~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Part Two ~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"We're minutes away, Jack, just hold on," a breathless Daniel said over the radio.
"Sure, Daniel. We'll be here," he assured him and felt relatively sure they would be. She'd rallied a little knowing help was on the way. He thought she'd manage to hold on until it arrived. He was busy avoiding looking at her eyes again and wondering how he was going to deal with the ramifications of his words. Good chance he wouldn't need to, of course. She was in a bad way and by the time the docs had fixed her up, she quite possibly wouldn't remember much of what had went on out here. He'd once lost an entire day after surgery. He could hope for the best.
But, if she did remember? The general disclaimers he could think up were hardly convincing. "Whoa, Carter. I'm sure you must have misunderstood what I said. I'm not sure what I did say, but that would have been the farthest thing from my mind." Or "You must have been delirious, I do love you...like a brother, like Teal'c and Daniel, but not...you know." Oh yeah, she'd buy that. If she had the IQ of a watermelon; which she did...plus a few hundred points. Him and his big mouth.
"Sir..." she managed to gasp out, and he leaned over her to hear what she had to say. "Wash your face." Her words came at him from left field and took a while to set in. When they did, he splashed canteen water over his grime and tear-streaked face and violently rubbed at it until she gave a small nod of satisfaction. It would have to do...night would be on them before the mop-up team had time to really take a look at him anyway. He dried his face the best he could and rubbed his hands through the dirt at his feet and over his face...a clean face out here would be just as obvious as a tear-streaked one. When he was finished, she gave him another small nod of satisfaction, and he knew then it was going to be all right. Regardless of what she did or didn't remember, his words stayed here on the battlefield.
The activity seemed to be a bit much for her, and she closed her eyes and drifted somewhere between sleep and wakefulness while they waited. He alternated between squatting beside her and impatiently standing and staring off in the direction help should be appearing any moment now or far too late.
They arrived on time with blessed, lifesaving plasma and IV fluids, pain meds and antibiotics, and a bustling, hopeful competence. He stepped away from her side and let them do their work. He'd thought she was beyond noticing at that point, but as he did so her eyes flew open and she stirred and fought weakly against the healing hands of the doc and medics.
"Easy, Sam" Frasier said quietly to her, "we're going to get you taken care of." But it was only when her searching eyes found him, in the shadows outside the circle of emergency lighting surrounding her, that she settled down again. He knew then what he hadn't wanted to know before. He knew what she would have said if the radio hadn't burst to life.
Daniel and Teal'c reached him with bear hugs and worried faces, and he accepted their love like he couldn't hers and hugged them back with what he knew was a silly grin on his face.
"That's it," he said with feeling. "That's the last time any of us go through that Gate without the rest of us for back up." They agreed wholeheartedly. The wait back at the SGC had not been any easier for them.
When she came out of the anesthetics enough to actually know she was alive and going to stay that way even though her shoulder insisted she'd be better off giving up the ghost, he wasn't there. Daniel was and Teal'c, but not him. She blinked back hot tears of pain and something else and cursed the words he'd whispered to her out on the field. She'd known, had known for a long time, and knowing had been enough. He hadn't had to say them-not for her anyway. But, he had. And she'd been so surprised, and yes, so frightened of dying, she'd acknowledged them instead of letting them fade away as though he'd never said them at all. Like an impenetrable barrier, they'd stand between them now. Keeping him from being there when she woke like he would have been for anyone else under his command. Making their every exchange painfully awkward and uneasy. Requiring them to examine every word, look, and order for something that shouldn't be there.
She'd been sure, he'd understood she would never bring his words up, never hold him to them. That she would let them die away as though they'd never existed. But, she'd been wrong and it would be days before he quit hiding from what he'd said and screw up enough courage to face her. Or maybe...maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe it was duty that kept him away.
In which case, they'd be ok. Eventually. She didn't feel ok now though. He wasn't there. And that was really the reason she'd been willing to let his words die. All those times he wasn't there, couldn't be there, regardless of how badly she needed him or how badly he might wish to be with her. Their lives would always be full of times he couldn't be there...or she couldn't. It was the nature of their work, the nature of the war they were in. And, it wouldn't be changing anytime soon. She wanted what his words promised, but he couldn't keep those promises no matter how much he meant them. Better to never make them at all then break them.
Daniel and Teal'c realized she was awake and bent eagerly over her, freely offering her the love and friendship he couldn't. She accepted it gratefully. He'd cried at her side and said words she'd never thought he'd ever say, so she knew it had been close. Too close: she'd almost died out there, and, even after all these times, it had shaken her.
Janet arrived with needles, a thermometer, and a top-off for her IV and chased the guys away. She closed the curtain behind them with a commanding snap. Sam sighed, but, really, she was ready to fade away again.
When she woke up the second time, he was there snoring softly in the chair by her bed. Afraid to wake him, she stifled the moan trying to escape from her own mouth. The pain wasn't too bad yet. It was much easier to endure than the awkwardness soon to be coming when he woke up.
She took the time to examine him. He wasn't looking his best. Awake he was rarely still except out on the field where stillness could mean the difference between life and death. Even now, there was a tenseness in his body beyond the relaxation sleep brought to him. It came, she guessed, from black ops training and a time he'd like to forget in a POW camp. It made an odd contrast to the way sleep usually washed the years from his face and gave it an innocence he himself wouldn't have recognized. Today though, the lines of worry and exhaustion were etched too deeply for even the slackness of sleep to erase. Lines she'd put there almost dying, and lines he'd put there worrying over things said that should have been left unsaid.
Ever a soldier, he awoke, alert and watchful, sensing her eyes upon him. A quick survey of her lying there assured him she was hurting but ok. He smiled at her and she gave him a weak smile back in return. After what she'd been through, he decided it was enough. He nodded his satisfaction, pressed her call bell to bring in the pain meds, recrossed his long legs under her bed and his arms over his chest, and went back to sleep.
With relief, she realized the danger had been averted. They were going to be ok after all.
"I have to say you look happier than most people a day post-op," Janet said, coming in with a shot of the good stuff and not the least bit concerned about waking sleeping colonels who didn't keep their big feet out of her way.
"Just glad to be alive," Sam told her and bit her lip against whatever else might slip out as the wave of pain meds washed over her. They'd only just survived his words. She wouldn't add hers though she'd come within an indrawn breath of speaking them before Daniel's frantic call had come through. And he complains I talked too much, she thought, as she drifted off to sleep, a relieved smile still playing on her lips.