Rubble

Title: Rubble
Series Title: Fallout
Series Order: 4
Author: Ladyholder
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, JAG, Criminal Minds
Relationship: Tony DiNozzo/Jack O’Neill
Warnings: Character Bashing, Canon Typical Bullshit
Word Count: 6620

 

“Tony, do we have any updates on the BOLO?”

“No,” Tony said. He glanced at the screen dedicated to the BOLO for any news. “There have been no updates since the last one I gave you, Gibbs. I’m currently reviewing the suspects financials.”

“Why are you looking at their financials?” McGee asked.

“Because the suspects apartment is too rich for their paycheck and they don’t have roommates,” Tony said absently. He was digging into the suspects income and bank. Something looked utterly fishy, and he was trying to figure out where the money had come from. He’d already checked the suspects’ last security clearance review, but that had come up with nothing. It was also three years old. A lot could happen in three years.

“Why didn’t you ask me to do that?” McGee asked Gibbs. “Tony doesn’t know how to use computers for a search.”

“Exactly who do you think did the various searches before you were placed on this team, McGee?” Gibbs demanded. When McGee opened his mouth and then closed it without saying anything, Gibbs snorted. “We did. Tony more than me, because he is more computer literate than I am. You’re just faster due to your training. He’s doing this because he’s aware of the various ways money can be hidden.”

McGee looked clueless when Tony side-eyed him before turning his attention back to his computer. “How would he know that?”

Tony snorted once. “Oh, going after the Mob, various financial crimes I’ve busted over the years. My father. You know, experience.”

From the flummoxed look McGee shot him, he hadn’t expected to get an actual answer. Too fucking bad and he was busy. Their suspect was smart enough not to put any extra accounts in their own name, so that left family names, anagrams of their names, names of their pets, and possibly characters from their favorite movie. Tony was glad that he’d taken good notes, so he could start guessing options.

“Tony.”

“Daniel?” Tony looked up from his computer to see Daniel standing in front of his desk. “Why are you here?”

Daniel took a deep breath and slowly let it out before he waved a hand at the elevator. “Tony, I need you to come with me. Now.”

“Why?” Tony asked. He let his hands lie still on his keyboard as he stared at Daniel. He’d never seen the man look so disturbed. “What’s going on?”

“Jack’s been shot. We need you now,” Daniel said bluntly.

“Why is Tony needed?” David asked. She had been logging evidence lists into the case file while muttering to herself in Hebrew. “He’s an NCIS agent, not part of the SGC.”

From the way Daniel’s lips tightened, he was suppressing a comment or two. But Tony didn’t have the bandwidth to police Daniel’s interactions with his coworkers. He turned to glance at Gibbs and smiled briefly at the nod he got in return. “Let me turn over what I’m working on, and we’ll head out. How bad is it?” he asked as he dropped all the links he was following into a document, along with his notes, and sent them to McGee. He forwarded the BOLO over to Gibbs before signing out of his computer.

“It’s not great. We all agreed that you need to be there when he wakes up,” Daniel said. He raised an eyebrow when David snorted. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“It must be nice that you are brining General O’Neill’s fucktoy to be with him when he wakes up,” David said with a sneer. “I’m sure he will be very grateful.”

“What in the hell did you just say?” Gibbs snapped.

David shrugged as everyone turned to glare at her. “It is obvious, no? Why else would General O’Neill have anything to do with Tony? He’s not worth much more than that.”

“Agent Gibbs, if you don’t deal with this, I will,” Daniel ground out. “And you really don’t want that.”

“I will as well, because that’s it. I’ve tolerated her behavior as long as I can, and I’m done, Gibbs. Either you deal with her, or I will. And I will use every contact I have to make sure she faces the actual consequences for her actions,” Tony said evenly. He glanced up to see Vance standing on the walkway, looking down at them. “And I don’t care who her father is.”

“It’ll be dealt with, Agent DiNozzo, Dr. Jackson,” Vance promised. His expression firmed up, and he turned to glare at David. “I will also be informing Eli of his daughter’s behavior.”

