paradisalogs | (no subject)

Jennifer once more found herself anxious as she went to work with Carson. She had managed, bit by bit, to blow away some of the awkwardness she felt around him, but it was still there- and there was something else weighing heavily on her, the missing pieces of her memory, and the one black spot that made her seriously doubt her own competence.

But this was something she had promised to help with- and something Conan needed her help to try and break.

So she gathered herself and went right to it, letting herself into Carson's room and then the lab.

"Morning." Carson says, without looking up from his microscope for a few minutes. When he does, he's smiling.

"I've managed to prep the samples. We just need to figure out what to do with them first. That's the tough part."

"Morning," Jennifer replied, giving him a half-smile in return, then hesitated, frowning. "... Well... what sort of equipment do you have here? I can't imagine we're able to wish for... everything we'd need."

She was careful to say "we", trying not to give any indication of how much she really wanted to just back out, so sure that she would just mess things up.

"Not for everything, but some things, aye." He straightens, turning to face her and lean back against the desk. "I managed to get the basic equipment for DNA analysis, but nothing too much. We should be able to manage."

A sigh as he looks around the room, looking a bit proud.

"It's no Atlantis, but it'll do."

Jennifer nodded in response, then looked a little wistful at his mention of Atlantis. She still missed the city dearly, the one place in the world where she'd finally started to feel like she belonged.

She went over to start to work, then paused once more, sighing.

"... Can I talk to you about something first?"

Even if he didn't know the answer to what had been plaguing her mind, she had to tell him. Had to tell him, and then let him decide whether she was still competent enough for this task or not.

There's a pause in his work as he hears that... It sounds serious.

He looks back down to her, still smiling lightly. "Of course. Any time."

Jennifer seated herself and folded her hands in front of her, looking at the floor, at the instruments, at anywhere but Carson.

"It's about... well. What I lost. I know that some of my memories were taken, but I can't figure out what. I'm starting to realize that there are a lot of holes, though. Things that don't add up. And there's one thing in particular..."

She could feel her eyes beginning to water, then paused yet again, not sure how to progress before she suddenly burst out,

"I almost killed Rodney. I almost killed him, I have no idea why they kept me around after that, and that's why... that's why I shouldn't be working on this with you. I'm incompetent, and I don't want to screw this up for Conan."

Jennifer then realized what she'd just said, buried her face in her hands, and started getting up.

"... I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should go."

And Carson's up, hand on her shoulder. He's frowning, yes, but not at the fact she nearly killed Rodney. "Hold it right there, Dr. Keller." His voice is stern.

"You're going to have to do better than that to explain this." He's almost killed numerous members of the expedition a few times, but managed to pull through. It depends on the situation, and it's a hazard of the job.

Somehow, his addressing of her by that rather than her first name made her snap out of her uncertainty. She swallowed, looked up at him, and then nodded slowly.

"... You're right. You're right."

She forced herself to sit back down and looked back up at him uncertainly.

"Rodney got sick after he, John, Teyla and Ronon got stranded on top of a Stargate that had ended up being stuck under freezing cold water. I brought him back for treatment, and he seemed to be recovering well... til he started forgetting things. Small things at first, not enough to really be noticeable, and then it got worse and worse. There was a parasite in his brain that was causing it, and by the time I realized what was going on... it was too late. The parasite was too deep in his brain to extract surgically, it was resistant to drugs and radiation... and meanwhile, it was slowly killing him. It was like he had Alzheimer's, except he got very bad very fast- within weeks, he could barely fuction."

She took a shaky breath before going on,

"His sister came to visit him and say goodbye. Ronon then told all of us that something similar had happened to his grandfather, calling it the Second Childhood. He said there was a shrine on another planet that seemed to somehow give people who had the Second Childhood one more day as themselves before they died. I was against sending Rodney there, because the planet was a Wraith outpost- and by that point Rodney didn't understand what was going on and couldn't give proper consent. Everyone else overruled me, though."

Her face darkened a little at the memory.

"We took him there, and it turned out that the shrine emitted powerful radiation that made the parasite shrink back, to the point where surgical removal would be safe. I didn't have the right tools with me, and we couldn't hope to sneak past the Wraith a second time to go back and get them, but John convinced me to... to drill a hole in Rodney's skull. The parasite left on its own, wanting to escape the radiation. Ronon shot it, and Rodney made a full recovery."

She then got up, crossed her arms, and began to pace away from Carson, looking- and sounding- ashamed.

"Rodney was fine, but the fact remains that he never would have gotten that bad in the first place if it wasn't for me. If I had done my job right and noticed the symptoms and gotten the parasite out before it was too late. So there you go. There's your explanation. I'm not going to get into this and miss something and potentially end up killing or hurting Conan. Someone who's looking to us as his only chance to be normal again."

Edited 2012-10-24 14:12 (UTC)

Carson listens, quietly, waiting for her to finish. His expression giving nothing away until he sighs quietly at the end of it. Not in exasperation, but at the weight of what happened.

He sits, motioning Jennifer to do the same. While he can't remember what he did on Atlantis, and the Pegasus Galaxy, he knows that there must have been some tough decisions in his job.

