"In the Valley of the Shadow" by ellijay
Summary: A surprise attack and a malfunctioning Stargate leaves SG-1 stranded on an alien planet and Daniel fighting for his life. Set prior to the second season episode "Need."
Author's Notes: This is an old story, written back when SG-1 was new and shiny. I'm reposting it now mainly to have all of my fic in one place, but also in the hopes that it finds new readers or maybe makes its way back to previous readers who might want to reminisce. This story was originally published under another name, but I'm still me, many years of life experience notwithstanding, and the title and contents of the story are the same.
Chapter 1
P3X792. They really needed to start giving these places names instead of just a string of numbers and letters designating… nothing, really. Nothing that really mattered. Although with so many worlds to explore, Daniel could hardly fault the lack of originality. He doubted he could do any better himself. Oh, he might come up with something more colorful, some name from an ancient Terran land, all liquid vowels and sibilants, pleasant to the ear, but in the end, that name would bear no more relation to the reality of the world to which it was applied than a random, impersonal code.
Sometimes they were lucky enough to find friendly natives, or more likely Goa'uld-transplanted neo-natives, who would tell them their name for the world, and sometimes a team might be in a place long enough or make a discovery distinctive enough that an appropriate name would suggest itself, but more often than not, there was just the code name.
Daniel sometimes played a game with himself, trying to give even the emptiest of worlds the dignity of a name: Ozymandius for desert ruins eroded to the point where not even he could find a clue of past lives to interest him; Bastet for the world where wind blew ceaselessly across barren, stony land with a howl like a pack of prowling felines; Caryatid for the plain of voluptuous, eroded mesas bearing the weight of the low-hanging clouds. He used these names all the time in his own personal journals, but one time he had slipped up and used his name for a place in an official briefing, Bacchus for the planet whose atmosphere contained just enough nitrous oxide to make the entire team giddy after a few hours. General Hammond had frowned and asked him to kindly stick to the proper designations, but Jack had chuckled and Sam had a twinkle in her eye when he looked at her. Teal'c had presented his usual stony-faced look of incomprehension, but Daniel had explained it to him later and was rewarded with an equally stony-faced look of bewilderment over the strange human's odd sense of humor.
Okay, fine. Stick to the facts, stick to the official planetary designations, stick to the procedures. He could give the General and all his superiors whatever they wanted, just as long as he could continue his search for the one thing that mattered most to him, even more than the study of ancient cultures that had dominated the majority of his adult life – his wife, Sha're; Sha're who had been given to him as a gift, but who had found something in him to treasure, a sympathetic heart or a kindred spirit or maybe just a fascination with the foreign; maybe all three. They both had been yearning for something missing in their lives, a connection to bridge the gap of loneliness and let them feel a part of the larger world around them. He hadn't even realized the void had been there until Sha're had filled it. In the end, she had given herself because she wished to do so, and he had accepted her for herself, not as a token of respect or a gift to appease the minion of an angry god.
They had shared a simple life, simple from his point of view, an existence free of the frustrations of the modern world he had been born into, but filled with its own unique challenges and the hard but rewarding work of meeting the basic requirements of day-to-day life. He had become a part of the community on Abydos in a way he had never been connected to a group of people before. He worked alongside Sha're and her people, ate meals with them, celebrated the feast days with them, helped them regain their lost literacy and cultural heritage.
At night, though, his whole world was Sha're, the fascinating mixture of her sensuality, innocence, earthy wisdom and keen intellect intriguing, astonishing and comforting him in equal measures. He had never felt more rewarded, more content, more at peace than he did in her arms. That existence had been taken from him by the Goa'uld, but it would be his again some day. He had promised that to himself, and he vowed it to Sha're's name in the empty darkness of every night without her. He would find her and free her from the alien parasite that inhabited her body and controlled her mind, no matter what the cost.
He sighed and brought his mind reluctantly back to the present task. New world, new number, standard procedure after emerging on the other side of the 'Gate. Sam, Jack and Teal'c had fanned out to investigate the immediate surroundings while he checked out the DHD, as the acronym-mongering military types had dubbed it, made sure it was in working order and determined the sequence of glyphs that would need to be depressed to return the team home. That was an important rule when entering an unfamiliar situation – always be sure you had a clear path of retreat. It might be military wisdom, but Daniel reminded himself it was also common sense. They had landed in the middle of enough dangerous, even potentially lethal situations that he'd learned firsthand the need of maintaining the slender thread that would return them to a safe harbor on the other side of the known universe.
