Title: SG-3 (04/10)
Rating: R
Spoilers: Solitudes
Details: Angst, alternative episode, Sam POV / Makepeace POV / 3rd Person POV
Summary: Another mission nearly ends in disaster for Sam and Makepeace
Disclaimer: None of the characters or places in this story belong to me, they are the property of MGM Worldwide, ShowTime, Gekko Film Corporation and Brad Wright. No copyright infringement intended - please don't sue me! I'm skint anyhow.
Author Notes: Thanks to my new beta readers Adele and LauraJo! Couldn't have done it without you!
~SG-3 (04/10) ~
(c) Ruth, June 2003
**********
Sam:
I don't know how long I was unconscious. All I know is that when I woke up I was cold. Very cold. My vision was blurry and I could feel sticky blood on the side of my face. It was so cold.
My first instinct was to look for the rest of my team. It's what Colonel Makepeace told me, or rather, shouted at me, to do. He didn't need to – I was well aware that the SGC didn't believe in leaving anybody behind.
I looked around me, a spiteful pain searing through my left shoulder. As I looked in the other direction I saw my CO Colonel Makepeace laying on the ground beside me. He was unconscious.
Well, I say ground. We were actually laying on ice – and a lot of it.
I never thought Colonel Makepeace was as heavy as he turned out to be. I made the mistake of trying to move him to a more sheltered spot, but it was during this attempt that I realised that his leg was broken. He also realised it, and berated me with a series of obscenities, some of which I'd never even heard before.
Of course he put on the tough soldier act. Telling me that there was no pain, trying to sit up. I could tell he was in agony by the way he kept snapping at me. I mean, I don't think he likes me that much but he doesn't normally snap at me without a reason.
Then again, having a broken leg and being stuck in the middle of an icy nowhere would probably count as a reason.
He ordered me to get him the hell out of there. I didn't know where to start. We were surrounded by ice and we were on goodness knows what planet in the middle of an alien galaxy! Even Samantha Carter, astrophysicist couldn't work out how to get us home. I felt awful – my commanding officer was in pain and wouldn't let me do anything about it. He gave me an order that I couldn't carry out.
After several hours of his griping, I told Makepeace that it would be best if I splinted his leg. He told me to shut up and get him out, so that was when I was forced to tell him the truth.
After hours of his whinging, swearing and general abuse, it didn't come out the way I had intended.
"Colonel, I haven't the faintest idea where we are! I can't even begin to try and get us home!"
After this outburst I realised that it wasn't his fault, and added, "I'm sorry."
He grunted and shifted his weight about on the ice. I saw him bite down on his lower lip as a pain shot up his leg. I couldn't allow him to do this to himself any longer.
"Sir, let me splint your leg. It should help with some of the pain."
"Dammit, Captain! Are you looking for a court-martial?" he shouted at me.
At that point I tried to stop caring. The miserable bastard could sit there in pain if he wanted. I tried to make myself believe that, but being the person I am, I couldn't stop caring.
A few hours later, I was warming up some soup that I'd found in my bag. We both had to eat something. He was still in pain, but trying to hide it from me. I decided to let it pass until we'd eaten. Then he was going to get a splint if I had to sit on him to do it!
"Sir, the soup's ready," I said.
My lips were sore and chapped. They were painful, and the stinging pain in my shoulder had not subsided. The cut on my cheek had stopped bleeding, but it was all stuck on the side of my face. If it had been anyone other than Makepeace I would have cared, but not this time.
"S' about time!" he snarled, grabbing the bowl from my hand.
I resisted the temptation to hit him, knowing that he really wasn't worth the court-martial.
After he'd eaten, he became a little less annoying and grumpy, so I was able to think about our predicament. Since Edelson and Phillips were nowhere to be seen, I came up with three ideas. One - I had misdialled, Edelson and Phillips were with us somewhere. Not likely - I wouldn't dare to make a mistake like that. Two - Makepeace and I had been sent to one planet due to a gate malfunction and Phillips and Edelson to another. Three - The gate malfunctioned. Makepeace and I were here, and Phillips and Edelson got back to Earth.
I hoped for both of our sakes that my third idea was correct. It was so cold.
I explained my thoughts to Makepeace, who was definitely suffering now.
"Sir?" I asked.
"Just do it!" he growled.
I swallowed. This was the first time I'd put a splint on someone who was actually alive. It wasn't really fair that my first patient should be a grumpy, highly agitated marine with absolutely no hold on his tongue. Nevertheless, I had to try.
"This is gonna hurt, sir," I warned him.
Being as careful as I could, I slid my hand under his leg and began to wrap the bandage around it. Unfortunately, all the care in the world couldn't have prevented me from hurting him.
"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, "Captain!"
"I'm sorry, sir!" I said, desperately wishing he would stay still.
I gave a tug on the bandage and he yelled at me again.
"Have you ever done this before?" he shouted.
"Yes, I have sir. Can you try and stay still?"
"What the fuck do you mean, can I stay still?" he thundered.
As he continued his tirade, I worked on the splint, trying my best not to agitate him further.
Sadly, his constant writhing severely hindered my progress. I felt like slapping him and telling him to deal with it, but having never been through it myself I couldn't really judge him.
"Captain! You are the most useless bitch I've ever seen!" he yelled, as I pulled on the bandage again.
"I'm sorry!" I said helplessly, my hands beginning to shake from the cold.
"You will be when we get back!"
"I'm sorry, sir - I'm nearly finished!"
I bit down on my lip to stop myself from crying. That would have really made his day. His constant shouting was wearing me down.
"There," I said eventually, sitting back on my heels as Makepeace recovered.
