He heard sounds he recognised. Felt something soft underneath him. Somewhere close by there were voices. Voices that, if he strained to listen, he knew.
It was a struggle at first to open his eyes, almost as if some part of him had forgotten how to do that one simple thing. Once he had them opened just a crack though, little more than slits, it was as if all of those simple, everyday things came rushing back, gaps filling in effortlessly even as his eyes came open all the way and he pulled down a deep breath, not unlike a man who had come dangerously close to drowning.
"Ortiz?"
"Whoa, hang on. Stay back."
He moved one hand to rub at his face, or at least that was his intention. The motion was stopped short, jerkily, by something around his wrist. As he strained to lift his head to see what that something was, some part of his brain already figuring it out, he saw figures to his right, very likely those who had spoken. In the same moment that his gaze landed on the soft restraint secured around his wrist he felt the sudden warmth across his upper lip.
Doctor Smith moved into view then, concern on her face as well as something that he belatedly realised was concentration.
"Wendy—" It was Captain Bridger's voice, cut off by Doctor Smith's pointed glance in the older man's direction. "Be careful."
She had brought some sort of cloth with her, something that he thought might have smelled faintly antiseptic if he had been able to smell anything other than the blood that had spilled from his nose the instant he had raised his head. With one hand she supported the back of his head while the other held the thick white material under his nose. Even as she did that she was saying, "I am being careful, Nathan, but I'm still going to do my job."
Careful? Why did they need to be careful? And why was he re—
Oh.
They thought he might still be—whatever he had been before. His other self? The idea was still too surreal to accept, even after facing off against it inside of his own mind. It felt more like a dream than any kind of reality but the restraints around his wrists, and his ankles he realised, as well as the blood from his nose, those things were all very real. And hadn't his nose been bleeding before? In that place?
"I'm not sensing anything we need to worry about, Captain," Doctor Smith was saying, looking down at Miguel even as she cautiously removed the gauze. He didn't feel anything fresh spilling from his nose but the smell, thick and metallic, showed no signs of easing up. "Miguel?" He looked her in the eyes then, her hand still supporting the back of his head. She was keeping him from resting it back, he realised, most likely to help him avoid getting that blood down his throat. "Miguel, can you hear me?"
His throat felt dry, a little raw as if he had been shouting, and a great deal, but he swallowed against that dry, sandy feeling and managed, "Yeah." His voice wasn't very loud but she was close enough that she seemed to have no trouble hearing him.
"Good." She was speaking quietly now as well, still looking him in the eyes, almost as if she was searching for something. "I need to take a look," she said to him. "Is that okay?" When he frowned a little she lifted her eyes to look just above his own and he understood then. She wanted to read him, as she called it sometimes. Take a look inside. In his mind.
As rough as his throat felt, and his voice had sounded, he settled instead for giving a small nod of his head, her hand still supporting it at the back. It was starting to feel uncomfortable, the position he had ended up in, and the sooner they could clear up all doubt the sooner he could sit up properly. As wary as he was of having any psychic inside of his head, even one he trusted as much as he did Doctor Smith, he just wanted all of this to be over.
The room was quiet as Wendy once again met his gaze with her own, holding it for several seconds before her eyes slipped closed and she drew in a deep breath. She remained that way for a while, quiet and still, and Miguel thought he felt the faintest brush of her presence inside of his mind. Was he more aware of such things now, after what had happened? Or was Wendy letting him feel it?
Ultimately it didn't matter, but he couldn't help wondering. It was almost a morbid sort of curiosity, all things considered.
When Wendy opened her eyes again a small but certain smile touched her lips and lifted them at the corners. She met his gaze again, the smile growing a little as she said, "Welcome back, Miguel."
The relief that flooded through him was almost overwhelming but he managed to compose himself enough to say, quietly, "Thank you." And then after a moment, "For everything." Because he had heard her voice in that darkness, felt her reaching and hoping and above all, never giving up on him. That meant more than he could put into words, certainly this soon after coming out of that hell.
"You're sure?" That was Ford's voice. He had heard it before, soon after waking, but he was only certain of that now that it had sounded again.
Wendy helped him ease his head back down to the pillow as she spoke, "Very much so, Commander." She straightened, looking to someone else. When Miguel turned his head he saw that that someone was the Captain. "With your permission?"
Bridger was quiet for a moment, looking between the Doctor and Miguel himself, before he gave a nod. As Wendy went about releasing the restraints he focused on Miguel, and said, "Welcome back, Chief."
