Ghost Of Patients Past

Rated: PG

Category: Carson/Rodney Friendship, Barely Holiday Fic, Challenge.

Season: Five

Spoilers: Misbegotten, Sunday, Kindred I/II.

Summary: An Old Patient Of Carson's Repays A Debt.

Note: Written for the challenge of: A team member saves a higher being from death. The being is grateful then goes on their way. The being returns on Christmas Eve and grants the savior one wish, allowing them to rewrite one event in a friend's life. But that rewrite will only be true while the friend sleeps that night. The friend will wake completely refreshed. Who wishes what for whom?

---

Carson Beckett stared at the knotted suture as if his life depended on it, but his fears were unfounded. He was in no danger; at least not at the moment. The gunfire that had raged outside when Carson started his work had stopped. Atlantis had again triumphed over the Wraith. They were calling this one a win.

But like all their victories, it came with a price.

The stack of bodies already being piled behind the shed that sheltered Carson bore evidence of that price. Those people hadn't won anything except quick deaths.

Carson blinked and took a deep breath as he continued to stare at his handiwork.

The ligature held.

Carson stood perfectly still and stared at it a moment longer, then took another breath and moved. He was alone in the shed, but he spoke anyway.

"Alright. There's a good lad. Let's finish this."

The boy in question didn't respond. He was doped to the gills for the barnyard surgery. His sandy hair stood up in a million directions above a sweating brow on a very pale face. He was young - no more than eight - and he looked the picture of innocence.

Carson picked up more suture and some instruments. He started to close the gaping wound in the boy's abdomen, now that he'd managed to stop the bleeding.

The bullet that had torn through the boy hadn't killed him, despite major blood loss from a laceration of a large blood vessel. Carson knew that this made the boy unlucky in a way. Soon, the child would be in a world of hurt - if he survived the rest of his surgery.

Then, he'd still have to beat the odds and not die of post-operative infection on this backwoods planet.

Carson sighed.

He shoved those thoughts from his mind and continued to pull muscles and flesh together methodically.

Half an hour later, the boy's stomach was beautiful.

A neat row of stitches marred its surface, but there was no sign of how close this boy had come to leaving the world. The ragged chunks of tissue and pouring blood that had driven Carson to curse a Scottish blue streak that raised the eyebrows of even Colonel Sheppard were gone.

The boy sucked in a ragged, deep breath just as the door of Carson's makeshift OR opened.

"How's it going, Doc?" asked Sheppard, as his spiky hair came into view.

"I'm finished here," answered Carson, tossing his gloves to the ground.

"Good," said John. "We've got to move. Those Wraith will be back."

"This boy can't be moved yet, Colonel. He's too weak, and…"

"I hear ya, Doc, but we've got no choice. We stay here, we all die. Rodney's at the gate, moving the other villagers. We'll take him back to Atlantis."

"But…"

"No time to argue, Doc. Let's go."

"Well, I suppose he does stand a better chance of recovery there," admitted Carson.

"Just get moving," ordered John as he quickly left the building.

Carson nodded mutely as two Marines replaced the colonel and loaded his patient onto a stretcher. The boy groaned as he was moved, and Carson quickly filled a syringe with morphine.

He stepped to the boy's side just as the child's eyes tried to flutter open.

"Here you go, lad. Back to sleep."

The boy stayed silent, but a tiny, unseen smile flashed over his face as he drifted back to unconsciousness.

XXX

Two weeks later, the people of P5X-462 left Atlantis for a planet much like their own. The Wraith had set up a new base on their world, so going home wasn't an option.

They took Carson's patient, a boy named Baden, with them, though they hadn't known him before. He said he was from a neighboring village, and no one questioned him. He had a large scar on his stomach, but otherwise was as fit as could be. He'd healed remarkably well from his injury, amazing even Carson. He'd been one of the last villagers to leave, and just before he stepped through the event horizon, he'd turned and sought Carson's eyes. He'd found them looking down on him from the control room, and the boy had mouthed two words to Carson just before he slipped through the Stargate.

Thank you.

A month later, Atlantis had nearly forgotten the boy, despite his gratitude. Life was as back to normal as it ever got for the city, which meant that Carson Beckett was too busy getting kidnapped by a Wraith-human hybrid of his own creation to think much on former patients.

Half a year later, an explosion stole Atlantis' healer from her, and no one noticed a tiny tag line in an update from the resettled villagers of P5X-462 that Baden had disappeared on a hunting expedition and was presumed dead.

No one noticed much of anything for quite a while.

No one except Baden, who hadn't really disappeared at all, and who noticed quite a lot.

XXX

Carson Beckett sighed as he leaned against the door to his quarters. No, not his quarters, but the 'other' Carson's quarters.

