Alive Again

2 weeks later


The familiar screeching sound of the siren resonated throughout the embarkation room.

The technician looked at the G.D.O. command code displayed on his computer screen: "It's SG-1's signal, Sir", he confirmed.

"Open the iris!" General Hammond ordered, fists clenched on each side of his large frame.

The General was visibly agitated, his usual calmness starting to wear off. And with reason: SG-1 was over 6 hours late from P3X-574. The SGC had lost all contact with them and therefore no one knew what to expect when they would come back, or even if they would come back at all.

The iris opened up and the event horizon noisily spewed forth into the vast room, flooding it with an enormous flash of extremely bright light before retracting back to its original position. The usual welcoming party of guards was present, standing by. The men had already taken their positions, weapons aimed directly at the gate, ready to fire on General Hammond's command. Jack and Jonas were the first ones to come through the Gate. They arrived running and stumbled their way in. Jack was holding Teal'c's staff weapon, which was very unusual. A few seconds later, the Jaffa emerged from the rippling pool of light, carrying Sam's limp body in his arms. A gaping wound was visible on the left side of her abdomen through a whole where her beige uniform was shredded and scorched. The second the iris closed, General Hammond snatched the phone behind him, shouting: "I need a medical team down in the embarkation room, on the double!"

He hung up and sped down the stairs of the control room to meet SG-1.

"Is she still alive?" he asked Jack worriedly.

"Yes Sir, but barely. She obviously needs medical attention right away or she won't make it."

The medical team arrived shortly thereafter and two nurses hauled up Sam on a gurney before ushering her out of the embarkation room. Jonas was just standing at the end of the gate ramp, pale as a ghost. The events of the last few minutes had passed in front of his eyes like a bad dream. It was eerily similar to those strange experiences where you sometimes go through the motions and yet you feel more like a spectator than a participant, almost as if you were out of your own body. Except that this was all too real. She had been fired upon right under his eyes. He had seen her slim body being hurled to the ground like a rag doll under the power of the staff weapon, its fiery blast blazing a whole right into her. How had she survived such an assault? That, he certainly couldn’t answer. All he knew is that he would be eternally grateful if the powers from above actually spared her life.

He desperately wanted to run out of there and rush to the infirmary to be at her side but he knew it wasn't his place to be there. At least not for the time being. People would wonder… People would talk... Janet would have him kicked out in a nanosecond… Damn this whole secrecy! He was dying to yell to the entire world – heck, the entire universe - how deeply he cared about this woman and yet, he couldn’t. This was one of the most frustrating situations he’d ever had to face.

General Hammond gave Jack a questioning look: "Would you care to explain what happened, Colonel?"

Despite the life-threatening blow taken by his second in command, Jack had remained very much in control of the situation and didn’t allow the turmoil and fear inside him to take over. Fear that the woman he loved would be taken away from him forever; fear that he would never have the chance to let her know how he truly felt. It was devouring his insides like a carnivorous beast ripping apart a fresh carcass. As usual, he had to keep face. And he did.

"We were taken prisoners by a rebel faction of the Tharkans, Sir.” Jack sternly reported to his superior officer. “We managed to escape but we were ambushed by a group of Jaffa right before we reached the Gate."

"I want the three of you in the briefing room, now!" the General barked as he turned on his heels and exited the room.


************

"I need you to prepare some warm IV fluids and some NGS." Janet ordered to the nurse standing on the other side of the medical bed as she applied an oxygen mask over Sam’s livid face. “We have to stabilize her and we need to do it fast!”

Janet looked at her best friend lying on the medical bed, her life precariously hanging by a thread. Sam had been injured before but never to that extent. Treating the wounded was never easy but it was simply devastating when it was your dear friend lying there on the verge of dying. Memories of Daniel's painful last hours rapidly flashed through Janet's mind and she fought them away. She had felt so powerless, as all she could do was trying to ease his pain by administrating him large doses of morphine. She had watched him slowly fade away and she knew there was nothing she could have done to save his life. But this time, it was different. She had another friend who needed her and she certainly wasn't going to let this one die without trying everything she could.

Under Janet's supervision, the medical staff quickly got to work, hooking up Sam to various medical devices and monitoring her vital signs. Their first priority was to stop the bleeding and to rapidly evaluate the damage done to some of the internal organs.

"Blood pressure is at 80 over 32 and dropping; pulse is at 26," one of the nurses reported after taking readings from the monitor on her left.

