"Cancer?" Elizabeth asked incredulously. They were in her office, with the door closed for privacy.

"Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, to be exact. Stage IV, which is bad."

"Oh, God. Can you treat it?"

Carson looked bitter. "Aye, back on Earth. Well, not me personally. I've got friends at the Karolinska and Memorial-Sloan Kettering who are oncologists. I never liked oncology. Too damned depressing." He stopped for a minute, and put his head into his hands. "Yes, on Earth it's eminently treatable. We'd give something like 6 cycles of CHOP and XRT. Probably one of the monoclonal antibodies too, rituximab if I'm not mistaken..."

Elizabeth gently interrupted him as he prepared to give a dissertation, and pretended not to see the tears in his eyes. "Carson, I'm not an M.D. Can you translate that?"

When Carson was upset, his brogue tended to thicken. "Och, sorry about that. XRT is radiation therapy. CHOP is a treatment regimen of four drugs: cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, oncovin, and prednisone. This is notable mainly for the fact that we only have one of the four. We never even thought to bring any chemotherapy agents with us. Stupid!"

"Not your fault." Elizabeth chewed her lip thoughtfully. "You know, I bet Rodney could whip up some sort of generator for the radiation."

"That is an interesting idea. We've got plenty of prednisone, mostly because of Rodney's allergies. Between that and the radiation, we may be able to slow it down. But in the long term... I think she's in trouble."

"Does she know yet?" asked Elizabeth.

Carson looked haunted and shook his head mutely.

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When he returned to the infirmary, Carson found Ford visiting Michelle. A privacy curtain surrounded her bed, but he could hear Ford's teasing and Michelle's answering laughter. Putting on a smile he didn't feel, Carson theatrically cleared his throat. "Are you two decent in there, or should I come back later?"

Ford pulled the curtain back and grinned. "Nothing going on here, doc. Nothing at all."

Carson slapped Ford on the back and gave him a slight push towards the exit. "All right, Romeo, I'm going to kick you out for awhile. Ye can come back and cause more trouble later."

As Ford walked past Carson, he whispered, "She gonna be all right?"

"I hope so, son." the doctor replied. Then he returned to Michelle's cubicle and sat down on the bed. He'd decided a long time ago that the best way he could deliver bad news was briefly and directly, taking cues from the patient as to how much detail to give. This was the first time he'd had to do this to a friend, though.

"I'm afraid you were right." Carson said gently. "The pathology came back as lymphoma. Your scan confirmed the enlarged spleen and showed scattered enlarged lymph nodes in your abdomen.

Michelle sighed. "I knew it was going to be something like this. When it's this serious, your body just seems to know. What do we do now?" She knew as well as he did that their drug supply was limited.

She certainly seemed to be taking this well. "Of the initial regimen, we only brought prednisone, so we'll start that immediately. We'll also start irradiating the affected lymph nodes.

She nodded. "Okay, so I guess I can expect to start gaining weight and bruising easily. That doesn't sound so bad."

"Um, right. And I'll of course search the Ancient database to see if I can find any treatment data in there." As they talked, Carson began to worry that she was taking this a little too well. She discussed her condition with clinical detachment, like it was an interesting case presentation. Carson finally stopped. "I know this is a lot to absorb at once, so feel free to come talk to me at any time. Look... are you okay?"

Michelle looked away. "Not really." she whispered. "But I won't be able to function if I think about it too much. Carson, just promise me that you won't treat me any differently. I want to keep working as long as I can, and try to keep things at least close to normal."

"Of course! You should absolutely keep working. And we'll help you get through this, I promise."

Michelle smiled faintly. "I know you will. Thank you."

He stood up. "All right, lass. I don't think you need to stay here any longer. But I want to see you in here again tomorrow afternoon. You've got the swing shift. And I mean it, my door is always open."

