Author's note: this chapter takes place in season 3, after Forever and a Day.
Part 5. The Reveal.
"SG-1 is coming in hot!" Hammond's voice announced over the warning claxon.
The security and medical teams assembled, preparing for whatever might come through the gate from PL8-236.
A desert planet, J.C. knew. It was one where her team had encountered the Grell before. Since the Grell liked remote, barren places, there shouldn't have been anything on 236 to cause anyone any trouble.
Not a lot to see through the MALP lens. Hammond resisted the urge to pace, listening to the gun fire going on in the background, his premier team too busy to send back explanations or make much radio chatter. O'Neill's warning had been terse: one Goa'uld transport, about fifty Jaffa ringing in. His team had disrupted the first wave by getting the jump on them, taking them out as the rings went up, buying time for Jackson to dial the DHD. Things got a little more complicated when the unseen mothership sent down a second transport at the same time as the next ring wave. As the final chevron locked and the IDC was sent, the third wave was finding purchase. In another minute, the gate would be over-run.
Carter came through first, clearing the ramp, getting behind the line of marines before she paused to catch her breath. Staff weapons fire followed, and Hammond ordered the shield lowered between the gate room and command. On planet, Jaffa fire hit the MALP and sensor telemetry went down. Another moment, and the event horizon rippled for O'Neill and Teal'c, both running for safety.
Jaffa followed, cut down by the carefully placed cover fire.
It took a moment to register with O'Neill why the iris wasn't spiraling shut. "Where's Daniel?" he barked over the noise.
"He should have come through first!" Carter shouted back.
Something cold gripping his gut, Jack crouched behind the marine line, keyed his radio. "Daniel!" A pause, and then a repeat.
A staticky reply. "Here. I'm here."
Thank god. Able to breathe again, Jack fired back, "Where the hell are you?"
"In a hole."
"A hole?"
A pause. "Um, yeah."
In a tone reserved for a small child, "Can you get out of the hole?"
Jackson responded in kind. "I could, if I could lift the big rock that's on top of me."
Crap. Trust Daniel to find the only pit on the entire planet.
Listening in on the radio conversation, Hammond couldn't let Jaffa continue to pour through the gate. "Close the iris, Sergeant."
As the iris spiraled shut, Jack radioed back, "Are you taking fire?"
Daniel returned, "No."
"Sit tight, Daniel."
"Jack, there's too many of them."
Snapped, "We don't leave our people behind."
"I can—" words were cut off with a spate of coughing.
"Daniel?" A pause. Jack said his name again.
Voice crackling, "I can hear them ringing in, taking up positions."
Yeah, now that they had control of the gate room, Jack could hear the enemy thumping into the iris, either throwing themselves after their comrades or laying down cover fire in the hopes of getting a foothold on this side. It might take them a couple minutes to figure out they weren't getting through. Jaffa could be so pig-headed. "How badly are you injured?"
"There's nothing you can do."
Yeah, except let him get taken alive. "Answer the damn question, Daniel."
Another pause. "I'm pretty sure one leg's broken. Not sure about the other. Hard to breathe. Can't tell if it's dust or this big rock sitting on my chest."
"A rock?"
"Yeah. Ground collapsed, caved in with me."
Finally an explanation. "Just sit there and shut up and I'll get back to you." No reply. Good. Jack stood, pacing, trying to think. Trouble was, they had already reviewed these scenarios. Hammond wasn't going to open the gate just to let their surge become hamburger on the Jaffa line.
The only back-up plan they had was try to make contact with the Tok'ra in the area, or the Asgard, see if they had a ship in the vicinity that could pull Daniel out. That could take weeks. Could he even survive that long? Or were the Jaffa about to find him?
Jacqueline O'Neill looked at her team. Something unspoken passed. Carter opened his mouth, was cut off by the curt shake of J.C.'s head.
Resolved, the colonel stepped over to Jack, caught his arm. "There's something I may be able to do."
Jack's eyes riveted to her face, narrowed.
"I don't know if it will work."
"What?"
"Get me an outgoing wormhole." A glance up at Hammond.
"No one is going back through that gate."
"Just do it, Jack."
He hesitated.
"We're on the clock here," she pointed out. "Do you really want me to take the time to explain?"
Time they didn't have. He got the point, clicked his radio, already moving for the command deck. "Daniel, there's something we're going to try, but we've got to get an outgoing wormhole from here."
Jackson responded, "Not going anywhere."
Samuel gripped J.C.'s sleeve, voice low. "It's not reliable."
She said, "Gotta try."
"What if you get stuck? We don't even know—"
Curtly, "What we don't know can fill a library." She reached over and plucked two canisters of tear gas off a marine. "How long at my weight?"
His fist tightened on her sleeve, a silent protest. And then Carter let go. Slowly, reluctantly, "Ten minutes at the outside."
"And with him and our gear?"
"Colonel, you won't be able to dial back."
"How long, Major?"
"Three minutes. At the most. If it works."
"I'm sorry." J.C. fished in his pack for the heavier medical kit he carried. "I'm leaving you two to explain it."
"Oh, you're not sorry at all," Dani scolded. She saw the other Carter watching them, sighed.
Up in the control room, Hammond responded to Jack's request with, "What could she possibly do?"
"I don't know, sir," Jack said. "But we've got nothing to lose." Except, of course, announcing to the enemy that there was something they had to gain by dialing back. Jack just hoped that re-engaging the wormhole didn't cause the Jaffa to search the grounds immediately.
Hammond nodded to the sergeant. The klaxon blared, announcing the dialing of the gate. Harriman intoned each chevron's locking.
