Aftermath

By Ann3

Writer's Note: Okay, so we're enjoying the whumpage, then...? I'm so glad, since there's lots more to come... ;o)

Before we get there, though, we need to get inside poor wee Carson's megawhumped mind... hmmm, now where do you suppose the idea for that's going to come from...?

Thanks again for all the reviews - you keep me inspired ! And where there's inspiration, there's whumpage... ;o)

Chapter Six

Silences, Shocks And Solutions

He was safe. Alive. Laura could see him, feel him, warm and real and solid, lying cradled in her arms. Physically speaking, Carson was right there beside her. She could touch him. Feel him. Hold him.

In all other possible ways, though…? Well, he might just as well have been on another planet.

Part of him had died last night, as the horrors of his mind had finally taken the cruellest of tolls. Part of the gentlest, sweetest soul that she'd ever known had been torn away. Forever lost.

Since waking that morning, he'd lain still and silent against her, not moving. Not saying a word. The only movement had come from his eyes as they'd flicked from one bandaged wrist to the other.

Even then, they'd shown no reaction at all to the healing grazes beneath. Shown no sign of emotion. Instead they'd drifted to the ceiling. Down to his blanketed toes. Along his IV line. Down to his toes again. Across to the adjacent wall.

For the last twenty minutes, he'd looked everywhere in that room, everywhere, except at her. And in her own quietly bitter, seething silence, it was driving Laura Cadman to the end of her tether – a soft, choked, barely audible whisper as much a shock to her as it was one almighty relief.

"'m sorry, lass… I – I jus' don' know wha'… wha' to say to ye… how to – to face ye…"

He still couldn't meet her eyes. And the strong, adorably accented voice still sounded totally lost. But he was talking. Finally talking. However brokenly he did so, Laura Cadman would settle for that.

But much as she yearned to lighten this oppressive mood between them, she didn't dare attempt to. It would be the cruellest of ironies if something she said were to tip her precious Carson over the edge.

So instead she just spoke very gently from her heart, quietly praying she was saying the right thing.

"Face me…?" she said at last, resisting the urge to ask him if she was really that ugly to look at. "I'm sorry, baby, I don't understand… why should you find it so hard to face me…?"

Eyes of purest, still stricken blue finally met hers, the haggard face expressing the same disbelief – echoed through a voice broadened by shock, and raised by a dangerously simmering keg of emotions.

"Bloody hell, lass, I – I canna believe ye just asked me that…!" Carson said at last, staring up at her – the complete lethargy of just moments before now swinging to its equally alarming, opposite extreme.

"I've let ye down, lass…! You, an' Dr Weir, an'… an' ev'ryone on Atlantis, I've let all o' ye down…! I've jus' told the Wraith ev'rything they'd ever want to – to know about us, all our defences, an'…an'… an' how to get past them, to – to get to us, an'… an' destroy us, an' God know what else, an'…"

Too distraught to continue, Carson then fell back into the silence which had separated them before – fiercely clenched eyes sparing him the further torment of seeing the tears that now welled in Laura's.

It was the terror talking. She knew that. Unimaginable suffering had caused that extraordinary outburst. But it had still hurt. Try as she might to understand its cause, it had still hurt her like hell.

He'd realised it too now. Even in the depths of his own despair, he'd still felt the pain he'd caused her. And however close he was to falling emotionally apart, Carson Beckett just couldn't have that – tears that had become his constant companion spilling through another panic stricken tumble of words.

"Oh, God, lass, 'm – 'm sorry… I – I di'n't mean it, love… I – I don' know wha's wrong wi' me…! I – I jus' feel like I'm losin' my mind, lass, all over again, an'… an' I don' know how to stop it…!"

Holding onto him as fiercely as he was clinging to her, Laura was crying helplessly too now – struggling to comfort him as the full, true reason for Carson's outburst became heartbreakingly clear

"I have to – to remember what he did to me, love… I – I have to 'member what I told him, but… but... God an' you forgive me, Laura, but I – I can't… I'm too much o' a bloody coward to face it…"

Overwhelmed now, in a breakdown of emotion they both sorely needed, neither of them noticed him – a grim faced, quietly watching figure, now stealing out of the Infirmary as silently as he'd stolen in.

Ten minutes later, Kate Heightmeyer opened her office door to an unexpected, unscheduled visitor – staring in surprise into the somewhat awkward, self conscious face of one Colonel John Sheppard.

Still glancing furtively around him, he then smiled with the same nervous unease before loping inside.

"Hey, sorry to drop by without an appointment, doc, but… um… you… um… you got a minute…?"