Rodney's thoughts at the end of Kindred part II.
This is not my first Atlantis fic, but it's the first that I have dared to post, please be gentle with me but comments are welcomed. Flames will be used to light a fire and I will dance naked over its still glowing embers when it is done with the burning. Don't pretend that you didn't have a little tear, you know it upset you really when the end came.
Hear Me.
The first time I lost him it was surreal, it didn't seem like it had happened and for the longest time I found it hard to believe that he was gone. I would walk into the infirmary expecting to see him there, that soft smile with caring eyes looking at me and the concerned lecture would be told with only a look and a shake of the head. He isn't there. He's gone and in his place is a void, bottomless and painful, and it is a pain that will never go away. In time it will fade, it will hurt less to think of him, but it has never truly gone away.
Carrying the coffin back to Earth, telling his mother, watching her break down in tears when she was told that her son would never come home. It's not an experience that I want to repeat. I've lost so many people since I came here, colleagues, friends, people that I've come to care about deeply since I left Earth and this is something that I'm not used to. I don't care about people, they distract me from my work, from my discoveries. Carson was different, just like John is, and Ronon, Teyla and Elizabeth. They all see past the exterior, they see past my sometimes insulting behaviour, they think that I don't notice how I am, the way that I put my foot in it constantly, but I do, people hurt you, you put your faith and trust in them and they usually repay you with pain. Elizabeth is dead, John has put me through more worry than I care to contemplate and even Ronon has given me my share, Teyla is missing, Michael has her, and I have to hope that I will not lose yet another friend.
Carson did not care about the way that I was. He accepted every part of me without comment. The insulting way that I talk, the way that I always belittled his job. I never truly appreciated him and now I wish that I had told him it. Carson was my best friend and I lost him. I've never forgiven myself for that. I should have looked into the device more, I should never have let it slip my mind, I should have just gone fishing with him in the first place. Losing him was the most terrible thing that had happened to me, even losing Elizabeth, as much as I... what she and I had was a dream and the dream was mine, something that I can never afford to tell Katie. What existed between Carson and I, that was real, a real friendship that did not rely on what he needed from me, or what I needed from him, because all either of us wanted was a friend and I let him down.
Then we found him again, in the last place we would ever expect to see him. He was dead, we had no reason to look for him, only a void to fill, one that we never could. It's impossible to imagine how I felt the first time I saw him, alive and well in that cell. Confused that it had taken us so long to find him, relieved that we finally had. His continued faith in us astounded me. His faith in us survived two years of captivity, his faith survived the cloning and that is perhaps the most amazing thing of all. Michael cloned him perfectly, every part of him, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had gotten my friend back. I should have known that nothing ever worked out so well.
Finding out that the friend I had regained was a clone was a blow. Finding out that Michael had done his usual botched job was not such a surprise but I knew that it would cost me my friend for a second time. That hurt me more than I wanted to admit, to the others, but especially him. I'm afraid for him now, in that stasis chamber, alone and not knowing if he will ever wake up. Keller says she can find a cure. I wish I had her confidence, because then I could make good on my promise to him.
I can't face the idea of losing him for a third time, but the longer it takes to find the cure, the more likely it is that we will one day have to wake him, only to let him die again. Carson doesn't want to be in there forever and I can't leave him there.
I've lost him twice. I don't intend to lose him again.
Let me know what you thought, this is loosely based on my thoughts right at the end and a little during the episode in question. My Stargate teddy got a good work out tonight!
Artemis