SPOILERS: Big ones for Frozen, Nightwalkers, Abyss and Shadow Play. Minor ones for Need, The Tok'ra part two, The Serpent's Venom and the Fifth Man. Maybe more, I don't remember.
SEASON / SEQUEL: season six
CONTENT WARNINGS: lots of shit happening
SUMMARY: O'Neill is facing a long and difficult road in order to get home and well.
DISCLAIMER: This story is written entirely for entertainment and is not intended as an infringement against the copy written material that belongs solely to Showtime, MGM/UA, Gekko Films, et al. I'm only playing with their characters and will return them as soon as the story is finished. The following story is the property of the author and is not to be copied, or published without the express, written consent of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This one is dedicated to Arnise and Hoodat, for all the effort, time and work they're putting in building us a fabulous website, . Thanks, girls, you're the best. And sis, I promised you a shippy fic a while ago… well, this is as close as it will ever get, coming from me. So I hope you enjoy it.
Many, many thanks to the Sandra's for all the time they've invested in this, nicely persuading me to continue and nitpicking over all the grammar stuff. Also to BadgerGater, for I know you are busy, but still you hurried to beta for me. Thanks, vriendin.
UPDATE: This is an old story, written in what, oh, 2002? I don't even remember. I dug it up, it was in a format my current laptop didn't even want to open. But... jchristi22 asked for this, and since ChezCorine is not open anymore, I suppose it would be a good idea to archive it here, so it won't get truly lost in case of a computer crisis here at home :-)
so... copy and paste it is for the upcoming days. Have fun, reading, jchristi22!
ONE STEP AT A TIME
God, he was hot. How could he be hot at about the coldest place on Earth, huh? If he wasn't feeling that bad he would have laughed about it. He'd been to this corner of the world before and back then he'd been freezing to death.
Now he was smothering to death.
Damn.
He'd survived the freezing part but O'Neill wasn't so sure he was going to survive the smothering. He'd been sick before from a variety of diseases from chicken pocks to exotic jungle fever and was experienced enough to distinguish the bad from the really, really bad.
Besides Icegirl, who, for some reason had the ability to heal them but was lacking the strength to do so all at once, their only hope would be the doc and Carter. But if they got sick as well, and he was pretty sure they weren't feeling too swell either, their chances were narrowing down to the good old plain nada-nada.
Whatever happened, O'Neill promised himself, if Icegirl was going to make one other attempt, it would have to be one of the brains. It was their only chance. He only hoped he wouldn't have to decide which one of the two females, 'cause he was pretty sure that he was unable to do so.
Sometimes his job sucked.
It was his job to protect his team and all, but how was he supposed to do so if circumstances he couldn't influence were popping up out of nowhere, messing around?
It was getting harder to keep his eyes open, harder to concentrate. He had to remember. Protect them, protect the women...
They held the ticket out of this freezing hell.
"Jonas?"
Jonas Quinn looked up, startled, confused.
"Are you all right?" Major Carter was staring at him, frowning worriedly at his lack of response.
Quinn sighed, wiping a weary hand over his face. "Yeah, I'm fine now. Thanks to Ayiana..." He stared at the still from of the ancient woman, who was lying on his bed now. Jonas hadn't been that sick in a long, long time and he was more than glad it was over. Turning his head, he glanced at the female member of the team and suddenly wondered how she was doing. "You?"
"I'm fine, now," Sam quickly reassured him, already moving her attention to the one person beside Ayiana in the room who was far from fine. "She healed me, too..."
Jonas followed her gaze. "How about the Colonel?" Quinn asked, already knowing the answer. They had both heard Doctor Fraiser's statement that the Colonel was burning up, seen the extremely worried expression on the woman's face as she'd been taking the sick man's vitals.
Carter sighed. "He's getting worse. Why didn't Ayiana heal him, damn it?" She didn't mean to sound that harshly but she was so frustrated over the fact that the woman had collapsed before she could heal them all.
They both looked at the sprawled figure of their CO on the bed and the doctor hovering around him, before Sam returned her attention to the woman lying on the other bunk.
