Guilt of the Healer
Guilt of the Healer
by Isabelle Ashe
Summary: Does Janet's relationship with Daniel and SG-1 affect her treatment of her other patients?
Category: Angst, Romance
Season: future Season
Pairing: Daniel/Janet
Rating: PG
Warnings: minor language
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 01/25/04
*** Dr. Steven Tharp tried not to be nervous as he walked toward the on-call room. He wished the charge nurse had volunteered to wake Dr. Fraiser herself, or better yet, had just paged her. Pull yourself together, Tharp, he chided himself. It doesn't matter that she's brilliant, beautiful, and has the coolest job in the universe (and is very much seeing someone! kicked in his conscience), she's just a co-worker, and you're getting information from her before the shift change. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
"Dr. Fraiser?" he called.
Steven Tharp had only been at the SGC full time for a week. He had had security clearance for over a year and filled in whenever they needed an extra pair of hands, but Dr. Warner's decision to retire had necessitated bringing him on full time. Steven was young and eager, and he had been a standout surgeon at the Academy hospital. The SGC, though, struck him as a whole different ballgame. He hadn't done much real work yet and had spent most of his time studying the copious medical files of the SGC personnel-a time-consuming process, to be sure. SG-1 took up a whole filing cabinet by themselves. His train of thought was interrupted as his boss appeared at the door, running her fingers through her slightly rumpled hair and yawning.
"Good morning, Dr. Tharp," she said, smiling through a second yawn. "Excuse me. It was a long day yesterday and an even longer night. Nothing serious, and we've only got one patient now, but come down to my office and I'll fill you in."
Janet automatically flipped on the coffee maker in her office as she sifted through the files on her desk. She really should write up the reports on the strange allergic reaction that SG-11 had to some foliage on the latest planet they visited, but it would have to wait until she was feeling a bit more awake. She didn't want to go home because SG-1 was due back in this afternoon, so she was hoping to reconfiscate the on-call room for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep and then finish her reports.
"Um, so what did you want to go over?" asked Dr. Tharp hesitantly. Janet's head snapped up. She had almost forgotten he was there. She apologized quickly, poured herself a cup of coffee, offered him one as well, and showed him the charts from the past 24 hours.
She wasn't yet sure what to make of Steven Tharp. He was obviously brilliant and talented, especially for his age, which couldn't be more than about 27 or 28, but his eagerness was tempered by a certain shyness that no one at the SGC had yet been able to break through. He always seemed particularly at pains to please her, and Daniel teased that the new doctor had a crush on his boss. Steven Tharp was young enough and well enough aware of her own romantic attachments that a mild crush was kind of cute. Meanwhile, most of the female nurses were falling head over heels for the handsome, slim but athletic young doctor.
Janet finished going over the allergy crisis, and she and Steven went together to check on and release Lieutenant Watson, whose anaphylactic shock was now completely out of his system. Suddenly, the klaxons sounded. Janet did a quick mental survey and realized that neither SG-1 nor SG-8, the only two teams off-world at the moment, were due back for more than six hours. She groaned and prayed for it to be nothing medical. "Medical team to the gate room," announced the loudspeaker. Her stomach did the nervous flip-flop it did every time she got such a call, and doubly so when she knew SG-1-and Daniel-was off-world. She looked at Steven and realized that this was his first emergency here. His eyes were wide and nervous, and his dark skin had turned rather grayish.
"Come on," she said to him as she headed out the door, followed by several nurses toting a gurney. "Somebody's back early, which is hardly ever a good thing," she said, praying selfishly that it wasn't Daniel who had been hurt.
When Janet and Steven arrived in the gate room, they found the two junior members of SG-8 supporting their CO and 2IC. Janet hoped the brief spasm of guilty relief she felt when she realized it was not SG-1 did not show on her face. Lieutenant Adam Riggs was carrying an unconscious Captain Mona Sparks in his arms; Major Rob Geiger, though semi-conscious, was leaning heavily on Lieutenant Rachel Suarez, who was obviously having some difficulty supporting her much larger CO.
"Get them on the gurneys!" barked Janet, commanding her staff swiftly and authoritatively. All traces of fatigue had left her as adrenaline rushed through her system. "What happened?" she demanded of Riggs and Suarez as they followed the gurneys back to the infirmary. General Hammond walked quickly along beside them, wanting to know the answer to that question himself.
