I wrote this story over eight months on four continents, six airplanes, five trains, one bus, two subway systems, two different notebooks and at least four computers, and it was not until I was half way through this chapter that I realized I had a way out of the corner I had been so excellently painting myself into since way back in chapter one. It's been quite the ride, and it ain't over yet!
Inferno
There was chaos in the ‘Gate room. This was not altogether unusual. The chaos this time, however, was not military, nor was it technical. Instead, a host of men and women in white lab coats swarmed the room, their footsteps drowned out by the voices of Alison Crombie as she gave her report, and Dr. Warner as he issued orders to his teams. Janet was unresponsive as they carried her out of the ‘Gate room on a gurney, but Warner’s main team fought to stabilize Daniel right there on the ramp. Jack, Sam, Teal’c and SG-3 had stepped on to the back half of the ramp as soon as the wormhole had dissipated, giving the teams as much room as they could. From their vantage point they watched the scene unfold, feeling rather useless.
General Hammond waited for Warner to get all of his people out of the ‘Gate room before he left the Control room and headed out on to the floor to talk to Jack.
“Colonel, report!”
“We tracked them to the caves, sir,” Jack began. “Carter tells me it’s the old naquadah mine. Daniel, uh, donated blood to Janet and sedated himself. He’s in worse shape than she is Short term, anyway.”
“We’ll debrief immediately,” Hammond said, turning on his heel. “I want to know everything now, so that we can all get down to the infirmary as soon as possible.”
SG-1 and 3 smartly followed their commanding officer out of the now completely silent ‘Gate room.
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Despite the near desperation on the part of Jack, Sam and, presumably, Teal’c, the debriefing took almost two hours. During this time, Jack had done almost none of the talking, instead shredding piece after piece of the note paper in front of him until Sam had reached across the table and taken it away from him. Hammond was about to release them, when Dr. Warner came up the stairs into the Briefing Room.
“Yes Doctor?” Hammond said as three heads snapped to face the newcomer.
“We’ve, um….” Warner seemed unprepared for the intensity of the attention he was receiving from SG-1. “We’ve stabilized Dr. Jackson.”
All four people at the table sighed in relief and Teal’c smiled. Warner took a half-step back towards the stairwell and continued.
“He lost a lot of blood, but we’ve completed the transfusion. He should wake up in about half an hour. Janet,” Warner paused. “Janet is a little more of a challenge.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Jack’s relieved smile had been replaced with a glowering frown.
“I don’t know.” Warner sounded completely defeated. “If she’s in a coma, she’ll require 24 hour care and if she’s awake, she’ll be completely mad, in a fair amount of pain and extremely violent.”
“Surely there is another alternative, Doctor Warner.” Teal’c said.
“If there was, I never would have sent her back to that…planet in the first place!”
“Alternative,” Sam mused. “Alternative! Sir, Doctor, if a person is allergic to penicillin, but requires an antibiotic, what do you give them?”
“In Janet’s case, anything not ending with ‘-cillin’ will suffice, but it is not as strong.”
“Sir, I – ”
“What ever you and Dr. Warner need, Major,” Hammond said just as Jack opened his mouth to ask a question. Hammond cut him off too. “Jack, you and Teal’c go to the infirmary. Keep me in the loop people. Dismissed.”
During his time at the SGC, Teal’c had noticed that Jack often used Sam as a walking, talking barometer to gauge the pressure of life or death situations. If the Major was smiling, then things would be socially awkward, but end up all right. If the Sam was abrupt, then it was going to be a bumpy ride, but something scientifically unsound would pull them out of it. Teal’c had never seen this particular expression on Sam’s face before, but he recognized it. It was pure, unadulterated determination, and God help whoever got in her way.
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The results were less than encouraging. If there was enough Erythromycin to cancel out the garlic, there wasn’t enough garlic to affect the blood cells, and if there was enough garlic to affect the blood cells, the erythromycin wasn’t enough to keep the cells from exploding. It had been half and hour, Sam had blown up three test tubes and she and Warner were having no luck. Sam had just sacrificed a fourth beaker to the cause when the phone rang.
Warner brushed the glass into the hazmat container as Sam spoke on the phone. For a physicist, Warner had to admit that Sam was a fairly competent serologist, but even beginner’s luck wasn’t helping.
