DISCLAIMER: The story, and characters and anything and everything else concerning SG: SG1 belong to MGM, Gekko, Secret Productions etc, they are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended, absolutely none what so ever.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I am blatantly defining TPTB. I guess this is falls into an AU now. But I wont accept the death of Janet Fraiser. And so it is dedicated to all of Janet / Sam shippers everywhere. A section of this will appear in Champions Gate. This is just a little short.
ARCHIVE: Only with the permission of the author.
For the Love of a Child
By Elizabeth Carter
O'Neill was dying in the arms of Major Samantha Carter.
The only thing keeping the fallen Colonel alive was Sam's quick actions and the new ceramic inserts of the ALICE vests. Fear was not disproportionate to concern flooding the Major. Her hands tacky with blood, the smell of that and burnt flesh assaulted her nostrils instantly causing a gag reflex which the blonde willed away. If Janet could handle such things as plasma burns, Sam thought so too must she. Janet... she was out there somewhere across the ravine healing others under gunfire, with no thought to her own safety, indeed the very embedment of the Angel of Mercy. But Daniel was with her, the man wouldn't become distracted, he would watch and protect her. Yet a tiny part of Sam had wished it was Teal'c guarding her lover rather than Daniel she loved him as she did the rest of SG1 but somehow the image of Teal'c watching over Janet was more reassuring. Instead Teal'c was watching over Sam and the fallen colonel.
It frightened Sam now, how much control she had lost. O'Neill's live was slipping away, everything around her erupting. It was as if her thinking blurred, or became something other than thinking. The lingering scent of Jack's blood, overtook Sam's mind. He wasn't moving and at one point he had stopped breathing. Mouth to mouth and CPR brought him back. All around the young Major cries of battle exploded. Staff blasts, MP-5s, P90's, M-249/M-16, and the short-barreled rail modified M4 (dubbed the Carter-special because it was she who reconfigured the M-16 and A-15 and M4 into one amalgamated weapon) merged into one staccato beat. Death gliders screaming overhead, and all of it became silent in Carter's mind as she heard Daniel's voice over the radio.
"Medic! Medic! Oh God Fraiser's down. Fraiser's been hit! Medic! Medic! Oh God Janet!"
Everything became cold. Frozen. Blood roared think in Sam's ears. Staff Blasts or her heart she didn't know which was exploding around her, in her mind. She wanted to run, not away from danger, not from duty but to into its face and confront the enemy. Protect her mate, face off the incursion of warriors surmounting them. Duty to protect, duty to save the man in her arms, duty to take command. That frozen moment lasted a lifetime. The outsider would see only three-five seconds tic away before the blonde Major took charge.
A different roar broke through. Sam greeted the sound with a burst of irrational happiness- strong and profoundly sweet. Two medics charged the ravine where her fallen lover lay perhaps dead never knowing love's last touch. Two more medics were coming for the unmoving colonel.
Duty. Duty. Duty.
Sam watched for a moment ensuring her CO was safe in the hands of the field medics. Duty. Sam knew her duty. For others to survive she had to rise from the fire and destroy the enemy. One last glance to the ravine Sam swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
'No! You are going to hang on Baby. You are NOT going to die! I won't let you. Oh God Janet, just hang on Baby. Please hang on. I love you. You know that right? I love you. I won't let you die alone!'
It took forever in the blonde's judgment to see Daniel and the teams of medics emerge from the ravine carrying two prone bodies on stretchers. Only then did Sam address the troops. "Fall Back! Fall back!" The warrior in Samantha Carter took command. Her heart ringing in her ears. Smoke of the battlefield rank with blood and ozone burned her lungs and cloaked her eyes. The tears fell. Sam would do what she had to do. Her duty.
To protect Janet, to get that tiny angelic goddess of healing to safety Sam had to throw the emotional shields in place. She would lead her people through this maelstrom. The medics had O'Neill moving, it was at that moment Sam saw it. The Jackal headed monster that had taken both Janet and the Colonel down. He was slipping from the ravine looking for new prey.
Sam saw him first.
"Motherfucking bastard!" The scream scourged her throat. Latter she would have no memory of it, none at all. Only red haze filled ice blue eyes, clotting her mind, created urges that swelled within her, growing into a ripe crescendo of vengeance. Sam stared dumbly at her 'Carter-Special' in the realization she had emptied her clip. The Jackal Guard was in hell, his body torn asunder by over seven hundred 5.56mm Teflon coated bullets. There was not much left of him, not even the Goa'uld larva he carried with him remained. Vengeance be done.
