Teal'c huddled within his makeshift haven with his foil blanket stretched overhead, the cold stonewall behind the Gate to one side, and icy walls of snow to the others. The shelter was cramped and cold, but it was all that stood between him and the menacing storm. He'd stuck his canteen under his parka to keep his water from freezing and there was food enough in his pack for now. The buildup of moisture from his breath and body heat was a concern. When the storm broke, damp clothing would hamper his search for the others. Unfortunately, it was a problem not easily solved and would only grow increasingly so as time went on.
Periodically, he tried to raise the others on the radio, but he'd long since ceased expecting an answer. He ached to be of service to them, to those who had looked beneath Apophis's golden emblem in his forehead and the symbiote in his pouch to see not an enemy but an ally and later a friend. They had given him a life of freedom, a chance for redemption, and a means to strike back at his enemies. He owed them his life, his hope, and his allegiance. His inability to offer them aid now in their time of need wore into his innermost being. The forced inactivity not only caused his muscles to scream for action, but his very soul. It would not, however, help O'Neill and the others to follow them out into the storm and be lost as well. He could do nothing but wait, conserving his energy until the time he might be of help.
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As much as she regretted her decision to fall back from the Gate, Sam knew she had had no choice. Even going with the wind, she was reeling from exhaustion and the cold. She would have collapsed long since if she'd had to continually fight her way against the buffeting storm. She doubted she could continue much further as it was.
The relentless wind, blinding snow, and numbing cold had robbed her of her senses, and she understood all too well, death hovered only one step ahead of her. The cold alone would kill her if she couldn't keep moving or find shelter soon. And beyond that, she could easily step off a cliff or into a not-quite frozen stream never knowing it was there until it was much too late-and in this chill, perhaps not even then.
She was helpless against the storm. Helpless to save herself and helpless to save the others. But nagging at her spirit was a pressing, overriding sense that there should be, must be, something more she could do than mindlessly let the storm drive her before it like a lost sheep. When things went bad at the SGC, the general looked to her for answers; when things went sour on the field, the colonel turned to her to figure out their next step. Their unwavering belief in her abilities wasn't something she shared or appreciated. It was, in fact, a heavy burden she'd always suspected would one day crush the life out of her. The belief that she had to solve everything, that everything depended on her was absurd and unreasonable. Yet, its weight bore down on her and taxed her dwindling strength just as much as the storm. And it was just as inescapable.
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Daniel had quit feeling his feet sometime before. After the painful pins and needles that had been shooting through them up to that point, it was a relief. A dangerous relief. He increasingly found it almost impossible to keep his footing, and he was vaguely aware that sooner or later he'd lack the determination and energy to drag himself up once more off the frozen ground. That would be the end of it. The thought didn't bother him all that much. He would have liked to know the others were ok-that they'd found shelter and held on to what it would take to survive through the storm. But, his mind almost as numb as his feet, the immediateness of his own death didn't reach him.
The final fall, when it came, barely registered in his awareness. He noticed the give of the snow beneath him like a soft mattress. He noticed that here on the ground the howl of the wind seemed less menacing, less penetrating. He turned to his side and curled into a ball and noticed that what above had been one mass of swirling, unforgiving whiteness down here were individual flakes that dropped and rose with the wind in an intricate dance. Heat built up in him making him tug off his hat, pull off his gloves, and unzip his parka. But, he was too relaxed, too peaceful to rouse enough to remove it entirely. Instead, he settled back and watched the dancing snow.
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Sam stumbled over Daniel's inert form seconds later and came crashing down over him saving his life though neither were aware enough to realize it. Her fall and subsequent frantic attempt to disentangle herself from him brought him to his senses. He desperately threw her off and scrambled about on his hands and knees feeling for the clothing he'd just discarded. Finding the gloves, he quickly pulled them on. Gasping down the frigid air in big gulps, he tried to understand what had just happened as he pulled himself up to an unsteady stand.
Sam was only marginally more aware of what had happened herself. The continual howling of the wind had sparked a matching roar in her head that would have kept her from thinking clearly even if the cold hadn't already slowed her thought processes. If either of them had been steadier on their frozen feet, they might have tottered unknowingly away from each other. But, their staggering, lumbering movements brought them stumbling into one another and sent them once more into a tangled heap.
