A/N: You may be wondering why I didn't do a chapter with Rodney. We pretty much saw his reactions in the episode.

Like the previous one, this chapter was not easy to write. Given John's tendency to bury his deeper feelings under a genial façade, I'm guessing that his reaction to the death of Carson Beckett would tend to be extreme, but in a way different than Amanda's.

This is the only chapter that doesn't use dialogue from the episode. Dwparsnip had a peek at it for me.

~Sandy

Remembrances of Sunday

John

Leave no man behind.

The credo is drummed into each and every member of the military. It motivates the search for those listed as missing in action. The process is costly, time-consuming and frustrating, continuing years and even decades after they've disappeared. But the possibility that there might be closure for the families is worth it.

Sitting with his friends in the plane carrying Carson Beckett back to his family, John thought about all the people he'd left behind over the years. Holland, Sumner, Ford, and now Carson. Not to mention his brother, father and ex-wife. Technically, they hadn't been left behind in the sense meant by the words. After that last argument, he hadn't tried to reconcile but then neither had his father. And he hadn't tried to stop Nancy when she moved out of their home and filed for divorce. He also hadn't made any attempts to contact his brother in a while. In that sense, it felt like he'd abandoned all three of them, left them behind while he played the hero.

The others were sharing stories about Carson, laughing at some of the humorous situations the medical doctor had gotten himself involved in since their arrival in Pegasus. It made him angry.

The man was dead. They shouldn't be carrying on as if it were a cocktail party or one of his mother's charity events. Several times they'd tried to draw him into the conversation. He quietly and firmly declined, so they left him on his own.

He'd been a solitary man for many years, and that's how he preferred it. The death of his friend would be dealt with in the way he dealt with most disappointments and defeats, in the privacy of his own room and his own mind.

A burst of unrestrained laughter reached him and suddenly it was more than he could handle. His right hand clenched into a fist as his body readied itself to hit something or someone. To prevent it, he abruptly stood and went down the short hallway to the latrine, locking himself inside. Pacing back and forth in the confined space wasn't very satisfying as he could barely turn around, but it was the best he could do for now. One hand rubbed the back of his neck while the other clenched into a fist, his nails digging into his palm until it hurt.

Finally he stopped, leaning both hands on the edge of the sink and staring at his own reflection, his mind taking him back to the time he'd been infected with the Wraith retrovirus. His transformation into a bug had creeped him out even more than the thought of being trapped in a roomful of clowns. But in the midst of it all, his friends had been there almost giving up their lives to find a cure. And Carson and his medical team had worked the hardest of all.

~~O~~

Carson nodded to the guard detail outside of John's quarters. With an internal sigh he took note that there were now four guards instead of two, probably Elizabeth's doing at John's insistence, knowing the Colonel.

Inside the room, lit only by the light filtering through the windows draped in gauzy material acquired from one of their offworld trading partners, John still sat on the side of the bed faced away from the door. His guitar sat ignored in a corner below the poster of Johnny Cash.

"Elizabeth told me what happened." John's voice was calm and coldly matter of fact about the incident, though Carson knew he felt the loss deeply.

"Walker and Stevens. Good men."

"And two more deaths on my conscious."

"Aye, I know." Trying to lighten the atmosphere, Carson came around the foot of John's bed. As with Elizabeth the Colonel kept his face turned away. "I would ha' brought ya a beer, but alcohol's contraindicated in yer current condition."

Nodding in the direction of his dresser, John indicated a nearly full bottle on the desk. "Tried it. Yakked up everything I'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours."

"Not possible, Colonel. You haven't had anything to eat in that time, and what you consumed prior to that has already been digested…I c'n see yer not interested."

A shrug of the left shoulder, and John turned more toward the window as Carson came closer. "Not really. I've been, well, I've been having some cravings."

"Oh? Let me have a look at ya." Carson took out a small flashlight firmly turning John to face him. Unlike Elizabeth, the medical doctor was prepared for the change in his friend, making no comment as he flicked the light in John's eyes. The one on the left still looked normal, but the right was a yellow slit like a reptile's. The light made him hiss in pain and turn away again. "Sorry, John."

"John? Things must be really grim if you're using my first name, doc."

"If it disturbs ya…"

"No, that's fine, Carson." John gestured in the general direction of the desk.

Carson turned a chair around but before he could take his seat, his headset chirped. "Beckett…Aye. I'll be right there. Sorry, Colonel, I've got to be gettin' back to m' research."

"Keep me posted."

