Back from my trip. I went to Montreal actually, which was interesting. All the road signs were in French, lots of stuff was in French… I really don't speak any at all. Took a cab to the factory I was going to – there were two in town belonging to my company – and the driver took me to the wrong one. Ever try to have a conversation with someone who doesn't speak your language – at all? VERY interesting. Lots of hand waving, gestures, and tone of voice to communicate – and frustration on both sides. Of course, we both laughed about it when we finally got to where we needed to be. Guess I'm not much cut out for first contact… we'll leave that to the pro's.

And speaking of which…


It wasn't Daniel's fault, not really.

All things considered, he was being very quiet. And so was I.

But you can't only manage to be so quiet when your teeth can't stop chattering and when no matter how hard you try, you can't quite get your breath to stop shuddering because of the cold.

Survival shelters aren't known for keeping you comfortable – they're to keep you alive. You can be pretty freakin' miserable and still live.

Although now I'm not so sure what our outcome's gonna be.

The footsteps stopped very close to our location.

Go Away, go away… goawaygoawaygoaway… I kept repeating to myself silently, sitting there in the snow, my sidearm at the ready, balancing Daniel against me with my free arm.

I'm not surprised we attracted attention. Now we just have to hope the thing goes away.

I'm worried for Daniel's condition, but I think he'll be OK in the long run – as long as he doesn't get hurt again. That's the bigger issue. He has a concussion, that much is obvious, but it's hard to tell the cause of his continuing symptoms. He's sleepy, and pretty groggy when he wakes up. The few times he's stayed awake for more than a few minutes, he's been basically coherent though, which is a good thing. Some of this could be hypothermia, I think once I get him warmed up, he'll be more alert.

The problem is he's pretty dizzy, and that must be a symptom of the head injury. I've had to be very careful dragging him around – the couple times I got him upright weren't pretty. And I don't think he'll be running anytime soon.

Still silent upstairs.

Daniel is still – except for the trembling from the cold – he hasn't made a move to sit up. He's leaning heavily against me, his head tipped back on my shoulder. It's unusual for him to say he's anything but "fine", so I'm surprised he's not fussing about my handling of him. Glancing toward him, I see he's looking up toward ground level, but he's at half mast at best, blinking slowly. His breathing, which the filtered moonlight barely picks out as a fog hovering in front of his face, is slowing down again too.

Damn it.

I don't want to startle him – he sometimes startles badly and oftentimes startles… less than quietly– but I don't want him going back to sleep either.

crunch

Damn it.

I pull Daniel tighter against me, feeling him shaking against me through our too thin jackets. Hell, I'm doing the same. Hopefully if I have to get up, I can pull him up with me this way. I had thought he was only partly with me, but he's weakly bracing his feet against the floor, his hands finding their way to my arm across his chest, gripping it lightly.

Good boy.

crunch

I hope to god the thing is passing us by.

I saw the things that dragged Daniel off in the first place, and let me tell you, I don't want to get dragged off by them myself. And Daniel really can't take another hit from these monsters, he's still looped from the last round.

What we need is for the damn sun to come up, the way back to the gate to be obvious, and to blow this popsicle stand.

But I just don't think it's gonna go down that way.

crunch

DAMN it!

I take aim, steadying my upper arm against Daniel's shoulder. He finally shifts, barely, silently, turning his face away from my gun arm and tucking in to the crook of his elbow, toward my opposite shoulder.

I think it says a lot that Daniel's not questioning the gun. But I'll think about that later.

crunch

The boughs at the top of our shelter shift.

I would love to say I calmly assess the situation before blowing the thing's head off, that I'm an ask questions first, shoot later kind of guy. One that would do Daniel proud.

But for Daniel to be proud of me, he's gotta be alive and breathing.

It only takes me a split second to see that whatever is looking down our hidey-hole, it isn't Carter or Teal'c.

So I fire.

Daniel and I both jump when the gun makes dull popping sound rather than firing, his head snapping up from my shoulder in a move it's easy to tell he regrets as one of the hands that was holding my arm flails a bit as if to get his balance.

My eyes flash for an instant to the weapon.

It's a goddamn squib round, and there's nothing I can do with it right now. Firing a second time would be a bad thing.

I swear to god if that bullet was in the clip backwards, heads are gonna roll.

Looking back to the enemy just as quickly as I'd looked away in shock, staring wide eyed, shivering, clutching Daniel against me, I realize this is kinda a low point. I don't have enough room to maneuver, I can't reach the second Berretta because I'm pinned down by Daniel.

But it was that or freeze, so, six of one…

I, or we rather, are pretty much at this thing's mercy...

But it isn't making a move. It's just watching.

And I'm still pointing the gun at its head.


Oh the suspense! I'm pretty happy with this little chapter, I had more, but thought this was good, hopefully suspenseful, stopping point. I had to do more research to even understand how a Beretta even fires, never mind misfires, so any mistakes in the description are mine. Let me know what you think. : )