Bring It All Back

Chapter 7

Anger Fruit

He doesn't remember a lot for a long time.

When he wakes he's strapped to a bed staring at a bright light and at first he thinks that he's been taken prisoner, but that's not it because he hasn't been on a mission in almost a year and a half now, he's the big brain that sits behind the desk in his office and randomly checks to make sure the flag still has fifty stars, that they haven't slipped in a few extra when his head was turned.

The smell is what tips him off, it smells like hand sanitizer and metal and he knows he's in medical bay. The restraints are big and heavy and even if he could move his arms he'd get tired within a few minutes. He can, however, move his head.

To his left is a Daniel.

To his right is a Daniel

All three of them are strapped to beds.

And this might be hell. He might be in hell right now.

Doors hiss open, which means he's in the room they put the potentially contagious cases in. Dr. Lam shuffles to his side, glances at the output on a beeping monitor he's just noticed, writes a few things on the chart and when she looks down and sees him looking up, she startles.

"Jesus."

"Sorry."

"I just—I just thought that if you were awake, you'd be making more noise."

"That's okay."

"You were a lot louder before."

"What?" He tugs on the restraints on his arm linking him to the metal railing on the bed. "Hey while you're here would you mind, you know?" He tugs again for emphasis.

Lam hugs the clipboard to her chest and doesn't even bother to give him a half smile. "Not until I'm sure it's out of your system."

"What's out of my system?"

"The toxin."

Then he notices for the first time, the bright light finally flushing from his eyes, that there are bruises on her neck, some redness on her face. That's not good. He's flocked by Daniels, but where is everyone else? Teal'c or Sam.

Vala.

Where is she, she should've found a way to sneak in here by now. "What toxin?"

Lam sets her clipboard on a stool and produces a small flashlight. "If I check your eyes will you keep your hands to yourself?"

"What?" Jerks back as far as he can which isn't much, but his movement makes her flinch. He then lets his arms fall slack. "Of course."

She leans over the railing shining the light in his eyes, the small flashlight replacing the big reflective dentist disk of a light, and he stays as still as possible, but his heart monitor shows his nerves. "It looks to be out of your system, but I want to give it another hour."

"Carolyn." That catches her eye, almost like a verbal wrist grab. "What the hell happened?"

"If you honestly don't remember, it might be a good thing."

"Tell me."

She sighs, her hand clasping tight around the metal railing draining all the color from her skin. "What's the last thing you remember?"

SG-1, the complete team, minus himself of course because he's no longer running the plays, returned from a planet. A celebration was in order, they actually succeeded in getting a political ally on the outer border. Land was purchased, schematics for a defense post approved and they returned home with a large metal basket full of alien fruit.

"I can't believe we did it." Credited himself too because he had to do all the background research with Walter make sure the MALPs came up clean and that there were no hostile races of people or parasites waiting for them.

"I can't believe it took this long." Daniel One bit into a fruit, it was purple on the outside but round and bumpy like an orange. Juice sputtered everywhere. Daniel Two grabbed it and bit into the other side.

"What are those?" He asked Vala, who without tucking into his side, stood near enough to have a semi-private conversation with.

She grinned and pulled two fruit from the weaved metal hamper, dropping one in his hand. "The fruits of our labor, darling." She bit through the bumpy skin, juice wetting her lips and chin. "It's very smooth and it tastes like a marshes mallow."

"That is marshmallow, Vala Mal Doran." Teal'c moved through the growing crowd.

He had to make sure to monitor everyone, last thing they needed was a slew of allergic reactions to alien fruit or something. "Teal'c you full?"

"My body cannot handle certain strains of citrus from the outer planets." He tapped his stomach twice. "I feel using caution would be more advantageous than being incapacitated later."

"Sounds good, buddy." Watched as Teal'c lumbered through the crowd and out of the gate room, then leaned into Vala, who smelled like a sickly sweet combination of lemon and marshmallows. "What are the odds that I'm allergic to this?"

