AU: When an exploration mission goes way off the left field, Jack and Sam are left to patch up their lives. Will that door stay open?
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are the property of MGM/Amazon. No copyright infringement intended. I am once again taking my favourite two Gaters for a walk in an Alternate Universe. Takes place after 5.05 Red Sky with some canon episodes skipped (overlooked) and others referenced.
Rating: Mature
Chapter 33: Committed!
Wednesday afternoon – Academy Psychiatric Ward – MacKenzie
"Whoa, what happened to you?" A familiar voice said. Looking up, I smiled knowing he was talking about the nicely forming bruise around my eye.
"Neil, long time no see. How are things?" I greeted none other than Doctor Neil Brooks with a shake of his hand before continuing to sign my patient in. As one of the country's foremost experts on human genetics, I admired him for his continued support of young aspiring doctors around the country. The Academy hospital was just one of the training facilities that he spent time nurturing the careers of our future medical professionals.
"Good. I haven't been here in a while." He offered, not chasing more information on the eye. It wasn't the first time I had been clocked by a patient and it wouldn't be the last time. "I've been involved in some fascinating research out west. A patient with a degenerative disease like I have never seen before." He didn't elaborate any further. "What brings you out of the mountain?"
"Sad case. A soldier under my care has developed schizophrenia after a serious head injury." I gave him the bare minimum information.
"Tragic. It's terrible watching our country's protector's crumble." He added with a shake of his head before looking down at the form I was signing. "Major Samantha Carter? As in Major Doctor Samantha Carter?" He asked after seeing the name printed on the form. Moving my hands over the form in a belated attempt to conceal her name, I looked at him and had no choice but to nod.
"The very one." I replied sadly. Despite what her team thought, seeing a strong Air Force officer like Major Carter fall to something like this was hard. "You know her?" I asked.
"I know of her. She's a well-known person in the scientific community. Though her military life is an enigma. Whenever asked at a lecture, her standard response is that its classified." He replied, not bothering to hide his look of awe. "Some even believe she has superpowers, something in her blood that makes her special."
I laughed, "Hardly, she's as human and you and I." The lie rolling off my tongue. Though I did wonder why a man not privy to such information would be making a comment like that. "Though I am told that she can shoot a moving target at long range with pinpoint accuracy," frowning, I continued, "and her mind was brilliant."
"Was?" He asked. "Can't you fix her? Schizophrenia is easily managed. There is no reason she can't return to her life once it's under control." He explained the science behind a normally relatively easily managed condition.
"I wish that were the case. As it stands, she can barely get through an hour without crying or talking to her imaginative friends. What's worse is that she has an extremely high metabolism and quickly absorbs anything I give her to keep calm." I added, careful to not reveal to him about her unique, and highly classified blood protein. At least we could explain it away with a plausible medical reason.
Finishing with the form, I pocketed my pen, gave Neil my best and headed toward the room they were settling Major Carter into. As I walked down the hallway, I could already her screaming for Colonel O'Neill to help her, not that she ever called him that anymore. These days he was just Jack. I was going to wait until tomorrow to transfer her, but after her escape when she convinced Warner to free her from the bed, well, it was clear that she needed a much safer location. That had been barely and hour ago and she was already awake and kicking.
"Where is he? Jack! Jack, please help me." She begged as I walked in to find her straining against the straps. "No. Not him. Go away. Jack. Where are you, Jack?" She yelled and cried, trying to scoot up her bed away from me.
"Major. Colonel O'Neill is not here." I told her, nodding at the nurse who had been monitoring her. "You need to calm down."
"If you stopped STRAPPING ME DOWN, I would be calm. Where am I?" She barked, her nostrils flaring and eyes boring into my skull.
"The Academy psychiatric ward. You need help, Sam." I told her, hoping the use of her first name would help keep her calm.
"I need Jack. I need my friends. I need… I need…" She swallowed convulsively and turned pale, then promptly turned her head, and vomited. Damn. Rushing forward, I helped her as best I could without releasing her from the bindings. "Where are you, Jack?" She whispered then vomited again and again. She was working herself up so much, she couldn't keep anything down. Looking at my watch, it was too soon to give her another shot, but maybe giving her some Valium would help relax her enough for the nurses to clean her up without attacking them. Reaching into my pocket, I found the tablet I had pocketed earlier just in case this happened.
"Sam, take this. Trust me, it will help. Then we'll get you cleaned up." I explained. She scrunched up her face and turned her head away. It was a typical response from her.
"No. I don't need your drugs. I need Jack." She refused. My only other option was to give it to her via shot. Nodding, I straightened my back and hit the call button. Moments later the nurse from earlier walked back in.