Sam turned mechanically, ripped the clip out of the weapon, slammed in a new magazine with the palm of her hand, her mind targeting any Jaffa that dare stand before her. Carter survived the Drone, now she was a hunter, and no prey would escape her.
"Get to the Stargate!" Sam belted out the order. "Teal'c dial home SG6, 13 take point SG8 and 7 escort the wounded, SG9 cover their six. Move! Move! Move!" Sam didn't have to think. Instinct born out of a thousand jumps controlled her. The GDO activated sending SG1's IDC into Stargate Command. Her hand reached automatically for her radio, "SGC, this is SG1 we are in full retreat, we have heavy casualties. We're coming in hot! Repeat we are coming in hot!"
She heard the gulping sound of bodies passing through the event horizon, blending into it the drumming of bullets and staff blasts. Carter and Teal'c let loose their entire ordnance, bringing down one of the enemy fighters. The earth shattered in vibrations of the downed craft. Smoke pillowed in the sky, clods of dirt splattered around them in dark rain. In Samantha's peripheral vision she saw Daniel near a stretcher carried by two medics. Janet was almost safe.
For a moment, Sam was paralyzed by a sense of appalling loss, helplessness and total grief, both a pain and a numbness that seem to extend into an eternity of meaningless succession like a drab, purgatorial road without signposts, that she'd walk forever, alone. Janet's wound was more grave than Sam could have imagined. Her chest a charred mass of bloody glistening flesh.
"She's going into arrest!" a medic was heard to say just before the threshold swallowed him.
Sam hit the radio. "We need a crash cart in the Gateroom! Get a crash cart to the Gateroom! Fraiser's down!" Sam couldn't leave until all SG teams had bugged out. It was duty. Janet had done hers and was perhaps dying for it. Sam could do no less. Nor would Teal'c. They were the last to arrive in the Gateroom. The iris slammed shut behind them, blocking out the deadly fire of the enemy. Danger was far from over.
The Gateroom became bombarded with wounded, retreating soldiers and bustling medical teams. Warner was doing triage, Jack O'Neill and Simon Wells were assessed quickly and sent to the infirmary. O'Neill still was not moving, Wells could be heard repeatedly weeping "Its my fault, its my fault she's dead...my fault oh God my fault...."
Above the cacophony Warner decreed Janet Fraiser DOA and turned to assess others.
"No goddammit!" Sam barreled over Daniel to get to the tall physician. A hand reached out wrenching Warner around so he faced her. Blue eyes puffy from tears glared arctic coldness. "Fuck you! Get the defribulator. You are NOT going to give up hope on her."
"Major!" Warner tried to call reason into the maelstrom. How could he make the distraught war weary Major understand Doctor Fraiser was DOA. There simply was no hope, he was wasting time on the dead when the critically wounded needed him.
"Do it or I will shoot you myself," she spat. "She'd never give up if it was you! Any of you and you fucking well know it."
"Expose the chest!" Warner ordered to a medic near Fraiser. Seconds were passing away, perhaps there might be a chance after all. But Warner never truly believed it, he was only going through the motions. He knew Major Samantha Carter was not exaggerating when she said she would shoot him. That he truly believed. "I got a cardiac arrest, potassium deficiency. Get me a number seven cuff and a tracheal tube, now!"
Janet in no time at all was on a monitor, and has a tube down her throat. The charred remains of the ALICE vest discarded and her BDU slit open by a pair of shears. "Tubes ready! Tubes in!" Joe Pascual one of the medics yelped.
"Defib Stop CPR, Defib, 60 joules."Nurse Alicia Rush cried out, thankful Major Carter had forced Warner to do something other than turn his back on their beloved doctor. Sam swallowed hard, "Come on, come on!" "Clear!" Warner put the paddles on Janet's chest and shocked her. Her body jumps up. A normal beeping comes from the monitor. "Check the monitor. Let me in, let me in. We still have flatline!"
"Hit her again." Warner commanded.
"Charging," Pascual.
"Clear!" Warner shocked Janet once more the body arched, and fell.
"Wait! Wait! Pulse is erratic. Okay, we've got disorganized electrical activity." Alicia belted out. "30 beats per minute. BP 60 over 40 and rising."
