by Avalon (avalon99@telusplanet.net)
fanfic at http://members.dencity.com/avalon_online
PG-13, S/J, Part 3/8
THE MANY SHADES OF NIGHT III
"In Wand'ring Mazes Lost "
Carter wasn't sure how long or how far she and Colonel O'Neill fell. It seemed to last forever but was probably only a matter of seconds before they hit the stone staircase. Then they were half-sliding, half-rolling the rest of the way down. Finally, battered and bruised, they came to a painful stop on a flat, rough surface, their bodies tangled together.
Once again, all the air had been driven from Carter's lungs. The pain she had felt earlier seemed to have multiplied a thousandfold, and grey and red streaks were spiralling across her vision.
Time passed, long moments in which she could hear only the frantic pounding of her own heartbeat. Then, finally, some air trickled back into her lungs and her vision began to clear. Not that it made much difference. She could see nothing in the darkness. It was as if someone had drawn a black curtain across her eyes.
Other sensations were beginning to filter into her consciousness. Dry, musty air. A hard stone floor under her scraped palms...and something soft beneath her. She frowned, and then realization hit her. She was laying on Colonel O'Neill. He must have twisted around during their fall, enough so that he ended up on the bottom, cushioning her body.
"Colonel?" Carter was vaguely surprised that her voice still worked. The way things were going, it was probably the only thing that still did. A remote part of her mind was telling her to get up off him, but she didn't dare move. The pain would rise up and slap her into unconsciousness if she did, she knew.
"Yeah."
Relief, so strong it nearly accomplished what the pain hadn't, swept through her. He wasn't dead. Of course, now that she thought about it, she could feel his heartbeat pounding beneath her.
"You all right?" he was asking. His voice sounded breathless, whether from an unseen injury or from the fact that she was laying on his ribcage, she couldn't tell.
She hesitated, then told the truth for the first time since her encounter with the creature on the field. "I...no."
"Can you move?"
"No, Sir." Her voice was a ragged whisper.
"Spine injury? Neck?"
This was becoming surreal. "I...don't think so."
There was a brief pause. "Hang on, Carter." Then he was reaching upward, patting at her body, as if looking for injuries. The first touch of his hands on her lacerated back, though, was enough to finally spur her into motion. She shot off him like a scalded cat, rolling painfully to one side with a yelp. "Don't!" she managed to say through the agony as she came to a stop on her side, her cheek resting against the cool floor.
"Carter?" She could hear him moving, sitting up cautiously, and she exhaled a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't been badly hurt in the fall.
"Hold on a sec," he said. "I'm going to find the light."
Carter blinked, bizarre images of light switches built into the alien walls flitting through her mind. What was he doing...?
In the darkness she could hear him rummaging around, running his hands across the floor. His fingers brushed her pant leg briefly then moved on. "Got it," he said. There was another sound and a small light came on. She blinked painfully at the sudden change in the dimness, then her eyes adjusted enough to see... Of course. The small flashlight fitted to his HK MP-10.
He trained it on her first, obviously making sure she was still alive. She squinted...and then the light was swinging away, moving around in a full circle as O'Neill scanned their surroundings. Carter held her breath, waiting for the sound of gunfire or the sight of red eyes in the darkness. There was nothing. Only smooth stone walls, a ceiling high above them, hidden in shadows, and a stone floor, made of the same stuff as the walls. Through them all ran lines of paler grey quartz-like material.
And...
Maybe it was the darkness that had made her other senses more attuned or perhaps the utter silence was responsible, but she could hear...was that water? Yes. It was faint but unmistakable. The quiet murmur of running water. An underground stream perhaps?
Carter found herself dragging her body up into a sitting position, ignoring the pain. Now that there was the promise of water she was suddenly aware of the raging thirst tearing through her and the soul-deep need to lay down in icy water and quench the fire burning in her back and ankle. She had never wanted anything in her life quite so badly as she wanted water at that moment.
"Do you hear that?" It came out as a croak. O'Neill spun back around to face her and she could just make out the expression on his face, faintly lit by the flashlight. He paused, listening, then nodded.
"Water." He took a quick pace toward her and crouched down, staring at her face. Whatever he was seeing there, it obviously wasn't good. He put the gun down on the floor, the flashlight still lit, and reached out gingerly to grasp her by the shoulders. "How badly are you hurt?" There was worry and...something else...in his voice.