J.C. waited for the kawoosh, the opening of the iris, before moving up the ramp. "Jackson," she keyed the radio, "you still with us?"
A long pause. She started to ask again when Daniel's voice crackled back. "Here."
"They know you're there?"
Coughing. "If I k-keep t-talking."
And if he kept coughing. "Where's the hole, Daniel, in relation to the gate? Can you give me an idea?"
Hoarsely, "About three meters to the right of the DHD."
Samantha Carter looked up at Jack, both wondering, what the hell had he been doing way over there?
"How far's the drop?" J.C. was asking.
"Maybe twenty feet."
"Copy. Sit tight."
At that point, J.C. touched something on her watch. Cursed. She tapped the watch with a tear gas canister. And disappeared.
Just disappeared.
No flashy lights, no clunk and blur of Asgard beam technology. One moment she was there, the next, gone.
Harriman blinked at his telemetry. The feed was indicating someone in transit. "Outbound traveler," he said uncertainly.
"That's just a watch, my ass," Jack said.
Hammond frowned at him, and then frowned down at the gateroom.
Oh yeah, Samuel thought as he came up the spiral staircase. The general was pissed. "I can explain, sir."
"Oh yes," Hammond said in a controlled voice. "Yes, you will."
"It's—ah, phase technology, sir." Samuel swallowed, the words difficult. "Like with the reetou. At least, I think that's how it works."
"You're not sure?"
"We got it off a dead Jaffa a year ago. The power source was similar enough, I managed to cobble it into the Grell tech."
"I wanted to tell you we had it," Danielle injected. "Samuel was under orders not to, but I made the choice. You have every right to be angry."
"It's not the people in the SGC she doesn't trust, sir," Samuel finished lamely.
Seething, Hammond tried to keep his words civil. "Who did you think you were deceiving?"
"It's the NID," Dani said. "That was her hold out in the event that things were taken out of your hands."
Ironically, Hammond thought as a moment passed, a moment in which his temper cooled, he was the one who had let her keep it. He preferred that his people in the field have the best equipment available, and the timepiece had seemed handy. But then, he had been thinking it was just a watch, too.
However he would deal with it, now wasn't the time.
On another world, only seconds away, J.C. had no time to spare for future consequences. She stepped through the gate, face to face with rows of off-color Jaffa staves. They didn't fire right away, so she had the small comfort of being invisible.
For the moment. It wasn't, as Sammy had pointed out, exactly reliable.
She strode down the steps without pause, scanning the ground for signs of the sink Jackson had fallen into. She could see the moisture of freshly exposed sand, about four meters wide; the slash in the ground had probably only been a meter wide when Daniel had gracelessly discovered it. The sides weren't stable. Nothing to brace or tie onto to belay herself down.
As a bonus, it was only going to be minutes before the gate stopped holding Jaffa attention and some overachieving underling took notice. Daniel wasn't visible from ground level, and yet, as she peered into the opening, because she knew what to listen for under the sounds of excited Jaffa, she could make out muffled coughing. They were going to hear that soon enough.
And she just had minutes. Minutes to make the decision whether or not to jump down from the other end and hopefully land on something soft. Something soft that wasn't Daniel himself.
She popped the tabs on the tear gas and tossed them back toward the gate. They were still out of phase with her, but when she either moved too far out of range or deactivated the device, they would go back into phase.
Wouldn't the Jaffa be surprised.
She guessed Daniel would be on the end closest to the gate and struggled down the other slippery slope of sand.
Seconds to assess. There was, indeed, rock. Only half conscious now, Daniel was mostly buried. He had one arm free, which had allowed him to work the radio, and he had been working on getting the other out. Probably the only thing keeping him from being entirely buried was the angle of shelf rock that had pinned him in some unseen way under the sand. No way to tell what was broken or how, or if he still even had legs at all under there.
Not good.
Carefully placing a hand to go over his mouth just in case, J.C. deactivated the phase device, conserving time, thinking about the precious minute she had already wasted.
He was startled, blinking at her from behind glasses, coughing softly, but he didn't shout.
Still alert. Didn't look like he had a head injury, either. Good. That helped. Well, in some ways. From his perspective, this would be a whole hell of a lot better if he were completely unconscious.
Up above, Jaffa were shouting at the sudden appearance of a cloud of tear gas.
"I gotta move you," J.C. said, keeping voice low. "It's gonna hurt."
Daniel shook his head. Even if she were superhuman and could yank him out of the rubble, he wasn't going anywhere fast.
She twisted open her canteen, giving him a swallow. "You want morphine now, or you want to try to help me?"
"J.C.—"
"Don't argue. We don't have a lot of time. I'd recommend the morphine, myself."
Water soothed his dusty throat. "Help you."
Of course he would choose that option. The Jacksons were the very soul of helpfulness. "Here's the deal," she whispered. "I have less than three minutes to get you out of the ground, drag you out of this hole, and get to cover." Not asking much here, are we? "I can't stop to tie off any bleeding or chase stray cats."
No explanation of how. Slowly, because she was obviously not grasping the situation, he whispered back, "O-kay."
"There is a small bit of good news." She removed his glasses, tucking them into a tac-vest pocket for safekeeping before she scraped at the sand, helped pull his other hand free.
"S'that?"
"During those three minutes, you can scream your heart out."
He covered his mouth to muffle a cough, unable to stop the brief spasming of his lungs. Finally managed, "Great."
She squatted down over him, bracing feet. "Put your arms around me."
"You can't pull me out like that—"
Harshly, "Daniel, do as you're told. Chest to chest, as close as possible. Gotta fool the watch into thinking we're one person. Just do it," she said, throat vibrating against his ear. "Come on, Dr. Jackson. You can do this. Hold tight. Get ready."
