Twenty Eight Days
Part Three
"So you're going?" He seemed resigned, but Sam didn't quite trust her judgement. It wasn't in his nature to be resigned - he'd been fighting all his life, and he wasn't going to stop now.
She lifted her chin. "Just for a holiday, sir."
Time out. Time away. Something that neither of them mentioned or acknowledged. They would learn to cope without her, and she would learn to breathe again.
Maybe.
The ties between them kept them inextricably bound. She had nowhere to run to - except to them. And they were caught as well: trapped between their unwillingness to see her violated when they could have stopped it, and their own violation in the process.
"Where?"
"San Diego."
"Mark?"
"Yes." Of course, Sam's relationship with her brother was rather more adversarial than familial. Within a week, they'd have argued their way through everything from their father to her job, but the change would be welcome.
And the guys would have to learn to manage without her.
He watched her as the elevator took them up, up, up towards the open sky and the world above the mountain where they worked, and she watched him in return, too aware of the way his eyes lingered on her face, unwilling to invite his interest any further, but unwilling to ask him to step back.
In the end, he paused as the doors opened at his office level, stepped into her personal space and brushed his lips past her temple, warm and tender. She felt his finger touch her chin, tilting her face up towards him. "Be good, Carter."
It was only after the doors closed on his retreating back that Sam found her voice. "Yes, sir," she whispered into the emptiness.
--
Two weeks in San Diego did her good.
Away from the guys, away from her work, away from the mountain, spending time with her brother and his family.
There were other distractions, most notably a guy her brother set her up with for a date or two. A cop. Ordinary. Nice. Charming in his own way. On the rebound from a failed marriage.
Sam had no intention of hitting that force field. Especially not when she felt like she was on the rebound herself. But she was tempted, if only for a while.
Besides which, her guys were never far from her thoughts.
As she leaned back in her seat aboard the commercial flight back to Colorado Springs and closed her eyes, her memory cast up the delicate touch of the Colonel's index finger, resting beneath her chin as he lifted her face to him. The gesture haunted her, waking or sleeping; to the point where she'd flinched when her date tried to coax her face his way for a quick kiss goodnight.
Before Pindalyn, physical contact between her and the Colonel had been minimal, defined by their determination not to speak of what ran between them. In the last eighteen months since the 'incident' aboard Apophis' ship and subsequent revelations, they'd been tested too many times to make things easy between them.
Since Pindalyn, physical contact had become the norm. And he was always the instigator - every touch, every caress. Intentional or unintentional, she remembered all of it. It was as though he needed more than just the evidence of his eyes as reassurance of her presence, and only physical contact would satisfy him.
They lifted off, they flew. Sam drank her diet cola and pondered how things had changed - whether they'd changed at all. She would go back, and the guys would crowd her again, and everything would be exactly the same.
Or not.
The time in San Diego had done what the time immediately after Pindalyn could not: given her the space, time and place to get back on her feet again.
What had been done to them still haunted her and always would, but she could deal with it now. She could deal with them.
And maybe they'd be able to deal with her, too.
For two weeks, she hadn't called them, hadn't emailed them, hadn't answered anything but the work beeper - and that had been utterly silent. They knew when she was due back, and she'd left the information for her return flight with Janet, under silent agreement that her friend would pick her up.
Sam wasn't sure what it meant when they touched down and she walked into the airport and found the Colonel dressed in civvies, sitting in the waiting lounge, staring out the window, apparently unaware of his surroundings.
As she approached, he glanced at her, not surprised by her presence. "Carter." He didn't move from his spot and she stopped beside him. "Have a good holiday?" There was an undercurrent to his words, tugging gently at her consciousness, but she answered him without innuendo.
"Yes, sir." She wanted to ask him what he was doing here. She almost asked him if he'd missed her. Those were dangerous words to voice. "How's things at work?"
He shrugged. "The usual. Still not cleared. They've got me doing some training out with the cadets at the Academy." A slight smile touched his face.
"You give them hell?" Sam hazarded, and got the full grin.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" He got to his feet. "They're not bad kids. The leader's okay - although a bit too clever for his own good. Keeps trying to work out what's going to win him the most brownie points with me."
"So has he?"
"Yeah. But I keep making it hard for him." Another grin, this one oddly confiding. It heated her gently, from the tips of her ears all the way down to her toes. "Got everything?"
Sam lifted the duffle. "All I took."
He nodded, and indicated the exit. "After you."
--
They were two of many people leaving the airport, but Sam noted the contrast between the behaviour of the others as they greeted each other.
Others hugged, kissed, touched shoulders, small signs of affection amidst a greater homecoming. She and the Colonel kept a small distance between them, careful not to even brush knuckles as they walked side by side.