"Never, never fucking do that again!" he shouted.
I swallowed, and stood up on shaking legs. "I'm gonna have a look around, sir," I told him.
"Yeah." He coughed. "Do something useful!"
As I walked around, I tried to think positively. We'll get out of here, everything will be fine and Makepeace will be back with his men, I thought. It was as I was walking that my foot struck something hard.
"Ow!" I cursed, and looked down at the snow to see a familiar black shape. I didn't want to prematurely raise my hopes, but it looked like the base of a DHD. That was when I turned to my left and saw the Stargate opposite me. I smiled, despite my sore lips and aching muscles.
"Colonel!" I shouted, "I found the DHD!"
I heard him mutter something like 'whoop-dee-doo' under his breath, but I decided to ignore him. Instead, I pulled my knife from my pocket and began to chip away at the ice on top of the DHD.
**********
I must have fallen asleep on top of the ice, because when I eventually regained consciousness my left ear and the left side of my face was numb and cold. I immediately berated myself for falling asleep, and went to check on my commanding officer.
"Colonel?" I asked.
"Hurry the fuck up with that DHD, Captain!" he spat from the floor.
"Yes, Colonel!" I said.
Revitalised with hope, I rushed back to the DHD and carried on chipping away at the ice. After a few hours, my heart leapt with excitement. I was able to dial the chevrons!
"Colonel!" I shouted, "I'm going to dial Earth!"
"Get on with it!" he yelled.
I placed my hand on each of the chevrons in turn. My heart leapt as I placed my hand on the centre and waited for the wonderful woooshing noise of the gate activating.
Instead, all I heard was a pathetic nnnnnrrrrrrrr noise as the gate failed to activate.
"What the fuck are you doing?" called an irritated voice.
"I'm sorry, sir!" I shouted, "It didn't work!"
"Well, try it again!" he shouted.
I placed my hand on each of the chevrons in turn, but again, the gate failed to activate.
Crestfallen, I fell to my knees in the ice and snow, trying to work out what was wrong with the DHD. Unfortunately, I hadn't dug down to the service panel at the bottom.
I trudged back to Colonel Makepeace to inform him of what had happened. He shouted and swore at me for a bit, but then he was so exhausted that he fell asleep. I put an extra blanket over him to try and stop him from getting frostbite. Then, I went back to the DHD to continue my digging.
Several hours later, the cavern was pitch black, but with my torchlight and my weary hands I tried to dial Earth again. It failed. Helplessly, I fell to my knees in the ice and began to cry. My body had never been so cold. My hands were shaking, red and raw from all the digging I'd done. My shoulder had gone numb but still ached as if I'd been shot. It was becoming more painful for me to breathe, and I didn't understand why. Sure, it was cold, but I had experienced no pain before now. My hair was spiked with ice and I broke out in shivers.
Neglecting the DHD for the night, I went back to Colonel Makepeace and pulled my own blanket over me. Sharing body heat would have been the most sensible option, but he would have killed me if I'd even tried. Instead, I wrapped myself up in the blanket and tried to think of warm places like the Caribbean.
I awoke to hear Colonel Makepeace trying to stand, using his rifle as a crutch. I was about to warn him of the dangers of doing this, but my lips were too cold. He saw me looking at him.
"What the fuck are you just sitting there for?" he asked, "Give me a hand!"
I dragged myself to my feet, feeling a crushing pain in my chest. Put up and shut up, I remembered. I said nothing, and went to help Makepeace to stand. However, the pressure of his bodyweight on my weakened frame was too much. The pain began to crush me from the inside out, and I had to quickly put him down. I lurched over to the ground and sat with my back straight against a wall of ice.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, with a total lack of interest.
To answer him, I gagged. Instead of vomiting like I had expected, I coughed up blood onto the ice - a sure sign that I was bleeding internally.
"Shit!" I murmured.
Makepeace half-crawled over to me and put his hand on my ribs, none too gently. I grimaced and tried to bite back a curse. I failed.
"Son of a bitch!" I groaned.
"I think you've broken your ribs," said Makepeace.
Ooh, I thought, first prize for the intelligence award!
"I'm sorry, sir," I said, my eyes beginning to flutter closed with exhaustion.
It seemed that my thick-skulled colonel had finally realised that I was hurt and he'd done nothing about it.
"It was an honor serving with you, sir," I whispered.
He shook his head in distress. "We're going to get out of here!" he said.
My eyes closed and I slipped away into blackness, tortured in the knowledge that I'd failed my CO and killed both of us.
**********
Makepeace:
She's so cold. If only I'd realised that she was injured, maybe I could have prevented her from exhausting herself. I mean, she dug out the whole DHD and I didn't bother to help her. I have her body in my arms, and this is the first time I actually realise just how skinny she is. You could get three of her in Phillips, four in Edelson and maybe five in me. Her hands are almost blue, apart from the cuts and bruises she got from the digging. Her breathing is shallow and she feels incredibly light in my arms.
She's way too young to die - especially like this. Jeez, she hasn't even been on SG-3 for a year yet. That's just not fair.
It's so cold.
**********
Three hours later, in the dead of night, Makepeace also succumbed to the freezing cold. He laid down on the ice with his young Captain in his arms, the two of them covered with the blankets that were now doing almost nothing to help them.
He could feel his eyes closing and his breath was cold.
"It was an honor serving with you too, Captain," he whispered, and then his eyes closed.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 5
Author's Note: Ha! Thought I'd leave it there! Please send feedback to samcarterusaf@yahoo.co.uk
Sorry it's not very original again, but exams are taking their toll……. : (
