Setting the Universe Right
Author: Vecturist
Rating: K+
Summary: Carson Beckett hadn't intended to be a geneticist…
A/N: Written for the LJ Sheppard HC challenge, prompt 'Loss of a Child." Once I figure out LJ, I'll try and post there as well.
Carson Beckett hadn't intended to be geneticist. He was a Trauma Surgeon, capital T, capital S, thank you very much, and an ego to match, with a bright future ahead of him. Still early in his career, he was quickly gaining renown for his skills, fighting death on a daily basis and winning - there seemed to be nothing he couldn't fix. Adding in the car, the house, and his beautiful, pregnant wife, it seemed Fortune had smiled on him, but she also turn her back at a moment's notice, as Carson soon found out.
At her first appearance, Camille was beautiful, but silent, entering the world without the lusty newborn's cry. Carson's dreams of frilly dresses and careful tying of hair ribbons were shattered as he and his wife were quietly informed, after a hasty discussion by the delivery room doctors that their daughter might not make it through the night. Camille, however, had not only inherited her father's dark hair and blue eyes, but also his stubborn refusal to give in and survived the night. The doctors shook their heads, made notes, and attempted to console their co-worker, who refused to give up. He'd often heard of the bond between fathers and daughters, never believing it until now. From the moment he first saw her, he swore he'd move heaven and earth for Camille. Carson called in every favor owed and even bullied a few specialists, all to no avail; the diagnosis remained the same, his daughter was too sick to live, there was nothing that could be done. Each day she defiantly beat the odds, and he didn't know whether to celebrate or to cry; he was used to witnessing suffering, but he'd never thought it'd provoke such a visceral reaction from him. How could he stand to see someone so small, so innocent, suffering, someone he couldn't fix on operating table, because of one small segment of DNA?
When the inevitable finally came to pass, he was a man inconsolable, doubling his time at the hospital, as if determined to steal back from death ten-fold what had been taken from him in retribution. He began to seek out other, more controversial researchers in the hospital, searching for one more weapon to add to his arsenal, stop the problem before it started. Throwing himself into the field of molecular biology and genetics, Carson pursued a new set of potential answers, trying to set the universe right. Life may not be fair, but that didn't mean you had to accept the cards that were dealt. Carson and his wife drifted apart, the memory of Camille a painful reminder of what could have been, and how they'd failed. He surrendered the car and the house to her with no regrets, exchanging them for a position at a research institution beginning to explore genetic therapies. When he turned his resignation at the hospital, he heard the whispers he'd thrown away his life and career on a single role of the dice. He smiled sadly - he'd already lost everything that mattered to him. Even his success in his new field, the growing list of awards and, the recommendation for increasingly secret projects couldn't fill the gap in his heart.
Now, in Atlantis, there are days when he wishes he could explain why he continues to pull the long nights, to try every treatment imaginable (usually much to Sheppard and McKay's dismay), his refusal to give up, and why he gets so frustrated when things don't work out like they should. They don't hear the name he sobs out in the dark of the night, or see the tiny pink bracelet he sometimes fingers in his lab coat pocket.
FIN
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