Janet tore open Sam’s shirt to get better access to her abdomen. After examining the wound closely, she gave her assessment of the situation:

"A lot of blood vessels have been severed because the spleen was ruptured, which is why we can't seem to control the internal hemorrhaging. We need to remove it. Make sure she doesn’t go into hypothermia and have her prepped for surgery. I’m going to need eight units of blood, six units of fresh plasma and six units of platelets. Come on, people, let’s move!”


*********

He ran. He ran as fast as he could; heart pumping insanely fast, blood flowing through his veins at an incredible speed. He was functioning purely on adrenalin. His whole body had kicked into overdrive and was now solely relying on its instinct for survival. His muscles still hurt from the pain and the stiffness caused by the chains that had kept him tied up in that rotting holding cell. But he didn't care. He just kept running as the loud, whizzing sound and blinding beams of light kept zooming right past his head.

The Gate was so close. They were almost there. Teal'c was already dialing Earth’s address. Just an other twenty meters and he would reach it. As he was running he managed to turn around a couple of times to shoot down a few Jaffa with a zat gun. He was going for one last sprint when he stopped dead in his tracks and almost tripped as he saw her being hit and fly across the air next to him. She fell to the ground like a bird. He saw the wound as her body rolled over under the force of the impact and he thought his heart was going to leap out of his chest. It just couldn't be happening. He yelled out in despair:

"Nooooooooo!!!!"

*********

Jonas woke up with a jump and sat straight up in bed, feeling like something had just knocked the wind right out of him. He was breathing heavily and was covered in sweat. He rubbed his eyes, letting them get accustomed to the darkness. When he finally found his bearings, he was relieved to see that he was indeed in his bedroom instead of running for his life on that damned planet. The haunting image of Sam's pretty face covered with filth and blood trickling from the corner of her mouth still lingered in his foggy mind.

He got out of bed and walked into the small washroom where he freshened up. He then went to the dresser standing in the right corner of the bedroom, grabbed a pair of khakis and a t-shirt, got dressed and left. The hallways were all empty, except for the occasional guard filling in the night shift. Jonas was heading for the infirmary and this time, no one was going to stop him from seeing Sam. He hadn't been allowed to do so ever since they had brought her there for surgery. He needed to know and see for himself that she was alive and that everything would be okay.

When he arrived, Sam was alone and that's exactly what he had hoped for. The room was eerily silent aside from the steady beat of the heart monitor, a reassuring proof that she was hanging on to life. He watched her from the doorstep, hesitant to get inside. It killed him to see her like that, looking so peaceful and yet so fragile and broken.

He slowly walked up to her. Once at her side, he lifted a hand to her forehead and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. He then let his fingers trail down her pale face and softly caressed her cheek.

"You know Sam", he said to her even though he knew she couldn't hear him, "even with those ugly tubes sticking out of your nose, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen…"

He tried to smile even if he was devastated at the thought of possibly losing her. The only time he had to face mortality so brutally was when his younger brother Jared had been the victim of a freak accident about ten years earlier. He didn't want to lose someone close to him again in this manner.

He grabbed a chair, pulled it up and sat down so that he was facing the bed. He carefully took Sam's hand in his and kissed it.

"Don't worry, Sam… You will get through this. Everything's going to be okay…"

Having said that, he laid her hand down, crossed his arms as he leaned over, and rested himself on her thighs. All he wanted to do was to stay with her for a few minutes… just a few precious minutes where he could be close to her and then he would go back to his quarters. But he never made it back. Instead, he fell into a deep slumber filled with dreams where he held her in his arms as she was smiling and laughing, and where nothing could possibly harm her. Not even the Goa'uld.


********

Janet arrived in the infirmary very early that morning. She had spent the night at the base because Sam's condition was still serious. She wanted to make herself available on the spot if there were any complications stemming from the surgery.

She was a bit shocked by the scene that awaited her as she entered the room. Jonas was asleep on a chair and comfortably resting on Sam. Janet thought the whole thing was rather endearing. But she was also wondering why he was there and why he had apparently spent the night at Sam's side. She approached him and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him up just enough so he would wake up.

"Jonas.... Jonas, please wake up."

Jonas slowly raised his head, eyes half-closed, a conspicuous imprint of the bed sheet spread across the left side of his face. For a moment he wasn't exactly sure where he was. And then he remembered. He got up to face Janet.

"Uuh… Dr. Fraiser… Good morning…" he said as he was struggling to clear his mind and quickly come up with a plausible excuse for his presence there.