"Just call me Ariadne," he muttered, taking one last look to make sure he had the order of glyphs just right. It wouldn't do to hesitate if the situation heated up unexpectedly.
Brushing his hands off on his pants, he turned to locate Sam to see if he could get her to take another look at the polished black tiles laid out over the stone terrace where this world's Stargate stood. He'd initially thought they were merely decorative, noteworthy for the fact that the shapes they formed were vaguely reminiscent of Norse runes, but a nagging hunch told him they might be something more.
He squinted and pushed his glasses up on his nose, turning slowly with his hand over his eyes, more out of habit than because of a need to shield his eyes from sunlight. This place was at a high altitude judging from the thinness of the air, or else the planet itself merely had a thin atmosphere, but that didn't seem to hinder the proliferation of tattered shrouds of chilled mist and fog veiling the midday sun and curling across the rocky ground and between the trunks of tall, dark trees.
He was so focused on trying to detect the movement at the edge of the clearing that would reveal the location of the other team members that he didn't notice the figure coming toward him until he turned to face it directly. By then it was too late. Something flashed dully and a stab of pain like ice and unbearable heat mixed together shot through his side. A wave of nausea washed over him as his eyes locked on his assailant – a short, vaguely humanoid figure, chest high to him and coated with dark brown fur. Its eyes shone brightly on either side of a broad, flat nose, its face softened by a fine down instead of the thick coat covering the rest of it. Daniel thought he could detect some very human emotion in those bright, black eyes, but whether it was surprise or fear or even triumph, he couldn't tell. His brain didn't seem to be functioning well enough at the moment to draw a conclusion.
Time seemed to slow down, and he and the creature stood motionless, eyes locked, Daniel distantly aware that his side seemed to be going numb at the same time as flares of pain were shooting out through the rest of his body from the same area. He finally managed to pull his gaze away from the creature who had attacked him, his head slowly tilting downwards to where he saw the fur-covered paw, more like a hand really, still holding the handle of the knife that was plunged into his right side just above the waist. The reality of what had happened finally sunk into his clouded brain, and his head jerked back up to shoot an accusing glance at the animal (person?) still standing before him. The creature apparently decided it had best beat a hasty retreat while it could and was gone in a flash, across the rocky field and into the misty forest, raising an alarm in a high-pitched, feral yowl as it went.
The unnerving sound snapped Daniel's perception of time back into place, and he went down hard and fast, his knees buckling underneath him and his right hand groping weakly at the handle of the still-imbedded knife as he fell. He managed to twist his body so he landed on his left shoulder, and as he hit the all-too-solid ground, he heard another cry as if from a distance, a strangely choked sound like an animal in pain. Had one of his teammates caught his fleeing attacker? It took him a moment to realize the sound had come from his own lips.
He felt strangely detached from himself, as if he were standing outside of his body looking down, but he couldn't see himself as he had heard people could when they had near-death experiences. It was as though his sight were still lodged in his body, along with the knife that he fumbled at with a hand that didn't seem to be able to grasp. A still coherent part of his mind wondered why he would be affected like this. He had sustained any number of injuries during his journeys with SG-1, including having been shot by Goa'uld weapons more than once. Pain had been chief among the effects of those unpleasant experiences, pain and the creeping symptoms of shock, never mind the times temporary death had been among the results, but never before had he felt anything like this, except maybe the time he'd been almost choked to death. This was different, though. A knife wound, especially one not in the vicinity of any highly critical organs as this one seemed to be – God, he hoped that was the case – shouldn't be sapping the strength from him so completely and clouding his mind so quickly.