"Major Carter has been ill. She will need new scrubs and a clean bed. Do not unstrap her until I have returned." I ordered the young airman before heading out to the doctors' station to sign out a two-milligram shot of diazepam. I didn't want to get into the habit of administering drugs for her delusions since the effects of long-term use far outweighed the benefits. Instead, I was hoping that therapy along with time away from the mountain, and her team would be enough. Despite what everyone thought, my treatment of Doctor Jackson years before had been necessary because his delusions never stopped, no matter where he was. I hoped the same was not true for Major Carter because she still had so much to offer even if it wasn't going off world.
"Who is this for?" The on-duty nurse asked without the standard honorific when I arrived at the med room. I noted it was Lieutenant Kelsey who was the daughter of my neighbour. Despite outranking her, having her grow up with my own daughter made it hard to enforce the normal military confines. I had known her for eighteen years with only one of those years in the Air Force.
"Major Carter, room 4A."
"Ah, the noisy one." She commented with a wry smile. "Who is Jack?" She asked inquisitively.
"Her Commanding Officer." I replied as I watched her draw the shot and cap the sharp before handing it to me. She looked up with a startled expression.
"Does he know that she calls for him by first name?" The nurse queried, her look of surprise at the Major's familiarity with her CO still not abated.
"It's not really him she's calling for, it's an imaginary version of him. Unfortunately, her real CO allows it to continue, he enables her delusions that he is more than her boss." I informed her of my suspicions behind why Major Carter was not getting better. "In fact, call security. Have Colonel Jack O'Neill, Doctor Daniel Jackson and Teal'c Murray barred from entry." I requested. Having them here would only cause more problems. They would insist that she be returned to the SGC. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if they orchestrated a jailbreak so to speak.
"Yes, Mr. MacKenzie, I mean Major... Doctor." Kelsey responded nervously for the first time since she started here. I smiled at her fumble. She took in a breath, "Yes, Sir." She responded at length with a sharp nod.
"You'll get there, Lieutenant" I replied with my own smile before I turned and headed back to my patient.
Walking in, I found Major Carter struggling against her bindings, her wrists red and near bleeding from the action of trying to get herself free while the nurse tried to calm her with soft words and reassurances that she was safe. The bed sheets had been removed which left the Major lying on the vinyl protector cover.
"Let me out. Let me OUT!" She bellowed. Her face dropped when she saw me enter the room and uncap the sharp. "No… NO! JACK, dammit where are you? Don't let him do this! Not again! Show yourself, you bastard!" She yelled, trying to scoot away from me as she flung insults at her non-existent CO delusion.
"Calm down, Major. This will help, then we will get you cleaned up." I told her calmly. "Jack is not here. He can't hear you." Looking at her wrists, I decided that once she was calm, we would move her to a secure safe room rather than using the bed.
"Don't you stick that in me. Dammit James." She tried to order, going so far as to use my given name. Since we were the same rank, it was not insubordinate for her to do so. "Why won't you listen? Why? I'm not crazy. You read the reports. Colonel O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c saw him too. He's real. I swear." She told me calmly. In fact, it had been the calmest I had seen her since all this started. She levelled a dark gaze at me.
"Then how come he did not reveal himself to me?" I asked, needle poised ready to administer. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt for a little while.
"Because he was weak. The Colonel was off world. I was able to recharge him, but not enough." She continued completely unaware of how crazy she sounded.
"Recharge him how?"
"Naquadah." She said as plain as day while the nurse was still in the room. "And the Ancient gene." She continued, "I have it now. He gave it to me when we..." I couldn't allow her to continue revealing classified information like this. Moving deftly, I injected the diazepam. "NO! You'll kill her!" She screamed as the fluid entered her body.
"Who is 'her'?" I asked as I waited for the drug to take effect. It normally took a few minutes to kick in, but I noticed the effects in the Major almost immediately.
"My… my ba… my ba-baby. My daugh…ter." She mumbled before lolling her head back onto the pillow, her eyes going dull. "Jack… help me. Help us. Please." She murmured, her eyes flitting around the room before filling with tears. Her baby. She was pregnant. That hadn't been on any of her medical notes, or reports. I had seen results of blood tests, none of them showing any hint of a pregnancy. Shit, and I had spent the afternoon injecting her with anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. I had to call Janet, unless… unless this was another way for her to get me to stop trying to help her. Yes, that is what this was. She was famously single and unless she had been sexually active with one of her teammates on the last mission, it wasn't possible for her to be pregnant.
"Nice try. There is no evidence of that Major." I told her, though I would arrange for bloods to be taken and sent to the SGC lab for analysis anyway. Now that she was languid, I turned to the nurse.
"You are not to repeat anything you heard. Major Carter is delusional. Change her scrubs and escort her down to E4." I instructed her. At least in a padded room, she couldn't harm herself.
"What about what she said, Sir. About being pregnant?" The nurse asked a little more forcefully than I would normally expect from a Second Lieutenant.
