Carson pushed several buttons on the nearest Atlantis laptop, pulling up his own research. He glanced at the familiar screen, memories rushing into his head. Instead of trying to push the memories away, Carson gave in and let them wash through his mind, reminding him of so many wonderful people and allowing himself to think about what they might be doing right now.
Laura Cadman…they were supposed to go out on a date later this week, but that would have to be rescheduled.
Rodney could be a real ass sometimes, but Carson missed him. What he wouldn't give to hear Rodney ranting about the Wraith or sun radiation or something about now.
Elizabeth. He imagined her gentle, yet firm voice welcoming him back to Atlantis as it had so many others (lt. Ford, Teyla and her people, even Carson himself once or twice).
Colonel Sheppard. He'd be doing his best to bring Carson back to Atlantis; the man never could leave a person behind, even if the wraith were an immediate threat. He'd even tried to save Col. Sumner's life when they'd first gotten to Atlantis.
Ronon would be right there alongside Sheppard, fighting to save Carson, the doctor who'd saved his life. Carson remembered doing surgery to remove the tracking device, Ronon still awake and aware of the doctor up until the end.
Teyla, the gentle, beautiful Athosian lass, she'd be trying to connect with Michael through the Wraith neural link to try to locate Carson. As much as he hoped she wouldn't risk her life like that, he knew nobody would be able to talk her out of it.
And then there was Radek. He'd be working alongside Rodney, probably saving Atlantis for the umpteenth time by now.
In the midst of all this, Carson was aboard Michael's cruiser, working on a retrovirus. That would mean that either Amanda Cole or Jennifer Keller was in charge in the infirmary. Both would do a brilliant job in his place, but neither would want to admit he was gone.
What Carson didn't know was that far across the galaxy, in the city of Atlantis, all was not going as he envisioned it. His team was quite unaware that he was missing. Actually, as far as they could tell, Dr. Beckett had never left them. They'd rescued him from Michael and brought him back to Atlantis, safe and sound. Hadn't they?
Carson stood in Michael's lab, painfully aware that the team hadn't rescued him from Michael back on the planet, but assuming they'd tried. He kept up hope that they would be planning his rescue soon enough and that his time at this facility would be nearing its end soon.
He began the tiring work of deciphering Michael's retrovirus, realizing that the cruiser had 'grown' a seat in front of the consoles and letting himself sit down. This would be more comfortable than standing for that long, but not by much. The organic conduits of the ship weren't the best cushion.
Tapping out a few short bits of code on the Atlantis laptop, he uploaded all of the Wraith's data to his laptop and merged the two data sets into one screen. Now he could look at his own retrovirus as well as Michael's at the same time and figure out what had really gone wrong.
Perhaps it was nothing, but something about how Michael always threatened the Athosians instead of Carson bothered him. Why would Michael not just threaten Carson? He could return whatever life he took if Carson decided to help, couldn't he?
Instead, every day, he brought one Athosian to the lab and bribed Carson to work by sparing their lives if he worked. Carson kept up working every day without fail; he would see no more of Teyla's people be killed needlessly.
*****
In Atlantis, Dr. Beckett was in a pickle of his own. It was fairly late at night and the shooting pains had returned. He thanked his lucky stars – or rather the scheduling staff on Atlantis – that he'd been scheduled to be the only one on call in the infirmary that night as another stabbing pain doubled him over.
He made his way across the infirmary to the supply cases and picked out a needle and syringe to take a sample of his own blood. Clenching his teeth and steeling himself against the sting, he extracted a sample of his own blood and began running tests on the samples.
While these tests were running, the doctor decided to scan himself to be sure nothing was critically wrong. He'd only bring another physician in on the situation if it wasn't something he could handle on his own. No need to worry the rest of Atlantis over himself if it wasn't that serious.
Dr. Beckett pressed some buttons on the scanner, laid his lab coat over a chair nearby and then positioned himself on the scanner. He'd set the computer to record his results and in the dimly lit infirmary, the low buzz of the scanner was almost comforting to him.
