There didn't seem to be many nighttime visitors to this archaeological dig. Not if the commotion their arrival stirred up was an indication.
Grace was still gasping for air as they came into the camp, and Nicole wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse.
"We need a doctor!" Trevor's voice was authoritative, but there was a note of panic that Nicole picked up on. One that hadn't been there when they first arrived.
A tall, white man with a cream colored hat walked out of a tent on the perimeter. His bushy white mustache twitched as he caught sight of Grace. "What's wrong with her, my boy?"
"Scorpion sting." Jacob held his hat in one hand, having caught it as they ran.
"Bring her in here." The professor turned back to his tent where a young girl peeked out. "Catherine, get the lamp. Abdul, fetch the doctor."
One of the men by the tent raced in the opposite direction as Nicole, Jacob, and Trevor walked Grace into the tent.
The little girl they'd seen earlier had raised a lamp so they could see their way past the desk and workspace and back to where a couple of cots lay set up.
The professor stole a look at them, and Nicole read the skepticism on his face. "What brings you four out here at this time of night?"
Jacob was the first to answer from their party. "Would you believe we got lost?"
Nicole groaned. It was the kind of flippant answer her mother would have given if she was stalling for time. The kind of thing Jacob's father would have said if he was trying to make light of their predicament.
In either case, there wasn't a situation in which words like would you believe we got lost would be even remotely believable.
Nicole offered the man a sheepish smile as she splayed her hands in submission. "You caught us, Professor. We heard about the dig, and we wanted to see it for ourselves."
Both Trevor and Jacob shot looks to her that seemed to tell her to be quiet. If they thought she was going to bow to patriarchal pressure and silence herself, they had another thing coming. These guys didn't have the first clue about what it took to go undercover.
The professor eyed Nicole with interest. "You heard about the dig? From whom?"
She gestured to the tent. "You have a pretty big operation here to wonder who we could have heard. You've been here, what? Six months?"
"Eight, actually." The professor turned to Trevor. "You said this young lady had a scorpion sting. I presume the site of the sting is the same as where her hand is swelling?"
Trevor nodded. "Yes, professor. She must have set her hand on the stinger when she was trying to stand."
The professor looked over his glasses at Trevor. "A young lady like this, seated on the ground? In the sand?"
Jacob managed an uncomfortable smile. "Well, we're travelers, and we really did get lost."
Abdul returned with another white-skinned man behind him. "Ah, Dr. Fleming, this young lady seems to have been stung by a scorpion."
The physician turned to the group. "Out."
Nicole rocked back. "But she's our friend."
The doctor, at least six inches shorter than Nicole, removed his hat and rolled up his sleeves. "And if you want her to live, you'll leave. I can't work in this condition with all these eyes."
The professor stepped aside as Dr. Fleming took centerstage beside Grace, who'd slipped into unconsciousness somewhere in the last few minutes. He waved to the newcomers. "Come. From the look of your skin, you've been in the sun too long. You, too, need rest."
The little girl put a gloved hand in Nicole's and offered her a small smile. "Come. Warm yourself by the fire. Have something to eat."
Nicole looked at the guys, both of whom looked less than interested in leaving, but the doctor's glare made it clear that staying any longer would not be tolerated.
"Is she going to be all right?" Trevor's voice sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable.
The man in the ivory suit gave him a compassionate smile as he put one hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Dr. Fleming may not have the best bedside manner, but he is good. Your wife will be fine."
Trevor's sunburned cheeks turned even more red in the lamplight than before. "Uh, she's not—I mean, we're not—"
"What he's trying to say is they're not married." Jacob stormed out of the tent.
For all her teasing, Nicole watched Jacob as he walked out of the tent. Something was wrong with him. Something more than whatever had them stranded in the middle of Egypt a hundred years before their time.
The professor didn't bat an eye, simply apologized for the misunderstanding as Nicole followed Jacob out of the tent.
"I'm not in the mood."
Nicole looked behind her, searching for some sign that Jacob was speaking to someone other than her. "Excuse me?"
"Whatever joke you're going to make, whatever lecture you're going to give me about my sister being her own person, you can save it. I'm not in the mood."
Nicole sat beside him at the fireside. "And I'm that predictable, is that it? That you can guess what my next move is even before I've decided what it's going to be?"
Jacob didn't pull away as she tucked her arm in his. "You think I'm a screw-up. Think that if I can get us into this mess, I should be able to get us out."
