Part Five.

As bad as Janet seemed to think her day was, she actually considered that it wasn't possible for it to get worse. How wrong she was. As morning brought casualties, so did the evening. Twelve hours separating the third of the victims from the two that proceeded and all from the same incident. How had she over-looked this? A question answered only by her mind as her memory played its tricks on her.

Daniel was laid very still on the gurney as the assistance she had called for wheeled him through the double doors of her very own ER. The same doors that had swung open hours before, giving way to two other men pushed in, in much the same fashion. The only difference was that Colonel O'Neill and Major Mitchel displayed physical injuries, Daniel here was just a very sick man.

"How did he get by us?" One young nurse asked as the gurney was pulled to a stop inside the room and all Janet could do was shake her head.

"It's my fault, I should have made sure he was with someone..." Janet muttered as she lifted one heavy lid, wincing at the extent of the redness in his left eye. The pupil dilated as normal and as she checked the right, he seemed to come to just a little. He moaned slightly at her touch and even tried to get away from it, she had to admit it was better than the chat up lines some of these military types shot her way. "Okay, I want blood and sputum screens and a chest x-ray, wait scratch that, go CT scan. That's going to confirm my suspicions faster anyway."

"Temperature's worryingly high, ma'am thirty-nine point-eight." Her staff were just confirming what she already knew.

"Pulse is bordering one-hundred BPM, you're thinking its Pneumonia aren't you?"

"I am," She concurred before looking into the dazzling blue eyes gazing up at her, a few hours ago there were chocolate brown, dazed and bright but no were near this intense. "Get him on a drip, start the antibiotics. Keep up the fluids and monitor his temperature, if it continues to climb we need to take measures to bring it down before hyperpyrexia becomes an issue, right now this fever is just his bodies way of telling us he has a problem." His eyes seemed to search her out in the clouded daze he was struggling to understand and she frowned down at him, her heart literally breaking at the look he was giving her. "You're going to be fine, Daniel. Everything is..."

---

"...going to be okay, sir." Carter's expression betrayed her words of attempted comfort as she frantically searched the expanse of infirmary to call a nurse. Jack might have wondered what was taking so damn long but was still trying to get that damned mask of his face, something which had to happen if he was going to ask what the hell had happened. It sounded so easy, even the act he planned out in his foggy mind didn't seem that hard. Of course thinking and doing were two entirely different things...yet somehow both were as equally impossible right now since his hand only managed to punch himself in the head.

That hurt a damn sight more than he expected.

"Easy, sir. You've already had one bad knock, don't go giving yourself another."

Sure, Carter, just do me a favour and get this damned mask off me!

That's what he wanted to say but his mouth refused to work. His eyes were to busy watching her and those lips.

"Is everything alright?"

Finally! A nurse! And not just any nurse, one Jack knew well! Yes, here she was, Nurse Bridger, one of the few members of the night shift who knew Jack's grunts and groans well enough to know now, he wanted that freaking mask off his face, and yesterday.

"Yeah, he...he's just woken up. I dunno he looks..."

"He's fine. He's on some pretty strong pain-killers so don't be surprised if he doesn't make much sense."

Oh joy, there it went, now he could breathe again. Well sort of anyway. Being in to much of a hurry to speak he ended up coughing, the spasms tearing through his body amplifying the pain he already felt. His head, his back and arse, but mostly his head. The part of him he expected to hurt at least a lot was his leg, but at the moment that thing he couldn't even move.

He coughed some more not able to get it under control, that was until the mask was put back in place and that warm - kind of suffocating taste to it. After a few minutes of dragging it into his lungs, the fit finally eased.

"That's it, Colonel." Carters hand was in his, squeezing. When had that happened? And when had he decided it was a good idea to squeeze back? "Maybe you should leave that on for a while yet."

"Mebee..." His muffled voice replied through the mask. "W..when...how did...?" Jack tried to ask the questions, once that had been playing on his mind since he had come to in the infirmary ER. He'd tried to ask the guys working on him back then, but they were to preoccupied with making sure his body wasn't going to die on them, rather than appease his curious mind.

"Daniel...and Major Mitchel got you back."

Mitchel!? Jack almost surged off the bed causing Carter to jump back. He didn't mean to scare her but he had to stop that guy. The last he remembered, he was trying to kill him and if it wasn't for Daniel, he might very well have succeeded.

"Sir?"

"Step back," the nurse interjected, stepping in front of Carter and placed two firm hands on his shoulders, pushing him back easily. "Colonel O'Neill, calm down, I know it hurts but behaving this way isn't going to do you any favours." He collapsed back, arguing would only get him all asleep again, he knew how these guys felt about patients who refused to rest, if they felt it was for their own good - rest would be forced upon them.

Okay, so he needed to give himself a little time. And it seemed he had, well enough time to rest a little. Then he had to tell them and find out just were Mitchel was now, and if Daniel was okay.

---

The Colonel seemed to settle, but something in his eyes told her there was something wrong, that there was something he needed to tell her. Sam stepped back as the nurse worked around his bed side and adjusted the medication slightly. She seemed to think he was hurting - and who wouldn't after a fall like that?

"Colonel!!"

She closed her eyes at the memory of her own voice as she screamed down at the falling man, way out of reach. Her first thought as he hit? That she had lost him.

A thought that scared her in more ways that one. One way being, he was dead and she would never again see him. The second? That she was taking it so damned hard. The Colonel hadn't just died in that horrifying moment (which was thankfully, an incorrect assumption.) No, she had lost him. She would never see, talk, smile, touch, scent, taste... It was everything. Everything about him would have left her and that, that hurt her so much more than she had ever expected.

A thought to forget. One; because he wasn't dead and two, because she shouldn't have let herself think and...feel this way.

"Carter." She snapped to attention at the sound of her name on his lips and was by his side once more.

"Sir?" This time she made sure her hands stayed by her side, but she was all to aware of the hand that had held his. If she was the weird kind, she probably would never wash that hand again. Cool is, Carter and focus, your CO is trying to speak.

Trying being the operative word, since the Colonel's every word was followed by a cough. Her brow furrowed in concern and sympathy toward him, while that nurturing side took the initiative and reached for the cup of ice-chips. I little water in the mouth and throat would help and gently she pulled the mask down before holding a couple out for him in her fingers. Those same fingers that lingered by those lips and tenderly brushed them ever so slightly.

"Better?" She met his eyes, those wonderfully deep brown eyes which right now looked dilated for her to even consider he was looking at her in the same way she was looking at him. With a slight hesitation she placed the cup down and pulled her seat closer to the head of the bed and sat. He obviously had something to say, but by the way he was now laid, his eyes barely open, anything he had to say was going to have to wait. "Try and get some sleep, sir, everything is okay."

"Dan'el?" He croaked and Sam nodded.

"He's a bit tired, Janet - Dr. Frasier is giving him the once over now but, he's safe."

"Mit'chl?" His eyes slowly opened about half way and he managed to hold them there.

"Sir, please, get some rest." She stalled, she didn't want to tell him this, they had all found it hard to take when they were told but he had barely survived that fall, he didn't need the emotional stress as well as all this pain.

"Carter, spill."

Okay, that was surprisingly clear for a guy who was currently high on pain medication. "Dead, sir." She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip. "The Major died this morning, just after we got you back."