Solitudes Redux
Hurled out of the Stargate at a completely unanticipated velocity, Jack had just enough time to register frigid conditions and atypical darkness before his body hit a solid object with enough force to knock him unconscious.
Unfortunately, when he came to, neither the temperature nor the lighting had improved. Cracking one eye open, he looked around the unexpected space and quickly came to the conclusion that he had not landed in the SGC as originally planned. No, on the contrary, he could see that he was in some kind of ice cave, and if any of his team members were there, they were likely in worse shape than he was, seeing as how no one had come to his rescue yet.
That was the only thought that motivated him to rise from his mostly prone position. As he struggled to his feet, he winced in pain and immediately began taking stock of his condition. Much to his surprise, he found that aside from a few bumps and bruises and perhaps a mild concussion, he was relatively unharmed. He hoped the same could be said for the others.
He flipped on his flashlight and slowly began moving around the cave, which appeared to be relatively small and mostly empty, save the large ring through which he'd traveled. By the looks of things, no one else had been there, possibly in millennia. In fact, it looked as though his own event horizon had been responsible for carving out easily half of the space in the cave.
At least he had a Stargate, he thought, because as much fun as he'd been having so far, he was anxious to get back to the SGC and find out what had happened to the rest of his team. It wasn't until he walked over to the area where he would have expected to find the DHD that he began to realize how truly screwed he was. With a silent curse, he began sweeping his flashlight to and fro in wide arcs around the cave, looking for any sign of the dialing computer.
That was when he saw something that truly made his blood run cold - a mop of blond hair sticking up just above a small rise in the ice.
"Carter!" he yelled, as he half ran, half slid to her position, several feet farther from the 'gate than where he had landed.
She was completely still, and he feared the worst. Kneeling over her, he reached toward her neck with trembling fingers to check for a pulse. When he finally found one, he breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was alive, he thought, though the fact that she was still unconscious concerned him.
"Carter," he said, gently patting her face. Getting no response, he patted her a little harder. "Captain!" At that she winced and let out a soft moan but otherwise remained unresponsive.
Moving his flashlight down the length of her body, he began checking for any obvious injuries, though honestly it was those he couldn't see that concerned him the most. Or so he thought, right up until he saw the bottom part of her left leg, which was twisted at an odd angle and clearly bleeding onto the ice.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, moving closer to get a better look. He had a good idea what he was going to find, and he knew it wasn't good.
As carefully as possible he pulled the bottom of her pants leg up her calf, causing her to moan in pain. He sat back and let out another expletive. It was exactly as he expected - a compound fracture, the ragged edge of her broken tibia having just pierced the skin below her knee. He rubbed his hands over his face and tried to be thankful that at least the broken bone hadn't nicked a major artery.
Given the extent of her injuries, Jack knew he had no time to lose. He rose and crossed the length of the small space to reach the Stargate in just a handful of long strides. It was only then that he remembered that he hadn't been able to find the DHD. Trying to keep his rising anxiety in check, he quickly surveyed the entire cavern to confirm that neither the dialing device nor their teammates were there. That meant that Daniel and Teal'c hadn't come through the 'gate with them.
He didn't have long to dwell on that fact, however, because Carter had just regained consciousness. With a cry of intense agony, Jack caught her trying to rise, only to fall back down onto the ice. He was by her side in an instant.
"Easy, Carter," he said, as he placed his pack behind her back to help her sit up. "Your leg's broken. Try not to move it."
She moaned, then ground out through clenched teeth, "It hurts." She grasped his forearm tightly. "Morphine," she panted. "In the med kit."
He wasted no time rummaging through her pack in search of the pain killer. When he found what he needed, he tore open the packaging with his mouth, prepared the syringe, and plunged it into her thigh, all in the space of a handful of seconds.
It must have helped because when she spoke, she sounded more coherent, though she still seemed to be struggling to catch her breath. "How bad is it?"
He gave her a grimace. "Bad," he replied, seeing no point in mincing words.
She nodded, as if his assessment confirmed what she already knew. With a furrowed brow, she began looking around. "Where are we?" she wheezed.
"In an ice cave on some kind of frozen planet," he replied, as he began reassembling the med kit that he'd just torn apart. "Most likely abandoned."
"Daniel and Teal'c?" She was still trying to catch her breath, and Jack was all but certain she had a broken rib or two to go along with her leg.
