OK – confession time. The end of the last chapter was actually the first part I wrote for this story. I saw a newspaper article about secondary drowning and thought it would make a good storyline. I just had to work out how to get there so you've been dragged along while my convoluted brain worked out the rest of the details. It is a real phenomenon and not just something I made up. So for those of you who commented on cliffhangers – I've had one going on in my head for weeks! And no I'm not in therapy, yet, but if I keep writing fanfic I may end up there :-)

Chapter Nine

"Lucas!"

Ben shot out of his seat and ran to the back of the shuttle. Drowning? He couldn't have heard the doctor properly. Lucas wasn't drowning. He was exhausted for sure. Asleep on the seat. Not drowning. Not here, safely inside the shuttle. He watched the scene before him and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Lucas was not drowning.

Then why were the two of them trying so frantically to get him to breathe? Johannsen had a hand held respirator over his face to force air into his lungs and she counted every breath as Kristin was doing cardiac compressions. She looked up and yelled at him.

"Ben! Take care of Nathan. Let medbay know what we're dealing with. We need a surgical team ready when we arrive."

His legs refused to move. This wasn't happening.

"Uh yeah, um…"

"Lieutenant!"

He snapped around and headed over to where the captain was. He hadn't moved since they had placed him on the seat. Take care of him – yeah, right! The only thing he knew to do was check for a pulse. Ben knelt down beside him and realised that Crocker was already speaking to the seaQuest.

"Commander, we're still about twenty minutes out."

"All right, Chief. The med teams will be ready for you when you get here. Anything else you need?"

"Can you crank up those engines any faster?"

"We're already running at full speed. We'll be there soon."

"You need to be here NOW!" thought Ben. He felt the captain move beside him and looked down to see his body begin to convulse.

"Doc! What do I do?" he called helplessly.

Kristin looked up and realised another seizure had started.

"Just stop him from hurting himself. Protect his head and don't let him fall off the seat. See if you can get that sling off from around his neck. Let me know when it stops." She turned her attention back to Lucas while keeping an ear out for what was happening on the other side of the shuttle.

Ben tried to ease the sling off Bridger's arm and even though he knew the captain couldn't feel it, he cringed at what he was doing anyway. He slipped the knot around to the front and tried to undo it. As the seizure subsided he looked down at the captain's pale, sweaty face and realised that Lucas had already experienced this. "He must have been terrified watching this," Ben thought.

Kristin stopped the compressions to check Lucas for a pulse. She smiled as she felt a faint beat beneath her fingers and she looked expectantly towards Johannsen. The smile quickly faded as the ensign shook her head. He still wasn't breathing on his own.

"Come on. We're nearly there," she whispered to him.

"Kristin? What's happening over there?" Ben called from the other side of the shuttle.

"I've got a thready pulse but I'm going to have to intubate him. He still isn't breathing unassisted."

She rifled through the medical supplies she had brought aboard until she found what she needed. Putting in a ventilator tube was something she had done many times before but this time was different. This time she had a sixteen-year-old boy in front of her who meant far more to her than she had ever allowed herself to admit. And this time she felt she was to blame for his condition as she had failed to realise what state he was in back on the island.

As soon as word came through from Crocker that they had found the captain and Lucas a shout of relief had gone up around the bridge. It had been short-lived though as he had relayed the medical information on their respective conditions. Ford transferred the information through to medbay while O'Neill began recalling the rest of the search craft.

He knew they were still about fifteen minutes away but Ford couldn't stand waiting around on the bridge any longer.

"Commander, you have the bridge," he looked over at Katie. She nodded at him and tried to smile encouragingly as Ford left the bridge and headed down to the docking bay.

As the shuttle finally docked there was a flurry of activity in the docking bay. Doctor Jacobs had two med teams waiting well before the shuttle arrived and now they sprang into action. The shuttle door swung open and the first two medics ran through. Their military training carried them past the initial shocking sight of their captain and they quickly transferred him to a gurney.

Ben was forced to squeeze up against the wall as they backed out of the cramped shuttle and raced off to medbay. Ford stared after them as he took in the condition of his captain. "What happened out there?"

The second gurney was wheeled in and Lucas was quickly lifted onto it. Ensign Johannsen was relieved by another medic who took over with the ventilator. She flexed her hands and shook them to try to ease the muscle tension as she followed the gurney down the corridor.

Doctor Westphalen was issuing directions while walking briskly alongside Lucas. She knew the surgical team was all ready for the captain and he had been whisked off out of her sight already. It took all her professionalism to stop herself running after them.

