Broken leg, broken brain
Title: Broken leg, broken brain
Author: crazedturkey
Rating: PG
Warning/Spoilers: a few swear words
Prompt(s): "Jack sets Sam's broken leg".
Summary: Um.. Jack sets Sam's broken leg :D.
The women’s locker room had a tendency to echo. There weren’t all that many women in the stargate program. There were even fewer women on the active off - world teams.
For some reason Sam was feeling that more keenly than usual today.
The only advantage a mostly empty locker room provided was that it was always a good place to hide.
Sam was due in the briefing room. And she really, really didn’t want to go.
"You alright, Carter?"
The colonel’s face was hovering over Sam’s vision. Looking up at him she became very aware that the corners of her sight were blurring. Still, she was so mortified that she ignored the pain and struggled to her feet.
Only to fall again as soon as she put the smallest amount of weight on her shattered left ankle.
The pain shot through her like a knife.
"Argh!" She shouted as she crumpled to the floor. The colonel half caught her but was unable to completely arrest the slide.
"You alright, Carter?" He repeated.
Carter’s world was now composed of nothing but pain. "Do I look alright?" She snapped.
The crutches leaning against the locker to her left were watching her in silent rebuke. It might have been okay if she’d done this fighting the Goa’uld or running from an enemy. That kind of injury at least carried some kudos. Being injured in the line of duty had style.
Sticking your foot down a rabbit hole whilst on a social call was just embarrassing. No - one washed up in the infirmary going to visit the locals to have cake.
She hadn’t even been running at the time.
"It’s just a sprain, right?" She asked desperately through a haze of pain.
Colonel O’Neill sucked his breath in through his teeth sharply. "It’s sort of at an interesting angle, Carter," he said nonchalantly.
Despite the cost Sam pushed herself up on her elbows and followed the Colonel’s gaze down to her right ankle. It was lying at a ninety degree angle to the rest of her leg. When she tried moving it experimentally she couldn’t control it at all. It flopped, sliding along the ground after the rest of her leg.
That also turned out to be a very stupid move. The overwhelming wave of pain sparked by the movement washed over Sam like a tsunami. She dropped her head back to the alien grass with a strangled sound.
"Carter you’ve gone white as a ghost. You okay?"
There were many things that Sam wanted to say in response to such a stupid statement. She settled for simply grating a "no" through tightly clenched teeth.
The thing was the mission hadn’t really been a ‘mission’ in the truest sense of the word. It had only been her and the Colonel. They were just buttering up the locals, keeping up a nice friendly relationship so that the naqudah mining could continue unopposed in a neighbouring valley.
Daniel had begged off in favour of an archaeology team mission to a newly discovered temple. Teal’c had taken the opportunity to visit his family.
Maybe if they’d been there she wouldn’t have said what she did.
"It’s a closed fracture, Carter, which is good. But it’s at a crazy angle and I’m gonna have to set it." Colonel O’Neill was all business but Sam could hear the concern in his voice. She might have been in pain but she still managed to acknowledge for a moment how strange it was that she knew him that well. There were some days when she really thought that she didn’t know him at all.
"I’ve radioed for help," he continued, "but we need to get this straightened out before we move you."
Sam lifted a hand and pressed it to her eyes. She pushed so hard that she saw stars. It took away some of the pain.
Not all. But some.
"Carter, did you hear me?" The colonel asked insistently.
"Yes," Sam ground out.
"Ok. I’m gonna give you some morphine out of the med kit and then we’ll get to work."
The last time someone had given Sam morphine she’d been having her gall bladder out. It was right before she’d got the offer to start working on the initial stages of what became the Stargate program. She’d had a particularly bad bout of gall stones and wound up in surgery. The morphine had worked very well. Too well. It made her giddy and disinhibited in a way that she had found particularly frightening in hindsight.
She really didn’t want that to happen in front of her commanding officer.
She must have been shaking her head through her entire train of thought because Colonel O’Neill had lifted a hand to pat her head gently.
"Carter I’ve had one of these before. Two of these before. Trust me. You want the morphine."
Sam couldn’t think for the pain. She let him convince her because it was easier.
Sam dropped her head into her hands. She should have fought him on the morphine. She really should have fought him on the morphine.
There was one pretty important constant in the air force. The Chain of Command. It was so important that in Sam’s head it was always capitalised.
The Chain of Command meant that no matter how annoying or stupid your CO was you always spoke to them in a certain way. For example, ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea, sir?’ was what you said when you really meant was ‘that’s a really dumb idea, idiot’. It was a game. You had to learn it to climb the ladder.
