Part Two.
The infirmary was fast becoming far to familiar to Sam it seemed that each week one of them was stuck here with either some freaky alien illness or soon to be battle scar. The one baring most of those scars was so far Colonel O'Neill. He was currently laid up, right leg in traction. Funnily enough to the same leg he had smashed against an icy floor when both of them had been hurtled through the gate at impossible speed. They were lucky not to have been killed on the initial landing, if you could call it that.
Still, it was hardly a surprise that it was that particular leg which had gave up once more. The first time he broke it she had done her best to set it right, something which had to be done with no pain relief and no alcohol much to the Colonel's dismay and Sam's absolute horror. Every time she pulled and tugged, trying to put the limb level with the bone it had broken from, she felt the vibrations, the grinding coming from beneath the surface of the skin as it cut through muscle and tendon... Even now she cringed at the mere thought, knowing that if she didn't get it right he would loose it. She thanked God each day he didn't, but how lucky could he be? Again he was facing that possible scenario. This time it had been Daniel who had bore the responsibility, the one on the team who was the least experienced in wilderness survival and combat. Sure he had been given a couple of crash courses but hell, it was tough on Sam who had under-gone years of specialist training to face just that kind of life or death situation, Daniel, well...
Sam's thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of the familiar and very friendly face of Dr. Frasier. The small Air force Doctor hadn't been with the SGC all that long, but she knew SG-1 very well, a thought that only provided proof of the long list of bad luck the team were currently having right now.
"You alright, Captain?" Frasier asked as she made a note of the various states of the man currently in the bed before them.
"Better than him."
Frasier just tilted her head slightly. "It looks worse than it actually is," she referred to the right leg, currently aloft. "He actually managed to break it in the same place as before."
"That's good?"
"Well, he could have wrecked the other leg in its place." Frasier gave a grin as she placed her pen back in her breast pocket. "This way he's still got one good leg out of the two, well not counting the knees."
"What's wrong with his knees?" Sam asked worry etched clear into her features but Frasier actually laughed.
"Nothing, well apart from the fact they're showing signs of wear and tear. Don't tell him I told you but they're starting to causing him more discomfort than he will ever admit to." A silence began, only broken by the sound of Colonel O'Neill's breathing through the mask.
"What's the mask for?" Sam finally spoke and Frasier was only to glad to ask the questions being directed at her. It was refreshing to have someone explain in detail about these things it made it easier for Sam to understand what was wrong and what it was that was going to make him better again. Suddenly all the equipment didn't look so bad.
"...and this is watching his temperature, any sudden increase in this and we can take measures to help him fight off any infection before it gets to bad."
"Thanks."
"For what?" Frasier asked genuinely baffled by the sudden statement.
"For explaining, you're probably the first Doctor in here to take the time and actually explain and not fill my head with medical mumbo jumbo..."
"My pleasure, Captain and it's sorta my job."
"Please, call me Sam." She stood and extended a hand in friendship, sure they had met before today but this was the first time they had actually spoke in any depth.
"Janet," the other woman offered, taking the offered hand and shaking.
"It's wild isn't it, this place?"
"Oh I love it. Not many places have been able to challenge me like this."
"Challenge, interesting way to put it."
Janet smiled and gave Sam's arm a little rub, barely on first name basis but the woman's kindness and caring affection took Sam aback. "He will be fine I promise. And if anything changes with him I will make sure you're one of the first to know. Why don't you go get some sleep?"
"No, me and Teal'c are here for the long haul. To much has gone wrong lately, we're not leaving him."
"Yes, General Hammond did mention something, I'm guessing it's the reason why this extra security
has been posted."
"Yeah well, that extra security hasn't helped. We're all starting to think who ever is behind all this has influence stretching right into our ranks. All baring SG-1."
Janet nodded and smiled. "Well since my first priority is to my patient and given the situation I have to ask you to stay and help me ensure he gets out of here fit and well, if not with a pair of crutches and a limp."
---
How the hell had it got this far? How had it actually happened!? Questions he put to the small gathering in his private quarters, a total of fifteen men in all, all from various posts, from the infirmary to the canteen, two even on base security. They had all known each other for about a year now, well he and Jame's Crosby had anyway. They were the first to sit in this room, drink whiskey and smoke a bit of pot over a nice friendly card game as they talked about their very own Colonel O'Neill and how much they would like to see him knocked of his damn high-horse.