“Your father is Eli David?” Daniel asked. When Tony made an assenting noise, he laughed. “Good to know. Let’s go, Tony.”

“Are we taking the fast way?”

“Yes, because there’s no way we can get there in any kind of time, and I’m not driving in this town,” Daniel said. He turned to walk towards the elevator and waved a hand over his head. “Do us all a favor and record the dressing down, Director Vance. Jack will want to see it to confirm that she’s been dealt with.”

“Feeling vindictive, Daniel?” Tony asked as he fell into step with the scientist.

“I do not like people like that. She’s seen your work for years and yet, she still holds to the delusion that you’re incompetent,” Daniel snapped. He paused and took a deep breath as they entered the elevator. “I cannot abide willful and determined ignorance. It irritates me.”

Tony snorted once and hit the button for the parking garage. Only when the doors closed did he smile. “You know she’s going to get chewed up one side and down the other, right?”

“I know, and I’m looking forward to the video,” Daniel said. He quickly tapped his comm. “Daedalus, two to beam up for transfer to the Mountain.”

Tony remembered to close his eyes just in time, and the flash of light denoting the transport lit his eyelids up twice before he opened them again. “I hate that.”

“It’s not that bad,” Daniel said with a shrug. “Goa’uld transport rings are worse.”

“Not comforting, Daniel,” Tony said. He looked up to see a command room and several servicemen and women looking down at him. “Okay, where’s Jack?”

“He’s in Medical,” Daniel said. He waved Tony towards one of the doors. “Let’s go.”

“I thought Jack wore a vest on a regular basis,” Tony said. He’d been thinking about what Daniel had told him, and it didn’t make sense. “Where was he shot?”

“He was hit twice in the chest by large caliber rounds. I didn’t get what they were, but from my glance, they looked like .50cals,” Daniel said bluntly. “But I don’t have confirmation.”

He escorted Tony into an elevator and hit a button. The little box moved up, and Tony pressed his lips together before he blew out a sharp breath. “Daniel. How in the hell is he alive? A single .50-cal bullet can blow a body apart. Two to the chest should have blown him to pieces!”

“I know. If he was in a standard fest, he would be dead,” Daniel agreed. “But all the vests here at the SGC are lined with trinium. It’s the same metal we use for the gate iris, and it kept the bullets from punching through. But it wasn’t quite good enough to absorb all of the momentum, so Jack was still injured.”

“Shit,” Tony cursed. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to figure out Jack’s potential injuries. “Was he hit anywhere else?”

Daniel grimaced as the door opened and he started walking down the hall. “He was hit by at least one other bullet in the left leg. I didn’t get told the bullet size.”

“Right,” Tony said as he followed behind him. “Did they catch whoever shot him?”

“We did,” Cam called. He was fully kitted out with a P-90 attached to his vest, and he was standing in front of the door to Medical. “We didn’t kill them, and they’ve still got all their limbs.”

“Are they here in the Mountain?” Tony asked as he moved his shoulders to check his shoulder holster. His gun was still in place, and the weight was reassuring.

“No. We have them stashed in a remote location,” Cam said. He stood a bit straighter and looked at Tony. “The doctors haven’t come out, so I don’t have any information.”

“Okay,” Tony said with a sigh. He glanced over at Daniel before he nodded at the door. “I’m going to head in.”

“Daniel, he’s going to expect you to be in there too,” Cam reminded. He knocked on the door to Medical before stepping out of the way. “Better head in.”

“Where’s Landry?” Daniel asked.

Cam grimaced before his expression smoothed out. “On the red phone with the President.”

Tony ignored them and headed into Medical. They could follow him on their own time. The whole place smelled strongly of antiseptics and cleaning agents, and he hated it. Somewhere in the complex, Jack was being worked over, and he had no idea what was happening. “Daniel, who do I talk to about Jack?”

