Letting Go Chapter 14
Help and Hopelessness – Episode Tag - Revanna
Jacob crouched down in the lee of a sheltering tree, pulling at his robes and hoping the new day would bring with it some heat, at least enough to dry his sodden clothes. He raised his eyes to the clear sky, empty of gliders, tel'tacs, or motherships. Maybe the day would bring something he and this sad band of soldiers needed a whole lot more – some hope. Since the decisions made the night before, since Jack and Sam reported that the Jaffa had taken the bait in the form of a fatally injured young airman and they'd slipped into silence, Jacob had watched as the team he'd come to regard as an extension of his family had broken apart.
At least Elliot had been right. According to the colonel, the Jaffa had fallen on him hungrily, Zipacna's First Prime openly relieved to find the wounded Tok'ra, and determined to remove him to the Goa'uld's ship as quickly – and as gently - as his injuries allowed. After a cursory sweep of the surrounding area, the entire phalanx had moved off, and SG-1 had settled in to wait.
The night had been cold and wet and soundless, each individual wrapped up within his or her own thoughts, alternately sitting hunched beneath a broad-leaved tree, eyes closed in the semblance of sleep, or stalking restlessly around the perimeter, searching the darkness for threats – for answers – for any comfort from the images of the airman's sacrifice that filled their minds' eyes.
The dawn had been fitful; clouds pulled to tatters by a harsh wind, the sun red and bloated as it crawled up over the horizon, the trees all around them stripped of leaf and bark and showering the last of their moisture over the sullen group.
Jack O'Neill stood at the edge of their meager clearing, eyes and thoughts shielded by his sunglasses, fingers flipping the cover of his watch on and off, on and off. Sam had gone out just a few minutes earlier to scan the area, leaving Teal'c, clearly annoyed that his customary responsibility had been shifted to her shoulders, staring into the brush accusingly. Neither Jacob nor Teal'c could risk moving out until they knew where Elliot and the poison canister were located. They couldn't risk their symbiotes. Jacob shook his head in dark amusement.
'Are you well, Jacob?'
Selmac had slowly regained strength as the night wore on, greeting the morning as alert and present as he had ever been, and Jacob had reveled in his returned ease of movement, in his clear head and healed ribs.
'As well as can be expected, my friend,' Jacob replied, opening his thoughts and emotions to his symbiote completely, still amazed that his blending had changed him on such a fundamental level. He let his physical eyes close and lost himself, for the moment, in the unconditional friendship and acceptance that now stood at the heart of his life.
His and Selmac's thoughts and fears twined and merged, his concern for the symbiote's healing becoming one with Selmac's worry about Jacob's health. And then both minds turned towards the shattered team around them.
'There is much regret here, Jacob. Regret and guilt.'
Jacob sighed. 'Yeah, I know.'
'I have observed that, many times, these emotions are manifested in humans as anger or bitterness.'
Chuckling to himself, Jacob agreed. 'I guess you'd have some pretty good first-hand experience with that from me, huh, Selmac?'
Selmac's laughter felt like a warm blanket around his soul. 'You have come far since we first met.'
'Yeah, well, considering that a lot of your understanding of the Tau'ri has come from my warped brain, you're pretty damn smart yourself.'
Movement around him lifted Jacob from his inward focus. Sam was back. He stood and moved towards her, the group coming together in an awkward, off-balance huddle.
"No sign of them for miles, sir," she reported, taking off her cap and shaking one hand through her short hair. "The tracks lead in a fairly straight line in the direction of the Stargate."
The bruise-colored shadows beneath her eyes, the formal tone of her voice, the tension in her shoulders – it all told Jacob that his daughter was hurting. They hadn't talked much, yet, about what went on in the tunnels, how Lantash had come to take Lt. Elliot, what the symbiote and Sam had shared. Selmac grieved for an old friend, and Jacob grieved for his daughter's reminder of loss.
"Okay, here's the plan," Jack began, fingers stabbing the air. "Teal'c, you and Daniel head back to the transmitter with Jacob. We don't know what kind of range that poison has." He turned towards Jacob. "Do we?"
