They didn't make it to the infirmary without a couple of interruptions. Halfway down the first corridor Hammond came walking towards them, and held up a hand, indicating he wanted them to stop and talk.
"Major, I was wondering if you'd be willing to go pick Cassandra Fraiser up from her school and bring her down here? Doctor Fraiser's out of surgery and I'd like Cassie to know what's going on now that we have information to give her."
"Sure, Sir." Sam said, nodding her head. "How is Janet?"
Hammond smiled.
"She's going to be fine."
There was a collective sigh of relief from all the people in the hall.
"That's good news."
"Yes."
"Let me go tell Jack where I'm going and I'll leave immediately, Sir."
"Thank you, Major." He hesitated, then, "Tell her if she wants to stay with me while her mother's in the infirmary, she's welcomed to."
Sam smiled.
"I will, Sir."
Sam had already figured she'd ask Cassie if she wanted to stay with her and Jack, but she'd pass on the message, anyways, because it was nice of Hammond to offer.
"Thank you, Major."
"Yes, Sir."
Hammond nodded to the others, and headed for his office. He had a ton of paperwork – most of it medical leave orientated, since he was going to send a lot of his people home for a couple of days, and needed to make sure the absences weren't charged to their regular leave. The others continued on their way to the infirmary.
"Emmett!"
Bregman turned at the sound of his name, and saw Ben standing at the far end of the corridor, looking nervously at Sam, but anxious at the same time. He frowned; he really wanted to go see if Janet was awake, but he stopped. After all, he was here for a reason, and it wasn't to find himself a girlfriend. Ben was part of that job, and he had responsibilities.
"You guys go ahead," he said, reluctantly. "I'll see you later."
"You sure?" Sam asked, wondering why the cameraman wasn't walking towards them. He was practically hiding from them, she thought.
"Yes. I'll come by the infirmary in a little bit..."
They continued on their way, and Emmett walked over to Ben.
"What's up?"
"I heard there were a lot of injuries..." Ben said, watching the disappearing group. "Your doctor was hurt?"
"She's not my doctor, Ben," Emmett said, crossly, wondering what he was getting at. "I –"
"I didn't mean it that way," Crane said, quickly, holding up a hand. "Look. I just wanted to see if she was okay, all right? Don't jump off the handle. I've had enough of that already."
"Maybe if you'd think before speaking you wouldn't have that problem," Bregman told him. "Or if you kept your opinions to yourself – that'd be even better."
"Yeah, yeah." Ben ran his hand through his short blonde hair. "So is she all right?"
"She's out of surgery, and General Hammond said she was expected to make a full recovery, yes."
"Good."
Emmett sighed.
"You know, Ben..." He said, putting his hand on his cameraman's shoulder. "You're not a bad guy. I know that. And you're a hell of a camera operator. No one gets a better shot than you, and I've worked with some of the best there are."
Crane flushed slightly at the compliment, but knew there was more coming.
"But?"
"But you're too quick to judge, and that's going to get you into trouble someday."
"It got me into trouble today," Crane agreed.
"And yesterday."
"Yeah."
"You might try to apologize for being such a dick. O'Neill's a fair guy from what I've seen. You just managed to get on his bad side, and then dig yourself deeper. If you apologized, you probably wouldn't have to hide from Sam and the others, and I think you'd find the time we spend here a lot more enjoyable."
Crane scowled, but there was also a thoughtful look in his eyes. As if he didn't like what he was hearing, but he understood the validity of it.
"I'll think about it."
"O'Neill's in the infirmary right now. He'll be there for the night."
"He was hurt, too?"
"Yeah."
"Then I shouldn't bother him with-"
"If he's in bed, he can't chase you down and beat you up."
"His dog can."
"Jaffer's a sweetheart."
"I saw the bloody paw prints in the hallway."
"He's a dangerous sweetheart," Emmett agreed. "But I honestly don't think you'd have to worry about O'Neill siccing him on you for trying to apologize."
Crane shrugged again. It was obvious that he wasn't endeared to the idea of approaching O'Neill – in bed or otherwise. Emmett changed the subject, figuring he'd given the younger man all the advice he could give. It was up to him to decide how to act on it and what to do with it.
"We'll start the interviews again tomorrow morning, I think. Everyone's pretty on edge right now what with all the injuries and the blood."
"Holy shit," Ben said, remembering the blood now that Emmett had mentioned it. "Have you seen the gate room? There's blood everywhere."
Emmett nodded.
"You should have seen Jaffer and Jack – that's Teal'c's yellow lab. They were covered in it."
"Pretty dangerous stuff they do around here, huh?" Ben said, unable to hide the admiration in his voice at that. "I thought they did more exploring than anything – especially after talking to Doctor Jackson."
"The dangers inherit in going someplace where you might run into someone who doesn't like you, I suppose."
"Yeah."
Ben looked at his watch.
"Well, if we're not going to do any interviews this afternoon, I'll just go around and shoot some film of the facility, then probably just call it a day."
Emmett nodded. "I'll talk to some people today, and set up interviews for tomorrow."
"Okay." Ben hesitated. "Thanks, Emmett."
Bregman nodded.
"I'll talk to you later."
He slapped the younger man on the shoulder, and turned and headed for the infirmary.
