Aversion Therapy
Rated: Teen/Adult
By Angel Ruse

Carson is tortured by Wraith. Oneshot. Possibly disturbing. Angst!

He blessed the dark, for it gave him the brief illusion that he was at home on Atlantis, asleep in his bed. He did not have to see those cold, steel walls that reminded him that he was not where he should be, but where no one should be. During these precious moments of escape his confused mind could fall into thoughts that were not of pain.

Carson Beckett was beyond fear at this point. Lost in a fog of extreme weariness, he could spend no energy on fear. He could only move between terror and pain through these solitary moments with dulled emotions and thoughts. When he wasn't screaming he simply was. Exhausted. Pushed beyond the brink of what he thought he could survive. With no hope of escape.

He lay there in the dark, his body spread out along the cold, hard floor haphazardly. His clothes were soaked in sweat and in blood—his own blood. Throat raw, he could hardly take in the scraps of dinner and drink they had forced down him. He certainly could not speak, if indeed there would have been anyone here to speak with. Sleep would not come to him; he had been through too much in the past few hours. And so he lay there alone, eyes closed and mind blank.

Carson could barely recall the events that had led him here. He had stopped trying a few days ago. The Wraith had taken him. That much he could keep his tested wits clinging to. Not out of any sort of affection, of course, but for the sheer hunger for revenge he knew he would someday taste, if even it were just before his inevitable death. Gone was the setting of his capture, the reasons behind it. Who had been with him in that terrible moment he had been snatched away? Had Sheppard been there? Had McKay? His mind's eye pictured those faces clearly. They had been there.

Sometimes he dreamed there in this cell, when he could sleep. He could never seem to remember what they were about, but knew they must be terrible, for he would awaken in a cold sweat, heart pounding and chest heaving. Not that he wanted to remember what he saw in his dreams. His waking reality was enough.

His jacket had been ripped off him; weapons and medical supplies had been confiscated. Even his shoes were gone, leaving him feeling fortunate to have a t-shirt and pants on. The floor was so cold. His body shivered, but he had nothing to comfort and warm him. Even the blood that had flowed so freely down his back not long ago had been cooled, leaving him with stinging lash-marks and a trembling body.

Time passed all too quickly. Somehow his awareness had fallen away, for when the footsteps echoed down the hall it startled him. He did not open his eyes, but could tell that there was now light in his precious darkness. The footsteps stopped outside the cell door. For a long moment Carson lay there, listening for the door to open, but nothing happened. He was not alone, though. He could sense that terrible, overbearing presence studying him in the dim light, perhaps hungry for the life force locked away within the doctor's beating heart. Perhaps this one was here to kill him.

And then a voice, chill and malevolent, filled the air. "What is your name?" the Wraith asked, as if it were not already aware.

Carson did not answer. He could remember the Wraith they had captured so long ago keeping their silence. He could remember their fates as well.

The cell door opened. Footfalls trailed into the tiny cell, making a path towards the fallen doctor. He could sense the Wraith kneel by his side. The creature lifted his wrist and spread his fingers palm-up. "Fragile human," it whispered, then threw his hand back down. Carson moaned when it hit against his stomach.

The Wraith stood and began to pace a circle around the doctor. Its footsteps were slow, deliberate. "Again, I ask, what is your name, human?"

"Beckett," Carson whispered. He would have spat it if he'd had the energy.

Again the monster knelt beside him, tangling long fingers into his hair. "No, human. Your name is servant. And what is your trade?"

When would the games end? Carson opened his eyes to look upon his captor. "Don't think I don't know what you're doin' ta me," he breathed. They were trying to dehumanize him.

The Wraith grinned. "Ah, the beauty of torment is that it works even if you understand its goals. What is your trade?" He poised his hand over Carson's chest as if he would steal the life from him.

"I'm a doctor," the physician replied, holding onto that fact with all that was in him. "I heal."

"No," his captor retorted, leaning close to his face. He could feel the thing's breath hit his ear. "Your trade is death. You kill."

