Chapter Text
He raced through Cronus’ palace corridors at speed, trying to keep his cool, the communication device that had just delivered the news rattling in his pouch with each step.
Thank god it was night. No slaves would likely see him, Cronus’ trusted underling, racing through the gate and disappearing for good.
He wouldn’t be able to risk returning after this. Five months of undercover work, stealth and infiltration wasted.
But it didn’t matter. There was more at stake now than his irrespectively tiny attempt at disrupting the balance of the System Lords.
Sam needed him.
—-
He tore towards the operating theatre with Teal’c hot on his heels, the Jaffa having led most of the way.
The sounds of beeping and chaos of the room smacked him hard as he burst into the room. His eyes frantically searched for his daughter, but he couldn’t make out more than her legs past the whirlwind of medical staff bustling and shouting over her. What he could see, however, was blood everywhere.
“BP’s dropped to 75 over 50.”
“Heart rate’s 180.”
“We’re losing her!”
He knew that feminine voice. It was the CMO, Sam’s best friend.
“I need another bag of blood!” she then shouted.
None of them had even noticed his entry, but he realised now that in his haste to leave Cronus’ palace he hadn’t even had a weapon on him, let alone had time to get hold of a healing device.
The panic of movement continued, and he froze at the thought that he might be unable to do anything to help but watch his daughter die, before Selmak’s soothing voice chirped up in his brain, asking him for control.
At first he resisted. If Sam was going to die, he wanted to be there to speak with her. To hold her hand. But as another calm request came, he decided that screw it, Selmak’d probably be more useful to Sam than him in the state he was in, anyway.
So he bowed his head and allowed her control of his body.
“I require a healing device,” he felt Selmak announce to the room, and before he knew it he felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Semlak turn to see a very bedraggled and blood-covered Jack pressing something large and cold into his hand.
“Save her, please,” he whispered, begging.
Holy Hannah, were those tears in his eyes? But what did it matter? He might be crying himself right now if Semlak’s calm self wasn’t in control. What would he do if he lost his baby girl?
When he finally gathered his senses, he realized that Jack had given him a healing device- thank god they’d had one at the SGC- and saw that Selmak had already asked the medical staff to part and allow her space to work on Sam.
The CMO, Janet, was it? quickly filled them in with the details as she moved aside, but aside from the words ‘staff blast’, he couldn’t absorb any of her words at the sight he was now given of Sam lying on the bed.
Her bare arms beneath the smatterings of blood everywhere were white, almost grey. Her shirt had been removed, leaving her immodestly in a bloodied sports bra, beneath which large bandages oozing with blood had been pressed onto her abdomen.
With the CMO’s direction, he watched as Selmak activated the healing device and set to work on the wound. While he couldn’t see the damage itself, he knew from the data the healing device was streaming into his and Selmak’s minds that she would have bled out in a matter of minutes. Transfusions had obviously bought time, but a wound like this to her liver and stomach would have been fatal no matter what surgical miracle the team might have tried to perform. The staff weapon had burned right into her midsection. In fact, he couldn’t believe she’d survived the hit at all. His girl really was a stubborn fighter, just like he’d always been. But of course, without Selmak, she’d never have had a chance, and he was again renewed with a sense of immense gratitude that he had come to blend with the Tok’ra.
'Don’t forget, you saved my life, too, when we blended,’ Selmak whispered into his mind while retaining most of her focus on the task of saving his daughter.
’Yeah, but now you’ve saving my Sam.’
'And she saved us from Netu, remember? But this isn’t about repaying an owed favour. You know I love her as if she were my own daughter. She’s family.’
He smiled inwardly at his friend’s feelings of pride and concern towards his daughter, then decided to quieten his thoughts and let her concentrate on the task of healing his little girl.