Disclaimer: None of the characters of the Stargate, Buffy or Angel belong to me. I mean no copywrite infringement, I am doing this for entertainment purposes only and am receiving no income as a result.
Authors Notes: This fic takes place between Instinct & Heroics with a small reference to Green Day (though you don't need to read GD for this fic).
When Willow packed her bags for the Academy, she never knew things would be like this. In her wildest imaginings, she pictured herself being a fighter pilot; in her slightly less wild imaginings she pictured herself in a science lab with the letters PhD next to her name. Being a member of a Search and Rescue team was not a consolation prize by any means… She just never imagined that she’d experience what she had.
Oh, she wasn’t talking about aliens.
They were cool, well, sometimes they weren’t, but they weren’t as scary to her as what they were to most people. No, what surprised Willow was the shear amount of humiliation she had endured. Not through training (that type of humiliation was expected), it was the humiliation she experience during missions and consequent downtime she never anticipated.
Willow had been stripped down bare (figuratively and literally) more than once.
“Rosenberg? You doing okay in there?”
Far more than once. “I’m fine, Grogan.” She closed her eyes and sunk deeper into the bath, the bubbles tickling her chin.
Not once in the academy did she think she’d find herself having a bath in her apartment with three men sitting outside the door. The open door.
But then, she really shouldn’t be surprised. These were the three men who still wouldn’t let her go off on her own off-world. Ever.
Still, at least they were all sitting with their backs turned to her. Actually, it was only Grogan’s back she could see. Hayes and Kawalsky were around the corner, probably just far enough away to give her the illusion of privacy, but close enough to come running the second Grogan gave the signal. They had been like this for almost a week – on P3X-200, back on the base, and now here. She didn’t see them easing up any time soon and she was kind of glad.
After all, if they hadn’t stuck to her like glue when she got sick, she would’ve been dead three times over.
“Marco?” Grogan’s voice sounded again.
She bit back a smile. “Polo.”
Actually, now that she thought about it, she could think of one other thing she could add to her list of ‘things she never imagined happening’. It was that she was… well, she was actually okay with the thought of Grogan, Hayes, and Kawalsky sitting a few feet away from her. She was even… even kind of okay at them seeing her at her worst. Kind of.
Doctor Fraiser had offered to have one of the base nurses check on her once a day, but Willow had declined. There wasn’t anyone else on the base, with the exception of maybe Daniel, who she wanted near her at a time like this. It didn’t matter that it probably wasn’t exactly appropriate having her team hanging out, waiting, while she was taking a bath.
In the infirmary, Willow couldn’t sleep unless one of her team were by her bed (which she was pretty sure why Janet agreed to send her home this early). She could close her eyes and know that they’d make sure she’d wake up.
They had her back, always.
“Grogan…” Willow heard Kawalsky mutter. “It’s been two minutes.”
Two minutes since she had spoken, since they last knew she was still breathing. “I’m fine, sir.” Really she was. Okay, she wasn’t entirely certain she had the strength to actually stand up right this second, but she didn’t feel as though her last breath was only moments away. “I’m sure Doctor Fraiser wouldn’t have released me if she wasn’t sure the virus was out of my system.” She wouldn’t. Willow was fine, they all knew that. They were all just freaked, including herself.
They would only truly relax when she was at full strength.
Why? Why did she have to be the one bitten by the alien animal from hell? God, not only was she never going to be allowed to go anywhere on her own, but now they weren’t going to let her near any animals.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t, Rosenberg,” Kawalsky agreed. “But I don’t think we should take any chances. You’re still weak.”
So weak that she wondered how wise it had been to argue for an hour with her team just so she could have a bath. It had taken her twenty minutes to get undressed and by the end of that she had been breathless with exhaustion.
“I am feeling better, sir.”
“That’s good to hear.” But they weren’t going anywhere. They were going to stick around and help her whenever she faltered. Regardless of where, how, or what happened to her. They were going to be there to witness it, to help her back up…whether she liked it or not.
Willow took a deep breathe and opened her eyes. She scanned the room, spotting both her towel and bathrobe. They were close but, in her condition, impossibly far away. She placed her hand on the side of the bath and tried to push herself up, not surprised that she failed miserably.
Sighing again, she checked to make sure the bubbles were still covering all her important bits. “Josh?”
Grogan was immediately on his feet and in the bathroom at the sound of his name, like she knew he would be. Calling him Josh had a similar effect as calling Daniel by his first name had had in those early days. It was something so rare that Grogan immediately knew it was important. And like with Daniel, it made her feel vulnerable…
Stripped down bare.
“What’s up, Will?” His eyes were fixed solely on her face.
She swallowed. “I think I’m going to need a little help getting out of the bath.” A humiliation she never considered when she fought for the right to smell like something other than a hospital.
“Sure.” Without preamble, he turned around, picked up her bathrobe and draped it over his left arm. Then, he held his hands out in front of him and…. And he closed his eyes.
The action caused her eyes to fill with tears.
As she reached for his hands, she knew that maybe the humiliation she often found herself facing wasn’t so bad.
Especially when she had three people to get her through it.