TITLE: L is for Learning
AUTHOR: Aelfgyfu
BETA READER:
dudethemathRATING: PG
WARNING: language (mild swearing)
CATEGORY: Gen, epilogue (to "Prototype")
WORD COUNT: way too many—I mean 1529
CHARACTERS: Cameron Mitchell, Daniel Jackson, Carolyn Lam
SPOILERS: "Prototype" and a little for the previous episode, "Babylon"
The infirmary hummed quietly—not at all the level of noise Cam would have expected with every bed in sight filled. He wanted noise—something, anything to pull him back from remembering how the whole mission went to hell from the moment he pushed what he thought was just a damned light switch. The low voices and occasional groan acted as a soundtrack to his mental replay of everything that happened after Khalek fell out of the stasis pod, every wrong choice he'd made, every opportunity he'd missed. He still felt dizzy from being thrown into a wall, but vertigo and nausea weren't enough to distract him.
"You need this bed," Cam tried when the doctor finally reached him. "You don't need to have me laying around the infirmary when you got all these seriously injured people."
He wasn't sure if she actually corrected him to "lying" before Lam looked up from his chart, or if his concussed brain just imagined that bit.
"Nice try, Colonel," the doctor told him humorlessly. "You need this bed as much as anyone else in this area, and more than the people I've let go. You're staying here, under observation, until tomorrow morning."
"Hey, I was in good enough shape to shoot the bad guy!" Was he trying to convince her, or trying to convince himself he'd done enough?
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