The Tegan Chronicles

Thicker than Blood 5

Cassie was in the living room working on a report for history class when she heard a sound from the kitchen where Tegan was working on dinner. At first she thought Tegan had stepped on Galahad, but he was curled up by her leg, or had been until he'd heard the awful sound from the kitchen. Cassie hopped up off the couch and saw Tegan fumbling with her prosthetic. She'd never seen her have problems removing it before, and wished she could help. She knew only Tegan's, her mom's or Sam's thumb print would work to get the release to work, and maybe Jack's but she wasn't sure. "Tegan? Are you ok?"

"Yes." She hissed, finally getting her thumb to connect with the reader. Her hand was trembling and she was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

"No you're not." Cassie had seen Tegan look pretty bad in the last four months, and this was close to the worst. She was pale, bordering on gray and her breathing was strange.

"I need you to call your mom." Tegan dropped the prosthetic and slid to the floor. "Get the combination to the safe."

"We have a safe?" She was already dialing the base.

Tegan nodded and moaned, "Tell her I need," she gasped. "Morphine."

Cassie knew it was bad if Tegan was asking for any pain medication, especially Morphine.

"Cheyenne Mountain, Sergeant Richards speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"This is Cassie Fraiser, I need to speak with Dr. Fraiser it's an emergency."

"Hold please."

Cassie growled in the phone as she looked at Tegan who was laying on her back tapping her head on the ceramic tile floor. She wasn't sure which would crack first the tile or her head but she wished she would stop.

It seemed like eternity, but in fact was less than a minute, before she heard her mother's voice. "Fraiser."

"Mom, Tegan needs morphine." She looked at Tegan's pained expression, her eyes that were clenched shut. "I didn't even know we had a safe."

"Alright." Janet remained calm. "Go in my office, it's behind the picture of you I have hanging on the wall."

"It's bad." Cassie said as she took the picture off the wall. "Alright, got it."

"The code is 102943."

"Which one is it?" Cassie peered into the small safe that held four injectors.

"There should be two that say Morphine Sulfate on the side in black letters. Give her one of those."

"I don't know how to give it to her. And there's no way she can give it to herself."

"Is she wearing pants or shorts?" Janet wished she knew what was going on.

"Hold on, something's burning." Cassie moved the frying pan with olive oil and veggies off the burner and turned the stove off. "Shorts."

"Alright, just hold it against the outside of her upper thigh and push the button on the back." Janet was sure Cassie had seen her administer the injections before.

"This might hurt a little." Cassie followed her mom's instructions when Tegan didn't respond. "Done, I think."

"Ok." Janet sighed. "I'll be home as soon as I can."

"Are you leaving work now?"

"As soon as I can let Dana know I need to leave. Ok?"

"Yeah."

"Cassie?"

"What?"

"You did a good job."

"I don't know, she's still hitting her head on the floor." Cassie sat on the floor beside and put her hand in Tegan's, ignoring the pain as she squeezed it.

"She's not seizing is she?" Janet figured the teen had seen enough seizures to know the difference.

"No." Cassie felt Tegan's grasp lighten. "She just stopped."

"I'm on my way, call me on my cell if you need me."

"Bye."

"What happened?" Janet asked when she found Tegan out on the floor with Cassie and Galahad beside her.

"She yelped, fumbled with her arm, looked really pasty, told me she was ok before falling on the floor and asking for Morphine." Cassie exaggerated a little but it was how it had looked to her. "Then she proceeded to hit her head on the tile until it kicked in."

"You did good." Janet picked up the used injector and looked at the partially over cooked dinner on the stove and the raw chicken sitting in a bowl beside it.

"I'm going to go finish my homework."

"Think you could help me move her to the couch first?"

Cassie nodded.

Dana stopped by a little after five with pizza and salad from Fargo's pizza. "Hey, I thought you guys might need dinner."

Janet smiled from her position in the chair as Cassie took the food. "Yeah, it looks like Tegan was working on it, but it got burnt."

"How's she doing?"

Janet shook her head. "She's been out since I got home."

"Well if she's out she's not in pain."

Tegan moaned.

"Not too much anyway." Dana grimaced. "Do you think it's phantom pain?"

"If I had to guess?" Janet nodded.

"Yeah, me too. Pretty bad though."

"Yeah, I don't ever remember her actually asking for Morphine."

"Look, I've got day shift covered tomorrow." Dana didn't want to sound like she was taking over or anything. "I hope you don't mind, but I went ahead and shuffled things around so you don't have any physicals on your schedule if you need to stay home."

"Thanks, I appreciate it. I think I'm going to 'need' to stay home, it'll probably be the only way I can get her to stay."

Dana nodded. "I'm going to head out, if you need anything give me a call."

"How much do I owe you for the pizza?"

"Nothing, I got it."

"Let me pay you."

"Please, it's what friends do, remember?"

"Thanks." Janet smiled lightly. It was nice to know she had people who were willing to help out near by.

When Tegan finally woke up it was almost seven and she pushed herself off the couch and did a drunken run to the bathroom. Janet followed close behind and stood outside the closed door listening to Tegan first bring up stomach acid and then dry heave into the toilet. She went in the office and drew up a healthy dose of Phenergan. "Tegan?"

"Huh?" Tegan grunted between heaves. She hated that morphine had a tendency to make her sick.

"Do you need Phenergan?"

She didn't want it, another forceful heave and she swore she felt her knee caps hit her tonsils. She probably needed it, and so after bringing up nothing more than the bathroom tiles beneath her feet, she managed to answer in the affirmative.

Janet turned to doorknob surprised she hadn't locked it behind her. "Why don't we get you to the couch, or better yet bed before I give this to you?"

Tegan put the lid down and flushed the commode. She washed her hands and threw cold water on her face. "I need to brush my teeth first."

"Ok." Janet knew it'd only cause her to gag and heave more, but if it would make her feel better.

While Tegan brushed her teeth in the master bath that they shared, Janet got a cool wet rag and pulled out something a little more comfortable for Tegan to sleep in.

Tegan changed into the pajamas Janet had selected and climbed into the bed in the adjoining bedroom.

"I'm going to get the air mattress and sleep in here tonight."

"No, I'm ok."

"Still."

Tegan sighed, she was tired of putting Janet out, but she was also too hungover from the morphine to argue.

"You want to show me some leg?"

Tegan rolled slightly moving her shorts out of the way so Janet could inject the Phenergan.

"You're not going to work tomorrow. I'll call Colonel O'Neill and let him know." Janet injected the medication and put the needle aside.

"I'll be able to work tomorrow." Tegan rolled back on her back.

"Consider it a three day holiday weekend then." Janet patted her forehead with the cool rag.

Tegan closed her eyes and conceded. "Whatever."

"What happened tonight?"

"Can we talk tomorrow?"

"Yeah, we can."