Not to mention the fact that in this case her CO may have said something dumb, but that was because he was being Jack O’Neill. He didn’t mean half the things that came out of his mouth.
This was why she should have kept hers shut.
Sam screamed. There was no avoiding it.
In theory she saw the potential for embarrassment in that moment. Fortunately, the morphine in her system soon took care of that.
Unfortunately it didn’t take care of the nausea starting to swirl in her stomach as the pain became her entire world.
"Nearly there, Carter," Colonel O’Neill called out.
Sam managed a gurgle as the bile rose.
Somehow the Colonel managed to not only interpret her gurgle for what it heralded but also finish her splint and leap to help her turn her head to the side before the vomiting began. Sam emptied her stomach across the field, the acid burning the back of her throat.
"Fuck," she said miserably. "Sorry."
The Colonel passed her a canteen of water. "S’Ok, Carter. You shoulda seen me after the set my leg in Iraq. I puked my guts out for about half an hour."
Sam wiped her mouth roughly with the back of her hand. "You didn’t do it when I set your bone in Antartica."
Colonel O’Neill laughed. "That’s probably because you were being a bit of a girl about it, Carter."
Any other time Sam might have let the bad joke slide. But with the morphine in her system making her reckless the words came out of her mouth instead of staying in her head where they belonged.
"If anyone was being a girl, sir, it wasn’t me."
O’Neill had settled himself next to Sam on the grass. He blinked at her acerbic tone of voice.
"What is it with using girl as an insult anyway? I thought after all this time you might be seeing me as an officer who happens to be female not just a woman. I’m sure I’ve proved myself more than once."
A part of Sam’s head knew she was saying things that she was going to regret but she couldn’t make herself stop.
Colonel O’Neill was looking at her strangely. "I’m sorry, Carter."
"I expect better from you, moron. Just fuck off."
He said nothing and Sam had run out of steam. They sat in silence for a long moment. The pain from Sam’s ankle was still throbbing but manageably so. A combination of morphine and the splint had worked amazingly well.
"Pain ok, Carter?" O’Neill asked carefully after a while.
"Yep," Sam replied. She didn’t really have anything else to say.
A rap at the door startled Sam from her reverie. "Yes?" She called out without thinking.
Colonel O’Neill’s voice came, muffled by the metal of the door. "Carter? You decent?"
"Yes, sir. You can come in, sir."
He walked in and sat down next to her on the bench. He was holding his cap in his hand and kept his eyes downcast. Sam felt a stab of fear almost as bad as the pain that had been attacking her a few hours earlier. He was angry with her. She could tell.
"They patch you up ok, Carter?" Colonel O’Neill asked. He still wasn’t making eye contact.
"Janet put on a half cast and filled me full of painkillers. I’m going for surgery tomorrow."
"Whatcha do?"
"Something involving the word tibia. It’s in three pieces anyway. I’m getting a plate and some pins."
The Colonel’s eyes were still on the floor but Sam could see his lips twist into a small smile. "Nice."
"Yeah," she replied.
"You gotta lot more hardware to go to catch me up, Carter. Just so you know."
"Yes, sir."
Sam realised her gaze had dropped to the floor in an almost exact imitation of her commanding officer. They sat in silence for a while, O’Neill swinging his legs back and forth under the bench.
"I’m sorry, sir," Sam finally blurted.
The Colonel was startled enough that he lifted his eyes from the floor and turned his gaze towards her. "Sorry?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised.
Sam wasn’t buying into it. She kept her eyes on the ground.
"For what?" The Colonel asked.
Sam sighed heavily before deciding that honesty was the best policy. "For swearing at you," she said quietly.
Next to her, Sam felt the Colonel still. After a long pause he lifted a hand and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Carter," he said quietly, "friends don’t take things friends say under the influence of pain and morphine seriously."
Sam closed her eyes in relief.
"Besides which," O’Neill continued. "You had a point."
Sam blinked. "I did?"
"You’re an excellent officer and a good friend, Carter. You should expect better from me."
"Oh?" Sam said weakly.
"Yeah," O’Neill said. He finally turned around to look her in the eye. "Anyway. The guys and I would like to take you out for a beer tonight. Up for it?"
"I’d like that, sir."
He gave her a wide smile, one that lightened his face and made the corners of his crinkle. "C’mon then Carter. We’ve got a briefing to go to. Well I’m going. You’re hopping."
