A/N: Not quite sure about this. Started it when after I had a bad day at work.
He couldn't help but hate him. He tried not to, but every time that the saw them together, the unwanted feeling surfaced from deep within. He didn't even hate him for something he did. It wasn't his fault that Rodney chose him. So he really shouldn't hate him.
But he did.
He tried to analyze it one night with a bottle of scotch. The only conclusion he came to was that he came in second. Again.
He always came in second. He was salutatorian in grade school and graduated second in his class in both undergrad and med school. Never first. In fact, the only reason he was the Chief Surgeon for Atlantis was because the person they wanted didn't want to leave her mother all alone.
He knew he had proven himself up to the position, he always had, but it still irked him. He knew it was just a matter of time before Elizabeth realized that there were better and more qualified people for the job. There always was.
He entered the mess the day after this revelation with his head down and a hangover. He saw them out of the corner of his eye but keep on walking to get something to bring back to his lab where he could hide from the rest of the world.
It would seem that the world hated him, however. "Carson!" shouted Rodney as he started towards the exit. "Come sit over here!"
Carson paused before realized that there was no way he could get out of this. He quietly sat and promptly ignored the two sitting on the other side of the table. Which was fine because they were being nauseatingly cute and ignoring him.
He finished his meal without saying a word and quickly left. He was halfway to his lab when he ran into Elizabeth.
"Carson, are you alright?"
"Aye, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
"You've been awfully quiet these past few days."
"I've just had a lot on my mind."
Elizabeth looked at him strangely. "Would you care to share?"
Carson gave his friend a sad smile and shook his head. "Its nothing ye'd be interested in."
"Carson, you're my friend. If something is making you sad, I want to know."
He shook his head again. "There is nothing to be done about it. Its just something I have to work out on me own."
Elizabeth nodded. "Well, if you ever want to talk, my door is always open."
"I'll think about it."
She nodded once more before heading back to her office. Carson stood there for a while before heading off to his lab and following through on his earlier plan to hide all day.
The next few days were much of the same. He hid in his lab all day and only emerged when he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. Five days after he made his drunken revelation, he was called off world to what was supposed to be a peaceful village to help with a complicated birth.
After twelve hours the baby finally came out, dead. The mother shortly followed her child into eternal sleep. The husband was so upset with his child and wife's death he turned on Carson. The other villagers finally pulled the grieving man off, but not before he had severely injured the doctor.
With the rest of the team out looking for a power source that Rodney had detected earlier, Carson only had the villagers, who knew next to nothing about internal injuries, to help.
It was just as he felt his life slip away that he saw her, the holographic woman he saw when they had just arrived in Atlantis.
"I was hoping you would have a little more time," she said.
"Aye, me too."
She smiled and extended her hand. "The journey begins when you take the path not yet explored."
When the team finally got back to camp, all they found of their friend was the clothes he was wearing and a message:
"The nice thing about walking your own path is that you can't come in second."