Title: To Survive a Dozen Deaths
Author: MissAnnThropic
Spoilers: Abyss
Summary: Jack's road to recovery after Ba'al... things will get worse before they get better.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.
"Major Carter!"
Sam turned sharply at her name mostly out of reflex. She was on the razor edge of sheer exhaustion, close to crashing now that she knew the colonel was back and that he was safe. Getting him home became her green-light to succumb to the sleep that had been staunchly denied for days as they tried to free Colonel O'Neill from the clutches of the System Lord Ba'al. Despite that, Sam was valiantly holding off blissful sleep until she had completed a few more chores for the day.
Truth be told, it was taking her that long to come down from the stress 'high' that losing Colonel O'Neill had wrought upon her. It had started when they couldn't save him from the illness they'd all contracted in the Antarctic, amplified when he was taken by the Tok'ra to be 'implanted' with a symbiote to save him, and hit critical mass when he disappeared from the Tok'ra base only to be captured by Ba'al. Once he'd been recovered Sam had gone from working on a full head of steam to running on fumes.
Sam told herself that she would tend this one who'd called her name, see the colonel one more time, then crash in one of the temp quarters for the night rather than head home. She wasn't keen on the idea of having the colonel far from her, anyway.
Jonas Quinn, the one who'd called Sam's name, strode toward her through the gray corridors of the SGC. The Kelownan had a lingering somberness on his face. Sam could remember his first days on SG-1 when his energy had seemed boundless and his solution to everything a perpetual smile. Jonas had changed in his time with SG-1.
"Evening, Jonas," Sam greeted wearily when he reached her side.
Jonas mustered a half-smile, an effort but only for her benefit, and asked, "Have you seen Colonel O'Neill lately?"
"I was going to look in on him before I hit the sack. Why?"
Jonas offered a quick, small shrug. "Just wondered how he was doing."
Sam pressed her lips tighter together at what went unspoken in her teammate's comment. Jonas was always very cognizant of the fact that he was a second string replacement for Daniel. If not to anyone else then at least seen as one to Colonel O'Neill. Jonas was cordial around Jack, little more. It was a reciprocal exchange.
Sam knew what it was like, being the one outside Colonel O'Neill's circle. Her first days on SG-1 she had been the odd one out, watching the crusty, sarcastic colonel interact with the affable, intelligent archaeologist with true (albeit gruff) affection. Seeing the way Colonel O'Neill regarded people he'd bonded to made her want that, too. It made everyone want Jack's favor, because he had a way of making those in his good graces seem like the most privileged people in the universe. It was one of the strongest qualities of his leadership skills that people so wanted to please him, make him proud.
Effort did not guarantee a person a place in Jack's network of friends, however. Jonas was a prime example of that fact, for few had ever worked harder to please Jack than Jonas... and few had met such chilly failure.
Colonel O'Neill chose his friends with great and meticulous care. Sam was part of that select group now, but she remembered what it was like when she wasn't. She could empathize with Jonas.
"Well," Jonas said, "when you see him tell him I hope he's feeling better."
Sam tried to offer a comforting smile and suspected she was failing rather gloriously. She was too damned tired to pull off understanding and reassuring. "You could tell him yourself, you know." 'He can't hold you at arm's length forever' she let go unspoken.
Jonas nearly grimaced at the suggestion but recovered admirably. "I have something I was helping SG-5 with; I should probably get back to that before they come looking for me." Bottom line, Jonas could fight tooth and nail to help Colonel O'Neill but he wasn't qualified yet to be one of those who rallied around Jack once he was safe. Jonas left that to Jack's friends.
"I'll tell him."
"Thanks." Jonas managed a slightly brighter kilowatt smile then turned and headed back the way he'd come. Sam watched after him, sympathetic to his plight. He was trying to buddy up to the colonel when Jack was still raw from losing his best friend. Jack was slow to open up to people and fast to close off, and when he shut off he'd stay that way a long time. Jonas would have a difficult time finding a niche in Jack's life. He would never fill the space left by Daniel Jackson. In so many ways Jonas could never fill in the holes Daniel left.
