AN: I am back, and here it is, as promised! Sam is in the house! (And here to stay, from now on.)

I want to apologize to any people working in the medical field, because as much as I researched all of what I'm writing below, I might have gotten a thousand things wrong. Hopefully it's close enough to reality that it makes sense. (My training is in communications, very very VERY far away from anything health related).

As always, I truly appreciate your support, can't thank you enough for the reviews and the follows! Keep 'em coming!

Sam and his team had been out on mission for the entire night and while he couldn't complain because it had been a success through and through, he was drained of energy and his only wish was to get some much-deserved sleep. For having been overseas in the past, he knew even before he left Toronto that this was going to be hard on his body, not because of the training and the missions themselves but because of the excessive heat and the odd schedules he would have to force his body through. While the SRU wasn't exactly known for giving its Teams 9 to 5 schedules, at least they were more regular, working nights for a certain amount of shifts, then switching to days, meaning your body could have some time to adjust. Here, it was much different. They could go for the entire day before pulling out an all-nighter merely hours later.

As he reached his bunk, he let his helmet drop on the mattress with a loud sigh and as usual, went straight for the phone that he left right under his pillow. He never took it out in mission for two reasons, the first being that it was useless since there was no cell phone signal where they were – he could only use the WiFi on base – and second because in the unlikely, although possible, eventuality that he was made prisoner, he didn't want any of its content and messages to be used against him or against people he cared about.

He made a quick math in his mind that with the time zone difference, it was roughly 10pm in Toronto, meaning Jules was supposed to be off shift and most likely home. However, as he brought the phone up, he was surprised to see that the message he received wasn't from her, but from Greg Parker. Surprise was quickly replaced by concern as he unlocked the main screen and opened the said message.

"Something happened. It's Jules, she's in the hospital. Call me as soon as you can."

Sam's heart sunk in his chest as he read the message a few more times. He noted how the Sergeant had not mentioned that she would be fine. Greg had to be aware that it would have kept him from panicking and he would have normally included it in his message if he knew for sure. It meant that whatever happened to Jules was serious and possibly life-threatening. The cold sweat he was having right now had nothing to do with the mission they'd just came back from.

When his body could function again, his thumb flipped through the apps on his phone to find the one he was looking for, scanned his contacts and found Greg's. As he pressed the button to make the call, he brought the phone to his ear and darted out of the tent. On his way out, one of his teammates asked if he was alright but Sam was completely oblivious of his presence and brushed past him, focused solely on the ringing in his ear, hoping his former boss would pick up. He did just as Sam reached the fresh early morning air.

"Sam."

It was only one word and yet, Sam could hear that his voice was sombre and serious, a lot more than usual. "Is she alright?" The panic was obvious in the younger man's words.

"She's still unconscious," Greg answered. It was obvious he hated to be the bearer of bad news. "She should pull through but she has multiple injuries and the doctors fear for severe infection inside her abdomen."

Something caught in Sam's throat hearing all of this so bluntly. Even though he appreciated the Boss telling it as it was and not beating around the bush, this was a lot to take on right now. The only idea of Jules being injured was unbearable to him. But the idea of her suffering through multiple injuries while he was thousands of miles away and couldn't do anything about it was excruciating. "What happened?" He was blurting out his questions with such frenzy that his former Sergeant seemed to take his sweet time before answering, as if to try and calm him down some.

"She was knocked out and abducted from the command truck while we were working on a bomb threat."

With his free hand, Sam rubbed his face quickly a few times. Out of everything that could have happened to her, he probably hated this one the most. It meant that for how many hours she'd been abducted, she was vulnerable, probably manhandled, mistreated and judging by the extent of her – however yet unknown to him – injuries, put through some kind of hell on purpose. It wasn't a lost bullet or an explosion that took her in.

He felt his knees buck beneath him and quickly moved to sit on a supply case nearby, burying his face in his hand as he kept the phone pressed against his ear. He was shaking uncontrollably and had to take a few deep breaths to calm down and focus on the positive side of things. At least they had gotten her back. But would have this occurred in the first place if he'd been around? Would his presence have somehow kept it from happening?

