Prompts: Bed, Book, Picture
Author's Note: Set after my story "Gone"
Carson sat on his bed staring at the picture on his bedside and holding desperately onto the book in his hands. Tears spilled down his eyes but he couldn't command his hands to put the book down, even if it was for just a few seconds. The book itself wasn't altogether special but it was what was inside it that was.
Pictures of his best friends and family lined the pages, adding warm smiles to the cold paper. The gloss finish shone brightly in the sunlight that streaked through the closest window but its shine dimmed in comparison to the magnitude of the smiling faces looking at him.
The main picture his blue eyes were focused on was the picture of him and his best friend, Rodney McKay. Pain shot through his heart at the mere thought of his name and the tears he so dearly wished to staunch continued to freely flow down his cheeks.
He still dreamt about the day that he killed his best friend and though he realized it had been a mercy killing, that didn't make the knowledge any easier to accept.
A voice called to him through the comm. link alerting him to an emergency in the gateroom. Carson grudgingly placed the book into a drawer of the bedside table, stood and wiped his face clear, slowly breathing in to steady his heart.
There were skeletons in his closet that he needed to deal with but now wasn't the time. He had lost one friend, it is true but he still had many more that he needed to protect.