Ch 4

A small part of him recognized that the safe thing to do would be to wait quietly until Daniel and Teal'c found them (what the hell was taking so long anyway?). But he had effectively disarmed his 2IC, and he was worried that her injuries were doing more damage than she was letting on, since she thought he was a Goa'uld. The problem was, if he could manage to free himself, would that scare her so badly that she'd end up doing even more damage to herself?

He decided it was worth the risk, as he clearly was no help to her in his current situation. Glancing over at her, he wasn't sure whether to be relieved that she was still passed out against a jagged rocky outcrop or worried. He looked around and spotted his knife, which he had used to cut her shoelaces earlier, lying in a dark corner.

It took him a good quarter of an hour to scoot over to it. He finally got it in his hands and started working at it doggedly, ignoring the fact that he was cutting his own skin almost as often as the ties he was bound with. After an hour, he was so absorbed in his task that he didn't even notice Carter coming to.

When she saw him hacking away at his restraints in the dark, his hands bleeding from self-inflicted injuries, it did little to assure her that he was not a Goa'uld. In fact, it had the exact opposite effect. The glimmers of doubt he had managed to plant were instantly replaced by even firmer beliefs that he was a snakehead. She looked around for the gun and couldn't find it. Grabbing a sharp rock, she crept towards him shakily and slowly, trying not to put more weight than necessary on her bad ankle, although the splint was Janet-worthy, she had to admit.

Jack saw her coming at him with a rock or something and was instantly on his feet, although his feet and hands were still bound. He swerved out of her way as she swung at him, yelling, "Carter, cut it out!"

When she missed hitting him, she was thrown off balance. He twisted around behind her and reached over her with his bound hands, trapping her against him with her arms at her sides. Lucky for him, she was still very weak, or he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against her with his feet and hands bound.

As it was, she was still putting up a pretty good struggle, throwing her weight back against him in an effort to escape. In the second she was lifted off the ground, she swung her uninjured foot into his thigh and just happened to make contact with the open wound.

"CARTER!" he yelled in frustrated pain.

She slid out from under his arms and started backing away from him hastily. "Sam, stop!" he suddenly yelled as he realized what was about to happen, a second before she slipped right over the edge, banging her head on the rocky side for a second time, and slid back into the water.

He started panicking when she didn't immediately resurface. She had sensed naquada in there, what if there really were Goa'ulds in there with her? Aside from that, she wasn't exactly going to be up for swimming with that bang on her head and the splint on her leg...

He found the nearest sharp rock and wrenched his bound wrists against it so hard that the bindings finally broke. Screaming in pain again, he quickly scrambled for the knife, cut his leg bindings, and jumped back into the water. She was floating, unconscious.

He grabbed her yet again and dragged her once more out of the freezing water. This time, as soon as they were back on land, she started coughing and spluttering up water. He turned her on her side and pulled her hair back out of her face, squeezing the extra water out of it.

"Breathe in," he instructed. She gasped for breath for several minutes and since she was no longer struggling against him, he wondered if she had maybe finally realized he wasn't a Goa'uld.

As he took her back over to where their stuff was, however, she blinked up at him slowly and said, "It'll never work. You'll never get back to the SGC, so you might as well kill me now."

"Not going to happen, I'm afraid," he muttered grimly as he set her back down on the ground and pulled her blanket from her pack. She was already unconscious again by the time he had found it and covered her with it.

"Although I will be teasing you for at least a year about this whole 'I thought you were a Goa'uld' thing when we get out of here," he said firmly to her unconscious form.

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A/N: Sorry about all the Sam Abuse... when I'm not writing something funny I guess I tend to beat the crap out of the characters)