He really wanted to ask who had taken her but there was another question burning his lips first. "How bad is she hurt?" What he really wanted to ask was where the bastard who took her had laid hands on her, but he knew better than to actually voice it. He knew Jules could handle a lot but the idea of anybody touching even an inch of her body made him furious.

There was a soft sigh on the other side of the phone and Sam could picture Greg rubbing his eyes with the side of his hand, hating that he was the one having to tell him any of it. "Head wound, a few broken ribs and too many bruises. But he also stabbed her." His voice had considerably lowered at the last part and Sam felt his blood start to boil but the SRU Sergeant continued before he could say anything else. "Punctured her liver. She suffered internal bleeding. They put her through surgery to seal the leaking blood vessels and avoid a more severe haemorrhage."

Sam took it all in for a few seconds, trying to compose his thoughts, trying not to burst into a fit of violence and kick everything around him, trying to control the bile that was raising in his throat and threatening to make him retch. He was stronger than that and it wouldn't do anybody any good for him to lose his temper. Besides, this anger was only a natural reaction to counter the fear and the pain that was brought in him by the idea of Jules being hurt. Still, his jaw rocked a few times, the grip on his device tightening.

"Sam, that's not the only reason why I wanted to talk to you." Greg said after a moment of silence. "Do the names Dorian Flynn or Brendan Cornell ring any bell?"

Sam didn't think there was anything more important than knowing exactly what Greg had just told him about Jules, so it confused him to know there was another reason. "No," he breathed out, shaking his head slightly to focus on their conversation rather than his own dark thoughts. "Are those the bastards who did this to her?"

"Flynn is, yes," Greg deadpanned.

"Did you catch him?" The question came before the SRU Sergeant could place another word. If they hadn't, Sam would vow to make it a personal mission to go haul his ass to jail, after giving his face a makeover.

"Yes, Sam." The answer was almost patronizing. Greg quickly spoke again before he could be cut off. "Listen, there's a reason why he chose her. We believe he's gathered information on JTF2's mission and is feeding the Middle East. He took her to gain more information on you, Sam. On your team. There's a possibility that your mission is compromised as we speak."

Sam fell silent as he pushed himself up to his feet again and started looking around, as if trying to find something out of the ordinary that would prove Greg right. "How?"

There was a soft sigh on the line. "We don't know yet. The subject isn't speaking and since Jules is still unconscious, I couldn't ask her what happened in there exactly." Sam wanted to ask what 'in there' meant but he didn't. Sarge continued. "We found emails but they're coded messages. Spike and Raf are working on it." A pause. "But him and Cornell both served in the Special Forces up until last year. Cornell died overseas. Spike found out that he was taken prisoner by terrorists who asked for a ransom in exchange for his life. Army didn't want to negotiate, they tried to get him out but he was killed before they could rescue him. We think this might all be some sort of revenge on the military."

Sam sighed loudly, closing his eyes for a moment as he tried to take in everything that Greg had just told him. While he knew the threat that their mission might be compromised was imminent and meant they needed to come up with a different plan fast, Sam's mind couldn't shake off the concern he had about Jules' well-being, the fear that she might not pull out of it. Especially since, technically, this was all because of him. Jules, I'm so sorry, he thought, beating himself over this. It wouldn't have happened if he hadn't taken that job overseas. It wouldn't have happened if he chose her over taking that stupid job to please his father and to make himself feel better for making a difference. It wouldn't have happened if, in the first place, they'd been more careful about their secret relationship and hadn't been forced apart. "I'll ask around, see if people here have heard of that incident, try to get more information." To say this task made him less than enthusiastic would be an understatement. There was nothing else that mattered to him right now other than finding a way to get over to Jules' side, hold her and kiss all of her injuries away.

As if reading his thoughts, Greg spoke again. "I'll let you know as soon as Jules wakes up. Give you updates on her condition. I promise."

"Thanks Boss." Even though the words were genuine, his voice was devoid of emotions, lost in thoughts, his mind filled with images of the woman he loved laying in a hospital bed, unconscious and beaten.

