It was sinking in.
They were stranded.
Well and truly stranded.
No one knew where they were.
They would be able to trace his path to P5X-846, the 'Safe Planet'...
...but there they would lose the trail.
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Ch 6: STRANDED
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But she had to make sure that it was him. There was still the possibility that she was dealing with an android double such as Harlan had created... or a Replicator double.... or he could be a clone...
"Sir?" she broke the silence in the lengthening shadows.
"Yeah?" he answered softly from across the steps.
"I... need to make sure that you are you," she was holding her K-bar combat-issue knife in her hands.
He stared at her for a moment and then reached his hand out for the knife. She stood, stepped over and placed the knife on the plywood board that lay over the middle of the steps. Moving back, she retook her seated position.
Not moving until she was reseated, he slowly moved over and picked up the knife. Quickly turning the knife, he scored his left palm. Setting the knife down, he held his hand out so that she could see the small line of blood where the sharp edge had cut his skin.
She ran through the possibilities in her mind... he wasn't an android double like Harlan had created... and he wasn't a Replicator. He could still be a clone... but if he was, then he was still effectively Jack O'Neill.
Of course, there was one other nasty possibility... this could all be a delusion. A hallucination. Fifth could be standing next to her right now, with his fingers in her mind... controlling and dictating what she perceived as reality.
She mulled that one over. With Fifth's other delusions, she had been able to sense the falseness... she could feel that things were not right. If this here and now was one of his delusions, then he was getting much, much better at them.
If this was a delusion or a hallucination, then she'd just have to wait until she could figure out what was going on. Because it sure didn't feel fake this time. As whacked-out as this whole tableau was, they'd lived through ones even less plausible in the past.
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Turning her attention back to the man on the other end of the steps, she remembered his cut hand and dug her medkit out of her pack. Slowly standing up again, she stepped over and placed it on the plywood, right where she'd placed the knife a short while ago. He watched her silently and did not move until she had retaken her seat again.
"Thanks," he spoke softly and she just nodded.
A few minutes later, his hand treated with antibiotic cream and a small bandage, he replaced the medkit where she'd set it and moved back to his self-appointed seat. She made no move to retrieve the kit.
"Sir, how do you feel now?" Her tone was cautious, concerned... and he could sense her wariness.
"Pretty much like normal now. Had a bit of a headache when I woke up... and it took awhile to remember what happened...," and his voice trailed off again as they both remembered his exit from the clearing earlier in the day.
"I was hoping that it was all some sort of weird, alien drunken dream or hallucination...," he continued, "but... when I saw the DHD... I...," and he clenched his eyes shut. "I can't tell you how sorry I am Carter," he apologized again.
If what he was telling her was the truth... and if this wasn't all some delusion... if the two of them were truly stranded on this planet, then she knew that she was going to be hearing his apology a lot. He'd feel guilty until the day they were rescued. And if they were never rescued, then he'd never let go of the guilt.
She was going to have to do something about that. She wasn't sure what, because she knew this man and she knew that he would not allow her simple words and ameliorations to pardon his actions.
Well, at the very least, she thought, she could make the first move, so she stood up and shifted her P90 so that it hung down in a more relaxed position. She could feel his eyes and she knew that he was watching her every move. Looking up, she met his gaze and then slowly stepped across, stepping over the plywood ramp, to stand next to him. Extending a hand to help him up, "I think we'd better set up camp for the night, sir," her tone respectful and polite without any shade of anger or condemnation.
"Carter! I kidnapped you and stranded us on a planet who-knows-how-many light-years from Earth!" he leaned away from her in horror.
"Well, I think it's something around 1800 light-years from Earth, sir," she went for a soft, but cheeky smile, hoping to lighten the tone a bit.
"Eighteen hundr-... How the hell do you know that?" he blurted out before he thought it through, but he came to his senses quickly.
"Do you really want to know, sir?" she gave him a slightly larger grin now.
"No, no, no...," he grumbled and then returned to his original complaint. "Carter, how can you... we can't just act like nothing... like I didn't... What if I start behaving all... 'weird' again?" While talking he'd been scooting himself back away from her and he was now on the far edge of the steps. Any further and he'd fall off.
"Sir," and she sighed, "Alien influence, remember? We've been there before... when we had the Touched Virus... I jumped you in the locker room, but you somehow managed to keep working with me for years after that... so...?"
"Somehow this here-," and he swept his arm out at the clearing and the planet they were standing on, "seems just a whole lot bigger than jumping you in the locker room..."
"I'll give you top honors for the largest scale, sir," she was smiling again. "I apparently just didn't think big enough when I was Touched," and her eyes were twinkling a bit.
"Carter, don't commend my actions. I basically pulled 'A Caveman' on you... not much different than clubbing you over the head and dragging you off to my cave!" She blanched and then blushed a bit at his analogy... actually an attractive combination on her face... and then realizing where his thoughts were going, he mentally chastised himself.
"Carter, you need to stay away from me – who knows what I might do next!" He felt like shit for what he'd done and he figured she should be ranting and railing at him. At the very least, he figured that she shouldn't want to come anywhere near him. And here she was, extending her hand to help him stand up.
But she looked slightly exasperated now, "Sir, I read the reports from the recons of this planet. No intelligent life. No people, no civilizations, not even any cavemen apparent," she stressed. "So, what are we going to do? Each of us picks a piece of the planet and we live like hermits? That is not going to work for me," a short pause and then, "Sir." As if she felt like her tone had overstepped the bounds of her role as his junior officer.
He shook his head and tried to marshal some rebuttals, but she beat him to it, "And I'm going to have to sleep, sir. There's no way I can defend myself 24/7 – not from you or anything else we might discover on this planet. Neither can you. Sir, we have to work together, or we're not going to make it," and she paused again. "And I really don't want to spend countless years stranded all by myself... so don't you dare pull anything like disappearing into the night in some misguided attempt at protecting me from you."
She didn't bother to add the 'Sir' this time. She was laying down some rules. Period. Regardless of General-Colonel military decorum. This was about two people stranded thousands of light years from home.
He looked up at her. Assessing. "Carter...," he started, but his tone of voice was enough for her to interrupt,
"Sir, we can argue about this some more tomorrow," or the day after that... or the day after that, she thought to herself, "but for now, the sun is going to set pretty soon, and we need to set up a camp."
He was still uncertain. "Carter, I'm giving you an order that if I come at you again, you will shoot first and ask questions later," he gave that one a go and waited for her reaction.
She knew it was highly doubtful that she'd be able to shoot him without a lot of evidence that left her no other choice, but to get him moving, she replied, "Yes, sir," and extended her hand again in an offer to assist him up from the steps.
He studied her face for another moment and then reached up to clasp her hand and let her help him up. They both knew that they needed to talk about this more, but not tonight. For now, survival took precedence.
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TBC