Cameron Dooley for as long as he could remember had always been different. He liked the finer things in life and somehow knew he was different, being different and deserved to have those finer things. His family was poor however and as soon as he left - or rather dropped out of high-school he was pushed into a job, a number of those in fact, by his parents. They were all a disaster, all had him ending on bad terms with his employer and finally his parents had enough. They pushed him into the Military, a career a little hard to get out of once he was in. And so...here he was working, just like his bloody parents wanted and surrounded by jerks like O'Neill. Guys who thought they were 'all that'.
He spent long days, weeks and months working under the guy, never quite meeting the fine standard the guy expected and subsequently found himself performing the most demeaning tasks. Scrubbing toilets, mopping the gate-room and serving fucking tea to the freaks that came through the gate.
Not exactly the way he pictured his life.
It was during one of these particularly demoralising tasks that O'Neill introduced him to James Crosby, a lowly Airman who had also crossed O'Neill's path and both spent the rest of that day getting to know the base sewer-system to unblock a blockage. He literally smelt like shit for weeks as did James. As such they were the only people who could stand to be in the same room as each other and a friendship formed.
He guessed it was being in O'Neill's bad books that got Cameron acquainted with the other no-good slackers, as O'Neill had put it. And so this 'Slackers Against O'Neill' club started to grow. They sat at night and joked around, dreaming up ways to annoy the guy the next day. Pretty soon they developed into challenges, each picking a dare out of a hat. For the canteen staff it would be something like, 'spill the contents of the slops tray over O'Neill' or 'Salt in the Coffee'. For the office staff, 'Sabotage the printer'. The guys had a lot of fun with that one, especially when the guys in security transmitted the contents of the tape around the base, clearly showing O'Neill trying to desperately control the amount of paper spilling out of the printer. All harmless stuff, but stuff that seriously wound the guy up.
It didn't take O'Neill long to retaliate from that and as such Cameron and the guys demeaning duties had doubled and so the pranks stopped, but the talking didn't. As far as Cameron knew it was just talk, but everything they had talked about had actually happened to the guy. They joked at first about it going as far as to say the group had its own 'Guardian Angel' granting their wishes. But now, it was far from funny. It had stopped being funny for a while now if he was honest, back when the guy first ended up in the Infirmary after almost being knocked down in the street. Now it was scary.
"I wanna know who's doing it!" He screamed at the top of his voice, sweat obvious on his face, his jet black hair a common feature of his Oriental heritage, short but long enough to be sticking to that clammy skin.
Blank expressions answered him, others looked away. Sure they all had something against O'Neill, but not one wanted him dead. The guy was a legend and had saved their ass from those freaks out there plenty of times.
"It can't be coincidence that what we talk about in here is actually happening!"
"Karma?" Came a bone head suggestion and Cameron wasted little time in slapping that particular head.
"It's not Karma, it's not a Faerie God-Mother, it's not the Easter Bunny, and it's not Captain-fucking-America! Someone is using our ideas to knock O'Neill off!"
"What's so bad about that, I mean we hate the guy right?"
"What's bad about it? WHAT'S FUCKING BAD ABOUT IT?" He took a breath to calm down. "I'll tell you what's bad about it, our ideas! We all talk about this, everything we've talked about wanting to happen to O'Neill has ACTUALLY happened to him! Who - do you think - is Hammond is going to suspect if what goes on behind these walls becomes public knowledge!"
Silence.
"Us you bloody fools! And I am damn sure I am not going to be blamed, so I want to know who it is that's doing it because I am going to turn you in."
"You can't do that!"
"What man, what the--"
"Are you crazy--"
"Why the--"
The chorus of responses surprised him, how could they condone this, this isn't what they were about. All he wanted was a laugh with friends, who like him didn't fit in here yet had to suck it up and get on with things, killing someone? That wasn't fun to him at all.
"What the hell-- This wasn't what I started, I wanted jokes, pranks a laugh! I don't want blood on my hands, damnit!"
"Well neither do we," James stated to his friend. "What we're trying to tell you is none of us here are responsible for O'Neill's accidents."
"Then who is?"