Chapter Text
Day 0
Man, he really hates jungle missions.
In the air force—well, when he was a pilot in the air force—he never really had to do much but fly over them, admire the sheet of thick, green trees from above, appreciate the beauty before it was gone in a second and he was back to flying over fields or water.
Jungle missions aren’t entirely common, most of the planets they go to are desert or colder, less dense, forests, but sometimes they get the bad draw of having to go to a hot planet that’s not beaches or deserts—one where they have to march through the thick vines hanging under a heated canopy, and with all the gear, it feels like he’s in an oven.
Then there’s other great things that come along with jungles—mud slides, quicksand, rapids, and waterfalls.
And bugs.
His least favorite by far because bugs, especially mosquitoes, love to give him a nip.
As they march on back through the gate, Sam speaks technobabble to Daniel about how the magnetic field on the planet isn’t right, something about the polarities, showing him readouts on her data tablet, while he steps in time with Teal’c, who despite the new fashionable white streak in his hair, hasn’t even broken a sweat.
“Is it possible to put a moratorium on planets that are this hot, that don’t have beaches?” Vala is straggling behind them, her pigtails poofed out from the humidity, her pack hanging off her by a thread, while she stumbles over the muddy landscape, up the ramp, and through the gate.
“—beaches with strapping, shirtless men, would be preferable, but I’ll take any sandy shore and sapphire water that—”
“Vala.” Daniel only halfheartedly shouts back at her, mostly for interrupting the discussion he’s having with Sam.
She huffs, stopping directly behind him and Teal’c, her backpack strap finally snapping, falling to the ground.
Landry’s not there to greet them, or give them directions for debriefing—they did find small stores of naquadah, but nothing to really brag about—so wordlessly they break off, him, Daniel, and Teal’c heading one way, Sam and Vala the other.
Before they shower, they have to get checked over medically—since so much bad voodoo has been brought back through the gate: parasites, infections, diseases, viruses, there’s been small areas implemented for immediate return from off world.
He takes a seat in the closet-sized room with just a chair, and a fancy piece of medical equipment and waits for Lam, or whatever other doctor is on duty, to make her way down the line.
It tends to get a little hot in the exam rooms because they’re so small and so close together—more like closets than rooms—he shucks his smelly river water soaked jacket over the back of chair he’s sitting on, trying not to notice how much it smells like sweat and sulfur.
Lam tugs back the curtain to the small room, dressed in her usual trauma garb of that puffy yellow over suit, and a blue mask and gloves. As much as he hates having all this done whenever he comes back from off-world, it must get real exhausting dressing up like that between each team member.
“Evening, Colonel Mitchell.” She greets grabbing her trusty clipboard, ready to write down his vitals and whatever other weird things he tells her. The one time he said that he smelled bacon for two days and she wanted to shove a probe into the back of his nose to make sure there were no foreign bodies or infections.
Turns out the guy in the dorm next to him had an illegal Foreman grill, and just really liked bacon.
Since then he’s been more cautious about his complaining.
“Hello, Dr. Lam.” He sits still while she shoves the thermometer into his ear, it immediately beeps. “Am I your last patient?”
“Yes, Dr. Rix volunteered to do Vala and Colonel Carter’s exit medical exam.” She speaks but it’s autopilot, because her eyes squint as she checks the readout on the thermometer. “Your temps up.”
“Well, we were just in the equivalent of the Amazon basin for the last thirty-six hours.” He may be a little defensive, but it’s Friday night, and he has a date lined up.
“True, but Dr. Jackson and Teal’c’s didn’t have temperatures as high as yours.” She shrugs, making a note in his chart. “I’ll take it again at the end of the examination.”
She swabs his mouth, and he’s thankful that it’s not the probe going into his nose. When she turns to make notes he shudders, thinking about the one time they came back from a planet with active parasitic pollen that the MALP didn’t pick up—thankfully the spores couldn’t live in human hosts, but he still has nightmares about that probe going up his nose again.
