P3X-425
Milky Way Galaxy

Somewhere in the distance metal was clanking loudly in an almost rhythmic fashion and dim voices could be heard among heavy footfalls and crunching leaves. The noises seemed to be coming closer, Sam thought groggily as she regained consciousness. She groaned when she knitted her brows in confusion; her head was throbbing painfully, in sync with her rapid heartbeat. Oh and God, her shoulder hurt! "Damn it," she muttered, plopping back on the ground after trying to push herself up with her left arm.

She twisted, trying to get a look at her shoulder but the radio obstructed her view and the movement caused pain to lance through her right side. A gasp was torn from her mouth in response and at the same time she recalled what had happened: the Colonel had shot her! Twice! Mentally cursing him, she used her right hand to pat down her side in an attempt to asses her injury. Moving was painful but she knew it was necessary if she wanted to survive, especially when her hand came back sticky with blood.

Murmurs in a foreign language and shouting in the distance spurred her into action. The Jaffa! They were here, probably searching the woods from the sounds of it and she briefly wondered if her team was still here or if they'd made it back to Earth. A quick look around revealed she was alone, still more or less in the same spot as when Colonel Grieves shot her, behind the boulder. Her pack was gone, though, and so were the MP5s and her sidearm. Airman Adams was nowhere in sight either and Sam hoped that meant the Colonel had taken him with him to the SGC. After all, Adams had been unconscious when she went down so he wouldn't have any idea what their CO had done to her and the same went for Lieutenant Isaacs; he had been making a run for the DHD when Grieves betrayed her and left her for dead.

Sam swallowed against the bile rising in her throat and dismissed thoughts of her teammates. They weren't here anymore or they would have helped her. Right now, it didn't matter whether they were safely back home or if the Colonel had dumped their bodies somewhere in the woods between here and the 'gate. Either way it meant she was on her own, and no one would be coming to her rescue if Grieves was to be believed.

Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she used her right arm to push up a bit but immediately gave up when it caused the pain in her side to flare up. Sam silently berated herself as she realized the action caused her abdominal muscles to tense and contract, which in turn aggravated her injury. Her heart was still pounding and she took a moment to try and calm it by regulating her breathing, all the while aware of the risks of blood loss and infection due to her open wounds. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to roll over onto her right side, a strangled moan escaping her lips but after what felt like forever she managed to land on her back.

Both her shoulder and her side were throbbing and she bit her lip against the fresh waves of pain and nausea as tears gathered in her eyes. Her breathing was coming in short gasps while she lay there, collecting her emotions and wits. She knew she had to examine her injuries and find a way to stop the bleeding or she'd be bleeding out on some backwater planet without anyone ever knowing what had happened to her. That is, if the Jaffa didn't find her first. She blinked against the tears welling up in her eyes until they fell down the sides of her face, landing somewhere in her hair. With her vision no longer blurry from tears, she could tell it had gotten darker and that the storm was probably fast approaching; she had to find somewhere to shelter from the elements without it arousing the suspicions of the Jaffa, or they would never leave. They probably thought she'd left with the rest of her team or they would have found her already.

"First things first," Sam muttered. Gathering all her strength she placed both hands on the forest floor to lean up and then she scooted backwards until she could rest her back against the boulder they'd used as cover. The movement caused the excruciating pain from her shoulder to radiate out to her arm, making her bite back a sob of pain. Mobility was bad and her arm felt surprisingly heavy when she lifted it to check her watch, which took a great deal of effort. She was relieved to see not a lot of time had passed since the firefight, though. It meant she couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few minutes, which explained why the Jaffa hadn't caught up with her yet.

Placing her left hand in her lap she used her right to dig into the pockets of her vest, retrieving some of the gauze pads she'd put in there just in case. She realized both her hands were dirty, covered in blood, mud and even some grass and leaves when she took a moment to look at them. They had to be washed before she could examine her injuries or she would only make it worse but she still tore the packages of gauze open with her teeth and stuffed some gauze into her jacket over both wounds in the hopes of stopping some of the bleeding. Her field of vision momentarily went black when she touched the surrounding tissue and she had to take a deep breath before moving again.

Her vest covered most of her jacket so she couldn't get a good visual of either injury but considering the damage to her radio she suspected Colonel Grieves had shot her right through it, which meant there might be debris in her shoulder wound and that could complicate things. The only thing she could tell for now was that there was a dark spot on her right side and blood had soaked through the fabric near her shoulder, which made her suspect her shoulder was worse off than her side – just as the pain suggested.