“Daniel’s awake,” Sam reported.
Warner looked around at their failed and detonated experiments.
“Let’s go see him then.”
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“How are you feeling Dr. Jackson?” Warner asked.
“Weak as a kitten, light as a feather, pounding head, throbbing hand,” Daniel rhymed off quickly, “Can I go home now?”
Warner elected not to dignify that with a response, instead fiddling with Daniel’s IV and abandoning the room altogether.
“Where are my glasses?” Daniel asked. Sam passed them over. “And how is Janet?”
“Not well,” said Sam hesitantly after a few moments of silence wherein she realized that Jack was not going to help her out. Daniel’s face fell. “We used your idea though. I tried an alternate penicillin. It wasn’t strong enough.”
Daniel looked at her blankly.
“On the planet? You told me to find an alternate.”
“Oh that,” Daniel said, understanding at last. “That’s a good idea, but I meant use an alternate method completely. I meant use the healing device.”
“Daniel, I – ”
“What is the downside?” Daniel’s voice was uncharacteristically charged and colour returned to his still pale face. “Warner gives her the antidote, as is, and you keep the penicillin from killing her. If we’re lucky, she’ll be cured.”
“Daniel, what if I’m unlucky?”
“If you’re unlucky, she dies,” Daniel said flatly. “Believe me, at this point, she wants cured or dead.”
“Carter?”
“It’s risky sir.”
“Can you do it, Sam?”
His choice of word was deliberate. He wasn’t ordering a USAF Major to go the extra mile to save a fellow officer, he was warning a uniquely gifted woman that she might well end the life of one of her best friends.
“Yes sir. I can.”
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She’d asked them not to watch. She didn’t want them to see the moment where she failed, and used the device to kill Janet, and put them all out of their misery. She’d asked them not to watch, but no force on Earth, or any other place in the Universe, for that matter, could have kept them from the observation room. It wasn’t like she would see them, after all.
Teal’c, Jack, Daniel and General Hammond sat completely still and watched through the one way mirror as Sam and Dr. Warner prepared Janet for the procedure. In theory, it was simple enough. Warner would inject the penicillin/garlic into Janet. Unlike everyone else who had been given the treatment, Janet would have an anaphylactic response to both the garlic and the penicillin. Sam’s job was to keep the penicillin from killing her friend, but still allow it to neutralize the garlic’s reaction to the blood stream. It was a tight line, and the question was whether Sam would have the control to keep everything together.
“Are you ready, Major?” Warner asked, speaking across Janet’s prone form.
Sam took several deep breaths and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were frozen with blue resolve.
“I am.”
“Injecting serum now,” Warner reported. “The reaction should begin in a few moments.”
Sam closed her eyes again and held her hand above Janet’s chest. Since anaphylaxis constricted the bronchial tubes, she was planning to focus her defense on Janet’s lungs. In the seconds before the reaction began, Sam looked inside herself for the power she knew she would need. For the smallest instant, she found nothing and despaired. But then she felt it: the singing in her blood that the alien had left behind. It sang of Salvation.
“Major! She’s begun!”
Sam barely heard him. She extended her hyperawareness of her own body through her hand and into Janet. Suddenly, she had more of everything, and the lines between what was hers and what was Janet’s blurred. She had four lungs and two of them were horribly clogged. She choked, unsure if she could still breathe.
“Major? Sam! Breathe Sam! Your lungs are fine. Fix hers! But breathe!”
Warner’s voice snapped though her and she heaved a breath. Forcing her awareness back into Janet, she allowed a small portion of herself to remain in her own lungs so Warner would not have cause to distract her again. Sam pushed her way into Janet’s lungs and forced the bronchial tubes open, using her own lungs as a guide.
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“What is she doing?” Jack asked, looking down from the observation room.
“I believe Major Carter is endeavouring to prop Doctor Fraiser’s lungs open, O’Neill.”
“What if she, uh, over-props?”
“I don’t think she can, Jack.” Daniel replied quickly, banishing his own concerns. “The device operates mainly on instinct, and Janet’s lungs are practically Sam’s right now.”
