Chapter 24 – Farewell
Doctor Beckett walked slowly to the metal-handrail surrounding the Atlantisian balcony. He leaned against the cold bars, looking up at the sky. The magnificence of the pompadour-colored explosions of the super-hive's constant shots mixing with the silvery light of the shield made him feel as if he was dreaming and as if all the nightmares of the last hour had disappeared. This illusion lasted only for a few moments, then the pain and despair returned, and he hung his head unhappily.
He was not sure whom to blame: himself for believing a Wraith or Claire for deceiving him so despicably. He would not have thrown stones at Claire if she had simply refused to help the city, but this sly manipulation she had done to play his friends into Michael's hands broke the poor doctor's heart.
At first, the shallow feeling of vindictiveness made Doctor Beckett contented with the fact that he had left her so ruthlessly alone in her cell to wait for her own execution, but now he began to feel sorry for her. Even though she did not deserve anything better, he started wondering if he behaved like a heartless monster too. What would he have done in her place? Maybe, he would have done the same thing she had done. And he condemned her for lying, though he would have done the same had he been in her shoes!
"I was narrow-minded to simply drag up my own grievances, and I accused her of being a traitor, though she was noble and loyal to her own community," he thought. "From this point of view, my letdown doesn't seem important anymore. If Claire really doesn't have any positive feelings for me, all that she did seems sensible. She did not do it to hurt me; she just did it to serve the interests of her own folk. Of Michael... I have no idea what kind of relationship can be between Michael and Claire, but I condemned her for helping Michael with his revenge! It was truly unfair." As he kept on thinking of it, he felt more and more certain that he behaved like a selfish narcissist by saying those horrible things to her. Of course, it was cruel and remorseless how she let him down, but the way he talked to her afterwards was not much better than what she did...
"What the hell did I expect?" he quickly shook his head. "She has feelings neither for Michael nor for anyone else. She herself told me that there weren't personal bonds between Wraiths like between humans. She even scoffed at our ways to complicate our human relationships! She has no love, no loyalty, no friendship and no lofty reasons in her heart; she is just an insidious liar. I'm nothing like her. I'd never betray anyone the way she did to me; I'd never do such a thing. Every word I told her was true, she deserves what comes. She is the most evil creature I've ever met."
Carson felt painful stiffness in his knuckles, as he pressed his fingers so hard around the bar of the balcony. He let them loosen up, and he massaged his hands, before he turned to walk back into the building complex.
"That's the way a vengeful, self-centered person judges his surroundings. Without trying to understand her culture, her bonds to her community and her experiences with humans, I blame her for what she did," he thought reprovingly. "That's what I've never wanted to become... Someone like that. And the pain of losing my friends turns me into one... I can't let it happen." He felt that he had to talk to Claire one last time before she died.
Claire was sitting in the corner of her cell motionless. Her dark, long hair framed her face like a black curtain as she was merely staring in front of her. Suddenly, she felt the presence of a human, someone she recognized from the many scents of the other citizens of the huge city. She looked up, and she saw Doctor Beckett, he was standing at the entrance of the room, resting his eyes on her. He must have sent away the guards, since he was perfectly alone.
"You said you would not come back ever again," she told him silently, her voice was nearly inaudible.
"In ten minutes, your execution will be held. You can have a last wish, if you are quick enough to decide," he said to her coolly.
"A last wish?" she echoed.
"It's a human tradition. When we execute someone, he or she can make a final wish before dying."
"What for?" Claire wondered.
"It has no use," the doctor replied languidly. "You know, we humans don't always do things for a material purpose, there are some things we do just for doing the right thing. To be good."
His somber tone showed that he meant his words to confront her. Claire shrugged, "You humans should not be so proud of your brilliant ways to do the right thing."
"At least, we have an idea about good and evil. From this point of view, you are just an immoral, stony-hearted monster," he retorted sardonically, "And you'll never understand the pain you put me through."
"I told you that you knew nothing about my feelings," she answered bleakly. "There's nothing else left for me to say to you."
"So you don't have a last wish?"
Claire lifted her head up slowly. "Look me in the eye! That's all I wish from you."
Doctor Beckett obeyed a bit surprised, and he turned straight in her direction. As he caught sight of the grayish, familiar, cool look in her eyes, he sighed mournfully.
"No!" He broke the eye contact hastily. "Do you want me to sympathize with you after all you did to my friends?"
"I meant to do nothing bad to your friends, you should know it."
"I should know it?" The doctor asked with so much bitterness in his voice that it made Claire's lips slightly tremble. He went on angrily, "Either you are completely insane, or you think I'm one. Do you really take me for such a gullible moron that you think I would still believe your abominable mendacity?"
"If you ever really understood me, you should know it now."
Carson glared at her. She stood up, adjusting her dark robe which had been fixed for the doctor's request after the burns it had suffered in the crash. Her mysterious, greenish face, her unreadable eyes, her impassively pressed thin lips showed nothing to Doctor Beckett about what she could have on her mind. The doctor sadly felt that he was truly unable to trust her anymore.
"I can't..." he murmured. "You know, I believed in you so much, I put my trust in you, but now I can't... I'm simply unable to feel that way anymore."
She accepted it with a slow nod. "Are you planning to kill me with your own hands?" she asked flatly.
"You know what I'm planning to do! Be damned forever," he hissed, and he suddenly hit at the lock panel of her cell. With a bitter motion, he switched the opening code. "Go!" he shouted at her. "Go, you bloody monster. Be quick, otherwise the city will destroy you. The transporter is at the end of the corridor, you'll easily seek out the lot for the puddle jumpers on the map. Under the water you can find a way to leave the city even with the shields on. Go now! Save your hide, return to your folk, and live as long and happily as you can. I don't want to hear about you ever again."
He turned away with sheer unhappiness on his face. Claire lifted her hands up to her neck, and she opened the clasp of her necklace.
"Take it, it's yours from now on," she said hurriedly, pressing her pendant in the doctor's right hand. At the next moment, she wasn't there anymore; she was running to the transporter as fast as she could, her black cloak flying behind her like the wings of a huge, dark bird. Doctor Beckett's fingers were clutching tightly the hard surface of the pendant, while he was flopping down onto the floor, leaning his head to the cold metal of the wall, feeling the judders running down to the core of the building as the powerful shots of the super-hive kept on hitting the shield surrounding Atlantis.