"I don't believe she is, but I will check in any case." I told her. Given the Major's unique blood, I couldn't run the risk of a sample making its way to the onsite labs. Retrieving a tourniquet, venepuncture kit and four sample tubes – ensuring one of them was red – from the nurse's drawer, I walked back over to the Major just as the nurse released her wrist strap. The angry red welts on her wrist glared at me as I lifted her pliable arm to put the tourniquet in place.
"James." She murmured, looking straight at me with dull grey-blue eyes while I tapped the fold of her elbow to wake up the vein.
"Sam." I replied, easing the butterfly needle of the venepuncture kit into her arm and taping it in place. Filling the red tube first, followed by two of the three yellow tubes before she spoke again.
"Let me go home." She begged, more tears filling her eyes. "I'll stop talking to him if you let me go. I'll leave the SGC." She continued as I filled the final yellow tube. "I'll go… away. Please." She finished with a trembling bottom lip as I removed the tourniquet and needle, applied pressure and a plaster to her arm, then made the kit safe before depositing it the biohazard bin.
"Sorry Sam, I can't do that. I want to help you. Let me help you." I replied, dropping her arm back down, then leaving the room for the nurse to finish her work. Walking back out, I was met with none other than a furious Doctor Janet Fraiser in civilian attire.
"What the hell James? What gave you the right to transfer Major Carter without talking to me first?" She demanded from her shorter position, though I knew better than to throw fuel on her already ignited fire.
"Janet, I had no choice…" I tried to explain as she barged past me and into Sam's room. There was nothing Janet could do to have her released, I had made sure of that since I knew Janet would do everything possible to get her back to the SGC, convinced that that was what she needed. What she needed was to be away from her team. Away from the man responsible for her slide into madness.
"Sam, honey!" Janet said to the woman who was now sitting in a wheelchair wearing clean scrubs. She was still out of it, her head lolling to the side. She smiled sleepily and drawled out a long slow sounding 'heeey' to her friend and doctor. Janet looked at me with black eyes and a scowl etched on her face, her eyes flitting to the four little vials in my hand. "Give those to me." She demanded, holding her hand out. Looking down, I opened my hand and looked at the contents before handing them over. Janet looked at the nurse who seemed to be taking much longer to prep the Major than I would have thought. "I think we should take this to your office, don't you?" She asked rhetorically before storming out of the room.
I followed reluctantly and winced when she yanked my office door open so violently that it shook the windows. Stepping inside, I closed the door and waited for the barrage to continue. She did not disappoint.
"You can't lodge your report James. Not without more sessions. Hammond is furious. Not only did this happen while he was away, it happened while his 2IC was on a last minute mission demanded by the Russian ambassador." She argued.
"You didn't see her Janet. She was talking to an imaginary Jack O'Neill right in my office. Yelling at him actually, as if they were something more than colleagues." I tried to explain, but could not find the words.
"Oh for God's sake! They have been on the same team for five years! Of course, they are more. They are friends. Good friends."
"Lovers?" I added.
"What! No!" She barked.
"She claims she is pregnant, but there is no record of it in her medical notes. That is why I took her blood." I informed her.
Janet crossed her arms and sighed. "I am reasonably certain that she is, though none of the standard tests have been positive. I've been testing every week since she got back." She confessed, a hand running down her face before she looked back at me with a tired expression. "I hope for your sake that none of those drugs have damaged her unborn child." She continued with a shake of her head, her thumb circling the top of the red vial. "You're lucky you banned Colonel O'Neill from entry, or you'd be a dead man. He is livid." She stated unequivocally, "No – more accurately – he is murderous." She corrected herself. "I wouldn't return to the SGC until we sort this out it I were you."
"How did you expect me – anyone – to know about her condition?" I bit back at her, steadfastly refusing to allow her to pin something of this magnitude on me. "Shouldn't your suspicions have at least been noted on her file?"
"I have nothing to back up my suspicions! You could have called me BEFORE sticking your needles in her. Dammit James. The entire team reported seeing these 'delusions' as you put it. Evidence of that was in the mission reports that you read!" She cursed, fighting to control her anger.
"Janet, I've been doing this job for thirty years. I know whe..." I started to defend my decision.
"Didn't you learn your lesson after Daniel and Machello? You had him drugged to the eyeballs for days. Things are not always cut and dry at the SGC. You can't package every symptom up into a neat little box and whack a diagnosis on it after one session." She interrupted.
"Is Colonel O'Neill the father?" I asked, because despite O'Neill's report being vague, I had read a section that could have been construed as sexual relations between the leader and his 2IC, if you looked really hard and read between the lines.
"I cannot possibly know that, James." She answered quickly. Too quickly. Narrowing my eyes at her, she bristled. "I will not fuel the grapevine with unverified speculation, Doctor." She ground out before leaving the room with the four tubes of blood in her hand. I sighed as I watched Doctor Fraiser's retreating form. At least she would get those samples tested in the safety of the SGC labs. Now all that was left for me to do was hope that Sam and her child would be OK. If they weren't, I fully believed Janet when she said my life was hanging in the balance.