Not that she minded. The warmth of him, rapidly filling the cabin of the Ford 250, was more than enough proximity for her. And his vehicle smelled of him; sweat and musk and dark spice.
He answered her questions about the base and what had been happening while she was away. Teal'c and Daniel were apparently fine. In her absence, they'd been set to various projects that needed doing. Daniel was having an abcessed tooth removed today and Teal'c was working on an inventory of their Goa'uld weaponry.
But there was neither question nor answer for the matter that stood between them.
Familiar houses greeted her as they turned into her street, and she began to ask, 'So are any of my plants still living?'
The tinny ring of a cellphone interrupted them both, and he blinked in surprise and reached for his jacket pocket. There was a moment when he fumbled around with one hand on the steering as his other tried to delve deep enough to get the phone, then Sam reached over and snagged the corner of the jacket, holding it down so he could reach the phone.
His skin was hot, even from an inch away. She could feel him radiating warmth through his jacket, like a human furnace.
It stopped ringing, just as he plucked it out, and he swore.
Sam grinned at him as she drew back. "Always happens, sir."
"I keep forgetting to put it on the dashboard," he muttered, doing as he said as he continued to navigate through the streets of her suburb. "Wait..."
Whoever it was on the other end evidently wanted to speak with him, because the phone began ringing again.
"O'Neill." He glanced at Sam, "Yeah, this is he." His face clouded, darkening abruptly as he pulled over on the side of the street. "What? When?" He glanced at Sam, then at the dashboard clock. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
It wasn't the mountain. It was at least thirty minutes from Sam's house to the mountain, but where else...?
"It's Daniel," he said as he shut the phone. "Academy hospital. Apparently he's not doing well with the anaesthetic..."
The Colonel didn't ask if she wanted to go and see Daniel, he just drove. And Sam's dread formed a thin, cold layer around her stomach and chest and ached slightly.
In the day surgery section of the hospital, more than a few people had crowded around to see what the commotion was.
And there was definitely a commotion.
In the corner of what was usually an operating room, complete with window view, Daniel was holding medical personnel at bay, swinging the IV stand like a club. Judging by the ice pack being held on the rapidly-forming bruise on the cheek of one of the attendants, he'd laid out about him at least once.
"Dr. Hamish?" The Colonel picked the person who looked like they had the most authority - a man dressed in a white surgical coat. "I'm Colonel O'Neill. What happened?"
It seemed that this was the man who'd called to let the Colonel know about this situation with Daniel. "The anaesthetic didn't quite take. He woke up as they were increasing the dosage..."
Someone tried to approach Daniel, hands spread wide in apparent harmlessness. He jerked back as Daniel lashed out with the stand. His accuracy was excellent, no pulled blows here. The man stumbled back, swearing beneath his breath, his expression angry.
"He's already injured one of my people," the skinny doctor said, huffing. "I've called security to get the tranks..."
The cold in Sam's gut turned to ice, and the Colonel gave her a look before he turned to the man. "He's got PTSD," he lied glibly - or maybe it wasn't so much of a lie, after all. "Tranking him won't do his state of mind any good."
"Leaving him to lash around with that thing won't do any good either," Dr. Hamish noted dryly. Considering he had at least two of his people injured, Sam was surprised he wasn't climbing the walls.
"Clear your people out." The Colonel had enough of an air of authority to make the doctor think about what he was saying.
"We can trank him."
They could. But it wouldn't change anything.
Sam edged her way to the door of the operating chamber. She wasn't sure what it was the prompted her to step into the room, shaking off the hand of the man who tried to stop her. "Ma'am, it's probably best if you don't--"
Something in her was rising, choking as the guilt she thought she'd managed to put away. An instinct, a knowledge - a responsibility?
Whatever state Daniel had been in when he woke, he was in something close to a beserker rage now. She caught a glimpse of his eyes as he swung this way and that. The whites were showing, and his movements were erratic.
She took one deep breath and walked into the room, stopping just out of range of the stand. "Daniel."
He stared at her for a long, suspicious moment, and the murmurs of the people in the corridor beyond seemed to quieten. There was a second when it seemed he'd listen...
Then someone made an injudicious move.
Swift as a striking snake, Daniel stepped around Sam - and brought the stand crashing down on the man who'd moved beyond her. Then there were people swarming in, trying to surround them, and she could hear the Colonel's voice issuing orders in the tone of voice that meant serious trouble if he wasn't obeyed. Daniel was still laying about him with the stand, but she was pressed behind him, protected from the crowding throng by his body and the stand he used like a weapon.