“That would be Carolyn Lam,” Daniel said as he stopped next to him. He looked around and shook his head. “Brooks!”

“And who is Brooks?” Tony asked.

“The head nurse for the SGC,” Daniel said absently. He was keeping his gaze trained on a door at the far end of the room and smiled when a woman in scrubs walked out of it. “Her.”

“Hey, Dr. J,” Brooks said. She turned her attention to Tony and nodded once in greeting. “I take it you’re Agent DiNozzo?”

“I am. What can you tell me?”

“Right. First thing, Agent DiNozzo, General O’Neill is stable. He’s deeply bruised and has several broken ribs and a gunshot wound in his left thigh,” Brooks reported. She glanced over her shoulder at something deeper into Medical before turning back to him. “Dr. Lam is prepping him for surgery on that wound at this time. After some time in recovery, we’ll be putting him through a CT scan to check that there are no issues with his ribs being out of place and that they will heal cleanly. Given the type of injury he received, we’ve done an initial MRI to confirm that his organs aren’t damaged from the impact that was passed on through his vest. There will be at least one more over the next days to make sure nothing is hiding due to bruising.”

Tony took a deep breath and let it out. The recitation of injuries was better than he’d expected when Daniel had told him that Jack had been shot. Still not great, but survivable. “So, the current list of injuries is massive bruising, broken ribs, and a GSW to the left leg?”

“Yes,” another voice cut in. Tony turned to see another woman walking towards him. She was small, dark-haired, and obviously of mixed heritage. If he had to guess, he’d pick Filipino or Vietnamese. She was also wearing bloody scrubs, and Tony swallowed harshly at further proof of Jack’s injury. “I’m Dr. Lam, and I treated General O’Neill when he was beamed in after the shooting. Currently, he’s in surgery to repair the damage that the gunshot did. We’ve got the results from the MRI and the CAT scans, and both of those were clear.”

The relief that hit him was overwhelming. “Thank you. Do you know the caliber of the bullets that hit him?”

“When he came in, he still had the vest on and we’ve set it and all of his clothes aside. They’re wrapped up, so everything is still there,” Lam said promptly. “The bullet that hit his leg went right through, so I have no firm idea of the caliber, but from the size of the hole, I’d say it was on the larger side.”

“Daniel mentioned that Jack was hit by two .50-cal bullets. How in the hell did his ribcage not get pulped?” Tony asked.

“Trinium,” Lam said bluntly. “I don’t know the ins and outs of why it kept his organs from turning into hamburger, but I just know that it did. You can ask Colonel Carter for that information. What I do know is that he’s got two deep bruises where the bullets hit. He’s ribs were also broken there.”

“Jesus,” Tony breathed. “I’m going to guess that he’s going to be laid up for a while.”

“Yes,” Lam confirmed. “General O’Neill is overall very healthy, and due to his heritage, he heals well, but I would honestly be happier if we could get hold of a sarcophagus.”

“We’ve been looking,” Daniel said grimly. “Would putting him on a dose or two of Tretonin help?”

Lam grimaced and waggled her head from side to side. “I don’t think so. It can supercharge the immune system in the short term, but it doesn’t boost healing.”

“What is Tretonin?” Tony asked.

“It’s a drug we found off-world that is used by our Jaffa allies. Due to the Jaffa being used as hosts to immature symbionts, their immune systems were designed to shut down around puberty, when they would take on a symbiote. Tretonin allows them to stop that. The explanation I was given says that it’s basically the immune system version of insulin, and it allows them not to be tied to a prim’ta,” Daniel said. “We manufacture it and send it out to our allies since we’re able to do it cleanly.”

“Given that he’s been shot, wouldn’t a short-term immune system boost be a good thing?” Tony asked. “And is there anything else that this Tretonin has going for it?”

“Daniel’s right, it does support the immune system, and a dose might be wise to help, but one of the major side effects of it in healthy humans is that regular use can suppress the person’s immune system,m and the drug takes over. It’s not great,” Lam explained. “We’re going to go with antibiotics instead and monitor the situation.”

