TITLE: The She-Wolf of Atlantis

AUTHOR: Jersey13

RATING: T (for some mild violence and suggestive wording)

DISCLAIMER: Stargate: Atlantis is copyrighted by MGM and the Sci-fi channel, and no infringement was intended. This was written purely for the sake of enjoyment, and was not written for profit or monetary gain.

SUMMARY: Laura Cadman has decided to take Kate Heightmeyer's advice to start keeping a journal. She has a secret that's difficult to hide sometimes, and Carson does his best to help. Read all about it as she writes of her life.

A/N: I'm currently suffering from a terrible bout of writer's block with The Emerald Wanderer, I'm afraid. So in the meantime, I came up with this little gem of an idea as I began to re-watch some of my favorite early-90's TV shows...

Name: Cadman, Lt. Laura
Date: 2006, January 16, 0923 hours

There's nothing quite like waking up to the sound of a fighter jet screaming over the roof of your house, with afterburners on full, to wake you up in the morning. It's difficult for me to wake up in the mornings sometimes without that sound. You see, I grew up a navy brat: my father flew F-14 fighter jets in the US Navy, and my family lived in a house not even a mile from the base where he worked. So quite often, most mornings in fact, I'd be waking up to the sound of F-14 fighter jets flying in a box pattern over my house. You get used to it after a while, but my mother couldn't stand it.

She and my father divorced when I was still quite young, but I won't bore you with all the little details concerning my childhood without a mother. My father always took good care of me and my younger brother. I'm Lieutenant Laura Cadman. You see that? I actually spelled 'Lieutenant' correctly. It took me forever to learn how to spell my own rank properly after I managed to achieve it, which I'm sorry to say embarrassed me quite a bit in front of my commanding officer back on Earth.

But chemistry has always been the stronger area of expertise for me, and it somehow led me to become the explosives expert that I studied so hard to become. Dad had at first asked me if I was going to enlist in the Navy or go to the academy, and he was disappointed in me when I chose to enlist in the Marines instead. But when I received a copy of my Letter of Recommendation for OCS (that's Officer Candidates School for those of you who don't know), he was very proud of me. But I could never have dreamed that becoming an officer would enable me to see another galaxy, or somehow manage to put me in a position like the one I'm in now.

Poor Carson… He's lying there in the bed next to me as I'm typing up this journal entry, and I'd like nothing more than to kiss him, but I'm afraid to do it. It could cause… unpleasant things to happen to me, not to mention him. Well, this is just great. I'm doing it again. Am I being too subtle? I'm sorry. Kate Heightmeyer encouraged me to take up writing in my journal so that I could come to terms with myself and my 'condition', and now what do I end up doing? I'm being subtle again. I suppose it's a form of denial, but I guess I do it because it's a way to distance myself from everything that's happened, which I probably shouldn't be doing.

So here goes… complete honesty, no denial, and no more subtlety. I'm a werewolf.

I guess that wasn't really so hard. Oh, who am I kidding? Yes, it was. I hate being a werewolf. I'm dating the best doctor in two galaxies, whose name just happens to be Carson Beckett, and he has no idea how to cure me. How ironic is that? And does he love me because I'm a she-wolf, or despite that fact? He seems too sweet and lovable to be sure most times. And I swear that if I ever catch Carson reading this thing, I'll kill him.

All homicidal tendencies aside, though, my only real regret these days about being a werewolf is that I seem to have so little control over myself when it happens. I feel awful about what I did to his back last week; I can still see the leftover scars that the claw-marks caused. I really hope that Dr. Biro doesn't notice them when she gives him his next monthly physical that's due toward the end of this week. That would be really embarrassing.

Carson treats me so nicely, and I really hate feeling like I've mistreated him, even if it's not really my fault. I know how much it pains him to have to chain me up in shackles in a secluded and secure place a few nights a month so that I don't hurt anyone. It took a while to be able to recognize the signs of my transformation, too. It doesn't seem follow Earth's lunar cycle, nor the lunar cycles of the planet Atlantis is based on, nor any planet's lunar cycle, for that matter. That and, for a while, it was difficult for me to recognize the sensation that ensued when my transformation was beginning.

