"How's she doing?" Daniel asked.
"I think she's finally getting better."
"Do you have any idea what was going on?" he asked.
Carolyn shook her head, "She seemed to have all her major systems starting to fail and now they're not. The whole thing is utterly strange. I'm not one for miracles, but I don't have a scientific explanation."
Mitchell entered the room and they turned to watch him approach. He looked perturbed. "Hey, it's good news," Daniel said.
"I know. I am really happy about her recovery. HOWEVER Sam called Rain's father yesterday morning and told him that Rain had been hurt. That has led to a huge mess," Cam explained.
"He's demanding to see her," Daniel guessed.
"Give the man a Ph.D., but then I guess someone already did that. That wouldn't be so bad, but when he was informed that she was in a classified installation, couldn't be moved, and he wouldn't be admitted, he started calling people."
"People… I bet you don't mean his next door neighbor and poker buddies," Carolyn said.
"Actually they may have been included. Mark's done right well for himself in recent years. He's a big time real estate developer in Denver and has got some pretty influential neighbors. He's a major contributor to the Democratic Party. So we've got members of Congress asking what sort of things are going on in here that we refuse to describe what's wrong with her and are keeping her from her father."
Carolyn said, "And from their mouths to the media, right?"
Daniel said, "Let's be fair guys. It isn't right that this place is a secret. I am not planning on blowing the whistle, but maybe it's time someone did. This is what the press is for, isn't it? To ask these kinds of questions and keep our government honest?"
Sam had roused and come to join their group, stretching and yawning. "You do choose to become fair minded about the opposition at the oddest times," she commented. "I'm sorry I've made trouble, but surely her father had a right to know?" Mitchell shrugged and Daniel looked dubious. Sam acted as if she didn't notice the unenthusiastic reception her statement had received. "So what does Landry say to do about it?"
"He's still in DC, but he phoned and told everyone to keep their mouths shut. Rain's recovering. Maybe she can leave the Mountain in a day or two and that would help a little. Kovak's family has been notified of his death and that's just kicked the whole thing up a notch. They are making a fuss too and getting plenty of an audience. I don't know how much Rain can accomplish."
Rain had awakened during their consultation and got their attention by banging on the metal bars at the side of the bed. Daniel went to brief her. The others left and when Sam returned to the bedside, Rain was weakly but persistently cross-examining Daniel. "You've been here for days, yes or no?"
"That doesn't matter."
"Yes or no, darling?" she insisted. There was definite iron in that thready voice.
"Okay. I'm fine. Sam was here with me most of the time," he said, grasping at straws.
"That doesn't have anything to with a wounded man wearing himself out. I don't want to see you for at least 6 hours, maybe more. There are plenty of other people who can sit with me if I need it and you just told me I'm getting better."
Daniel said, "I'm much happier being here."
"Well, I'm not much happier about it. Get out. Colonel," she appealed to Sam, "please get him out of here."
"Only if you'll call me Sam when we're not relating to each other in an on duty capacity," Sam said.
Rain shook her head slightly. "Maybe I'm beginning to understand where some of my more defining traits came from. Okay, Sam, please get my boyfriend out of here before he wrecks himself."
Daniel stood up reluctantly, kissed Rain on the cheek, and followed Sam out of the infirmary.
"I'd like to go home and get some stuff," Daniel said. "I think I have some things that could entertain her and I'm running out of clothes."
"You ready to run the gauntlet?"
"Surely you don't think the press has my house staked out after all this time when I haven't even been home? Mitchell told me I wasn't really the main focus of the story any more anyway. Look, I can't drive with my arm like this. Can you take me?"
Sam agreed, happy to feel like she was contributing something concrete. They took Sam's car and rode in silence at first. Daniel was clearly exhausted and Sam wasn't feeling exactly fresh herself. Daniel broke the silence by saying, "It was bad enough worrying about her before she got hurt. I don't know if I can handle being on a different team after this."
"Daniel, she's a young and, I think, from studying her record, a very ambitious officer. She is not going to take herself out of combat because you're worried about her."
"You studied her record?" Daniel straightened up and glared at Sam.
"Daniel, she was claiming to be my niece. Can you really blame me?"
"I guess not." He clutched his hair, "So what DO I do? It's not just the danger to her. It's going to be a little hard for us to have kids, if she's going through the gate."
Sam nearly ran the car off the road. She took several deep breaths. "Have kids? You're already planning on getting married? I find it hard to believe she's on board with starting a family at this point."
"I told you Sam. I've waited a long time. I've seen my 40th birthday."
"So have I," Sam said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "That doesn't mean that your partner has the same agenda."
"Jack doesn't want kids," Daniel guessed.
"It's not an issue. We don't have a wedding planned."
"Exactly."
"What does that mean?" Sam asked.
"If you were as honest with yourself as Rain is with herself, you'd know," Daniel responded.
"Speaks the great master of looking at things realistically," Sam spat out. That was the end of the conversation until Sam exclaimed, "There's something wrong with the tire. The car's pulling."
They were an area of strip commercial development and she eased the car off the road into a gas station sandwiched between a MacDonald's and a Lowe's. Daniel got out and said, "You have a major flat tire. You got a spare, right?"
