Chapter 8 Coming To.
Vala remembered very little of the next few days. As soon as they'd arrived on the George Hammond Daniel had practically run with her to the infirmary, refusing to wait for a trolley to arrive. By that point, she'd felt dreadful – throwing up into a hastily procured plastic bowl, she'd almost passed out into Carolyn Lam's arms.
The good doctor was wonderful. Within the space of a couple of hours she had the ex-pirate pumped full of antibiotics and whisked into theatre, where she cleaned, de-brided and sutured all of those horribly infected wounds. When Vala surfaced briefly from a morphine-fuelled sleep, she found herself attached to a confusing variety of drips and leads. It was all too much for her, so she just shut her eyes and drifted away again.
That was how the next few days passed for her – coming to every few hours, still attached to all manner of tubes, being prodded and poked and then just dropping off back to sleep. She was completely exhausted – the stress of being separated from the team for five months, and her injury, and probably a lack of food had completely worn her out. Sometimes she was aware that Daniel was sitting beside her – she was too tired to even speak to him, she would just smile and close her eyes again.
He was beside himself with worry that it was taking her so long to come round, but Carolyn reassured him.
"This is just her body's way of coping and repairing itself," she told him, after he'd camped out in the infirmary for about three days. "You saw the state that she was in when you found her – it's going to take a while to nurse her back to health. To be absolutely truthful with you, Dr Jackson, I don't know how much longer she would have lasted if you hadn't come across her."
Daniel paled. His heart thudded in his chest. "She was bad, wasn't she?"
Carolyn nodded, soberly. "Those wounds were in an awful state. The infection would have led to septacaemia eventually. I'd have given her another week tops before it would have been too late to save her."
The archaeologist swallowed hard. It didn't bear thinking about. Thank God that they'd gone on the Hammond with Samantha. Thank God that he'd gone into the museum, and followed the old man back home. Tears pricked the back of his eyes. It all could have ended so differently. Dr Lam was watching him – she gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.
"Don't beat yourself up, though, Daniel. You found her, you saved her and you brought her home. What you need to do now is go somewhere and sleep – that's an order! Because when she does wake up, she's going to absolutely run you ragged, you know she is!"
"Suppose that she wakes up and I'm not here though?"
Carolyn rolled her eyes.
"Daniel, you can have the bed next to her! Just for pity's sake, get some sleep!"
So when Vala eventually woke with at least enough energy to sit up for a while it was to find her dearly beloved lying on his front on the adjacent bed, fully clothed and fast asleep. She looked around for something to throw at him, but before she could find anything Carolyn came over from the little nurses' station.
"Don't even think about waking him," she warned her friend, popping a thermometer into the alien's mouth and pumping up the BP cuff around her arm. "He's been sat by your bed since you came in four days ago, we had to practically threaten him with serious injury to make him go to sleep!"
"I thorff thath I thaw him," said Vala, around the thermometer. "What'th that for?" she pointed upwards to a fat bag of blood, which was slowly making it's way into her veins.
"Exactly what you think it is." Carolyn undid the cuff, satisfied. "You're quite anaemic – not surprising really. That's the second unit to go in. Trust you to have the rarest blood group in the whole galaxy!"
She removed the thermometer, checked it and smiled. "Apyrexial. Looks like you're going to live after all."
"Good." Vala yawned. "what's hay per rexical?"
"Apyrexial. It mean's that your temperature is back to normal at last. You gave us quite a scare, you know."
Her friend nodded, looking sad. "Sorry."
"Don't be ridiculous. All's well that ends well. I'm keeping you for a good long time yet though, so prepare yourself for some serious, infirmary-style boredom!"
Vala smiled and burrowed down into the pillows, grimacing. Her side was still very sore. Dr Lam patted her arm and moved away, just as Mitchell came strolling into the infirmary.
"Hey there, Princess!" he swooped in and gave her a peck on the cheek. "How're ya feelin'?"
"All the better for seeing you," she caught his hand, suddenly and bizarrely feeling like crying. She'd missed her big-mouthed, big-hearted colonel more than she realised.
"Hey now," he leant on the bed and very gingerly hugged the bits of her that weren't covered in bandages or attached to something. "You wanna make me cry too?" He paused briefly. "Because…..I'm real, real sorry that I lost you, Princess."
His face looked sad. Vala forgot that she was about to bawl her eyes out and squeezed his hands.
"Oh, you are an idiot, Mitchell! It could have been any of us! Well, actually, not any of us because Dalton only knew me. And I don't suppose that you owed him money. Which I still do actually. I really ought to pay him off sometime. But anyway, none of us knew that it was a trap out there anyway….oh! How's Jonas?"
Cameron had started to laugh. He had to hug her again. Well the parts that were available.
"You're hilarious woman, you know that? Jonas is fine – he knows that you are as well now. It was thanks to him that we knew you went off in a Tel'tak. We filled him in on your intel about your pal wanting the naquadria though. He's going to see if he can find out any more about this City of Light too."
"City of Light? What's that? Actually, Mitchell, I'm feeling a bit hungry I think. I don't know, I felt so awful for such a long time I think I've forgotten what it is to be hungry. Do you have any chocolate?"
Cam shook his head, grinning, but pulled a small bar from his pocket. Vala took it and nibbled at the corner.
"The 'City of Light' is where we think your co-ordinates lead to. It's where we think these crystals are. The one's that can be used with the naquadria."
"To make the glazer – laser."
"Uh huh."
Dr Lam came over with several syringes of intravenous antibiotics.
"Drug's are up," she smiled. Cam smiled back at her, looking a little bit like a smitten school boy. Vala looked at him knowingly. He blushed slightly.
"Well, I'd better be going," he kissed his team mate's hand. "You have no idea how boring it was at the SGC without you, Princess." He turned to leave, then swung back. "I'll make you some macaroons when we're home." He left to go back to work.
"Macaroons – are they those awful things which he keeps burning?" asked Carolyn.
Vala nodded glumly. "Lucky me."
When Daniel awoke, part way through the afternoon, his girlfriend was sitting up in bed, still attached to all manner of paraphernalia, avidly reading a magazine which one of the nurses' had given her.
"Hello Daniel," she said, glancing fleetingly across at him. "you wouldn't believe what's been going on in Hollywood while I've been gone!"
She turned a page, pulling a face at the dress one of the model's was wearing.
"That's horrible," she stated, picking up Cameron's chocolate and nibbling it again. "Blue is so not her colour. She might as well be naked, she'd look better. Even that fat old lady who looked like a troll would look better. Actually I think she would, you know, because I told her, when I was flirting with her husband, I told her that blue was her colour. Maybe if we ever go back I could take her some nice blue material to make a special frock with. Because they did help me out you know. Of course, you and Mitchell would have to find Dalton first and do something with him. I'm not getting kidnapped again, it was too tedious. Oh look – there was a sale on at Victoria's Secret!"
Dr Jackson, propped up on his elbows, sweaty, whiskery and needing a shower, smiled one of the biggest, happiest smiles that he'd ever smiled in his entire life. She was back.
Yep, she's back :-)
Now, I may be getting a beta, so it could be a few days before the next chapter goes up. Just letting you know, in case you thought I'd given up on the story!