"Okay, set up an ambubag; draw two grams of magnesium sulphate, one milligram epi, and do a blood gas." Warner directed, disbelieving that Fraiser had any activity at all.
"Epi's in." Pascual related quickly.
The aging doctor turned to anyone in the Gateroom, "notify the ICU, I want an EKG and an EEG, and I want her potassium levels rechecked, stat! Lets get her to ICU!"
Sam sprinted out of the Gateroom following the gurney that held her lover, her face awash with agony despair. She was losing the love of her life. Out in the hall the tears fell freely, anger frustration ruled her without mercy. She was only half aware of something in her way, swatting away the intruder Sam almost wished for a Ribbon Device to be permanently rid of whatever it was that dare interfere with her rejoining her Janet's side.
"Major Carter?" It was Emmet Bergman who dared come in-between her and Janet
"Leave me the hell alone!" She snarled. "And turn that damn thing off!" Her rage rattled the souls of any who had heard her, had seen her. Sam didn't hear the sanctimonious dribble that spilled out of the prick's mouth as he addressed the others clotting the corridors. Her own body trembled, in fear and despair. Her eyes burning from the tears falling freely, her mind had seized up on her, focusing myopically on a single soul.
Janet.
Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey one of the teammates on SG9 had assisted in the armory with the ordinance coming in. It shocked her to see Major Carter plow through the others, slam the 'Carter Special' into her arms gruffly, her voice just as harsh. "Hailey take care of this."
"Yes Ma'am." the small blonde barely finished the syllable before Sam was flying out the door to the more secure section of the weapons locker. She watched with baited attention as the Major keyed the commands to the wall unit that held the Goa'uld devices secure.
Sam would never recall swiping all the Healing devices into an attache case, fleeing the armory and heading for the infirmary. She was completely on adrenaline overdrive, trampling over the SF's in the corridors she didn't bother with apologies she didn't have time for pleasantries.
By the time the Major stormed ICU, she had in her right hand the circular Healing device while her left held the six pronged trident device Nirrti had used on Cassandra only two years before. Janet lay still upon the bed EEG leads on her head, EKG leads on her chest and the respirator tube down her throat. The machines were keeping her alive. Sam scarcely recognized Warner in surgery over her lover, frantically trying to repair the plasma damage.
Warner had given up hope in the Gateroom, but somehow the CMO was hanging on to life with a thread. The medical staff around him was stupid enough to think Janet Fraiser would pull through. Did they not see that it was only the machines keeping this frail little thing alive? Warner knew he was wasting time with Fraiser, O'Neill and Wells needed him. They were savable, Janet wasn't.
Janet had given up her life to save Airman Wells how could Warner allow the man to die? The lad had a new child and a chance. Janet was dead, no one seemed to notice it was only the machines that maintained her functions. Warner had done what he could, he turned from the woman that for seven years was his superior officer, now it fell to his shoulders to take command. His first decision was to save the savable. Fraiser would agree with him this was triage after all.
It was then, he saw a blonde tornado take the Infirmary. Warner was about to hit the panic button, Major Carter was irrational and out of control, more than that she was lethal. "She has the healing devices." Alicia was heard to say. "Thank God, If anyone can bring her back she can."
Warner decided to allow the Major to waste her time with the healing devices, he had to save the others. But he had not gotten out of the way fast enough for Sam's taste. Her eyes still frozen in desperation and determination Carter nearly threw Warner out of her way, with strength that belied her size. To ensure he stayed from out of her way she shot the handle of the door twice with her Zat, it wouldn't last for long but Warner would not extract her from Janet's side.
Once more Warner moved to call the SF's to extract this mystical woman out of his infirmary, but some how a deeper part of him knew that would cause even more of a disruption. And so regrettably and against his better judgment he allowed the grieving Major to stay. For Sam it wasn't a matter for discussion. It simply was. Janet needed to be healed. Janet was needed.
Sam desired it, willed it, craved it until it was the only thing within her heart, in her mind. Nothing outside mattered, nothing outside existed. Only Janet existed. There was only Janet in a void of golden light and Sam.
Sam felt her heart race, thunder its staccato beat in her ears until the sound of it stormed her mind. Each pulse thudded, each beat hammered in time with Janet's own heartbeat. It was one beat, one pulse, one, one breath.
