Fic: Puzzling Evidence (Part X), NC-17, Lorne/Zelenka by inkscribe
Title: Puzzling Evidence (Part X)
Author: inkscribe
Pairings: Lorne/Zelenka
Kink: mild D/s, bondage, spanking
Warnings: Dark, scary chapter. Broken Carson.
Angst-o-meter: peta-angst (very, very strong)
Rating: NC-17
Words: ~2700 (this part)
Spoilers: none (this part)
Locations: atlantiskink, welovezelenka, my LJ
Feedback: yes, please!
Summary: What we see is not always what it seems.
Chapter Summary: Fractured.
New to this WIP? Check out the Puzzling Evidence chapter index! Please remember to read the header block of each chapter for related spoiler alerts, warnings, and notes.
Author's Notes: As hinted, promised, threatened - this chapter, well, it’s like a walk in the park ... a very scary park, filled with monsters who are trying to kill me. Waaaaaaaa! I solemnly swear no one dies in this chapter.
IANAD - I Am Not A Doctor! My research indicates that the timeline here is most likely astoundingly impossible in terms of survival, but I promised that no one dies in this chapter, so let’s go with this being suitable for the purposes of fiction, drama, etc.
Non-beta’d; any errors are most definitely mine.
PS: Campbell's name is that of the actor's, as other writers have done, as he appears to remain The Nameless Canadian Technician in canon. ;-)
Fanvid recommendation:
No, I don’t anticipate making a fanvid rec for every chapter, but ... well, again, this one just fits. With permission from obfreak, I’d like to recommend her fanvid How to Save a Life for how it relates to all the things coming down on Carson in this part. If nothing else, this fanvid is an excellent reminder of just how many horrible things Carson has to get through in the first three seasons!
How to Save a Life can be downloaded from this page OBFreak Vids.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is not mine; please don’t sue, we’ll both regret it in the morning.
Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard strode through the unexplored and abandoned corridors of Atlantis. He walked unseeing and unheeding, his mind churning with self-recriminations. Anger, too, rolled from his body, anger at himself, at Rodney, and now Carson.
That Carson had let him think Marc might die was understandable, but Carson had let Rodney think that, too, and that’s why John found himself angry at a third person drawn into the nightmare that he and Rodney had started.
John faced death as part of his job description and had done so for a long, long time. Rodney, though, Rodney had a more theoretical relationship with death. Sure, he could whip together a nuclear weapon that had the potential to kill thousands, possibly millions, in a blast that lasted only moments, and he could whip it together in a freakishly short amount of time. But that didn’t make Rodney someone who had come to terms with taking someone’s life as a part of his day job, not face-to-face, not a real person instead of a theoretical, faceless enemy. Not like thinking he’d just helped John kill Marcus Lorne.
Rodney shouldn’t have been told he was almost a killer. John - sure. What the hell; it was true. John had fallen for his own myth, the noble loner who rescues all in distress, seeking no reward but the reward of a job well done. Ha. Fucking cowboy bullshit. Good for entertainment on a lazy Saturday afternoon when nothing else was on the tube and you couldn’t be bothered to go out, but nothing very realistic about it.
Carson had scared John when he said - no, implied - Marc was at death’s door from the beating John had laid on him. But Carson had fucking terrified Rodney, pushed the scientist into a level of paralysing fear John had honestly come to think he would never witness - after all, despite the bitching and moaning, Rodney always managed all right, managed to kill the Wraith when he needed to, managed to detonate the bomb at the right time. Rodney was already addicted to coffee, so it wasn’t entirely fair to suggest that stress was like caffeine for Rodney’s brilliance - Rodney preferred a strong mixture of coffee with his stress, and a bit of death-defying fear to goad the scientist consistently showed positive outcomes, such as saving everyone’s ass from the bad guys. But Carson’s words had torn Rodney apart, pushed him past simple fright and into a fear that froze him into silence.
They had sat together that afternoon, silent and horrified, not speaking, on the edge of John’s bed. They knew nothing was right in the world as soon as they were dismissed from Elizabeth’s presence; they knew things were bad, but for Rodney everything really was wrong in the world once Carson told them that Marc needed surgery, no thanks to them.