Sam wiped her hands on her BDU pants as best she could without aggravating either her side or shoulder and looked back to where she'd been lying only moments ago; some of the grass was soaked with her blood. There was something else though! She used the back of her wrist to wipe her eyes before squinting at the dark package in the ankle-length grass. The med kit!

Holy Hannah, it was the med kit!

She must have fallen on it when she went down and Grieves either hadn't noticed or didn't care to retrieve it before leaving her behind. Despite the circumstances she smiled, knowing this meant her chances of survival were much better!

Ignoring the pain, she stuffed the empty gauze wrappings in her pockets and forced herself to crawl over to the med kit. She nearly sagged in relief when she reached it but instead made herself sit on her butt. The Jaffa would undoubtedly be here soon so she used some of the nearby dirt and leaves to cover the pooled blood, but there was no way she could cover the rest of her tracks here with her limited mobility and blood loss. She figured she'd just have to hope the Jaffa would overlook it when they scanned this area and, after sliding the med kit's strap over her head, started crawling into the same direction her teammates must have gone.

It felt like she had been moving through the woods, off the paths, for hours when she finally found a suitable spot. There were a couple of huge trees with their thick trunks nearly hidden from sight by underbrush and low-hanging branches that skimmed the forest floor. Sam maneuvered herself through the shrubs and carefully rearranged the branches to keep her out of sight from anyone passing by before she collapsed against a tree-trunk. Moving there had taken almost all of her energy and she needed a moment to regain her breath and not pass out again.

Her side was aching but her shoulder was much worse, which worried her. More blood had soaked through her jacket and she feared the gauze she'd placed underneath it wasn't doing a good job of stopping the bleeding. She swallowed against the nausea still plaguing her and used her right hand to remove the med kit's strap from over her head, grimacing at the resulting ache in her side. Just placing the bag at her side left her exhausted and in pain, but Sam knew she couldn't afford to take her time and reached for her belt; Colonel Grieves had taken the time to remove her sidearm from her thigh holster but her water bottle was still attached to her belt. Crawling to the hideout had made the state of her hands worse so she used the water to clean them as best she could. There were a few grazes and minor cuts under the dirt and blood but fortunately they were all superficial and compared to her gunshot wounds they didn't hurt at all.

Once her hands were clean Sam went about removing her vest and taking off her jacket, neither of which was an easy task due to her injuries but after a few minutes she had managed and sagged gratefully back against the tree trunk. The gauze pads she'd placed against the wounds were completely soaked with blood, the ones against her shoulder still sticking to her shirt while the ones at her side had fallen to the ground. She lifted her shirt carefully, grimacing as it stuck to her wound, and finally got a visual on the gunshot wound when she had uncovered her side. From the looks of it, the second shot had been a mere graze, probably because she had jumped up and twisted away. Relief flooded her system as she realized it wasn't a serious injury, or at least not as bad as it could have been.

Still, she had to examine it and reached for the med kit. Due to her shoulder injury her left hand was pretty useless but she still put gloves on both her hands and started probing her injured side. It wasn't bleeding profusely anymore, which was a good sign, but she was unsure about whether it needed stitches or not. The graze wasn't too deep but an open wound on an alien planet was dangerous. Sam grabbed the ethanol from the bag and poured some over the area, hissing at the biting pain when it reached the damaged flesh. Her heart was pounding and she knew her breathing was too fast and shallow as well but she figured her injured shoulder was the main cause of it, so she simply wiped her side clean with sterile gauze before applying a betadine pad over it and covering it with a gauze pad held in place by tape.

Perspiration was stinging her eyes by the time she lowered her shirt again and sat up. Using the back of her wrist, she wiped her forehead clean and from the wince this elicited Sam figured she had bumped her head when she went down, which would explain why her head was throbbing as well. A bump on her forehead was the least of her concern now, though. Her shoulder was still bleeding – not to mention incredibly painful – and she was starting to feel lightheaded and her fingers and feet were getting cold. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized hemorrhagic shock was probably setting in from her blood loss and unless she wanted to die out here she had to fix her shoulder.

Taking a deep breath, she removed the pads and moved her shirt's neckline to the side to get a closer look at the injury. Most of the skin was covered in blood but she also saw some tiny plastic shards around the gunshot wound and in it. Her heart sank at confirmation of what she had already suspected: the bullet had gone through her radio and embedded pieces of the radio's plastic casing into her body.