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Carson was pleasantly surprised when McKay gave only a token protest before adapting a naquadah generator for radiation therapy. Truth be told, everyone just liked Michelle. She'd cared for them all at one time or another, from Ford's encounter with the energy creature to Sheppard's mutant alien tick bite. It being a relatively small community, bad news traveled fast, and everyone wanted to see what they could do to help.

Michelle responded satisfactorily to treatment, but Carson wasn't completely happy with the results. In the meantime, he'd made little progress in finding alternate treatments. The cubes had provided some data, but not enough. He and Zelenka were beginning to think of them as a mini medical library, but he hadn't completely figured out how to retrieve information. And each time he tried, the attempt left him exhausted and hungry.

That was how Carson had found himself standing outside the chair room several weeks later. Aside from blowing things up, the chair could also be a useful analytic tool. McKay had explained how the process worked, and Carson now understood it. He hoped.

Both McKay and Zelenka were in the room. McKay was wearing his flak jacket. "Oh, that's funny," Carson said as he rolled his eyes.

"Just a precaution. Isn't that what you're always saying? Right before you threaten to sedate my ass to keep me in your clutches?"

Carson smiled sweetly. "Rodney. Trust me lad. You don't want to get me upset right now. I might just lose my concentration, and there are lots of things around here that could break. Like you." Then he sat down and put his arms on the armrests. Almost immediately, he felt the chair tilt back and machinery come to life around him. That was unusual. Normally it took him several minutes of concentration before it reluctantly started up.

Carson closed his eyes and became part of the machine. He couldn't explain how, exactly. He was aware of himself, but at the same time was aware of all parts of the city like they were parts of his own body. Every function of the city was under his complete control, and he could create or destroy things with a thought. It was a power over life or death that he didn't want to wield.

Enough. A friend's life depended on him. He directed his/Atlantis's awareness towards the information database and sought the particular memory symbols that he'd learned meant medical. He/the city sifted through all the information to find data on the function and workings of the cubes, keeping firm control so as not to lose himself among fascinating but irrelevant details.

There, that did it. Carson pulled his mind out of the interface far enough to say to the two other scientists, "This is what I could find about the buggers. I've put the info in a separate file in the mainframe." He noticed that McKay and Zelenka were staring at him in evident surprise, but he couldn't waste the time to find out why. The next part of his task was going to be harder.

This time, when Carson let himself fall back into the human/chair meld, he focused his/its attention on an actual cube, which Zelenka had placed into a receptacle in the wall. He looked at it with senses beyond his own five, and noted the minute circuitry that responded to the user's thoughts. There were other circuits, too, which appeared to access the part of the database he'd just left.

Carson then attempted to access the cube with one part of his augmented awareness, while analyzing the interaction with the city's main computing power. The last thing he remembered was a bright flash and blinding pain, then nothing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When he regained consciousness, Carson found himself sitting on the floor next to the chair, leaning against a wall. He blinked, not remembering how he'd gotten there.

Looking concerned, McKay crouched down in front of him. "Sweet Jesus, Carson, whatever you did, don't do it again! Are you all right?"

Memory came back. "What was that? It felt like a red hot bloody poker being driven right into my eye!"

Zelenka stepped into his field of vision. "We should get you to the infirmary," he said firmly.

Carson slowly stood up and protested. "I don't need that. I'll just lie down for a wee bit, then get back to work."

The acerbic McKay replaced the concerned McKay. "Oh, the irony. Not a chance, Dr. Kildare! If you're going to drag me to the infirmary every time some piece of Ancient technology overloads, you're going to have to go, too!"

Zelenka smirked. "Rodney, you have to admit that last time wasn't just an overload. Half of your lab vanished."

"Not helpful, Zelenka." The two of them stood to either side of the Scotsman and began to walk towards the infirmary. "Keep moving," said Rodney when Carson tried once more to escape.

Carson sighed and surrendered to the inevitable. Even so, he knew he was never going to hear the end of this.

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TBC