John walked and walked, not bothering to quiet his footfalls, not caring if he woke every stasis-chambered horror Atlantis had yet to reveal - being devoured alive and left for dead would be a kindness John couldn’t offer to himself. He didn’t know how he could live with himself anymore, but he wasn’t prepared to eat his gun, either.
Maybe some other way, then. He thought about handing in his resignation, giving it to Elizabeth - Doctor Weir - boarding the Daedelus and never even bothering to turn around to wave goodbye. He wanted to tune out, turn off, and drop away, forever, his life the waste it was destined to be. Be stuck forever on Earth, drinking himself out of everything until he died homeless and dried out from too much drink and too little food or warmth inside a dumpster behind a hotel somewhere. Most likely a hotel that rented by the hour.
Or more appropriately, a one-way trip to a Wraith-infested world, just like he’d threatened to do to Major Lorne.
But he couldn’t.
Never mind his own fucked up head, his own fucked up life and career and lost friends. No, he couldn’t do anything like was imagining, hell, fantasising, because Rodney - Rodney needed him. Rodney was even closer to the edge than John, and John knew it. He didn’t know what to do about Marc and Radek, and he didn’t know what to do about Rodney, but he sure as hell had to try because there was no fucking way four people were going to end up destroyed because of his own fucking stupidity.
John’s breath was ragged although his stride was even and he hadn’t walked long enough to justify any real exhaustion. Fuck John thought, the sound loud inside his own head. Then he laughed - who the fuck would overhear him here, chastise or correct him here, in the bowels of uncharted Atlantis? He stopped, took a deep breath, and bellowed “Fuuuuuuuccckkkkkkkk!” long and loud at the top of his lungs.
oOo
Carson Beckett sat at his desk, staring at nothing at all. The light in his quarters was dim: he needed some light but didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to have to see it, not now, not this way.
Carson always made it through the emergencies. He always survived. Before even arriving in Atlantis he knew he’d have to pull double-duty, do hands-on doctoring in addition to his genetics research, but his ability to push everything aside when lives were on the line never failed to amaze him. Certainly, he understood the physiology well enough: it all began with stress, of course, the fight-or-flight response triggering the production of epinephrine, the heart speeding up and a brief burst of near-euphoria as his symptomatic and autonomic nervous system made him ready for the demands it would encounter. That it could all change into something sustainable for long periods of time is what amazed Carson, what left him surprised after the emergency was over, his mind and body exhausted, the biological gift exhausted, for the moment, along with him.
This time, the exhaustion felt different, though. He couldn’t put his finger on it, not now, not when he was physically and psychologically wrung out from the medical demands of Marc and Radek, not when he was emotionally wrung out from dealing with first Rodney, then John, and now Elizabeth. If only he didn’t have to, have to -
Carson felt as though he were being torn up, inch by inch, from the inside. He knew emergency medicine wasn’t his forté; he always fussed too much as he got to know people, got too attached. He never got over taking death personally, never got over grieving for those he couldn’t save, couldn’t make better. The research side was much simpler: data collected, theories tested, reports written.
Reports. He’d have to put together more reports on this case, that was certain. And the bugger of it was that no matter how he wrote them up, someone was going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. John for beating someone in his command, Rodney for helping him. Marc for being American and military and, aye, homosexual. The only person not likely to be hurt further by anything Carson committed to bureaucratic officialdom was Radek, and even that wasn’t true because if Carson’s report resulted in Marc’s expulsion from active service with the American military, Carson knew without a doubt that Radek would be gone with him.
Those two - it was bittersweet, watching them together in the infirmary; they clearly adored one another, worshipped one another. Marc’s long confession to Carson about their relationship also showed Carson that the two of them were not in the first blush of a whirlwind romance, either. They were a couple, an established pair, something steady and consistent and stable in Atlantis, where nearly everything wasn’t.
Carson sighed, a long, low susurration of emotional pain. He was so lonely. He knew he shouldn’t be and he knew he should not but after all that had happened he had to, he had to, he had -
Radek hid his own hurt so well that until all this happened Carson had never had a clue. Not that Carson and Radek spent a lot of time together, not that Carson knew the man very well, but Carson thought he was a good judge of people and he’d never noticed Radek much beyond his relationship to Rodney, the brilliant sidekick of the not-so-evil mastermind. Radek seemed steady, and had always provided a steadying influence on Rodney.
