Hello! Here we go with yet another chapter. I'm hoping to end it at chapter 38 or 40.. whatever closes this better ?
Anyhow!
Enjoy!
M.
Chapter Thirty-six
He was definitively getting nervous, his wedding anniversary was around the corner, and somehow it seemed that every single thing that could've gone wrong it was going to go wrong. And with Sam out of the options for experts to help, everything seemed to take longer. Much, much longer.
And even though, it had been a while since Sam hadn't been as one of their to go experts, she was always the first he thought about. And often, told the others something like 'Carter would've found a way.' He shook his head and bit his lip before he shouted something like that to the nerds. He wanted her back, and he knew she could solve the issue at hand within the hours. However, he was aware that she had it hard enough without people hating her because of him comparing them to her. He scrubbed his face with a hand trying hard to avoid hitting his forehead on his desk in utter despair.
"General O'Neill, are you okay?" One of the nerds asked with a trembling voice.
"Yeah, long days," He added berating himself for the slip. But he was sick tired of being in meetings all day with no hope of achieving any result.
"I'm sorry, General," Amelia entered the room with a frown. "You ordered me to interrupt if Colonel Carter called." The room got quiet the moment they heard the name, and they exchanged glances as the General nodded once and gave her orders to pass the call. "O'Neill."
The scientist looked among themselves with frowns, and Jack turned around not to watch them and to give himself as much privacy as he could, regretting in that same instant that he had asked Amelia to pass the call through and not to his office. He listened to the voice on the other side and stood up before adding his last words.
"I'm on my way," he hung the phone and clenched his jaw and looked at the room. "Gentlemen, find a solution a.s.a.p. You can have the meeting room, let Amelia know when you are gone. I need to be somewhere else." He closed the door behind him with such force that his secretary jumped out of freight.
"Sir?" she asked following him.
"They are going to stay for a while," he pointed to the room he just left. "I need to go. I shouldn't have come," he muttered the last part to himself.
"Sir? Are you okay?" Amelia asked the last time she saw him this worried was the day his wife went missing.
"Sam took Naysa to the Hospital, and they are having issues with her identity," Jack added clenching his jaw.
"Go, sir… I'll take care of them," Amelia added, and he nodded thankfully.
He walked as fast as he could and swore when he remembered his car was parked on the other side of the city. Crossing over to the hospital from his home would be a nightmare, but a taxi or the metro wouldn't do either.
He was on the phone the minute he was out of the Pentagon and running downstairs to the metro.
"I need a favor," it was the first thing he said as the person on the other side of the line picked it up. "Sam's at George Washington University Hospital and they are giving her a hard time with the identity. Thank you, sir. I appreciate this." He hung up that call and quickly made another and finally reached the car and started the engine.
Clenching his jaw, he prepared for one of the things he hated more than Politicians, and that was DC traffic. He inhaled deeply and made his way out of his parking spot and towards the street.
"Call Carter," he said out loud and soon the classic sound of a phone where heard.
"Carter," Sam's voice sounded more worried than he expected. Granted she was whispering and that was something that always made him feel uncomfortable, too many bad memories associated with whispering Sam piled up during the eight years of working in the field.
"Did they tended to her?" he asked, and he felt her sigh.
"Jack," she said, then there was a small pause as if she was shaking herself out of her state. "Yes, the White House M.D supposedly just arrived on a visit and saw me here. They are taking care of her as we speak," she smiled.
"I had to call Hayes; I couldn't leave Naysa waiting until I managed to get in. I also called Doctor Quinn; she's getting there a.s.a.p."
"Good, they are taking blood and the other samples too, to find out what on Earth she's got."
"Mrs. O'Neill?" Someone asked in the background.
"Do you mind if I put the call on speaker? It's my husband on the line."