Biting back tears, she used her right hand to explore the back of her left shoulder but after a fruitless search for an exit wound she had to give up and accept that the bullet was still inside of her. The radio must have taken the brunt of the impact and while she could certainly do without a shattered shoulder blade right now, she really wasn't looking forward to having to dig the bullet out herself. At least it hadn't hit any major arteries or she would have bled out already, Sam thought.

Her left arm still felt too heavy to move around a lot so Sam knew taking off her shirt wasn't an option. Reaching into the med kit with her bloody gloves she quickly located the scissors she was going to need. She placed them in her lap and rummaged about the pack to find some other things she was going to need. After laying everything out on her lap and the space blanket from the kit, she cut into her shirt's neckline and through the strap of her sports bra to expose her shoulder. Just those movements were enough to have new tears springing in her eyes but the cool metal of the scissors was almost welcome against her heated skin.

She placed the scissors back on the space blanket and took a swig of water for her suddenly dry throat. Her eyes fluttered close and she was tempted to just lean back and take a nap before examining her shoulder. Fighting against the fatigue, Sam reached for the med kit again and searched for the vials of morphine – lidocaine wasn't going to be enough for this – with one hand and, with difficulty, managed to retrieve it. She grabbed a syringe from her lap and extracted the correct dose before she administered the painkiller to her shoulder. The used syringe was tossed to the other side of the space blanket, away from all the sterile and packaged items she'd laid out, and she put some water on a pad of sterile gauze to clean the wound.

As Sam waited for the morphine to kick in she used her left hand to keep pressure on the wound with a gauze pad while she used her right hand to get the ziplock bag containing the IV kit. She knew her heartbeat was too fast while her pulse pressure had decreased in response to her blood loss and unless she wanted to pass out or go into full-blown hemorrhagic shock she needed to increase her blood volume. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly possible to carry some extra bags of blood in a med kit so she would have to make do with Ringer's lactate from the IV kit to replenish her fluids. Her movements, however, were rather sluggish when she attempted to hook herself up to the IV bag. It took a few tries until she finally succeeded.

Another glance at her shoulder reminded her of the chances of infection and, vaguely recalling the speech by the CMO when they'd gone over the med kits' content, made her search the bag for the broad-spectrum antibiotics. By the time she had placed the vial in her lap and acquired a new syringe her hand was shaking and she had a hard time keeping a firm grasp on the syringe with her slippery glove. Her vision was starting to blur and she could only hope she withdrew the correct amount from the vial before she injected it into the IV bag. It took her a moment or two to realize she had to place the bag above her head for optimum results and in the end, she simply placed it behind her head, cushioned against the tree-trunk by her jacket.

The morphine seemed to be kicking in as the excruciating pain in her shoulder ebbed to a dull throbbing but Sam didn't want to take any chances and grabbed the tube of topic analgesic to apply it to the tissue surrounding the gunshot wound. The plastic shards embedded into her skin were hindering her movements but she could feel the skin starting to numb pretty quickly. She tossed the used gauze to the space blanket and reached for the ethanol and forceps. After sprinkling some ethanol on the stainless steel to sterilize it she figured it wouldn't hurt to be careful and splashed some on her gunshot wound as well. There was no expected biting pain courtesy of the painkillers she was on. Taking a deep breath she mentally prepared herself before she started to pick the pieces of her radio casing from her shoulder.

Sam's mouth was turning dry and she had a fuzzy feeling in her head from the morphine but as she pulled out the third shard of plastic she was still thankful for the heavy narcotic. Lowering the forceps to the space blanket she started probing her injured shoulder to determine whether there were pieces she had overlooked due to the awkward angle. Aside from the obvious bullet hole the skin felt smooth to her gloved finger. Now came the hard part, though.

Taking a deep breath, she carefully slipped her finger into the entry wound but it was difficult to determine what she was feeling with all the blood, plastic shards and the latex layer covering her hand. The hole was too small to explore with her probing finger so she grabbed the forceps again and craned her neck to get a proper look at the injury.

Ten minutes later she let her head fall back against the tree-trunk, exhausted. She had managed to extract a few small shards and two larger pieces but the bullet itself was too deep for her to reach with the limited space she had available. Dropping the forceps onto the space blanket she uncapped her bottle and took a swig of water as she mustered her courage for what was next.

From the med kit's second pouch, she retrieved a scalpel and number fifteen blade and laid them in her lap. Her probing had started the wound to bleed again so she unwrapped another sterile piece of gauze and pressed it against her shoulder with her left hand, while reaching for the betadine swab sticks. Sutures, Steri-strips and needles were already laid out on the space blanket but her slippery gloves didn't allow for a proper grasp on the thin needles. Groaning, Sam took off the gloves, tossed them aside and grabbed a new pair from the med kit, as well as the surgical kit for the retractors she was going to need.