"Aye, I will." When Carson reached the door, he looked back with a sad smile before leaving.

~~O~~

John and the others had been back in Atlantis just over two weeks, and though he still hadn't come to terms with Carson's death, life was, in some ways, getting back to normal. Rodney had saved their collective asses at least twice, Jennifer had taken over as the chief medical officer, Elizabeth had negotiated another alliance and his ass had been kicked twice a week by Teyla and Ronon. The sessions with Lorne had come out a draw on most occasions. Well, except for the times John had cheated.

But that didn't matter. None of it did. Not really, because Carson was still dead and John still hadn't grieved. He could feel the rage at the tragic loss of that life gnawing at him like the creature growing inside John Hurt in the movie Alien. Taking long runs and sparring helped, but they weren't enough. He had to constantly rein in his desire to just beat the living crap out of whoever happened to be near when what he really wanted to do was do it to the Ancients who'd created the device in the first place. That they'd all died thousands of years ago and he would never be able to tell them off or watch with satisfaction as his fist hit their faces rankled even more. He finished changing and went for a run.

~~O~~

Rodney watched John head for the upper scaffolding where he and Conan usually went to run. His friend seldom took that run alone and it bothered him that John had been doing it more and more since their return from Earth.

He started to follow but was stopped by Katie reminding him they had a date for dinner. With a deep sigh he changed direction.

~~O~~

The metal scaffolding rang with every footstep, echoing from the walls, ceiling and floor until the area was filled with it. It had been going on for so long that the sounds returning to the source may have been from five seconds or five minutes ago having been bounced so many times the figure approached a number only divisible by the amount of sweat that had gone into making it. There was no way to tell. It just kept repeating until the original was lost.

John had been running for what seemed like hours trying to outrun the anger and remorse he'd sustained in the weeks since Carson's funeral. That the Beckett family had drawn Rodney, Radek, Ronon, Amanda, Evan and he into their midst without reservation had made everything he'd kept to himself begin to float to the surface. With every smile, every hug and every warm handshake it had become harder and harder to push it back behind the wall that kept his emotions in check.

Five miles was normally all he could handle while trying to keep up with Chewy. Today however, he'd passed that mark long ago. Somewhere in the middle of mile seven he began to feel something loosen within him causing him to stumble to a halt at the turnaround.

He finally stopped to rest, grasping the upper rail and panting hard, sweat soaking his hair and clothes. The cool air of Atlantis' environmental systems brushed across the back of his neck making him shiver. He shivered again. And again.

Putting a hand to his face to brush the moisture away, he realized that it wasn't all sweat. He trembled again as an anguished hum pushed its way out of his chest to be followed by another and another until his body shook with the force of his sobs, tears flowing down his cheeks to splash on the metal platform. His legs shook refusing to support him and he sat down hard, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his forehead on his knees, just letting the tears fall, doing nothing to stop them.

In the back of his mind, that small part of him that was still able to reason reminded him that the last time he'd cried about anything had been when he knew that his mother wasn't coming home from the hospital the last time she'd gone. The cancer she'd fought for three years had won. And he'd cried then just as he was now, hot streaming tears, rocking to and fro.

But now he wasn't crying just for Carson. He was crying for himself as well.

For the boy who'd lost his mother at the age of ten.

For the teenager who had defied his father by going to Stanford instead of Harvard causing a rift that had never been healed.

But most of all he cried for the man who was so afraid of appearing vulnerable that he never told anyone, family or friend, how he felt, never let them close enough to see the part of him that he'd kept hidden for so long that it was a habit he didn't think he'd ever be able to break.

Eventually, the tears stopped and his arms loosened enough that he could move his legs, stretching them out in front of him and leaning back on his hands. He drew in one last shuddering breath, using the tail of his shirt to wipe away the evidence of his weakness. Turning around, he let his legs dangle off the side, close to twenty meters between them and the floor. Resting his arms on the lower rail he become conscious of the subsiding of the tightness that had surrounded his heart the last few weeks. He no longer felt as if a weight were sitting on his chest.

The slow rhythmic tread of another pair of feet slowly drew closer. One last swipe of his shirt across his face and he turned to greet his visitor.

Rodney came to stand next to John, handing him a bottle before settling down next to him, mirroring his position of both elbows on the rail as they sipped the beer. They stayed just like that, side by side, not saying a word.

TBC

A/N: The info on the 'leave no man behind' credo came from:

http : / formerspook . blogspot . com / 2008 / 03 / leave-no-man-behind . html (Take out the spaces.)