Then she did something. Daniel's vision shifted, colors changed, the world going slightly out of tint like a bad TV. And suddenly, she was standing up, pulling his weight directly up in some way—he couldn't be sure how, the hole certainly wasn't that vertical—and he immediately didn't really care anymore as white hot liquid pain oozed upward from his leg in a bad way. A scream ripped out of his chest. He couldn't not have screamed.
He wanted her to stop moving, just to stop, each movement jarring his flesh in a sickening blur, but from the moment he was free of the ground, she didn't stop more than to shift him so arms were around his chest from behind. She was pulling him backwards, and he couldn't have said how she maneuvered him up the sandy slope, only that his legs were dragging, the smooth sand as jarring spikes into him as if it were washboard. He glimpsed Jaffa positioned around the gate, vaguely aware it was as if they didn't see him.
How could they not? He couldn't stop the agonized sounds tearing out of his throat.
And then it was over a rise, and J.C. was still dragging him, dragging him out of sight of the Jaffa, getting the curve of a dune between them. Dragging a little further before colors shifted again, and she had a hand over his mouth, shushing him, lowering him at last.
Which was not good. He groaned, bile rising, and rolled to one side, his own movement making the liquid feeling in his leg rise straight to his throat. Inelegantly sick. Vaguely aware of her hand on his shoulder keeping him from tipping over into his own vomit. She eased him back, held the canteen to his lips. He swished and spit to the side, careful to move slowly. The sun blared down at him, adding to the throbbing behind his eyes.
J.C. adjusted packs and P-90. Time to check those legs. Yes, one was a horrific mess. A quick tourniquet made Daniel groan. He was likely to get noisy again when she moved him. And she had to move him again. Soon. The only thing she could do to make it better for him was get things done as quickly as possible and get him settled somewhere. At least she had been on this planet before—if in another reality—and had some idea of the lay of the sand. There was better cover in some stone outcroppings within two clicks, maybe less.
J.C. scooted back up the rise. They weren't far enough. Not nearly far enough. But the tear gas was buying them time, and the shouting of Jaffa had covered Daniel's retching. Worse now than noise, they were going to leave tracks, if anyone figured out that they needed to follow. She was just going to have to pray they stayed lucky.
Keying the radio, she said softly, "This is Sierra Gulf one zero one niner. Do you copy, Sierra Gulf Charlie?"
Hammond's voice, "We copy, 101."
"I picked up your package, but there are too many big dogs with a taste for mailman for me to deliver."
Jack returned, "How is the package?"
"Pretty bad shape. Next time, I'd try UPS."
"Anything we can do to help?"
"If you've got something that can provide a distraction for a few minutes, we could use a bit of cover so we can relocate."
"I think we can arrange to send a little present through the gate," Jack said. "When can we expect the next radio contact?"
J.C. paused. "The nearest cover is out of radio range. Can't call you back until the big dogs are gone." Of course, the Jaffa might never leave. For all she knew, they might be setting up a permanent camp. "Over."
Hammond's voice again. "Copy, 101." A pause. "Godspeed. Over."
Godspeed. Well, Hammond might be pissed, but not so pissed he wouldn't wish her luck. That was something. J.C. scrunched back down next to Daniel, fished in her tac-vest for the right injectibles. "Time for a little morphine, buddy, a little knock out drops."
He protested thinly as he felt the sting of the needle. "Can't help if I'm out."
She didn't reply, watching eyes as he faded fast, finally, blissfully passing out.
Over by the gate, something came through that exploded noisily. J.C. guessed a missile from the launch in the gateroom. Enough racket to keep the Jaffa focused on more possible incoming from the gate.
J.C. pulled out a rain poncho, spread it on the ground next to Daniel, eased him onto it, then arranged part of a pack under his legs so they were slightly elevated and cushioned.
Then came the dragging. She had to avoid cresting dunes to keep from being seen, which made the two clicks more like four or five.
Eventually, she found the rocks the aerial reconnaissance drone had spotted, and with some pre-move scouting, she found a little crevasse that would do. She had to fireman's carry Jackson the last part of the way, making a separate trip for packs. Then came a little more scouting, just to make sure they were alone, that the Jaffa had not picked up their trail.
In the dry terrain, tracks could linger for months. She obscured what she could.
Back to take a look at Jackson and give more attention to the damage. His chest was pretty battered, deeply bruised, but nothing moved unnaturally under his skin; maybe a cracked rib, but nothing life threatening. Peeling back his pants leg wasn't pretty. She knew enough to recognize a compound fracture, and she felt incredibly inadequate. Moving him had so not made things any better. On a good note, the other leg wasn't broken, just scraped and bruised to hell and gone; just needed a cleaning and a little wrapping, and it would be fine.
"Shoulda handed the watch off to a marine medic," she told her unconscious patient apologetically. "I'm sorry, Dr. Jackson. This leg may never play the piano again." She injected an antibiotic before setting it.
Daniel roused briefly when his leg was straightened, gasping at the bright flash of pain that made his vision sparkle. Only vaguely aware that someone, somewhere, was doing something to part of him that hurt, oh yes, it hurt a lot.
J.C. watched him fall back into unconsciousness. She was left to clean him up as best she could, set up camp, and dig in to wait.
Daniel didn't remember much about their first days on PL8-236. Pain was blurred by morphine. There was shivering, and someone warm and soft lying next to him, voice reassuring him, a warm hand or a cold damp cloth stroking his forehead. Then there was heat, when his skin was slick and sticky under his clothes; the thinsulate blanket was too much to bear, and he kicked to have it off of him. Kicking was bad, as it generated sharp pains in his leg, sometimes accompanied by waves of nausea.