But Carson had missed - somehow - that Radek was hurt. Even now, Carson didn’t have many clues as to why Radek was hurt, no more insight than Radek’s lover, really. The hurt was something deep, certainly. And old. Marc thought it might be from childhood, but the few times he’d tried to broach the subject with Radek, the man became anxious and skittish, a panic attack threatening to rise up and overwhelm him. Heightmeyer agreed with Carson that some aspects of Radek and Lorne’s relationship were part of a coping mechanism for Radek.
Coping mechanism. Carson snorted. He knew about coping mechanisms, about keeping secrets. He knew it as well as anybody, maybe better. He sat here, at his desk, freshly-showered, clean in body even when not in spirit, and trying not to because he shouldn’t and he knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t help it even if he shouldn’t he shouldn’t he shouldn’t -
Carson knew how to keep secrets, aye. Carson was certain no one else in Atlantis knew he hurt, too. Carson did his best to be there for them when they needed him, whomever they were, whenever they needed him. But - Carson was so lonely, his chest was hollow yet tight and painful from loneliness. His heart constricted - painfully - every time he saw the couple in his infirmary, every time he stood watching them, like the orphan with his nose pressed against the shop glass, wishing he could have toys like other girls and boys.
Carson knew he shouldn’t be. He knew he shouldn’t - he should not - but after all that had happened he had to, he didn’t think he could stop, though Lord knows he would try.
Deep down, Carson knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.
His hand shaking slightly, he reached forward and retrieved the long cord from his desk.
oOo
Elizabeth rushed down the corridor towards Carson’s room, worry and anger spurring her on in equal parts.
She was standing next to Campbell in the control room when Sheppard contacted him, asking for the whereabouts of Doctor Beckett. Campbell told Sheppard that Beckett was supposed to be off-duty and checked his life-signs reading, noting that Beckett appeared to be in his quarters.
Elizabeth tuned in to the conversation just as Campbell clicked off. “That’s odd,” Campbell mused.
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.
“It looks like Colonel Sheppard is already outside Beckett’s door,” he said, pointing at the signatures pulsing on the screen.
“Why do you think that one is Colonel Sheppard?” Elizabeth asked, indicating the pulse located in the corridor just outside Carson’s door.
“Because I’ve been tracking that one for the last two hours. It’s blipped through several levels of an unexplored part of the city,” Campbell replied. “The Colonel is the only one who wanders in those areas.”
Elizabeth left immediately without comment.
What the hell did he think he was doing? she fumed to herself. She had ordered him to stay away from the infirmary, ordered him to keep his distance until everyone involved was healed enough to begin sorting through - everything. Her orders included Beckett. She knew that John knew that, that he had no reasonable excuse to disobey her, not now, not after everything that had happened. He had better offer her a very good explanation as to why he was skulking outside Carson’s door or she would have him confined to quarters, under guard, until this whole mess was sorted out.
She rounded a final corner and stopped short at the sight of John standing stock-still, his fist resting against the door as though he’d just finished knocking.
“Colonel?” she asked, her tone professional, cool.
“Elizabeth,” John acknowledged, not looking at her.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
“I was hoping to see Doctor Beckett.”
“Against my direct orders?”
“No!” John protested, and Elizabeth felt herself begin to flush with a tinge of anger. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “Just to talk. I just wanted to ask him to talk with me, down at the mess or someplace.”
“Yet here you are,” Elizabeth said, keeping her tone level, trying to restrain the anger she felt bubbling beneath the surface. “At his quarters.”
“Yeah,” John said. “He wouldn’t answer his radio and when I got here, he wasn’t answering his door. I thought he was supposed to be off-duty, but I wasn’t going to go to the infirmary because - well, because of everyone there and your orders and everything - so I called Control to double-check if he was here.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her words short, clipped.
“Yeah,” John sighed. “Sorry. I know, I should have cleared it with you, first.”
“So why are you still here, Colonel?” Elizabeth asked, finding her temper rising again.