“Good morning, Jonas…” Janet replied. She couldn’t help but to smile as she noticed how disheveled he looked.

“Listen, Doctor, I… I’m really sorry. I just wanted to visit her for a short while to see how she was holding up and…”

Janet stopped him before he could go any further. “I’m going to spare you the explanation here, Jonas, but you have to leave now because as soon as Sam wakes up I’d like to run a few tests to see how her recovery is progressing, okay? And don't worry; she'll survive this one.”

“But…”

“You heard the good doctor, Jonas.”

Jack was casually leaning against the doorframe, hands deep in his pockets, feet crossed. “That’s an order”, he added as he started walking towards them. He stopped to glance at Jonas and snickered, pointing towards Jonas' head: “That's quite the bed head you’ve got there, Jonas…”

Jonas ran a hand through his hair and gave Jack a puzzled look: “Bed head?”

Jack sighed. “Never mind… Just get outta here. And again, that’s an order!”

Jonas knew better than to argue with the Colonel. “Yes, Sir”, was all he could say before he left the room.

“What was he doing here?” Jack asked Janet once they were alone. There was definitely an edge to his tone of voice.

“I don’t know any more than you do, Sir” Janet answered with a frown. “I just found him here when I arrived." When she saw the concern on Jack's face, she went on and tried to reassure him: "I wouldn't take this seriously though… I mean, they've become very good friends over the past few weeks so it's only natural that Jonas would worry about her."

Janet always had a feeling that Sam held a very special place in the Colonel’s heart - something that Sam herself kept denying – which is why she was trying her best to ease his concerns. Besides, if there was anything intimate going on between Sam and Jonas, she was convinced she would know about it given that she and Sam were best friends.

Unfortunately, Jack’s suspicions were already starting to take shape so Janet’s words did very little to clear away his doubts.

"That's exactly what I was afraid of…." Jack said under his breath. But he really didn't want to talk about it any further so he changed the subject to Sam's condition before Janet could give any kind of reply. "So, how is she doing?" he asked her.

"Her condition is still serious but stable. There was a bit of damage to one of her kidneys and her spleen was ruptured so we had to remove it. She's lost quite a lot of blood but she should be fine. Let's just say she's very lucky to be alive…" Janet answered.

Jack grimaced. "If you ever have to remove anything from me, please tell me you're gonna let me know in advance. I mean, I'd really hate waking up with a few parts missing one day and not knowing about it..."

Janet smiled. "Well, I'll try but I can't promise you anything..." she said with a wink.

It was Jack's turn to smile. "Anyway…. I'm glad to see she's okay. How long until she can get back to work?" he asked.

"I want to keep her here under observation for a week. And it will be at least another week before she can be part of an off-world mission. Knowing her the way I do, I'm sure she'll try to argue with me over this so I'm going to need your full cooperation."

"You got it, doc…." Jack said before turning around and leaving the infirmary.


***********


One week later

Sam was patiently sitting on a medical bed while Janet was taking one last draw of blood for yet another test.

"So how are you feeling?" Janet asked.

"I'm feeling great, actually." Sam answered. "I realize that I'm a little out of shape, mind you, but I've started working out again this morning. It shouldn't take too long before I'm back to my old self again."

Janet gave her a motherly look. "Now I don't want you to overexert yourself, you hear me?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yes, mom…" she said.

Janet's facial expression went from playful to very serious in a matter of seconds. "You know Sam, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about and I think that now is as good a time as any …" she said as she retracted the needle from Sam's arm before applying a small bandage.

Sam frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Jonas, Sam." Janet answered.

"What about him?"

Janet smiled and cocked her head to one side. "Don't play dumb with me, Sam…"

Sam huffed. "Janet, I honestly don't know what you mean. What? Does he have some kind of disease that we should know about?"

"No, it's nothing like that. The two of you are an item, aren't you?" Janet asked very straightforwardly.

Sam's eyes grew wide but then averted her friend's. Many times she had wanted to tell Janet but kept postponing it. She knew she could trust Janet more than anyone else. But somehow, telling her would have meant acknowledging the fact that she and Jonas were involved. Someone else knowing about it would make it more "official". And Sam still wasn't sure if she was ready to let anyone know, not even her best friend. She should have known that Janet would figure it out by herself.

Same sighed deeply and her eyes went back to Janet again. "How did you know?"

Janet smiled. "He didn't tell you, did he?"

"Tell me what?" Sam inquired.