"Jennifer, you're not to blame for that. Yes, you missed the parasite, yes, he nearly died because of it. But what you've got to realise is that Atlantis is in another part of the universe. And since we still misdiagnose cancer, it happens."

He pauses to take a breath. "What matters is not what nearly happened. It's what did. Rodney's alive, aye? And he's alive because of you. You, and Ronon, and John and Teyla. He's alive."

There's another pause as he looks down. "You know as well as I do that there are risks in our profession. People can die because we're not quick enough, or because we didn't see something. But we're only human, Jennifer. And what matters is that we tried."

Jennifer sat, hugging her knees to her chest and feeling angry, bitter tears stinging her eyes. Some part of her knew that he was right- that she was never and never could be perfect, no matter how much she tried to and wished she could be. That even before coming to Atlantis, sometimes there truly was nothing she could do, that she had lost patients before, and it had never bothered her as much as this.

But there was still something nagging at her. Something missing. And she was sure that it had to do with Rodney.

"I still feel like I should have known," she mumbled. "Like... like it was staring me in the face, and for some reason, I just missed what was happening. I had no real excuse NOT to see it. But that's where one of the holes in my memory is, too. Like there's a reason I didn't realize what was going on, beyond a simple mistake or misdiagnosis. I don't even know how to begin finding out, though."

She wiped her eyes.

"I don't want to keep dwelling on that, but it's made me feel unfit to help anybody here. Much less work on something vitally important like this. It's made me doubt my own competence."

"I don't doubt your abilities, Jennifer." Carson says, leaning back in his chair. "And that may be part of your loss."

He frowns slightly. He was the same when he first arrived. Not knowing that he was good enough, why they kept him around when he did nothing of importance. It didn't stop him from doing the important stuff; saving Rue, the alien crab-monsters... But it was always there. It took Dr. Jackson's breif visit to the castle to help, so he was going to help Jennifer as much as he could.

"If it is your loss, you need to push through it. The castle has a nasty habit of picking losses that cause us the most uncertainty. I believe in you, I believe that you can do this, that you can help Conan, that you can help the people in this castle."

I'll still never be as good as you, but at least one of us doesn't doubt me, Jennifer thought, but she felt that to be an increbly negative thing to say aloud. So instead, she smiled sadly.

"It does know how to hit right where it hurts, apparently. As if I didn't have enough self-esteem problems already..."

Still not uncurling herself, she blew a hard sigh out of her nose.

"I know, looking at it logically, that they never would have kept me around after that if it really was my incompetence that almost killed him. The others understood why I wanted to keep him for treatment, even Jeannie, and even if they did disagree with me about trying to go to that shrine. Logically, I know all of that. Emotionally, though, it hurts. It hurts a lot, thinking I almost killed him, and made Jeannie have to go through seeing her brother like that, and made the others go through seeing someone they care about in that state."

She bowed her head, but quickly raised it again rather than speak into her knees.

"Your confidence in me means a lot. I truly mean that. But it's still going to take me some time to get over, and for this project, we can't exactly wait around for me to feel better about myself. As long as you trust me to not royally screw things up, I can at least work with you on it."

"Jennifer. I trust you with my life."

Carson moves his chair over to sit beside her.

"And I'm sure the others would. Time and time again, after all that stuff with Rodney. You're a good doctor." And one of the ones better qualified than himself. The only reason he was held in high regard, even though he wished he wasn't, was because of the things he's done. Things he can't remember.

"I'm here to help you. Okay? Will you at least remember that?"

"I know you do," she said quietly, quelling an urge to get up and leave again. It had taken her a long time to break herself of that urge to leave difficult situations, so when it reared its head, it was that much harder to fight. "And I'm not about to tell you you're wrong to think that way."

She looked over at him and gave a wary, tired smile.

"I will. I promise."

And an arm gets looped around your shoulder, Jennifer. Because Carson can't stand people he knows being upset about anything...

...Especially when he might be part of the cause just by being himself.

"Good."

This time, she showed no signs of trying to shy away from his touch, and she finally felt something inside of her begin to shift. Like her doubt was beginning to fade, if only a small bit.

"... It did feel good to get that off my chest," she admitted. "That's been plaguing me since I got here."

"Sometimes talking about it is the best thing to do."

That arm's not moving. Nope.

"And you can tell me anything, okay? I don't like the thought of my friends and co-workers being unhappy when I can do something about it."

"Okay. I'll do that," she replied, sounding more firm and sure of herself than she had for most of the conversation. "This was just... hard to talk about. But that's not much of an excuse, either."

"The fact is that you're talking about it now." Carson points out. "And that takes a bit of bravery."

"... Yeah. In this case, it did." Admitting to your face that I almost killed one of your closest friends, I mean? "I'm going to try harder to not hold things in, and stop feeling so awkward around... everyone."

Jennifer had been about to say "you", but she knew that would have just made things even worse.

"And you know I'll help you in any way I can."

He's still just going to sit here, arm around Jennifer's shoulders, until she moves.

"Admitting it is the first step."

Hesitantly, Jennifer finally pulled her friend into a hug, feeling that said more than anything she could have spoken aloud.

And Carson returns it, holding the hug as long as Jennifer wants to.