"Well, I've eaten almost every fruit known in this galaxy." They began a lazy pace following Teal'c but staying enough behind him that their conversation remained private.

"So?"

"So, you've eaten—" She took another bite of the fruit and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, I get it." Shoved her, making her balance wobble, making her giggle and she bit through the rind again, producing a small, creamy white chunk, spat it into her hand, and then held it out to him.

"Here."

"Vala." His eyes darted around the hallway, they were alone enough that he plucked the chunk from her hand before she could momma bird feed it to him. A burst of flavor surged through his mouth like sucking on a sour candy coated in sugar. The rind melted away and the middle tasted a bit like marshmallows, but more like lemon meringue pie. "Oh God this is good."

"The last thing I remember is eating the fruit."

"How much of it did you have? Did the Daniels have more?" Lam's pen clicks, and she holds the clipboard still.

"The Daniels had at least one each that I saw." Their full mouths chewing silently and happily, and he thought about just getting the fruit on backorder so whenever he needed them to shut up, he could toss one into the lab and run.

"And you?"

"I think I only had one bite." But his memories are still very hazy, remembers eating some more from Vala's hand, following the juice trail with his tongue over her fingers to her palm and down her arm. "Maybe a few bites more."

"That might explain it then."

"Explain what?"

Lam pulls that face again, like she's got to do something she doesn't want to do and it's all his fault. Like she's smelling a manure pile sitting in the sun on a hot muggy day. "Your reaction was less concentrated than the Daniels. If you only had a fraction of the fruit—"

"What reaction."

She doesn't say a word, merely grabs her clipboard and exits the room.

It stays silent for a while, just the beeping of the machine and the Daniels light snoring. He wants to shout out, to pull rank and let everyone know that even though he's a fun-loving guy, he's getting a little tired of being tied to a goddamn exam table. He doesn't think about the pain in his thigh, too preoccupied with not knowing what the fuck he did.

The door hisses open and this time Teal'c marches in, "Colonel Mitchell," he greets with brief but welcoming, unflinching eye contact. The stool squeaks across the ground again as he pulls it forward to sit at the bedside. "Are you feeling better?"

"Well, Teal'c, since I can't remember how I felt before, I'm gonna have to say I don't know."

"We were deceived by the planet. They acted as our political allies, however the fruit they sent as a show of good faith turned out to be toxic to human males." Teal'c pauses and he's unsure if it's so he can ask all the questions he has, or if it's to add dramatic tension.

Either way, he widens his eyes and bobs his head once. Then blurts out, "okay, how Teal'c?"

"I wanted to ensure you understood the parameters of—"

"How Teal'c?"

"It brings out a latent aggression—"

"So, I was just really angry for a day."

"That evolves into violence."

"Oh." His arms go slack in the restraints again and an hour must have passed by now. "Did I hurt anyone?"

"Unfortunately, this violence is specifically directed towards females—"

"What?" He doesn't breathe, he forgets to breathe, and the heart monitor starts to do crazy jags on the black screen.

"Colonel Carter believes it's a warfare tactic from the planet." Teal'c just keeps sitting there calmly spewing out information like Microsoft Sam, like it's only data in numbers. What did he do? Did he hurt someone? Lam or Sam or—oh God. "—by exterminating the females of the opposing species, it makes reproduction unfeasible, thereby—"

"Teal'c, did I hurt anyone?" There are little flashes of his memory coinciding with the blip of the heart monitor. Kissing her in his office, her falling to his sagging leather couch and pulling him down on top of her. He—he stopped her, despite how good the fruit tasted against her skin, because they were both still on duty. Tapped her on her ass as she left, licked his lips as he watched her go. But he saw her later, her hands around his face holding him still, her face bloodied. "Did I hurt—"

"No Colonel Mitchell, I punched you in the face rendering you unconscious before you enacted any acts of violence."