He wanted to thank the man, as he had the Doctor, but the words stuck in his throat and at first he wasn't sure why. It wasn't that he wasn't grateful for everything the Captain and the rest of the crew had done, far from it, but it didn't feel right. After what was only a few seconds but what felt so much longer he realised what it was, even as he said, his voice still dry and rough, "Good to be back, sir."
They were welcoming him back, but that was the part that didn't feel right. They could and very likely would dress it up as being beyond his control, every bit of it, but the harsh reality was that many of the things that had been done had been by his hand. No one else's. And he had made decisions, conscious ones, that had put others at risk. Those words from Doctor Smith and Captain Bridger, welcome back, might have been heartfelt on their part but they didn't feel deserved. Not to him.
"We'll let you get some rest," Bridger said, snapping him out of his thoughts, even as he rose from the chair he had been sitting in nearby. "When you're feeling up to it we'd like to hear your version of events."
There was a lump in his throat that he had trouble speaking around, and a knot in his stomach that felt like it was forged from steel, but he gave his head the slightest nod and managed to say, "Yes, sir." Dread had formed that knot, he knew, and the lump as well. The idea of reliving any of what had happened was almost enough to make him feel physically sick and when Wendy and one of the medical staff moved in to help him sit up he was almost reluctant to let them. But he did, staying quiet as they helped him, as Captain Bridger and Commander Ford excused themselves and headed out without another word.
When he was sitting up he didn't feel any better, but he didn't feel any worse either, at least not until he looked across the room at what he hadn't been able to see before. Or rather, who. O'Neill was awake but quiet, the head of his bed angled up enough that they could see each other clearly. He looked a little pale but otherwise no worse for wear. Miguel knew that wasn't true. He remembered all too well what had happened the last time they had been in the same room, just the two of them, and that nausea returned with a vengeance.
Tim smiled but Miguel couldn't bear it. Couldn't return it. Just as he averted his gaze, shame and regret and guilt surging up inside of him and crashing around like stormy waves, he saw Tim's smile waver and then drop away. And that just made him feel even worse.
It made sense, he knew, the way Miguel had looked away like that, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with the fact that his best friend couldn't even bear to look at him. Tim was doing his best not to take it personally, reminding himself that his friend had been through much more than he could ever imagine, but it was never that easy to put his anxieties aside. It never had been. At his station on the bridge he could properly quiet and contain everything but outside of a professional situation, when things were more relaxed and separated from the often life-and-death severity of their duties, it had never been that easy for him. Just why he couldn't accomplish that same laser focus off duty was beyond him, not to mention beyond frustrating, and by this point in his life it was something that he had been forced to accept as an undeniable and inescapable part of himself.
He had watched wordlessly, without staring, as Doctor Smith and Charlotte, the nurse, had helped Miguel to not only sit up but drink from a cup that the latter had brought over. By the time Charlotte set it aside it was empty, Tim noticed, wobbling a little in its weightlessness as it came to rest on a nearby tray. There had been some discussion, low and what Tim assumed to be confidential if only because their voices were so hushed, and after only a relatively short time Wendy had headed off again, leaving Miguel to lie down once more and, presumably, get some rest.
Tim couldn't tell if his friend was asleep, in large part due to the fact that Miguel had lain down on his side, facing the far wall. Tim couldn't see his face. A conscious choice? Most likely.
He had been doing a fairly poor job of convincing himself that it was only temporary, that avoidance, when he heard movement from the door off to his left. Lonnie was standing in the doorway when he turned his head and she gave him a smile, lifting her brows in a querying sort of motion, obviously not wanting to make too much noise. He gave a little sideways jerk of his head, inviting her inside. As she crossed the threshold he couldn't help but look over towards Miguel again.
"He asleep?" Lonnie asked softly as she carefully picked up a stool and set it beside Tim's bed, as close to the head as she could get without interfering with any equipment. Tim nodded in response. "You get a chance to talk to him yet?"
He almost laughed but was able to catch himself, so very far beyond thankful that he had done so, because not only would it have been inappropriate as well as disruptive, but it would have been needlessly self-deprecating. Self-pitying, even. Not personal, he kept telling himself. Or he was trying, anyway. "Not yet," he said quietly, giving a small shake of his head. "I, uh—" He looked at Lonnie. "I don't think he's feeling up to it." Miguel hadn't said much to the Captain or Commander Ford, after all, and even when Doctor Smith had been speaking to him he had seemed reluctant to speak much.
