few people that asked about Carmine and Lisa, and why he would have stayed with her if their relationship was so bad.
In a nutshell, the expression "love is blind" covers this nicely. Carmine was head over heels in love with Lisa. He didn't see her faults and he didn't see that they really didn't have much in common. Dynamically and sexually, they were a perfect fit--it was just everything else that was a train wreck. It wasn't until he was no longer with her that he could see her for what she really was (and what everyone else saw her to be). It wasn't until he was with Joey and in a healthy, caring relationship with someone that met all of his needs that he could look back on his relationship with Lisa and see just how bad it was.
6. The pace of the story
I know some people mentioned that the pace felt hurried at times in comparison to the amount of material in TTB. Honestly, there is much going on in TTB that the average Joe on Atlantis isn't privy to, so there are large chunks of Keira's plot that weren't included in Time Heals because it just wouldn't be anything my characters would either be involved in or know about.
Also I'm not a huge fan of the rehashing of canon in fanfic. Fics that drone on for paragraph after paragraph full of episode details bore me to tears. In this instance, TTB is my source canon, and I had no desire to rehash Keira's words in the same way. It just doesn't work for me.
I hope this clears up a few things. If anyone wants other questions answered, comment here and I'll see what I can do! :)