The tip of his finger pinches a bit when she squeezes the little clip onto it to measure his oxygen levels—all of these things he never knew, but he’s done this so many times, with a rotating medical staff, that sometimes he can’t think of anything to talk about, so he asks what the hell all the medical jargon and machines are for.
“Oxygen levels just a little low—” she scratches something on his chart, but her eyes squint when she smiles at him “—don’t worry, so were Teal’c’s and Dr. Jackson.”
Lam straps on the blood pressure cuff to his arm and starts squeezing. He sits, waiting, feeling the material grow tighter around his skin, trying to distract himself because sometimes after an adrenaline rush of a mission, his pressure is a little high.
“Any plans for the weekend?”
“Actually, I’m seeing Major Carré again.”
“That’s exciting.”
“Well, last week I dragged him along to a wine tasting, so this week we’re going to a Godzilla movie marathon at the cinema downtown.” There’s a hiss of air releasing as she tugs the cuff off his arm. “So, I don’t know how excited I really am.”
“Are you kidding?” He rubs at the redness on his skin, then shakes his arm out, happy when the pressure goes away. “Hell, if you don’t want to go, tell Carré I will.”
Lam chuckles, writing the results onto his chart, not important enough for him to know, and then juts a thumb back to the curtain. “I just need to read over your blood results that the nurse took earlier.”
He nods, watching her leave, absently scratching at the side of his arm, trying to think of what actually makes for a good first date nowadays. When he was younger it was usually just dinner and a movie, but that really doesn’t cut it much anymore. Sometimes going to a higher-class restaurant or bar is okay, but if she’s not into it, he needs to have a contingency plan.
Bowling? Do people still bowl?
If it were ten years ago, he would just tell her that he’s a pilot in the military and there wouldn’t be much more work than that, but things change, he changed, and dating isn’t the fun past time that it used to be because with each failed relationship, he’s that much closer to being alone indefinitely.
Lam pulls back the curtain again, walking in with the same puffy suit, the same blue mask, and gloves, but this time she’s holding a piece of paper.
“All clear, Doc?” Pre-emptively, he reaches back, snagging his BDU jacket from off the chair, ready to head to the showers, and out into the city, hoping that he thinks of a good date idea on the way.
But when he stands, Lam holds up her hand, halting him in place.
“Is there a problem?” Sort of chuckles it out because he does this whole post mission protocol at least once if not twice a week, and there’s never been a hitch. It’s never taken longer than fifteen minutes to give him the all clear, and chase him out of the room so they can start disinfecting it.
“There’s a spike in your white blood cell count.” She doesn’t answer him directly, which isn’t a good sign, because he knows doctors, and he know Carolyn, and she’s never been one to dance around a subject.
“Okay?” Hangs his jacket over his hooped arm, wondering how big a deal it actually is, expecting to just get sent off with a warning. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that your body is fighting an infection, something supported by your increase in temperature.”
Sighs into his hand, realizing just how clammy his face it. Again, if it were ten years ago, he might put up a fight, but Lam is only trying to do her job, just like he does. Protect him, protect the others. “Okay, so what’s the protocol?”
He’s probably gonna be base bound for the weekend, which isn’t ideal. It doesn’t sound good to call out on a first date, even if he is working for air force, but if she can’t understand the reasons why he canceled, then she’s probably not a good match for him.
“You need to go into quarantine right away.”
“So, grounded here for the weekend?” But Lam doesn’t reply, and it’s never a good thing when she doesn’t immediately answer questions. “More than that?”
“Cam, whatever’s in your system, it might be highly contagious, you may have already transferred it to the rest of the team.”
“Wait. Wait. Slow down.” Waves his hands in the air, not exactly becoming actions of an air force colonel, but her voice, her thoughts, are moving too fast, and he’s trying to keep up. “How do you know the others are infected?”
“I don’t, it’s speculation based on their raised temperatures, and their slightly lower blood pressure.”
“So why do you think I did it?”
“I don’t think you did anything on purpose, Cam—” he notices the she’s cradling those awful blue scrubs in her arms, and man he hates wearing those things, they’re too breezy and they never fit right—he’s never been a self conscious kinda guy, even after his accident, but those scrubs really bring it out in him “—but you’re showing the most advanced symptoms, so I’m guessing that whatever we’re going to be dealing with started with you.”
