AN: betaed by the wonderful Marie
Rodney was late for the briefing. He was preparing some excuse to present to Elizabeth, hoping that she wouldn't mind him too much.
When he entered, he was surprised to see everybody staring at different parts of the room's furniture, in complete silence.
"Hi! Sorry I'm late!" As nobody looked at him, he went around the table and sat downlooking more attentively at the ones seated at the table. It seemed that they'd all received some bad news.
"So? What's wrong?"
John raised his head and gave him one the most irritated looks ever.
Rodney remembered. Carson He saw the Scot, on the opposite side of the table.
"Carson! It's good to have you back." He tried to make his voice as jolly as possible. The truth was he'd forgotten. He was busy with a new device and had spent the past thirty hours studying it.
"It's good to see you again, Rodney." Carson smiled. At least Rodney hadn't changed.
"Sorry I was late. I was studying a device." He placed his hands on the table and was expecting to be informed of what had been discussed.
Elizabeth tried to regain her composure, but realized that she couldn't get her voice to sound the way she wanted. She muttered: "You're dismissed. We'll discuss the rest of the matters later." She rose from the table and quickly left the conference room, followed by everybody but Carson, John and Rodney.
Carson put his left hand on the table and rested his head on it. John sat down in the chair next to him and put his hand on Carson's shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay," he tried to comfort the doctor.
Rodney was staring at the scene, not knowing what to make of it. He tried to remember if Carson mentioned anybody from home being sick.
"What's wrong?" he asked, hoping somebody would finally explain it to him.
John waited for a few seconds, allowing Carson to explain, if he wanted to. When Carson didn't say anything, he commented: "It would've helped if you would've been here on time. But that doesn't really matter, does it, McKay?" John seemed furious.
"I was busy! How am I supposed to save the city if I can't work?"
"Save the city… You'll be on your own by the time -"
"It's okay, John." Carson interrupted. He then rose from his seat and left the room, not looking at Rodney for one second. He felt betrayed. If Rodney would have stopped for a moment to look around him, he would have seen something was wrong, but the scientist was too absorbed by his work to care for his friends. He shouldn't have expected anything from Rodney and he definitely didn't want to be the cause of Rodney and John's fights.
"That is enough!" Rodney took a few steps to catch up with Carson and grabbed his right arm.
Carson turned around and said in a low, bitter voice: "Why don't ye go about as ye did for the past weeks? It seems it worked well for you."
"Carson! You're my friend."
"Not for long." He knew that after he left, Rodney would find something to occupy his time and he wouldn't mean that much. After all, he started doing it while he was still there.