Carson tossed and turned on his bed. It soon became obvious to him, that tossing and turning was not actually a very good idea. Although his injuries from the explosion were not nearly as severe as Rodney's, they were still painful. He was finding bruises and scrapes in places that he didn't expect. His arm was naggingly painful, and every time he moved to get comfortable, another part of him ached in protest.
His physical discomfort, however, was nothing to the emotional turmoil he was suffering. Part of him felt deeply hurt that people he considered friends would even half believe he would try to kill Rodney. But then, when he was being honest with himself, he half believed it too. The facts all seemed to point in his direction, and he had no memory of what had happened in the time from discovering the Ancient laser to waking up in the Infirmary. There was this nagging fear in the back of his mind, just as painful as his arm, that he might have deliberately set out to hurt Rodney. Why else would he erase the memory from his mind?
As Carson lay on his bed, willing his body to relax enough to sleep, his mind started to wander. His subconscious took over and reality made way for the unsettling world of the overwrought mind.
Over again, in time to the ticking of the clock beside his bed, Carson found himself pounding on the arms of the Chair. In his dream-like state, Rodney was lying on the floor in front of him, eating blue jello, and all the time, the Ancient laser was boring into the Stargate, cutting through one of the panels until it hung loosely. Then the laser would turn on Rodney, and start cutting through his body.
The dream-filled sleep was anything but restful, and every so often Carson would wake up, and try to force his mind away from the horror of the visions his sleeping eyes saw. But each time he drifted off to sleep again, the nightmares would return, and Rodney would be mutilated once again.
Eventually, he got up from his bed, and clumsily made himself some tea. It was strange how awkward something as simple as making tea was, when you only had one good arm.
He wandered slowly round the room, nursing his mug of tea. He was reluctant to lie down again, although his body ached with weariness. His vulnerable psyche could not cope with any more battering from the nightmares. His eyes rested on his computer, but he was reluctant to open it, scared of what he might find there. He knew there was talk about him, and it might have leaked onto the intranet, and even e-mails. Even well-meaning support would be too much for him to bear, just at that moment.
His restless eyes then fell on the device that sat beside his computer. He went over and ran his hand over it. It was another Ancient device that he had found a couple of weeks before. He and Rodney had investigated it. Rodney's suggestion was that it was a kind of medical black box – a cross between a life signs detector and a medical scanner. It seemed to detect the life signs of anyone in the vicinity and record their general health.
Rodney had linked it up to Carson's computer to run a test. He wanted to see what sort of information it would give over the course of a week. Carson had found the results interesting. From a medical point of view, he had been able to monitor his heart beat and temperature at the moment he fell asleep. He'd been able to see the effects on his body of reading a stressful e-mail or a comforting one.
Although Carson had found the results fascinating, Rodney had lost interest in the device as soon as he realized it had little use beyond a medical monitor. Carson, on the other hand, had thought of numerous useful applications for it, from monitoring vulnerable patients in their own rooms, to checking on stress-levels. He had left it hooked up to his computer so he could examine longer-term results.
Something in the back of his mind was nagging at him, telling him there was something important about the device, if he could only force his weary, stressed brain to concentrate for a moment.
The more he tried to concentrate, the more his mind seemed intent on wandering. His eyes took in the medical textbooks on his shelf, the picture of his Mum, the calendar of Scotland, but didn't settle on anything. Then a moment of clarity came, like a ray of sun through the mist.
He moved quickly over to his laptop, and opened it clumsily, hampered by the cast on his arm. He managed to work the mouse with his left-hand, though it was a rather shaky and erratic path that the cursor took to open the program he wanted to run.
After about 5 attempts, he managed to open the program that was linked to the Ancient device. John had worked out the timeframe during which Carson's activities were unknown. The Scot had left the lab, carrying the Ancient laser at 1900 hours and had not been seen again until 0900 hours the following morning, when he apparently had met Elizabeth for breakfast. Carson had had to take John's word for this as his memory of it was very hazy at best, and non-existent for the most part.
He quickly pulled up the information that the Ancient medical black box had downloaded onto his laptop. He scrolled through the data until he found the timeframe he was looking for.
As his eyes scanned the screen eagerly, he had to blink to focus on the information scrolling before him. Then he found what he was looking for. With a sigh, he sat back and raised his good hand to rub at his weary eyes, before he leaned closer to check the facts.