Sam smiled. "Right behind you, sir."
Author: crazedturkey
Rating: PG
Warning/Spoilers: a few swear words
Prompt(s): "Jack sets Sam's broken leg".
Summary: Um.. Jack sets Sam's broken leg :D.
The women’s locker room had a tendency to echo. There weren’t all that many women in the stargate program. There were even fewer women on the active off - world teams.
For some reason Sam was feeling that more keenly than usual today.
The only advantage a mostly empty locker room provided was that it was always a good place to hide.
Sam was due in the briefing room. And she really, really didn’t want to go.
"You alright, Carter?"
The colonel’s face was hovering over Sam’s vision. Looking up at him she became very aware that the corners of her sight were blurring. Still, she was so mortified that she ignored the pain and struggled to her feet.
Only to fall again as soon as she put the smallest amount of weight on her shattered left ankle.
The pain shot through her like a knife.
"Argh!" She shouted as she crumpled to the floor. The colonel half caught her but was unable to completely arrest the slide.
"You alright, Carter?" He repeated.
Carter’s world was now composed of nothing but pain. "Do I look alright?" She snapped.
The crutches leaning against the locker to her left were watching her in silent rebuke. It might have been okay if she’d done this fighting the Goa’uld or running from an enemy. That kind of injury at least carried some kudos. Being injured in the line of duty had style.
Sticking your foot down a rabbit hole whilst on a social call was just embarrassing. No - one washed up in the infirmary going to visit the locals to have cake.
She hadn’t even been running at the time.
"It’s just a sprain, right?" She asked desperately through a haze of pain.
Colonel O’Neill sucked his breath in through his teeth sharply. "It’s sort of at an interesting angle, Carter," he said nonchalantly.
Despite the cost Sam pushed herself up on her elbows and followed the Colonel’s gaze down to her right ankle. It was lying at a ninety degree angle to the rest of her leg. When she tried moving it experimentally she couldn’t control it at all. It flopped, sliding along the ground after the rest of her leg.
That also turned out to be a very stupid move. The overwhelming wave of pain sparked by the movement washed over Sam like a tsunami. She dropped her head back to the alien grass with a strangled sound.
"Carter you’ve gone white as a ghost. You okay?"
There were many things that Sam wanted to say in response to such a stupid statement. She settled for simply grating a "no" through tightly clenched teeth.
The thing was the mission hadn’t really been a ‘mission’ in the truest sense of the word. It had only been her and the Colonel. They were just buttering up the locals, keeping up a nice friendly relationship so that the naqudah mining could continue unopposed in a neighbouring valley.
Daniel had begged off in favour of an archaeology team mission to a newly discovered temple. Teal’c had taken the opportunity to visit his family.
Maybe if they’d been there she wouldn’t have said what she did.
"It’s a closed fracture, Carter, which is good. But it’s at a crazy angle and I’m gonna have to set it." Colonel O’Neill was all business but Sam could hear the concern in his voice. She might have been in pain but she still managed to acknowledge for a moment how strange it was that she knew him that well. There were some days when she really thought that she didn’t know him at all.
"I’ve radioed for help," he continued, "but we need to get this straightened out before we move you."
Sam lifted a hand and pressed it to her eyes. She pushed so hard that she saw stars. It took away some of the pain.
Not all. But some.
"Carter, did you hear me?" The colonel asked insistently.
"Yes," Sam ground out.
"Ok. I’m gonna give you some morphine out of the med kit and then we’ll get to work."
The last time someone had given Sam morphine she’d been having her gall bladder out. It was right before she’d got the offer to start working on the initial stages of what became the Stargate program. She’d had a particularly bad bout of gall stones and wound up in surgery. The morphine had worked very well. Too well. It made her giddy and disinhibited in a way that she had found particularly frightening in hindsight.
She really didn’t want that to happen in front of her commanding officer.
She must have been shaking her head through her entire train of thought because Colonel O’Neill had lifted a hand to pat her head gently.
"Carter I’ve had one of these before. Two of these before. Trust me. You want the morphine."
Sam couldn’t think for the pain. She let him convince her because it was easier.
Sam dropped her head into her hands. She should have fought him on the morphine. She really should have fought him on the morphine.
There was one pretty important constant in the air force. The Chain of Command. It was so important that in Sam’s head it was always capitalised.
The Chain of Command meant that no matter how annoying or stupid your CO was you always spoke to them in a certain way. For example, ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea, sir?’ was what you said when you really meant was ‘that’s a really dumb idea, idiot’. It was a game. You had to learn it to climb the ladder.