They would be scrubbed and ready to start surgery immediately whereas she would only delay things if she insisted on scrubbing in too. She knew he was in excellent hands and as much as she wanted to be there too, she wouldn't delay treatment for any reason. She knew the seizure that she had witnessed wasn't the first one he had experienced and from what Lucas had said they were getting worse. There was no time to waste so right now she had to focus on Lucas instead.

Krieg and Crocker were left standing in the empty shuttle and neither one seemed to know what to do next. Since they had first seen Darwin until now had been a rollercoaster of emotion and they were both feeling drained.

Ford stepped through the door and looked at both of them. He saw his own fear mirrored in their faces and he knew that whatever he had experienced here was nothing compared to what these two men had just been through. Crocker had kept them informed of events on the shuttle ride back to seaQuest and Ford knew it had been a tense trip home.

Ben opened his mouth to speak but nothing appropriate came to mind. All three of them were seasoned military men and yet each one of them felt shaken to the core. Nothing needed to be said. Their faces said it all. Ben stared at the seat where not long before he had seen the doctor trying desperately to get his young friend to breathe. Without a word he turned and walked out of the shuttle and headed for medbay.

Ford turned back to Crocker and asked, "What happened out there, Chief? When you radioed in you said Lucas had run down the beach. What happened to him?"

Crocker shook his head as though he was trying to make sense of recent events. "We got Bridger on the shuttle and started heading back when all hell broke loose in the back. Lucas … he just … stopped breathing! Kristin said he was drowning, something about still having water in his lungs. I dunno, Commander, I thought you had to be in the water to drown but I guess not."

"You got them back, Chief. Let's go and see what's happening in medbay."

Even though Lucas had a weak pulse he still wasn't breathing. The medic had kept the ventilator going in a rhythmic motion until they reached medbay and then Kristin moved quickly to replace it with the mechanical ventilator.

With the tube in place already it didn't take long before Lucas was breathing in a steady rhythm courtesy of the ventilator. The machine beeped softly each time he took a breath. Another monitor showed his heart rate and it was still too slow and uneven.

Kristin frowned at the readings on the monitor as she noticed his blood oxygen levels were still way too low. For some reason he still wasn't getting enough oxygen and she grabbed the stethoscope to work out why.

Ben pushed his way through the heavy medbay doors and stopped short when he saw the monitors and machines surrounding Lucas. As much as they scared him, the fact that they were beeping steadily sounded comforting. He had no idea what was being done and he hung back, waiting to see what happened.

Minutes later Ford and Crocker followed him through the door. Westphalen had noted their entrance but was too busy to deal with them right now.

"You need to wait outside. I'll come and let you know how he is as soon as I can." She pushed a wisp of stray hair aside as she gently probed Lucas' ribs. She was shocked at how bruised and gashed he was but was relieved to find there was no sign of broken ribs.

Ben didn't seem like he was going to move but Ford placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him back out the door. Eventually Kristin walked back out and sat down on the vacant chair across from Ford. She looked exhausted but smiled at them anyway.

"I can only surmise what happened out there but I would guess that Lucas spent an extended amount of time in the water. He said they were separated when the raft sank. He must have inhaled a significant amount of water because his lungs started to shut down. I didn't pick up on it but it's called secondary drowning. Not enough to drown instantly but if left untreated, can cause death within twenty four hours."

She paused and rubbed her hand over her face. Lucas had nearly died because she missed something important.

"Anyway the lining of the lungs gets inflamed and fluid builds up which reduces the flow of oxygen. His left lung had collapsed but we've put in a chest tube and that's being treated."

"What about the machine you had him on?" Ben asked. "Can't he breathe?"

"The ventilator is doing the work for him at the moment. It's helping to re-inflate the lung."

"So, ah, is he going to be all right?" Ford had noted the guilt in her voice and wasn't sure what to make of it.

"It's too soon to tell but yes I think he will be all right. I want to leave him on the ventilator until he's stronger."

Ben smiled with relief and then frowned again as he realised the doctor hadn't yet said anything about Bridger.

Ford beat him to the question and Kristin paused as though carefully measuring her words before speaking.

"I'm heading in there in a minute but I've been getting updates from the operating theatre. From what Lucas said, Nathan was injured last night and knocked unconscious. He has a serious skull fracture which has been untreated for far too long. Lucas described symptoms of seizures that have been happening all day. They were also increasing in intensity. He has been bleeding into the brain for the past twenty four hours and Doctor Jacobs said there was significant swelling of the brain." She paused as though she didn't want to go on.

"So what happens now?" Ford asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"We wait and see," she said as she stood up, getting ready to head into the theatre.