John looked at her suddenly, and Elizabeth was surprised to see worry etched on his face.
“Doesn’t this seem out of character to you, Elizabeth?” asked John. “I’m sure Carson is still pissed at me - I know I’m pissed at him. But to ignore his radio? To ignore a knock on his door? I’ve been knocking for the last ten minutes or more. I know he’s stubborn, but I figured he be out here to tell me to get the bloody hell away and stop bloody bothering him by the second minute at the latest.”
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment. John was right, Carson wasn’t one to ignore a knock. He was too used to being woken up for emergencies at all hours. No, John was right - something wasn’t quite right with this scenario.
“I was just trying to decide whether I should risk your wrath by opening his door myself or walking away and hoping I’m just being paranoid,” John said, quiet and emotionless.
Elizabeth nodded. “I agree with your concerns about Doctor Beckett, Colonel. Override the door.”
The door opened silently at John’s thought and John and Elizabeth stepped into the half-dark of Carson’s quarters. Elizabeth’s eyes took longer than John’s to adjust, and then John had thought the lights on to full brightness and was running and shouting and she was running and shouting along with him, “Oh my god, Carson!”
Carson Beckett was slumped alongside his desk, his skin pale and possibly blue-tinged, a cord visible tight around his neck.
Oh my god.
Elizabeth stood back as John loosened the cord, began standard first aid assessment: airway, breathing, circulation. A, B, C. She saw him nod, airway clear. Breathing? No. Circulation? No pulse. God.
She keyed her radio and called for medical assistance, remembering to add that they needed a portable defibrillator, and that they needed it now.
John dropped and began performing CPR and rescue breathing. His voice was loud in her ears as he counted off chest compressions, broken each time by the relative silence of John forcing air into Carson’s lungs.
She knew John’s effort could be pointless, knew the real success rate of CPR was far more limited than most people thought, but hoped nonetheless that this would be one time to beat the odds.
Elizabeth was surprised to find herself praying, silently, as she waited for the emergency team to arrive, to take away the powerlessness that she felt, for them to do what could be done, if anything. To accomplish, she prayed, what John was so desperately trying to accomplish: to save Carson’s life.
End Part X
Author: inkscribe
Pairings: Lorne/Zelenka
Kink: mild D/s, bondage, spanking
Warnings: Dark, scary chapter. Broken Carson.
Angst-o-meter: peta-angst (very, very strong)
Rating: NC-17
Words: ~2700 (this part)
Spoilers: none (this part)
Locations: atlantiskink, welovezelenka, my LJ
Feedback: yes, please!
Summary: What we see is not always what it seems.
Chapter Summary: Fractured.
New to this WIP? Check out the Puzzling Evidence chapter index! Please remember to read the header block of each chapter for related spoiler alerts, warnings, and notes.
Author's Notes: As hinted, promised, threatened - this chapter, well, it’s like a walk in the park ... a very scary park, filled with monsters who are trying to kill me. Waaaaaaaa! I solemnly swear no one dies in this chapter.
IANAD - I Am Not A Doctor! My research indicates that the timeline here is most likely astoundingly impossible in terms of survival, but I promised that no one dies in this chapter, so let’s go with this being suitable for the purposes of fiction, drama, etc.
Non-beta’d; any errors are most definitely mine.
PS: Campbell's name is that of the actor's, as other writers have done, as he appears to remain The Nameless Canadian Technician in canon. ;-)
Fanvid recommendation:
No, I don’t anticipate making a fanvid rec for every chapter, but ... well, again, this one just fits. With permission from obfreak, I’d like to recommend her fanvid How to Save a Life for how it relates to all the things coming down on Carson in this part. If nothing else, this fanvid is an excellent reminder of just how many horrible things Carson has to get through in the first three seasons!
How to Save a Life can be downloaded from this page OBFreak Vids.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise is not mine; please don’t sue, we’ll both regret it in the morning.
Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard strode through the unexplored and abandoned corridors of Atlantis. He walked unseeing and unheeding, his mind churning with self-recriminations. Anger, too, rolled from his body, anger at himself, at Rodney, and now Carson.