"On the first night you were here, Jonas came to visit you." Janet explained. "He arrived here in the middle of the night and apparently he just wanted to stay for a little while but he fell asleep on your lap. I found him the next morning when I came in." She smiled at the memory. "It was really sweet to see him at your side like that… Of course that alone doesn't mean you guys are involved but somehow my gut tells me that you are. Am I right?"

Sam grabbed her head with both hands and groaned. She suddenly felt riddled with guilt. Not to mention that she was upset that Jonas had kept this from her.

"Look, Janet" she finally said, “I've been meaning to tell you but I didn't know how or when…."

Janet walked away with Sam's blood sample and carefully deposited it in a small plastic container for later storage. With Janet's back turned to her, Sam couldn't see her initial reaction and it worried her. She needed her support at a time like this, more than she had in a long time. Janet eventually turned around and slowly walked back, looking extremely pensive. Finally, a smile crept up along her cute little mouth. It was the kind of smile only a best friend can give you when you screwed up big time but they still love you anyway.

Janet shook her head. "You’ve never been very good at handling this kind of situation," she told her friend.

"Well, you certainly got that right…" Sam agreed.

"What if I told you I'm not surprised about you and Jonas?" Janet candidly asked. "After all, you did spend a lot of time working closely with him. And I've noticed some kind of change in you ever since he's joined SG-1. You actually seem happy now and I haven't seen you like this for quite some time." She paused and pursed her lips. "But then again, I also thought that Jack was the one in your heart…."

Sam's features darkened. "So did I… But Jonas came into my life and he made me feel so… alive… You have no idea, Janet … After Daniel died, I couldn't even smile anymore, remember? When I wasn't burying myself in my work, I would just mope around at home feeling sorry for myself. Jonas has changed all that. At first, I thought: "This is crazy!" But then the feelings wouldn't go away…

But Janet didn't let go. "And what about Jack?"

Sam smiled faintly. "Well, Jack is Jack. He's "The Great Colonel O'Neill", Earth's best hope to vanquish the Goa'uld. Quite frankly he's the best leader I've ever had the chance to work under and I've been attracted to him almost right from the beginning. But lately I've realized that we're wrong for each other in so many ways…. And he's my superior officer. I don't need to tell you how bad that is."

Janet suddenly recalled her ill-fated affair many years earlier with then Lt Colonel Mark McAllister when she was still a First Lieutenant. Had anyone found out about it, they both would have been court-martialed and most likely expelled from the Air Force. That was one mistake she bitterly regretted to this day because it had almost cost her her career.

"Have you thought about what could happen if Jack found out about it?" Janet asked her friend. "I mean, you and I both know that he's not too crazy about Jonas as it is…"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me… Not a day goes by without my thinking about it… And that's exactly why I want this to remain a secret for as long as possible."

Janet looked Sam straight in the eye. "I don't want to discourage you, sweetie, but it might be too late for that already…"

Sam's eyes widened and she literally felt the blood rushing to her face.

"Wh… what are you saying?" she asked, a veil of anxiety clouding over her face.

"Jack came by the infirmary on that famous morning I found Jonas with you. When he arrived, Jonas was still here, looking like he had just woken up. When Jack asked me what he was doing here I told him I didn't know. I didn't tell him I thought Jonas had spent part of the night at your side but he's not stupid, Sam… I'm sure he figured it out by himself."

Sam groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, he probably did…" she agreed. "But until I find an appropriate way to handle this, I don't want him to have any proof of it. Can I count on you to keep this a secret?"

"Of course…" Janet replied. She patted Sam on the cheek. "And I'm really happy for you, honey." she said with a bright smile. "But tell me, have you been using protection?"

Sam chuckled. "What makes you think we're there yet?" she asked.

Janet laughed. "Oh, come on, Sam! I'm the doctor here, remember? I've seen that great body of his in all of its naked glory a few times already. Believe me, if I were in your shoes I don't think I would have been able to wait for very long!"

Sam smiled as she remembered her hands roaming all over Jonas' beautiful body. She rolled down her sleeve and got off the bed.

"Yes, we have been using protection. And you're right… I couldn't wait…" she answered somewhat proudly. She started walking towards the exit of the infirmary and she turned around at the doorstep. "Don't mean to rub it in but he's very good…" she added with a big grin."And by the way, I'm afraid that from now on you're just gonna have to keep your hands off him, Doctor, because he's mine..." she said with a wink before she exited the room.

Janet burst out laughing. It was good to see her best friend smiling and making jokes again…

TO BE CONTINUED...