Daniel hummed softly to himself before he turned to Cam. “Where is Sam? Or Vala?”

“Both are carb loading and will be by after they finish their meals,” Cam reported.

“You’re going to explain that soon,” Tony said bluntly. He turned back to Lam and resolutely ignored his partner’s best friend and his team lead. “What do you need from me? I know I’m not Jack’s medical power of attorney, so what can I do?”

“Honestly, keep him calm when he wakes up. And then distract him when he gets crabby,” Lam said. “Also, we’re all of the opinion that you needed to be here.”

Tony waved a hand in frustration. “Okay, so all the news about Tretonin is not something I need to worry about. I need to worry about keeping Jack calm and moving forward in his healing, right?”

Lam nodded. “Right.”

“Okay, I’m going to leave Daniel and Cam to figure out what the hell they want to do. Please direct me to where I can wait, out of the way, for Jack to come out of surgery,” Tony said. He spared a glance at Daniel and rolled his eyes at him. “Why don’t you go threaten Eli David like I know you want to?”

“As distractions go, that’s a great one,” Daniel said with a smile. “I’ll do it after I see Jack when he comes out of surgery.”

“Sounds good. Please don’t hint at any more stuff I can’t look into right now. I’m way too nosy not to want to know everything,” Tony warned. “But as an aside, that Tretonin? If you haven’t put that in the various reports? It should be. I can think of several uses here, and I’m not a medical doctor.”

“It’s noted under our ‘hearts and minds’ platform,” Cam said with a smile. “I’m going to check on Sam and Vala.”

“Let them know where we are and let Landry know too,” Daniel directed.

“Will do,” Cam said and walked off after giving them a two-finger salute.

“Asshole,” Daniel said fondly.

 

 

“You know, despite knowing that humans are assholes, I didn’t think that someone would try to shoot you,” Tony said as he took Jack’s hand. He sucked at sitting by someone’s bedside, so he was glad he’d remembered to bring his backpack since it held his kindle. Pulling the little device out, he turned it on to start reading, all while keeping hold of his partner. “Finding out I was wrong was not great. But I’m very glad you were wearing the nifty, awesome vest, and I want one.”

He gave Jack’s hand a light squeeze and ignored the lack of response. Lam had been very blunt about the level of damage his love had taken and what had had to be done to correct it all. It was going to be a while before he woke up, and he was lying still on the bed. It was weird because Jack, in all the years they had been together, always moved in his sleep. Small twitches and movements characterized his lover’s behavior in bed, and he missed it.

Tony closed his eyes and took a deep breath before pressing a kiss to the back of his partner’s hand. “You better pull through this, Jack.”

“He’s going to be fine,” Sam said. He opened his eyes to see her standing at the foot of Jack’s bed with his chart in her hands. He raised an eyebrow at her in question. “I know Cam told you that Vala and I were standing by if there were any issues.”

“Cam told me that you two were carb loading, and I had no idea why your lunch choices had anything to do with Jack. Other than him being upset that he’s not getting the chance to eat all the pasta he wants,” Tony said. He cocked his head to the side and tried to put the scarce clues he had together in a picture that made sense. “What am I missing?”

“Oh, lots,” Sam said. She wrinkled her nose in a grimace as she stared at Jack. “So, things weren’t always rosy with some of our allies. There was a point early on where I was a host to a Tok’ra symbiote, and that symbiote eventually died in me. My body dealt with the changes about as well as could be expected, and I kept a couple of things from the experience. The ability to use Goa’uld tech is one of the biggest.”

“Okay, I’ve been reading about that, and there’s some truly dangerous tech out there,” Tony said slowly. He thought over what he’d learned about Goa’uld tech and what it could mean for Jack. “I’m going to guess that some of the tech that we’ve acquired from the Goa’uld can heal people?”