J.C. lay next to him, keeping him warm in the freezing night by placing hotpacks underneath them, then wrapping herself and the blanket around him, listening to whispers meant for his dead wife, speaking in soothing tones when he whimpered, trying to keep him still. Nothing more she could do for him except wait for the fever to lose its grip. When he finally settled into more restful sleep, she passed days in silent dread that he might not wake at all, tapering him off the morphine as supplies ran low.
When he finally woke, thoughts were so slow and thick it took Daniel a while to figure out that the blurry brown sky above him was some kind of gauze. As he was able to focus, he could see a thin homespun cloth was suspended above by pitons hammered into the stone.
Shade, he realized. Someone had hung the cloth to make shade.
Idly, he wondered where that had come from. It definitely wasn't standard Special Forces issue.
He turned his head a little, took in surroundings. The bottom of the crevasse was sandy, and someone—J.C., he realized—had time to find scraps of wood and dig a spot for a night fire. She had also undressed him. In boxers and undershirt, Daniel was stretched out on a thinsulate blanket in a little dug out hollow, his legs wrapped and elevated, one in an inflatable splint.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty." J.C. shifted from her place by the cold fire pit, moving the few feet on hands and knees. "You awake this time, or just trying to fake me out?"
Throat dry, making his voice scratch and crackle. "What?"
"Look. Our first word. And English, too. Awesome. How about some water?"
He was surprised how heavy his hand was, how far it seemed to the canteen, how his pass at it fell short.
"Easy there, champ." J.C. slid a hand under his head, supporting as she lifted the opening to his lips.
Tepid, metallic water slid into his mouth, some trickling out the side, and yet, satisfyingly, mostly down his throat. Nasty canteen water. It was great. He managed another swallow before it was taken away.
"Think you could try a little food? We have some C-rations here. Two kinds: you want to try Bad, or Worse? Or maybe you'd prefer a bite of power bar?"
Thoughts were as tepid as the canteen water. Daniel shook his head. He wasn't hungry, and reconstituted beef or chicken was far from tempting.
"Okay. How about a deal? You take a bite of something, and I'll answer your questions."
He blinked at her. He didn't have any questions.
"Ah." J.C. held up a finger. Fished in a vest pocket for something, settled glasses on his nose. "Perhaps these will revive your superpowers, Dr. Jackson."
Vision cleared. "What—" he cleared his throat, still only managing a hoarse, "what superpowers?"
"That Jackson curiosity. Don't you want to know how long we've been here? How long you've been out? Where we are? Don't you want to ask me where I got the ultra-cool decorations?"
He moved eyes to take in the hanging cloth, the bare red rock, the heap of their packs. "I think the interior decorating gene skipped you."
She grinned at the attempt at humor, despite how slowly and awkwardly it had come. "I'm wounded, Daniel. I slave away all day moving the furniture around, and all I get is criticism. How about some chicken broth?"
Liquid sounded good. "More water?"
"You need something to go in the water. Besides, you asked me one question already. That's the deal. One question, one swallow of food. It won't take long to make it."
He must have dozed off, because he woke again to her soft voice, a touch on his cheek. She let him blink awake before offering the oily, salty smelling drink. He wrinkled his nose, but she was pretty insistent. Like the canteen water, it had that distinct metallic flavor, but it was actually better than it smelled. One swallow, and then he realized he wanted the next.
It occurred to him, at some point, that something was off in his groin when he shifted, something not the same as he had left it.
She must have anticipated the slightly panicked look. "I didn't want you moving around with that leg, even with my help. I'm USAF. I know how to put in a catheter."
His face warmed.
She moved back to the little camp stove, rinsing his cup with sand and heating it to sterilize it.
He took the chance to check himself, found everything still there, just with . . . a little extra. Okay, he knew how it worked. He decided he could live with it. Especially since, well, just shifting around that much generated warning twinges in his right leg. Maybe she was right. At the moment, walking was definitely overrated.
He slept and woke again, and again she was there to ply him with more broth.
"Okay," he said over the next cup, a little less hoarse, a little more alert. "I'll bite. How long was I out?"
"Want a crumb of powerbar?" She waved the one she had peeled his direction. At the shake of his head, she shrugged. "Suit yourself."
"How long?"
"The deal was food."
"Hey, I drank this whole cup of broth."
"Broth isn't food."
Not fair. That was changing the rules. But he didn't really have the strength to argue. "Gimme some."
She waited until he had started chewing before she made a show of consulting her watch. "It's been nine days since our arrival on good old PL8-236."
Nine days?! No wonder she had catheterized him. Hell, he thought as he touched the beard sprouted on his face, measuring the stubble, as much as he didn't remember, and as sick-nasty as he felt, he must have been pretty out of it to be missing nine days. He watched her thoughtfully, being watched in return, then took another bite. "Where are you getting water?"
"I'm stealing it from the Jaffa."
Okay. He was having trouble remembering, although it seemed there was some important detail he should be asking about. It was still too hard to think. He asked for water to wash the bite of powerbar down. All right, maybe he needed a little more food. "Got any more of the Bad rations left?"
"What, you don't want to go straight to Worse?"
"I'll stick with Bad as long as it lasts."
"Good call." She sliced a portion of C-ration.
He managed to eat half the serving before he drifted off to sleep again.