See? Not personal.
"I guess I can understand that." Lonnie was looking across the room as well. Tim suspected she couldn't see Miguel's face any better than he could. "It might help, but it's his choice." Even as she said that Tim thought he heard the subtlest notes of disappointment there. That made him curious, but not nearly enough to ask a question that he thought he didn't really have any business asking.
"Yeah," he ended up saying instead. It was different for everyone, he knew, that whole talking after difficulties thing, and he had never personally been in any sort of rush to do so. What few unsettling things had happened to him over the course of his life had felt personal, private, and he had felt more like guarding them and keeping them secret than sharing them with anyone, even someone qualified to hear the troubles of others.
Miguel had never seemed like the type to be troubled by anything. Until now, anyway. Now troubled felt like an almost pitiful understatement, a word that fell so far short of the mark that it was—well, not laughable. There was nothing even close to amusing about any of this.
A sound from across the room sent his thoughts scattering and he turned his head quickly in the direction of the source. To his left Lonnie gave a soft, quiet gasp as they both noticed the same thing at the same moment.
It felt like he had been hit by a truck. A big truck. Maybe an armoured one.
The groan that slipped out of him was thick and sluggish, followed soon afterwards by a string of what he had groggily intended to be words but had ended up being little more than just sounds. When he tried to move, attempting to gauge what the heck was going on and where he was, he was rewarded with pain of varying degrees from at least a dozen different places and he ended up making more of those shapeless, almost senseless noises.
Through them all one word came out with enough clarity to be understood: "Ow."
"Lieutenant Brody?" That was a nice voice. He thought he knew it. "Lieutenant Brody, try to lie still. You're in med bay."
Oh. That told him the where, at least.
At first all he was getting in terms of memory were disjointed images and sounds, things that didn't go together, like there were pieces missing, almost as if someone had cut out all the important parts and left him with little more than scraps. Fragments. He groaned again, more frustrated than pained this time, and worked to open his eyes. Maybe that would help.
"Lieutenant, can you hear me?" There was that nice voice again. "Lieutenant?"
His eyes opened, no more than halfway but it was enough to tell him why he knew that voice, that soft and soothing voice that had done a pretty good job of keeping him from worrying about all of the how and why that had led to the where. Doctor Smith was looking down at him and she gave him a smile almost as nice as her voice, even as she said, "There you are."
There he was. In med bay, she had said. It certainly felt like he belonged in med bay, considering the many complaints he was getting from various parts of his body. He was having trouble keeping it all straight.
"We were pretty worried about you for a while there," Doctor Smith said to him, and then out of nowhere there was a bright light and Jim couldn't help but react to it. With a vocalisation that came out sounding more like gah than an actual word he tried to swat at the light only to feel gentle fingers close around his wrist and ease his arm back down. "It's all right, Lieutenant. This will only take a second."
And longer if he resisted, probably. So he groaned and tried not to fuss, beyond grateful when the small but vicious light flicked off, leaving him to try and blink away the yellow spots in his vision.
"I'd ask how you're feeling, but I think I already know the answer to that."
Confused, sore, already fed up with being laid up. Had she read his mind to know that or did he looked as bad as he felt?
Probably the latter.
"Doc?" It came out like a question of its own accord. "Did we win?" Because it sure didn't feel like he had. Whatever had happened it felt like he had gone ten rounds with that armoured truck and very much come out the loser. Actually, now that he thought about it, or tried to think about it at least, he was pretty sure he could recall flying through the air.
No, that wasn't quite right.
Being thrown. That was it.
"Yes," she said to him, giving him another one of those smiles. "We did." She looked elsewhere for a few moments, at something he couldn't see from where he was laying, before her eyes came back down to him. "Thanks to you, actually." Her smile had softened, even faded a little, and there was something in those words that he couldn't quite figure out just yet. But it felt personal. Important.
Thanks to him? He wasn't sure how, or why, but it was good to hear. That they'd made it, that they'd come through. It was good to know that they'd won, even if he didn't feel like he'd won anything more than a long stay in med bay.
There were other questions bubbling up in his brain but by the time they actually took shape he was already well on his way towards slipping back into the darkness he had only just heaved himself out of. Good thing, too. There was no pain in the darkness, only peace and quiet and much-needed rest.