“Yes, there are several different items that can be used to heal, but only one that needs personal direction,” Sam said. She pulled a jeweled hand device out of her pocket and worked her hand into it. “Vala and I can use this device to heal soft tissue damage in human bodies, but it takes a lot of energy to do so.”

“Thus, the carb loading,” Tony realized. “Are you going to use it?”

“Not right now. We want him to wake up and have the doctors look him over to make sure that their repairs are good and won’t heal wrong,” Sam said. She hung his chart back on the end of his bed and twitched the covers over his feet. “I did want to offer to take a look at your lungs, though, to see if there’s anything we can do to make them better.”

Tony froze at the offer. “You can do that?”

“I have no idea,” Sam said with a shrug. “If not me, then Vala. She’s got a finer degree of control than I do, due to a greater amount of experience, so she might be the better bet.”

“Why are you offering?” Tony asked carefully.

“Well, Jack was going to offer it, so there’s that,” Sam said. She waggled her hand, and the device lit up before going dark. “I’m here now. I can do the check with Lam standing by, and no one other than your doctors needs to know.”

“I…,” Tony felt his brain stal,l and he blinked several times as he tried to process what she’d just said. “You won’t be doing any healing, right? This is just a check to see what the damage is and if that little dealie can do anything?”

“That’s the plan. I would want to get with your doctors and with Lam to confirm exactly what needs to be healed and do it under supervision,” Sam said. She crossed her arms and rocked on her heels as she stared at Jack. “I can go get Carolyn so I can do the check?”

Tony glanced at his partner and tried to figure out what he wanted to do. The chance that he could get full lung function back was amazing, and he wanted it. But again, Sam wasn’t promising anything. She was just going to check. “Please. I would like to find out what you can do.”

“Will do,” Sam said with a smile. She turned around and headed out of the isolated ward they had put Jack in for his security.

“Hey, Jack. I have no idea if this is going to pan out, but if Sam’s able to determine what’s going on with my lungs, she might be able to help. I hope there’s good news,” Tony murmured. He pressed a kiss to Jack’s hand. “This should be interesting.”

“Are you sure you want to do this here?” Lam asked as she walked into the room.

“Yes,” Tony said firmly. He placed Jack’s hand back on the bed and stood up. “It’s private. I don’t want to spread any information on my health far and wide. Especially since it could be used against Jack or the SGC.”

“I hate politics,” Sam muttered. She moved to stand in front of him and smiled at him. “You shouldn’t feel anything beyond a vague warmth as I move around your torso. I’m going to be looking at what’s going on through the whole thing because everything is connected.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tony agreed. He tried to relax and let Sam do what she needed to do. It was, however, very disconcerting to have a large red something beaming warm red light all over him.

“Can you let me know what differences you’ve noticed between now and before you contracted the plague?” Lam asked.

“You say that like it was an accident,” Tony said, amused. “I got the plague because a mentally ill, dying woman sent the plague to the NCIS office, wrapped up in a foil envelope so it could get through screening. I got dosed and then spent the next few months attempting to stay alive and recover. Mostly, it’s settled down to having to be careful in the winter and a shortness of breath when I run more than two miles.”

“Interesting. If I reach out to your doctor, do you think he could be willing to share the information on that with me?” Lam asked. She looked unbearably curious, and Tony wrinkled his nose at the thought of Lam and Pitt getting together.

“If you get me a permission form, I’ll sign it and you can talk the whole thing over with Dr. Pitt,” Tony said after several moments. “What’s the push behind this?”

“One: Chances are good that I will be treating you in my department one day,” Lam explained. At his questioning look, she shrugged. “It’s public knowledge that you are connected to the SGC. After today, I want to be able to treat you without any issues if you end up here. It does no one any good if I have to guess if everything is going to pot. Two: The SGC has encountered the plague before, and while it’s not the same strain we have here on Earth, it’s related, and your antibodies might be helpful.”

“I’m not going to be a continuous source of blood if the antibody thing pans out,” Tony said firmly. “You’re going to need to figure out how to keep that ticking over.”