He slept and woke, on and off, over the next few days. When J.C. was there, she plied him with more broth and rations, dispensed Tylenol, checked the dressings on his legs, showed him how to drain the cath-bag for himself, gave him wet naps to wipe off the fever sweat. She used ice frozen overnight in Ziplocs to pack his broken leg, attempting to keep the swelling down. When he really did need to get out of bed for his practical personal business, she helped him then, too, carefully half carrying him to the designated spot. The experience was tooth-jarringly unpleasant, and he quickly realized he couldn't have gone anywhere on his own.
During the day, he lay in his little hollow, which was hot enough despite the shade to make him think more fondly of the freezing nights. She helped him shift, using the thinsulate to ease him onto one side or the other, or onto his back, so careful with his healing break.
At night, she lit the little camp fire, warming the hollow slightly, although she explained that she couldn't bring up the flames too much because not only was wood scarce, but they didn't want smoke strong enough to alert the Jaffa patrols. When the fire died down and the desert chill settled around them, she took off her boots and crawled into Daniel's hollow, drawing a second thinsulate blanket over them and spooning to his back for warmth.
He tensed the first time he woke aware of her lying with him. It was strange, but it was also familiar, and he realized she must have done so every night they had been there. As the lingering effects of the fire dissipated further, he found himself snuggling against her, seeking the soft warmth.
Soft indeed. After the catheter was gone and the effects of the morphine left him, his body was only too aware that Jacqueline O'Neill was definitely female.
"Oh for crying out loud," she muttered one night, half awake. "Would you quit squirming around?"
What else could he do? Being that close made things worse, and he was just trying to be polite.
When he didn't say anything, she came fully awake, clicked the light on her P-90 on him. "What's the matter?" Then clicked her tongue, turning the flashlight off. "For goodness sake, Jackson. I'm old enough to feel neither flattery at a morning stiffy, nor mistake it for some kind of come-on. It's," pointedly hitting the backlight switch on her watch to check, "thirty four degrees, and I'm cold. Do I really have to go make my own bed? Or can we continue to ignore your boy parts and get some sleep?"
He wanted to sleep. And she was so damn warm. The attempt at humor helped. Of course, pressing along her back didn't. Not when her neck smelled so very nice. Yes, very nice. He lay awake after realizing that he liked it, trying to identify what it was about that scent which had nothing to do with the gaminess both of them were beginning to exude from weeks curing unwashed in the heat. No, it was something less obvious, an underlying smell that was uniquely her.
He went to sleep with that comforting odor lulling him into deeper sleep.
Every morning, he learned, she geared up and left their niche, going out to see what the Jaffa were up to. Some days, she came back with full canteens or something scavenged.
On their fifteenth day, she came back with packaged supplies. "Jaffa jerky," she guessed at one leathery substance. Sniffing another, "I'm thinking they've never heard of Fruit Roll-Ups."
"How are you getting this?" he had to wonder.
She sighed at that. "Sam partially figured out a doohickey we found, and adapted it to my watch. It, uh, makes me invisible."
"Invisible," he repeated.
"Pretty much, yeah. But before you get to thinking that I sneak around on base and find out who picks their nose in the men's locker when nobody is looking, the battery doesn't last very long, and it takes about a million times longer to recharge than the time you get to use it."
"A million?"
"Close enough. By myself, no equipment, I get about ten minutes per charge. The more weight you add to that, the incrementally less time you have."
He was remembering something, the off color world, being pulled out of the rubble. Screaming. Being told he could scream. "It masks sound, too?" At her nod, "Did you pull me through the rock?"
"Yes. And no, I don't know why we don't sink into the ground. And before you ask, there isn't enough aspirin left for me to try to remember what Sammy told me about how it works. He calls it being out of phase."
"Like the reetou?"
"Yeah. That's all I can tell you. He can explain it when we get back home."
So that explained nothing, and yet everything. Why they still had food, the bits and pieces brought back to their shelter, where she had probably gotten the homespun that hung above them. "What's our plan on getting home?"
Chewing the newly acquired jerky thoughtfully, she said, "Two options. One: wait until the Jaffa lose interest in whatever brought them here and they leave, then gate home. Or two: wait until you're mobile, sneak aboard a Goa'uld ship, and hide until we can disembark on another planet with a more accessible gate."
He ruminated on that for a while. "They could be here for years."
"Or they could pop off in a few days." The point was moot to her, either way, until he was more mobile.
"Any hint at why they're here?" he wondered.
"They haven't really established any kind of base for building, as far as I can tell, or imported any slaves, so I don't think they're re-establishing the old settlement or anything like that. They've just got tents and other temporary shelters."
"You think they might be here for the same reason we are?"
"To find the Grell?" She shook her head. "Unless they're very different in your reality, the Grell despise the Goa'ould. But the Goa'ould could be here to re-supply consumables, water, atmosphere, whatever they need on their mother ships. Or they could be meeting another snake head or an ally. Your guess is as good as mine, Dr. Jackson."
Which left them with nothing but time on their hands.
Time which, as his condition improved, was impossibly, mind-numbingly dull. Daniel didn't even have his laptop, or a book to flip through. He had his field journal, of course, in which he made notes and sketches of his finds, but there was nothing here to write about. He had time to jot out a few theories that had been in the back of his mind for a while, explore some ideas on paper, but there were limits to that without references.
J.C. watching wasn't much entertainment, either. Sometime during every day, she did an annoying number of stomach crunches and push-ups, but for long periods on end, she laid flat on her back and did nothing but toss a rock straight up, from one hand to the other, over and over and over, out of sheer boredom. During the heat of the day, she dozed, as he did, idling the hours away.
Daniel envied the time she spent scouting and hunting.
"I hope Jack is recording the Simpsons for me," she commented one afternoon.
"Wonder what the others are up to, today?" he mused.