Daniel called out, "Who's there?" His voice was a rough croak, but as he had inadvertently grabbed hold of Sam's shoulder to pull himself up his call was close enough to her aching right ear to penetrate the wind. It took her a moment to process what she was hearing after hours of hearing nothing but its incessant howl. By then, he had managed to right himself and pull her along with him. Clinging to him to keep from falling again, she realized she was no longer alone.
"Daniel?" she cried and knew he had heard her from his enthusiastic thumping on her backpack. Each thump reverberated through her head, but she didn't care. Things suddenly seemed unimaginably better. But, the wind still tore at them, threatening to pull them from each other's arms and send them once more into tortured, frozen aloneness. She fumbled with her pack to find the rope it held. Tying it was impossible with her numbed hands and unwieldy gloves. Working the gloves off was a painful process. Finally, though, they did come off, and she was able to painstakingly secure herself to him.
As she worked, she could vaguely hear his voice, but the wind made it difficult for her to make out his words. Her own throat ached from the bitterly cold air, and she found shouting back to him too exhausting and painful to be worth the effort. Still, it was good to hear his voice. She tackled the process of replacing her stiff, frozen gloves and hoped she wasn't damaging her frozen hands in doing so. Daniel leaned into her and shouted into her ear, "Have you seen Jack or Teal'c?"
It was a question she didn't want to answer, didn't even want to think about. "I'm sorry, Daniel..." she shouted back. His understanding and comforting grasp on her shoulder in response brought tears to her eyes. They froze on her lashes and threatened to seal her eyes shut. She didn't dare rub them off for fear she'd rub her skin off along with them.
She fumbled instead with her canteen, but the water had frozen. "Do you have water?" she called through the wind to Daniel only to discover after a moment or two of waiting that his was gone as well. Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth she unzipped her parka and placed the canteen within its warmth like she should have done hours before. She was already well on the way to transforming into a block of ice, what difference would it make? A warm fog rose from inside her parka and briefly melted her frozen tears but then was gone vanishing into the cold. She clamped back her pained cries as the canteen's chill penetrated her clothing and zipped her parka closed.
"We've got to keep moving!" Daniel shouted at her, and in agreement they began to stumble forward. Of her teammates, Daniel was the one she would have chosen to have beside her in the storm. Her slower pace and shorter stride would have held Teal'c back and been a drain on his energy. It would have taken all she had in the attempt to keep up with him whereas she and Daniel were a well-matched pair, moving almost as one with a natural affinity that both conserved their own strength and imparted it to the other.
The colonel...their strides might have matched enough to keep them from pulling one another down with the rope binding them together, but there were other more constricting things between them that would have made the trek all the more difficult. The sense of responsibility and failure on both their parts for one. He'd feel he was failing her as her commanding officer; she'd feel she was failing him in not coming up with a workable solution. And in the face of impending death there were too many things they'd left unsaid...things that should be said, should have been said years ago, and yet hadn't been because they couldn't be. Things that, if this was the end, needed to be said all the more and yet, speaking them would strip all hope from the situation and what chance would they have after that?
The hopeless muddle of their emotional entanglements would bind them and trip them and drain what little strength they had to fight for their very survival. No, it was better it was Daniel she had stumbled across. Daniel who loved her openly without fear of reprisal or consequence. Who loved her like a sister and friend and owed her nothing. They could stagger along, drifting with the wind, keeping each other from falling, pulling one another up if necessary, and drawing immeasurable hope and strength from one another's presence without the crippling weight of what lay between herself and the colonel.
They'd pulled out their survival blankets, trusting that if the wind tore a corner from one of their grasps the other would be able to hold on to their corner and the whole thing wouldn't be lost. Wrapped together in the blankets, they had a little protection from the wind. And together they were able to keep up a more sustained effort than they had separately. Their circumstances had improved dramatically. Perhaps not enough to keep them alive when exhaustion drove them to a standstill or when night fell, but if the end did come...by some unspoken agreement, they'd both know it. They'd meet it together.
She could trust Daniel to not leave her to deal with her loss and guilt alone. The colonel...if the end came with the colonel, she could be sure he wouldn't. Somehow, he'd find a way to give her his last bit of strength and order her to carry on without him. The fact that she'd die hating him for it wouldn't stop him. He'd done it in Antarctica, and he'd do it again here given the chance. She was glad he wouldn't have the opportunity.