There have been a couple of times now that I failed to recognize that sensation, which I can't really describe with words, and Carson had been caught in the position of trying to drag a screaming woman delirious with pain and carnal, primal urges down into a hidden compartment connected to his quarters in Atlantis. But every one of those mornings afterward, I wake up (naked, usually) to the gentle caress of his fingers on my cheek and a tender kiss on my lips, and it almost makes up for all the pain I had suffered through the night before.

He had tried gene therapy on me, antibiotics, drugs, herbs, and any number of ideas he could come up with in an attempt to keep my transformation at bay. But only one thing had ever prevented it, and that was when I had hit my head on an off-world mission, and had been rendered unconscious for most of the night. That poor man; he'd worried about me so much that night. I've suggested to him that maybe he could start drugging me on the nights when I expect my transformation, but he had said something about my developing an eventual tolerance for the drug, and that side-effects could be a problem over the long-term. And so, I expect that tonight I will have to suffer again.

We haven't dared to tell anyone about my condition except Kate, and as my friend and psychologist, she keeps my secret in confidence. Even she seems to think that it could very well be just a psychological disturbance of mine, and I don't like to talk about it with her. I certainly won't be letting her read this, that's for sure. And, of course, everybody else who might have suspected something was up likely just thinks that we have an overly active and kinky sex life. Carson and I do tend to give that impression sometimes, I suppose.

Nobody else even suspects that I could be a werewolf, or rather, what passes for a werewolf in the Pegasus galaxy. Carson tells me that I don't really look all that wolf-like when I transform, but I do get the classic super-strength, claws, fur, and fangs. Considering this, only God knows what I'd end up doing to him in my transformed state if he ever failed to get me chained up in time. That very first transformation after I had been bitten had certainly caught us both by surprise. I had apparently ended up running about through the more deserted areas of the city, thank goodness, dodging noise complaints and Carson running around searching for me, only to wake up naked and curled up in a corner on a balcony somewhere.

Carson had bundled me up in a sheet and carried me to a secluded room in the infirmary to examine me very early in the morning so that no one would question us. I think Dr. Biro might have seen us, though, and although I couldn't quite hear what he had said to her, I think it might've been something along the lines of "Don't mind us; we're just playin' doctor," because her eyes widened with shock and she very quickly and very quietly left us to our privacy. No one bothered us after that.

I think that was one of those days that I'd rather forget, personally. I felt weak and out of control, and I really don't like feeling that way. It always made me feel better knowing that even if I don't have control over where life takes me, that I always have control over what I do with my life. I can control how late I allow myself to sleep, I can control how often I exercise, and I can control who I include in my life. But when I transform, all of that is gone, and I have absolutely no control over anything. Carson even tried to help teach me some bio-feedback techniques, and wow! (This is all sarcasm, by the way, if you haven't guessed by now.) I've extended the amount of time I can hold back my transformation from thirty seconds all the way up to an all-time record of fourteen minutes!

I suppose fourteen minutes is an adequate amount of time to get a werewolf properly chained up and secure, but I still feel like a failure. I'm a Marine and an officer in the United States Marine Corps, for pity's sake. I should be stronger than that.

But Carson just smiles at me in that way when it happens, smiling in that way that always makes my stomach do flip-flops and makes my heart flutter, holding me tightly and encouraging me to hold on a little longer each time. I honestly don't know where I'd be without him. He is far too good to me, much better than I deserve. I really want to give him that kiss, but my hands are still trembling with fear. What the hell is wrong with me? It's just a kiss, damn it!

Oh, hell. I have to get past this sooner or later. I can't allow this stop me from kissing him any time I want to just because I'm afraid that it's going to make me transform and I'll end up accidentally clawing him to shreds. I should have more faith in myself and my self-control. I can do this.

Well, if we don't make it through this, I'll make sure I post something nice here for my court martial. Someone will likely find this and end up using its contents against me during my trial for murder.

Anyway, in other news, I've got another appointment with Kate this afternoon. We'll see what she has to say today. Hopefully she won't ask to read this.