Samantha was vaguely aware of warmth trickling from her ears, her eyes and nose. She must be crying. But she didn't pause to investigate, she only fed the golden void more of herself, more of her energy, more of her life. In that golden void she felt a darkness creep into the edges of the light. She knew she couldn't step into the darkness, but it was so tempting.....beckoning her with its siren song, but to succumb to it she would lose Janet. That wasn't even a question.
Pushing past the barrier Sam would barter her soul to God, to what ever entity, what ever power in the celestial universe that wanted to listen if it meant if her lover would live. It wasn't a sacrifice, it was a tribute. 'Take my life for her's. My soul for her's, I give it freely with no regret. Save her. Please save her.'
Teal'c and Daniel dodged the cameras rushing to follow Sam into the infirmary, having their own need to see Janet and Jack safe. Janet was in ICU, but Jack was in the ward resting as was Wells, both having pulled through the trauma though not without a great deal of pain. Six hours would pass and Sam still had not emerged from Janet's private room. Warner was growing concerned. He had convinced himself Fraiser was a lost cause, Samantha Carter was only giving herself a fool's help she could save the tiny woman. Warner had no recourse but to call in the remaining SG1 members to take Sam away, so he could do what was necessary and lay Janet Fraiser to rest.
It didn't pass Teal'c notice that Warner was petrified of Samantha Carter, and if anyone went in save for SG1, the blonde tigress would hunt him down, of that Warner had no doubt. Six hours Warner had been very patient with the Major, indulgent even. Granted for that time he had been in surgery with the critically wounded of PX3-666 but even when he had emerged, Samantha was still locked in a trance with the healing devices draining her life from her. Sedating the Major could undoubtedly damage her in ways he could not imagine. She had to be stopped another way. Warner knew that if anyone could get through to Major Carter that you can't heal the dead it would be her team mates and so he had called General Hammond for aid.
Hammond had several hours earlier asked Daniel Jackson go and collect Cassandra from her home. She had a right to say good bye to her mother. Even the general believed his dear friend Janet Fraiser was gone. But a part of him hoped against all the odds that his goddaughter could and would find away to bring that angel of healing back to the realm of the living. He had never known anyone tougher or more remorseful than Sam. When the unthinkable passed, Cassandra and Sam would need each other for strength, to grieve and to say good bye.
Now verging upon the seventh hour, the eighteen year old with her 'uncles' floated surreally into the darkened, too silent depths of the infirmary. This one place of healing was now a pit of apprehension, where hope was forsaken.
Siler had managed to opened the fused door, but clearly not fast enough for the likes of SG1, Cassandra or Hammond. What the four of them saw stopped their hearts in their throats.
"Oh my God!" Daniel and Cassie uttered when breath returned to voices.
Janet's entire body was glowing in a blanket of golden radiance, emanating directly from the out stretched hands of Samantha Carter. What stayed with her, what burst within her, was less any physical sensation than a sense of benediction; that from their disparate elements was being fused, in this moment, something wholly new and transcendent, as simple and intricate a snowflake.
No one could say how it was even possible Sam was still standing, still managing to pour her energy into the healing devices and yet she was defying everything but the ever lasting hope Janet would live.
"She uses her own Ba to heal Doctor Fraiser."
The other two turned to Daniel for a translation. They grew concerned at the man's blue eyes widening in shock. "He...he..means soul."
"What!" Cassandra scoffed. "Sam is using her soul to heal my mom?"
"Indeed. SamanthaCarter has fallen into a state of deep Kel'nor'eem, to make this possible. I never seen a Goa'uld capable of such compassion but I have head of such things in ancient lore. I have always thought it prattle of young Jaffa girls in the service of the temples." Teal'c commented. His warrior's heart thudded hard against the cage of his ribs in witnessing such devotion. Truly these two women were soulmates. "I have never witnessed such love before." this he said in a much quieter tone.
Hammond was astounded as were the others gathering around the tall blonde but not what Sam was doing, nor that she was willingly doing so, but she was truly accomplishing the impossible. Janet Fraiser might yet survive.
"Please Sam bring her back. Please bring her back." Cassandra prayed.. She passed the men having made up her own mind. She herself had Naquada in her blood, if she could only harness that part of her the teen knew she was capable of helping Sam. Not knowing what she was doing only knowing she wanted to help Cassandra pressed her body against the lanky older woman, arms touching, hands clasped, Cassie called up that most ancient song, a child's love for her mother.
One thought. One command. One will echoed through both women's hearts and minds pouring into the devises. "LIVE!"