After the familiar buzz of the scanner stopped, he levered himself up off the scanner bed and pulled his lab coat back on. He took the results of both the blood tests and the scans on a tablet computer (bloody irritating technology though it was, but Rodney had insisted the infirmary have the most current systems) and headed for his office.
Once settled into the comfortable chair at his desk, he set the tablet computer on the stand Rodney had set up for him and began to read. His brow furrowed in concern as the scan results seemed to show necrosis in his internal organs. Perhaps the scanner was malfunctioning.
Flipping the screen to the blood test results, Dr. Beckett pulled up a previous sample of his own blood from the database to compare with the current one. He stripped away the components of the blood that matched, leaving only one set of proteins that didn't match. The DNA was that of Dr. Carson Beckett, but with a couple of percent difference. How was this possible?
The doctor felt himself growing hot, the lab coat beginning to chafe at the back of his neck. Suddenly the lights in the office seemed much brighter than usual and the office seemed much smaller. It couldn't be true, could it? He went through some more results, hoping for a different answer. Doing a further analysis of the DNA (he was after all a geneticist, wasn't he? He had discovered the ATA gene and by extension, created the gene therapy that would allow anyone to have the ATA gene) he discovered something that only proved his nightmare true.
In the words he or Jennifer might use to explain all of this to Sheppard, the 'telomeres' on the chromosomes in his DNA were thirty percent shorter than they should be for a man of his age. Dr. Beckett pushed the tablet computer away from him and laid his head in his hands, letting out a sigh.
"This can't be true. I can't be nothin' but a bloody copy of myself!" Dr. Beckett muttered under his breath, head still in his hands. Feeling nothing but numbness, he sat in silence for the next few moments, listening absently to the security detail murmuring to one another through the headset he wore.
At that very moment, Dr. Weir appeared in the office doorway.
"Oh, hello love!" Dr. Beckett exclaimed, quickly reaching out to darken the screen of the tablet and mentally compose himself.
"Carson. One of the lieutenants on duty in the control room tonight said that there was a small power spike in here as I was heading to my quarters. I was just making sure everything was alright," Elizabeth tilted her head to one side and laid a hand on the doctor's shoulder. Her hand on his lab coat-clad shoulder brought all of the emotions rushing back to him, overcoming the numbness and hitting him like a ton of bricks.
In his heart, Dr. Beckett wanted to push her hand away and tell her that he wasn't really Dr. Beckett. To let Elizabeth in on what he'd just found, that he was only a mere clone and that the true Dr. Carson Beckett might be out there somewhere. He wanted to have someone else know his feelings and, he admitted to himself, he wanted someone to comfort him for once, as he was always there to comfort others.
In his mind, he knew Elizabeth would make finding the original her priority and that he, the clone, would end up in an isolation room or prison cell until they figured out what to do with him. He knew that Atlantis couldn't spare the team members right now to search for Carson nor could they spare him from the Infirmary. With that thought, he knew he would have to keep his secret to himself and provide 'Dr. Beckett' for them until the time was right to set them searching for him.
"I was only checkin' in on some o' my patients here, I must've tripped a switch on one of the devices in the dark, I don't keep the bright lights on at night. Patients sleep easier in the dim lighting," Dr. Beckett (if he could call himself that) explained, reaching up to touch her hand. In Elizabeth's mind, he was Dr. Beckett and he would have to keep that up for her.
Even though he was a clone, Dr. Beckett still had all the memories of his original counterpart and therefore all the attachments to his friends, family and home. He would have to pretend everything was alright, hide the results of these tests, and most of all, work on a cure for this cellular degradation.
"I'm still me. I may be a clone, but to everyone else on Atlantis, I am still Dr. Carson Beckett." Dr. Beckett reminded himself after Elizabeth had headed to her quarters. He reached for the tablet computer. He glanced at the test results one last time, his heart twisting painfully and the tears returning to his eyes. Wishing he could forget what he'd found, Dr. Beckett placed all of the test results into a folder on the computer and encrypted them with a password. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start working on a cure for his condition.
With that, Dr. Beckett put the tablet back on the desk and turned to go and check on his patients (for real this time) and try to get his mind off of his disturbing discovery for a while. He couldn't help one last thought on his way out the door. Where in Pegasus could the real Carson Beckett be?