Infirmary

[Tracy Jane]

>>> from Gym

Kate hurried into the infirmary, her freckled face contorted with pain. She walked to a bed but couldn't sit on it. Instead she paced around, gripping her arm, as if the pressure would some how alleviate some of the hurt.

She saw the doctor walking over to her and growled.

"I don't need a lecture, just pain relief," she snapped.

"And I'm spoken for," she snapped at the Airmen who were checking her out in her revealing outfit.

[Ascended Times.2]

Gus began to hurriedly walk over; it was that young woman again.

He scanned his repository of knowledge, all those reports of people he'd read and met, and matched a face with a name.
'Caitriona Howard...That's it.' Gus thought to himself.

Gus walked over, his arms folded over each other, his hands tucked under his armpits. "What seems to be the problem, Caitriona?"
'Another member of SG-7 in here, they just don't stop do they?'

Gus thought he already knew the answer to her question, seeing her holding her arm like that, but he needed to be sure before he gave her any kind of medicine.

[Tracy Jane]

"What do you think's the f*****g matter?" snapped Kate. "I was on the rings and didn't release in time. Twisted my bloody forearm and it hurts like hell."

She glared at the doctor. He knew damn well what the matter was, and, to be fair, didn't he have a cupboard of painkillers especially reserved for SG7 by now?

[Ascended Times.2]

Gus shook his head at Caitrionas' swearing, he would not have that in this infirmary, despite how much pain they may be in.

He unfolded his arms and spoke "Young lady, you'll watch your tongue in this infirmary, or you can march right out that door without any treatment of any kind." Gus turned around and headed towards his medicine cabinet.

Gus was silent as he popped in the combination and pulled the cabinet open.
'Now, let's see....Ah, here they are.' Gus thought to himself, pulling out some extra strength painkillers, he walked over to where the empty cups were, and pulled one out of a large stacked up pile, he then walked over to the basic and filled it up.

He looked behind him, Caitriona seemed in allot of pain.
Gus walked over in a stubborn even paced manner, making sure he didn't trip or drop anything in the meanwhile, he handed the two pills to Caitriona and said,
"Take these, and drink this, the pain should go away soon enough, it'll swell pretty badly, but..."
Gus leant over and took it in a soft but firm grip and inspected it.
"...You'll be fine, those pills will make sure it doesn't hurt like hell while it heals."

Gus made sure he took each pill individually, and didn't try and use her arm for the drinking of the water.
When she swallowed the painkillers, Gus looked around for a second, and made sure the SF that had just come in wasn't listening and said,

"You know, James was in here before, he looked rather...distressed over something. He came to me for counseling, I think he thinks I’ve failed him. I can't imagine why though, I told him to go to Doctor Hermione Lancaster, the base psychologist. He wouldn't have any of it."

Gus paused for a moment, he was considering something.
"....However, you and he seem to be relatively close, perhaps he will listen to you. He could use a friend anyway." Gus stood there, his hands by his sides, and his white coat all buttoned up.

[Tracy Jane]

At this point, Kate was biting her tongue. She didn't trust herself to open her mouth again without swearing so just nodded silently at the doctor without paying too much attention to what he had said.

She took the pills he offered as he held her arm. She winced but continued, having to remind herself that it could have been worse, a lot worse. She should know better at her age, than to do gymnastics like that. What had she been thinking?

Kate tried to focus on the doctor's ramblings, drifitng in and out. She vaguely heard something to do with Jim and pushed herself to concentrate just that little bit harder.

"Thank you, Doctor," she said as she ran out of the infirmary gently cupping her arm.

>>>to Quarters

[Ascended Times.2]

Gus was about to call her back in, and decided better, he shouldn't have mentioned James, but what could he do now?

He walked over to the medicine cabinet and closed put the remaining bottle of painkillers, a bottle that was getting increasingly smaller, into the cabinet and shut it.

Gus went back to his rounds.

[gatelover12]

"Medical team to the gym!" Richard called out over the intercom, worry apparent in his voice.

[Ascended Times.2]

The stretcher team stepped out of the elevator and was spearheading their way to the infirmary.

Gus now leading it.
When they entered the infirmary, Gus pointed to a spare cart that was designed for this kind of thing.

