Healing Touch

Author: BadgerGater

Email: [email protected]

Category: WordAMonth: December-- Faith, Trust, Touch: ( I think I actually used them all)

Rating: G

Season: Three or so

Summary: O'Neill thinks about someone at the SGC

Warnings: None.

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions; all the powers that be, not me; This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement intended. The story is the property of the author and may not be posted without the author's consent.

Authors Notes: Another installment in the word-a-month club, and another look into Jack's world

These hands I know well, and trust.

Though I tease her unmercifully, though I grouse and complain, okay, okay, maybe even whine on occasion, I trust those hands, have faith in the mind and spirit behind them. I guess someday I will have to tell her that, un-military as that would be, but then, when have I ever worried about being militarily correct, politically correct or any other kind of correct, other than what I see as correct?

Everything is darkness and pain, and then the hands are there, sure and gentle, and I know things will get better.

"Colonel O'Neill?"

So I'm too exhausted to even open my eyes yet, but I recognize the voice, and I feel better already.

"Colonel, you're going to be all right."

Words I've heard before, but words I trust, coming from her.

"You're in the infirmary, Colonel, you're hurt but we'll get you patched up." Her gentle hand squeezes mine. I squeeze back. Right, Doc, I have faith in your abilities, patch away.

___________

More darkness.

"Colonel? Can you wake up for me?"

For you anything, I think as I force my eyes open, looking up into the worried face of Janet Fraiser, M.D, and Captain, USAF. Funny, I'm a foot taller than she is, but often, way too often, I find myself looking up at her like this.

"Hi Doc," I mumble.

"Hey, good, that's good Colonel, you're with us," she smiles. Ahh, nice smile there Doc. I like your smiles. Let's me know I've done something good, something important, something difficult, like open my eyes.

"Colonel, I have to check you over. Sam says you took a nasty fall, off that rock ledge, what 15 feet?" she tells me.

"Didn't fall," I mumble, trying to keep my pride intact. "Pushed. Big guy, big hairy nasty native guy,"

"Right, Sir," she grins.

I feel a chill as my shirt is cut away. Her hands are probing my chest and then touching my ribs and involuntarily, I flinch. "That hurts?"

My instinct is to deny it, but she's the doctor, and she needs to know. "Umm, yeah."

"Okay, ribs cracked along with that lump on the head. Pain level?"

Business like, that's good Doc. Reassuring. Comforting. Professional. Let's me keep my pride intact. "Bout a three."

"Hurt anywhere else?"

Should I tell her? Am I admitting to weakness? No, trust Doc. "My left arm, the wrist." I can feel her hands moving over to my arm, a gentle touch..."Hmm, that hurt," I said as she starts to flex my wrist.

"Just a little more, Sir. This might hurt," she warns. Damn, I know those words, too. She's right, it does hurt, but I concentrate on her face, on the expression that says I'm a pro, I've got it under control, trust me. She closes her eyes in concentration, feeling the bones through the swelling tissues. A smile crosses her face, ahh, that's good. "I don't think this is broken Colonel but we'll need to x-ray it just to be sure."

"All right then," she smiles. "Rest a minute. We'll get the x-rays and something for that headache."

"Thanks, Doc."

"Anytime, Colonel."

I let me eyes slide shut, let myself drift into a place where it's peaceful and comfortable. Doc's got it under control, so I'll just leave her in charge. A good officer knows when to delegate.

------------------

I don't know what time it is when I wake again. Hours later I think. I'm wearing one of those embarassing open backed hospital gowns. I don't want to think about what somebody did to get me into this thing. Good thing I was asleep at the time. There's one of those velcro and plastic splints on my left wrist, just a little thing, so I guess it really wasn't broken. I raise my right arm to feel the sore spot on my head, and find a lump there, big, hard, tender lump. Oh boy.

The frantic pace in the infirmary has settled down to the familiar middle of the night quiet, but something has awakened me. I look around and spy Doc, her back to me as she reads something off the machines that are keeping tabs on me. I must have made a sound because she turns back to me, a grin quickly forming, her eyes crinkling into the start of a smile.

"Ah, you're awake."

"Is that your professional medical assessment?" I ask with a small grin.

"Yes, took years of training to get to that advanced diagnostic level, knowing if a patient is awake."

"What gave it away?" I shift a little on the bed, feel a stab of pain, and must have let it show on my face because immediately, the bantering is gone.

"Colonel?" serious tone, now.

"Just the ribs, Doc."

"Sore, are they?"

"A bit. I'll be all right."

"Yes, you will." She looks me over assessingly, all doctor. "I want you to rest, then I'll check back, okay."

"'Kay."

________

I slept, maybe only a couple of hours again, and woke to see Doc there once more. This time she's sitting in one of those hard, uncomfortable chairs that the Air Force buys by the thousands. She's dozing, her hand on my arm, lending me her healing touch.