Jack looked hard at Daniel. The archaeologist had some colour back in his cheeks now, and his voice was hopeful, but there was still a haunted look in his eyes. Jack forced himself to smile, hoping the result wasn’t too off-putting.
“They’ll be fine, Daniel.”
“I know.”
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In the centre of the action, Dr. Warner watched the Major struggle, feeling oddly detached and absolutely useless. His job would begin again once the garlic reaction had finished. They knew from the test runs that the foreign protein, garlic and penicillin burnt themselves out at the conclusion of the reaction, but the Sanoctem disease had thrown them so many curves by now, that Warner was leaving nothing to chance. Anything on the SGC that might be used to resuscitate someone was in the room, and when the time came, he would use them all if he had to.
Sam was sweating now, her hand stretched wide over Janet’s chest, straining at the limits placed on it by its own ligaments. Janet’s body jerked, the typical reaction to the treatment, her movements confined by the beam of energy connecting her to Sam’s hand. As abruptly as it had begun, Janet’s seizure stopped. She lay deathly still, and all those observing held their breath. Warner flew to her side, checking for pulse and respiration with a speed bought with years of practice.
“She’s breathing!” he announced to the window, knowing full well of their audience. “She’s going to be fine, Dr. Jackson. She’s going to be fine!”
Daniel was on his feet in an instant and out the door as fast as he could move. Jack and Teal’c let him by and then followed quickly, leaving Hammond alone in the observation room. Warner was busy attaching various monitors to Janet, and did not notice that Sam had moved away from the bed, grasping at the wall for support. So it was that only General Hammond was looking when Sam removed the healing device, staggered into the wall, and collapsed on the floor in a heap.
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Daniel Jackson had been described more than once and by various colleagues as “unusually busy”. This often involved a lot of fast talking, an abnormally large pile of books, and approximately half of the legal exports of Columbia. Whatever it was Daniel was busy with now, however, rendered him stock still, almost catatonic.
Teal’c was waiting with him. They sat by Janet’s bed in the observation room, silent and waiting. Daniel had taken Janet’s hand as soon as they had sat down, and he not moved a muscle since, save the thumb that idly brushed her wrist every few minutes. Jack and General Hammond were in the main infirmary waiting for Sam to wake up. Dr. Warner said she was just exhausted and should be perfectly fine in a few hours. He had not said anything about Janet.
Teal’c disliked keeping vigil at sick beds. He disliked how useless it made him feel. But he stayed. Because if things went awry, Daniel Jackson would need him. Irrationally, Teal’c wished he had not killed his god, so that he might offer his own life in return for Janet’s recovery.
He had never quite known what to make of her. By Earth standards, she was short. In the eyes of the Jaffa, she was tiny. But there was a will in her, a determination which had awed even Bra’tac. How such a spirit could be contained in such a vessel was beyond his ken. How someone so hard could be so kind at the same time, he could never understand. But there she was, and he could do nothing to save her.
One of his favourite memories of his time with the Tau’ri was the day, about eight months ago, that he had walked into Daniel Jackson’s lab to inquire about the procurement of lunch, to find that Daniel was not alone. He was typing something on the computer, and she was just that unspoken fraction too close. She had laughed at something and he had smiled and Teal’c had eaten lunch alone that day. Neither of them had ever known he was there.
When, a few days later, Jack had strode into Sam’s lab looking like the cat who’d washed the canary down with cream, Teal’c had known the game was up. Even then, with the exception of a few well placed comments, the whole situation had been treated with extreme tact.
This disease had changed all that. It had forced first Janet’s and then Daniel’s emotions out onto their sleeves for all to see. Their relationship was no longer a well guarded secret, or something private that could be overlooked by the highers-up. It was public now, and for that insult, Teal’c cursed the Sanoctem most of all.
The door to the observation room slid open. Daniel remained unmoving, save for his thumb, but Teal’c turned to acknowledge Sam and Jack’s entrance. Sam was pale, with dark lines under her eyes. As she walked around the bed, she stumbled slightly, and Jack caught her arm for support. He helped her into the chair opposite Daniel, and sat in the other one himself, still holding her up. Sam reached out with her free hand and took Janet’s. Daniel’s shoulders began to shake as tears fell across his cheeks. Teal’c places a hand upon his friend’s shoulder. Thus linked, SG-1 continued their vigil.