"Get her on that! We can transfer her from it, make things much easier on her."
The nurses did what they were told and popped the stretcher onto the space cart.

It was wheeled over and they all grabbed a part of the sheet that was on the stretcher.
Before they moved her however, Gus ran over to a small cabinet.
'Braces, braces...Here, this should help. Why doesn't this infirmary have anything better?!'
Gus brought several bandages and jogged back over to her.

The sheet was now stained with blood, as Kate’s' head injury was bleeding heavily; Gus attempted to keep Kate’s' head as still as possible, while still lifting it slightly so he could wrap it up.

He began to wrap it up slowly, keeping pressure on the wound, sinse on first inspection it didn't seem to bad as far as head wounds went; she would have a mild concussion.

She was moved onto bed three then, with the effort of several other nurses and she lay there seeming to fade in and out of consciousness.

Bed three was the bed for X-ray scans, always a convenience to be comfortable while being scanned.

What Gus really needed was a CT machine; however the Alpha Site didn't have the luxury of such a thing.

"Damn this under equipped base." He muttered under his breath.

He walked over to behind the machine and began to process, hoping Kate would lay still long enough to complete the scan.

"Prep an IV drip, we need to get some fluids into her. This procedure could take a while, try and keep her steady if she starts to thrash around."

Jim was still sprinting up the stairs, thankfully the infirmary wasn't to far up and Jim had reached it quickly.
He was at a very face paced walk and came up to the entrance.

He walked in his face a red ball of worriment.
Jim covered the distance from the entrance to bed 3 in under a few strides.

However, Jim caught site that Kate was being scanned, and leaned against an empty bed, thoughts ran through his mind.
'What did she do? What happened? Oh God I hope she's ok....I'll need to talk to Gus, see what happened. He'll know. Come on scan, hurry up!'

An IV cart was being brought over, and prepped for when the scan was going to finish, as the metal of the drip could interfere with it.

[Tracy Jane]

Kate started to become aware of what was happening around her. She opened her eyes to see bleary white flashes flitting before her eyes. White flashes? No... she couldn't have.... no. Lab coats. They were lab coats.

The pain in her head made it difficult to think, difficult to concentrate and she could only partially open her eyes. Her head felt constricted, like something was applying pressure.

She tried to lift her left hand to her head, but her arm didn't seem to want to obey. Instead of moving, all that happened was a jolt of pain running up and down. She tried her right arm, but felt her arm pinned down by one of the medical staff.

What the hell was happening? Why was she being pinned down? Why did it hurt? Why couldn't she see or hear properly? Where was Jim? The panic rose in her chest as she began to thrash around, sending pain searing through her body.

[Ascended Times.2]

Gus saw the movement from one of the nurses, her moving meant she was in someplace within the realms of consciousness, meaning she could hear him.

"Caitriona, stop moving now. We're performing an X-ray on you to see if you've broken anything serious. Unfortunately we don' have all the equipment I would like to, so you'll just have to lay there and BE STILL."

Gus then looked around the machine a moment.
'James. I wouldn't have thought the elevator would have gotten down and then up again by now. AH, the stairs. My, he can run fast when he wants to.'

Gus spoke up again, he tried to get Jims full attention with this.
"Caitriona, James is here."

Jim looked up at his name, he also took the hint.
Jim quickly moved to Kates' side, making sure he was out of scan range, but he did his best to be within her eyesight.

"Katie. I'm here, it's going to be all right, you hurt yourself, but Gus'll have you fixed up soon, don't worry. Everything'll be sorted out."
Jim had made sure as caring as possible tone was in his voice, Jim didn't realize he could sound that caring anyway.

'God Dammit I wish I could hold her hand, give her some kind of comfort more than just my voice...It'll have to do.'
Jim stood there, nervously awaiting as the verdict came from Gus.

[Tracy Jane]

Kate heard voices amongst the buzzing, faint whispers telling her to hold still, at least that's what she thought they were telling her... it was hard to tell through the pain. She heard a familiar voice... a hint of an Australian accent.

She concentrated as hard as she could, wrinkling her nose, trying to see him, but he was out of her line of vision. A tear streamed down the side of her face as she struggled to form the word.