Cassie had lost all sense of time. It was only when she felt a shifting of weight did she open her hazel eyes. The teen pulled back just as Sam teetered and fell in a bone rattling thud to the infirmary floor.
"SAM!" Cassandra shrieked.
Daniel, Teal'c and Hammond started at the fall and the cry of the girl. Teal'c moved faster than the other, grabbed Samantha into his arms, cradling her to him.
"Oh God look at her!" Cassandra's hazel eyes couldn't let go of the image of blood trickling out of Sam's nose, mouth and eyes. Even her forehead seeped beads of bloody sweat. "What's wrong with her? There's so much blood!"
Daniel snatched the hysterical girl into his arms his own frantic worry more than evident upon his face. Hammond stared slack jawed, his heart jackhammering in his ears. He didn't want to entertain the idea he had lost both beloved ladies. He couldn't fathom it.
"Fatigue." Teal'c said. "She has exhausted herself."
"You don't look like that because you're tired Teal'c! God what the hell is wrong with you? Something's wrong!"
Hammond had recovered somewhat and had sense enough to summon Warner. The doctor was still terrified of Carter and had decided the better part of valor was discretion. Having been stripped of his pride the physician called Doctor Reg Tupper to assist. Tupper was under Janet's command in the Air Force Academy but he too served the SGC. Since the heavy casualties his hands were needed to bring healing to the warriors of the SGC. Now he would help again.
"Don't separate them." Cassandra blurted out. "Please let them stay in the same room."
Tupper looked to Hammond but the general gave no indication he would oppose it. Besides he thought keeping Sam from her soul-sister was nigh on impossible. "Make it happen."
Warner left the chamber quickly with intent of fetching a gurney.
"Why is she bleeding like that?" Cassandra still demanded answers. "Look at her she's crying blood!"
"In her strain her body couldn't contain the stress as it was and she burst capillaries." Alicia tried in vain to sooth the panicky teen. "It's been know to happen to women in childbirth."
"Well look at her! You're telling me tears of blood is normal for stress? Do a MRI a PET scan for crying out loud. My mother is a doctor don't look at me like I don't know what I am talking about. Do something! Warner you worthless piece of shit! Dammit can't you lot function without my Mom. She's going to be pissed off when she finds out your slacking."
Daniel placed his hands on Cassandra's shoulders the girl was physically trembling her rage, despair and sense of helplessness was overwhelming. "Cassie they are good people, let them do their job."
"Job? They tell me 'oh is okay she just popped capillaries, she's only fatigued,' shit! My mom is going to ream you all out for this..this...." unable to restrain herself the eighteen year old turned and wept on Daniel's shoulder. "Just make them better....please...."
Warner had returned to the ICU with a gurney on which Teal'c could relinquish his precious cargo. Rush checked Sam's vitals taking the stethoscope out of her ears, "Doctor I have normal sinus rhythm.
"Run an EEG and a EKG," Tupper demanded. "Miss Fraiser we have to remove Major Carter stand aside."
Rush, tried to encourage the distrusting young woman but she felt somehow it was saccharin and the last thing Cassandra Fraiser needed was false platitudes. Instead she spoke softly. "Cassandra your mom and Major Carter are fighters, they defy the odds, have faith in them."
Cassie watched as they wheel her beloved her beloved hero out of the ICU. Swallowing the stinging bile in her throat she turned her blurry hazel eyes back to her mother.
"She looks so tiny laying there. So frail. My mom...she is never frail. She's little, but...but...she isn't frail. She faced down Nirrti for me. She was scared to death but...she she faced the bitch down for me. She's my mom..."
"I know," Daniel said softly.
"I want my mommy back." Cassandra pushed away from the archeologist, to claim a chair near her mother's bed. It was evidently clear the teenager was here to stay for the duration.
"Cassie if you need anything, anything at all let us know. Teal'c and I are here for you."
"Why weren't you there for her? Teal'c you are supposed to be the tough one why did you let my Mom get shot? I only need my Mother, my Sam. Can you give me them?"
"Janet's alive Cassie, she's in a coma, but you must prepare yourself for the possibility that she may never wake." Daniel said softly not wanting to be the one to say it.
Cassandra said, fighting back tears. "She'll wake up, and Sam will be okay. You'll see. They're heroes and heroes don't die," the last few words Cassandra uttered as if she were trying to convince herself of the fact. The men could find no voice, disheartened eyes glanced from one to the other and back to the vigilant teenager. They left slowly, as if their own lives had been sucked from the marrow of their bones.