Lam nodded slowly. “We can do that.”

They both fell silent, and Tony turned his attention back to Sam and watched her as she scanned his torso. Her face was strangely blank, but it wasn’t frozen, more like she was meditating. He was going to have to ask her what the whole experience was like, because nothing was showing on her face, and he was curious.

Sam took a deep breath and nodded once. “Okay, so I have some news.”

Tony turned his attention back to her and held his peace while she worked the hand device off her palm. From the subtle shaking she was doing, it looked like the scan she’d done had taken more out of her than expected. Lam seemed to notice the same thing because she pulled a meal replacement bar out of her lab coat and handed it over. “Here. Eat this and then tell us what you found.”

“Good idea,” Sam said wearily. She sat down in the chair Lam waved her to and tore into the bar. It took her less than three minutes to eat it ,and she leaned her head back against the backrest as she waited for the calories to hit. Tony stared at her for several seconds before he started packing in the limited space available. He needed to move before his nerves got the better of him.

It took ten minutes before Sam stopped shaking, and she sat up. “Okay, so first off, I want to explain what I found, and then what I did, and finally, what I want Carolyn to do.”

Tony walked back to his chair and sat down. “This sounds deeply ominous,” Tony said as he took Jack’s hand in his again. While his lover wasn’t awake, it was comforting to hold onto him. “Lay it on me.”

“Your lungs are deeply scarred. I’m impressed as hell that you can function with the amount of scarring I saw,” Sam said. She waved a hand at Lam before pointing at him. “You’re going to be impressed, too, Carolyn. Anyway. I have no idea if you’ve had an MRI recently, but when I scanned you, I found some nodules buried in the worst of the scar tissue, and the nodules were a form of tumor. I healed six of them and smoothed out the scar tissue surrounding them, so it’s back to normal. We need Vala to come in and do the rest. And then I want Carolyn to do an MRI on you to make sure we got everything.”

“Fuck,” Tony muttered. He hadn’t been expecting that. Not at all. Pitt had warned him that the damage to his lungs could lead to further issues down the road, but he hadn’t expected tumors. “You said tumors. Cancerous?”

Sam rocked one hand back and forth before dropping it back in her lap. “From the feedback I was getting, they didn’t feel good, but I can’t say for 100% certainty on that. I know they aren’t normal, but…”

“You don’t have the relevant experience to diagnose. Which is where I come in. We can do an MRI to see if these nodules show up and if they might be tumors,” Lam offered when Sam trailed off. At her nod, she grimaced. “Okay, I’m going to ask you to sign the authorization for me to get your records, and then I’m going to reach out to your doctor. While that’s happening, you’re going to go through an MRI. Sam, did you find anything else?”

“No. Everything else seemed good. The nodules were small, though. Maybe the size of a BB at this point, but there’s about a dozen more and while the hand device will let me treat them, it sucks a lot of energy to do so,” Sam said slowly. “Doing an MRI now is a good idea because we need to make sure that we don’t miss any of those things.”

“Tony, would you be willing to do the MRI now?” Lam asked.

He glanced over at Jack and thought it through. “I want someone in here with Jack while I get this done.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam promised. “I’m going to ask for a tray from the mess so I can fill up again, but I’ll be here until you get back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Lam said. She turned back to Tony and cocked her head to the side. “Shall we?”

Tony nodded once. “Yeah, let’s.” This was not what he’d expected when his day had started.

 

Normally, Jack was okay with waking up. It wasn’t fun, but there were things that he enjoyed doing while awake. Waking up to find himself in Medical was the very opposite of fun and he resented the fuck out of it. But… Waking up was better than the alternative, so…

From the soft laughter coming from his right, Sam was sitting with him. “Hey, General.”

“Ugh,” Jack muttered. He tried to take stock of what ached and what didn’t. Ribs were sore as hell, his left leg hurt like a motherfucker, and he had pinpricks in his arms. “I got shot?”