"Trouble with the natives," began Riggs breathlessly. "They had these weapons almost like water balloons, only they were filled with some kind of chemical. The Captain and the Major were following us back to the gate when they got hit. It wasn't long before they were in a lot of pain. Captain Sparks lost consciousness while we were dialing home."
"And you two carried them," Janet recalled. "Hit the showers now. Use the infirmary soap and wash every inch of yourselves several times. Put your clothes in decontamination bags. Are either of you experiencing any burns?" The hands of both of them looked slightly irritated.
"A little on my hands," confessed Suarez, and Riggs nodded his head in agreement.
"Get it all cleaned off and report to the infirmary," Janet called over her shoulder.
*** The next few hours were a blur for Steven Tharp. He, Janet, and the nursing staff cleaned the chemicals off of Geiger and Sparks and tried to treat the already expansive burns. The weapon must have hit Sparks on the front left shoulder, for it was the most badly burned. Geiger had been standing close by, though, because he was almost as severely injured as she. Steven had seen a few cases of chemical burns before, and he knew how ugly they could be, but this chemical seemed to be more aggressive than anything he had seen. They had apparently breathed some of it in, and it was attacking their lungs as well as eating away their skin. Finally, they were both stabilized, though had needed to be hooked up to ventilators, and Sparks had been placed in an oxygen tent. At some point he had also given Riggs and Suarez their post-mission exams and bandaged the minor burns on their hands.
If Steven had not known that Janet had been on duty for over 24 hours and had hardly slept, he would never have realized it from her trauma room behavior. She never faltered for a moment, giving orders like the competent professional that she was, her brain never missing a beat. Now, however, as she pulled off her protective gloves, mask, and smock, she looked very weary. She glanced up at the observation window and saw the General waiting with three other people: Riggs and Suarez and a small, pale woman whom Steven didn't recognize.
"Who's she?" he asked Janet, nodding subtly at the woman on the General's left.
Janet took a deep breath before answering. "Sara Marcus. She's a civilian tech in Major Carter's lab. She's Geiger's fiance."
As soon as Janet had realized how serious Sparks and Geiger's condition was, she knew with growing dread that she would have to tell Sara Marcus that short of some miracle, her fianc was going to die. She looked at her two patients swathed in bandages, and the image of Daniel lying in the same room, dying of radiation exposure flooded her mind unbidden. She shut her eyes and willed the memory away. When she looked up again, the window was empty. They were coming down.
"Stay with them," she told Tharp. "I'll go talk to the General."
General Hammond had recognized the gravity of the situation before meeting Dr. Fraiser, and he tried to prepare Riggs, Suarez, and Sara Marcus to expect the worst. Ironically, the civilian fiance appeared more composed on hearing the devastating prognosis than the military teammates.
"Isn't there anything that can be done," Sara Marcus asked, trying to overcome a slight quake in her voice. "Some of our allies? The Tok'ra. . .?" She looked imploringly and almost accusingly at Janet. Uncomfortable, Janet directed her own gaze at the General.
"I can put through a message to the Tok'ra," offered General Hammond. "But of course I can't guarantee that they would agree to help or that their help would come in time."
"I'm afraid we only have a few hours," Janet said softly. "You can go see them now, though, if you'd like."
The General went to send the message, and Janet headed toward her office to see if the lab tests on the chemical had come back. She realized she had forgotten a file she needed in the trauma room, and turned around to get it. Riggs, Suarez, and Sara Marcus were walking ahead of her. Suarez had an arm around Sara's shoulders and was trying to reassure her.
"Dr. Fraiser has pulled off some pretty amazing miracles, Sara. It's not over till it's over."
There was no mistaking the bitterness in Sara's reply. "Why do I get the feeling she would be trying harder if it were SG-1?"
Janet froze in her tracks and felt like she had been slapped in the face. The memory of her relief when she realized Daniel wasn't hurt came flooding back to her, accusing and mocking her. Oh, God, were Sara's words true? She knew exactly how she would feel if she were in Sara Marcus's shoes, and her chief emotion had been relief that she wasn't. Forgetting the file she wanted, she walked back to her office in a daze, carefully rehearsing her every action since the klaxons sounded. The rational part of her brain told her that she had done everything she could; no doctor could have done more. Yet the memory of her relief persisted, and each time it returned, her guilt grew more acute.
