A/N: This story features Cameron as an unreliable narrator. This means that due to multiple reasons (trauma, shock, etc) that his memories are compromised. Therefore there will be a lot of continuity errors that are present on purpose.

Green Wires

Chapter 1

Red. Yellow. Green.

"How are you feeling today, Cameron?"

These sessions always start the same, with him grunting through the door, his thigh and hip a little worse for wear because he's been forgetting to keep up on his meds—he doesn't know why, but he just can't seem remember them anymore—then the Doc flips on the light behind two heavy drapes meant to simulate the sunlight just a few floors up and out—only none of them have been cleared to take PTO outside the mountain yet.

Not until the IOA knows exactly what happened.

The Doc deals in pleasantries, asks if he wants classical music playing in the background, asks if the temperature is okay, asks if he'd like a water or a coffee and he's started bringing his own drink to cut down on the small talk because for someone who has nothing but time, it's still a waste of his. Eventually he'll ask that they get to the point and the Doc will ask how he's doing, say his name the same way his momma does, which is weird because the Doc is a guy, and he thinks it's a ploy to get him to open up more.

Wonders if anyone else opened up.

They all have separate therapists because you can't double dip the chip. All of them have to be individuals in this, each needs to have their own version of the story, and their own schedule for healing. It's been recommended that they stay away from each other until the case is closed—or at the very least don't talk about what happened—which is shitty because there's one less of them to talk so the topics are limited.

"I'm okay," yawns throwing his arm over the back of the couch, a plush red thing with a button punched into he middle of the seats. He aligns his bad thigh with them so the push of pain keeps him awake, keeps him motivated.

"Any trouble sleeping?"

"No more than usual." A week ago, when this all started. When the members of his team that came back ended up in the infirmary—not all wounds physical—all just shocked—all just—

"My offer is still open if you'd like me to prescribe a sleeping aid."

"You saying I'm not looking good, Doc?" Chuckles, but it comes off more of him clearing his throat from the layer of coffee.

"I'm saying that you look like a man who has a lot to say, but very little want to do so." The therapist, Dr. Hu, rarely looks up from his pad of paper, the sound of the pen scratching worried him at first, but now when there's no scribbling, his concern grows because he's not saying the right things.

"Well." He scratches at the back of his head, hair oily and sticking together, and adjusts, then readjusts, on the couch. "There were four of us, three of us came back—I just—how many times do you want me to go through this?"

Hu arches an eyebrow over the thin frame of his glasses and settles straight against the back of the chair. "That's for you to decide."

"Ohh,"chuckles again, but it sounds more like a scoff than he meant it to. "Don't get all cryptic on me, Doc."

"In all honesty, Cameron—" God, he should've let him keep calling him Colonel Mitchell "—you're the one being cryptic."

"I've given you the answers you asked for—"

"Yes, exactly that—just answers." Hu rests his pad against the tops of his legs—this is gonna be bad. "You've recounted everything as logically, as mechanically as possible with the expected stoicism of a military colonel. What I'm waiting for is the emotion."

He leans forward, his elbows balancing on his knees. "Then you're gonna be waiting a long time, Doc."

"Fine." Hu's lips twitch to the side and he grabs the pad of yellow paper again, it looks like it's stained by coffee. "If you won't tell me about how you're feeling, perhaps we could talk about one of your team—"

"No."

Hu doesn't seem startled by his bluntness—shouldn't be after a week of it—instead shuffles the pad to a single hand, while reaching for a handleless cup of green tea. He sips it once, twice, and sets it back onto the edge of his desk. "Cameron, I am a therapist specializing in combat trauma and PTSD—"

He glosses over the many diplomas on the wall, all with golden stamps and swirling signatures, and tries not to sink his front teeth into the Styrofoam coffee cup from the caf. "So you've mentioned several times."

"Then please know I'm not only equipped to help you deal with your pain, but that I've dealt with it before—dozens of times. Hundreds."

Neither of them says a thing for a solid minute, he can hear the ticking of the clock over Hu's desk, the soft ambient music of ringing metal and chimes playing barely noticeable under all their pretenses.

The Doc sips from the cup again and shifts as he waits patiently for an answer.

He knows he's going to have to speak out about what happened eventually, but the pain is too fresh, hasn't even scabbed over, and removing the team from him—from each other—isn't letting the wound heal, forcing him to speak about it to a stranger isn't letting it heal. This isn't the way he dealt with loosing his legs before he got them back, wasn't the way he dealt with a bunch of things—being optimistic was, being a good leader, a good friend was, having a good sense of humor was.

But he's not a good leader, because not all the team made it back, and it was directly on him. Couldn't pass the blame if he wanted to. Hot potato blew up all over his face.

