Spoilers: (Thanks to flubber for reminding me!!) The Long Goodbye, Michael, Misbegotten, Instinct, Conversion
AN: Carson fic!! Carson remembers an old promise he made and makes a decision.
Disclaimer: SGA isn't mine.
...The Promise...
He'd made a promise, once.
Years and years ago, it seems now, but the photograph lays facedown on his desk and his office door is locked and he can't escape the past.
Nine years have passed, nine and a handful of days, months--he had no thought to remember her like this.
Black suit flung across his bed as if it burned him--black shoes on green grass with fresh flowers in hand--flipping through his photographs to the very back, where he never looked, never went, until he found her.
"Never stop fighting," she'd whispered, face pale on white sheets, the steady beep of monitors an accompaniment to her words, hand grasped in his--
He promised her.Different words for a different time.
Working, twenty-four hours a day, falling asleep in the lab, trying to find the ever-needed solution, ever-unreachable
CURE.
"Never stop fighting," she'd whispered, and his head feels heavy in his hands as he leans on his desk, tears clenching his throat--
"There are so many people you can still save--"
"I want to--need to--save you!"
"Promise me--"
"Yvonne--"
"Promise!"
He stands abruptly, blindly, the chair skidding back several feet as he paces slowly, arms tightly crossing his chest, his----white lab coat thrown to the floor in a fit of anger, in despairing defiance--
Didn't think to remember her here, now--but so many he couldn't save, so much he couldn't do--"Promise!"
"An' what if I bloody well--" he falls to his knees, voice broken, heart broken, soul breaking under the pressure, under his promise, under his guilt----black ebony lowered into the grave, tie choking him, tears chocking him--
"I would've given anything, done anything--"
so much so much so much--John laying unconscious on the infirmary bed, slowly turning into their most feared enemy--
--Michael staring him down, probing his mind--
--John and Liz possessed by alien entities--
He opens his eyes in defiance and desperation, stumbles back to his feet and then his desk with pure determination and looks at the half-written note on his computer, the cursor blinking impatiently, prepared to send him back--back to earth, back to complacency, back to black suits and flowers and failure.He takes a deep breath and flips the photograph over, the pain sharp but no longer raw, and he gasps as old emotions run a swift gauntlet through his body until he is left staring at her smile, eyes softening, tension draining.
He'd made a promise once--
"Never stop fighting--"
And it seems years and years ago, but he means to honor it. Will honor it.His hands trembles slightly as it moves to the laptop, as he closes the document, deletes the document, and the air sighs in his throat, but he doesn't pause. Doesn't rethink, regret.
"You can save so many people, Carson," she'd whispered, smiled. "You've got to try. You've always got to try."
He smiles softly in remembrance, in reply, wiping the tears slipping from blue eyes.He'd sworn to do no harm, promised to never give up, and each is as much a part of his soul as words spoken.
His job is far from done, his loved ones still not safe, and his word still hold.
Atlantis needs him and he has a promise to keep.