Ch 5

Jack steeled himself as he saw her stirring again. He watched her realize that he had tied up her hands, and tired her legs together up at the knee, away from her broken ankle. When she had stopped trying to squirm, he went over to her cautiously.

"Carter, I tied you up," he stated.

"Ya think?" she countered, sounding an awful lot like him.

"I didn't want you to hurt yourself. And I was tired of fishing you out of that water. It's not exactly a spa."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, sounding completely exhausted.

"Because I overestimated Teal'c and Daniel apparently. There's hardly any morphine left and I'm not sure how much longer we'll be down here."

"That's not what I meant. Why don't you just cut the crap, I'm not buying it."

"It's not crap, Carter. I'm not a Goa'uld. Why the hell would I be doing this if I was? Why wouldn't I have killed you at any point during all of this?"

"I have no idea, but I KNOW there's naquada in you and..."

"You hit your head. Twice now, actually. And you have a broken ankle. And you're still a pain in the ass. Would I be putting up with you if I was a Goa'uld?"

"You obviously have a reason. You probably want me to fix one of your ships for you or give you information about the SGC or about Colonel O'Neill so you can fool everyone else at work..."

"You're not thinking straight. Look, I want to save some of this morphine for when we have to move you, because that's probably really going to hurt. Let's just agree to disagree. I'll sit over here quietly, not attacking you in any way because I am not a Goa'uld, and you try to think about... something else. There's no sense you staying so worked up over there when you're not in any real danger."

She looked at him in utter disbelief. Frustrated, he moved as far away from her as he possibly could and still keep an eye on her and sat down, crossing his arms stubbornly and looking at her calmly. She glared at him for several minutes before sighing angrily.

"I just don't see why you're bothering to keep this charade up. You're obviously not going to convince me that you're not a Goa'uld."

"We've been over this, Carter, I'm not a Goa'uld. You're smarter than this..." He winced as he saw her try to get more comfortable, inadvertently causing herself more pain in the process as she jarred her ankle. "You're making this a lot harder on yourself than it has to be."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to take over Colonel O'Neill," she grumbled, trying to tuck the blanket more firmly around herself.

"Carter, what the hell would a Goa'uld want with me? Bad knees, gray hair... I think it far more likely that if both of us were in that water and a Goa'uld was thinking about making one of us a host, they would pick you."

"Well..." she stopped and thought about that for a moment. It made sense. "Unless they sensed the naquada in me already and thought I might already be one, or be a Tok'ra or something..."

"They would know the difference," Jack insisted. "They would know you HAD been a host before and therefore would be likely to be a good one. They would definitely pick you, not me."

She couldn't think of a response to that for a while and Jack thought he had finally won, until she shook her head firmly, a look of denial set in place on her face. "I know what I know. There's naquada in you."

He sighed angrily. "Fine. There's naquada in me," he said sarcastically. "Can we please just agree not to talk for a while?"

"Why? Afraid I'll catch you lying?"

"You know, you've been around me way too long. You're getting really good at the whole 'antagonize your captor' bit."

"I learned from the best. And it sounds like you just admitted you're keeping me prisoner which means you admit you're a Goa'uld."

"I was being sarcastic, Carter, because you THINK I'm a Goa'uld and are reacting to me like I am." He watched her glare at him for all of five minutes and suddenly chuckled, which only seemed to make her madder. He held up his hands defensively.

"I was just imagining the GIANT apology you're going to owe me when we get back home and you're your usual brilliant self again. You're going to feel pretty silly about all of this." She glared some more.

Utterly frustrated, he looked away, deciding to focus his attention on a rock that, he determined after several minutes of scrutiny, sort of looked like an elephant if you turned your head sideways and squeezed your eyes almost completely shut.

The rock kept him occupied for quite a while, and when he looked back at Carter he was surprised to see that she was crying.

"Hey," he said in sudden concerned alarm, moving towards her before realizing that would probably upset her more. He stopped halfway towards her and stood awkwardly, watching her angrily wipe her cheeks with the back of her hand and avoid his gaze. "Is it your head? If you need some medicine now I can..."

"I'm fine," she snapped, still not looking at him. "Please, just... go away."

"Can't do that. I want to keep an eye on you, you've got a bad concussion."

"I said I was fine. Please. I know you don't care anyway, just... leave me alone."

"Why?" he asked. He knew she wasn't thinking straight and didn't realize she was speaking to him, but it was hard for him not to be hurt by the look of hate in her eyes and the biting tone of her voice as she snapped at him to leave her alone.

"Do you think I like seeing you in Colonel O'Neill's body? He hated you more than anybody I know. Being a host is his worst form of torture."

"That's not entirely true," he said quietly, looking at her sadly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked bitterly, wiping her eyes again.

"I can think of worse forms of torture than being host to a Goa'uld. Like having you hate me because you think I am... and not being able to help you when you need help."

She melted for just a moment, then shook her head angrily. "Nice try. But Colonel O'Neill would never say something like that. Even if he did think it, which I seriously doubt. He would never say it."

She seemed so convinced that was true that it suddenly made him feel worse than anything else that had happened the entire time they were down there. He sighed and retreated back to his area, grateful when she fell asleep again, as it made him able to check her closely without her recoiling at his approach. And it left him plenty of time to brood.

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A/N: Almost done... just the final chapter and a short epilogue after this one. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and review. Don't worry, those of you who've expressed concern: I like happy endings too!