"Sure." Jack heard the fuss of the phone settings betting changed to the speaker, "I'm Doctor Atwood, first let me say that your daughter is probably just presenting a common stomach bug, which is hardly something to be extremely worried about. You told us she lost too many fluids. Therefore, we are going to place her an IV and keep her in an exam room to see her progress. We will give her something to stop her from throwing up and something to stop her diarrhea. Then she probably will need a light diet; we will know more once her results are back. Mr. and Mrs. O'Neill, it's imperative for us to have her medical records to be able to treat her accordingly."
"We are on it," Jack's voice crackled over the line.
"Good, now we need to place that IV, Mrs. O'neill. You will need to hold her so she will be more comfortable and that way the process will be more comfortable for her."
"Sure, I call you when we know more or call me when you get here Jack," she added before hanging the call.
Sam walked to the other end of the room in which they were and observed her little girl. Naysa was paler than ever, her eyes sunken in her face and she looked tiny in the hospital bed. Even feeling as sick as she was, her eyes shimmered when she spotted her mom.
"Naysa, they are going to put an IV on you," Sam whispered in a soothing tone, hoping that her voice calmed the girl a little. "They are going to pinch your skin with a needle, and then they are going to hook up a cable to it and soon you will be feeling better," the girl eyed Sam, and she smiled she knew Naysa had no idea what she was saying to her.
She sat on the bed, and Naysa crawled up to her lap and Sam took her in holding her close and continued to talk to the girl who didn't take her eyes out of her mother's face. The nurse smiled at the image as he approached the bed and Sam nodded at him, Naysa flinched when the weird sensation of a needle pinching her skin happened, but she continued calmly looking at her mom.
"She loves you," The nurse told her, "she trusts you."
"I know," Sam answered.
"The Doctor will be back when the results are here."
"Thank you." She waited for the room to be empty, or at least their part of the room. "Shall we call daddy?" Sam asked Naysa, and the girl nodded not as eagerly as she usually did. Sam took her phone out of her pocket and started dialing for Jack, remembering how this little tradition of calling daddy was the result of Naysa second tantrum in a row. She wanted her father, and that was understandable, and the call was something that managed to call her, the family Psychologist had explained to them that it was probably due to the amount of time she had been fatherless, and the amount of time she spent with Jack once the family was reunited. The Doctor theorized that it was somewhere between the fear of losing him and the fear of abandonment as if not seeing Jack in a period would make him not real. And thus, the call was reassuring to the girl.
"Someone wants to talk to you," Sam told to the other side, and Naysa babbled with her father.
"Love you Doc," she finished tiredly, and Sam took the phone "She's asleep, call me when you get here." She checked the phone was in the vibrating mode not to wake Naysa when Jack called back and sighed.
"Oh, little one, what a mess did I do for us," Sam whispered as Naysa's eyes dropped heavily. Sam moved backward hoping that the movement wouldn't wake her daughter and it didn't. Soon, she was holding Naysa securely against her chest, but Sam too was asleep.
Jack arrived and walked to the front desk of the emergency room, his uniform caught the attention of people as he walked by but he didn't notice it. He also didn't see how quickly two girls walked over to where he was standing. He only wanted to reach to his family, and by the tone, Sam used he hoped she too had fallen asleep along with Naysa.
"Hi, how can I help you?" one of them told him with a sickeningly sweet voice.
"I'm looking for Naysa C. O'Neill?" he asked, and the girl typed pouting when she found the information of the patient.
"Are you related?"
"I'm her father." The girl's eyes almost bulged out of her face, and she exchanged a look with the girl beside her. "This way please," she added almost fearfully, Jack frowned for a second but discarded it as he tried to keep himself at bay. The girl opened a door, and he quickly noticed it wasn't a room nor there was a sign of Sam or Naysa.
"Excuse me, but I won't find my daughter or wife here," he added with a serious tone.
"Are you Mr. O'Neill?" A voice questioned from behind his back, and he turned towards it. He frowned, there was a woman inside, she looked tiny, but something told him her size was deceitful. He nodded once clenching his jaw. "I'm Shannon Kelly," she extended her hand to him, and he took it, the woman smirked as if she had grabbed him with the hand in the cookie jar and then she added, "Social services."