Sam felt her chest tighten thinking about Daniel. After coming so close to losing the colonel, Sam couldn't think about Daniel's 'death' as well; emotional overload.
Sam turned and was on her way to the infirmary almost before she knew she was moving.
The infirmary was all but empty when Sam arrived. She paused in the door a second. The lights in the room were dimmed, not for the sake of the hour (because an underground military base never had a true 'night'), but because its sole patient would be put more at ease by the softer illumination.
Sam headed toward her commanding officer; she found Colonel O'Neill's bed only a handful of steps from the infirmary entrance. His shape under the sheet had shifted from the last time she was at his bedside. Instead of on his back he was turned on his side, legs bent and tucked, body insanely still. Sam hesitated, for a moment not sure if he was awake because his face was hidden in shadow. When she drew close enough she could see that he was awake, just void of motion.
"Hello, sir," Sam said softly.
Jack was staring vacantly at the far wall. His face gave no reaction to Sam's voice or presence as she moved closer. He looked almost catatonic.
Sam pulled up a chair and sat down beside Jack's bed. She frowned at his expression. On closer inspection she could see an ashen pallor to his complexion, his lips thin and eyes dull. Sadly, Sam had seen this before; sarcophagus withdrawal was never pretty. What worried her most in the colonel's case was that he seemed so oblivious to his surroundings. With his special ops training, Jack normally had acute situational awareness. He didn't even seem to realize she was there.
"Just thought I'd see how you were holding up before I called it a night. Jonas sends his regards, told me to tell you he hopes you start to feel better soon."
Jack blinked, continued to stare at the wall, then finally, languidly, shifted brown eyes until he was looking at her. Not the most alert he'd ever been, but at least he knew she was there.
Sam smiled to try and reward him for his trouble, then scooted closer to the bed so she could reach up and touch his arm. "I'll be hanging around the base for a few days, have some things to do, so if you need me have someone come get me. You have my permission to badger me if you want." Sam tried to smile in an attempt to elicit a reaction out of her commanding officer.
As Jack watched her blankly, a slight tremor made his body shudder, seemingly unnoticed by the colonel. Sam, however, noticed it and frowned. "Are you cold, sir? Would you like me to get you a blanket?"
Jack's brow flickered, as though starting to furrow then aborting before execution. He settled again into a hazy look of unawareness.
"Sam."
Sam turned toward the female voice and saw Doctor Janet Fraiser standing a short distance from the foot of Jack's bed. Janet's eyes moved back and forth between Sam and casting her standard look of concern toward her patient.
Sam gave the colonel's arm a pat before she stood and moved toward the doctor.
Leading Sam away from the colonel's bed, Janet asked her friend in hushed tones, "What are you still doing here? You should go home and get some sleep."
"Not going home, Janet," Sam said in a tone of 'you know that already'. "I was heading to temps after I dropped in to see how the colonel's doing. How is the colonel doing?"
"As well as can be expected at the moment. I've just been with the forensics' team examining the clothing Colonel O'Neill was wearing when he was brought in."
"And? What did you find?"
Janet turned to squarely face Sam and crossed her arms over her chest. Sam recognized the well-known stance of Doctor Immovable. "Nothing that can't wait until later. You need to get some rest. I don't want two patients if I can help it."
"But Janet–"
"No buts. The colonel needs rest and so do you."
Sam almost told Janet about running into Jonas in the hall but decided snitching on someone trying to do what she would have done was underhanded.
"All right," Sam relented and almost immediately gave in to a slump of exhaustion. "You'll come get me if anything happens."
Janet nodded with a look that said 'you know I will'. "Promise, now get out of here before I decide it's time for your next physical."
Turning to leave, Sam cast one more look at the colonel. He was staring at the wall again. He looked vulnerable and somehow damaged laying curled under the infirmary sheet. He didn't move his eyes to bid her farewell.
Sam stifled a yawn and made her way, uninterrupted and unmolested, to her temp quarters on the base. She barely shed her boots and pants before falling between the covers and slipping into sleep.