The door had scarcely shut behind him when he fell against it.

It was Christmas Eve, and he stood in the empty quarters of a dead man.

Only that man wasn't dead. He was alive in Carson. Or was he?

Carson couldn't decide. The way everyone treated him on Atlantis, simultaneously as a friend and an outsider, and the knowledge that he was a copy of man who had been officially mourned, was just too much to take most days. The holiday was making that intensely more difficult to bear. He was barely holding things together, and he knew it. He'd been invited to Christmas parties and such on this night, but he couldn't bring himself to go. He couldn't pretend to be 'normal', when he was anything but.

Carson slid down the door and sat on the floor. He rested his arms on his knees and looked off into the distance to one side of him.

Suddenly, he laughed at the absurdity of his situation. The sound was bitter and ironic, and not at all happy.

Suddenly, a calm voice interrupted his joyless mirth.

"It is bizarre, isn't it?"

Carson's head whipped around and he jumped to his feet.

He saw no one.

"Great," he muttered. "Now I'm hallucinating to boot."

"You're not," said the same calm voice. "I'm just having a snack."

Carson slowly walked around the corner to where he kept a small refrigerator and a table with chairs. As he did, his jaw dropped nearly to the floor.

A spiky blonde fringe of hair peeked out from behind the fridge door, which was held open by one visible hand. Carson's own hand flew to his left ear.

"Security!"

The fringe of hair became a head at its owner looked toward Carson over the door.

"They won't answer," said the head calmly, as its arm closed the door and its body became visible.

Carson stared at what he could now see was a boy. A human boy of about eleven years old, with unruly sandy hair and a face like an angel. After a moment, he spoke carefully.

"Baden?"

The boy smiled. "The same," he said, sitting down in a chair and tearing a hunk of meat off a turkey leg he'd found.

"Why are you eating my food?"

Baden laughed out loud.

"I show up unannounced, and undetected, in your quarters when I'm supposed to be dead, cut off all your com channels, and all you can think to ask is 'why are you eating my food'? You're a real piece of work, Carson Beckett. Then again, 'dead' is such a relative term, eh?"

Carson gaped, but said nothing as he sat in a chair opposite the boy.

After a moment, Baden spared him some misery.

"I'm eating your food because I like it," he explained, in a tone that said he thought that was blatantly obvious. "I'm not hungry exactly, but I don't get to eat often. Not like this, anyway."

That bit of information was enough to snap Carson back to professional mode.

"You've grown. And you don't look thin."

Baden snorted. "Didn't say I don't get nourishment. Just not food. Not this kind."

"Supplements, then?"

Baden shrugged casually, all adolescent nonchalance. "Close enough."

"Why are you here? How are you here? And what's this nonsense about you being dead?"

Baden snorted again. "I'm here to repay you. And never mind how. Let's just say it wasn't exactly hard. As for the being dead part, well, you and I have that in common. Most around here think I've passed on, but the fact is that I was just done where I was and I moved on when no one was looking. You probably missed that little bit of info when you were, um, indisposed, which I appreciate a bit. Bad enough to startle you like this, but add you thinking I'm dead to the mix and that cranks up the intensity a bit, don't you think?"

Carson nodded, agreeing completely from personal experience. Baden could see the wheels turning in Carson's head, and he grinned when the doctor put the pieces together.

"You're an Ancient. You've ascended."

"Not quite, but it'll do. Close enough for government work."

Baden winked, and Carson gaped some more before finally stuttering out another question.

"Repay me? You don't owe me anything, lad. I was just doing my job. You don't have to do anything… and, I mean, how could you, anyway?"

"Let's just say there's no Prime Directive where I come from," said Baden, with a huge grin.

Carson blinked. "Prime Directive?"

Now it was Baden's turn to gape. "Don't you watch Star Trek?"

Carson stuttered. "Well, yes, but…"

"You know," interrupted Baden, "the Prime Directive? No interference? Like those 'Ancients' you're so fond of?" The boy made air quotes around the word 'Ancients'. He looked for all the word like a normal kid, but absolutely nothing was normal about this encounter. Carson blinked a few times at the boy.

"You mean you watch television and…"

"Yeah, I watch TV. Don't look so shocked. What? You think I take this form for fun? I can't even fix myself when I'm like this, as you well know. Truth is, I like you humans. And your TV shows, too."

"So you're not human, and you're not an Ancient. You're something else… evolved somehow… and you can do what, exactly? Obviously you can't keep yourself from getting shot."