He opened up the trunk and started rooting around with his good arm. "Daniel," Sam said, getting out of the car, "what the hell are you doing?" Her voice was perhaps overloud because she was still quite aggravated with him. "You've got a seriously wounded arm. Back off and let me deal with this."
Daniel noticed a man who had been filling his car at the next pump gaping at them. He abandoned the hose in the gas tank and pulled a cell phone off his belt. "Sam," Daniel said quietly, "I think we've attracted the wrong sort of attention."
She followed the direction of his gaze to the man on the cell phone who kept looking over in their direction. "I hate it when you're right," she said, begrudgingly.
A man emerged, somewhat belatedly in Daniel's opinion, from the bowels of the station. "Can I help you?" he asked, not sounding terribly interested in doing so.
Daniel remembered fondly when gas stations were for more than standing by and watching patrons fill their own cars and then selling them ersatz cappuccino that gave the real stuff a bad name. "If you wouldn't mind assisting my friend with her tire, I've got an injured arm and we need to get on our way."
He looked at them both like he didn't understand "help" or maybe "tire." "Please," Sam added.
"You're those Heroic Lovebirds, aren't yah?" he asked.
"Not exactly," Daniel said.
He chose to ignore the disavowal and made the situation much worse by adding the opinion, "I thought you were a whole lot younger and juicier on TV, lady," he said to Sam. "You just never know what you're looking at, do you?"
Sam had a tire iron in her hand and Daniel thought that for a moment, she was contemplating beaning the man with it. The attendant redeemed himself in a very partial way by going to work to quickly and effectively get the spare on the car. Unfortunately, as he was putting the tire iron back in Sam's trunk, he collided with Sam who was trying to assist with putting in the tire they had removed. The tire iron flew up and hit Daniel's arm. He cried out in serious pain.
They got back on the road with Sam muttering to herself and Daniel periodically emitting small moans. He said, "I think it's started bleeding again."
"Do you want to go to the hospital or something?"
"Let's just finish what we came to do. It'll probably stop."
They pulled up in front of Daniel's and had just gotten out of the car when, probably as a result of the cell call at the station, a television channel's van pulled up at the same time. "Maybe we should get in the car and just drive away," Daniel suggested.
"That might look pretty guilty? What do you think?"
Their moment of indecision cost them because a reporter trailed by a guy with a camera was almost on them. The reporter, a pretty young woman, looked confused as she looked at Sam when she got closer. "Dr. Jackson? Captain Carter?" she asked.
"Colonel Carter," Sam said reflexively and then winced at having revealed the information.
"I don't understand," the reporter said.
The cameraman rolled his eyes. "It's NOT the same woman," he said. He wasn't very patient. Perhaps this particular reporter was not one of those who had won her spot through hard hitting investigative reporting.
"Okay," the reporter said. She clearly decided that she who hesitates is lost and plunged right into questioning Daniel, uncertainties not withstanding. "Dr. Jackson, you appear to be hurt. Did this happen on the job in the Mountain?"
Daniel was caught flat footed. He was all prepared to discuss Rain's problem, but, in some colossal oversight, hadn't really considered how to explain his own problem. "It was a freak accident, right, Colonel Carter?"
"Utterly freakish," Sam said. It was clear that if Daniel expected her to be the one to come up with inventive lies, it was outside of her job description.
"Could you describe what happened in more detail?"
"No. All activities in our program are classified," Daniel said stoutly. He began to steer Sam toward the door.
"Do you have any comment about your girl friend, Rain Carter's hospitalization?"
"No," Daniel said, pulling out his keys.
"How does she feel about you running around on her with her double while she is lying in a hospital bed?" asked the reporter.
Her cameraman gave her a look that seemed to say, "We are part of the REPUTABLE media," but she was unabashed.
"This is her aunt," Daniel said. "Rain told us both to leave and get some rest. Okay?"
He had the door open now, Sam went through quickly, and he closed it in the reporter's face.
He looked a little pale and Sam quickly shepherded him to the couch. She eased the coat back that was draped over his arm. There was a respectable blood stain showing on the bandage. "I think we need to get you back to Dr. Lam," she said, her concern plain in her voice.
"Damn it, Sam. Let's do what we came here for first, okay?" he said. His vehement words were less effective than they might have been given the pain in his voice. Daniel appreciated the way that Sam moved quickly, gathering up what he directed her to. She worked so rapidly that they were ready to depart again in ten minutes.
They were gathering their strength to go back through the door and out to the car when Sam said, "She isn't at all worried about me, is she?"
"Huh?" was all Daniel could muster. Daniel was beginning to be concerned that all the medication he had taken in the past couple of days had caused some loss of mental function.
"Rain. She sent you off with me as if there was no reason not to. She didn't see it as you running around with possible competition like that reporter did."
"Should she? You're her aunt and she's in a hospital bed."
"No. Of course not." Sam grabbed her purse, took Daniel's good hand, and pulled him to his feet. "I'm pretty strong, but I don't think I can carry you. Let's get you back to the Mountain and your doctor while you can still do it under your own steam."