Morose Cassandra took up her vigil, staring empty eyed over her mother refusing to budge, refusing to let herself even blink, believing the frail woman before her would somehow wake and return to those who loved her. Cassandra had grown quieter not calmer. There was nothing at all calm about the woman's heart that had become suspended in the most profound solitude she had ever known.
"Mom?" Cassie took up the thin hand into her own. The usual lightly tanned flesh was now a new bluish-white, so translucent so frail. "Mom can you hear me? Look at me Mom, see me. Come on Mom you have to open your eyes. Sam tried so hard for you. I....I...I can't use that thing. I don't know how. Mom, Sam needs you." Cassandra feathered back the locks of reddish-auburn hair.
"You highlighted your hair again." a dry slow chuckle found its way out of the teen's mouth. "You change it almost every six months. I like it. It's your natural auburn. It was that color when you first gave me a home. Its my safe color. Silly isn't Mom? That's my Mom's color, the others, isn't really you. That tawny blondish definitely wasn't you or was that really bad cut last year. Sam was right you look better when you have some length to it. Of course Sam had a whole Meg Ryan look going for her for a while." Cassandra laughed. "You know why Mom? 'Cause you said you had a crush on Meg and so Sam decided to try to get her hair like that. Then she went and lopped it off when you said she looked like a thistle. I think she was kinda peeved that you didn't appreciate the attempt to look like your movie-crush."
Cassie's hand touched the soft skin of her mother's cheek. "She really loves you so much. I wish to God you two could get married for real. Not just your secret commitment ceremony we had in the Garden of the Gods. You know if you wake up Mom, you guys could you know? We could go to Hawaii and you two can get married. Sure it would still be secret but it would be real.
"Mom...Sam needs you so much. She'll pull into herself like she did with Jolinar. She told me things about herself when she was fourteen when her mother died because… because my birth mother died. We related. Mom, she can't live without you. Yeah she'll be alive, do her duty but that will all she will be. Just duty. She won't be living. Mom... Come on you Napoleonic Power Monger, Jack is just waiting to get jabbed with a really big needle. You have to tell Hammond he's an idiot for not listening to your medical advice. This place...Mom the SGC needs you. It doesn't have a heart without you Mom and a body can't live without a heart. Mom...you can't die. You can't quit. You NEVER quit. I was fucking royal bitch to you when I was changing, but you never gave up. Mom you were always there, always, even when I was so pissy to you. I love you. Mom you took on Nirrti! God you took down a huge SF and ripped off his gun and pointed it at Nirrti. Mom you are a hero, and hero's don't quit, not ever. You don't. You're so brave Mom. You're very brave."
Cassandra dropped her head upon her mother's pillow, her hand resting upon the older woman's heart. Her voice now a husky ragged torn whisper. "Mom...Mom come on you have to wake up! Please Mom, I can't go through this again. I lost my family on Hanka and Providence gave me you and Sam. Mom...please...please... wake up!" Tears felt hot and heavy, "Mom you said that when a person is sick they have to fight. Its important you fight! Mom! MOM!" Cassandra wailed she no longer had a sense of what was around her, where she was she knew only her mother was laying as death before her. "Mom ...please...mom...Mom I can't do this again....I can't...Mom...Mommy I need you!"
She didn't know what the abrupt change had shifted in her world but suddenly the darkness parted as if a large hand had parted the drapery in an ancient and forsaken chamber in a mansion. The light shining-shimmering in wasn't in a forgotten chamber but in to the deep recesses of her soul. Someone was calling to her, crying out to her in pain. The voice. She knew that voice!
*Mommy I need you!*
It was her little girl. Cassandra needed her, with such desperateness. Janet was not about to allow anything to harm her little girl. Her child needed her mommy and Janet would battle Lucifer himself to protect her little one. Janet fought a greater nemesis than the devil, she fought off against her own death. From beyond her reach the powers that be, had decided on a sheer whim to snuff out her life. She now defied them.
*Mommy I need you!*
That wasn't going to happen, nothing would stay a mother from her child. Cassandra needed her. For the love of a child, Janet would turn from the abyss that claimed her life and return to her baby girl.
*Mommy I need you!*
"I'm...here...." Janet didn't know if she said it, thought it or dreamed the words. She had wanted to say them, to be safe the tiny woman opened her dry aching throat. "I'm here."
