chasingkerouac

Title: Chevaliers
Section: 1, Man of Hope
Rating/Genre: PG, Gen/Het
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Carson Beckett/Laura Cadman
Written For:

fanfic100 006. Hours (Table)
Length: 620
Exerpt: He often speaks of things he hopes for in early morning hours as we lay in bed and he thinks that I’m asleep. I never correct him, instead giving into my curiosity about the small, secret things he only dares speak of when he thinks no one is listening.

A/N: Chevaliers is a group of seven ficlets surrounding what are known as 'knightly virtues'. All contain a female expedition member speaking of one of the men.

Hope: (v) To cherish a desire with anticipation.

Hope. It’s funny now. Before I came here, I don’t think I fully understood the meaning of that word. We would say “I hope that cute pilot will ask me out” and “oh, I hope my jeans still fit” and “I really hope she’s not mad at me for going to Rachel’s party without her.” We would hope for frivolous and stupid things. We would hope for simple things that wouldn’t matter after an hour or a day, let alone a lifetime. We were short-sighted, thinking that hope was nothing more than magical thinking and a mantra that sounded better in repetition than “I need, I need, I need” or “I want, I want, I want.” No one met hope with sad, weary eyes and selfless sighs.

No one until I met Carson.

His spoken hopes are never for himself. He often speaks of things he hopes for in early morning hours as we lay in bed and he thinks that I’m asleep. I never correct him, instead giving into my curiosity about the small, secret things he only dares speak of when he thinks no one is listening.

“I hope we survive” is one he says often. It’s the first one I can remember him saying. The context never matters – we face enough crises that it’s applicable most days. Survive the Wraith, survive the Genii, survive each other and the perils of the life we’ve chosen… it never matters. It never changes.

“I hope my family is alright.” He says this every evening before the Daedalus docks and delivers written reassurance from the loved ones we left behind. His eyes light up each time he sifts through the stacks of mail addressed to him – I swear, some days it seems like the entire country of Scotland is writing to him – and is reassured that his Mum is feeling well and eager for her tulips to bloom, that his cousin Douglass is studying hard and doing well at university, that his Uncle Bean’s broken arm healed up straight after his last run in with trouble at the local pub. He replies to each of them, refusing to type because that’s ‘bloody impersonal’, and instead writing in his long, looping script of the exploits he can tell them about and of the people they’ll probably never meet. And when the Daedalus leaves the city, he sits up that night and whispers, “I hope they think I’m safe.”

Other nights he whispers hope for those lying in the infirmary – his infirmary. “I hope his leg heals” and “I hope those effects aren’t permanent” he mutters into the darkness. He whispers possibilities and probabilities, courses of treatment and drugs of choice. He talks of hope for progress and for insight for his team.

Lately, he’s been focusing on one, singular hope. The first hope I’ve heard him speak for himself. “I hope you forgive me.” Over and over into the darkness of his quarters, “I hope you forgive me,” each time more pained and more desperate than the last. I never know who the ‘you’ is that he begs at night, whether he’s asking me or God, unnamed persons who haunt his memory or Atlantis herself for forgiveness of sins real or imagined. But he lays there against the pillow, staring at the ceiling repeating that phrase over and over until he falls asleep.

Each night, I wait until his mutterings have regressed into slow, steady breaths and he’s turned onto his side in sleep. Each night, I wrap my arms around his waist and press myself flush against his back and whisper, “I forgive you.”

Each night, I hope that’s enough for one more day.

Each morning, I know that it is.