With nothing to do, Jonas knew he couldn't be of any assistance at the moment. Wearily, he sank down in the corner of the room, to his haunches, leaning with his back against the wall. Although the dull aches in bones and muscles were gone, the unpleasant feeling of the illness was still vividly present in his mind. His body had hurt in many places, his limbs heavily pressing into the mattress of the bed he'd been lying on. He'd been hot, sweating profusely, and shivering from the cold but most of all he remembered slowly drifting away into confusing nothingness.
Thinking back to that scary moment of his life he suddenly vaguely remembered how he'd been tossing and turning in his feverish dreams when the ancient woman had come into his room.
Jonas Quinn frowned deeply, searching his memory, as he wondered why his subconscious came forward with this image. Ayiana had come into their room, had held her hands above him, one on his chest and one under his chin and he'd had the weirdest experience of his life where he slowly felt the sickness being sucked out of him. He couldn't find a better way to describe it. The feeling that he was missing something important kept nagging at him, however, and he pushed himself, trying to figure out what was bothering him.
Pressing his temples, he again relived the moment from when Ayiana stepped into the room. He was hot... nauseous... didn't recognize her at first. Then... a soft voice, what was it?
Concentrating on that voice with all his willpower, Jonas slowly breathed in and out, trying to recall what that voice had said.
Then he knew.
His eyes shot open, shocked, as he scanned the room before letting his gaze rest on the only sick man left on the Antarctica base.
"Heal... him... first..."
Certain now on what had happened, Jonas stared at his CO in utter disbelief and amazement. Despite the fact that they weren't exactly getting along very well yet, despite the fact that the Colonel most likely held him responsible for what had happened to Doctor Jackson, Colonel O'Neill had told Ayiana to heal him first. Disregarding his own well being over that of his team.
He remembered the expression on Major Carter's face, when she'd told him bits and pieces about the Colonel's character. He recalled the pride shining through her voice, when she spoke of her CO, and the way he cared for his team. He'd seen the looks on the faces of members of other teams, when approaching them. This very action, it fitted everything he'd come to learn about O'Neill's personality.
Yet it felt strange, discomforting but also a great honor to be the subject of the Colonel's way of caring and Jonas Quinn couldn't help asking himself what he'd done to deserve this.
God, what was happening...
He vaguely remembered voices but with the cotton balls filling his skull there was no way of determining what they'd been saying.
Last thing he did recall was being sick, real sick. Feeling like crap, smothering to death with his limbs aching and his head pounding unmercifully. A gentle hand brushing through his hair... soft soothing words...
What was happening? Where was his team, were they all right?
He wondered whether it was delusion or reality but the only thing he saw was some strange human beings, with the weirdest masks to cover their faces. They appeared to be friendly, but somehow he had no idea who they were and what they wanted of him. Damn, he didn't even remember whether he was off world or at home, wherever on Earth that was at the moment.
Taking in air through his throat was becoming more and more difficult, despite the nasal cannula. Every intake of breath was burning its way down, inch by little inch, irritating and stinging the inner layer of his lungs. It was scaring him, since the pain was forcing him to slow down breathing but his instincts were battling with his will to make sure enough air was being pumped into his lungs to prevail from suffocating.
The rest of his body didn't matter anymore. The pain in his arms, legs, abdomen... it all automatically was being pushed to the back of his mind in his struggle to get a hold onto his breathing.
In.
Out.
He winced... it hurt, so bad.
In... and out.
Janet Fraiser was cursing silently. All tests she had run, all of the knowledge she had, all equipment available and yet nothing, nothing seemed to be able to stop the virus that was slowly killing Colonel O'Neill, team leader of SG-1, Second in Command of the SGC, but most of all, her friend.
He was slipping through her fingers and no matter how hard she squeezed, she couldn't stop the process. Hell, she couldn't even slow it down, even to only buy them some time to come up with something else, something different, something... that would work.
To Janet Fraiser, losing her friend like this, slowly but steadily, felt like the worst possible failure in her career. It had always been her greatest nightmare, to lose a patient because she wasn't competent enough to save him. Now, that very nightmare was becoming more than a horrible reality.
Approaching the bed in her biohazard suit she studied the deathly pale face of her friend, lying motionless on the hospital bed. He'd been tossing and turning, mumbling incomprehensibly due to the dangerous high fever he was running, softly moaning now and then as the virus was hurting him like she remembered it had hurt her, but most likely far worse now as it had progressed.