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And so the next few hours passed. Hammond, though kept away by base business, did not forget them, but ordered them left alone together, knowing it was for the best. Dr. Warner made only one round, knowing that they would call him if there were any changes. He had brought a tray of sandwiches, which remained untouched, right where he’d set them. In the pervasive silence, Sam had fallen asleep, almost unnoticed, except by Jack, who put his jacket under her neck. And then, for the first time in hours, a human being in that room made a sound.
Janet moaned.
Four heads snapped up, immediately attentive. Jack hit the call bell. As Janet moaned again, her face contorted. After hours of non-response, her fingers gripped Daniel’s closing like a vise so unexpectedly strong that he gasped and bit his tongue.
Warner and his team came flying into the room then, and SG-1 cleared away for them. Daniel tried, but could not extricate his fingers from Janet’s grasp.
“Doctor, what’s happening?” Daniel shouted, speaking much more loudly than he had planned.
“I don’t know!” Warner sounded desperate. “There’s nothing left for her to react to.”
“It’s the pain,” Sam said, finally remembering that neither Warner nor Daniel had ever seen the cure play out on the planet. “Look at her face.”
And it was true. Even as the lesions had split Janet’s face that horrible morning in Daniel’s bathroom, they now fused together, getting smaller and smaller until only faint white lines were left.
“Daniel?” She was weak, but she was sane and whole and she was Janet.
“I’m here, love.” He didn’t even realize he’d said it.
Janet smiled. “Me too.”
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“Are you sure?”
“I’m not going. I will die a happy man if I never set foot on that planet again.”
“But the invitation was so pretty!”
“Janet!”
The whole argument would have been much easier if she hadn’t been sitting in his lap. He was always more indecisive when she was sitting in his lap. He’d left the infirmary for all of two minutes to fetch his present for Eprem and Esser to give to Sam before she left, and in that time, Janet had managed to get herself discharged, dressed and down to his office. She’d found him sitting at this desk, vainly trying to think of something to write on the card and, in complete disregard for the feelings of the other two chairs in his office, had sat down on his.
“Just because Warner won’t let me go to the wedding doesn’t mean you have to stay home.”
“I know, Janet.” He gave and set the pen down, putting his hands on her waist. “I want to stay home.”
“Give me the pen.” He handed it over and she shifted so that she could reach the card. It was nice, he reflected, to be this close to her and not worry about her trying to kill him. “There. Easy as pie.”
He looked down at the card she’d placed in his hands. Dummodo est lux, timebit nullam tenebras, Best Wishes, Daniel and Janet.
“Easy as pie.”
“Let’s go home, Daniel.”
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The Cathedral was every bit as magnificent on the inside as the outside promised it would be. The tall stained glass windows reflected the light of the settling sun, and scattered a mottled assortment of colours across every surface in the nave. The bronze and gold finishings of the railings and candle holders shone in the refracted light, and even the wooden beams that supported the great vaulted ceiling seemed to emit an aura.
The light paled in comparison, however, to that which radiated from the face of Esser Aeronnsdaughter as she walked proudly down the aisle on the arm of her equally joyous father. Indeed, there was no shortage of radiant faces in the Cathedral. Almost every family had regained a family member and all rejoiced in this, the first wedding since The Healing.
There had been, from what Jack understood, a bit of a kafuffle earlier as Aeronn wanted to both give his daughter away and officiate her marriage. He had been concerned that the two duties overlapped, and that he might be required to have a conversation with himself in public. Maram had merely rolled her eyes, and handed over the scroll on which she and Esser had written exactly what Aeronn was to say in place of the traditional ceremony.
Aeronn and Esser finally reached the front of the Cathedral and turned to face the congregation. Eprem and his mother joined them.
“This is my daughter, Esser Aeronnsdaughter,” Aeronn began. “She has chosen to marry, and my heart rejoices for her.”
Eprem’s mother, a woman Teal’c had met only once, but remembered well for her words of thanks and offers of help, stepped forward.
“This is my son, Eprem Devdson. He had chosen to marry, and my heart rejoices for him.”
Aeronn stepped up onto the raised platform and stood between his daughter and her beloved and the altar in the apse. Eprem and Esser turned to face each other, and Aeronn spoke to them, and to the congregation between their heads.