"Sam just-" Greg hesitated for a second. "Just watch your back, alright?"

"I will." But Sam wasn't planning on having to watch his back in this place for long.

Jules' eyes fluttered open but she squeezed them shut just as quickly as a pounding headache hit her like a ton of bricks. She tried shifting her position but her body protested and decided otherwise, forcing a whine to escape her lips. It took long seconds for her brain to recollect why she was hurting all over and feeling like she'd been used as a punching bag, only to remember that she had, to some extent.

"Easy, easy."

Greg's recognizable voice filled her ears as his warm hand gently touched her shoulder to keep her from moving. She settled back on the pillow and let out a sharp irritated breath but that sole movement caused her to wince, only adding to her annoyance. She found herself wondering why her body had decided to wake up if it was only to have her suffer through all the pain she'd already been forced to endure.

She opened her eyes again. At first her vision was blurred but it soon became clearer and she could make out the outline of a hospital room, the neon shining on her just as much as the dawn of day was from the curtain covered windows. She tried to avoid moving any limbs but her eyes searched around, falling on an intravenous drip embedded on top of her left hand and then settled on her Sergeant, to whom she forced what she figured was only the ghost of a smile. "Hey," she managed to blurt out, her hoarse voice alone telling her how weak she was.

"Hey," Greg responded, his smile growing bigger as his eyes deep brown eyes fixed on hers, obliviously glad to see her awake.

She couldn't say he was the person she'd wished to see the most when she woke up, but he was definitely the second best. The last two times she'd been in the hospital, she had woken up with Sam next to her. However, both times she was faced not with a smile but with his guilty face, looking at her like she was a broken item in a bone china set, killing himself over the idea that he could have done something to keep it from happening. And no matter how many times she'd told him he did everything he could and that it wasn't his fault, Jules felt like her words had been ignored.

While the last moments of her previous conscious state were a total blur, she could vaguely remember Greg holding onto her before she passed out, remembered feeling the strong but gentle hands of her teammates setting her free. "Thanks, Sarge," she said, taking a moment to close her eyes again as if speaking was requiring all of the energy she had left.

Unsure what she was thanking him for, Greg rose a brow and leaned in on his chair to get a little closer to her. "What for, Jules?"

When she opened her eyes again and looked at him, she could see his traits were drawn as if he'd barely slept and she realized he'd probably been by her side the whole night. "Well for one, pulling an all-nighter in that chair," she said, her words slow and weak but coming out clearly enough to be understood. She curled the side of her lips into a smirk. Greg smiled and shook his head but his silence told her she had been right on. "And for getting me out." A spasm ran through her and she hissed, feeling every single bruise on her body, her ribs reminding her of that damn baseball bat, the sting in her abdomen of that damn knife.

The Boss' smile dropped as he regarded her with sorrow. "Only doing what we had to do. I just wish we could have gotten there sooner."

"Me too, trust me." She closed her eyes to try and ease her migraine but once again, her lips curled into a smile to show she was only kidding. Or half-kidding at least. She didn't hold it against them to have gotten there too late to save her from a stab wound, she was just glad to be alive even though it meant feeling each and every one of her injuries. Then a thought crossed her mind. "Everyone okay?" she asked, looking at him again, concerned that Flynn might not have stopped with her but attacked her teammates as well. After all, he did threaten to blow them up if she didn't talk. If that attack hadn't been successful, she hoped none other was either.

"Everyone's fine. Sam too."

If she hadn't voiced that particular question, she was definitely glad to hear the answer. "You spoke to him?" Her voice was even lower than it had been. She dreaded his reaction to the news that she had been injured. She would have rather save him the worry, especially since he was away and there really wasn't anything he could do about it.

Greg nodded in answer. "I'll send him a message soon, let him know you're awake," he added as if reading her thoughts.

She started nodding too but soon stopped as it worsened the headache that was already pounding in her skull. Closing her eyes, she took a long breath, trying not to move her ribs too much, and let it out slowly, fighting through the pain and the fatigue. She still had so many questions for her Sergeant but she could barely keep her eyes open. "Did you catch him?"