Damn, that really wasn't good, though he decided it might be better to keep his concerns to himself after all. He focused on answering her questions instead. "They're not here. I'm pretty sure they didn't come through with us. I don't know if Daniel misdialed or what."
"He didn't," she said, sounding certain. "Something must…have happened in transit. They went to Earth…and we landed here."
"Or they didn't," Jack replied and immediately regretted it. Now was not the time to be morose. He needed to keep her spirits up. "You're right, Carter," he quickly amended. "They're probably at the SGC right now wondering what the hell happened to us."
"Speaking of, sir..." she began, and when he continued to simply look at her, she prompted him. "Maybe we should…try dialing home?"
He sat back on his heels. "Yeah, about that. There's no DHD."
The furrowed brow was back, and he couldn't help but think that if things weren't so bleak, he might find it cute. "There's got to be one here…somewhere." She was struggling to get the words out. "Maybe…it's buried under the ice?"
"Maybe. I'll look. But first I need to take care of that leg." With that, he shifted toward the lower half of her body to more carefully examine the place where the bone jutted through her skin. "Jesus, Carter. How did you manage to do that?"
She gave him a wan smile. "Just lucky, I guess."
His sarcasm was clearing rubbing off on her, he noted with some amusement. That was good, because she was going to need that sense of humor for what was going to happen next. He looked up at her, his expression serious. "I'm going to have to set it."
A look of sheer panic crossed her face. "I don't think…that's a good idea, sir."
"Listen, I don't know how long we're going to be here, Carter," he said in his best commanding officer voice, "and I'm not letting you lose a leg to frostbite or infection on my watch. Got it?"
"Please, sir..." she practically begged in a tone he'd never heard from her before, one that forced him to remind himself that he was doing this for her own good.
Though he knew he should conserve their resources, he gave her another shot of morphine anyway before placing one hand below the break and the other above her knee. "Ready?"
It took a moment, but she finally nodded, and though he hated to do it, he had to proceed cautiously to avoid causing more damage to her already mangled leg.
The second he began to move the bone, however, she started screaming in what sounded like unbearable torment, and it was only a matter of seconds before she passed out. For that, he was immensely grateful because it allowed him to finishing the process setting her leg without the constant reminder of the immense pain he was causing her. It was a sound he hoped to hell he never had to hear again.
He had just finished splinting her leg when she came to. "Sorry, sir," she offered in a voice that was rough, like sandpaper.
"No need to apologize, Carter." He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "The good news is that the worst is over. Just gotta stitch you up now."
He began suturing her broken skin and was both relieved and impressed that she didn't even flinch as the needle pierced her flesh. When he was almost done, she asked, "Have you ever broken…a bone, sir?"
"Yeah, a few," he began. "Nine, actually, including skull fractures." At that, she raised her eyebrows, and when he noticed her wince at his most recent stitch, he decided that a distraction was in order. "I got most of them jumping out of a plane over Iraq. My chute opened late, and I hit the ground, hard. Go figure."
She watched him as he tied off the last stitch. "Did you…have to wait long for rescue?" she asked, pausing to take a breath in the middle of her question.
"No rescue," he said, as he pulled her pant leg down and reassembled the med kit for the second time that day. "It wasn't exactly a sanctioned mission, if you know what I mean. I had to get myself out. Took me over a week."
"How did you do it?" she asked, and when he looked up at her, he could see that she was genuinely curious.
"At the time, I had someone to Iive for. I was determined to get home, to see my wife again."
He shrugged, trying to downplay the emotion that the memory evoked, but she was staring at him with a look he couldn't quite decipher. For a moment there was an awkward silence between them. She knew his ex-wife was no longer a part of his life, and he knew her wacky ex-finance was dead, which begged the question - who were they living for now? He wondered briefly if she had anyone new and suddenly realized with some alarm that he'd rather not know.
Time to change the subject, he decided. He cleared his throat. "So how many bones have you broken, Captain? Not counting this one, of course."
"None," she answered simply.
He looked at her in disbelief. "None? This is the first?" She nodded, somewhat sheepishly. He snorted. "Well, congratulations on making it count."
With that, he pulled some MREs out of her pack and began to assemble a pot for boiling water. If they were going to be here awhile, they might as well eat. Plus, it was important that Carter stay hydrated. Her leg was bad enough, but even though she was doing her best to hide it, he was pretty sure it was more than the pain of her broken limb that was causing her to wheeze. When she refused the MRE he offered, he was certain she had internal injuries as well.