Poison? That had to be it. The blade must have been poisoned, some quick-acting paralysis agent or maybe something more insidious – maybe something deadly that was even now continuing to spread into his bloodstream. He groaned and rolled onto his back, trying again, this time with his left hand, to dislodge the blade, but that hand seemed to be similarly affected. Oh, this was not good, not good at all…
Sam concentrated on her breathing, pulling deep inhalations of chilled, damp air in through her nostrils and blowing out through her mouth as she ran through the mists back towards the 'Gate. She had about-faced and headed off at a dead run when she heard what sounded like a wolf howling, followed by an even more distressing howl of pain in a human voice. Her heart did a quick two-step and tried to jump into her throat when she burst into the clearing and saw Daniel on his back between the 'Gate and the DHD, obviously not in the same condition he had been when they had arrived only a few minutes before.
The Colonel was already there, kneeling next to Daniel, and as she drew closer, she heard him saying with the usual O'Neill touch of sarcasm in the face of adversity, "Damn it, Daniel! I thought we had this ducking thing worked out."
She swallowed hard and tried to catch her breath as she dropped down on the other side of Daniel, taking in with a quick sweep of her eyes the ashen pallor of his face and the knife handle protruding from his side. Maybe it wasn't too bad. Maybe it hadn't gone in very deep. Maybe the blade wasn't very long. Maybe.
The Colonel was tugging with one hand at the corner of Daniel's jacket where it had become entangled around the knife handle, while simultaneously sweeping the forest with the gun in his other hand. She remained likewise vigilant, mentally daring the departed attacker to just try and return. But her attention needed to be elsewhere right now, checking on Daniel, so as soon as she caught sight of Teal'c emerging from the fog, she breathed a sigh of relief. Without a single word, the Jaffa stopped a few paces from his teammates and took up a defensive position, his back to them, ready to ward off another assault if it came.
The Colonel was cursing again, more seriously this time and without a hint of sarcasm. Her heart thumped a few helter-skelter beats, forcing her to take a deep and steadying breath. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, composing herself, then turned and leaned over Daniel's body to get a better look. The blade was buried to the hilt. So much for maybes.
"Carter…" The Colonel's voice trailed off as he leaned back on his haunches, his hand, smeared with Daniel's blood, coming to rest on the stock of his rifle.
"Yes, Sir. I've got it." She shoved her firearm to the side and quickly set about examining Daniel's wound, noting there seemed to be very little blood seeping out, making a small, hardly visible, wet stain on the black T-shirt. The blade had passed right through the shirt, effectively pinning the fabric to Daniel's side.
Daniel flinched away from her ministrations and attempted to tug at the handle of the knife with a weak and blindly groping hand. "No, Daniel," she said calmly and firmly, pushing Daniel's hand away. "Hold still and let me get a better look. You're going to be okay."
Daniel didn't seem to be reassured, though. His head was rolling back and forth against the ground, his eyes squeezed shut behind glasses that were gathering condensation from the damp air. He had been mumbling incoherently, but when she pushed his hand away, his eyes snapped open and he said quite distinctly and with a sense of urgency she had rarely seen in him, "Pull it out! Now!"
"That probably wouldn't be a good idea, Daniel." She spoke in a gentle but authoritative voice, exchanging worried glances with the Colonel. "It might do more damage coming out than it did going in. The bleeding's under control right now, and I don't want to do anything that might make it worse before I can get a better look."
She felt his body tensing under her hand where it rested on his hip as he strained to lift his head a few inches. "No." His voice was shaky, but determined. "Pull it out. I think – it's poisoned." The last word came out as more of a gasp than a word, and he went limp, his head smacking against the ground.
Her eyes locked with the Colonel's in a moment of panic, then she looked down and carefully pulled the edge of Daniel's shirt free of his waistband so she could look underneath. The skin around the knife was sticky with blood, but even through that and despite the dim light, she could see the dark, angry streaks emanating from the point of the wound. She pressed her hand firmly against his side and felt the heat radiating from his flesh. "I think he's right, Sir. We should get the knife out now, before any more of the poison gets into his system." She paused, took a deep breath. "You'll need to hold him down. This is going to hurt."
The Colonel nodded and leaned forward over Daniel, one hand pressing down firmly on each shoulder. Daniel's eyes were only half open and his breath was coming in short gasps. "Just hang in there, Daniel. Carter's going to take the knife out now, but it's probably going to hurt a little." Daniel blinked and weakly nodded his head. That was a good sign. As long as he stayed conscious and relatively coherent, he just might be all right. "I'm going to hang onto your arms here, but try not to kick her, okay? It's not polite to kick the person saving your ass."