"Well, we've never tested it in the –"
"Yeah, we figured," Jack cut him off.
Jacob lifted his eyebrows, staring. "You gonna let me finish?" It would take more than a snarky colonel to get to him.
Jack quirked a wry half-grin and made 'give it to me' motions with one hand.
"We've never tested the poison in the field, but Ren'Al theorized that it a small quantity – like what's in the canister – would spread out for about ten miles around any 'gate we targeted. It dissipates fast – real fast – she told me an invasion force could proceed through an effected 'gate within thirty minutes."
"Nice," Jack drawled. "So Carter and I will trail the Jaffa and keep in radio contact. You three can follow along at a safe distance once we've cleared, say, fifteen miles, just to be sure. Check in every 30 minutes."
Jacob nodded. It was a sound plan, even if Teal'c was likely to chafe under the restraints. Daniel stood back a step from the group, arms wrapped around the jacket Teal'c had forced him to accept during the long night. The archaeologist's gaze was darting from one face to the other and then quickly away, and the Tok'ra narrowed his eyes, seeing how Daniel's teammates' gazes never quite met his anxious stare. Another twist worried at his gut.
"Okay – let's move out."
"Wait – I should go with you and Sam, Jack."
Daniel's voice was quiet but firm and Jacob held his breath in anticipation. An argument between these two stubborn men would be a return to normalcy, wouldn't it? At least someone would be talking.
O'Neill turned away, pulling on a set of fingerless gloves. "No, Daniel-"
"Jack, you might need someone to translate Goa'uld and Teal'c certainly can't go."
"We'll radio if we have a problem." Jack still wouldn't turn around. Jacob – and Selmac within him – tensed at the deliberate rebuff. "Carter – move out."
"We shall await your word, O'Neill," Teal'c rumbled, an edge of frustration clear in his tone and on his scowling face.
Beside him, Daniel just wrapped his arms tighter around his chest and dropped his chin, missing Sam's fleeting concerned gaze. Jacob offered her a tight smile.
The watery Revanna sun did its best to warm the drenched earth, the steady wind whipping their clothes against their bodies as the three moved towards their goal. Teal'c strode powerfully ahead, one hand clasped tightly to his staff weapon, the muscles in his back jumping with tension. Jacob began to slow his steps, Daniel, at his side, unconsciously matching him step for step, until there was a good distance between them and the focused Jaffa. Selmac watched quietly within him, as eager as Jacob to begin a healing process within these people, and, especially, within the young man beside him.
"What did you think you were doing, Daniel?"
Blue eyes blinked at him, bloodshot and dry-looking, a crease deepening between the eloquent brows. "What?"
Jacob jerked his chin to the side. "Last night. You were going to volunteer to be taken prisoner by the Goa'uld. I didn't think you'd be in such a hurry to reprise your role of assassin."
Daniel closed his mouth sharply and looked away.
Leaning in, Jacob let his voice drop to a whisper. "I know, Danny. I understand."
The archaeologist walked faster. "Jacob-"
"You don't have to be a hero, Daniel," he insisted, one hand reaching out to stop the young man's determined pace. "You have nothing to prove, here."
"No?"
The bitterness of that single syllable was chilling. Daniel turned to face him, the uncertainty in his bearing and the defeat in his slumped shoulders ramping up Jacob's worry.
"No. Not to me and not to them."
A heart-breaking laugh slipped from his lips. "You're wrong, Jacob. Unbelievably wrong." He stabbed one finger in the general direction of the Stargate. "From the moment Ren'Al set foot in the SGC, from the second this mission began," his voice was raw, wounded, "in every ill-conceived thought and stupid assumption I made about myself, about what I should do, what I could do-" he broke off abruptly, shaking his head. "I've failed at every turn."
"Daniel-"
"No – listen to me, Jacob." Anger fought with despair in the narrowed eyes. "Listen – for once."
He stilled beneath the archaeologist's suppressed wildness, the desperate hold he kept around himself – both physically and mentally, Selmac's inner voice urging him to be patient, to hear Daniel out.
