Five

"Laura?" She groans. Not now. "Laura?" Not now. Her body feels like someone drove over it with some kind of steamroller, and repeatedly. All she wants to do is stay in the exact way she is now, because every change might result in even more pain. "Laura, please, wake up." Wake up? Hey, she is already awake. She doesn't have much choice anyway, what with the burning pain in her thigh and everything. "Lieutenant Cadman, wake the hell up!"

She groans again and finally opens her eyes. Or well, the one that isn't swollen shut. "Only if you shut the hell up, Doc." She'd meant to say it slightly annoyed, but what really comes out is a version that sounds pretty croaked and miserable.

"Knew I'd get you awake with that. All you Marines are pretty predictable." So what? There's a reason they all react immediately to orders. She's trying to give Keller her best dark stare, but it probably won't do much good, because to her, her face feels like it's just a mass of bruises.

Suppressing another groan, she tries sitting up to be able to survey her surroundings. The first thing she notices is that they have taken away the vest and her weapons, but haven't bound her hands. The second thing is that she and Keller are locked in cells opposite each other, separated by a corridor of about six or seven feet. Keller still has her vest, but no weapons as far as she can see. And the doctor looks a little disheveled and has a split lip, but otherwise she's okay.

"Well, I'm glad you're fine enough to gloat." That was supposed to sound disgruntled, but again her voice betrays her. She dares clearing her throat and finds herself coughing pretty violently. Whatever they did to her, they were thorough.

"I wasn't… okay, maybe a little. Anyway… how are you feeling?" She takes a deep breath, testing how her ribs feel and to her relief breathing comes easy to her, considering the circumstances. So she's about to state that she's fine, but Keller knows her too well. "And don't tell me you're feeling "fine". So? How are you really feeling?" Doctors still amaze her. Though Carson is older than Keller and much more experienced, they both share this strong tendency to do their job everywhere, no matter what the circumstances and consequences are. And the ability to see through any stalling acts and pretending Marines get to learn in their long history of telling themselves a band-aid is all they need to patch up this pesky bullet wound.

"Like hell.", is all she grunts, and really, what is there more to say? The thigh that was grazed by the two bullets burns like there is no tomorrow, her face feels like a professional boxing heavyweight champion just had a go at it, and she's not quite sure what exactly happened to her left ankle. Might be broken, might be only sprained. But that's not important, anyway. What is important, is to assess their situation; find out where they are, who captured them, why they are here.

"Could you be a little more specific, Laura?" Of course Keller would have other priorities, but maybe that's just her way to distract her from the danger they might be in right now. She's been around enough people who concentrate on work to blend out fear, anxiety and dread that she knows how this looks. And she has of course learned that it's necessary on missions to give her medic a detailed report about any injuries she might have. She sighs again and tries to pull herself up a little more, trying to ignore all the pain. If Evan – just a zoomie, after all – can do it, she – being a jarhead and everything – should be able to do it as well.

"Two grazes on the right thigh, left ankle either broken or sprained, face a mess, no noticeable injuries in the abdomen or the chest. Satisfied?" Keller frowns, but doesn't snap back, only looks worried. "Come on, Doc, it looks worse than it feels, honestly."

"That's what you soldiers all say. And then it's up to me and Carson to sew you back together. Is that something they teach you in your academies, like in real classes?" For some reason, the genuine irritation on Keller's face makes her laugh. "Hey, I wasn't joking. I mean that. Just yesterday I had this Russian soldier on my table, just barely able to breath and right before Clavier put him to sleep he was trying to tell me that he was fine and just needed some aspirin. Honestly, you're all just not right in those heads of yours.", Keller huffs and it only serves to make her laugh a little harder. She's never seen Keller so worked up before, and it hardens her assumption that she's already having a hard time here. Which brings her back to her priority list.

"I'm still right enough in that head of mine that I know that there are some things more important than how I'm feeling." She smirks, but gets serious again. "You been in these situations before, Doc?"

Keller seems to have grasped what her problem is fast enough and just nods. "Yes. And please… could you stop calling me "Doc"?" Still some lingering irritation in Keller's voice, so she decides to play along.

"Sure. Why?"

Keller rolls her eyes and says a little unnerved: "Because I have a name. A first name."

Well… okay… Keller's right about that. She was just so accustomed to call her "Doc", because that's what all the other soldiers do as well. She decides to humor the doctor. "Alright… Jennifer."

Now a little less disgruntled, Keller says: "Jen is fine as well."