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Shortly thereafter, they lurched to a stumbling stop against the crusty edges of a large snowdrift. Their senses and thought processes were so dulled by the cold that they both made futile efforts to continue to trudge through it before the knowledge sunk in that they-and several feet of snow- had been driven up against some structure or natural formation. Using their numbed hands like claws they began to dig into the bank to form a small hollow. They lined it with one of their foil blankets before collapsing into it. After lying tangled together for a few minutes, they managed to work up enough energy to stuff their packs against the bottom of the opening and block the worst of the wind and blowing snow. Then shivering violently, they worked their stiff arms out of their parkas and stuffed them into the top of the opening before wrapping up together inside the other blanket.
When the worst of the shivering had passed, Sam drew out a flashlight. She fought her frozen fingers to get them to cooperate enough to switch it on, and then they blinked in its weak flickering light. She gazed at her watch in disbelief. They'd dialed the Gate a lifetime ago, yet her watch insisted it was barely three hours later. She checked Daniel's watch and then hers again. She even checked the date, finding it easier to believe they'd wandered over a day than that they'd only been out in the cold a few short hours. But both their watches confirmed they had not trudged into another day.
The shorter time meant they might have avoided frostbite and the specter of amputated fingers, earlobes, or toes. Their aching, burning, tingling body parts might recover given enough time. And perhaps the colonel and Teal'c still had time to find shelter if they hadn't already. But it also meant they were that much further from rescue. Somewhere in a world that seemed a lot more than 95,000 light-years away, General Hammond was reading a report and thinking about lunch. He wasn't thinking he had an offworld team fighting the elements for their very existence. It would be hours yet before he'd be assembling a rescue party to retrieve them from this cold, barren world.
The Tok'ra though...yes, the Tok'ra might arrive with an Al'kesh to ring them up any time. Or not. She didn't share the colonel's suspicion of all things Tok'ra, but she'd been disappointed by them enough to know it had some basis. She'd gladly take their help if it arrived, but she wouldn't invest her hopes in them. Better to expect help to arrive later rather than sooner. Whether it came from the Tok'ra or from home.
Even once the base knew they were in trouble, help wouldn't be coming until the storm broke. The higher-ups would hold off any rescue attempt until then. And when they did come, there was little a team would be able to use to penetrate its frozen aftermath in order to find them. A UAV would never stay aloft in the wind, and without it their radio beacons wouldn't be strong enough to penetrate very far. Realistically, it could take days for help to arrive. She'd like to think they would find their own way home long before that.
Daniel thumbed his radio, "Jack, Teal'c, come in." He raised his eyes to meet hers as they waited for hoped-for answers they didn't expect to receive.
She shook her head, "The batteries will be weak with the cold, Daniel... and the storm might be interfer-"
"Daniel Jackson, is that you?" Teal'c's voice cackled through the radio in Daniel's hand.
"Yes! Yes, Teal'c! We're here...only we don't know where here is. Sam and I have taken shelter in a snow bank. We're..." What, he wondered. Blocks of ice? One stumble into a snowdrift away from finding out if freezing to death really was like falling asleep? No, he'd already come close enough to proving that one right. He looked into Sam's red, strained eyes and knew he owed her his life. She gazed back, unaware of his thoughts, her breath still coming in strained gasps and her teeth still faintly chattering. "All right. We're all right," he finally determined, and she smiled her agreement with him through cracked and bleeding lips.
They were certainly better off than they had been just moments before. They had shelter and each other's body heat to help warm them. They had rations enough for two or three days and water-once their canteens thawed. They were in radio contact with a living, breathing Teal'c, and they still had hope the colonel with his usual resourcefulness and cussedness was still among the living. They were as all right as they possibly could be considering the circumstances.
"That is good to hear," Teal'c answered. His voice was raised to be heard over the roar of the wind, but it still carried a calmness that filled their shelter with his presence and comforted them both.
Sam fumbled with her own switch, "What's your situation, Teal'c? Is the colonel with you?"
"I am fine. I also have taken shelter; however, I regret to inform you I have had no contact with O'Neill."
His words, though unwelcome, were not unexpected. "I understand," she said. To conserve battery power and to avoid bringing up fears none of them wanted to confront, they quickly signed off. Too exhausted to further improve their shelter or pull rations out of their pack, they huddled together and drifted off into fitful sleep. Burning, tingling nerves slowly reviving in their shared warmth would rouse them frequently, but fatigue chased them quickly back to sleep.