He considered ordering her to eat but decided to let it go for now. The most important thing was getting her home. So after he melted some ice, he decided to search again for the DHD, this time looking beneath the ice.
"You okay?" he asked her, watching her to make sure she drank her water. "I'm going to try to find the DHD."
She nodded and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "It has to be here somewhere, sir," she rasped.
Methodically, he made his way slowly around the cavern, keeping his flashlight trained on the ice, searching the smooth surface for any variation in color or texture, and trying very hard not to think about what would happen to his Second if he wasn't able to get her back to the SGC soon.
After about ten minutes, his persistence was rewarded when he spotted something dark beneath an elevated shelf of ice. Wasting no time, he quickly cleared the loose ice crystals resting on top of the ledge and was just able to make out a red circular shape about the size of a frisbee buried roughly a foot below.
"I think I found it!" he yelled over to Carter.
"Good," she replied weakly, clearly exhausted. "That's good, sir."
He didn't like the way she sounded at all, but he tried not to think about that, choosing instead to focus his attention on freeing the DHD. He pulled out his buck knife and began chipping away at the ice with a single-minded determination. Every minute they were stuck there, the more likely his Second was to lose her leg - or worse.
"Getting there, Carter," he offered after several minutes, more to reassure himself than her. In truth, it was going to take a lot longer than he anticipated to get through the ice.
Her reply was barely audible. "Sorry I'm not…more help, sir."
"Relax, Captain. I got this," he said, with more confidence than he felt.
Jack turned his attention to the task of hacking out the DHD and quickly lost track of time. Before long his back and arm were killing him, but the thought of Carter's deteriorating condition drove him to keep pushing through the pain. He'd be damned if he lost her. She was far too fine an officer to die on some god-forsaken, backwater ice-planet, thanks to him.
After several hours, he'd finally cleared enough ice to enter a gate address. "I should be able to dial out now," he said. But when she didn't respond, he had to tamp down a rising sense of dread. Hopefully, she'd just fallen asleep rather than passed out. "Carter?" he called out to her as he slid off the ledge, and when she still didn't respond his tone became more urgent. "Carter!"
Within seconds he was by her side and was relieved to see the slow rise and fall of her chest. But she looked fragile, which was not an adjective he had ever used to describe his Second. He knew then she really was in bad shape. If she didn't get some serious medical attention soon, she wasn't going to make it.
Her eyelids fluttered. "Sir?" she asked, clearly disoriented.
He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "Hang in there, Sam. I'm gonna get you out of here," he promised.
In a flash he was back at the DHD punching in the coordinates for Earth. But even though the gate would consistently light up and spin, it refused to engage, no matter how many times he dialed. After at least a dozen tries, he lost it. "God damn it!" he yelled, and he had to stop himself from winging his flashlight across the cavern.
When his outburst didn't elicit a response from Sam, he got worried all over again and immediately rushed back to her, but she only had one word for him.
"Cold."
He let out a weary sigh. Yes, it was definitely cold, he thought. It was also getting extremely dark, and Jack knew it would take him hours to get to the base of the DHD to check the crystals. Although he hated to admit it, Sam might not have that kind of time, particularly as the frigid temperatures continued to drop.
His mind made up, Jack gave her the last shot of morphine and, carefully avoiding her injured leg, did his best to wrap himself around her with the goal of keeping her as warm as possible throughout the night.
"Better?" he asked, as he pulled her closer.
She nodded, and he couldn't help but think if the situation weren't so dire, he might enjoy having her in his arms. After all, she was kind, and smart, and brave. Not to mention, gorgeous. He knew he wasn't supposed to think of her that way, but he was only human, dammit - and male - so he could hardly be blamed if he noticed certain things about his Second. Things like her crystal blue eyes, her creamy skin, and, of course, all the feminine curves she tried to hide beneath her shapeless BDUs. Yep, he'd seen some of those glorious curves up close and personal on P3X-595, and though they'd agreed never to speak of it again, it wasn't a sight he would soon forget.
He suddenly felt himself getting warm in a completely unintended way, and so he shifted a little and silently admonished himself for his inappropriate thoughts about his Second. Sam. Carter. The Captain.