The Wraith jerked his hair, forcing him to get up. The doctor was too weak to fight back as another Wraith entered the cell and both took him by the arms. He was dragged out of his only sanctuary, pulled on stumbling, bare feet towards another round of torture.

He didn't have to stumble far. They took him to a small, sterile and dark room where blood stained the floor. He could hear soft crying nearby, and looked up to see who was making the sorrowful noise.

And before them there was a table chest-high, metallic and hard. On its surface was stretched out a young woman who had been ravaged by these monsters. The Wraith that had questioned him shoved, and Carson collapsed against the table with the girl on it. "Heal," it said, with a measure of delight in its voice.

Beckett pulled himself up on unsteady legs, then looked down to the task set before him. Jagged wounds marred her body. Her clothing was ripped and stained. Beside her was a tray of unwholesome looking tools that no doctor in his right mind would use on a patient. Her black eyes gazed up at him without hope that he would be able to do as the Wraith had commanded. He wanted so badly to prove her wrong.

One of the shadowy captors came to stand beside Carson. His hands caressed an ugly looking, serrated blade and then pressed it to the top of the girl's foot. Without warning he drove it down into her flesh and bone, and she screamed. Carson tried to back away, but the other Wraith shoved him against the table. "Heal," the Speaker hissed, and the Quiet One placed the doctor's hand on the tray of tools.

There was nothing there for him to clean her wounds with. Nothing he could wipe the blood with. Carson reached for her torn shirt and ripped at one of the holes to expose her wounds.

It was bad. Very bad. Metal shrapnel was imbedded in her skin, from her torso to her hairline, and he hadn't even seen her extremities yet.

He looked at the instruments on the tray. A pair of rudimentary forceps stood out among the tools. Knowing he had to remove the foreign objects to work on closing her wounds, he wrapped his fingers around the tool and lifted it.

His hand was shaking.

"Please don't hurt me," the girl whispered, barely conscious but still aware that she was not alone.

"I won't, lass," he replied gently, putting a hand on her forehead to impart a reassuring touch.

Trying to get a hold of himself, acutely aware of his own weakness, he clamped the forceps along one of the pieces of metal sticking out of her stomach. Gently, he started to ease it out. He concentrated, so much so that he was unaware of the Quiet One's movements until he had driven another metal piece into her skin. She screamed and Carson shook his head, again trying to back away. The Quiet One slammed his fist against the side of Carson's face, sending him to the floor, pulling the forceps with him. Again, the girl yelled in pain, and on the floor Carson held his aching jaw. Sweat beaded along his forehead.

"Get up," the Speaker commanded, his voice carrying a warning. Carson wiped blood from his lips and fought his way to his feet. Across the table the Speaker motioned along the girl's body. "Heal her."

Shaking his head, Carson remained still, wishing somewhere inside they would just kill him and get it over with. "I can't," he asserted, looking down at his still shaking hands.

The Quiet One put his hands on Carson's shoulders and shoved him hard against the table. The doctor pressed himself backwards, trying desperately to fight, to anger them into killing him. It didn't work, of course. It never did. The Speaker removed his blade from the girl's foot and held up her hand. "Are you so certain you wish to deny me?" He pressed the blade against her fingers.

The doctor repressed a moan, letting himself be pushed back into position. Taking back the forceps, he said hoarsely, "Why don't ya just torture me? Better yet, why don't ya just feed off me and get it done with?"

The Speaker laughed. "There are other needs besides hunger, servant."

Carson remained quiet, unable to find the strength to reply. He managed to remove three more pieces of metal before they started telling the girl what they would do to repay each wound he healed. "Don't," she whimpered when he went to pull a fourth piece out of her shoulder. "Please, don't."

His stomach tightened, his shoulders tensed in anxiety. The Speaker watched him, eagerly awaiting his decision. "Please, don't make me do this," he pleaded softly, trying to think of any way out of it.