“Great,” sighs again, flapping his fingers, gesturing for her to give him the scrubs to change into, just sinking into his own defeat. “The one weekend I had plans.”
“You and me both,” Lam laments, handing him over the pile of clothing, along with a bag for the BDUs he’s wearing now, and his very own mask, which is something new.
She gives him privacy to change, pulling the curtain closed and going to make a phone call not only to advise Dr. Rix that there’s a possible contagion situation, but also the general that the base may need to be locked down, that employees leaving the building under any circumstance—through the gate or though the front door—need to be scanned to determine if they might be infected.
He’s starting to get a little freaked out because it seems like nothing. He feels fine except for being a little hot—something the crappy scrubs don’t help with at all—and a really itchy arm.
When she returns, he hands over the bag of his dirty clothes, boots in tow, and follows her out of the post mission examination area, through a short hallway acting as a backdoor and fire route from medical.
“General Landry has sequestered the rest of SG-1 to their dorms for the evening, they’re not to leave in the morning until someone’s been around to do another examination of them to see if they’ve caught whatever you have.”
She directs him into the room they’ve always referred to as the bubble room. He’s never seen it actually used, it’s more for storing things—alien things—that they think might be contagious in order for Dr. Lee or Sam to run tests on from afar.
But there’s always the first time for everything.
The room is always set up with a few made cots, and medical equipment that’s never been used, until now.
“What do you think it is?” Asks, again just trying to clear the heavy awkwardness in the air because he might have a lethal infection, he might have infected all his teammates—not that he doesn’t have faith in Lam’s abilities to heal, but sometimes fears are hard to kick.
“It’s too early for me to tell.” She speaks over her shoulder, her words muffled, the straps of her mask digging into her cheeks as she flicks on medical equipment and starts to tug it into the area beside the bed he’s picked, struggling when the wheels hit a stitch in the floors.
Without thinking, he pushes himself away from the bed, moving beside Lam to disengage the machine from where it’s snagged on a bit of a raised floor tile, not thinking of the implications of his close contact, instead thinking of how he was raised to be respectful and offer help where needed.
Lam does jump back a bit but isn’t too upset at him.
“Thanks,” it’s a mumble, but somehow terse, reminding him to keep his boundaries. He’s not team leader in this room, he’s the patient and she’s the doctor, he’s gotta follow her orders and stay put where she places him.
When she gestures back to the bed, he nods, agreeing, understanding that for however long he’s in here, she’s the boss.
“Did you eat or drink anything not indigenous to Earth?” Lam questions as she rolls the machine over to his bed, fiddling with buttons, getting it ready to do whatever it does in case his body decides to suddenly tank.
“Nothing not from MREs.”
“Were you submersed in water at all?”
He chuckles, grinning, “do you think we just pull David Copperfield acts on other planets as a sign of good will.”
Lam doesn’t take the joke very well, or she’s starting to get frustrated because she drops her hand from configuring the machine and turns to him. “I meant did you go into any deep puddles, lakes or other bodies of water, Colonel.”
“Yeah, that does make more sense.”
“It was a tropical planet, right?”
“More like a tropical rainforest. Lots of water.”
“Did you wade through any?”
“Yeah, we had to cross the river a few times at shallow points.”
“Well—” the machine beeps to life in front of her, Ancient writing scrawling across the screen and he recognizes it as one of the pieces of Asgard technology those gray guys gave to Sam. Dr. Lee and her have spent the better part of two years working on a way to implement Asgardian knowledge into medical use—she even used to work on it in her spare time on Atlantis. This has to be the prototype “We’re probably looking at a virus or fungus in the water. I’ll let General Landry know to send another team back to collect samples for me.”
It's the last thing she says to him, not that it’s not poignant enough, it’s always good to have a plan of action, but the fact that she doesn’t try to reassure him—Lam’s bedside manner has never been the best, but she always tries to end on a positive note.
The fact that she didn’t say things were gonna be okay, means they’re probably gonna get worse, real fast.