Chapter 8

The dark infirmary gradually grew brighter as the simulated daytime dawned. Tamara had spent the entire night studying the parasite in the petri dish and its reactions to various compounds. Brody's alcohol, hydrochloric acid, pure water, muddy water, various plants from hydroponics, other venoms they had encountered…nothing was working. She hadn't felt this helpless since Matt's encounter with the bizarre plant alien that turned his arm and his blood blue. That one had reacted to fire, but what was she supposed to do? Set Rush on fire? The only thing that had defeated it in the end was Chloe's alien blood. But now even that was gone too.

She wanted to cry. She became a medic to help people, but she wasn't qualified for this. No Earthly medicine would help against an alien parasite. She was amazed they had even made it this far.

Dark thoughts, Tamara, dark thoughts, she scolded herself. She wouldn't get anywhere this way.

She pushed back from her desk and stood, gasping with a little start when she noticed she had a visitor. He was sitting very quiet and very still on one of the beds, gaze distant. He didn't even react to her movement. "Doctor Rush?" she said softly. How long has he been sitting there? He raised his head to look at her, smiling halfway.

"Lieutenant."

She came closer. It was startling that he would come here willingly, partly because she suspected he was still angry at her. If he was here, there must be something really wrong. "Are you okay?"

He waved a hand. "Fine, fine. I was just looking for a little peace, and uh…" He seemed to search for the word. He frowned in thought, blinking, then appeared to lose the thought entirely. His eyes wandered and lost focus again.

Tamara pushed a surge of dread down into her gut. "You're hiding," she teased.

He smiled again. "Yeah."

"From the people on the ship?"

He nodded. "They keep crowding me. They won't leave me alone."

"Colonel's orders," she said. He just nodded. She walked over to stand at his side and held a hand to his forehead, frowning that he still felt warm. She could feel the coolness of her hand leeching the heat from his head, and he closed his eyes and sighed. "How do you feel?" she asked him.

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Okay," she said. "Now how do you really feel? I want to help you."

He folded his arms against himself. "Well, not good, actually."

"Trouble sleeping?" she guessed. He looked exhausted.

He nodded.

"Any pain?"

After a brief hesitation, another nod.

"Okay. I can do something about that." She went to her cabinet and began searching for some painkillers.

"Still no luck, I assume?"

She looked at him. He was staring at her microscopes. She shook her head and kept searching the shelves, saying, "No. I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "Don't be. I know you tried."

She took a small bottle of white powder from the shelf and handed it to him. "This should help. The blood thinners should be taking care of some of the problem, but this stuff ought to do the rest."

He nodded and thanked her. She busied herself with some inventory paperwork, not wanting to pay him too much attention for fear of scaring him away. When he did go, he did so quietly, not sparing her a goodbye, and leaving her feeling cold.

She turned her attention back to the microscope. She had tested the blood thinners she was giving Rush against a small amount of his blood, and while they were successful in breaking up clots, they had no effect whatsoever on the parasite. Once the medicinals were purged from his system, he would be right back where he was before. Once she ran out, it would be over. She wondered if there was some cure on the planet the organism had come from, and she wished she could go back.

She had long ago learned which footsteps were the colonel's long before he ever appeared, and she was facing the doorway when he walked in. He frowned in concern when he saw her. "You okay?" he asked.

The truth was too complicated, so she just nodded. "How is everything?"

He made a face. "Not good. I've been spending a lot of time with Telford and I gotta say, it's not going to be pretty when we get back there. A lot of people died out here. There will be a lot of questions, and not enough answers."

Tamara just nodded. As much as she wanted to be home, she simultaneously dreaded it. There was no telling how it would all go. Although she knew that she had little to worry about, having done her best out here with what she had to work with.

"I came to ask your opinion," the colonel said. "The primary focus of these investigations will be Rush. How well do you think he could handle it in his condition if they were to come here?"

She gawked at him. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, don't I wish."

She snorted and shook her head. "Honestly? Not well. He was in here earlier looking for something to help him sleep and he seemed really out of it. Not drunk, not even tired. Just…out of it."

"Like when he couldn't work out different types of handwriting."

She frowned. "Yeah. Lack of oxygen in the brain causes cell death. Brain cell death is serious and affects everything. It'll only get worse. His critical thinking process, motor control, speech, balance, spatial awareness, reasoning skill, reflexes, memories…it's all going to go eventually. I don't know in what order or how quickly, but eventually it could all be gone. He may deteriorate so much that he turns into a vegetable. He might go into a coma. Or he might suffer a stroke or heart attack and die suddenly. Stress may cause him to lose sleep, and lack of sleep will make the symptoms worse. I would very strongly discourage it."

Saying all of this out loud, she was struck anew by an urge to help Rush. She couldn't let him go through this. But simultaneously she realized just how dangerous Earth had become for him, and she wondered if it would be a mercy that he wouldn't be there to go through what the IOA and SGC had reserved.

