Sam shifted in her sleep, trying to relieve the ache in her lower back. The movement sent stabs of pain through her left calf, though, and she woke with a moan.
"Pain? Do you have meds?"
Jack. She'd forgotten he'd slept beside her after collecting every pillow in the house and ever so carefully building the mound her leg rested on. Waking up with him made her heart go warm and liquid, and she leaned over to touch her forehead to his with a smile. "Yeah. And an antibiotic. Daniel had them. He may have taken them with him when he ran away."
"I'll get 'em regardless." Jack pressed a tender kiss to her cheekbone before rolling out of bed. The kitchen counter was empty, but there was a plastic bag on the front table with her wallet, car keys, and two prescription bottles. Swinging through the kitchen for a glass of water, he headed back to the bedroom.
Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed when he returned, one foot on the floor and her braced leg stretched out. He helped her juggle the bottles for a moment, then handed her the water to swallow them. Settling to the edge of the mattress beside her, close, he offered, "He said you crashed? Must have been bad."
"No," she said with a shake of her head. "I mean, yes, obviously, but not for me. I came out fine. Banged my head a little, screwed up a few fingers. Cuts and bruises."
"Then what happened to your leg?"
She took a deep breath and told him, "That was later – days later. Anyone on their feet with any sort of technical expertise had been working nonstop. We had to get power to the mess hall; it was the largest space for a medical ward that hadn't been crushed. Keeping constant power to that and the infirmary were tough. And we were trying to reach the second hangar bay to see if any of the F302s might fly. Or might be usable, at least. But that section of the ship was incredibly unstable. I was in an access tube when it collapsed. A support beam came down on my leg."
"Nothing's broken," he surmised. The brace was pretty lightweight; it seemed designed only to keep her foot up and prevent her from bending her knee.
"They didn't think so. They said to be grateful that it only looked bad and that they didn't have to cut me open. But by day four, I was on a double dose of anti-inflammatories and throwing up from the pain. It was unbearable. They knew something was wrong, but they weren't sure what, and they told me if they didn't operate and figure it out, I could lose my leg – or at least lose the use of it. But nothing was really sterile anymore, and if they did operate, I could die. I didn't care by then," she admitted, turning to shrug at Jack, and he could see the fatigue in her eyes. "I've never been in such excruciating, unrelenting pain. If they'd offered me a lethal dose of morphine, I'd have taken it and thanked them for it. It was awful."
Jack's hand found hers in her lap, and he intertwined their fingers.
"I felt a hundred times better after the surgery. They called it compartment syndrome – that pressure had been building up in the damage muscles, and they'd released it. But the low dose of antibiotics they'd given me wasn't enough, and two days later I developed a fever. Two days after that, we ran out of antibiotics entirely. Sergeant Petrov died. Then Lieutenant Bates. We're lucky Colonel Chekov found the Gate when he did. We would have lost more. A lot more."
It had to have been terrifying. Jack hated that she'd gone through that, but more, hated that she'd had to go through it without her team. Without him. He slid his arms gently around her and pressed a kiss to her temple.
For a moment, she let him hold her. But there was only so much sympathy she could take; after all, she'd been one of the lucky ones. Almost half the crew of the Korolev had died. "Would you mind getting my crutches? I need to get up."
"Sure."