Now, however, he was quiet, too quiet for a man of his character. He'd slipped into a coma, and there was no way Janet knew he would ever get out of it. Fighting off the tears that were welling up behind her mask, she noticed General Hammond's and Major Carter's arrival. Looking up at them, Fraiser swallowed the lump in her throat and prepared to give them the bad news.
Major Samantha Carter was walking around the infirmary like a zombie. She hadn't really taken the time to get over losing Daniel and now she was facing the possible death of her commanding officer.
Janet Fraiser had been clear, there was no way on Earth human medicine could help the Colonel, and, without a small miracle, Colonel O'Neill would not make it through the night.
She'd been forcing her mind to come up with something, anything, which could prevent the disaster. There was nothing. Their only hope was either for Ayiana to recover or their allies to come up with something but time was running out.
A voice calling her name interrupted her thoughts. "Major Carter!"
Sam looked up. "Sergeant. What's up?"
"General Hammond wants to see you in the Control room, ma'am," the young Sergeant told her.
Sighing, Carter left the infirmary, heading for the elevator to take her to the right level. Only three minutes later she arrived at the Control room, to find the General, Teal'c and a Tok'ra councilor waiting. They walked up the stairs to reach the briefing room.
The story was clear, as she listened to Thoran's explanation. There was a symbiote available, and it would be a benefit for both races to grab this chance; the symbiote Kanan could heal Colonel O'Neill and the Tok'ra would have the opportunity to get the vital information Kanan was carrying from his latest mission.
Staring from one person to the other, Carter couldn't believe what she was hearing. Personally, she would love to grab this opportunity to save her CO's life, there was nothing on the world she wanted more at this very moment, but she also realized this was something Colonel O'Neill would never choose. Knowing him well enough regarding his distrust against the Goa'uld and even the Tok'ra, she was positive that he would rather die than blend with a symbiote.
Teal'c also knew, as he stated what she had been thinking. "I do not believe Colonel O'Neill would choose to become a Tok'ra."
She nodded in agreement, while Thoran wondered how anybody would choose death over blending.
Then Jonas came running up the stairs, a defeated expression on his face. "Ayiana is dead."
Sam winced and closed her eyes at the devastating news.
"Dr. Fraiser did everything she could, but..." Jonas explained helplessly.
"She may have been on borrowed time from the start," Carter added, vaguely listening to General Hammond explaining the now one and only chance left to save their CO.
Even Jonas Quinn knew the Colonel well enough to know he wouldn't want to blend with a Tok'ra as he asked doubtfully, "What does Colonel O'Neill have to say?"
Carter listened to the explanation of the Tok'ra councilor with mixed emotions. On the one hand, the General was right, maybe they would have to decide for Colonel O'Neill, since he had slipped into a coma. On the other hand, she knew she would never be able to decide such a thing for him, and although General Hammond would have to make the call, she really wanted to try and ask her CO so he could decide for himself.
Luckily, General Hammond allowed her to at least try, before he would have to make the decision for him, and shortly after, she was on her way to the infirmary to talk about the possibilities with Doctor Fraiser.
General Hammond stood in the Gate room, watching with sorrow and yet hope in his eyes, as three members of SG-1, one Tok'ra councilor plus two orderlies carried the box with Colonel O'Neill through the Stargate.
He'd been relieved that Major Carter had managed to talk to the Colonel about what they were about to do, although he doubted if O'Neill had been really aware of what he'd agreed to. He wouldn't have hesitated to decide for his Second, and would have let it happen, if the Colonel hadn't been conscious enough to nod, but still, this made it a bit easier for him.
He'd lost Doctor Jackson recently, and he was reluctant to lose another one of his premier contact team, especially the leader, a man with great abilities, a fine set of qualities and also a good friend.
He didn't doubt that Jack would be pissed, afterwards, when he would find out what had happened to him, but the General would rather deal with a very pissed off Colonel instead of with a very dead one. And while Hammond knew how O'Neill despised the slimy snakeheads, as he would call them once in a while, the General was confident that the Tok'ra would keep their end of the bargain and that the blending would only be temporary.
He sighed heavily, when the team had disappeared through the wormhole, and pretty soon afterwards the gate shut down, leaving him behind again.
Behind, so he would have to do nothing but wait, hope and worry.