Not to mention the fact that in this case her CO may have said something dumb, but that was because he was being Jack O’Neill. He didn’t mean half the things that came out of his mouth.
This was why she should have kept hers shut.
Sam screamed. There was no avoiding it.
In theory she saw the potential for embarrassment in that moment. Fortunately, the morphine in her system soon took care of that.
Unfortunately it didn’t take care of the nausea starting to swirl in her stomach as the pain became her entire world.
"Nearly there, Carter," Colonel O’Neill called out.
Sam managed a gurgle as the bile rose.
Somehow the Colonel managed to not only interpret her gurgle for what it heralded but also finish her splint and leap to help her turn her head to the side before the vomiting began. Sam emptied her stomach across the field, the acid burning the back of her throat.
"Fuck," she said miserably. "Sorry."
The Colonel passed her a canteen of water. "S’Ok, Carter. You shoulda seen me after the set my leg in Iraq. I puked my guts out for about half an hour."
Sam wiped her mouth roughly with the back of her hand. "You didn’t do it when I set your bone in Antartica."
Colonel O’Neill laughed. "That’s probably because you were being a bit of a girl about it, Carter."
Any other time Sam might have let the bad joke slide. But with the morphine in her system making her reckless the words came out of her mouth instead of staying in her head where they belonged.
"If anyone was being a girl, sir, it wasn’t me."
O’Neill had settled himself next to Sam on the grass. He blinked at her acerbic tone of voice.
"What is it with using girl as an insult anyway? I thought after all this time you might be seeing me as an officer who happens to be female not just a woman. I’m sure I’ve proved myself more than once."
A part of Sam’s head knew she was saying things that she was going to regret but she couldn’t make herself stop.
Colonel O’Neill was looking at her strangely. "I’m sorry, Carter."
"I expect better from you, moron. Just fuck off."
He said nothing and Sam had run out of steam. They sat in silence for a long moment. The pain from Sam’s ankle was still throbbing but manageably so. A combination of morphine and the splint had worked amazingly well.
"Pain ok, Carter?" O’Neill asked carefully after a while.
"Yep," Sam replied. She didn’t really have anything else to say.
A rap at the door startled Sam from her reverie. "Yes?" She called out without thinking.
Colonel O’Neill’s voice came, muffled by the metal of the door. "Carter? You decent?"
"Yes, sir. You can come in, sir."
He walked in and sat down next to her on the bench. He was holding his cap in his hand and kept his eyes downcast. Sam felt a stab of fear almost as bad as the pain that had been attacking her a few hours earlier. He was angry with her. She could tell.
"They patch you up ok, Carter?" Colonel O’Neill asked. He still wasn’t making eye contact.
"Janet put on a half cast and filled me full of painkillers. I’m going for surgery tomorrow."
"Whatcha do?"
"Something involving the word tibia. It’s in three pieces anyway. I’m getting a plate and some pins."
The Colonel’s eyes were still on the floor but Sam could see his lips twist into a small smile. "Nice."
"Yeah," she replied.
"You gotta lot more hardware to go to catch me up, Carter. Just so you know."
"Yes, sir."
Sam realised her gaze had dropped to the floor in an almost exact imitation of her commanding officer. They sat in silence for a while, O’Neill swinging his legs back and forth under the bench.
"I’m sorry, sir," Sam finally blurted.
The Colonel was startled enough that he lifted his eyes from the floor and turned his gaze towards her. "Sorry?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised.
Sam wasn’t buying into it. She kept her eyes on the ground.
"For what?" The Colonel asked.
Sam sighed heavily before deciding that honesty was the best policy. "For swearing at you," she said quietly.
Next to her, Sam felt the Colonel still. After a long pause he lifted a hand and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Carter," he said quietly, "friends don’t take things friends say under the influence of pain and morphine seriously."
Sam closed her eyes in relief.
"Besides which," O’Neill continued. "You had a point."
Sam blinked. "I did?"
"You’re an excellent officer and a good friend, Carter. You should expect better from me."
"Oh?" Sam said weakly.
"Yeah," O’Neill said. He finally turned around to look her in the eye. "Anyway. The guys and I would like to take you out for a beer tonight. Up for it?"
"I’d like that, sir."
He gave her a wide smile, one that lightened his face and made the corners of his crinkle. "C’mon then Carter. We’ve got a briefing to go to. Well I’m going. You’re hopping."
Sam smiled. "Right behind you, sir."