“True,” she admitted, through gritted teeth. “Our circumstances aren’t exactly ideal. But we can do this, Colonel. We
h
ave
to do this. Because I’m
not
going to stand here and watch Daniel die. Now get him on the table. Gently! We’re going to dose him to the eyeballs with sedative then take the edge off with morphine.”
He stared. “Are you crazy? You’ll crash his central nervous system!”
“Ha,” she said, teeth bared. “Thought you said you weren’t a surgeon? Come on. Clock’s ticking.”
He was right, of course. What she planned to do was beyond insane. But what choice did she have? Daniel’s life was in danger. Peritonitis. Septacemia. A short, nasty road to the morgue. For a tiny, useless nub of flesh the human appendix could do one hell of a lot of damage.
What the hell had brought on an attack in the first place? She wasn’t aware of any virus that could cause appendicitis… but they were dealing with the Goa’uld, after all. Where they were concerned, anything was possible.
Or maybe it’s because his immune system’s been working so hard against the Goa’uld’s plagues, this infection snuck under its guard. It doesn’t matter. All that
matters is getting that damned appendix out of him.
The pain from her fractured wrist was so ferocious Janet risked giving herself a 5mg shot of morphine. Then she and Dixon got Daniel prepped: sedated him, stripped him, shaved him, swabbed him, draped him. Fitted with him a digital blood pressure cuff. Hard-eyed and focused, Dixon didn’t miss a beat.
Thank God. Thank God. This could actually be worse.
“Okay,” she said. “Help me get ready first, then you can prep.”
Grim and silent he assisted her into a scrub top, swabbed her good hand with iodine wipes and eased it into a new latex glove, then helped her put on a mask. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
“I’ll never fit into your scrubs,” he said. “What do we do?”
Was there time to dial the SGC, get them to shoot a large enough pair through? Maybe. But that’d leave her alone with Daniel and Teal’c. If something went wrong…
“Forget them,” she decided. “It’s not like this is a sterile environment. And I’ll be putting him on i/v antiobiotics once we’re done.”
“Okay, Doc. You’re the doc.” He grinned, nervously. “I’m just playing one on Adjo.”
“Right,” she said, once he was as prepped as he could get, and stared at her with wide, white-rimmed eyes. “You can do this, David. I have absolute faith in you. It’s not a difficult procedure, thousands are done every year. And I’ll be right with you, talking you through it every step of the way.”
He swallowed. “Yeah. Till you pass out. You look like hell, Janet.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll manage. So let’s do this, all right? Daniel needs us.”
Dixon nodded. Took a rib-cracking deep breath and blew it out. “Yeah. Good. Okay, Doc. Let’s rock and roll.”
Hammond greeted Jacob as he came down the gate ramp, two hours after his call went through to the Tok’ra. “That was fast.”
Jacob gave him one of his dry half-smiles. “Well, George, you used one of the old Alpha emergency codes. Did you think I’d stop on the way for a burger and some fries?”
“The last time we spoke you were deep undercover.”
“Luckily for you I came up for air three days ago. But I’m due to go back under tonight. So, what’s wrong, George? What’s the emergency?” Jacob’s expression shifted from sarcastic humor to alarm. “Is it Sam? Is she okay?”
The gate room was far too public for this conversation. “Come on up to my office, Jacob,” he said carefully, “and I’ll explain everything.”
The look Jacob gave him wasn’t reassuring.
The explanation took some time. When he was finished, Jacob just stared. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Hammond ran a hand over his face. “If only, Jacob. If only. I’m not saying you aren’t within your rights to scold, even though you didn’t know anything about Adjo, but I’d appreciate it if you could put that on hold until we’ve salvaged the situation. That is… if you can help us.”
“Meaning if the Tok’ra can help you?”
“That’s right.”
Jacob shifted on his chair, his face tight with pain. “You should’ve told me about Sam before this, George.”
It was hard, but he forced himself to meet his old friend’s hard gaze. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t.”