"Out saving the galaxy, I'm sure, while you grow a beard, and I turn gray."
He had noticed that her roots were coming in a burnished steel instead of the light red of the rest of it. More the color of the Jack O'Neill he knew. "I'm sure they've contacted our allies trying to find us a ride home."
"Yeah."
"Have you had radio contact since we've been here?"
She shook her head. "If they open a wormhole and try to contact us, that will just make the Jaffa curious. Best just to leave it alone until we can actually do something."
After they had been there three weeks, she was getting increasingly irritable, pacing their space, checking and rechecking supplies and equipment, her barely contained energy indicating she was going as bonkers with boredom as he was.
"Deck of cards?" he wondered at one point.
"In Sammy's pack," she replied curtly.
"I could make some with journal pages."
Which was something to do. No scissors, but with her knife, they made an inelegantly crude deck which were marked enough they both wildly cheated at whatever they played. They talked about TV shows, stumping each other with quotes from pop culture, complained about C-rations, and then missed them as their supply ended and they had to rely more on stolen Jaffa jerky.
And they slept. Healed and slept and waited. Kept cleaning wounds until his left leg was healed up. By the fourth week, his right leg had turned various shades of purple and yellowish green, ironically looking worse to him than it had when it had just been swollen and purple. J.C. assured him that it was healing nicely.
Pointedly, he said, "And you know this because?"
"I am wise in the way of assault and battery, grasshopper."
"I'll take your word for it."
By the fifth week, he was managing to hobble around a little. He tested it daily, thinking about the weight it had to hold so they could get on board a Goa'uld ship.
"Don't push it, Daniel," J.C. warned him.
He said simply, plaintatively, "I want to go home."
"Many plans have been ruined by lack of patience."
"Don't lecture me!" he snapped suddenly. "I'm not a six year old! I don't have to be told everything." He winced at his own tone, immediately sorry. "J.C.—"
She didn't look at him, collecting her P-90 on the way out.
He debated following her, but there was no way he would be able to keep up with that angry stride, and calling after her would just draw down any nearby patrol.
She was only gone an hour, back well before the full heat of the day. As she walked in, he said, right away, "I'm sorry."
A half-hearted grin and she chucked his shoulder. "I'm going nuts too, Jackson. And you can't even get out to take a walk. I'm amazed we've gone so long without biting each other's heads off."
Already forgotten. That was an O'Neill for you. He felt an intense pang of homesickness, the desire to be with his friend, his coworkers, to be involved in his routine. And knew she had to be feeling it just as much.
As they stretched out in their parts of the shade, waiting to doze off for their afternoon siesta, it occurred to him to ask, "You miss your husband?"
"Bernie?"
"Is that his name?"
A little laugh. "He cooked a mean steak. I miss that."
"So do you. That is," he amended, "if you cook anything like Jack."
"That pretty much makes old Bernie redundant, doesn't it?"
"That why you're divorced?"
A sigh. "Bernie. . . wanted things."
"Like what?"
"Look, Jackson, even in my world, girls don't get to play in the boys' sandbox very often. Those that do, we make choices."
"I'm sorry," he apologized for the second time that day. "I don't mean to pry."
"I know. And I'm not sorry about my choices, so don't you be. You think I look back and yearn for children I'll never have, and that makes you a little sad for me. In the meantime, all I'm thinking about is my next steak dinner, and whether I want cake or pie for desert."
He had to laugh at that. The same, yet different, these glimpses letting him see his friend more clearly. "Thanks. Now all I can think about is pie."
Silence. Amenable silence. And then, "Cream or fruit?"
"Peach."
"Mm."
"Hot."
"Hm."
"With a light, flaky crust that just melts in your mouth."
"You're torturing me here, Jackson."
"A la mode."
She threw a stick of Jaffa jerky at him.
Two days later, J.C. didn't come back from her scouting venture within her usual couple hours. Daniel didn't start worrying until nearly noon, when the desert heat would have turned the sands into a broiler. He used a weathered piece of wood as an impromptu cane and limped to the edge of the crevasse, squinting into the sheer sunlight, seeing, of course, nothing.
Seeing nothing and able to do nothing. He didn't even know which direction the gate was, or how far.
Leg throbbing, he lay back down in the shade. He knew better than to go out there in the heat of the day. At dusk, he told himself, he would have to decide what to do. There might be tracks that would give him some clue.
He was struggling with getting his boot on over his still swollen foot when he heard her coming back. Setting the shoe aside, grabbing his stick, he managed to get to his feet by the time she walked into view.
One cheek cut and swollen, J.C. shook her head when he started forward, unbuckling her vest. "Just help me get it off."
He was struck then by the familiar odor of burnt flesh and Kevlar. She had taken a staff blast between shoulder blades. Daniel helped her peel off the sticky, stained vest, tattered shirt, and bra, used his P-90 flashlight to get a closer look. She'd been hit high on her back, the armor taking the brunt of it, but staff fire through Kevlar was still hot enough to bubble skin underneath.
He used the last of their astringent to clean it, applied burn cream and one of the last of their bandages. They were out of oral antibiotics, and Tylenol was the only painkiller they had left.
J.C. didn't offer explanation as she started the fire. She dug out his spare t-shirt because it was a looser fit than her own, peeled some Jaffa jerky and managed a few bites.
He didn't ask what had happened because it wasn't urgent. She wouldn't have come back yet if doing so would have brought the enemy. That just wasn't her way. Anything else could wait until she didn't look so pale.
When she put the half finished jerky back in their supplies and laid down, he joined her, setting his glasses in reach, lying between her and the fire, offering the warmth of his back. She put an arm around his chest, twined legs with his, leaving her back open to the cooler night air, hoping it would numb her wound.