O'Neill's concern almost destroyed what little strength of will she had left. For an instant Carter's vision swam with unshed tears then she blinked them away and gave him a weak smile. "I'll live," she said, in as resolute a tone as she could muster.
"Carter..."
She shook her head slightly, cutting him off. "Look, I will be all right. I just...Can we find that water? If it is water, that is..."
O'Neill's gaze ran down her body, and something of her injuries must have been visible to him because a pained expression appeared on his face. "I'll carry you," he said simply, reaching for his gun and hers, and standing up.
The thought of O'Neill lifting her, touching her back for even an instant, made her insides spin. "No," she said firmly. "You won't." At the look in his eyes, she continued hastily. "It's...my back. That creature...cut it, I think." She continued hurriedly, not giving him time to respond. "And you're not slinging me over your shoulder either. Sir. I've made it this far. I can walk a little further." That said, she reached up with one hand.
O'Neill hesitated, then took it and pulled her up as gently as he could. Carter didn't scream, and she didn't faint. In fact, she thought the whole process of standing up went rather well.
The Colonel obviously didn't. He gave her another troubled look, then slung the guns over his shoulder so the flashlight would still light their way, and reached for her arm. "All right Major, you win. Let's go."
* * *
It turned out that the underground chamber had a corridor leading away from it. And that corridor had two adjacent passageways leading off at right angles, and those had even more. The place was a labyrinth of stone hallways. O'Neill began gouging marks in the walls with his knife at each intersection.
They saw no sign of the creatures. In her more lucid moments, Carter theorized that the inhabitants of the city might have built this place as a refuge from the monsters roaming the surface of the planet. When O'Neill reminded her that it obviously hadn't worked, she stopped theorizing and concentrated on walking instead.
It was becoming increasingly difficult. Now that the adrenaline had faded and they were no longer running for their lives, there was nothing to mask the pain. She wasn't sure which hurt more -- her ankle or her back. Shafts of fire burned their way up her leg with every step she took and it felt as if all the bones in her ankle were grinding together.
"What happened to your leg?" O'Neill's voice broke the silence.
"I...twisted my ankle."
She could feel his eyes upon her, even though she couldn't see them in the semi-darkness. He was scowling, she knew. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"
"We were busy. And besides...I know how you feel about cliches, Sir."
There was a brief pause, then a short, sharp laugh, which quickly faded. "So, I can't carry you because that would hurt your back, but meanwhile you're walking around on a twisted ankle. Are you sure you don't want me to 'sling you over my shoulder', as you put it?"
Carter felt herself smiling a little, albeit unwillingly. "No, Sir," she said. "I'd rather walk."
She thought she heard him mutter something about annoying, stubborn females, but the echoes were louder in this corridor, so perhaps she was mistaken.
* * *
"So, are you going to tell me what happened back there?"
Carter dragged herself back out of the sea of misery she had fallen into as they continued down the endless passageways, towards the ever-shifting sound of water. "Sir?" she said questioningly.
"What did you hear that spooked you? How did you know we should get out of the plaza when we did? And what do you know about these bugs?"
He was trying to take her mind off things, she could tell. Still, she welcomed the distraction. She had moved beyond agony as she walked. Everything was slowly going numb, her body growing more distant with every passing moment. It was only the sheer mindless routine of putting one foot in front of the other that kept her moving at all.
"Major!" O'Neill's voice drew her back. Her mind had drifted off again. What was he saying? Oh yes...
She told him, unaware that her speech was becoming slurred and her sentences unfinished. She told him what she had heard and sensed in the plaza, and what she remembered, or thought she remembered about this place. And then she fell silent, concentrating desperately on remaining upright.
It must not have worked, because the next thing Carter knew, she was on her knees, swaying slightly. She couldn't remember falling, and that realization scared her. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably and she had broken out in a cold sweat. "Colonel..." she tried to say, reaching out for him...
His hand met hers, his grip tightening around her fingers. "It'll be all right, Sam," he said. "Just hang on, okay?"
"'Kay," she managed to say, and then he was hoisting her up, pulling her into a fireman's lift over his shoulder. He tried to avoid touching her injuries, but he must have brushed her back with one hand because cold fire lashed across her once more...and darkness rushed up to claim her.
TO BE CONTINUED