Something about the way he murmured the words made her wonder if she'd been too hard on him. She'd heard stories about how long it had taken her parents to get together because it had taken her mother so long to remove the playful flirtation armor which had protected her heart for so long after Qetesh.
Had she inadvertently injured her best friend with her flippancy?
"I don't think you're a screw up, and for the record, I don't think anyone else does either."
Jacob scoffed. "Are you kidding? I had a big fight with my dad about my next steps right before he and Mom headed for the White House. He actually suggested I go into the Air Force. Thought it would be a good step for me. Can you imagine me with all the salutes and yes, sirs?"
Nicole grimaced. "Well, your parents love the Air Force. You can't fault them for that. It was good for each of them, in their own way, and frankly, without the Air Force, you wouldn't be here because they never would have met."
Jacob heaved a sigh. "I'm not saying I hate the Air Force. I just know that if I try to go that route, it's going to snuff out part of who I am, but apparently, in our family, we go to college and we go to the Air Force."
"Grace isn't Air Force, and Charlie didn't go to college."
Jacob looked at her with a skeptical look in the flickering light of the fire. "First of all, Grace was adopted, and Charlie wasn't exactly on Earth when he was college age. No, he was married with a baby on the way by the time he was my age."
Nicole raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you want? To be married with a baby on the way?"
Jacob pulled out of her embrace. "You're not getting the point, Nic."
Nicole slapped her thighs with her hands in frustration. "Well, maybe I'm not getting the point because you're not being clear. What do you want?"
"I want my parents to stop looking at me like I'm some rudderless disappointment. I want Grace to trust I'm helping when I tinker with things like her car. I want to be useful here, and I want you to—"
He stopped before he finished his sentence, stealing a look at her that was hard to read in the darkness. He just turned his back on her. "Never mind. Just leave me alone."
She pulled him back to look at her. "Well, that's not going to happen. You of all people should know how determined I can be."
Jacob's gaze dusted the sand. "Yeah. Well, maybe some things are better left unsaid."
She studied him. "Unsaid? Dude, we have pictures of the two of us in the bathtub together when we were babies. There is nothing you can say that can erase the bond between us."
Jacob almost opened his mouth, but Trevor handed Nicole a bowl of something with flatbread on the side. "We should get out of here just as soon as Grace is stable."
Nicole looked at Jacob, tension in her chest whenever she looked at him. He'd been about to say something. Something important. She could feel it in her bones.
And it frightened her. Almost as much as the way he'd kissed the top of her head earlier. The way her dad sometimes kissed the top of her mom's head. Her blood had run cold, and got a second, she'd wondered if maybe—
But she had to be wrong, right?
She just dug into her bowl, spooning the paste in the bowl onto the flatbread before she took a bite. "No argument from me."
Jacob was quiet a moment longer. His look was inscrutable as he studied her in the glow of the campfire. "Yeah, me either. The sooner we get out of this hell hole, the better."
Trevor watched him go, then turned back to Nicole. "What's with him? Just worried about Grace?"
Nicole just returned to her meal. "She's strong. I know this afternoon didn't really showcase that, but after the year she's had—"
Trevor looked at her, halting in his own meal. "What do you mean the year she's had?"
Nicole winced. "I probably shouldn't have said that."
"But you did."
She set her bowl down, more thirsty than hungry. "Look, it's Grace's story. If she wants to tell you, she will."
Trevor took a long moment to find his voice. "And if she doesn't get better? If that moment by the car is the last moment I have with her?"
For all her irreverence, Nicole's heart constricted. No matter how badly things had turned out with the high school sweethearts, Trevor didn't deserve to have his last memory of her be of Grace's eyes pleading with him as her body stiffened and her breathing labored.
Nicole just looked into the flames. For that matter, Nicole hoped that wouldn't be the last memory she had of Grace, herself. All her life, she'd known she was her mother's second child, but it was Grace who had been more of an older sister to her than even the few whispered comments Nicole heard about Adria ever suggested. She wasn't any more eager than Jacob or Trevor to lose her. "She's the daughter of Samantha Carter and Jack O'Neill, Trevor. She might be adopted, but she inherited their strength and determination. Just hold onto that."
Trevor looked behind at where Jacob stormed off into the night. "Don't get be wrong, I appreciate the pep talk, but don't you think your boyfriend's the one who could use it?"
Nicole handed the bowl back to him, the last of her appetite disappearing. "I'm going to bed. Find me if anything changes with Grace."