*** SG-1 knew the minute they walked through the gate after their uneventful mission that something was wrong. Neither General Hammond nor Janet was there to greet them, and the airmen and gate techs seemed even more grave and subdued than usual.
"What's going on?" asked Colonel O'Neill when no one even smiled in response to his sarcastic quip about the welcome home party. "Where's General Hammond?"
"Here," answered the man himself as he strode through the door. "Welcome back, SG-1. You're all healthy, no problems?" The team nodded that they were fine. "Good. SG-8 came back this morning with major injuries. Major Geiger and Captain Sparks have been badly burned, and Dr. Fraiser says it doesn't look good. I'm about to send a message to the Tok'ra to see if they can help, but frankly I'm not very optimistic. You will have to work around Dr. Fraiser's and Dr. Tharp's schedules for your post-mission exams, and I don't think we'll debrief until tomorrow morning. Go get cleaned up, and don't get in the way in the infirmary."
"Wow, Geiger and Sparks," Jack said in disbelief as he led his teammates toward the locker room.
"Poor Sara," added Sam. "And it's only a little over a month until their wedding was supposed to be."
*** Dr. Tharp completed the post-mission exams for Sam, Jack, and Teal'c, but just as he was beginning Daniel's, a nurse ran in and interrupted.
"Dr. Tharp, Dr. Fraiser needs you. Captain Sparks is coding."
Through the open door of the room he was in, Daniel could see a flurry of activity in the trauma room. He strained for a glimpse of Janet, whom he had not seen since he had returned. He could hear her shouting orders and saw what he was almost positive was her hand for a brief moment as she ushered Suarez, Riggs, and Sara Marcus into the hallway and shut the door to the trauma room.
Riggs swore and kicked the wall in frustration as Suarez angrily swiped a tear away with one bandaged hand, muttering something Daniel didn't completely catch about wanting to stay with their teammate while she died. Sara Marcus was quiet and still, but her face was strained. Regardless of how close she had been to Mona Sparks, she had to know that her fianc would doubtless be the next to die. Suddenly, Sara glanced over and saw Daniel watching them. He immediately looked away, but not before he caught the expression of unabashed resentment that transformed the grieving woman's face when she saw Daniel. What did I do? he wondered as Sara moved slightly so as to be out of his line of sight.
Steven Tharp returned about twenty minutes later. Daniel was glad the doctor didn't apologize for keeping him waiting.
"Captain Sparks?" Daniel asked quietly. Steven just nodded his head gravely.
The post-mission exam was quiet, Dr. Tharp's usual shyness even more pronounced by the solemn events of the day. Daniel didn't feel very inclined to talk either, despite his long-term goal of bringing the young doctor out of his shell. So far, Daniel had gotten to know Steven Tharp a little better than most of the SGC personnel had simply because Steven had automatically become Daniel's doctor. When Daniel and Janet started seeing one another, she had transferred his general care to Dr. Warner, and upon Dr. Warner's departure, it had fallen to Dr. Tharp. So far, this care had consisted of the prescription renewal for Daniel's allergy medication and a pre-mission check up, but Daniel had already decided he liked Steven Tharp. Oddly, he liked the doctor more for his obvious admiration for Janet. Daniel knew he had nothing to be jealous about, and since he clearly found Janet quite praiseworthy himself, he figured he and Dr. Tharp might have that in common.
As Dr. Tharp finished the exam, Daniel wondered whether he should hang around and try to see Janet or if it would be better just to stay out of the way. He was surprised when Steven seemed almost to read his mind.
"Um, Dr. Jackson, I can see if Dr. Fraiser is busy right now, if you want. I mean, I'll tell her that you're here." He looked a little embarrassed, but Daniel's grateful smile seemed to put him more at ease.
"I don't want to interrupt or bother her, but if she could get away for a minute, I would like to see her," Daniel replied, trying not to grin inappropriately.
"I think it would be good for her to see you," admitted Steven. "She seems. . . I think she's tired." Daniel's expression became worried as he watched Steven leave the room.