There was hesitation on the Boss' part and Jules found herself opening her eyes and looking at him, hoping to read his expression and get the answer he wasn't giving her.

"Yes," he said, meeting her eyes. "He tried getting his accomplice out of the SUV we brought him in. Leah saw him, he tried to make a run for it but you know Eddie…" He paused and gave her a quick smile at the thought. "Team chased him, it took about half a minute for Ed to have him pinned down, face against the gravel."

"He was probably slowed down because of his swollen balls," Jules added as an afterthought, another brief smile of her own crossing her lips.

Greg regarded her for a moment, his smile growing slightly bigger, amused as he understood what this meant. Had to figure Jules wouldn't go down without a fight.

She closed her eyes again and sighed both at the constant discomfort she couldn't shake off and the fact that she knew this wasn't the end of the story. "What are you not saying, Sarge?"

It took a few seconds before he responded, long enough for Jules to open her eyes and look at him with a slightly raised brow. "Flynn isn't talking, neither is his partner. We don't know how much they know or what they know, or if they have already relayed the information to a third party. We found email exchanges but they were coded, Spike's been working on it but we had to hand everything over to the Special Forces. It's all in their hands now."

Another sigh escaped Jules' lips. While she trusted they knew what they were doing, she couldn't help but to worry and wonder if it would keep Sam away for even longer.

"What did he want to know?"

Greg's voice got her out of her thoughts and she let her eyes linger on him for a moment. "He wanted to know where the mission was. Apparently he knew what it entailed already, just needed a location and information on the team running it. Names, weapons, tactics." Jules took a breath and slowly let it out. "Assumed I knew all of that. I only told him what Sam's had mentioned about his flight there and when they transferred bases because…" Jules hesitated, hating to admit that she hadn't been strong enough to not give him anything at all. "Because he threatened to blow the team up."

She let her gaze drop in shame at the idea that she might have put Sam in more danger because of it but soon felt a hand grab onto hers, cupping it lovingly, careful not to touch the bandage that covered her battered wrist. Once again, Jules looked up at Greg, his soft and reassuring voice filling the silence. "Sam will be fine. And he'll be back soon enough."

Greg had seen her in the past months. It was subtle, but for him who knew her inside and out, it was obvious Sam being away was affecting her a lot more than she would let on. He'd seen her overwork herself, train harder and longer. She was obviously overcompensating for part of her life that was now missing.

Forcing a smile on her lips, she really wanted to hold him up to that and believe that what he said was true, but she wouldn't be convinced until Sam was standing right by her side, taking her in his warm and strong arms.

Then, in typical Jules' fashion, she changed the subject before her emotions could take over control. Her voice was still low and raw but her head was starting to clear, despite the migraine still comfortably settled. "You think the more I keep saying how I hate hospital, the more the world's gonna throw me in one of those beds?"

This time, Greg let out a heartfelt laugh to which she responded with a smirk. It was good to see she had a sense of humour. That despite the pain she was in, she was being herself. "Well, let's try not to make this a habit more than it already is," the team's Sergeant teased back just as the door opened, revealing a tall brunette woman in her late 40's dressed in a white coat. Greg's head shot up to look at the doctor walk in and Jules followed his gaze a little too quickly and groaned at the pain even this little motion caused.

The doctor smiled, meeting Jules' brown eyes. "It's good to see you awake, Officer Callaghan. I'm Doctor Laurier, I'm the one who proceeded to the surgery when you came in yesterday."

Jules seemed confused for a moment. "Surgery?" she echoed. She didn't know if it was due to that information, but she suddenly felt a little light-headed.

Doctor Laurier's lips pinched slightly as she offered the other woman a sorrowful smile. "We had to prevent further internal bleeding so we operated to seal the blood vessels since the liver doesn't scar well. We wanted to avoid haemorrhage." For a moment, she looked over at Greg and then back at Jules, edging a little closer to her bed. "We gave you a transfusion to prevent a drop in your blood pressure. Your body seemed to recover fairly quickly." A beat. "Unfortunately, that's not the only issue. You have three fractured ribs on your right side. You were lucky, they didn't damage internal organs but they caused extensive bruising. I'm also prescribing you antibiotics. Considering a blade pierced through your liver, you're risking a peritonitis, which is an inflammation of the thin layer of tissue that covers the inside of your abdomen," the doctor vulgarized. "If not treated it could be really serious, so we'd rather prevent it."