“She’s really that sick?”
“Yes. O’Neill as well. Right now they’re hanging on by their fingernails.”
Jacob’s head dipped, and when he looked up again his expression was subtly different. Selmak.
“If the information you’ve provided is correct, General Hammond, then
our help is possible. The Tok’ra did not split from the Goa’uld until after the original incident on Adjo. That means our symbiotes’ blood contains the same essential properties as that of the Goa’uld.”
Hammond felt a crushing wave of relief… which was quickly
swamped by trepidation. “And do you have enough symbiotes who’d be willing to donate some of their blood to help us create the amount of vaccine we require?
Jacob’s head dipped again as Selmak retreated. “I’m not going to lie to you, George,” Jacob said, looking up. “What you’re asking for is — is enormous.”
“I know that,” he said soberly. “But there are hundreds of lives at stake.”
Jacob snorted. “Yeah. Not to mention a planet-load of naquadah.”
He wanted to snarl at that, but kept his temper in check. Not a good idea to kick the golden-egg laying goose. “Jacob.
Can you help
?”
“I can’t answer that, George,” said Jacob, standing. “It’s too big a decision for me and Selmak to make without consultation. I need to take this to the Tok’ra High Council.”
“Of course.”
“I do understand the urgency, George.” Jacob’s eyes were bleak. He was thinking of Sam. “You’ll have your answer within the hour.”
“Thank you, Jacob.”
As they walked back to the gate room, Jacob glanced at him sidelong. “Does Washington know you’ve contacted me?”
“Not yet,” he said heavily.
“They’re going to spank you for this, George. You have to know it.”
He felt his jaw clench. “Jacob, they are welcome to try.”
The wormhole bloomed, and Jacob stepped into it. When the Stargate was empty again, Hammond returned to his office to distract himself with paperwork for the next sixty minutes.
Halfway through the appendectomy, Dixon was breathing like he’d just run a marathon. His eyes above his mask were still white-rimmed and disbelieving. “Jesus wept. Are you sure he can’t feel this?”
Janet glanced at Daniel’s paper-white, flaccid face. “No. He’s in dreamland. David? David, pay attention. We need to get through the peritonium. Once we’re into the abdominal cavity I’ll check the appendix, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Ignoring the way the pain from her broken wrist blew up and down her arm like a tornado, she used her left hand’s fingers to ease into the warmth of Daniel’s belly and coax his appendix into the light.
“Oh crap,” she said inelegantly. “When he wakes up I’m going to kill him.”
The appendix was enormously swollen, and yellow with pus. Daniel must’ve been feeling sick for
days
. Most likely thanks to the wild blow from Teal’c’s fist, infected matter was leaking from its tip. How much pus was sloshing around his abdominal cavity was impossible to say.
“Right, David,” she said, pushing that appalling thought aside. “We’re on the home stretch. You’re doing great.”
She talked him through the excision of the appendix, the stitching of the colon and then everything else. Removing the clamps and blood-soaked swabs. Working his way backwards out of Daniel’s belly, one suture at a time. Dixon’s technique was… interesting. Daniel would end up with one butt-ugly scar.
But that’s a hell of a lot better than being dead.
Eventually it was over. Dixon fixed a wound pad over the incision site, then she supervised him putting Daniel on fluids and i/v antibiotics.
“Sit with him,” she said, dizzy with pain and relief, and stripped off her mask. “I need to check Teal’c.”
He was regaining consciousness. Blinking, uncertain, he let her help him sit up. Stared at the air-splint on her arm.
“Doctor Fraiser… your wrist…”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “A simple fracture.”
His eyes widened with distress. “I did this? I remember losing control…”
“It’s okay,” she said softly, and put her left hand on his shoulder. “You weren’t responsible.”
“The symbiote lost its reason,” he said. “It feared it was dying.”
“I thought there wasn’t a conscious connection between a larval Goa’uld and its
Jaffa
.”