A few minutes later, Janet appeared, looking beautiful as always, but absolutely exhausted.
"Hey," she said as she leaned into his chest, relaxing a little as his arms held her tightly.
"Hey yourself. Tharp seemed worried about you. You doing okay?" He waited for a moment and frowned when she didn't answer. "Jan?"
"I haven't eaten in God only knows how long, I only got about two hours of sleep last night, and today has been a nightmare. I think if I try to answer that question I'll probably lose it, and I can't afford to do that right now." She sighed heavily, and Daniel leaned down to plant a kiss in her hair.
"I understand. When it's over, I'll be here, okay." She pulled back to look at him and managed a half-hearted smile.
"Okay. I love you."
"I love you, too. By the way, Sam said to tell you that either she or Jack will go stay with Cassie tonight in case you have to stay here."
Janet let him hold her for a few more minutes, but she knew she had to get back to Major Geiger. "I'm sorry, Daniel," she said as she extracted herself from his arms and steeled herself up to return to the trauma room.
"S'okay," answered her lover, giving her hand one last squeeze. "I'll be here when it's over."
*** When Janet returned to the trauma room, she found Sara alone with Rob Geiger. She sat close to her fiance's bed, holding the mass of bandages that covered his hand and gently stroking the exposed hair on a small patch of his head that was relatively unburned. Geiger was unrecognizable, completely swathed in bandages except for that very top of his head. Again, the memory of Daniel similarly bandaged rushed in before Janet could force it away. She drew in a sharp breath as she blocked the image, and in doing so inadvertently alerted Sara to her presence.
Sara glanced up quickly and looked at Janet, but her expression was unreadable. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears-Janet was fairly certain Sara hadn't broken down yet-and her typically fair skin was ghostly pale. Janet felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny and tried to apologize for interrupting while at the same time checking the chart and the monitors in order to justify her presence. The empty space where Mona Sparks's bed had been left a gaping hole in the room.
"Dr. Tharp took Adam and Rachel to check their hands and change their bandages," explained Sara.
"Okay," nodded Janet, not sure what else to say. She felt like she needed to talk to Sara Marcus, but she was completely at a loss at how to begin. She hardly knew the woman; she hadn't even known Sparks and Geiger all that well since SG-8 was, before today anyway, the team with the fewest injuries.
"At the end, I'm staying. Don't push me out again like you did with Mona. And Adam and Rachel should stay, too, if they want to." Sara's voice was cold. She wasn't asking permission; she was giving an order.
"That would be okay as long as you stay out of our way. I'm sorry about earlier."
"Stay out of the way of what?" returned Sara, apparently ignoring the apology. Pink spots of anger appeared on her pale cheeks, yet she never released Geiger's hand or altered the rhythm of her hand on his head. "You have Rob's do not resuscitate order in his chart. Are you going to work a miracle at the eleventh hour? Is General Carter going to waltz in with a healing device in the nick of time? I know how it works around here-SG-1 gets all the breaks and miracles. Everyone else just dies."
Janet just stared at her, completely speechless. She tried to be angry at the injustice of Sara's accusation, but she couldn't manage it because she knew the accusation wasn't unjust. SG-1 had the highest injury rate in the SGC and the lowest death rate, especially now that Daniel was descended. It wasn't fair, and Janet knew it. Even though she couldn't imagine what she could do differently, guilt overwhelmed her. She was the doctor; she was supposed to keep her patients alive.
"Dr. Fraiser, the analysis and cross-match of that chemical is here. Sorry about the delay." Janet whirled around to the door to find a lab technician holding some paperwork. She snapped back into "Dr. Fraiser" mode, grateful for the diversion.
*** Major Rob Geiger died at 2420 hours with his fianc and two surviving teammates by his side. General Hammond watched from the observation window. Steven Tharp knew that the do not resuscitate order was by far the most humane course of action with a case this hopeless, but he still felt a rising sense of panic and helplessness as he watched the monitors code. Captain Sparks, however, had not signed a d.n.r., and pushing epinephrine and shocking her heart earlier this afternoon had been just as defeating. Dr. Fraiser's voice sounded strangely altered as she called the time of death. Steven helped her unhook the monitors and listened as she quietly told the nurses to give Sara, Rachel, and Adam a few minutes before conducting the post-mortem. Steven followed her out into the hallway and watched as she leaned heavily against the wall, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Go get some sleep, Dr. Fraiser," he said softly. "I can take care of everything here."