When her hand fisted in his shirt, Daniel could only guess how little the Tylenol was helping. He lay awake, aware when her grip eventually relaxed. Her sleep was fitful, interrupted every time she started to adjust her position, because there was no other way for her to lay without trapping heat in the burn.
Morning found them both stiff from the cold and having lain in the same position for so long.
As they moved around to get joints in working order, Daniel lit up the fire, heating water for coffee. He could see where her wound had wept through bandages, staining the back of the shirt. Also visible in daylight was bruising on her right forearm, darkened smudges where someone had locked her in a vicious grip, and the bruising on her face.
J.C. accepted an offered cup, took a moment to let the steam fill her sinuses. "A guard got the drop on me," she said finally.
He sipped, waiting, watching her over the rim of his mug. Looked at the purpled side of her face, the clotted cut that was going to scar. Felt a sudden urge to strike out at whoever had done it, to hit them back with every ounce of killing strength he had. Irrational, he thought absently, since he could barely walk and the Jaffa was probably already dead.
"Jaffa numbers doubled in size yesterday," she was saying. "Two camps. I decided to risk getting a closer look." Which might have meant more if she understood much more Goa'ould than, Jaffa kree! Tapping her watch, "It gave out on me." She had gotten too used to it working and had taken it for granted. One moment, the world was that off color tint, the next, she had known she was exposed. At least she had some warning before the staff blast had side-swiped her.
"Did they get a good look at you?"
"The dead one did." The sentry's staff fire got the attention of others. She hadn't had a lot of time, and hadn't dared risk using her P-90, which would have even more loudly announced who she was. She had managed to play dead, an easy enough feat after the force sent her sprawling, her tac'vest smoking. Waited for the Jaffa to close, then twisted hips, skin across her back protesting with the stretch, sweeping the back of his knees with her shin to take the legs out from under him. "If I hadn't gotten the watch to work again, the rest would have, too." She wouldn't have had any choice but to cut loose with the gun obscured beneath her, getting into a firefight she couldn't have won alone inside an enemy's perimeter. A whack to the watch on the side of the nearest storage crate, some cursing as the sentry came down on top of her, his elbow armor impacting her cheek, and her view had gone all tinty again.
The only edge she had was getting her k-bar in hand, and the fact that the guard had no close combat weapon at the ready. Staffs were great for shooting and pummeling, but land on somebody inside arm's reach and a staff was suddenly very much in the way. The guy had to lever up his own weight before he could haul back and hit her, and she had enough leverage to wedge an arm into his elbow to keep him down. Blessing Teal'c mentally—back in her own reality—for all the times he had worked out with her, so she knew a bit about the weak places in Jaffa armor. She managed to scrape knife tip blindly up her enemy's side, using the man's own weight to drive it under the carapace just above the waist. Easing it in across surcoat from the side to the front between hip and ribs, worming the blade toward the opening in chainmail for his symbiote pouch. His hand had closed on her forearm in a crushing grip, but the tip had already hit home. His eyes had widened, face twisting with that paralyzing pain of larval Goa'ould blood searing his gut.
"I got lucky with a knife," she told Daniel. I got lucky and he got dead. Lying there in plain sight, phasing time greatly shortened by the weight of the man pinning her as his fellow sentries arrived. Not a lot of time to roll him off, to find her feet. Forget hauling the carcass anywhere. "Shot him with his own staff over the wound." Hopefully, Jaffa didn't have their own CSI team, or bother to look beyond the obvious. "Jaffa are so trusting of each other and all, I'm thinking from the ruckus the others raised that the other camp might have been accused."
"Never hurts to sow a little chaos," Daniel commented.
"There were too many of them stirred up, so I had to go to ground. Found a spot among their storage crates." The body had been a distraction, but caused a doubling of the guard and a search. During the heat of the day, though, the Jaffa had sought shade. "By then,I had to wait for it to cool down a little." When the guard had started stirring again, she had taken her chance with the watch. Sprinting, knowing there was so little time left. Then she had lain in wait, looking back over a sand dune, watching for any search parties.
Her eyes moved to where Daniel had left his boots. "Sorry I took so long."
He wasn't going to apologize for that. "Let that be a lesson to you. I expect you in by curfew, young lady."
A snort. No point in chewing him out for even considering coming after her—there were limits to the kind of orders you could give a man. Besides, hobbling around on that leg would have been its own reward. "Think I finally figured out why they're here: some kind of Goa'uld swap meet. You could probably tell who is who, but all I could tell is they've set up ranges for live weapons demos."
"What are they demonstrating?"
"Some kind of canon. Luckily, pointed the other way."
"Maybe that's what they were waiting for."
"Yeah." She picked up a piece of Jaffa jerky, sighed, finally took a bite. Chewing was long, hard labor this morning.
After breakfast, she bared her back to let him change out dressings. Turned the shirt around backwards to put a cleaner spot over fresh bandages. Neither of them wanted to spare water for washing clothes; that much would have to do for now. J.C. counted out the remaining tabs of Tylenol, took two, and then spread out her thinsulate on a flat part of sand and stretched out on her belly.
Daniel cleaned out their cups and settled in to play solitaire with his flimsy paper cards.
J.C. had just managed to doze off when their mid-morning peace was abruptly broken by the distant crack of weapon fire. The pair went still, ears straining for signs that the weapons were pointed their direction. The rumbling and booming continued throughout the morning, but nothing hit their way.
"Nice," Daniel commented.
"Kinda like thunder." Hammond would want to send some munitions specialists to take a look at the results, too, if the Jaffa ever left.