“There is not, as a rule. Only rarely, in dreams, and under duress.” Teal’c sighed. “It is calm now. It is recovering, as am I.” He looked around, and saw Daniel on the makeshift operating table, Dixon hovering over him. “Doctor Fraiser? What has happened?”
“Daniel’s appendix ruptured. We had to take it out. But he’s fine, Teal’c. He’s going to be fine. Now I need you to rest while I contact the SGC.” She glanced at Dixon. “Colonel? You’ll be all right?”
He nodded, his own mask discarded. “Oh, I’m fine —
now
.”
After getting him to help her throbbing right arm into a sling, she made her unsteady way to the gate and dialed home.
“What the hell, Doctor?”
said Hammond.
“
You look like you’ve been run over by a truck! Is that — is that a sling?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, sir. We had a little hiccup.”
“Hiccup? What do you mean, hiccup?”
“Oh. You know. Teal’c in convulsions, Daniel with a ruptured appendix. Same old, same old. Oh yes.” She held up her arm. “And I’ve broken my wrist.”
“
Janet
!”
“I’m sorry, sir. I think I’m a little punch-drunk. How are Bill and his team coming along?”
“You’
ll have your vaccine within forty-eight hours, Doctor. Do you think our people can hold on that long?”
Tears were so close. She couldn’t let them fall. “Yes, sir. I think they can.”
“Doctor, what about Jackson? You said his appendix ruptured?”
“It’s okay. We caught it. Colonel Dixon performed an emergency appendectomy, under my supervision. Daniel should make a full recovery.”
“And Teal’c?”
“A reaction to his symbiote losing so much blood. He’ll be fine too.”
“That’s… a relief, Doctor,”
said Hammond. He sounded stunned.
You should try looking at it from my side of the wormhole, George.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “General, I need to go.”
“Yes, of course. Keep me apprised of your situation. Hammond out.”
She dragged herself back to the lab tent, where Teal’c was sleeping again and Dixon was collapsed on a stool, staring at unconscious Daniel as though he might sprout a pair of wings and fly away any second. Like herself, the colonel looked as though he’d been run over a truck.
“Hey, Doc,” he said. “What are we going to do about your arm?”
She looked at her broken wrist through its cradle of air-splint. “
We’re
going to do nothing. I’ll grit my teeth till it can be treated at home.”
“Is that a comment on my surgical expertise, Janet?”
She felt her face warm. “I hope you don’t mind that I called you David, sir. Under the circumstances — ”
“My mother’s the only woman who calls me David,” he mused. “And only when she’s really pissed. I prefer Dave, if it’s all the same to you.”
Despite everything, she had to smile. “Okay.
Dave
. I think I can manage that.”
“Oh, I think you can too, Doctor.” He managed a tired grin. “I don’t think there’s anything in the universe you can’t handle.”
She gave him a look, then crossed to Daniel. Ran his vitals. His color was improving. His blood pressure was a little low, but acceptable. He still had a fever, but it wasn’t life-threatening. All in all he was a lucky, lucky man.
Smoothing her good hand over his hair she said, “Hammond says we’ll have the vaccine within forty-eight hours.”
Dixon’s breath hitched. “And after its administered, we can go home?”
“If it works.” She looked at him steadily. “But I can’t promise it will, Dave. I wish I could.”
“But… there’s a chance, right?”
“Yes. There’s a chance.”
“Well, hell,” he said, and buried his drawn face in his hands. Surrendered to exhaustion. Emotion. Relief. After a moment he looked at her, eyes bright, cheeks wet. “It’ll work. We haven’t survived all this to fall flat on our butts now.”
From your lips to God’s ears, Colonel. Let’s pray you’re r
ight.
“I need to check on Colonel O’Neill and Major Carter. Can I leave you here for a little while longer?”
He nodded. “Sure. But when you come back I
will
check out your wrist, and then you’re going to lie down for a while. Doctor Fraiser, you’ve had a busy day.”