"I've always been the weak link in this chain, Jacob. I know that," Daniel spat, "everyone knows that. And I could have just followed orders this time, focused on the goal like you all told me I should. But I didn't. And now Elliot and SG-17 are dead, the Tok'ra are dead, the System Lords have joined in an alliance, and Sarah's still a prisoner." The smile that began to grow was brittle and loathsome. "Proving myself, proving to Jack and Sam and the general that I can still contribute, that I can handle the hard missions and make the tough decisions, now," he shook his head again, "after all this? I don't know if … It's hard enough to …" He broke off, jaw clenching.
Jacob scrambled for a response, searching his mind, straining for Selmac's wisdom. 'I am sorry, Jacob,' Selmac submitted sadly, 'but it is not the others that Daniel Jackson must convince of his own worth. There are no words that will shore up this man's self-belief. Not right now.'
A sense of foreboding horror gripped him, the fear that, this time, the failure of a mission could lead to a greater, more profound failure than any one of them could have foreseen.
"Is there something wrong, Daniel Jackson?"
Teal'c's question cut the thick aura of dread surrounding them and Daniel's hands dropped to his sides.
"No. Nothing."
"Very well. We must continue our journey."
Jacob heard the Jaffa move off, never taking his eyes from the wounded man at his side.
Daniel looked away, eyes searching the horizon as if for strength. "One more thing, Jacob," he said after a moment, speaking to the wind.
"Whatever I can do, Daniel."
The smile had nearly reached his eyes when Daniel turned back. "They already know I screwed up, Jacob, so, if you could just forget about the injuries you and Selmac healed, well, at least they'd have one less thing to … fuss over."
Selmac restless within him, Jacob pressed his lips together, anxious to refuse. "I don't want to do that, Daniel."
"I know."
The archaeologist didn't wait for another answer, just headed off, following the trail left by his teammate. Jacob watched his determined back recede.
'What the hell, Selmac,' he whispered, soundlessly.
'To choose one of your own phrases, my friend,' Selmac answered, 'this is not good.'
"No," Jacob spoke aloud. "No, it isn't."
Compromised – Episode Tag - SGC
The spit of exhaust clouded the control room window for a moment as the small drone launched straight for the shimmering blue pool. Every eye followed it, rapt, as if by the SF's and techs' sheer intensity they could breach the distance to Revanna and find their missing teams.
It was that intensity, and the hushed, expectant atmosphere in the mountain that illustrated how SG-1 and its individual members sat at the very heart and soul of this command. Hammond couldn't acknowledge it – barely allowed himself to give the idea any freedom within his own mind – but it was an uncomfortable truth nonetheless.
Hammond shifted his gaze to the screen, fingers tapping impatiently against the seam of his trousers. The five second time lag between the reconnaissance vehicle's exit from the wormhole and receiving its telemetry had never seemed longer. For the last few hours, all of the major general's doubts – every decision, every move he'd made and order he'd given since the Tok'ra's appearance had been taken out, reexamined, and inspected with unrelenting scrutiny. Now, he forced his anxiety to the background, refusing to believe the worst. He'd spent the past hour reminding himself of SG-1's miraculous track record, instead.
"Transmission coming through now, sir. Be advised, it's still night on Revanna, it might be hard to make out details."
Static – snow – fuzzy images congealed and coalesced from the drone's cameras, resolving into dark mounds, figures, reflections from metal, swift movement.
"Bringing up infrared and night vision, sir."
The shapes and patterns suddenly made sense.
"Holy …" A strained whisper at Hammond's back was the only sound.
He flinched when the line of flame from a staff weapon engulfed the UAV, when its readouts fell abruptly to zero. The wormhole dissipated and the iris engaged before he could take a breath.
"Well, I suppose we have our answer," Hammond muttered. Goa'uld. Hundreds of Jaffa. Ships. All entrenched around the Stargate. "Get me a copy of what little we could see, Sergeant, and call in Ferretti and Reynolds – I want SGs 2 and 3 on base and their leaders in the briefing room in one hour."
"Sir?"
