THREE

He was not sure if he had dozed off for a minute, but when his head cleared a bit he felt a bit better and Cadman seemed to have gained some strength even though she was still very pale. Everyone was sitting as close to the fire as humanly possible without getting burned. Someone had placed Evan's clothes hanging by the side of the fire to dry.

John took the offered time to study the members on this makeshift team. Markham he knew quite well, being a member of Evan's team who usually came to his team's rescue, the younger man was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Cadman, nibbling on an energy bar. Cadman was sleeping lightly; she had regained some color to her cheeks, looking a bit better than when they had stumbled into the small cave. Moving his gaze, John's eyes fell on the two last people of his team; Gilson was sitting like him up propped against the stone wall with a blanket behind him, with Keegan in his lap. Keegan was asleep, eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar but no sound came out of it, which was probably good, John was not sure that he could stand snoring at the moment.

All of them had bundled up, and put on their extra clothes that fit in under their uniforms for extra warmth. Just thinking of the cold, and the small gust of wind that blew into the cave, John tightened his hold around Evan's waist.

"How's the Major?" John looked up, it was Gilson who had asked.

"Not so good, but at least he isn't shaking like a leaf, as he did some time ago," said John, his voice barely above a whisper, after all the shouting he was not up for much talking. He was sure he would get a very sore throat when they got back to Atlantis, if they got back.

"What are we going to do?" this time it was Markham who asked.

"At the moment? Regain our strength, try to rest and then we'll see," said John, for there was not much more they could do, being dead on their feet would not make the track back to the Stargate any easier. "How's Cadman?"

"She's okay, it didn't take long for her to fall asleep, sir," said Markham.

"Good, good, Gilson? Keegan?"

"I'm okay," said Gilson, looking down at Keegan who was still dead to the world, "Kyle's okay too, just a bit tired sir."

Again they fell into a comfortable silence, thinking of their situation. No one had much strength to speak either, and they would all need as much energy as possible. Somehow John managed to reach his pack without disturbing Evan, finding the few energy bars he had packed with him.

Before now, he had not felt the hunger being too worried about Evan and finding a place to hide from the storm, but now he could feel the hollow feeling in his stomach. Never in his life had an energy bar tasted so good, it took almost all of John's self control not to moan when he took a bite.

STARGATE: ATLANTIS

Colonel Samantha "Sam" Carter was worried, Sheppard's team had missed their check-in time, and they were unable to get in contact with the team. With Sheppard and Lorne's track records for ending up in weird and possible dangerous situations, she knew they probably were not in too much trouble, the planet was uninhibited and so the chance was bigger that something weird was keeping them, but Sam could not shake the gut feeling she had that something else was going on, something which was leaning closer to the dangerous category than weird.

Pacing up and down on the commando bridge, Sam almost collided with McKay and two other scientists who were meteorologists'. They were all panting heavily from an obviously long run, looking a bit panicked.

"Oh my, what's going on?" asked Sam.

"We need to get them off that damn planet now!" almost shouted McKay who had gotten his breath back, the fastest, waving around with a heap of papers, which he almost showed into her face.
Sam was no meteorologist but even she understood the graveness of the situation when she watched the diagrams and the carefully made report from the scientists.

"Oh my god," muttered Sam in horror. "This… this…"

"Exactly," exclaimed McKay, his eyes were big and crazy in that way they only got when Colonel Sheppard was involved or they had found some knew piece of Ancient technology.

"How did you figure it out?"

"Well," started one of the other scientists, Rogers who was from England, the only thing that she knew of the other woman. "We used one of the ancient devices, and so we could make a prognosis on what kind of climate and what the temperature was on the planet, if there are seasons or…"

"Basically we found out that there are some drastic changes in the temperature," said McKay sounding very impatient, "it goes all the way from about 100 degrees Celsius above zero to the same degrees below zero, we are talking about colder weather than on Antarctica and warmer than in the warmest desert!"

"Yes, that's why there is no life on the planet, nothing can really withstand such sudden and drastic changes in the temperature, especially when we're only talking about a few days," explained Dr Rogers wringing her hands nervously, "Colonel Sheppard and the rest went through the gate when the temperature was dropping only a few days before the temperature was over 100 degrees Celsius above zero, now there should already be quite the winter weather, closer to that what you find in Scandinavia in January or February, in a matter of a day or two maybe even hours there will be colder than on Antarctica and they only have summer clothes and no shield from the cold."

Sam really did not like the sound of that, but they could not do much, except for waiting. They had no idea where Sheppard and the rest where, and they could not risk sending a search party as long as the bad weather was raging on the other side of the gate, Sam could not risk anyone getting stuck there on the planet in the cold weather.

Taking a deep breath, Sam turned to McKay praying to the gods that no one would do anything stupid, she was not sure whether McKay would hate her more or she hate herself more after what she would have to tell him.

"At the moment we cannot do anything, we must just hope and pray that they'll get through it alive," said Sam.

"WHAT? You… you can't do that!" burst McKay out looking scandalized, "we have to get them back!"

"McKay… Rodney we can't, we have no idea where they are and if the weather really is as bad as you say then we can't afford send anyone, it's almost a certain death trap! I want help but right now, my hands are bound. Sorry."

