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There's no way this thing is taking Daniel.
No freakin' way.
I stand in front of him, my knife at the ready. Pretty pathetic when you think about it, but it's what I have and I'll damn well use it.
Whoever...whatever this thing is, its moving slowly, but its moving damn it, and whatever its motive, I want it away.
"I swear to god you had best back off" I say, in the deadliest voice I can muster through my chattering teeth.
I can hear Daniel behind me, can feel him shuddering at my back. His breathing sounds awful, and he sure don't feel so steady. I try to push him against the wall a bit more, to keep him upright and out of this thing's reach.
It's so gonna have to go through me first.
But Daniel's no lightweight, and I can tell he's going down. I can feel him sliding toward the ground.
Crap.
Crap, crap, crap!
Daniel's buckling, I'm having trouble balancing the two of us with the boughs on the floor sliding beneath us, the thing, this goon, whatever it is, is still moving slowly in our direction.
One of Daniel's shoulders hits my back as he slips free of my hold, and stupidly, I glance in his direction.
As soon as I turn my head, my knife is knocked away, and I'm shoved aside, hitting the opposite snow wall, the area being too small for me to actually hit the ground. Some snow comes loose and trickles down my collar.
"NO!" I shout, whipping my head back around to see that its down here, I didn't even hear it move.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" I shout again, and I know I'm pretty excitable, I know the cold and stress is getting to me. I lunge at it, grabbing one of its huge arms.
Only to see it isn't doing anything to Daniel at all.
Its holding Daniel, caught him, before he hit the floor.
---
There are some things you never expect to happen in life.
Some of those things – you know can happen, you just don't expect them to happen to you.
For example, the death of your child. Always a distant possibility, but not usually seen as something to expect.
You may even classify "going into outer space" in the "not likely" category – and "stepping foot on alien planet" even further out than that, but strangely still minimally plausible….
Coming back from the dead… well, same thing, believe it or not.
If I try, really hard, I can see the threads of possibility, as slight as they may be, for all kinds of strange events I've seen so far in my life.
But honestly. Honestly? I never would have expected to share a cup of tea with a Neanderthal. Never in a million freakin' years.
I only wish Daniel were conscious to see it.
---
It had caught him, back in that emergency shelter - which sucked by the way. I'll have to send in my notes on that one – what not to use on an alien planet where freakin' Neanderthals either have perfect hearing or a sixth sense.
It had caught Daniel before he hit the ground, turning to look at me while I yelled and pulled, and tried my damnedest to get the thing to let Danny go.
But it wasn't threatening, and the look in its eyes, now that I could finally see them, was calm, intelligent.
Not what I was expecting.
I reluctantly let it go, seeing as how I couldn't do anything to it anyway, unarmed and shivering.
And when it took off the huge fur…thing… it was wearing, and bundled it around Daniel, who was hanging limply over its arm, then carefully thread its other arm beneath Danny's knees, it didn't seem as threatening. It seemed almost… caring.
It looked at me again, grunted and nodded its head up toward the outside.
I didn't really have a choice, and hell, at least it was letting me follow.
And now we're here. And yes, as in here, I mean we are in a cave.
Daniel is still bundled near the fire, finally showing some color back in his face. I'm near the fire too, with another skin across my shoulders, sipping some kind of bark tea from a small clay vessel.
Oh boy.
I look to the caveman, I take a deep breath.
"Jack," I say, pointing to myself.
He merely cocked his head and looked at me.
Crap. I roll my eyes, I can't help it.
I've seen Daniel do this enough times, how hard could it be?
"Jack," I say again, repeating the gesture, then pointing at him.
Still nothing.
I point to Daniel. "Daniel," I say.
Then back to myself. "Jack."
And gesture toward the caveman.
"Oog," he says.
Not sure if that's his name, not sure if he gets what I'm doing at all, but hell, I'm gonna go with it.
"Oog," I repeat, gesturing toward him again.
"Thank you." I say.
And we pass more time in silence, me, waiting for Daniel to come to, and Oog, waiting for… whatever it is he's waiting for.
I so have no idea what we're going to do now.
So... a minor role reversal. Wonder how much Jack has learned about first contact? Wonder how long it'll be before Daniel gets his wits about him? And geez, what the heck happened to Carter and Teal'c... hmmm...