Harriman had turned concerned eyes his way, begging the question. What could they possibly do against a Goa'uld invasion force of that size?
Hammond rose and strode for the steps, his office, and the red phone, the worry he'd denied himself erupting within him. He'd greet the president and the joint chiefs with no answers, only questions this time. A far cry from the enthusiastic optimism of a few days ago when they'd all considered the possibility of a galaxy free of the Goa'uld System Lords. He threw himself into his chair and stared at the silent, brooding telephone at his left hand.
'The worst.' It was a laughably poor description of what he'd just seen. The Goa'uld had found the Tok'ra, had invaded their secret base just four days after Daniel Jackson had been sent as a spy among them. There was only one conclusion to draw.
Hammond clenched both hands into fists and slammed them both onto his desk. A moment later he raised the phone to his ear. "Get me the president."
Fighting Their Way Back – Episode Tag – Revanna
They jogged – they walked – trading off point and rear positions, angling away from each other and then moving back to cross paths. The Jaffa weren't exactly trying to hide their trail, and it had been nearly eight hours with still no sign of any rearguard. If the Jaffa had marched all night, Elliot could have reached the Stargate and released the poison hours ago. Or he could have died on route. Or the First Prime could have taken the poison and this whole chase through the forest, sneaking up on Jaffa while avoiding glowing clouds of death was just a cat and mouse game that the Goa'uld was playing – probably chuckling up his over-designed, sequined sleeve right now from his snake's eye view up in his mothership. Colonel Positive, that was him, he snorted. The sense of hovering dread that had been with Jack since, well, since Ren'Al made her appearance at the SGC and he had his first little pow-wow with General Hammond just wouldn't let go, even though, it looked like, maybe, they might just, possibly, maybe, have a slim chance, perhaps, a niggling little hope – and every other equivocation he could think of - of getting out of this mess alive.
He imagined climbing dead piles of ugly snake-heads and their Jaffa buddies to get to the Stargate. Yeah. Now that was an image he could get behind. He crouched and wiped the sweat from his forehead, clicking his radio twice to bring Carter up to his position. His breath was too short, his knees too stiff, his back too – aw, crap, he was definitely too old for this.
He reached for his canteen. Light. Nearly empty. They'd only refilled once since they'd begun this little jaunt at dawn. Jack twisted his lips to the side and groaned, settling the tempting moisture back firmly on his hip. Suck it up, flyboy, he told himself, suck it up.
A few minutes later Carter was at his side, breathing too damned easy for her own good.
"Sir?"
Jack squinted into the clear sky. "How far have we come, Major?"
"Approximately thirty-two klicks, sir, twenty miles or so."
Yeah, that last ridge had slowed them up. Slowed him up. Jack was sure that Carter was humoring him. "And no sign of Jaffa."
She rubbed her red nose on one sleeve. "None whatsoever, Colonel. Do you think …?"
Jack shifted, leaning heavily against a sturdy trunk at his back. "I'm trying not to think too much right now, Carter, that way, I'm always surprised," he intoned bitterly. Two twenty-five mile hikes in as many days – yep, he was having fun, now. "Hell, at least it isn't raining," he muttered.
Sifting the heavy sand through his fingers, he looked up at the red Revanna sun. Teal'c, Jacob, and Daniel were behind them by about four hours, keeping a careful distance. He glanced sideways beneath his sunglasses at Carter's closed-off expression. Yep. Sometimes that distance was all that kept them sane – he'd figured that out a long time ago. Carter needed it. Teal'c, too – he'd read it in the deep furrows of his scowl. And Jack, well, he couldn't do his usual faintly-friendly-sarcastic dance right now, not in the face of Elliot's death and a living, breathing Daniel back as if he'd never left.
All that deep thinking about loss and friendship and blame under the crumbling roof of the Tok'ra tunnels, promises made to himself – they'd shrunk back to a safe distance, too. He swept his sunglasses down to rest against his chest and pinched the bridge of his nose to combat the thumping behind his eyes.
"O'Neill."
Jack shook free of the clinging sense of unease that threatened to swamp him. He grabbed his radio. "Teal'c, come in."