She did not wait for McKay to say something; instead Sam turned around and went back to her pacing. It was hard; she could feel McKay's eyes staring into her back, silently accusing her of leaving people under her command behind. Sam knew that if Sheppard, Major Lorne, Markham, Cadman, Gilson and Keegan did not all get back alive and well then McKay would never forgive her. Sometimes it was hard being the commander, especially on a place like Atlantis.

STARGATE: ATLANTIS

Waking up Evan did not first know where he was, feeling disorientated, his head felt heavy and he was chilled to the bone. He could barely move his body, all his limbs feeling as if they weighted a hundred kilograms each. Evan groaned, moving he felt his face brush up against something warm and steady, something moving up and down…

"Uh…," groaned Evan.

"Hey." A soft voice spoke to him, and then he felt a warm hand brush over his head. Evan Winced when he felt the hand touch a very sore spot on his head, he must have hit it. "Evan, can you hear me?"

He knew that voice, it was soft and caring, slowly as if waking up from a very heavy sleep Evan felt the dizziness go away, the thick fog leaving his brain.

"John?" murmured Evan, and for the first time did he notice that he was naked, leaning against a bare chest, a pair of arms around his waist keeping him warm. He could feel the blush rise all the way from his neck up to his cheeks.

"How're you feeling? You fell through the ice," said John, the others had dozed off, the only sound in the cave coming from the small fire.

"I did?"

"Yeah, gave me quite the scare," said John, letting his fingers brush over the small bump he could feel at the back of Evan's head. "I think you hit your head, I don't think you've got a concussion but…"

"Where are we?"

"In a cave, we were lucky when we found it, but I don't think we can wait out the storm here," said John looking concerned, "since we got here it has gotten colder, and my gut is telling me that we need to get back to the gate."

"I sense a but," said Evan quietly looking up at John for the first time since he woke up.

"I have no idea where we are right now, but it's far from the gate at least 15 kilometers, and in this storm it won't go fast and I having no idea in which direction we should go," said John with a defeated sigh, tightening his hold on Evan.

Evan nuzzled closer to John, pressing his cheek to John's chest, trying to keep the cold outside the blankets, for once he was happy that they had to drag so much stuff around with them on missions.

"I love you and I'm glad you're here with me," whispered Evan softly, not looking up at John but he could feel John's body tense and then relax more.

"I love you too," whispered John, not caring if the others heard them, he was just happy that Evan was somewhat okay, falling into a lake in the middle of a snowstorm was not a children's game.

Sitting there it was hard to know how much time had passed, Evan had fallen back asleep, totally spend and John did not want to wake him, the tiniest of energy could be what decided if they got through this dead or alive, Evan would be needing all the energy he could get. He knew that it was madness but they had to get back to the gate, and they had not a second to waste.

John could feel how his eyes felt heavy and he let himself rest for a moment. It was pitch black outside, they would move on in the morning, at least Evan's clothes seemed dry enough, and they would need all the light they could get, if they were to find back to the gate.

When he woke up, he could not have slept for a very long time but at least he felt a bit better, John could hear Markham and Cadman talking in low voices on their side of the fire. Gently shaking Evan awake, John looked around the small cave, the fire was still going and John noticed that someone had thrown tissues into the fire to keep it going, must be Cadman, she always carried around heaps of tissues in case she would need them.

"Morning Colonel," said Cadman, looking much healthier than she had done the evening before.

"Morning Cadman," said John, helping Evan up so that he could get dressed, keeping a steadying hand on his back. "Gilson, Keegan you two awake?"

"Yes sir." Came from both, albeit a bit sluggishly.

"Okay here's the deal guys," said John looking everyone in the eyes, his voice tight, "we really need to get back to the gate, we've got no food and we're all tired but we can't do much about it, and we have no idea how long this storm will last. Something tells me it'll get worse so I want to get a good start so that we maybe will reach the gate by night fall, at least before anyone dies."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, sir?" asked Keegan looking a bit worried.

"No I'm not sure, but if we want to survive then we have to at least try," said John.

"When we came the sun was shining behind the gate, and whether you're on earth or in another galaxy the sun always rises and goes down in the same direction at least on Atlantis it does," said Gilson, as calm and collected as if they were just training, John had to fight the urge to kiss and hug the guy, he was so proud. He really wondered what could make the guy lose his cool, not that he wanted to try.

"It's colder outside," stated Markham.

"Yeah I know," said John with a small sigh, "but it'll just continue getting colder so the faster we leave maybe we won't get stuck in the worst of the storm, I hope."

"Come on, we need to get moving," said Evan standing up from where he had been sitting, he still looked tired and he was shivering but he had that gleam in his eyes that told John he was determined to get to the get, he was in full Major Lorne mode.

"You heard the major," said John, clapping his hands twice, "put on all clothing you've got and try to cover your faces, we need to move fast and keep close!"

John took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment praying to anyone who would listen to him, to let him get everyone back to Atlantis safe, before he stepped out from the cave, the icy cold wind tearing at him. The ground was thick with snow, and more was falling from the skies.

Hell had never felt more real than it did at that moment.

Third chapter done, still liking it?
Reviews are very welcomed! :)