Chapter 37. Line in the Sand
Cam carefully slides the needle through the ripped ends of flesh and pulls the thread tight. His fingers shake briefly, streaked with red, but he forces his hand to steady. He has seen his fair share of war wounds in his time, but there was almost always a medic on hand to deal with the nitty gritty. Cam's hands have never been so stained in the blood of one of his own; the sticky sanguine seeps under his fingernails, and he swallows down the bile that claws its way up his throat. He pulls another stitch tight.
Sam's whimper is choked off by gritted teeth, and he knows she is suppressing her cries through sheer force of will; to make it easier on him, no doubt. He wishes he could've waited for the morphine to kick in before he started this, but she was losing too much blood – still is losing too much blood. He is kneeling in a puddle of it; the crimson seeping into the cotton of his pants. He'd likely have to throw them away after this; the stain would never come out.
Cam finishes the stitching and begins packing the wound with gauze. Piles of blood-soaked strips surround him like pink roses thrown at the ballerina's feet. The sight nearly makes him balk.
"Alright, Sam, we're gonna have to sit you up so I can bandage you. You ready?" She nods almost imperceptibly, and Cam holds the gauze in place and slides his other arm under her to lever her upright. Her cry of pain is strangled by a clenched jaw, but Cam still winces in sympathy, muttering apologies. He helps her shift back onto the low-lying cot, her head and shoulders resting against the rough stone wall as he wraps the white bandage around her torso.
His eyes keep flicking to her face; drawn, clammy, and very, very pale. The plasma blast tore straight through her, and though Cam has stitched up her outsides, it was her insides he was now most concerned about. He couldn't know exactly how much damage had been done internally, but he did know if he couldn't get her home soon, she would die out here on this alien planet.
Her eyelids flutter, drooping, and he helps her to lie down on the cot, resting her on her uninjured side. Her lips are moving, trying to form sounds. "Ca..." She rasps, her voice weak and feeble.
"Shhh. Don't try to talk. Just rest, Sam. We'll have you back on base and fixed up in no time. Don't you worry." She looks like she is trying to say something else, but her eyes close, the morphine finally kicking in and allowing her to drift off. He listens to her breathe; rapid and shallow, but reassuringly alive.
Cam tries to rinse some of the blood from his hands, but no matter how hard he scrubs, it sticks to the cracks in his skin and stains his nailbeds ruddy.
It's a while later before she wakes up again. An hour – two? Cam isn't sure; he's been standing at the window, watching the Ori soldiers round up the villagers, unable to help, unable to intervene without disabling the phase-shift device and therefore risking Sam's life.
She gasps sharply – pain sucked through clenched teeth – and he leaves the window to go to her. "Is it getting worse?"
"Not getting better." She grounds out, her words clipped. She attempts to lean up on her elbows, but she barely manages to lift her head before being overcome by the pain. Her agonised whine makes his gut twist.
Cam squats down to rummage through the med-kit. "Listen, I've been thinking..."
"Uh-oh." She manages with a huff that Cam guesses was meant to be a laugh. He smiles wryly. Humour had to be a good sign, right?
"Yeah. Dangerous, I know." He pulls out one of the pre-filled morphine syringes and jabs her in the thigh as gently as he possibly can. Only three left.
"I can leave the field and still stay out of phase, right? So, I was thinking I'd take some C4, plant it around the village, come back here, use the explosives as a distraction to-" He pauses when she shakes her head vigorously. "What? You haven't even heard the rest of the plan!"
"You can't leave the device here." She rasps. Her face is clammy and damp with sweat, and her eyes, when they open enough for him to see, are glassy with pain.
"Well, I was gonna save some C4 for that as well." Her eyes do open then, managing to focus on his face. "You cannot sacrifice the device for me. It's still our best chance against the Ori." It's an order, but not one Cam is particularly inclined to obey.
"No offence, but that gizmo's not showing a whole lot of promise right now."
She almost manages to roll her eyes at him; a feat with which Cam is rather impressed, considering her condition. "It'll work. It just wasn't ready for this... I'm probably not going to make it, either way."
"No!" He cuts her off, trying and failing to keep the tremble from his voice. He points a finger at her sternly, as if Death would stop just because he told it to. "Don't you start to talk like that."
She turns her head toward him, her eyes sorrowful, but not for herself, he realises – for him. She looks at him with pity, with remorseful resignation, and Cam feels like he has swallowed a ton of bricks. "Cam..." She says gently, as if he is the one on his deathbed, "you have to face the fact that I'm going to die here."
"No, I don't have to face that fact, because I am not gonna let that happen." His denial is strong, and he almost manages to convince himself. Almost.
"I appreciate that." She chokes out, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye and disappearing into the hair above her ear. "But the truth is, even if you manage to create a distraction and destroy the device, you are never gonna get me to the Gate by yourself."
"Yes, I will." He insists, but she shakes her head.
"Not alive..."
He opens his mouth to rebuff her, but no other words come to mind, and the lump in his throat chokes him. He rubs his fingers over his eyes, ignoring the sting of unshed tears. Her eyes close, and she takes a few unsteady, pained breaths before opening them again. "My laptop. There's a file." She says torpidly, glancing from him to the computer on the desk.
"You want me to get it?" He asks, already shifting towards the desk. She shakes her head.
"In my personal directory. Letters mostly." She gasps, her face growing paler by the second, and he wants to tell her to stop, to scream at her to shut up, to conserve her energy, to hold on.
"Sam..." He curses his voice for breaking on her name, but she continues, ignoring him, ignoring the way he clasps his hands tightly together to keep them from shaking.
