Title: Necessary Evil
Author: linziday
Rating: G
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Michael'
Prompt for the Round: Write a fic set in the infirmary, but only having the medical staff as characters. OCs can be used, but there must be at least one canon character too.
Carson finds her in the storage closet, knees drawn to her chest. The infirmary's white light spills in when he opens the door, but he's certain that isn't why she looks so pale, why her eyes are squeezed shut.
"Donna," he says, low and soft. The immediate crisis is over, the clamor quiet behind him, so he knows she can hear him. She doesn't move.
He steps in, turns on the small light, and lets the door slide shut behind him. The light's dim, casting shadows candle-like, but it's enough to see by as he slides aside boxes of gauze to sit on the floor next to her. Carson stretches his legs out in front of him and folds his hands in his lap, radiating *everything's fine* and *we've all the time in the world*.
Even though what he feels is a chest-squeezing *bloody hell*.
It's happened before. Doctors. Nurses. Med techs. Some military, all experienced. None ready for the horrors of Pegasus. Donna's their newest, a kind, intelligent doctor stubborn enough to hold her ground with the likes of Rodney and charming enough to wheedle even Ronon into taking meds. Just weeks off the Daedalus. He'd hoped to spare her the worst of Pegasus a little while longer. Just a little while.
"I'm sorry," she says. The words are little more than a whisper, but they fill the closet.
"Don't be, lass," he says gently.
"I'll pack my things, be ready to — "
"You're not the first to need a wee respite here. There's no need of you going anywhere."
She looks at him, eyes glittering. He looks away before his own tears fall. He swallows hard. It's a long time before he trusts himself to speak.
"Atlantis is a beautiful city, but there is no beauty without ugliness, is there, lass?" he says softly, gazing at his hands. "No safety without defense. No saving without sacrifice. If there's a way to have good without bad, I haven't found it yet." He pauses, looks up. "If you know a way, I'd be grateful to hear it."
But there is no way. Carson knows she knows this because she's a doctor, same as he, and intimately familiar with necessary evils. Even if the Pegasus versions seem extraordinarily more evil. And extraordinarily more necessary.
Eventually, Donna stands, extends a hand. Carson jokes about old bones and she smiles. In that moment, all seems right.
Then, leaving, Donna pats his shoulder and whispers kindly, "I don't know how you do it, Carson."
The words hit him. Hard. For a second he can't breathe, can't move.
Then he forces himself forward, to return to the wraith Colonel Sheppard has named Michael.