Jules was only half-listening at this point, her eyes closed as she tried to concentrate on breathing normally and pushing her nausea away. But it was too little too late. "I think I'm gonna be sick," she spoke in a low voice but the Doctor seemed to pick up on it because she quickly got in motion.

"Help me flip her," she instructed Greg and together, they gently brought her on her left side. Considering her broken ribs were on the right, this was the best they could do in her current state to avoid her chocking on her own stomach contents. Doctor Laurier just had time to bring the nearby trash bin up before Jules filled it.

If she had thought breathing through her injuries was painful, it was nothing compared to vomiting. The contraction of her diaphragm and abdominal walls on her rib cage was agonizing. But it wasn't like she could help it.

It didn't take long before there was only bile left to expulse, having not eaten since early the day before. But the gag reflex and the retching were still there, reminding her very vividly of every single bruise and broken ribs on her body.

The minute it took to calm her body down seemed like hours. When it appeared she was done, the doctor put the trash bin back on the ground and she and Greg gently helped her in her original laying position, motion to which she responded with a whimper, even though the discomfort was pale in comparison to what she had just felt.

"This can be due to either a concussion or infection spreading in your abdomen," the doctor explained, checking her IV to make sure it was still connected and dripping. "Or both," she added with an apologizing look. "Do you still feel nauseous?"

Jules could only shake her head ever so softly.

"Alright. I'll still get the nurse to bring you a small dose to fight against your nausea. I'd rather avoid you throwing up again. I need you to rest and ideally, avoid as many movements as possible." She marked a pause long enough to have Jules nod slightly. "I'll be monitoring your liver mostly to make sure it won't fail and won't keep bleeding out. We'll keep you in observation for 48 to 72 hours at least. You'll be released if everything is fine, as long as you have someone at home to take care of you." On that note, she looked over at Greg and he nodded slowly. He would personally make sure she had someone to take care of her, ready to take on the job himself if he had to.

But Jules' mind went somewhere else. She didn't have anyone. She couldn't possibly ask the team to relay each other and come home to take care of her, especially not when it also meant they were a man down because of her. Her brothers were living their lives all across Canada, with their respective jobs and families. Her father had to take care of the farm. She had no one, and that truth had never hit her as much as it did now. The last two times she'd been injured, Sam was there with her, supporting her through it all, regardless. But now he wasn't. And if she had missed him terribly for the past 5 months, now she wanted to scream at the injustice that he wasn't there with her, holding her hand, telling her he'd take care of her.

She fought the tears that threatened to fill her eyes, keeping them closed to make sure she wouldn't cry. She couldn't, not on top of everything else, not on top of feeling so damn vulnerable. She opened her eyes only when the doctor spoke again.

"Now you need to rest. Sleep as much as you can, it'll help your body heal faster. I'll come back to check on you every hour."

Jules nodded softly again, forcing a smile on her lips. Doctor Laurier returned the gesture towards her and then towards the Sergeant before leaving them alone.

Greg observed Jules for a moment, silent. There was pain in his eyes, pain to see her in such a state. She looked much smaller confined to a bed, bruised up and hurt, than she did in her uniform, confident in her abilities and strong with pride.

"You should get some rest too, Boss," Jules faintly pointed out. The little energy she had minutes before gone to the trash with her stomach contents. "I'll be fine."

"Jules-"

"I'll be sleeping anyway. You need rest. Comfortable rest." She wanted to add other arguments but she couldn't bring herself to speak any more words, tiredness taking over her body, shutting down her motor functions. Her eyes closed again involuntarily.

Before she could drift off to sleep, Greg leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her forehead, much like a father would while tucking his daughter to bed. "I'll be back later," he promised in a whisper before moving away from her and out of her room, leaving her on her own.

This time, a tear did escape Jules' eye and rolled down her cheek.