Screw polite. She'd be more than happy to let him kick her as hard as he could if it would help. At the very least, a good, healthy yell would do wonders to assure her Daniel was going to be fine. She braced one hand on his side and wrapped the other hand around the knife handle as she silently counted to three.
It was so, so cold. The warmth was seeping out of his body, into the stones, even as the cold of the ground was seeping into him. His back and arms and legs felt numb, but his side was burning and his face felt flushed and hot. Jack was saying something about not kicking Sam. Not polite to kick ass… or something like that. The corners of his mouth tugged upwards. Kick ass. That was funny. He might've giggled if he had the strength.
Someone was touching his side, cool fingers pressing into the heat. Sam. Sam was going to pull the knife out. That was good… wasn't it? But it was going to hurt. Okay, he could deal with hurt. He was already dealing with it. What was a little more?
He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt Sam's hand pushing more firmly against his side. She tugged at the blade, and he felt it scraping against bone, probably a rib. He shivered and swallowed hard. The sensation, although not really painful, was almost as unpleasant as the pain, reminding him of fingernails on chalkboards, something his students had loved to do back in the days when he was teaching. It somehow pleased them to see him flinch, something he had never understood, how someone could take pleasure in the discomfort of another.
But the scraping and resultant shiver also reminded him of the sound the grinding stone had occasionally made when Sha're was making flour for their bread. That was a more pleasant memory, and he retreated into it, into a world where Sha're had never been taken from him.
There was a dull roar beginning to rise in his ears, punctuated by the throbbing of his own pulse, first quick, then slow, then skipping a few beats altogether, like the syncopated rhythm of Abydonian music. He concentrated on it, almost certain he could feel the world spinning around him as it had the few times Sha're had dragged him out into the dancing throng at some celebration or other, her eyes twinkling with merriment and her dark hair flying as she twirled about. He dimly heard another voice as if from out of a deep, dark well, echoing and hollow, Sam saying, "Okay, here goes."
The sharp stab of agony that ripped through his side was more than enough to pull him out of his memories. It was worse, much, much worse, than the shock of the blade going in. His muscles all tightened at once, his back arched against the ground, and he struggled against Jack's hold even as he was glad of the restraint. Fortunately, his legs didn't seem to have the strength to move, or he might've given Sam or Jack or possibly both some bruises to remember. A strangled moan escaped his lips, the sound of someone too exhausted even to scream. He was sure he would've screamed if it hadn't been for the sapping effects of the poison.
After what seemed like an eternity in which the throbbing in his side filled his entire awareness, the pain melted gradually back to its former level, and his eyelids flickered open. He saw Sam holding the bloody knife in her hand, a wicked barb at its end snagged on what appeared to be a piece of his own flesh. He shivered once, stilled, then gulped and shivered again, a weak trembling passing through his body from his head to his toes, seeming to linger around his midsection.
He heard Jack saying he was going to get the 'Gate activated, but couldn't pull his eyes away from Sam as he watched her take a sample bag from one of her pockets and drop the knife inside. She gave him a half-smile and nodded in what he supposed was meant to be reassurance. "So Janet can take a look at it," she explained, "analyze it and figure out what the poison is." She was silent for a moment, her eyebrows wrinkling together. "You're going to be all right, Daniel."
He nodded and swallowed, letting his eyelids slide half closed. She was right. Of course she was. He would be fine. The knife was out. No more poison leeching into his system. But what if what was there already was enough? He felt his body trembling with cold, exhaustion, pain, shock – and a touch of hysterical amusement. Et tu, furry brown alien? Then fall Daniel.
"Daniel?" Sam was shaking his shoulder. "Stay with me here, Daniel. I need you to open your eyes."
Okay, he could do that. With a massive expenditure of effort, he wrenched his eyelids upwards. Keeping them open might be another matter altogether. Maybe if he didn't blink, just stared as hard as he could…
Sam was rummaging in her pockets again, coming up with a first aid kit this time. Oh. Bandage. A bandage would be good, he supposed. Keep him from bleeding any more than was strictly necessary. But that wasn't a bandage she was pulling out. It was – oh no, no, no. Disinfectant. Oh shit. That was gonna hurt.