I'm not going to wake her. She looks tired. Taking care of us is a big job, a tough job, worrying about the teams, not just about the our injuries and illnesses, but about what weird diseases we might bring back. There's always the danger of inadvertant visitors like those orb creatures or the Land of Light virus or the nanites or Machello's little critters that might hitch a ride back to Earth with us or in us. Enough said. You get the picture. Lots to worry about.

So quietly I watch, silent, thinking about her. I wasn't very happy when I heard the SGC was getting a woman doctor assigned as our CMO. I mean, all the poking, prodding, testing, checking and treating Doc does, it can make a guy feel a tad uncomfortable, to have a woman doing all that. Then again, she's probably gentler, kinder and more aware of the subleties of her patients than any other doctor I've dealt with.

Doc takes the time to understand and listen. I'm a difficult patient, I know that. I don't like doctors, don't like having my space invaded in that way, though I know it's a necessity. You'd think someone who's spent as many years in the military as I have wouldn't have a shred of modesty left, and I don't think it's that, so much, as I'm a man who guards my privacy.

I wasn't always this way, not before my little visit to Saddam's version of Club Med. Maybe it's the scars I don't want people to see, the ones outside and especially the ones inside. Those are things I don't want to have people prying into or questioning me about. My hurts and my fears are mine alone, not something to be paraded around in public. I had enough of that, after the whole Iraq thing, when so many people knew, all those behind the back pitying looks.

I know that Doc knows about that whole incident. She knows more about me than anyone here, except maybe General Hammond. I know that Doc has seen my medical files, knows all the ugly little details. She's even been witness to a few of my nightmares, here in the infirmary, and once even a flashback, ugly experience those are, for me, and for anyone watching.

Doc trusts me, and because she does, I can return that trust. That is not something I give easily, or often. People have to earn it, from me. There are very few people I actually do trust, and that number gets fewer as I get older, because in the past I've had that trust broken. I've been lied to, let down and left behind: General West. Sara. Frank Cromwell. The whole damn Air Force, just to name a few. You really don't want to get me started. Frankly, it's easier to name those I do trust. I can conveniently count the names on the fingers of my one functional hand-- General Hammond, Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, Major Carter, and Janet Fraiser.

I know that doesn't seem like many, but a man is blessed to have that many people in his life that he could, would, and has trusted his life to, completely and unreservedly.

I trust Doc. I have put my life into her hands far too many times; I have trusted her to take care of my team; I trusted her with knowledge about me that is unknown to others; I trusted her with little bits of the real me, the private one that lurks beneath the brash exterior.

Fraiser is forgiving, too, more than I deserve. See, I have this tendency to umm, get vocal, when I get mad. I've more than once given her hell to pay, too often over something I haven't thought enough about, over something she couldn't do anything about, or something that really was in my best interests, even if I couldn't see it at the time. And while I've vented, she's just stood there and taken it like a man, okay, like a damn good soldier, and waited for me to calm down, and then proceeded to give me the what-for I deserved.

Over the years, I've tried every trick I know to defeat her and her medical edicts, mostly when it comes to leaving her domain. I've tried to browbeat her, dodge her, misinform her, talk my way around her, humor her, charm her, ignore her, bribe her, be a big enough pain in the ass she'll just plain get sick of me, and finally absolutely just plain order her to let me out of her infirmary. She stands her ground, like a warrior defending her territory. Tough lady. No one could argue that. Hard to be both tough and gentle, but she does it, somehow.

Maybe it's the way she listens, doesn't pry, just lets us, lets me, deal with things my own way. Like with that whole Nem thing, when we all thought Daniel was dead and we were, well, shook up isn't quite an adequate word. More like stunned and shocked. Then too, after that Hathor and the Goa'uld bit, she didn't insist I go talk to some shrink like MacKenzie, she gave me a chance to work things through my own way. I know she was skeptical, I know she was worried, but she was patient, and that's something I need, and appreciate.

Doc stirs, eyes opening, looking at me with surprise. "You're awake?"

I chuckle. "Hey, another brilliant medical deduction. And I see you were taking your own prescription."

She looked at me, eyebrows lifting.

"You were resting. Eyes closed. Asleep." I lower my voice conspiratorily. "I won't tell anyone..."

"Colonel!" she laughs.

I start to laugh, too, then instantly regret it. Hurts a bit, it does, to laugh with ribs as battered as mine, and she notices, reaches out, touching my arm again. "Sorry."

"S okay," I mutter back at her. "Laughter is the best medicine, you know."

"If it were, Colonel, I'd be out of a job." Her chuckle hangs in the air as she leaves.

No, Doc, you'll never be out of a job. Not as long as Jack O'Neill's around the SGC.

And you know, I don't have to tell her that I trust her. She's a smart lady. She already knows.

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