"We could pretend it's rain."
"I'm game if you are."
He offered her a smile.
She started to return it, winced at the pull in her cheek.
The weapons fire ended before the heat of the day, then resumed the next morning for a few more hours. J.C. laid low throughout that day and the next. Her skin looked slightly improved when Daniel changed dressings again. At least, he thought, they still had burn cream, and if they didn't have oral or injectible antibiotics, there was some in the ointment itself.
There was no canon fire the third morning. They could only guess that the demonstration might be over.
Wordlessly, J.C. slid on Daniel's Kevlar vest. Customized to his fit, it was heavier than she was used to, and it obviously chaffed and rubbed across her back.
"We have water for another day," he said as he helped adjust straps. "You're the one that said impatience leads plans astray. Wait until tomorrow."
To his surprise, she removed the vest and stayed.
She didn't ask him to, but he rationed water, keeping half of what was left in reserve. Just in case.
He felt her shivering at his back that night, felt the fever heat that followed. She slept the next day, making no move to go out. Silently regretting that she hadn't gone before the fever weakened her.
The next morning, despite the fact that the vest didn't feel any better pressing on the burn, J.C. geared up and went scouting. Came back pale and exhausted with refilled canteens.
At least, Daniel thought that night, her fever seemed to abate.
Two more days, and she had to gear up again.
And just as suddenly as they had arrived, with no apparent rhyme or reason, the Jaffa were gone. Just like that. No sign left of them except their buried campfires, buried lines of latrines, and the scorch marks left by their weapons.
Back at camp, as night fell, a worn looking J.C. offered Daniel a hand up. "Let's go home."
"What time is it," he wondered as he dialed the gate, "back home?"
Consulting her infamous watch, she said, "Two in the morning. I'd say the gate deck will probably be clear."
Back at SGC, the klaxon blared. The night sergeant started upright, took a moment to register that yes, the gate was activated, before he made the announcement, checking contact telemetry.
"This is Sierra Gulf one-zed one-niner," came J.C.'s voice over the radio. "Come in, Sierra Gulf Cappuccino."
"Copy that, Sierra Gulf one-zero one-niner," he radioed back. "Stand by." Confirming IDC, he made a phone call, then patched the sleepy general through to the radio contact. "Sierra Gulf one zero one niner, go ahead."
J.C. popped off. "Somebody ask for a wake up call?"
Instantly alert, Hammond said, "What's your status, 101?"
"We'll take a table for two. I heard Janet makes a nice glass of ice tea."
Jackspeak. Hammond knew better than to expect standard communications. But the message was understood, that the pair of them weren't incoming hot, and if they both needed medical attention, she was feeling up to tweaking him a little bit. It was so good to hear from them at all, he heard himself returning, "I'll wake up the barrista and see if we can find you a table."
"Copy that, boss."
Hammond gave the order for the sergeant to open the iris and get a medical team. "Yes, sir," said the duty sergeant. "SG-101, you are good to come home."
"Amen." J.C. threw packs through first, and then went back to get under Daniel's arm, helping him hobble the last few steps.
It wasn't Frasier who met them in the gate room, but the doctor must have left instructions to be called because she arrived after showers were taken and the on-duty medic had gotten them into hospital gowns and beds, preliminary work done.
Daniel's leg was going to need corrective surgery, which Frasier scheduled at the Air Force Academy Hospital for the next morning. J.C. on the other hand, she took one look at and sent straight in to the operating room. The vest, the weight of the packs, bearing Daniel's weight had all served to rub the burn the wrong way, in addition to the infection that still raged in the weeping wound. The doctor told her, "Two words: skin graft."
"Goody," J.C. said tiredly. "Something new."
"You don't," Janet pointed out dryly, "have to try everything."
Still living on base, Teal'c was Daniel's first in a long line of visitors. Word spread, of course, and base members dropped in as they came on duty. Even the cook stopped by, asking if Daniel wanted anything special for breakfast. Dani landed like a meteorite on him, hugging him fiercely. "You!" she punched his shoulder. "What the hell, a hole?!"
"Ow!" He rubbed the spot her fist had found. "I didn't do it on purpose."
The grapevine was in good working order, because visitors drifted back through when J.C.'s bed returned to the slot next to Jackson's for post-op recovery.
With her sprawled out asleep on her belly, the lighting was not kind to the mark on her face. Daniel looked over at the healing scar, realized he was less angry about it. A little. Maybe. When her eyes cracked open, he gave her a smile. She made a tired thumbs up gesture.
When he dropped in, Jack said, "I saved the Simpsons for you."
J.C. made a victory fist. "You. Are. A god."
"And I drank all your Guinness."
"You bastard."
The visitor she was dreading most showed up mid-morning. Just her luck it was after Jackson had been shipped out, leaving her to face the music alone. "General."
"At ease, Colonel," Hammond said when she started to push herself up. Not that any O'Neill was in the habit of leaping to attention in his presence.
"Sir." She eased herself back down onto the bed.
He cut right to the chase. "I understand why you did what you did."
"Sir—"
"We'll discuss it when you're better, Colonel. For now, I want you to know, it goes a long way with me that you used it to bring one of my people home."
The tension drained from her. It was one thing to get an ass chewing, another when Hammond resorted to such devious tactics as compassion, or forgiveness. Ruthless bastard. That had definitely sounded something like forgiveness. Must be the stuff Janet was feeding her for the pain that made her mouth gum up. "Thank you, sir."
"Get some rest. I'll expect a full report on my desk by the end of tomorrow."
"I'll get right on that."
He paused in the doorway to look back. J.C. was already asleep.
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