The Speaker cocked his head, then abruptly slammed his fist into the girl's fingers, breaking them. She tried to yell and struggle, but the Wraith held her pinned, cupping his hand over her mouth. The Quiet One slammed a metal rod Carson had not even known he possessed into the doctor's back. He collapsed, but knew he could not stay down when the Speaker growled, "Heal her!"

The Quiet One jerked him up and held him forward by the back of the neck. Carson took the forceps and began working again. Beneath the Wraith's hand the girl moaned in fear.

When the last piece of metal had been removed, he wiped his sweaty brow and reached for a needle to begin stitching. She watched him with wild eyes, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. The Speaker let her lips go free and Carson knew it was so he would be forced to listen to her crying. As he stitched the Wraith across from him stroked the girl's hair, whispering with each wound closed how he would torment her for accepting the doctor's help. She sobbed and pleaded with the Wraith to have mercy, pleaded with him to stop healing her. But he knew he could not stop; knew they would cut her up right in front of him if he did. Somewhere in the middle of his work he realized tears were flowing down his own cheeks. The noises she made were like knives to his heart.

It seemed like hours before he was finished. His body was stiff with tension, aching in exhaustion and stress. When he set the tools down the clink against the metal tray made his frayed nerves all the worse. He looked up into the Speaker's face bleakly.

"It gets harder every time, doesn't it, servant?" the Speaker asked, studying him keenly. "But you've earned her a quick death."

The girl struggled as the Speaker held her back and drew his blade. Carson tried to turn away, but the Quiet One held him steady to face what was going to happen. It didn't take long, however. She moaned once, and then stopped fighting.

"This is what you get for healing, human," the Quiet One growled, before slamming the rod into Carson's back again. He fell to his knees and remained down even as the Wraith began beating him. He felt his arm break and thought perhaps the time had come. They were finally going to kill him.

But they didn't. When it was done, when he lay gasping for air and fighting to remember his own name, the Speaker knelt at his side once more. "They're coming for you, servant. Soon you will be safe again." He gripped Carson's hair and pressed his mouth near his ear again. "But whenever you heal you will think of me. And when they ask you why you cannot heal anymore, tell them this is what awaits them."

He shoved Carson down and both of the Wraith stalked out of the room.

The doctor did not know whether or not he had been locked in here with the strange girl's body, whether or not the idea that someone was coming to rescue him was the truth or a lie, nor how much time had passed before footfalls again startled him awake.

A hand rested against his shoulder and he shivered. "Hey, Doc? I gotta say, you've looked better." It was Sheppard. Was it true? Or was it another game?

"She's gone," he heard McKay saying from somewhere above Sheppard.

Carson wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words. He opened his eyes and Sheppard gave him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "We've got to get him out of here," he said, glancing up at McKay. "Don't worry, Doc. We're gonna get you home. You'll be fine. McKay, I need a hand."

The other man wordlessly knelt down, for once bereft of his usual cynical statements. After a quick examination and easing his arm into a sling, the men lifted him to his feet. "I wish we had a stretcher," Sheppard commented, slinging the doctor's uninjured arm around his shoulder. "You gonna be okay?" He sounded genuinely worried.

"I'll be okay," Carson said without even thinking about it. It was the thing to say, after all, whether or not it was true.

"'Course you will," Sheppard said with a friendly smile. "We'll get you back in ship shape in no time. We've missed you. Atlantis needs you."

To that Carson said nothing, too tired to do anything beyond a nod. As they left the small room of torment he wondered what it would feel like to sleep in a comfortable bed again, to bathe and know he was safe. And he wondered something else.

Would his hands shake when he returned to duty and started healing again?
A/N – Okay, twisted, I know. Blame my Cognitive Therapy class for giving me the idea. ;-) Oh, you know you wanna attend that class.

One of hopefully many Stargate: Atlantis fics. I have another story currently in the works, but when this idea came I had get it out of my system. Hehehe. Thanks to anyone that reads. Enjoy!

Email: angelruseATgmailDOTcom
Distribution: Go for it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate, nor Carson's fine hiney, nor Sheppard's either. DOH.