Shit, he needed to stay focused on their survival.
"You should go tomorrow," she said quietly, thankfully breaking his train of thought.
She sounded better, but her voice was still raspy. The morphine must have kicked in. Of course, if she was implying that he should take off to save himself, she was delusional. There was no way in hell he was leaving her to die alone in this frozen shithole.
"Nah," he said softly. "I like here. A little paint, a few curtains, maybe. It'll be just like home."
"Sir," she replied, drawing out the syllable in a tone that was clearly intended to admonish him. And damn if that didn't make him warm all over again.
He cleared his throat and shifted once more. "Get some sleep, Carter. I'll try the DHD again in the morning."
With that, Sam stilled and Jack quickly dozed off, visions of his beautiful Second dancing through his head.
oOoOoOo
Not long after, she woke him with a nudge. "Uh, sir?"
"What is it, Carter?" he mumbled, struggling toward consciousness.
She squirmed a bit. "There's something..." she paused, struggling to catch her breath, "pressing into my side."
Suddenly, Jack was fully awake and painfully aware that he'd let his subconscious run wild in his sleep. The situation was so embarrassing, he did the only thing he could think to do - he lied. "It's my sidearm, I swear," he said, more quickly than he intended.
There was a long pause, and he wondered for a minute if she'd bought his excuse. But after a moment, he realized he'd had no such luck. "Well...it's good to know...," she struggled to get the words out, "I'm so well protected. Sir."
Fuck, he could hear the smile in her voice. As mortifying as the situation was, though, her statement was doing funny things to his insides. Trying to ignore the obvious effect she was having on him, he decided that the best defense was a good offense. "Comments like that, Captain," he said with as much dignity as he could muster, "are not going to make my sidearm situation any better."
And that caused her to start giggling, which would have been perfect, had her movements not triggered a coughing fit that had her spitting up blood. That was a mood killer, to be sure.
"No giggling, Carter," he said, in all seriousness.
"Yes, sir," she replied, after she had recovered. It was a long time before either of them spoke again, and when she did, she surprised him with her words. "If we don't make it...," she whispered, "I won't have any regrets."
Now it was his turn to pause and consider his response. "Yeah, well," he began after several beats, "I wish I could say the same."
"Sir?" she queried.
It was a clear invitation for him to open up, to share some of the things he'd purposely kept from the team, but he wasn't about to burden her with his many demons, particularly when her own situation was so precarious. So he decided to do what he did best and dodge the issue.
"I'll regret dying," he replied simply.
oOoOoOo
The next thing he knew, Jack awoke with a start to find daylight filtering through tiny fissures in the ceiling of the ice cave. With a groan, he laid his head back down and closed his eyes against the offending light. He wasn't sure if night was short here or if he had just worked himself nearly to death the day before, but he was completely exhausted. Every muscle in his body ached, and he suddenly realized with no small degree of alarm that he couldn't feel his left arm.
Rolling over immediately, he came face to face with his Second, who was still sleeping soundly in the crook of his elbow. She looked peaceful, and he debated for a moment whether to wake her. He knew he needed to get to work on the DHD as soon as possible. So, without further hesitation he used his free hand to brush her cheek, only to find that she was burning up with fever.
"Carter," he began gently, but when she didn't stir, he quickly moved from alarmed to panicked. "Carter!" he said again, more urgently this time, but there was still no response. "Sam!" he finally yelled.
Without even opening her eyes, she whispered hoarsely, "You go."
It took a moment for him to process her words. She wanted him to strike out alone. "I'm not leaving you," he replied with steely determination. "I'm not even sure there's a way out."
She winced and grasped his arm. "Only chance. Get help."
He swore to himself, because he knew she was right. Even assuming the DHD could be repaired, he'd never be able to do it without her help, and she probably wouldn't live long enough for him to dig it out. Her only chance, and his, was to find an exit and hopefully someone who could help them.
With one long, last look at her beautiful face, he reluctantly conceded to her wishes. "Alright, Carter. I'll go look for help. But you have to promise me you won't go anywhere." He touched his fingertips to her cheek once more. "I'll be right back."
Not waiting for a response, he began exploring the ice cave, searching for a way out. After a few minutes, he thought he saw a crevasse that appeared open to the sky and just large enough for him to scale. "I think I found something!" he shouted down to Sam, and he wondered if she heard him.
