"Carson! Sit." Rodney McKay stood next to the control chair with his arms folded, looking tired and irritated. Next to him stood Radek Zelenka, his hair standing up in all different directions.

"I'm not a bloody dog, Rodney!" yelled the doctor back. "And ye don't get to drag me back and forth like I'm on a leash!" Carson Beckett glared at McKay, who rolled his eyes.

"Of course you're not a dog. A dog would be much more adventurous. And that was a very disturbing image, by the way."

Zelenka snickered to himself.

"Rodney, so help me God, if you don't stop..."

"Carson."

"... I'll force feed you a pint of lemonade...

"Carson!"

"And update all of your vaccinations at the same time..."

"CARSON! Just shut up for a minute, will you? You're going to benefit from this, remember? And if you cooperate, I won't tell anyone about the skirt I saw in your quarters."

Beckett looked ready to explode. "It's a kilt, ye gomeril!" He broke into a string of rapidly more unintelligible insults.

"Fine, fine, whatever. Just sit in the damned chair."

"Boys!" broke in a new voice. "If you can't play nicely, I'm going to have to send you to your rooms." Major John Sheppard strolled into the room to see what the yelling was all about.

"Please do," muttered Beckett under his breath.

"Hey! I heard that."

Sheppard raised one eyebrow at Beckett. He was secretly amused at the doctor's vocal attempts to avoid using the control chair. Exasperated, McKay broke in. "We found these..."

"Boxes," Zelenka suggested.

"Cubes, in a room way out in the suburbs. Looks like a smaller version of the infirmary. Sort of like a satellite clinic."

Zelenka took up the thread again. "We think the cubes are medical devices that need to be initialized by the control chair."

McKay finished. "So it would make sense that a doctor should do it!"

Sheppard turned to Beckett. "He's got you there, doc. What is it with you and that chair, anyway?"

"Okay, already!" grumbled Beckett, ignoring the major's question. "On the condition that you LEAVE ME ALONE after that. Preferably forever, but at least for the next day or so."

"Jeez, someone needed decaf this morning," sniped McKay.

Zelenka looked at him blankly. "We still have coffee?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Afterwards, as he walked back towards the infirmary, Carson found that his hands were shaking and his heart was pounding. He stopped at one of the ubiquitous balconies and looked out over the water, forcing his breathing to slow. He refused to let anyone see how upset each session with the chair made him, and instead let the others make good natured fun of him.

Carson was never able to explain his antipathy to the Ancient device. It had started during his time at the Antarctic outpost, when he'd almost killed Major Sheppard and General O'Neill. He'd reclined in the chair and felt the machinery come alive around him. Almost immediately, he felt a presence in his mind, one that hadn't been there during his previous (albeit brief) uses.

Startled, he'd tried to force the presence out of his mind. That's when the drone came to life and started blasting things. He'd never flown an aircraft, but had previously treated Air Force pilots. They said that flying a fighter jet was like sitting on a missile. You had barely controlled power at your fingertips and the capability of instant destruction. Carson imagined it felt something like the control chair.

What Carson would never admit even to a priest or Kate Heightmeyer was that he'd enjoyed the feeling of power once he got over the initial shock. Part of him reveled in the chaos he'd caused both underground and in the skies over the base. It was only when Sheppard berated him for carelessness that he realized people had almost died. Every time he sat in the chair after that he imagined that seductive power of destruction taking him over again. Needless to say, he tried to avoid it whenever possible.

Things were worse after the mission to Hoff. He'd experimented on a prisoner to create a drug that went on to kill millions. He'd opposed it, but allowed himself to be persuaded by Perna because the Wraith was going to die anyway. Now he had to live with every agonizing death the drug had caused, as well as the knowledge that the Wraith would probably wipe out the rest of the planet after learning of the poison.

Carson had realized that there was a darkness in his soul. In this he was no different from the rest of humanity, but he'd seen the consequences and it terrified him. He thought he had started to put the events on Hoff behind him, but today's session initializing the cubes had reopened the wound.

Carson closed his eyes and began to recite. "I swear by Apollo the physician, by Asclepius, Hygeia, and Panacea, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death." As he finished the Hippocratic Oath, he finally felt himself begin to relax.