“Three times, sir,” Sam confirmed. “Your vest stopped the two to the torso, and the third went right on through. Thankfully, it was of a smaller caliber than the two torso shots.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jack hissed. When he opened his eyes, Sam was holding a cup of water out for him, and he carefully took it so he could start sipping from it. “Did we at least catch the assholes?” he asked after he’d drunk some water and cleared the cotton from his mouth.

“Yeah, we did. And no one else was hurt,” Sam promised. She leaned back in her chair and met his gaze without a blink. “You had some surgery to correct the damage to your leg. Your ribs didn’t need any surgical assistance, and they won’t be wrapped as long as they stay in place. Lam will be monitoring your breathing to make sure nothing adverse develops. Vala and I were standing by in case anything went critical, but everything was handled by standard means.”

“I was shot in public, wasn’t I?” Jack asked as he thought over everything he’d been told.

“You were, sir,” Sam confirmed.

“You can’t fully heal me then,” Jack said after several seconds of thought. His mind felt like sludge, but he needed to focus on the situation they were in. “You can heal me to the point where the wounds are sealed, and then no further. I want to be able to move if I have to, and I can’t right now. Also, I don’t want to have our ability to heal folks like we do to get out. It would not be good.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “In other news, when you were shot, we sent Daniel to get Tony. Daniel officially hates his coworkers and spent thirty minutes cursing out Eli David.”

Jack groaned softly as he thought of the chaos that Daniel could get into. “I’ll want to get into that later. Where’s Tony?”

Sam grimaced before her face smoothed out like it did when she had bad news to share. “He’s with Carolyn, getting an MRI.”

“Why?” Jack asked. He placed his cup down and held up a hand. “Ignore that. Get my doctors in here so I can get checked over, then Vala so she can get my wounds up to the point they’re sealed, and then Tony.”

Sam nodded once. “Yes, sir. I’ll also let Landry know you’re awake.”

It took all his self-control not to have a complete fit. He was an adult. A general. The person actually in charge of the damn program. He could not afford to lose his shit. Why was Tony getting an MRI?

“General,” Lam said as she walked into his room. “Let’s get you checked out, and then I’ll answer your questions.”

“Sounds good,” Jack said shortly. He held his peace as Lam poked and prodded him, and he accepted the pain medication pump and firmly pressed the button for a hit. The small amount of medication hit his bloodstream, and he hissed in relief as his pain was pushed away.

“Sam said she briefed you on your wounds?” Lam asked. At his nod, she started briefing him on his healing plan. “We’re going to wait 24 to 48 hours before we let Vala near you so a) we can confirm there’s no issues with the wound, and b) any reports that come out of here show the expected damage. Once that’s passed, I’ll authorize the hand device to be used on you like you want. At that point, you’ll be heading home to start the recovery process.”

“Okay, I can agree to all of that,” Jack said. He stared at their CMO and raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s going on with Tony?”

Lam checked her watch before she nodded. “I would like to wait on explaining that until he’s back in here.”

“Am I going to want to tear out my stitches?” Jack asked. He was being handled, and it was making him itch.

“You’re not going to be happy about the base part of this, but the rest of it has turned out better than expected,” Lam said after several seconds. “Tony’s out of the MRI now, and Brooks is bringing him back here.”

“Just tell me that he doesn’t have a snake,” Jack demanded.

“No snakes, General. I did check on that,” Lam confirmed.

“Is that why you concentrated on my head first?” Tony asked as he was escorted in by Brooks. “You’re awake!”

“Yes,” Lam said. She held her peace as Tony moved to sit beside him and took the tablet that Brooks handed her. She turned it on and started reviewing the information it contained.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Jack asked. He picked up his pain button and firmly pressed it. The hit was welcome, and he relaxed as Tony took his hand. “Not about me getting shot. I’ll get reports on that. Why did you need an MRI?”

“You suggested to Sam that she scan my lungs, right?” Tony asked. At his nod, his lover smiled grimly. “Well, she took advantage of me being her,e and since we were in this very private location, I agreed that she could scan my torso. She found some stuff in the scarring on my lungs that concerned her. She did some healing, but she wanted a second opinion on what she found.”