“For centuries past, our ancestors have been married in this building. Thousands of young people have looked into each other’s eyes, standing right where you are standing now, and pledged to spend eternity together.”
The drive home had been silent. He had driven with his left hand. She had linked her fingers with his claiming his right hand as her own for the duration of the trip. She hadn’t moved, but looked out at the stars and lightly ran her thumb across the bite marks on his wrist.
“But this wedding is special. This wedding is the first since we have been Healed. This wedding is the first where you can know that all of your children will grow up wholly Sandiem. And most importantly, this wedding, this day, this night and all of those to follow, is yours. My daughter, my son, may God watch over your house, that you might watch over your hearts.”
Jack, Sam and Teal’c were seated near a candelabra, but it was not the smoke that had their eyes glistening.
They sat in the driveway for just a little bit too long before she realized that the reason neither of them had moved was because she hadn’t yet relinquished his hand. She looked up to find him regarding her with a very familiar look of amusement on his face. Fighting back her own smile, she threw his hand back at him and opened her door.
At some unspoken signal, the occupants began to file out of the Cathedral and into the court. In the silence that Sam had come to expect of Sandiem religion, the townspeople assembled around the unlit bonfire. There was palpable excitement in the air as excitement and pure joy ran rampant through the crowd.
She was still laughing when he pinned her against the front door. It had been a mad dash across the lawn. He’d recaptured her hand and fumbled for the keys. Somehow, she’d got caught between him and his target, although when his mouth sealed against hers, she wondered if that hadn’t been his intention all along. She sighed into his mouth and felt him smile. Over the pounding of both their hearts, she heard the latch click, and then felt the door give way behind her. She was never entirely sure which one of them it was that kicked it shut again.
The sun was almost gone now. Only a few lingering rays of smoky orange were left, pushing their way determinedly over the horizon. The Cathedral’s shadow and silhouette enveloped the courtyard, and it was not until Eprem and Esser spoke that Sam even realized that they and their parents were standing on the steps. The words they spoke were familiar, and Sam knew that she was not the only one in the square who found their face split with an uncontrollable grin.
He carried her up the stairs because he could. Due to their recent medical adventures, he was a little more out of breath than usual by the time he reached the top, but to be completely honest, he didn’t notice. They were home and they were safe. He had called her ’love’ in front of half the SGC and no one had cared. The lighting in the bed room was faint, just the orange glow of the street light outside his window, but he could still see the lines on her face and body. He traced them with fingers and mouth, and kissed her until he saw spots for lack of oxygen.
“Et dummodo est lux, timebit nullam tenebras!” the newlyweds intoned together, their voices full of love and joy and hope.
She whispered his name when he touched her, hot fingers banishing away the lingering cold and darkness of the Sanoctem infection. He’d set her on the bed as though she were made of spun sugar, but that was just who he was. When he’d moved away to undress, she’d flashed suddenly to the cave, where firelight and madness had overwhelmed her, but then he’d come back, and kissed her again, and all fear was driven from her mind.
The torch in their hands flared to life suddenly as the last rays of the sun disappeared from the sky. And just before they lit the fire, Esser paused, the firelight casting no shadows upon her smiling face.
She remembered the power of his blood running through her veins, the sick, needy joy of the blood lust. This was much better. This was real. This was life. This was making her gasp and moan beneath him as they both hungered for more.
“For Janet Fraiser!” Esser cried, and she and her husband threw the torch atop the piled wood.
Her name rang in her ears when the world exploded and he kissed her until they were both firmly back on Earth.
And the stars and moon looked down upon them, and the flames and the voices and the music reached up, fearing neither light nor darkness.
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Finis
AN: This story has undergone a great many changes since that sunny day in the park when I first began to turn the plan into the tale. One thing I love about writing is how seemingly random decisions come back to be meaningful at the end of the story. I never meant for the Blood Lust to be so bad, and yet as I was writing it, I couldn't even remember how I had first intended it to be. The best decision I made, though, was to make it Daniel/Janet. It's weird, the decision was completely arbitrary, and it has literally changed my life. I met some fantastic people during the writing of Blood Night, and that made it all the more worth while.
I hope you had as much fun as I did.
gravitynotincluded April to November, 2004