Great. Now they can finally get to the really important issue. "Okay… now… you know the drill? You let me do the talking, you don't do anything much beside appearing harmless. No heroics, and I repeat, no heroics. Honestly, Jen, we don't know what we're dealing with here, and it's my job to protect you. Understood?" If… when she gets home, she probably owes Evan an apology for all the times she felt patronized by him whenever he gave out orders like this. She'd known that he'd been right even back then, of course, but it's quite a different thing to really understand why he'd issued them.

"Yes. Laura?" Now the scared civilian does show through a little, because she can hear a slight wavering in Keller's… Jen's voice.

"What is it?" It's not easy keeping impatience fully out of her voice, but it wouldn't be fair to treat Jen like she would treat a Marine showing fear in such a situation.

"You think we'll get out of here?" Honestly? She hasn't the slightest clue, because there are a lot of "ifs" to be considered. For example…only if Sergeant Meyers has made it back to Atlantis they will be aware of the fact that Jen and her are in trouble. And only then they will start searching for them right away. And only if they find them in time an SAR mission will be successful. And only if…

God, suddenly she wishes with all her heart she'd have send Evan this message about being sorry. Or at least have said a proper good-bye. If Meyers really reached Atlantis, Evan will be worried sick about her and she feels so very sorry for letting her pride getting the better of her, although she knew that exhaustion was to blame for his outburst and that he was sorry for all the hurtful stuff as soon as he'd said it.

But that's something she needs to keep to herself, because she has a civilian doctor to take care of and a mission to accomplish. So all she does is putting on the most confident face possible under the circumstances and saying: "'Course we will. They already made one of the three biggest blunders."

Jen perks up again, a little wary. "They did?"

She grins, as far as that's possible. "Yep. Never, under no circumstances, underestimate a woman just because she is one." And it's true. They've bound neither her hands nor her feet, and even in a slightly weakened state, she can wreak enough havoc with them that their captors might probably soon wish they had tied her up very neatly. And Jen still has her vest, if not her Beretta, the knife of any of her medical stuff. They might think they identified the bigger thread correctly, but somehow she has enough faith in Jennifer Keller to know that this little doctor is capable of more than she thinks.

Jen, however, is still not quite convinced. "Alright… what are the other two?"

She still grins. "Well… "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." would be the first and…" Dammit, she shouldn't have said that. It only serves to remind her of Evan, and she fervently needs to shut any thought of him out if she wants to keep a clear head throughout this.

Jen, though, didn't quite grasp the allusion and replies with a startled "Never what?"

"Oh. Err… never mind the second one." Come on, swallow that, she thinks. Don't make me talk about that book or I might lose it. That makes her kind of furious at herself, because she always tries so hard to be professional, not let her personal life influence her performance, put her emotions behind a wall when she has to… to be just like Evan. And then, when she's put to the test for the first time, she's already screwing it up in the first few hours? So much for being ready to make Captain.

"Okaaay… Now… what?" She wants to breath a sigh of relief and thank Jen for that simple answer, for unknowingly pushing her to focus on the mission again.

"We wait for them. I doubt they left us here to rot since they went through so much trouble to get us. Sooner or later, they'll be back again and then we'll get to see what they want from us." Jennifer doesn't look too convinced. In fact, she seems everything but happy at the prospect of having to face their captors again. But it's really all they can do at the moment. Of course she doesn't plan on simply let those guys talk and probably beat them again, but she's almost positive that this time they are monitored, and she knows better than to give away what she intends to do when they finally are back again.

"Laura… can I ask you something?" She shrugs. Sure. "How that hell can you stay so calm? I mean… you got open wounds and must be in pain and everything… and you still… How do you soldiers do that?" That's how Jennifer sees her? Calm? She feels everything but, but obviously at least for now she does a good job of hiding it.

She gives her a short half-grin. "They have like real classes for that at our academies." That makes Jennifer smile involuntarily, and because she sympathizes with the little doctor, she adds: "Hey, Jen, just remember: When the going gets tough…"

"The tough get going.", Jen finishes and obviously that's enough to bring back a little confidence for now. She just hopes it'll hold up when their captors are back.

A/N: And here we go again. After I successfully managed to wreck my mother's laptop as well and nearly wrecked the 12 GB flash drive my dad gave me as a temporary replacement for the more or less fried back-up harddrive, I'm not sure if I shouldn't quit electronics altogether. Seems like I'm some kind of human EMP-field or something...

Anyway: In the meantime I'll just keep writing and publishing as much as I can, because I still have some very faithful readers whom I like very much and whom I don't want to apologize under any circumstances. Thanks for still reading and reviewing this :)