"Found, in the Rain"
I realize its not over the 1,000 word mark, but it misses by such a narrow margin...
-----------------------
Title: Found, in the Rain
Author: Keenir.
Requested by: Fififolle, who asked for Carson/Lam fic.
Pairing: Lam/Beckett.
Summary: After a great long while, Caroline Lam has found Carson Beckett, alive and well.
Thanks go out to Fredbassett, who provided the endearment; thanks also to Lil_shepherd and Missyvortex.
Author’s note: my drafts have them as being better at making literary references than this final draft does. Sorry.
Ps: yes, ‘Pack’ is a real surname…probably English in origin, I think.
Found, in the rain" <---original link.
.-----------------------------.
“Where’s she going?” Dr. Pack asked, briefly watching Dr. Lam fade from view in all the rain.
“Let ‘er go,” Dr. Pak said. “After all she’s done, she deserves a little fun. All I ask is that she doesn’t slip and fall down a ravine. “Curing plagues isn’t exactly stress-free, after all.”
“I’ll grant you that. But, surely there’re rules about dalliances with locals.” No matter how grateful and worshipping said locals might be.
“Says a white Brit with a dot in her forehead,” Lemuel Pak quipped, his tone telling her it was in jest - if they hadn’t already had a good working friendship, even that wouldn’t have been enough. “Seriously now, Lam’s the daughter of General Landry and friends with SG-1 - who themselves’re close buds with Doctor Weir.”
“Alright, alright, I get your point.”
“Then again,” Pak suggested, “maybe you’re just jealous of her going off to meet with a bronzed lover with washboard abs and pecs of steel.”
Dr. Pack rolled her eyes at his tone. “A-mericans,” she muttered as she returned to making sure there wasn’t too much water in the medical kits. I prefer men who don’t glow in the dark.
--------------------------------
Caroline Lam stood perfectly still, the whittled turtle still in her good hand. She’d been told he was here; she’d been given a message from him (the turtle); she could see him plainly; and he’d answered the question she had, settling that, yes, it was him. “Carson.
“Aye I’m me,” Carson said, his legs framed by the luminescent faces of children.
She stepped up to him, trying not to think of how far a drop it would be if she misstepped. The hillsides on this world - or at least this continent - were nothing but volcanic tufa smoothed by unceasing rain. Caroline slowly raised her empty hand to him, but stopped short of letting her fingers touch his cheek.
“I’m as real as real can be,” he assured her. “I’m nae a ghost,” he said with his forehead and cheeks each with the same light-emitting patch that the entire population had.
“I know,” she said. It’s irrational; no, its beyond that: I touched hundreds of natives while I helped them develop a cure…though I never touched their patches. By force of will, her fingers grazed along Carson’s cheek. “Its not hot at all,” she said.
“That its not,” he agreed. “So, Caroline,” not wanting to press her to return to their former intimacy, “how are you finding the House of Never here?” The question worked because the native semi-nomadic humans used the same word for the planet they roamed over as for the rest houses carved from the hills.
Caroline smiled. “While its not what Cervantes had in mind, I like it,” now that you’re here.
He could read her face even now, even after so long. “You’re wondering how I can be here.”
Mutely, she nodded. She hadn’t been going to question good fortune. “The most merciful thing in the world,” quoting. While most times, she did want to solve things and figure them out, times like this were when she wasn’t about to question higher powers or technologies or things like that.
After all, it wasn’t like the Ori were responsible for bringing dear Carson back.
“Is that we can’t comprehend everything,” Carson said; “Lovecraft. Pretty much, since I don’t know if the thing that blew me up brought me here, or if its something different responsible. One second, I’m in Atlantis; the next, I’m in a valley here, in the middle of a war.” I’m the only one from Atlantis to’ve survived. “The people here took me in, gave me these,” one hand resting against Caroline’s on his cool, lit cheek. “When the plague struck, I did what I could and told them Atlantis’ address.”
So that’s how they knew it - they’d only said it was from a mutual friend, leading Dr. Weir to wonder if the Hoffans were still around. “Thank you.”
They walked a while, talking of this and that, things of no import but to pass time. One might say they talked until the sun rose, but that was an impossibility here: This planet was tidally-locked to its sun, one side always in sunlight, the opposite side always in darkness. Humans had found a home in the habitable ring between the two sides, a narrow strip that was constantly beset by the storms lashing down from the two hemispheres’ winds meeting.
They looked at each other, the winds blowing whatever bits of waterlogged hair were long and loose enough to lift from the scalp and neck. “Hahator pas da dan,” Caroline said.
Carson bowed, a gesture of friendliness rather than territoriality - he got the reference - and kissed her.
Having found each other after a separation at the hands of the storms of daily life and occupation, Caroline and Carson were together again, intending to remain together, neither of them broaching the question of where they would live - were the luminescent bacteria only safe on this world, or could they live anywhere?
As he nuzzled her neck after a long while, Carson whispered against the soft silk of her throat, “Caro.”