"Janet," she corrected, not altering her position. "Dr. Warner and I worked together for years and were never on a first-name basis. It was damned awkward sometimes."
"Um, okay, Janet," Steven answered, trying to figure out where that had come from. "You still should get some sleep. Do you want the on-call room, or-"
"No, I've got somewhere else I can stay." Steven was fairly sure she meant Dr. Jackson's quarters, but figured it wasn't his place to ask questions, even if they were on a first-name basis now. "I'll keep my pager turned on in case you need anything, Steven," she said, pulling herself away from the inertia of the wall and heading in the direction of her office. Watching her go, he was in awe. Even though they had lost their patients today, he was convinced he was working with the most brilliant and dedicated physician he had ever seen.
*** Janet didn't exactly remember why she needed to go back to her office, other than just to lock it up for the night. She was tempted just to go to the elevator and find Daniel. She glanced at her watch and realized it was almost 0100 hours on Wednesday morning; she had gotten up at 0700 Monday morning, worked all day Monday, caught a couple of hours of sleep in the on-call room on Monday night, then SG-8 came in Tuesday morning. She tried to do the math to figure out how many hours she had been awake, but her brain was fuzzy.
She was surprised to see the light on when she approached her office. She pushed open the door and found Daniel waiting for her, sitting behind her desk with a couple of archeology books arranged on top of her paperwork. He jumped up and met her as she came in the door.
"Major Geiger died," she said, as he crushed her to him. She trembled a little as she relaxed but persisted in blinking back the threatening tears. She needed to go to bed, and if she cried in Daniel's arms wrapped up in the dark of his quarters, so be it, but not in the infirmary. "Please, Daniel, let's go to bed. I need to go to sleep," she whispered. He pulled back and cupped her face in both his hands, kissing her lightly on the forehead, eyes, and lips.
"Come on, my love," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and guiding her out the door.
As they passed the trauma room, the door opened and Sara Marcus came out. She had been stoic throughout the ordeal, but now her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks tear-stained. Janet wanted to disappear from this woman's notice, but it was too late; she had already seen them. She fixed Janet and Daniel with a sharp, angry glance and then looked away. Rachel Suarez and Adam Riggs appeared from down the hallway, and Sara joined them, allowing herself to be pulled into a hug by Lieutenant Riggs.
Janet grabbed Daniel's hand and tugged him toward the elevator. She had to get out of there. She had to get away from Sara Marcus, this woman for whom her heart was breaking, this woman who could inexplicably read her guilt.
The tears started to fall in the elevator, and by the time Daniel was guiding her down the corridor to his quarters, she had lost all control. He got them in the door of his quarters, and she clung to him, sobbing in great gasps. "Shh, baby, it's okay. It's okay," he murmured, holding her tightly and stroking her hair until the sobs dissolved into hiccups.
"Sh-she knew. Oh, God, Daniel, how did she know?" Daniel wasn't sure who or what she was talking about.
"Who, Jan? What do you mean, sweetheart?"
"S-Sara Marcus. She knew that when they came back, I was glad-glad it wasn't y-you who was hurt. Oh, Daniel, how can I be so heartless? I'm supposed to be a d-doctor, for Christ's sake." A new flood of tears assaulted her, and this time Daniel scooped her into his arms, moved to the bed, and settled her in his lap. He cradled her against his chest while she cried out her tears.
"This is not your fault, Janet," he whispered, willing her to believe it.
She had almost fallen asleep in his lap, and he hated to rouse her, but he knew she had probably been wearing those clothes for more than 40 hours and would be much more comfortable sleeping in something else. He helped her change into a t-shirt and a pair of his boxers and then stripped off his own pants and shirt and climbed into the small bed beside her. Instinctively, she burrowed up next to him, snuggling her head into his chest.
"Sleep, my love," he whispered as he kissed her. "You'll feel better in the morning."
Wrapped in his unconditional love, she was tempted to believe him, but the hollow, guilty feeling remained. Her last thought before sleep overtook her was of Sara Marcus, sleeping alone.
*** The End
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