That Carson had let him think Marc might die was understandable, but Carson had let Rodney think that, too, and that’s why John found himself angry at a third person drawn into the nightmare that he and Rodney had started.
John faced death as part of his job description and had done so for a long, long time. Rodney, though, Rodney had a more theoretical relationship with death. Sure, he could whip together a nuclear weapon that had the potential to kill thousands, possibly millions, in a blast that lasted only moments, and he could whip it together in a freakishly short amount of time. But that didn’t make Rodney someone who had come to terms with taking someone’s life as a part of his day job, not face-to-face, not a real person instead of a theoretical, faceless enemy. Not like thinking he’d just helped John kill Marcus Lorne.
Rodney shouldn’t have been told he was almost a killer. John - sure. What the hell; it was true. John had fallen for his own myth, the noble loner who rescues all in distress, seeking no reward but the reward of a job well done. Ha. Fucking cowboy bullshit. Good for entertainment on a lazy Saturday afternoon when nothing else was on the tube and you couldn’t be bothered to go out, but nothing very realistic about it.
Carson had scared John when he said - no, implied - Marc was at death’s door from the beating John had laid on him. But Carson had fucking terrified Rodney, pushed the scientist into a level of paralysing fear John had honestly come to think he would never witness - after all, despite the bitching and moaning, Rodney always managed all right, managed to kill the Wraith when he needed to, managed to detonate the bomb at the right time. Rodney was already addicted to coffee, so it wasn’t entirely fair to suggest that stress was like caffeine for Rodney’s brilliance - Rodney preferred a strong mixture of coffee with his stress, and a bit of death-defying fear to goad the scientist consistently showed positive outcomes, such as saving everyone’s ass from the bad guys. But Carson’s words had torn Rodney apart, pushed him past simple fright and into a fear that froze him into silence.
They had sat together that afternoon, silent and horrified, not speaking, on the edge of John’s bed. They knew nothing was right in the world as soon as they were dismissed from Elizabeth’s presence; they knew things were bad, but for Rodney everything really was wrong in the world once Carson told them that Marc needed surgery, no thanks to them.
John walked and walked, not bothering to quiet his footfalls, not caring if he woke every stasis-chambered horror Atlantis had yet to reveal - being devoured alive and left for dead would be a kindness John couldn’t offer to himself. He didn’t know how he could live with himself anymore, but he wasn’t prepared to eat his gun, either.
Maybe some other way, then. He thought about handing in his resignation, giving it to Elizabeth - Doctor Weir - boarding the Daedelus and never even bothering to turn around to wave goodbye. He wanted to tune out, turn off, and drop away, forever, his life the waste it was destined to be. Be stuck forever on Earth, drinking himself out of everything until he died homeless and dried out from too much drink and too little food or warmth inside a dumpster behind a hotel somewhere. Most likely a hotel that rented by the hour.
Or more appropriately, a one-way trip to a Wraith-infested world, just like he’d threatened to do to Major Lorne.
But he couldn’t.
Never mind his own fucked up head, his own fucked up life and career and lost friends. No, he couldn’t do anything like was imagining, hell, fantasising, because Rodney - Rodney needed him. Rodney was even closer to the edge than John, and John knew it. He didn’t know what to do about Marc and Radek, and he didn’t know what to do about Rodney, but he sure as hell had to try because there was no fucking way four people were going to end up destroyed because of his own fucking stupidity.
John’s breath was ragged although his stride was even and he hadn’t walked long enough to justify any real exhaustion. Fuck John thought, the sound loud inside his own head. Then he laughed - who the fuck would overhear him here, chastise or correct him here, in the bowels of uncharted Atlantis? He stopped, took a deep breath, and bellowed “Fuuuuuuuccckkkkkkkk!” long and loud at the top of his lungs.
oOo
Carson Beckett sat at his desk, staring at nothing at all. The light in his quarters was dim: he needed some light but didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to have to see it, not now, not this way.