"There's one to Cassie... my brother... some other people, and... Daniel." Flaccidly, she covers his shaking fists with her hand, her glazed eyes still managing to bore into his soul. "Find him, Cam. Promise me you'll find him. Promise me..." Her voice wavers, her gaze unfocusing, and Cam opens his fists to grip her limp hand between both of his, trying to anchor her here.
"I promise, Sam. I promise – I'll bring him home." It was a promise he knew may prove impossible to keep, but goddamnit, he would die trying.
She smiles weakly, already fading. "Tell him... Tell him I love him. Tell him... I'm sorry."
He grips her hand tighter, desperately, as her eyes slide closed. "Sam?" His voice catches, and the moisture gathering on his bottom lashes finally spills over, but she is lost again to a fitful and fevered sleep.
Cam finds himself staring out the window once again. The Ori soldiers have retreated, but their ship now looms overhead, preparing to blast this little village and everyone in it to high heaven. At least Sam is awake again, though looking increasingly worse. Her skin is sallow; paper-thin enough that he can see the faint bluish lines of her veins, and her pulse, rapid and erratic. Cam knew enough to know that was not a good sign.
"C'mon, Carter!" He implores her. "There's gotta be something we can do."
"We need...more power." Her words come between short gasps, her breath rattling in her chest like loose change, and Cam knows her lungs are likely filling with blood – soon she wouldn't be able to speak at all. Soon, she wouldn't be able to breathe.
Cam drops to his knees beside her cot, pulling out the last syringe of morphine. He moves to jab her with it, but she stops him, her hand ice cold around his wrist.
"No. I need to think clearly." Her eyes travel to the body of the fallen Ori soldier; the one who had nearly killed her. "The crystal...in his staff. Put it...in the back of the device."
Cam scrambles to his feet, his blood already pumping at the tantalising thought of a plan. He grabs the Ori staff weapon and, with a twist and a wriggle, pulls a small, purple crystal from the pointy end. "This thing?" Skeptically, he holds it up for her to see. She nods, a weak groan escaping her.
Cam dashes over to the phase-shift device, his fingers fumbling around the back in search of a latch. He finds one and pulls on it, a small compartment popping open. He tries to jam the crystal into the compartment, but it doesn't fit. "It's too big!"
"Power interface adaptor." Sam mumbles, her words running together.
"What?!"
"Little round...silver thing...with the tiny...jumper cables."
"Ah!" He gasps, spotting it. "Got it!" He shoves the crystal into the ring and connects the red clips to the device. He yelps when the damn thing shocks him.
"That's...a good sign." Sam says from behind him, and he thinks she would be laughing if she could breathe properly.
"That's easy for you to say. You with the little flesh wound." He jokes softly, sending her a grin that he doesn't quite believe in. "Alright, what next?"
"Laptop."
He brings the computer over to her, gently resting it across her legs. He grips her hand and slides one arm around her shoulders as she exhales, bracing herself for the pain. He lifts her, helping her upright, and her broken wail makes him wince. "You okay?"
"No." She gasps, glancing down at her bandages. Crimson is leeching through the white, brighter than a fresh-picked poppy, and Cam curses softly. He props himself up behind her, giving her something to lean on, his hand on her back steadying her. She taps away at the laptop, and suddenly a blindingly bright, white light envelops them – envelops the whole village. Cam cranes his neck to look out the window. Two beams of energy fire from the Ori ship in orbit above them, the yellow light growing brighter and brighter, and Cam automatically braces himself for impact, curving his body over Sam's and throwing his arm up to shield them both.
The blasts go straight through the village; intangible.
Cam pulls back excitedly, a grin peeling across his face. "We did it, Sam! You did it!"
She's unresponsive; her eyes closed, her head lolling back.
"Sam? Carter! Shit." He lays her back down, his heart once again in his throat. Don't you die on me, Sam. Don't you dare die on me. Not now. Not this close to the finish line.
Cam punches the exit key on the laptop and kills the device, bringing everyone back to their correct dimensions in another flash of light. He presses two fingers to her neck, and the knot in his gut uncoils slightly. There's a pulse; fluttery and very faint, but it's there.
Cam pulls the radio pinned to his vest towards his mouth. "Teal'c. Vala. You guys there?" After a moment, the Jaffa replies.
"Colonel Mitchell. Vala Mal Doran is here."
"That's good news. Do we know if that ship has left?"
There's another pause, then Vala's lilting voice crackles through the radio. "As far as I know, it has."
"Okay. Look, Carter's in bad shape. We need to get a med team here right away."
"We are on it, Colonel Mitchell."
With relief, Cam releases his radio and turns back to Sam, carefully studying her face and the rise and fall of her chest for any changes. "Hold on, Sam." He murmurs, praying that, in some way, she can hear him. "We're on the home stretch now, kiddo, just hold on. Jackson will murder me if I let you die now." His chuckle is empty, and he takes her limp hand in his. It is frighteningly cold.
"I just got the band back together, don't break us up now, Sam. And I've already bought my suit for the wedding. There's no refunds on those things once you get them tailored, y'know?" He's rambling, he knows, but right now he feels about as useful as a screen door on a submarine, and the feeling is uncomfortable.
"Vala's been hounding me about Earth wedding traditions. She's dragged me dress shopping three times already! Ya just know she's gonna pitch a fit if she doesn't catch that bouquet."
Cam can hear footsteps rapidly approaching, and he silently thanks God Almighty above for Teal'c's swiftness. "You're gonna be there for all that, aren't ya Sam? Jackson's counting on it. Ya hear me? Daniel's waiting for you to find him, so don't you give up on him, Samantha Carter." He ordered her sternly just as the medics burst into the room, followed closely behind by Teal'c and Vala.
"Don't you give up."