Wishing she had something stronger at her disposal she took another sip of water before slipping the new pair of gloves on and unwrapping a betadine swab stick to clean the injury on her shoulder. With most of her shoulder covered in the orange-colored topical antiseptic, Sam took the scalpel blade from its sterile pouch and attached it to the handle. After a moment's hesitation, she put the blade to her skin and made a small incision to enlarge the bullet's entry point. Clenching her jaw in concentration she let the fresh blood flow, hoping it would naturally rinse the wound some more and wiped the hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist.

Once the scalpel was set aside, she splashed some ethanol on the retractors and with great difficulty managed to apply the tool to her shoulder injury, further opening the wound by about half an inch on each side. Sam took a steadying breath and willed away the dizziness she felt sneaking up on her. Swallowing, her gaze returned to her shoulder and she found herself wishing she had a mirror to get a closer look. Alas, she had to make do with awkwardly craning her neck.

She grabbed the forceps again and sprinkled more ethanol on them just to be safe before she started removing smaller pieces of debris from her wound. After what felt like forever but couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes considering the amount of blood coming from her wound and the fact that night hadn't fallen yet, she had close to a dozen little pieces of black plastic in her lap. Although she could feel her concentration slipping and the nausea was coming back with a vengeance, Sam decided those were probably the last pieces of radio casing embedded into her skin and moved the forceps to her idle left hand to use the index finger of her right hand to probe inside the bullet hole. The bloody glove made it difficult to determine the textures of what she was feeling but she still managed to locate the foreign metal shell of the full metal jacket bullet from her CO's Beretta.

Extracting her finger, she took a moment to wipe the sweat from her face with her right arm and then grabbed the forceps again. She took a few deep breaths before inserting them and managed to retrieve the bullet from her flesh, all the while gritting her teeth. Sam dropped the forceps with bullet on the ground in relief, removed the retractors and leaned back against the tree, panting as if she had just ran ten miles. Only when she began to sway to the side did she realize she wasn't finished yet.

Gathering all her strength, she reached for a pack of gauze to put pressure on the wound that was bleeding freely again and tore it open with her teeth. With her right hand, she put it against the hole in her shoulder and used her left to get the sutures and needles. It took her a while to get it right because of the limited mobility of her left arm due to the injury and IV but eventually she gets it and throws the used gauze to the side to start stitching up the gaping hole in her shoulder with her dominant hand.

The result wasn't her best work and certainly wouldn't win her any awards, but she was pleased with the result nonetheless because it would keep her alive for now – or so she hoped. After taking yet another break during which she drank some water and took a moment to close her eyes – all the while keeping her ears open for any enemy activity – Sam reached for the Steri-strips and applied them to her skin to aid the stitches in closing the wound as tight as possible. To top it all off she placed another piece of betadine gauze over the strips and covered it with a pad of gauze, which she taped into place.

It took her some effort to gather up all the things she had used but in spite of her exhaustion and blood loss, she managed to put everything back into the med kit, including the used and discarded items because she couldn't afford to leave any more of a trail behind. After that, she felt she deserved a break and rummaged through the pockets of her vest to retrieve the power bar she had stored there. She munched on it listlessly, all too aware of the fact that she needed the energy and nutrients. Once she had finished the whole thing, she stuffed the wrapper back into the pocket and flushed the bar down with another swig of water.

The food made her feel a bit better but as she looked up at the darkening sky she realized she was going to need better shelter from the storm. Sam didn't think it was a good idea to spend the night in her current spot or get caught out in the rain that was bound to come any minute now. It wasn't until she attempted to sit up straighter that she became aware of the ache in her side and was reminded of her other wound. Cursing herself for nearly forgetting, she lifted her shirt and undid the makeshift bandage to check it out; it looked swollen and was an angry red but it didn't appear as if any more blood had leaked through. Just to be on the safe side she cleaned it up again and used some Steri-strips instead of actual stitches because she didn't think those were necessary for the otherwise clean and debris-free wound and then covered it with a fresh betadine gauze and covered it with a pad of regular gauze taped to her skin.

Emotionally and physically exhausted she lowered her shirt and leaned back against the tree. Soon she would have to get moving but she didn't want to risk passing out the moment she stood, so she decided to wait until the IV bag was empty and her blood volume hopefully somewhat restored. In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to get some shuteye, would it? Just a few minutes…