Carson always made it through the emergencies. He always survived. Before even arriving in Atlantis he knew he’d have to pull double-duty, do hands-on doctoring in addition to his genetics research, but his ability to push everything aside when lives were on the line never failed to amaze him. Certainly, he understood the physiology well enough: it all began with stress, of course, the fight-or-flight response triggering the production of epinephrine, the heart speeding up and a brief burst of near-euphoria as his symptomatic and autonomic nervous system made him ready for the demands it would encounter. That it could all change into something sustainable for long periods of time is what amazed Carson, what left him surprised after the emergency was over, his mind and body exhausted, the biological gift exhausted, for the moment, along with him.
This time, the exhaustion felt different, though. He couldn’t put his finger on it, not now, not when he was physically and psychologically wrung out from the medical demands of Marc and Radek, not when he was emotionally wrung out from dealing with first Rodney, then John, and now Elizabeth. If only he didn’t have to, have to -
Carson felt as though he were being torn up, inch by inch, from the inside. He knew emergency medicine wasn’t his forté; he always fussed too much as he got to know people, got too attached. He never got over taking death personally, never got over grieving for those he couldn’t save, couldn’t make better. The research side was much simpler: data collected, theories tested, reports written.
Reports. He’d have to put together more reports on this case, that was certain. And the bugger of it was that no matter how he wrote them up, someone was going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. John for beating someone in his command, Rodney for helping him. Marc for being American and military and, aye, homosexual. The only person not likely to be hurt further by anything Carson committed to bureaucratic officialdom was Radek, and even that wasn’t true because if Carson’s report resulted in Marc’s expulsion from active service with the American military, Carson knew without a doubt that Radek would be gone with him.
Those two - it was bittersweet, watching them together in the infirmary; they clearly adored one another, worshipped one another. Marc’s long confession to Carson about their relationship also showed Carson that the two of them were not in the first blush of a whirlwind romance, either. They were a couple, an established pair, something steady and consistent and stable in Atlantis, where nearly everything wasn’t.
Carson sighed, a long, low susurration of emotional pain. He was so lonely. He knew he shouldn’t be and he knew he should not but after all that had happened he had to, he had to, he had -
Radek hid his own hurt so well that until all this happened Carson had never had a clue. Not that Carson and Radek spent a lot of time together, not that Carson knew the man very well, but Carson thought he was a good judge of people and he’d never noticed Radek much beyond his relationship to Rodney, the brilliant sidekick of the not-so-evil mastermind. Radek seemed steady, and had always provided a steadying influence on Rodney.
But Carson had missed - somehow - that Radek was hurt. Even now, Carson didn’t have many clues as to why Radek was hurt, no more insight than Radek’s lover, really. The hurt was something deep, certainly. And old. Marc thought it might be from childhood, but the few times he’d tried to broach the subject with Radek, the man became anxious and skittish, a panic attack threatening to rise up and overwhelm him. Heightmeyer agreed with Carson that some aspects of Radek and Lorne’s relationship were part of a coping mechanism for Radek.
Coping mechanism. Carson snorted. He knew about coping mechanisms, about keeping secrets. He knew it as well as anybody, maybe better. He sat here, at his desk, freshly-showered, clean in body even when not in spirit, and trying not to because he shouldn’t and he knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t help it even if he shouldn’t he shouldn’t he shouldn’t -
Carson knew how to keep secrets, aye. Carson was certain no one else in Atlantis knew he hurt, too. Carson did his best to be there for them when they needed him, whomever they were, whenever they needed him. But - Carson was so lonely, his chest was hollow yet tight and painful from loneliness. His heart constricted - painfully - every time he saw the couple in his infirmary, every time he stood watching them, like the orphan with his nose pressed against the shop glass, wishing he could have toys like other girls and boys.
Carson knew he shouldn’t be. He knew he shouldn’t - he should not - but after all that had happened he had to, he didn’t think he could stop, though Lord knows he would try.
Deep down, Carson knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.
His hand shaking slightly, he reached forward and retrieved the long cord from his desk.
oOo
Elizabeth rushed down the corridor towards Carson’s room, worry and anger spurring her on in equal parts.
She was standing next to Campbell in the control room when Sheppard contacted him, asking for the whereabouts of Doctor Beckett. Campbell told Sheppard that Beckett was supposed to be off-duty and checked his life-signs reading, noting that Beckett appeared to be in his quarters.
Elizabeth tuned in to the conversation just as Campbell clicked off. “That’s odd,” Campbell mused.