"How about for today you tell me where you and your teammates were situated when it happened. Nothing more than location and function." Hu's fingers curl around the pen again, ready to start scratching down details for the IOA, times and coordinates so that fingers can be pointed at him with precision. He doesn't care about that. The empty spot at the debriefing table, on the Odyssey ride home, in the caf, is what's hanging heavy around his neck. "After that we can end the session. I think it would be a worthy first step."

Washes a hand over his face, grease sliding against grease and he really should have a shower, but it seems pointless after what happened. Same with eating, with sleeping, with trying to get through paperwork. People keep offering their sympathy, Lam keeps offering antidepressants and charting his answers to strings of questions growing weirder and weirder when he stops in once a day for his evaluation—Landry is keeping an eye on them all like a momma hawk, wings spread and draped over them.

"I was in the control room." Words feel like vomit out of his mouth, because he's there—he's still there staring down a wall of televisions—security footage—and fiddling with things he shouldn't have been. He's not Sam, he's not—

"Good." Hu nods, smudging his smile, trying not to be encouraging, not to be patronizing. "What were you doing?"

"I was trying to bust them out."

"Good." The Doc's hand flies over the pad of paper writing out in chicken scratch how he fucked up so royally. "What about the others."

"Teal'c—Teal'c was standing guard at the door." The Big Guy almost blocked the entrance to the cellblock control room while he mumbled swears down at wires. So many different wires and he tried to remember what they said earlier, before— "He had a zat."

When he stops talking, the doctor stops writing and they both stare at each other expectedly, him waiting to be let go, to get out of here early because he's not ready to relive the moment that he relives every time he goes to sleep.

Hu senses his discomfort, or is watching his fingers twitch, his leg bounce, his body fidget thinking of them on the black and white security footage. How beat up they both were. How he was only seconds away from saving them, from having his team back from an assignment they never should have been on, one that was his whim because he thought he could be helpful, could be strong, could be humorous.

Only meant to sacrifice their time.

Only meant to sacrifice—

"You just have to tell me where they were and what they were doing, Cameron."

Hu's voice rings strong through the thick memories, through the tears burning in the corner of his eyes, through his fingers digging holes into the Styrofoam cup as he nods, his mouth pressing against his balled fist. "They were prisoners."

"Were they in separate rooms?"

"Yes." God yes. It's one of the only saving factors of what happened. Of what he did. Of how he killed—

"What were they doing?"

"They were—they were both restrained." Cuffs she couldn't get out of, and he made the joke to Teal'c that they ought to grab a pair for when she gets too handsy on missions—as a solution for her five finger discounts.

"How were their demeanors?"

"They just got tortured for three days, how do you think they—"

Hu raises his hand to halt his brewing rant. "I apologize, please allow me to rephrase the question: Were they interacting with you through comms?"

"Yeah." Both of them talking over him as he stood with pliers trying to pick from a dozen colors which wire to snip. They sifted through the colors he called out, stating whether it could be harmful to cut or not. "He was more alert, he was on his knees in his cell. She was on her side—" it looked like she'd fallen over and just didn't have the strength to get back up, head hanging to the side, hair covering her face. They all spoke with her, tried to keep her alert, through her mumbled answers "—she faded in and out."

After the process of elimination, he had three wires left, and was getting mixed reviews from them.

Red.

Yellow.

Green.

Jackson said to cut the red, that it would disable the door and let them both out of their cells but couldn't give him a straight answer if there was a fail-safe in place or not.

Vala, sounding drunk, slurring her words, stumbling through consciousness promised him it was the yellow wire, that she had worked for and with the Lucien Alliance on several occasions and had done something with a guard—something he didn't want to know—to gain the knowledge.

Despite the torture, the pain, they still fought over comms with each other, trying to raise their voices to win, Jackson groaning and Vala's voice eventually just becoming single words huffed out.

"That's good enough for today." Hu flips his notepad closed and sets it on the side of his desk beside his green tea, standing and gesturing to the door. "I'll ask one simple question tomorrow and we can begin to unpack what happened."

"What if—"

The red and the yellow.

Both went untouched.

"What if I don't want to?"

Hu glances down at him, and he can feel the burning grow, cheeks greasy and clammy, sore and waterlogged. Like having frostbite in the middle of June. "Cameron, are you sure you won't accept any prescriptions? Dr. Lam said you refused the—"

He didn't cut the red or the yellow.

Two team members, both more experienced than him, both having more knowledge on different ships, different plans and schematics, and he didn't listen to either of them.

"—you really should consider them, depriving yourself of sleep from guilt or stress isn't going to help you."

"I'm fine, Doc." Blinks back what's left of the tears, what's left of the black and white monitors and three colored wires in his mind, the pliers in his hand, his heart beating out of control and then stopping as one of the cells evacuated. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He didn't listen to either of them, because he met himself—a bunch of times actually—and before his doppelganger—his brother from another dimension—left, he told him one thing.

To cut the green wire.

So he did.