Reconciliation - For suffers_vertigo
James had done as he said, locking himself up in the house. He'd closed the gates at the street, closed and locked both the front and the rear doors, and had spent his time sitting on the lone mattress in the Master Suite with his guitar. He went back and forth between trying to play, trying to polish up older songs, and just laying in complete
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"We hurt the people we love," James commented, his words flat. "It's why I prepare myself to be hurt, and why I don't let anyone in completely. Because it's the nature of people." He opened his eyes and looked at her from where he was sitting.
"I know I've taken the cowardly way out, Jen. I know it, personally. I know that better, stronger people would have taken this head on. Lauren, being one of them. She already got pissed at me for locking myself up in the house as it is. She's fighting her grief and toughing it out. I retreated, I seclude, I isolate. I know that it's yellow-bellied of me."
He looked at the pieces of paper, his eyes flicking to a shade of almost-black. He stretched his legs out in front of him, a hand resting over his concave stomach, the other laying lazily on the ground.
"You should see your dad," he advised. "You don't know when you'll see him again, right?"
Beneath James' cold, icy exterior was a small child, wanting nothing more than to run to her, hold her, be comforted, and feel loved. But James' cynicism and jaded experiences of the world had all but silenced that child, forced him to sit in the corner in solitude. He was trying so hard to break out past the ice, past the bruised, frozen heart that James carried with him. He just had to persevere.
Suddenly, James was burying his head in his hands, curling over himself. His legs scrunched up closer to his body. He kept falling forward until his forehead was pressed against the floor, and he could feel the heat from his ragged breath on his face as it echoed back against him. His body shifted as he tucked his knees under him, his hands interlacing behind his neck, almost looking as though he was in prayer. Except that his body was shaking, his throat was dry, his hands were quivering, his heart was pounding, and his stomach was wretching inside of him.
And then, a movement from the pit of his stomach, up his throat. He could feel the slow ascension, and tried to stop it by squeezing his eyes and shaking his head. The motion of his head made it worse, and before he knew it, the movement that had started in his stomach was gushing from his mouth, spilling out onto the floor around him. A pale yellow liquid started pooling and dripping past his lips, his face flushing red as he finally felt the exhaustion hitting him. He sputtered and coughed, trying to get rid of the vile taste from his tongue, but the coughing exacerbated the problem and the bile came up again. There was no food left in his stomach; what little he had eaten had already been devoured by his starving body.
"Jen," he groaned into the floor, his body shaking.
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She stayed silent for a while, "When mom died I hid in my work, I'd pick up all the extra shifts the hospital would allow. I was helping people, saving lives and it was the only way I could give my life any kind of worth. Then I'd go home and look after dad, make sure he was eating and giving him the sedatives he needed to rest at night. After he'd gone to bed I'd pull mom's jumper out of my draw, hold it to me and just cry until the morning or until I fell asleep from exhaustion. I don't sleep enough as it is, but that was extreme, even for me. But shutting yourself away like this, James, it's not safe. People are scared...I'm scared you're not going to make it.. and if I lost you too.."
Her words stopped and she turned her head away from him, features crumbling. No tears fell now, how much had she cried in the last few days? Too much. Her breath felt dry against her lips and she licked them to try and stop them from feeling the way they did. But her mouth way dry and her head was pounding all too hard now.
"And I don't know when I'll see you again James...o-or if you ever will want to see me after today," she squeaked the last two words, the pain all to real inside of her.
Seeing him curl over made her freeze with fear, she knew what was happening and she couldn't move. His body was finally giving him the kicking he needed. It was shutting down and it wouldn't just get worse if he didn't eat and rest.
Hearing him say her name snapped her out of her daze and she rushed to her feet, dropping down at his side the moment she was there, "It's okay," she said softly, her arms going around him as she kissed his shoulder, "We need to get you to bed, which way is the bedroom?"
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"I don't know," he muttered, trying to move his mouth away from the puddle of bile surrounding his face. He coughed and tried to catch his breath, but his heart was pounding too hard inside of his chest. With its increased palpitations, his body shook and shivered and his eyes squeezed shut as the pain seared into his stomach. "I don't know where the bedroom is," he managed to groan, coughing again.
His eyes felt heavy, his body lethargic. He tried to pick his head up and after lifting it an inch, it fell back down and his forehead hit the floor. His arms went limp underneath him, his breath streaming in and out of his mouth like a mad wind. He coughed again, almost panting, trying to keep himself from vomiting any more of the fluid his body didn't have. Between not sleeping, barely eating, and drinking alcohol, he'd driven his body to the point of absolute exhaustion and dehydration. He couldn't seem to move.
"The bedroom," he slurred, almost in a dream-like voice. "The bedroom .." he repeated, his body trembling, his mouth dry.
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Letting his arm down, Jen moved him the best she could away from the bile on the floor and into the recovery position, it was all she could do, she wasn't even strong enough to move him on her own. Sliding her jacket off and put it over him the best she could, fear rushing through her veins as her mind tried to tell her body what she needed to do. But she felt helpless.
Pulling her cell from her pocket she sent a text to Jeff, hoping to god that he was on his want to see James.
Fluids, she needed to get fluids into him...
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His eyes were half-lidded and empty, the deep, black wells underneath his eyes worse than they had been before. His skin looked dry, almost too old for his age. His head lolled lazily, resting against the floorboards. He started muttering more gibberish, this time telling his father something about a test he hadn't, he swore, cheated on. Random sounds and what were attempts at words kept coming from his mouth until they finally grew quiet, spaced out more and more. His eyes went from being half-lidded to closed completely, his body still shaking with the erratic beating of his heart.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, almost silently, before his body went limp and things went black.
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There was one thing she'd always been teased about when she went on an off world mission to help others, and that was the amount of medical supplies she carried with her, and back here on Earth it wasn't any different. Even before she'd started working with the SGC, Jennifer had carried a bag of medical supplies with her, and this trip wasn't any different. "Help me into the house with my bags," she told the driver, and when he gave her a look she threw $20 dollars extra at him through the window and he soon moved. Once her bags were in the doorway she shooed the man off and started her frantic search around the house.
Sheet, blanket, wire coat hanger, ice - thank god for built in ice machines. Bowl of water, a flannel and a cloth. Okay, she could do this.
The floor would be too cold for him and as she couldn't lift him up onto the sofa, she pulled the seat cushions off of it, brought the pillows from the bedroom and laid them out on the floor. Carefully she rolled him onto the sheet, wrapped it around him and with a little effort, she pulled him up onto the cushions. Now he was off the floor. Tossing the blanket over him she dragged a chair over from the table and left it next to his arm, back facing him. Bending out the coat hanger she made a make shift hook which she looped over the chair. Then came her bag of medical supplies. Inside was pouches of saline and she attached one to the hook over the back of the chair ready. Then came the needle, straight into the vein on his arm to which she attached the tube to the saline pouch. That was to combat his dehydration.
She checked his temperature and then his pulse once more.
There were things she needed to do, emails to write, flights to cancel and phone calls she needed to make. Right now all she could do was sit and wait for him to wake up. Jennifer knew that he needed medical attention, and while a hospital was a good place for him, she really was one of the best doctors out there.
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