Baden grinned broadly. "Actually, I can. I take this form to experience things in a new way," explained Baden. "I enjoy it. But normally I wouldn't let something like what happened to introduce us occur. But I was, um… not paying attention. It happens." The boy looked down at the floor for a moment and then back up at Carson. He licked his lips once and then spoke quietly. "I use this specific form because, um, I am actually still young. Sometimes I get carried away a bit, you know. That's all. And once I was hurt, I was too weak to do much of anything."

"That's the truth," grumbled Carson.

"Hey!" defended Baden. "I know I'm not perfect, and I'm no genie in a bottle, but I wanted to give you something to repay you for before. Is that so bad?"

Carson softened his tone. "No, lad. It's not so bad. In fact, it's far too rare a thing. Thank you."

"You're welcome. And thanks for remembering me, by the way."

Carson snorted. "As far as I'm concerned, you were one of my last patients."

"Good point," conceded Baden. "Anyway, what I do is dreams."

"Excuse me?"

"Dreams. You know: images, mirages, fantasies. I do 'em all. You want 'em, I got 'em."

"You're going to make a dream come true, is that it?"

Baden laughed. "I wish. Then I'd make a few of my own come true. But no. Doesn't work that way."

"Then what?"

Baden sighed. "Every time it's the same thing. You'd think I'd learn and stop trying. Ok. Here's the deal. You get to give a dream to a friend. But not just any dream. The most real, refreshing, and best dream you can imagine."

"What's the dream about?" asked Carson, clearly just going along with things. Baden was still eating his turkey leg, and Carson was pretty sure everything he was seeing was a complete illusion.

"You pick," answered Baden.

"I don't understand, lad. And I still don't know what's…"

"You pick the dream," interrupted Baden. "You can take one horrible moment in a life and fix it. For one night, the person you pick will get to relive that moment as if it never went wrong, but with no consequences. No altered timelines, no paradoxes, no headaches. Just a dream. A wonderful dream."

"And then?"

"And then they'll wake up back in their life as it is. No strings attached. But I promise they'll be more rested than they've ever felt."

"Rested?"

"Aye," said Badin, with a teasing tone.

Carson thought about Baden's offer for a moment. He was tempted to try to use it for himself, but Baden had mentioned a friend, and quite frankly, Carson felt like he'd had enough rest for a lifetime after being stuck in that stasis pod for months.

The story of the other Carson floated across his mind, and Carson smiled sadly.

Baden set down his now clean turkey bone and grinned back. Carson quirked an eyebrow at him.

"What?"

"Done," answered the boy.

And with that, he was gone. He vanished. There was no flash or light or puff of smoke. Baden was just gone.

Carson shook his head.

"Crazier than a March hare, I am," he muttered.

He rubbed absently at the back of his neck, stood, and left the room. Twenty minutes later, he was somehow mercifully asleep.

Carson didn't dream that night.

But in a room not so far away, Rodney McKay cast the perfect fly and caught a fish that would've made Jack O'Neill proud.

He didn't do so alone, but beside an irreplaceable friend.

XXX

Christmas morning dawned clear and cold.

Most of Atlantis slept.

But Rodney McKay was up early. He had no time for gift exchanges and frolic. He had work to do, as always. He hit an empty mess for breakfast with more than his usual gusto and plainly ignored the holiday. He marched into his day like he was on fire.

By the time Carson Beckett dragged himself out of bed, Rodney had solved a problem that had been vexing him for months. As Rodney smiled with pride at his monitor, Carson stared with disbelief at a well-cleaned turkey bone on his table. After a long moment, he tossed it in the refuse bin and quickly left his quarters.

Ten minutes later, a doctor who was fully convinced he was losing his mind leaned his head into a physicist who couldn't quite remember a nagging dream from the previous night's lab and asked for company for brunch. The physicist started to complain that for once he wasn't hungry, but before two words left his mouth, he met his friend's eyes and held them for a long moment. Something completely intangible but completely understood passed between the two men, and the physicist obliged without comment.

The mess was packed when they got there.

Private gifts had been opened all around the city, and now it was time to eat before more parties and exchanges got underway.

Carson and Rodney joined John, Teyla, and Ronon in a meal.

Ronon ate with the quiet intensity. Teyla was mobbed by people wanting to congratulate Torren on his first Christmas. John was sarcastic. Rodney was arrogant. And Carson was patient but finally told McKay where to stuff it. It was something he hadn't done much of since his 'return', but it felt utterly and completely right. For the first time in a long time, at least for a moment, Carson Beckett was not an outsider at all.

He was just Carson Beckett.

Carson Beckett, who never saw Baden again. Carson Beckett, who never shared the story of his night with anyone, just as Rodney McKay never quite remembered that dream. Carson Beckett, who both gave and received a few gifts that afternoon and who truly enjoyed his day.

Just Carson Beckett.