------------------------------
The End
(I know, I know, ‘rosebud’ its not) ;)
-----------------------
Title: Found, in the Rain
Author: Keenir.
Requested by: Fififolle, who asked for Carson/Lam fic.
Pairing: Lam/Beckett.
Summary: After a great long while, Caroline Lam has found Carson Beckett, alive and well.
Thanks go out to Fredbassett, who provided the endearment; thanks also to Lil_shepherd and Missyvortex.
Author’s note: my drafts have them as being better at making literary references than this final draft does. Sorry.
Ps: yes, ‘Pack’ is a real surname…probably English in origin, I think.
Found, in the rain" <---original link.
.-----------------------------.
“Where’s she going?” Dr. Pack asked, briefly watching Dr. Lam fade from view in all the rain.
“Let ‘er go,” Dr. Pak said. “After all she’s done, she deserves a little fun. All I ask is that she doesn’t slip and fall down a ravine. “Curing plagues isn’t exactly stress-free, after all.”
“I’ll grant you that. But, surely there’re rules about dalliances with locals.” No matter how grateful and worshipping said locals might be.
“Says a white Brit with a dot in her forehead,” Lemuel Pak quipped, his tone telling her it was in jest - if they hadn’t already had a good working friendship, even that wouldn’t have been enough. “Seriously now, Lam’s the daughter of General Landry and friends with SG-1 - who themselves’re close buds with Doctor Weir.”
“Alright, alright, I get your point.”
“Then again,” Pak suggested, “maybe you’re just jealous of her going off to meet with a bronzed lover with washboard abs and pecs of steel.”
Dr. Pack rolled her eyes at his tone. “A-mericans,” she muttered as she returned to making sure there wasn’t too much water in the medical kits. I prefer men who don’t glow in the dark.
--------------------------------
Caroline Lam stood perfectly still, the whittled turtle still in her good hand. She’d been told he was here; she’d been given a message from him (the turtle); she could see him plainly; and he’d answered the question she had, settling that, yes, it was him. “Carson.
“Aye I’m me,” Carson said, his legs framed by the luminescent faces of children.
She stepped up to him, trying not to think of how far a drop it would be if she misstepped. The hillsides on this world - or at least this continent - were nothing but volcanic tufa smoothed by unceasing rain. Caroline slowly raised her empty hand to him, but stopped short of letting her fingers touch his cheek.
“I’m as real as real can be,” he assured her. “I’m nae a ghost,” he said with his forehead and cheeks each with the same light-emitting patch that the entire population had.
“I know,” she said. It’s irrational; no, its beyond that: I touched hundreds of natives while I helped them develop a cure…though I never touched their patches. By force of will, her fingers grazed along Carson’s cheek. “Its not hot at all,” she said.
“That its not,” he agreed. “So, Caroline,” not wanting to press her to return to their former intimacy, “how are you finding the House of Never here?” The question worked because the native semi-nomadic humans used the same word for the planet they roamed over as for the rest houses carved from the hills.
Caroline smiled. “While its not what Cervantes had in mind, I like it,” now that you’re here.
He could read her face even now, even after so long. “You’re wondering how I can be here.”
Mutely, she nodded. She hadn’t been going to question good fortune. “The most merciful thing in the world,” quoting. While most times, she did want to solve things and figure them out, times like this were when she wasn’t about to question higher powers or technologies or things like that.
After all, it wasn’t like the Ori were responsible for bringing dear Carson back.
“Is that we can’t comprehend everything,” Carson said; “Lovecraft. Pretty much, since I don’t know if the thing that blew me up brought me here, or if its something different responsible. One second, I’m in Atlantis; the next, I’m in a valley here, in the middle of a war.” I’m the only one from Atlantis to’ve survived. “The people here took me in, gave me these,” one hand resting against Caroline’s on his cool, lit cheek. “When the plague struck, I did what I could and told them Atlantis’ address.”
So that’s how they knew it - they’d only said it was from a mutual friend, leading Dr. Weir to wonder if the Hoffans were still around. “Thank you.”
They walked a while, talking of this and that, things of no import but to pass time. One might say they talked until the sun rose, but that was an impossibility here: This planet was tidally-locked to its sun, one side always in sunlight, the opposite side always in darkness. Humans had found a home in the habitable ring between the two sides, a narrow strip that was constantly beset by the storms lashing down from the two hemispheres’ winds meeting.
They looked at each other, the winds blowing whatever bits of waterlogged hair were long and loose enough to lift from the scalp and neck. “Hahator pas da dan,” Caroline said.
Carson bowed, a gesture of friendliness rather than territoriality - he got the reference - and kissed her.
Having found each other after a separation at the hands of the storms of daily life and occupation, Caroline and Carson were together again, intending to remain together, neither of them broaching the question of where they would live - were the luminescent bacteria only safe on this world, or could they live anywhere?
As he nuzzled her neck after a long while, Carson whispered against the soft silk of her throat, “Caro.”
------------------------------
The End
(I know, I know, ‘rosebud’ its not) ;)