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.
“It looks like Colonel Sheppard is already outside Beckett’s door,” he said, pointing at the signatures pulsing on the screen.
“Why do you think that one is Colonel Sheppard?” Elizabeth asked, indicating the pulse located in the corridor just outside Carson’s door.
“Because I’ve been tracking that one for the last two hours. It’s blipped through several levels of an unexplored part of the city,” Campbell replied. “The Colonel is the only one who wanders in those areas.”
Elizabeth left immediately without comment.
What the hell did he think he was doing? she fumed to herself. She had ordered him to stay away from the infirmary, ordered him to keep his distance until everyone involved was healed enough to begin sorting through - everything. Her orders included Beckett. She knew that John knew that, that he had no reasonable excuse to disobey her, not now, not after everything that had happened. He had better offer her a very good explanation as to why he was skulking outside Carson’s door or she would have him confined to quarters, under guard, until this whole mess was sorted out.
She rounded a final corner and stopped short at the sight of John standing stock-still, his fist resting against the door as though he’d just finished knocking.
“Colonel?” she asked, her tone professional, cool.
“Elizabeth,” John acknowledged, not looking at her.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
“I was hoping to see Doctor Beckett.”
“Against my direct orders?”
“No!” John protested, and Elizabeth felt herself begin to flush with a tinge of anger. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “Just to talk. I just wanted to ask him to talk with me, down at the mess or someplace.”
“Yet here you are,” Elizabeth said, keeping her tone level, trying to restrain the anger she felt bubbling beneath the surface. “At his quarters.”
“Yeah,” John said. “He wouldn’t answer his radio and when I got here, he wasn’t answering his door. I thought he was supposed to be off-duty, but I wasn’t going to go to the infirmary because - well, because of everyone there and your orders and everything - so I called Control to double-check if he was here.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her words short, clipped.
“Yeah,” John sighed. “Sorry. I know, I should have cleared it with you, first.”
“So why are you still here, Colonel?” Elizabeth asked, finding her temper rising again.
John looked at her suddenly, and Elizabeth was surprised to see worry etched on his face.
“Doesn’t this seem out of character to you, Elizabeth?” asked John. “I’m sure Carson is still pissed at me - I know I’m pissed at him. But to ignore his radio? To ignore a knock on his door? I’ve been knocking for the last ten minutes or more. I know he’s stubborn, but I figured he be out here to tell me to get the bloody hell away and stop bloody bothering him by the second minute at the latest.”
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment. John was right, Carson wasn’t one to ignore a knock. He was too used to being woken up for emergencies at all hours. No, John was right - something wasn’t quite right with this scenario.
“I was just trying to decide whether I should risk your wrath by opening his door myself or walking away and hoping I’m just being paranoid,” John said, quiet and emotionless.
Elizabeth nodded. “I agree with your concerns about Doctor Beckett, Colonel. Override the door.”
The door opened silently at John’s thought and John and Elizabeth stepped into the half-dark of Carson’s quarters. Elizabeth’s eyes took longer than John’s to adjust, and then John had thought the lights on to full brightness and was running and shouting and she was running and shouting along with him, “Oh my god, Carson!”
Carson Beckett was slumped alongside his desk, his skin pale and possibly blue-tinged, a cord visible tight around his neck.
Oh my god.
Elizabeth stood back as John loosened the cord, began standard first aid assessment: airway, breathing, circulation. A, B, C. She saw him nod, airway clear. Breathing? No. Circulation? No pulse. God.
She keyed her radio and called for medical assistance, remembering to add that they needed a portable defibrillator, and that they needed it now.
John dropped and began performing CPR and rescue breathing. His voice was loud in her ears as he counted off chest compressions, broken each time by the relative silence of John forcing air into Carson’s lungs.
She knew John’s effort could be pointless, knew the real success rate of CPR was far more limited than most people thought, but hoped nonetheless that this would be one time to beat the odds.
Elizabeth was surprised to find herself praying, silently, as she waited for the emergency team to arrive, to take away the powerlessness that she felt, for them to do what could be done, if anything. To accomplish, she prayed, what John was so desperately trying to accomplish: to save Carson’s life.
End Part X