There it was, in black and white on the screen in front of him. At 1915 hours, he had entered his room, and, he drew in a surprised breath, he was not alone. The black box didn't give detailed information, certainly not detailed enough to identify who it was. What it did indicate was those who had the Ancient gene. So it was clear to Carson that who ever else had come into his room, did not have the gene, either naturally or after gene therapy.
He checked the other facts, and then frowned. Quickly calling up the data from the previous night, he checked it against the information from the night in question.
"Interesting," he muttered to himself.
The data was giving him quite a clear picture of what had happened that night. He had come back to his room at 1915 hours with another person, male he thought from the readings, who did not have the Ancient gene. Then by 1930, he was alone in his room, and in a very, very deep sleep. The readings suggested he was almost comatose. They varied sharply from the readings when he had slept the night before, and that night he had been exhausted, and had enjoyed a very deep sleep.
So in those 15 minutes between getting to his room, and being left alone, something had caused Carson to fall into a state of unconsciousness. His tiredness had left him as his brain struggled with the puzzle. He wished he could talk it through with Rodney. The scientist's logical brain often saw patterns where Carson saw none, and made lateral leaps that made perfect sense, but which Carson hadn't thought possible.
Restlessly, the doctor's eyes roamed round his room. Then stopped and returned to the shelves over by his bureau. On the shelves, almost hiding behind a pile of books, stood a whisky glass. It still had a sticky residue of undrunk whisky in the bottom. Carson went over to it and lifted it to his nose, and sniffed. It smelled of normal whisky. For a moment he smiled, distracted by the memory of the family dog who hated the smell of whisky and used to make a massive detour to avoid any whisky glasses laid on the floor.
But he managed to drag his wandering mind back to the here and now. On the side of the glass was something that didn't belong there. Carson had his suspicions as to what it was. It was the remnants of a clear liquid that seemed to have clung to the side of the glass whilst it was being poured into it. And it most certainly wasn't whisky. He needed to get the lab to test it.
The moment of clarity extended even further, when a frightening thought struck him. He now knew, without a shadow of a doubt that he had nothing to do with the attempt on Rodney's life. He'd been unconscious in his room the whole time he had been on his own. So that meant someone else was behind the attempt.
That was bad enough, but if Colonel Sheppard and the others thought that Carson was responsible, and that they had Carson confined to his room, the security around Rodney might not be tight, in fact, in might be non-existent.
"I must speak to the Colonel," Carson muttered to himself, heading straight for his door and opening it with his mind. As he stepped through the door, his mind was on what he had to do. He had forgotten that his room was being guarded by two marines. As he appeared, the two men swung round, their guns raised, and pointed at him.
Carson, instinctively, took a step back, and held up his hands in surrender. He quickly let his right hand fall to his side as a sharp pain shot up his injured arm.
"Take it easy, lads," he said. "I'm not going to attack you or anything. I just have to see Colonel Sheppard. That's all."
The two marines exchanged a glance, and seemed to communicate in some strange, non-verbal way, that people who worked together and fought together had.
"I'll take you there," the marine on the right said. Carson didn't know either of the men. They had just recently arrived on the Daedalus and he hadn't been involved in their medicals.
The other man nodded, and took up the stance Carson had seen the guards who had stood watch over the Wraith use. It made him wonder if they considered him on a par with the Wraith.
Before his mind could wander further down that avenue, he realized that the first marine was indicating he should precede him along the corridor. As they set off for Sheppard's quarters, it soon became apparent to Carson that the marine wasn't sure where to go.
"Do you want me to take the lead?" he asked gently.
"Yes, Sir," the marine responded, giving Carson more respect than the doctor had anticipated.
"Very well, lad," he said, trying to keep his voice, and demeanor calm. "Just you follow me."
The corridors of Atlantis were quiet at that time of night. Although people worked all hours, there were definitely fewer around in the middle of the night. Carson generally found the city a soothing place when he had cause to go on a nocturnal wander, but with a fully armed marine at his back, and the life of his friend depending on his action, all thoughts of peace were banished.
He picked up his pace, sensing the marine behind matching it. As they got closer to Sheppard's quarters, Carson's sense of unease increased. It felt like someone, or something, was watching him. And it was not a benevolent observation. Carson felt threatened, felt a sense of danger.
He picked up his pace even more, and almost ran along the corridor, his nerves on edge. When the blast came, it had sense of sickening inevitability about it. Even so, Carson, his nerves on edge, jumped, especially when he heard the thud of the marine's body as he hit the floor.
He turned, to confront the attacker, but there was little he could do. He saw a brief glimpse of a hooded figure, dressed all in black, before his world exploded in a starburst of excruciating pain.