"You don't think that's why he did this, do you?" Young suddenly blurted. It was like he could read her thoughts. "I had a discussion with Telford yesterday and a lot of people back there seem to think this was Rush's plan all along. The word 'coward' and may or may not have been used."

That made her angry. "I think Telford is going to believe whatever he wants to believe."

"He made a lot of sense," Young grudgingly admitted. "He thinks Rush knew what would happen when he got back to Earth, so this whole parasite thing is just a cyanide pill."

Tamara could feel her skin crawling. "Which, if that's the case, implies that he knows he's guilty."

"Exactly."

She thought back to her conversation with Rush on that very first day. "I asked him point blank why he did it. He just said it was for the greater good."

"Typical. That man wouldn't give a straight answer if his life depended on it."

She crossed her arms and tilted her head. "I think at this point his life depends on him not giving a straight answer."

Colonel Young nodded. "His reputation, anyway."

"Yeah."

He sighed. "We'll never know unless he tells us. And we know he won't."

"Right," said Tamara. "So why bother worrying?" Quite frankly, she didn't want to think it was true. She rejected the idea entirely, refusing the consider any possibility that Rush could be thinking only of himself at a time like this. He would have faced penalties for sure, if found guilty - termination from SGC, blacklisting from every academic institution, possible prison time, lawsuits, not to mention the humiliation that came with the loss of his reputation coupled with the knowledge that everyone who had lost someone because of him would want him locked away forever. But was death really better? For someone with an ego as big as Rush's, it was possible. But she did not want to believe it was true. If it was true, then her guilt was greater than she thought.

In answer to the colonel's original question, she shook her head. "No. I think he's being a good man this time."

Young thought about that and nodded. He seemed eager to switch topics and gestured to the microscopes. "Any luck?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

He sighed. "T.J., he's prepared, you know. He's expecting it."

"I don't care."

"I'm just saying there's probably nothing you can do."

She shook her head. She hadn't planned on asking, but she knew she would hate herself forever if she didn't try. "What if we…what if we went back to the planet?"

He blinked at her, then frowned. "What planet?"

"The planet this organism came from. There has to be something there. Most ecosystems contain elements harmful and helpful to the living things in them, and obviously there's something out there that keeps this parasite from destroying that planet."

The colonel sighed again. "We don't know anything about that planet."

"There were wild animals."

"We don't know anything about those animals. They might be naturally immune to this thing, like the bugs that carry it. There's no telling what is actually going on."

"And we'll never know unless we try," she insisted. "Can't we just give it a shot? We'll never know unless we go back there."

"T.J., we're two and a half weeks out from that planet. If we turn around now and go back, it will double our time left to get home."

"But it might double Rush's lifespan," she said. "These people have waited five years. Do you really think they'd mind waiting an additional five weeks?"

The colonel hesitated. "For anyone else, probably not. For Rush…"

Tamara balled her fists in anger. "This isn't fair! He has done so much for these ingrates, and they can't even-"

"Whoa, T.J., stop," Colonel Young said. He took her by the arms to calm her. "Listen to me. Do not tell any of them about this conversation, do you hear me? It isn't their fault. We can't go back partly because of that, yes, but also think about this: What happens if we get there, and more people get bitten, and we find out there is no cure?"

"But what if there is?" she insisted. "There has to be!"

"But what if there isn't? We'll lose more than just Rush. I cannot take that risk."

She glared at him, commanding officer or no. "Are you saying this because it's Rush?"

He let her go. "What?"

"Would you still be saying this if it was anyone else? What if it was Eli who was dying? What if it was Chloe? What if it was me? What if it was anyone else who had someone on Earth that you had to answer to? Wouldn't you be doing everything you could to save them?"

Young went silent. Whether that was an admission or not she didn't know, but her weariness and despair caught up with her and she collapsed into the chair. "You know," Young said at last, "I could be asking you the same thing."

She turned and frowned at him. "What?"

"Would you be fighting so hard if it was anyone else? What if it was just another civilian? What if it was a stranger? What if it was Brody, or Dunning, or someone else who hadn't saved your life? Would you be willing to put the entire ship in danger to save them?"

She jumped up from her chair, sending it rolling backward into the wall. "That is irrelevant!"

"Not really. Emotions are powerful things, Lieutenant."

She gaped at his use of her title. What was happening to them? How did it come to this? "Get out."

"Lieutenant-"

"Get out of my infirmary."

With another sigh, the colonel obeyed. When she was alone again, she dropped back into her chair and closed her eyes to regain her focus. But all she could see was Rush. The colonel's words grew in her skull, squeezing out all other thoughts. Was this all really by design? Was it Rush's way of escaping the ramifications of all his mistakes? Was he just playing them?

Would he still have given her his vaccine if they weren't on their way back to Earth?