"Jim?"

It sounded more like Jum, or jjjjjjum, like a buzzing sound and she blinked in frustration, sending more tears cascading down her cheeks. She wanted to speak to him, but the pain was too much, her head hurt so so much.

[Ascended Times.2]

Jim looked concernedly at her, but then she started to move again, he thought she tried to say something.

It came out quite a bit more slurred than Jim assumed she was trying to say, but he guessed what she had tried to say anyway.

Jim was so tempted to move into the machine scan and give her a reassuring hug, or at least squeeze her hand.

But he knew he couldn't though, he knew it would just disrupt the process and ultimately prove worse for Kate.
So, he moved as close as he could just outside of the X-ray scanning range and he stood there, looking down at her.

"Shhhh....Katie, I’m here. Lye still, the doctors are going to take care of you. You just need to lye still...I know it must hurt, but it won't for much longer."
Jim looked up, forcing tears back; instead his face was incredibly red.

"How much longer!?" Jim demanded towards Gus.
Gus didn't move, he simply said "Five, maybe ten minutes. I can't give you specific times James."

Jim looked back down at Kate.
'How much pain is she in?! If only I could take it away. Bare it myself...'

[Tracy Jane]

Kate listened to the sound of his voice. She couldn't make out what he was saying, but just knowing he was there made it so much better.

She closed her eyes, stopped trying to concentrate, just lying there and waiting for the machine to finish, waiting until her head was released from the padded blocks at the side, holding it securely in place, and laid on a pillow, and her arms released from the grip of the medic.

[Ascended Times.2]

Jim had been standing there, biting his lower lip, fidgeting with his hands, doing everything possible to try and speed time up.

It had failed miserably.

However, after several very long minutes, Gus finally spoke up, addressing himself and the nurses.
"We're finished. Nurse, get her onto bed four, get her comfortable."

Now addressing everyone he said
"There doesn't seem to be anything broken, and thankfully there don't seem to be any follow up fractures to the dislocated shoulder being popped back in."

At that, several nurses came over along with a card with some padding on it and very gently lifted Kate from bed three to the cart.
At this, Jim took Kates' right hand with his right, and put his left over it, stroking her hand with his thumb.

They were as gentle as possible, but it didn't seem to be very reassuring for her and she began to struggle, to move around.
Jim gripped her hand a little righter and said "Katie, don't move. Otherwise the nurses will have to restrain you."

The cart made it to bed four and a similar procedure was performed like the one for bed three.
Making sure she didn't move much, they lifted the sheets from the cart to bed four, Kate on them.

The sheets were slipped from under them and then headed off to be washed.
Jim was still at Kates' side.

Gus had moved over to the side of a nurse, and whispered "Prep 50Mg of Phenytoin for her, we may not have much left, but she needs it."

At that, the nurse walked over and attached a small bag of Phenytoin to the stand on the cart and moved it over to Kates' bedside.

"Excuse me sir, you'll have to step back for a moment, we need to insert this drip."

Jim stood back a few paces, releasing his grip on her hand. He flinched a little as he really didn't want to let go but he had been forced to.
As the drip was inserted Jim just watched, helpless to do anything.

The nurse tapped the bag slightly and it began to head down the tubing of the drip.
Gus had wandered off to a board, X-rays in his hand, he was looking at it on a lit up screen.

The nurse moved next to Jim and murmured "Sir, you need to keep her conscious, try talking to her. But don't say anything to provoke her to struggle. Please. That's the last thing she needs."

Jim moved back over and took Kates' right hand in his again; he knelt down on her side and began to speak to her "Katie...You're going to be all right. Focus on my voice despite how much you must need to go to sleep...Don't. We need you here."

[Tracy Jane]

"Sleepy," murmured Kate.

The injuries and the strain of having to concentrate and focus so hard on everything was exhausting. Now Jim was with her, she felt at ease, felt like she could sleep forever.

"Jim," she said sleepily. "Thank you."

She started to drift off to sleep, she had no will to stay awake, not anymore. The thought of death was so tempting, there was so little in this life to stay for, to fight for. Ultimately it didn't matter what happened to her, she didn't care anymore.