"May I join you?"
Sam looked up from her lunch tray to see who had asked to sit down at the commissary table with her. It was only verification, because Sam knew by voice alone who had spoken.
"Of course, Janet," Sam gestured for the doctor (and her friend) to join her.
With a sigh, Janet sagged down across from Sam.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked.
"I've just been writing up my report on the clothes Colonel O'Neill was wearing when he escaped from Ba'al."
Sam's eyebrows rose in a clear 'you better spill' look.
Janet leaned closer, took a quick look around to see that no one was within hearing distance, then spoke lowly, "It was more or less what we expected. The bloodstains on the shirt match with Colonel O'Neill's DNA, so he was definitely wounded and probably tortured. Since he has no physical wounds it verifies the conclusion we'd already drawn that he was put into a sarcophagus. We also found traces of some acidic compound on his clothes. But, beyond that, we can't really learn much."
Sam felt her appetite vanish. Ba'al was climbing in giants leaps up her list of Goa'uld she wanted to see die a horrible, slow death.
"How's the colonel doing?" Sam asked. She watched the doctor's face closely for clues that might not come through in words. Sam had popped in to see the colonel when she woke up that morning, but he hadn't reacted much differently than he had the night before. She got only a glazed look in her direction and not a single word before the nurses chased her off.
Janet frowned, a scowl that marred her otherwise gentle countenance. Sam knew that look on her friend.
"Come on, Janet. What is it?"
Janet was quiet a moment before answering. "The withdrawal's gotten pretty bad; he's not having an easy time of it. It's not as bad as when Daniel... because Colonel O'Neill didn't use it while perfectly healthy, but it's still having an effect on him. I just wish there was something I could give him that would suppress its effects."
"I'm sure you're doing everything you can." 'Don't think about how awful the withdrawal must be for the colonel, don't think about when it happened to Daniel,' Sam ordered herself. Sam looked down at her unfinished tray of food and picked at a questionable lump of mashed potatoes with her fork.
Janet frowned further, obviously not assuaged. Doing her best wasn't good enough for Janet if someone she was responsible for was in any kind of pain or discomfort.
Janet leaned closer into the table and looked directly at Sam. Sam abandoned her food completely, setting her utensil down and giving Janet her undivided attention.
"The problem we have is the very thing that probably returned the colonel to us in one piece. Because the sarcophagus healed his wounds we can't know by looking at him what was done to him. We can't know how bad it was so we can't know how much he needs help," Janet glanced around the room to make sure no one was eavesdropping before adding more softly, "because you know that Colonel O'Neill would never confess to needing that kind of help."
Sam dropped her gaze down her folded arms. She knew Janet was right. Colonel O'Neill wouldn't turn to anyone if his wound wasn't the kind that bled, the kind he simply couldn't hide. Acutely, she missed Daniel all over again, because Daniel would have been able to nettle Jack until the colonel blew a fuse... usually the very fuse that needed to blow. There was a courageous abandon to Daniel that had let him tempt Jack's fury when no one else dared, hounding him until Jack finally gave in and showed that he needed. And when he needed, when he needed someone, Daniel was there to collect the pieces that he'd caused to blow apart, putting them back better than they'd been before.
"I was actually looking for you," Janet broke into Sam's thoughts. "I was hoping you could help."
Sam looked up at once. "Absolutely. What can I do?"
"I was hoping you could try talking to the colonel; he's responded best to you."
Sam blinked, for a moment sure Janet was exaggerating. When Janet's face didn't change Sam asked, "Are you serious? This morning he wouldn't even talk to me."
Janet's face softened while her gaze remained pointedly sincere. "He looks at you, Sam. I've been paying close attention, that's more than he's done for anyone else."
Sam's mouth hung fractionally agape.
Janet took Sam's silence as hesitance. "Please, just try."
Sam closed her mouth abruptly and pushed away from the table to head to the infirmary. "Of course." Anything she could do, anything humanly possible, she'd do. At the very least she'd try.