It was the Colonel who took Daniel down in the end. Ducked beneath his swing, yanked the stand away, and bodily hauled Daniel away from the crowd back to the opposing wall. And still the younger man fought.
She went to help the Colonel deal with Daniel, trusting Dr. Hamish to keep his people in place.
As she touched him, Daniel stopped fighting.
He lunged into her arms, clinging to her as though she was a liferaft. Given what he was remembering, perhaps she was.
Sam couldn't hear what he was mumbling into her shoulder, the broken, blunted words. She was watching Colonel O'Neill as he looked from Daniel to her and scrubbed a hand through his hair in sudden weariness.
And Daniel clung to her like there was no tomorrow.
--
"Sir?"
"Carter?" He turned his head to look at her, his eyes shadowed hollows under the bone of his brow.
"What did you exchange for this visit"
His grimace was visible, even in the dim confines of the cell. "Need to know, Carter."
"I think this is something I need to know, sir." Part of her wanted to know what kind of a price they were paying to keep her safe. Part of her wanted her account to be debited with the toll of their sacrifice. Part of her wanted to run screaming from the knowledge, because there was no way she would like what it was – but she needed to know.
He owed her that much.
She owed him that much.
In a fluid movement, he had risen to his feet and was pacing the cell. His cuffs fluttered around his hands, the black-button-on-white-linen a rapidly moving dot as he raked his hands through his hair. "You don't want to know."
"Let's say I do."
The Colonel shook his head. "Trust me, you don't."
"You don't want me to know."
"No."
"Then it must be bad."
He shuddered. "You have no idea."
Logic set in, cold and rational. "Neither do you, or you wouldn't have 'earned' this visit by offering to do it." She followed his pacing, the almost feline way he moved, the limp hardly noticeable any more. On a bad day, the Colonel was enough to turn heads; dressed as he was now, with a saunter to his stride, the man was easily capable of slaying them in the aisles. No wonder Akaitah had coveted him. "What was it, Colonel?"
The pacing stopped, leaving him by the bars. He turned towards her and as she saw his expression, Sam abruptly wished she hadn't asked. Then she steeled herself. She was a soldier: she'd seen and done terrible things before. She could hack this.
"What was it?"
His hands rested lightly on the bars and one slipped through to beckon her to come to him. "C'mere, Carter."
"Sir..."
"Don't make me order you." There was a gentle mockery in his voice. "Come here and I'll tell you."
Uncertainly, Sam rose to her feet, kicking off the shreds of blanket. She wasn't sure she wanted to approach him – the Colonel had always been a 'hands-on' kind of guy, while Daniel was the 'comforting touch' type. If nine days had turned Daniel into an open-caresser, so to speak, Sam didn't really want to know her commanding officer's capabilities.
But she'd asked and he'd answered.
She owed him this.
So she approached the bars, mirroring his pose. Looking up into dark eyes made darker by the shadows and the torture of the last few days. "Sir?"
"May I?" He held his arms out and she moved into them very slowly, turning her head away from his throat so she wouldn't be tempted into anything more. And the temptation was strong. It always had been.
His arms closed around her, slowly, tenderly. Almost as if he was afraid of hurting her somehow – or that she would flinch away. Sam forced her arms to circle his chest and forced her body to relax.
"So what will you have to do?"
Laughter vibrated briefly in her ears and under her arms. "You're relentless, you know that?"
"You said you'd tell me."
Laughter died and he sighed. "It's an injection they give us."
"What of?"
"They call it 'calleon'." The tone of voice was reflective, as if he was naming something of mild interest and curiosity. Yet his body tensed against hers in response to the naming of the drug.
"What does it do?"
"You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"No, sir."
His arms closed around her tighter, one hand resting intimately in the small of her back, the other curling up to hold her body close to him. "Calleon," he said tightly, "is like an overdose of Viagra."
--
"He woke up being administered drugs by a strange woman," the Colonel said, staring out at the Gateroom. "If I'd woken up in the same circumstances, I'd have lashed out, too."
Sam saw the glances passed between General Hammond and Janet. Mackenzie didn't - or he ignored it. "Colonel, we've spoken of your trust issues..."
"Mackenzie, you don't know the first or last thing about my trust issues," said Colonel O'Neill with the brusqueness of a man who was rapidly being pushed beyond his limits. "Daniel reacted as I'd expect. He reacted as I would've." He turned a little, allowing them to see the grim smile that touched his lips. "Although there'd probably be less injuries and more corpses if it had been me."
The casual nature of his comment chilled Sam to the bone. She brought it up to Janet later in the other woman's office.