Pulling on reserves he didn't even know he had, he spent the next hour slowly climbing out of the fissure in the ice. When he reached the top and saw daylight, he almost cried. But his relief was short-lived. Only after he was able to stand outside the cave and examine his surroundings, did he realize the futility of his efforts. Every way he turned, he saw nothing but empty ice plains, and absolutely no sign of civilization.
He fought the urge to scream.
Bone tired and heart heavy, he made his way back to Sam to relay the news, knowing that he was essentially delivering her death sentence. Of course, he was going to die, too, just alone and a lot more slowly, and he couldn't help but think maybe she was the lucky one.
"It's ice, Carter, as far as I can see," he reported as he collapsed into a seated position next to her and tried to catch his breath. "I'm sorry, Sam." He struggled to rein in his frustration at his inability to help her. "I'm so fucking sorry."
There was a long pause before she finally responded, and though her voice weak and thready, her words brought him up short. "It's been an honor...sir."
"The honor is all mine," he replied after a moment, and it was then that he realized he had certain feelings for Samantha Carter that he shouldn't, that she meant a whole lot more to him than she should. The thought thrilled him and scared him all at the same time, but he supposed it didn't matter now. He was just glad he could be there for her in the end.
He lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around her once more, and he could have sworn her breathing eased just a little.
Her next words were almost inaudible, but he heard them nonetheless. "Thank you...Jack."
"Always." He pressed a kiss to her temple.
For his own sake, he knew he should start trying to dig out the DHD, but he was reluctant to let her go. Instead, he just pulled her closer.
The last thought he had before slipping into darkness was that one of his many regrets was that he wouldn't be able to spend more time with her.
oOoOoOo
Jack knew he must be dead, because he was vaguely aware of being placed in an open coffin. Plus, he heard the sound of helicopters hovering somewhere overhead, and he was pretty sure they had come from Iraq to escort him straight to hell. The only thing he couldn't figure out was why General Hammond was there, staring down at him and telling him everything was going to be alright.
"Carter..." he began. Was she there, too? Because there was no way they were headed the same place.
The General smiled. "Captain Carter's alive, Jack."
"Her leg...she's hurt..."
"I know, son." He gave Jack a reassuring nod. "We're gonna take good care of her."
Maybe he wasn't in hell after all. At least not yet.
oOoOoOo
It had been three days since Jack and Sam had been brought to the infirmary at McMurdo, and while he had recovered relatively quickly, she was still unconscious. Fraiser, however, had repeatedly assured him that, despite a burgeoning infection, a punctured lung and, of course, the compound fracture, she was now on the mend and should regain consciousness any time.
For his part, Jack refused to leave the infirmary while she remained. He claimed that he owed it to her, that they had gotten this far together and he wasn't about to abandon her now. If anyone questioned his motives, no one said a word.
Still, the resident medical staff were curious, and he wasn't certain whether they were wondering how two Air Force officers wound up in an ice cave in Antarctica - without a plane - or whether, based on the way he hadn't left her side, there was more to their relationship than just supervisor and subordinate. Of course, he couldn't really blame them - he'd started wondering about that himself.
He had just settled in the chair he'd conveniently placed next to her bed when she began to stir. "Sir?" she asked groggily.
"Hey, Carter." He gave her a half grin. "We made it. We're at McMurdo. Turns out we landed in our own backyard."
She still looked confused, and so he quietly began to explain what had happened. How the Stargate did malfunction, but the wormhole jumped to a previously unknown second 'gate in the ice of Antarctica. And, ironically, how they'd been on Earth the entire time.
Sam was simultaneously amazed by his story and appalled that she hadn't somehow figured it out herself. But Jack just gave her a wink and reminded her that the important thing was that they were alive.
Satisfied that she was out of the woods, he squeezed her hand and got up to leave.
"Sir?" she called after him, and he turned in the infirmary doorway to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "Can you do me a favor?" She bit her lower lip and managed to look adorably uncertain. "Don't tell anyone how I screamed and passed out when you set my leg."
Jack let a half smile turn up the corner of his mouth. "It's a deal, Captain," he replied, when he suddenly had a stroke of genius. "On one condition." His grin widened. "You have to promise not to mention the whole sidearm thing."
"Yes, sir," she replied, and he knew then by the way she smiled at him, softly with a bit of heat, that those weren't the only secrets they'd need to keep.
The End