"Jacob Carter has received a transmission from a remnant of the Tok'ra that escaped the bombardment."
Yeah, that figured. Just in time to be rescued. "Well, unless they've got a hold of some fancy weaponry, tell them to stay put until we find out what's going on at the 'gate."
"You do not understand, O'Neill. These Tok'ra are already at the Stargate. They report that the area has been secured."
"What?" Jack eyed his 2IC's startled face suspiciously. The Tok'ra managed to secure the 'gate?
A whisper of voices sounded through the radio and Jack rolled his eyes.
"Teal'c – Jacob – anybody - care to explain?"
"Jack, the poison worked." Jacob's voice. "The few Tok'ra stragglers moved in about an hour ago - they've been, well, mopping things up, if you get my drift."
Mopping up. Translation - slitting any remaining Jaffa throats and making sure to gather up all good stuff that was lying around. "Copy that." He hesitated, a curl of grief in his belly. "Make sure they keep an eye out for Elliot." Carter looked away.
"We have informed them, O'Neill."
Jack stretched his legs out in front of him, left hand rubbing futilely at his aching knee. Looked like it was all over but the shouting. He leaned his head back against the tree behind him and blinked into the feeble sunlight. Funny, his gut didn't seem to think so.
oOo
Teal'c signed off and released his hold on his radio, hefting his staff weapon in his hand. Daniel blinked sandpaper eyes, watching curiously as his teammate's large figure seemed to recede into the distance and then snap towards him again, closer than ever. He clutched tightly to the lonely sapling at his side, his gaze skittering towards the uneven horizon which dipped and swayed like a drunken man. No wonder he was having trouble staying on his feet.
When the faint chirping had started a few minutes ago, he'd searched the sky and the few, scraggly trees around him for birds. When it happened again, he'd frowned and staggered, certain the pouch at his side hadn't come equipped with two turtle-doves. It was Jacob who'd grabbed at him, happily steadying him as he'd groped within the pouch for the forgotten Tok'ra communicator.
Oh. Right.
Daniel's stomach roiled, empty, but threatening to erupt bile all over the sandy earth. A memory nagged at him of shaking hands and a pale, lo'taur's face reflected in the polished steel of a mirror on board the space station. 'Every ten hours,' Jacob's voice repeated in his mind, 'or you'll crash pretty hard.'
Hot, frenzied fingers stabbed at the empty pouch, searching desperately as Teal'c turned to resume his journey. The stimulants. He needed another one. Just one – just one more and he'd be able to make it to the 'gate on his own two feet. An image of himself draped over Teal'c's broad shoulder as the team staggered down the ramp at the SGC widened his eyes and he renewed his search. No. Anything but that.
Relief chilled the sweat that stood out on his skin when his fingers slipped over the slick sides of one remaining capsule. Yes. He opened his palm and tried to focus his foggy vision on the blue pill. Something nibbled at the back of his mind, Jacob, placing the pill carefully in his hand, his expression grim. Daniel brushed the memory away as he brought his hand to his lips.
Fingernails dug into his skin, drawing blood.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jacob hissed into his face, eyes filled with fear.
"What? I need … it's my last one …" he stuttered as the Tok'ra grabbed the pill from his hand and threw it to the ground, grinding it to a powdery mess under his boot. "Hey!"
Jacob closed his eyes and drew one hand flat over his bald skull and Daniel realized that he was trembling. "Jacob? I just don't want to crash before we make it back – please?" Were all over-the-hill military officers such damned mother hens?
A moment later, Jacob dropped a tiny yellow pill into Daniel's hand, his face still too pale, his hands lingering a little too long. "Here, Danny. Try this one," he urged softly, almost gently.
Daniel sighed. "Thanks, Jacob."
The Tok'ra's arm slipped around his shoulders in an awkward half-hug. "It's okay, Daniel," Jacob whispered. "Just … stay close, okay?"
"Okay," Daniel agreed distractedly as he welcomed the familiar metallic taste at the back of his tongue. "Okay." He closed his eyes and let the older man lead him. Just for a minute.