"Thanks Buddy."

Lam releases him on Teal'c's approval, but she requests the big guy remain in the room while she weaves the restraint straps free.

"Thanks."

She doesn't say a single word to him, just keeps close to Teal'c, who shadows her as she goes to check on the Daniels. Both still sound asleep, and when she reaches up and checks their IV pouches.

He rubs at his wrists. "They go off?"

"Sam was toying with killing one of them." She injects more of whatever is keeping the sleeping beauties asleep and holds pursed lips.

"I toy with that idea every day."

"Not like this, Colonel Mitchell."

No more jokes. He nods, his fingers dancing around on his face finding the bit of a swollen nose that Teal'c left him with. "We lose anyone?"

"A few privates, male and female."

"SG-1?"

"Battered and bruised but they held their own." She finishes injecting the needle into the second Daniel's IV bag, caps it and tosses it into a biohazard container Teal'c holds for her. "We're just lucky Teal'c refused the fruit."

Everyone has been secured to quarters and he promised Lam he'd make his way straight back to his, but it's a lie as soon as he says it. Wants to check in with Sam at her lab and get another perspective because Teal'c didn't really paint a colorful picture, but he knows he won't make it there tomorrow.

He swipes his pass at her door, assuming he's going to have to put in a manual override code, but it flashes green without a problem and slides open. She jumps at his entrance, eyes tearing away from Sunday morning cartoons and it must have been two days of this nightmare.

"Cameron?" she questions warily, her voice a bit hoarse. She stands from the bed wearing the football jersey she usually does for their Sunday night nacho parties at his place, bare legs take a step forward.

"It's me, Princess." Expects her to slam against him, push him back into the wall, course her hands over his body to find all the injuries, kiss him until he can't breathe, but she doesn't do any of that. Silently, she walks forward and touches her forehead against his chest until he wraps his arms around her. He holds her in the lack of conversation, of examining each other's battle wounds. Only when she starts to relax he speaks. "You okay?"

"Better than we could hope." Her eyes are tired but clear, the side of her face has a little bruising and she reads his mind. "Some private got the drop on me, but I knocked him out." She hikes the jersey to her hips and pass her boy shorts to reveal cloudy bruising over her ribs. "One of the Daniels kicked me like a bloody mule and when I find out which one of them did it—"

"But you're okay?"

"Lam approved. How's your nose?" Her fingers pinch the bridge and when he gasps she frowns, grabbing his hand and leading him to the bed. "Your poor beautiful nose."

Better than the alternative, way better. "Sam?"

She halts before the bed, a twitch in her lips as she sits elegantly in his jersey like it's a ballgown, knees knocked and side bent. "A little worse for the wear. She was in the commissary when it happened, I was in the lab."

"Did I—" He starts but can't finish it because he's afraid to hear what she'll say. She won't lie to him because he'll see through it, but he wouldn't lie to her in this position either, both are vulnerable, her with knowing the truth and him with having to accept what she tells him.

"You actually ran into the lab to help me." She reclines against the bed and guides him down to lie next to her, his head resting against her chest. "But after the conscious Daniel ran out you sensed something wrong with yourself. When I tried to follow you, you got very grumpy and shooed me away."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry."

"Me neither." She strokes his hair and he tries not to rest his hand across her ribs. When he doesn't speak she slows her hand and tugs on his earlobe. "Darling, what are you thinking?"

That he wishes for one day they could have a safe work environment. That the stress of being the boss of fifteen teams is starting to make him go gray. That he's tired of sneaking into his girlfriend's room because if he's old enough to go gray, he's old enough to be in a committed relationship—public committed relationship. That constantly seeing her hurt give him mini heart attacks and he's not ready to cut bacon from his breakfasts.

"I wish we were normal."

She hums, cheek against his forehead, and her fingernails lightly strum against his neck. "I think we should be grateful we're not, otherwise that could've ended very poorly for us."