"Distancing," Janet said. "Not quite depersonalisation, but they're getting there." The chief medical officer sighed and scraped one hand through her hair. "They don't like Mackenzie so any counselling or therapy from him is mostly a loss. We've considered getting one of the other two psychologists with clearance in, but when it was brought up, they objected."
Across the table, her friend winced. "So much for your holiday away," she said, reaching out to touch Sam on the hand. "You look as though it helped you."
"It did." But, from the sounds of it, it hadn't helped the guys at all. "Janet, the trust issues that the guys are having..."
"Mostly women. Specifically, women in authority roles." Janet grimaced.
"You?"
She received a brief, snorting laugh in answer. "Sam, I barely reach the Colonel's armpit. I'm not a threat to them - even if I am in an authority role." She shrugged. "They treat me pretty much the same as always."
"Maybe the women that show an interest in them?"
"It's hard not to," Janet admitted. "They turned heads before they came back from Pindalyn. Now Daniel walks into the infirmary and half my nurses break into a sweat." She began shuffling through her papers. "Sam, at least one issue is that they don't have many women they know and trust. After what was done to them, they regard most women as dangerous."
"And that makes them dangerous."
"Yes."
Sam thought of the woman who'd been nursing her cheek at the Academy Hospital. "Will the nursing assistant be okay?"
"Both of them will," said Janet. "We've explained it as PTSD, which is more accurate than I like. I don't think we're there quite yet, but it could go that way if they keep dealing - or non-dealing - like this."
Someone was running in the corridor outside and a nurse swung into the room, using the doorframe as a pivot. "Dr. Fraiser! Colonel O'Neill said you're needed up in the gym," he glanced at Sam. "Major, if you'd come as well."
Janet hadn't quite grabbed her bags and vaulted over the table, but she could move very fast for a small woman. "What is it?"
"Not sure, ma'am," the man said as he led them up along the corridor. "The Colonel said something about Teal'c and that you'd better hurry."
Sam's stomach lurched.
--
The SFs were patched up, and confessed that they'd been clowning around, practising a dual pinning movement on Teal'c when he reacted.
Colonel O'Neill had been called immediately and arrived within seconds. It was he who called for Sam and not just the doctor. Previous experience with Daniel? Maybe.
"Or maybe he was reacting to something he didn't even know," said Janet.
Sam stared at the patterns of wood veneer on the table's edge.
"You're suggesting that they react to Major Carter's presence - or her absence," General Hammond said with more mildness than Sam would have expected from any commander faced with such a situation.
"It's possible that the outbursts - both Dr. Jackson and Teal'c's - were in response to her return," Mackenzie said.
"But if they were acting out against the Major's absence, shouldn't we have seen examples of this kind of behaviour when she first left?"
"The Colonel, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c all have a history of repressing feelings or emotions they don't wish to deal with at the present moment," pointed out the psychologist. Not that anyone in the room needed to be told of that. "It may simply be a delayed reaction to that."
Round and round went the conversation, over Sam's head and beyond her scope. All she knew was that they were the loaded gun and she was the finger on the trigger.
Then she heard the words, 'reassignment to another team' and jerked up.
All eyes were upon her; including the very sharp gaze of her superior commander. Technically, she was off-duty in the mountain, since she'd only just returned from holidays and wouldn't be back on duty for another day at least. But Sam should have been paying attention.
"Major?"
"I just... Sir? I'm being reassigned to another team?" She was sure if the sensations she felt were excitement at being allowed back onto active duty, or terror at the thought of being sent out without the familiarity of her old team-mates.
And maybe that was why they were contemplating sending her out at all.
"Their reliance on you as an emotional crutch isn't healthy, Major," Dr. Mackenzie said, and there was an element of regret in his words. "This is one more step towards weaning them off it."
Her mouth was dry. She didn't ask where she'd be reassigned - that wasn't her decision. Instead, she asked, "What...what else is being done with them?"
"Medication, continued counselling sessions, and psychotherapy where they co-operate." Judging by Mackenzie's expression, the guys' co-operation had been far and few between. "Rehabilitation by any and all means necessary."
And at all costs? Sam couldn't help wondering. It was an unusual stance to take; the Air Force was more in the habit of casting aside those who'd outlived their usefulness to the organisation - that was the nature of most organisations.
Perhaps the General saw her astonishment. "Major, the three of them are as close to indispensable to this project as they come."
"Is the Colonel aware of this?"
"At some level, he must be. We need them back on active duty status. Perhaps not back on an outgoing Stargating team, but their value to the project goes far beyond what they - and you - contributed as SG-1."
Which was a little comforting.
The prospect of separation from her team-mates wasn't.
--