He tensed as he felt her pulling his shirt, now free of the knife, away from his skin. The chilly air actually felt pleasant against the stoked fire burning in his side. And actually, the disinfectant felt kind of good as well, cool liquid running across his skin, seeping into the wound and– Oh! Oh shit! Oh God, that hurt! He breath sucked in hard, uncontrolled, a reflex, every muscle in his body bunching up in protest.
He couldn't breathe for a moment, his eyes wide open, then his muscles released just as reflexively as they had contracted, leaving him panting and feeling like his body had instantaneously lost cohesion and melted into a puddle. Eyes shut, mouth open, nostrils flaring. He was seeping into the ground even now. The cold, cold ground.
He heard Sam muttering faint apologies, felt her hands stroking reassuringly along his arm. Then a ripping sound. Tape? Oh, right. For the bandage. That oh-so-important bandage. Keeps good stuff in, bad stuff out. A little after the fact, but oh well. His jacket being pulled together, zipped up.
Rustling now, something being tucked around him. He slitted an eye open. Silvery. Thin. Like tin foil. No, more like holiday wrapping paper. Emergency blanket. To retain body heat. But he didn't feel like he had much body heat left to keep in. Maybe the poison eating through his flesh would generate enough heat to keep him warm. Keep him alive. Now wouldn't that be ironic.
Jack was yelling something. Well, not really yelling, but definitely cussing up a storm, "Damn, damn, DAMN!", his voice getting louder with each "damn."
What was– Oh, never mind. Jack was always getting riled about something. Probably couldn't figure out the point of origin, like that was such a challenge. But no, that was really unkind. Jack knew how to decipher the glyphs just as well of the rest of them. It was a necessity. Who knew when – well, when what had just happened, would happen. Man down. Man overboard. Attack of the furry brown critters.
Something like a snigger tried to escape his lips, but it turned into a groan, deep in his throat, as his whole body jerked in a tight spasm before he began to shiver violently, consistently, in waves of varying intensity. He couldn't stop. He bunched his hands into fists, trying to pull the paper-thin protection of the emergency blanket more securely around himself. Where was Sam?
Voices drifted over him. Sam, then Jack.
"What's wrong?"
"DAMN!" The sound of a fist slamming down onto the DHD. "It's not working."
"What do you mean, not working? Did you get the sequence right? Sir?"
"Yes, I did." Annoyance. Jack being miffed and scathing in that oh-so-Jack way. "I may not be the whiz kid here, but I can damn well decipher these things as well as the rest of you."
"Okay, okay. I was just checking."
"It's just not working. It doesn't seem to be getting any power. There's no response at all." Frustration. Another punch to the hapless DHD. "Okay." Deep breath, audible in the still air. "See if you can fix it, Carter. I'll check on Daniel."
"Yes, Sir."
Footsteps, crunch-crunch on stone. Funny how you could tell so much from even the smallest of noises when your eyes were closed, when you were trying to focus on the sounds, keep yourself distracted from how your body felt. Trying to keep yourself from thinking how very, very bad it was that you couldn't stop yourself from shivering, teeth chattering, jaw intermittently clenching.
A strange whistling noise, cut short. Followed by another and another in rapid succession. A grunt of surprise. "Carter! Get the hell–" Footsteps stopping, then shuffling. The sound of a body hitting the ground.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c, yelling. Another weight falling, lighter but still substantial. Sam? "Captain Carter!" Teal'c almost never yelled.
Daniel struggled to open his eyes, his whole body freezing for an instant when he focussed on Jack, sprawled across the ground, face planted in a patch of moss, eyes closed and mouth slack. Sam was just beyond him, rolling onto her back with a gasp of misty breath before she, too, went still.
No, no, no. This was not happening. Daniel tried to push himself up off the ground as he heard another pair of whistles, followed by a third weight, the most substantial yet, hitting the ground. And then his own strength gave out and he fell back, cursing himself over and over in his head as stars and bits of swirling black danced in front of his eyes. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm so, so sorry." As he slid into darkness, he wasn't even sure why he'd said that, what he was sorry for or to whom he was apologizing.