For the next three day, Melony Mitchell spread herself fairly thin. There was a lot to do now that Rodney had his group of engineers picked out, and she wanted to make sure that before they all went to A-08, they all knew what to expect. Which meant spending a lot of time explaining to them what they'd seen there, and discussing the dynamics of lava flows in general and this one in particular. She and the others drew several diagrams of the main cavern and the subsequent lava tubes that extended beyond that cavern – although they didn't have any notion of what lay beyond the cracked one that Beckett had fallen into, since they hadn't explored further.

She went on one off-world mission with Sheppard and the others, simply because she was interested in the planet they were checking out, but it hadn't turned up anything interesting – unless you liked rocks. But at least it hadn't been raining there. They'd returned slightly sunburned, and a bit out of sorts because McKay had done nothing but complained about all the crap he was wearing and carrying that was making him hot – and how come he had to carry a machine gun when there wasn't even anything that needed shooting?

Grumpy and tired – although thanks to Talon she didn't suffer from the sunburning that the others did – Melony had been forced to count to ten seven or eight times to keep from shooting him herself.

She was definitely glad to return to Atlantis, and even managed to cheer up a bit when Carson came hobbling up, still on crutches but showing off the fact that he'd had the brace removed from his ankle, finally. They'd celebrated with dinner and cards – which he lost spectacularly at – and had then cuddled for a while before Melony had fallen asleep in his arms, simply wiped out from a long past few days.

OOOOOOOO

Two days before the mission to return back to the lava base was scheduled to leave, Mitchell was in her quarters alone, studying yet another planet for possible Wraith activity, when Talon did the symbiote equivalent of clearing his throat to get her attention.

Yes?

She loved it when he did that; it sent a shiver along her spine that she found particularly enjoyable. Kind of like the shiver you felt when watching a suspenseful movie and you just knew something was going to happen because of the scary music that was playing – only without the scary music.

You need to make a decision

Regarding...?

Beckett

She frowned, catching the seriousness of his tone.

What about him?

You love him, right?

Yes.

Enough to spend a lot of time thinking about him

Since he was in her head and knew what she was thinking about, she had to agree with that.

Yes.

And you're pretty much over the… thing… that happened between the two of you?

The way he said it made it clear that he wasn't, but again, he was in Melony's head and knew that she was working very hard to try and overcome what little tension there still was between her and Carson – and there was some, although a lot of that was, admittedly, sexual tension.

Yes.

Then you need to do something about it

What?

He made an annoyed noise, which made her smile, despite the fact that she wasn't sure what he was getting at.

This Wraith hunting thing is going to be dangerous, Hot Shot. If you're not concentrating on what we're doing, you could make a misstep

I've never let you down before.

I'm not worried about you letting me down, he told her. I'm worried about you agonizing over a decision because you're worried about my feelings

What?

Look, you know I know what's going on in your head. There's no way I can't, since our blending makes it that way. I know how you feel about Beck- Carson. I know you want to be with him, and that you're only holding back because of me, and I can't have that between us

"I'm not going to do anything you don't want me to do," Melony told him. "It can wait until you're-"

It can't

Why?

Because if something goes wrong, then you'll never know how it could have been between the two of you, and I won't allow that – not to mention, like I said before, you might be wondering about it at the worst moment, and make a misstep

She frowned.

So what exactly are you saying?

I'm saying that you need to find out what there might be between you two before we leave on this expedition, because once we're gone, I need your attention on what we're doing

You're sure you don't mind?

I don't mind…

But you won't forgive him.

We'll see

There was no way she'd ever get more of a promise from him than that, and she knew it. Hell, it was far more than she'd ever really expected to get from him, and she didn't bother to hide her surprise. He chuckled gently in her mind, and then withdrew from her conscious as much as he could; telling her without words that what she did the rest of the night was completely up to her.

Since he wasn't paying attention to the mission report, now, there was no reason for her to study it, and Mitchell turned off the laptop, closing it with a sigh. The decision was hers, now. And he'd done it on purpose this way, she knew it.

She rolled off her bed and headed for the door

OOOOOOOOO

Carson had fallen asleep despite intending to stay up and wait a while to see if Melony was going to stop by and have a late night cup of coffee with him – or even better, hang out a while and chat. When she hadn't come, he'd debated going to her room, figuring that maybe she was just tired or something and didn't want to come looking for him, but had decided that it was possible she was actually busy, and didn't want to spare the time to be with him. She'd been spending a lot of time with him this last week, and he knew how many other things she'd been trying to get accomplished as well. Maybe she just needed a break.

Deciding that that was the case, he'd stayed awake as long as he could, reading in bed and finally falling asleep with the book on his stomach.

A movement in the bed next to him woke him, and he felt her slide in next to him. He knew it was her without even opening his eyes, and he rolled towards her, his arm moving to hold her.

And when he did, all he felt was bare skin.

Shocked, his eyes opened even as he drew his hand back, thinking that in his sleep, he'd reached for someplace inappropriate. What he saw, though, was her, watching him, trembling just a little – although he knew it wasn't from cold – and her pale eyes filled with no little amount of apprehension. What he felt – because she was under the blankets with him so he couldn't see it – was that she was wasn't wearing anything, and she took his hand and put it back where it had touched originally, her eyes glued to his. Then her hand brushed against his stomach, lightly.

"Love me, Carson…"

Unable to speak, he simply nodded, and pulled her gently closer.