Ch 2

Had Major Carter been less absorbed in thinking up new and horrible ways to exact revenge on her CO for his behavior all day, doing both immediate and long-term planning on the subject, she might not have walked blindly into the slightly sunken in area.

And had Colonel O'Neill, following at a short and safer distance behind his 2IC, not still been busy studying her ass, having become particularly fixated on it after the events that had just transpired, he might not have followed her blindly into the slightly sunken in area.

As each had, in fact, been doing exactly those things, they both fell through the ground, emitting various cries of surprise as they free-fell for several seconds before hitting icy cold water with twin splashes.

"Carter?!" Jack sputtered as he came up for air, gasping at the iciness of the fast-moving underground water they had found themselves in.

"Here, sir," she said unhelpfully from somewhere to the left of him.

"You okay?"

There was only a little bit of light filtering down from the hole they had made as they fell through, and he could only dimly make out the fuzzy dark shape of her thrashing in the water near him.

"Yes, sir," she replied dutifully, although it was in that tone that O'Neill recognized could mean she was anywhere from perfectly fine to suffering from a wide variety of injuries.

He fumbled around in his vest pocket for several moments as he tread water and finally found his waterproof torch. Clicking it on, he pointed it in Carter's direction first, relieved to see she was keeping afloat and didn't appear to be in too much danger.

"Sir, behind you," she panted.

He turned the light around and saw what she meant: on the other side of him was a rocky shore. It would be hard to reach with the speed the current was taking them though. He turned back to tell her to get rid of her pack so she could swim better and she was gone.

"CARTER!" he yelled, his voice echoing uselessly around the weird cavern they were in. The light from his torch skimmed over churning water that was Carter-free.

Swiftly unclipping his own pack from his vest, he took a deep breath and dove, looking around for her in the dark water with his torch only lighting a small area in front of him. With her pack on, she was sinking slowly.

He grabbed her by the vest and hauled her up to the surface, sticking the torch in his mouth for safekeeping as he tried to discern whether or not she was breathing. With her pack on, he realized if she wasn't there wasn't much he could do about it unless he got them both on land, so he turned his attention towards steering them to the rocky shore as fast as possible.

He wasn't quite sure how he managed to keep them both from drowning, but somehow he did it. Hauling her up onto the rocks as fast as possible, he let the torch clatter to the ground and felt frantically for a pulse as he gasped for breath.

It was there, but faint. He held his hand over her nose and could tell she wasn't breathing. "Dammit, Carter, breathe!" he ordered angrily as he tilted her head back and opened her mouth. She didn't respond so he frantically began administering CPR, growing more and more hysterical as the minutes stretched on.

"Come on, you're supposed to be the one who follows orders, I'd expect this from Daniel or Teal'c but I expect better of you, Carter!" he barked as he did yet another round of chest compressions before pinching her nose and starting more mouth-to-mouth.

She suddenly coughed and spluttered and he pulled back and lifted her head up as she coughed up a bunch of water.

"That's more like it," he finally said, unable to keep the grin off of his face as she lay there gasping for breath. He knew they were still in big trouble, but he was so relieved that she was breathing on her own again that he couldn't help but feel like they were going to be okay.

She opened her eyes groggily and tried to focus on his face, which was much closer to hers than it normally was or should be, but her brain was much too fuzzy to perform such tasks as looking or thinking, or doing much of anything for that matter...

Jack recognized the look on her face: she was about to ask him what had happened, but she passed out before she had a chance. Oddly, he wasn't too worried by it. She was breathing normally now, which was comforting, and it would be much easier for him to check her for injuries if she wasn't awake for it. He unclipped her pack and slid her off of it and onto her back on the rocky ground, pulling off her jacket as well and placing it under her head carefully.

As quickly as possible, he scanned her body with the torch and one hand, feeling for broken bones and other injuries. Aside from a few bumps and scrapes, the only real damage was a knot at the back of her head and a swelling ankle. He couldn't tell how bad it was without removing her boot, but he wasn't sure he should: if it was sprained, the boot would help keep the swelling down. However, if it was broken, the boot needed to come off so the bone could be properly set as soon as possible.

While he debated this, she stirred and groaned, clearly coming to.

"Carter?" he said uncertainly. It came out much softer than he'd meant, he'd intended to use the gruff CO bark she was always hasty to answer.

Her eyes opened dazedly again and locked onto his this time. "What happened?"

"We went for a dip. Are you okay?" He looked so worried she got scared.

"I think so, I just... my head... doesn't feel so good."

"That's the understatement of the week," he replied grimly, stopping her efforts to sit up with a hand on each shoulder. "Take it easy a minute. You've been in and out for half an hour, not to mention swallowing a gallon of water."

"Are you hurt too?"

The idea hadn't really occurred to him, so he supposed he wasn't. "No, I'm fine. Your ankle is messed up though."

"Yes, I noticed," she said, wincing in pain.

"I haven't looked at it yet... do you think I should take off your boot or not? I'm pretty sure it's broken, not sprained, there's a hard bump here..." he barely touched the spot he meant, but she hissed in pain nonetheless, squinching her eyes shut in an effort to appear as tough as possible. "Sorry. But it's a hard area hotter than the rest, I think it's a break rather than a sprain. I'm not sure though..."

"If you think it's broken it's broken," she gasped, trying to sit up again as the urge to grab her leg overtook the rest of her senses.

He held her down firmly. "You're just going to make yourself throw up. I'm pretty sure you've got a concussion," he said gently.

She realized as a wave of nausea passed over her that he was right. Janet would be so proud. "Teal'c and Daniel?" she asked as he started untying her boot as carefully as he possibly could. Since the laces were wet, he wasn't getting anywhere.

"They'll find us soon enough. Kind of hard to miss a big hole in the ground, don't you think?" He frowned at the laces and reached into one of his many pockets, pulling out his knife. "I'm going to have to cut these to get your boot off," he warned.

"Fine," she gritted out, clenching her teeth.

He nodded resolutely and cut the laces as quickly as possible, knowing it was going to jerk her ankle and really hurt. She swore and grabbed his other arm, twisting the fabric of his soaked jacket in her fist.

"Sorry," he apologized sincerely as he set the knife down and started sliding the boot off as carefully as possible. He watched her face closely, trying to gauge how much pain she was in, but she was busy doing the tough-soldier bit he hated in her and yet was guilty of himself.

Remembering how she had nearly been in tears just seeing him in pain as she set his broken leg four years ago, he marveled at the fact that when she was the one with the busted leg, she seemed determined to act as though it was merely an irritation, like a paper cut or burning your tongue on your morning latte.

After confirming that her ankle was indeed broken, he quickly rummaged around in her pack until he found her well-stocked first aid kit. He took more time than necessary arranging everything he would need, steeling himself for what he was about to do.

"This is really going to hurt," he warned, glancing up at her face as he prepared to set the bone.

"I know, just do it," she ordered through clenched teeth, not bothering to add a 'sir,' to that order, not that he noticed or cared.

With a loud crack her bone was put back in a proper line, and as Jack splinted it, she fell unconscious again, no doubt from the pain. This didn't worry him too much: he was confident Daniel and Teal'c would find them soon, and in the meantime, if she was unconscious she at least wasn't registering the pain.

As he swept the torch around the area they occupied, he noticed a gash in his own thigh, where his pants were ripped and blood had soaked his BDUs. The wound was still oozing slightly, as a matter of fact. He marveled at the fact that he hadn't even noticed it before and set about washing it out with antiseptic.

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A/N: More to come, of course. I wrote this story in a notebook on a sleepless night in Glasgow... it's just a matter of trying to find the time to type it up and post it.