"MOM!" Cassandra barked harshly. "Mom! You're awake?"
"Sorry Honey...I hurt." Janet felt the weight of the world fall on her shoulders, struggling to rise above the pain, the nausea. She wanted to badly to be there for her child, but she could scarcely keep awake let alone concentrate on what was hurting her daughter.
"No, no Mom its okay. Rest okay?" Cassie kissed her mother's clammy forehead. "I'm going to get Alicia, she'll know what to do. Mom, its going to be okay now. You rest. I love you."
"You' okay?" Janet struggled against the sleep coming over her. The young mother needed to know her child was safe.
"I will be now."
"Others...battle...Wells?"
"He's in recovery so is Jack."
"Sam? Where's my...Sam?"
"She's.....going to be okay" Cassandra winced hoping she wasn't lying. The truth is she had no idea how her beloved hero was. The image of the blonde's face so pale covered in her own blood wasn't something Cassie was likely to forget. "She was here for a long time, but...um...they had to make her rest...she hasn't slept in thirty two hours or so."
"She… knows...better..."Janet struggled to keep her eyes open for just a little while.
Cassandra leaned close to her mom whispering, "Since when has Sam did anything health-conscious when those she loves are in danger? Mom you were so hurt... you were DOA in the Gateroom you had to be resuscitated. Mom...mom you have to fight. I know you're tired but its important you fight," the hand that once stoked her mother's cheek was doing so once again. "Look I gotta get the nurse."
"Thirsty."
Cassandra thought for a moment nodded and kissed her mother's brow. "I'll get you something, probably ice-chips for now. Just rest."
"You'll..." Janet paused to try to clear her dry parched throat. The trachea tube had made her esophagus raw and tender that it hurt to even try to swallow. Be...okay?"
"Sure I will Mom, I am a tough kid, we'll survive this." once more Cassandra kissed her mother's cheek.
Instead of leaving the ICU room, Cassie hit the nurse call button and only had to wait a while before Alicia Rush appeared.
"Cassie?"
"Mom was responsive for a few minutes. She regained consciousness."
Or the first time since the broken body of her CO had returned the young nurse smiled and felt as Cassandra had before her a ray of hope. Proficient as always she checked Fraiser's vitals and smiled once more, as they were returning to normal. Of course Janet's BP was below normal, and she would need a blood transfer, but she was on her way full health. Tupper came in moments later, rechecked the vitals and prescribed heavy antibiotics as well anesthetics for Fraiser's needs.
"WELL?" Cassandra demanded.
"I think there is a very good chance that she's going to have a full recovery." Tupper commented. "Its amazing, she's overcome so much. We are going to keep a close eye on her, she isn't through the woods yet, but she's well on her way."
Cassie nodded, she hadn't given up hope, she knew how her mom and Sam felt about challenges given to them to beat impossible odds. So far they were winning. "What about Sam?"
Tupper looked down for a moment unable to meet the intense gaze of the young woman.
"Her PET scan resembles that of someone who has been the victim of a stroke" Tupper explained. "However we are hopeful the effects are only temporary as a residue backlash from the Healing Device."
"She in a coma?" Cassie dared to ask, disorientated and agonized. As she watched two medics wheeled in a very still blonde Major.
"No, though she is on a heavy sedative to aid in recovery. Nurse Rush will be here in two hours, and the night duty will checking both your mother and Major Carter's vitals every four hours. The fact your mother is alive is amazing. It is truly astonishing what Major Carter was able to do."
"That's because she didn't give up. Neither of them will ever give up the fight." Cassie said as she continued to stoke her mother's forelock drawing as much comfort from the caress as she was delivering. "My mom's are heroes, they are very brave. And they don't give up."
Cassie wandered over to Sam and kissed the blonde's forehead. "Sam.... I love you too. Mom woke up for a little while, thought you should know. It worked. And you sure as hell better get better. Mom will be real ticked if you got yourself into trouble for her." Cassandra squeezed the long fingered hand of her hero. "But I am glad you did. I have my Moms back." Cassie smiled.
"Yeah Sam, moms... 'cause your kinda my Mama too. Kinda a lot. You wouldn't leave. You didn't know then if it was okay and you wouldn't leave, even though you had orders. And you wouldn't leave now, even though it could have cost you the SGC, still might. But you didn't leave. I am glad my Mom has you Mama. I have my family, I won't lose it. Not ever."
The End