Tegan Chronicles

Intuition and Lies 13

Greg walked into the OR suite dressed in navy scrubs covered by a sterile gown. His own surgical cap covered his hair and he held his glove covered hands up in front of him. He looked at Tegan lying there with a tube snaking out of her mouth, the anesthesiologist standing just off to the side. Just outside the door Dr. Andrews waited, he'd come in just as Greg was closing Tegan's head. There was no need for him to work on her arm if she wasn't going to survive the brain surgery, though it had been put more delicately when they'd made up their game plan.

Janet glanced across Tegan's prone body to Dana who craned her neck momentarily to look at Sam who was standing out of the way waiting for the tumor. Janet's eyes drifted to the observation room where General Hammond and Daniel sat, Teal'c and Jack were beside them dressed in their battle fatigues ready to go with Sam once she'd acquired the tumor.

"Ready?" Greg asked from his position at Tegan's head, which had been shaved and prepped with a Betadine solution earlier.

Janet nodded, she and Dana were really just there as auxiliary support.

Greg took the scalpel from the scrub nurse and made a precision cut before taking the bone saw. Up in the observation room Jack grimaced and looked away.

Once he could visualize the tumor it was obvious it had grown since the PET scan. Greg took a deep breath and looked at Janet. His blue eyes spoke volumes. He took a deep breath and twisted his head first to the left then to the right. "I don't..."

"You don't have a choice." Janet interrupted before he could tell her all the risks involved even if there wasn't the added threat of this sac being filled with flesh destroying acid.

He blew his breath out behind his surgical mask.

He was the best, this was why he was here. He tried not to think about who was lying on the table, under his scalpel. He refused to think about what could happen if his nerves got the best of him, if his hand jerked ever so slightly while he was holding an instrument inside that delicate tissue. He didn't want to think about how fate had intervened. How his wedding had been put on hold, and not just for anyone, but for Tegan.

"Tegan," He whispered quietly then looked up at the scrub nurse. "Kelly clamp."

She handed him the clamp. He opened and closed it in his hand several times, getting a feel for it. He eyed the sac looking for the best place to start detaching.

"Dr. Fraiser, I'm going to need a steady hand with the suction."

She nodded, she could be steady. Right now this was just another soldier lying there. This wasn't the woman who made her world go round.

"Janet?" Dana was offering her services even if she'd rather someone wake her from this nightmare.

"I can do it." Janet nodded again moving into the best position.

"Alright, I'm going to clamp it and then I'll start cutting it out." Greg steadied his breathing, something he'd learned to control while taking yoga during residency.

Very gently, as if he were trying to pin butterfly wings down without tearing them, he slid the clamp into place and locked it. Surprisingly there wasn't any bleeding as he cut the sac free, almost like a thin skinned blister had formed around the liquid in her brain. The procedure took twenty-five minutes from the time he actually started to insert the clamp until he lifted it out. Carefully he laid it in the awaiting container. Something Sam had had fabricated, glass lined with stainless steel.

"Shit," He murmured as he noticed the sludgy looking green fluid trickle out of a tiny hole. "I need saline."

The nurse handed him the tube to the sterile saline bag they had waiting for one of the worst case scenarios they'd worked out. He started flushing the brain tissue immediately as Janet suctioned the runoff away.

"Get it out of here." She ordered Sam.

Sam was met in the hall by Teal'c and Jack who made sure there was no one in the hall as they quickly made their way to the gate room where the gate was already engaged with the planet that this horrible acid had come from.

"I don't know if we're going to make it." Sam continued to walk as briskly as she could toward the waiting wormhole. The acid had already eaten through the half inch of stainless steel and now all that stood between it and freedom was a quarter inch of glass.

Jack grabbed the jar from Sam's hand and chucked it through the wormhole. They stood there for several minutes waiting to see if any had managed to escape but the ramp and surrounding cement floor seemed unscathed.

"Shut her down." Jack looked up at the control center.

"We're not going through?"

"I don't see any reason to, do you?"

"No sir." She looked at Teal'c.

"It is just as well."

"How is she?" Sam found Janet as soon as possible after the surgery was complete.

Janet shook her head. "I need to go in and check on her. Dr. Scully can fill you in."

Sam stepped aside so Janet could continue on her way. She found Dana ten minutes later as she came out of Tegan's room. She didn't even have to ask how Tegan was.

"We don't know." Dana spoke softly. "Dr. Ray... Greg flushed the area as soon as he saw the sac had been compromised, but no one saw any indication it was compromised prior to him extracting it. He also couldn't find any evidence the acid had come in contact with her brain."

"That's good right?"

"Yes, but..." Dana looked down the hall away from Sam. "After Dr. Andrews replaced the humerus, and we tried to ween her of the vent her... She's not breathing on her own."

"That sometimes happens though, right?"

"It does, but it's not a good sign Sam. I'm not saying she's not going to come out of this, but she was breathing on her own before surgery, and relatively healthy. After twenty-four hours her chances of recovering will continue..." She took a deep breath. "Look, screw the odds, I've beat them before and she can too. Just be aware that she's far from being out of the woods right now."

"Can I see her?"

Dana shook her head. "Not yet. You need to get some rest. We all do. Janet's taking the first shift with her. After eight hours will reassess the visitor status. In the meantime I know someone else who needs to get some rest."

Sam nodded. "I didn't mean to keep you."

"I meant you." Dana looked at her sternly. "You've had as much sleep as the rest of us, if not less, and after the stress of your last mission you're in more need of it."

"I'll let Colonel O'Neill know how she is."

"And then you'll get some rest?"

"Yeah, I'll try." Sam promised halfheartedly.