“That sounds concerning,” Jack said. He held onto Tony’s hand tightly as he processed what Tony was talking around. “Cancer?”

“Maybe,” Tony said. “She wasn’t sure. But she found a mess of tiny nodules that did respond to her healing me. However, it took a lot out of her to do it, and she stopped before she cleared them all. She wanted me to get scanned so they could figure out what was happening before they get Vala in here to complete the healing.”

“Jesus, Tony.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the back of Jack’s hand. “I trust your people.”

“Okay, I’ve got some news,” Lam said after several minutes reviewing the tablet. “So, I can see the nodules that Sam found, and I can see the areas she healed. I don’t think they’re cancerous at this stage, but I think if nothing had been done, they would have developed into it. I’m going to send Vala in to have her complete the healing process on the rest of your lungs. We’re going to add a quarterly MRI to make sure that nothing develops, but I don’t expect anything will once she’s done.”

From the way Tony was gripping his hand, Jack was certain that he was as freaked out as he was. “Sam mentioned that the nodules didn’t feel normal, but you’re saying that you don’t think they’re cancerous?”

“To be definitive, we’d have to go in and sample one, and that’s surgery. And I can’t hide that. I can more easily hide the MRI because it’s pretty standard for everyone on the base to get one,” Lam explained. “And I’m not going to say anything about Vala doing her thing because there’s nothing to record when the hand device is used. There are no cameras in here, so please don’t do anything I’ll need to scrub my eyeballs about, General.”

“I’m on drugs, doctor. I’m not going to do anything,” Jack protested.

Lam eyed him before she shrugged. “Just saying.”

“Do you need anything else from us?” Jack asked. When she shook her head, he turned to look at Tony. “Do you have any other questions for her?”

“Not right now. But I’m sure I will later,” Tony said quietly. “I’ll be happy to avoid surgery because yeah, there’s no way to hide that.”

“Yeah,” Lam said. She handed the tablet back to Brooks and smiled at the two of them. “I’m going to get you both some food. I’ll send it in with Vala. This isn’t the end of the world. But I am glad that we caught it before it progressed.”

“So am I,” Tony said grimly. He rubbed one hand against his chest and took a deep breath. “I can’t tell that there’s an issue going on in there, but I think that’s part of the issue. I’m looking forward to being able to breathe deeply again. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Lam said softly. She waved Brooks out the door and followed closely behind her, firmly closing the door behind her.

“You scared me today,” Tony said after several minutes of quiet.

Jack took another hit off his pain meds and grimaced. He was going to miss his button when Lam took it away. But he wasn’t going to miss the floaty feelings that the drugs gave him. “I did not mean to scare anyone. Hell, I scared me today. I thought I left getting shot behind when I retired from SG-1.”

“You’re a target, Jack. As the head of Homeworld and as the senior-most general assigned to the SGC, the crazies are focused on you,” Tony reminded him. “I’m damn glad you had your vest on, and it has that wonder metal in it, because you’d be dead otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. Despite the amount of pain he’d been in when he’d been hit, he’d known what he’d gotten shot with. Without the trinium in his vest, today would have ended very differently. He tugged lightly on his lover’s hand. “Come up here.”

“Despite you having the oversized hospital bed, I’m sure I’m not supposed to get in there with you,” Tony muttered as he stood up and shrugged out of his jacket before toeing off his shoes. “If the doctors have an issue with this, I’m blaming you.”

“I’ll take the hit,” Jack said with a smile. He stayed still as Tony slid into the bed on his right-hand side. His lover snuggled into him and carefully rested his head on his shoulder, avoiding his ribs. “We’ll get through this.”

“Yeah,” Tony confirmed. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Tony,” Jack said. He pressed a soft kiss to the top of Tony’s head and wrapped his arm around him. “I’m glad you’re here.”