VV

She tried, she really did. But as far as she could tell, there just wasn't any other way. And she was certain now that there was also no way to shut the force field down via the controls she could access. Not that what she could see wasn't fascinating…under other, less possibly fatal circumstances, she'd have loved to take it all apart and figure out how it worked. Right now, however, all she could think about was the way they were running out of time.

Daniel had returned to his papers and tomes, trying (unsuccessfully) to find something that could help them and Teal'c had taken up a sentry position at the barrier, monitoring the progress of O'Neill's rocky prison. Carter was a little worried that if things got bad, Teal'c might try to rush through the field to aid him. And while she had absolutely no doubt of his loyalty to the Colonel, she was pretty sure he'd never felt quite that way about him. Any such action would spell the Jaffa's instant death, but she knew that wouldn't stop him from trying as a point of honor.

And so it all came down to her. Frustration had her gnawing viciously on her lower lip. "This is hopeless," she muttered.

She stalked over to the gap. "Sir-"

"I said…no, Major."

Colonel O'Neill's words lacked the solid tone of command she was accustomed to, due to the fact that the stone had risen up to just below his armpits, now. It formed a tight, constricting band across his chest, making it difficult for him to inhale normally. His lungs were so compressed by the envelope of rock that he could only take short, shallow breaths that made speaking forcefully impossible.

It hurt her to look at him like this. Pained her being unable to help him. She was unavoidably reminded of the last time they'd been separated by an energy field, on the Goa'uld ship they'd gone to destroy earlier that year. Only that time, with the timer of a bomb counting down behind her, he'd been on the safe side. She'd seen it on his face, then, when he refused to abandon her…the utter shock when it had hit him why he couldn't leave. She remembered the look in his eyes when he was forced to recount it later while attached to the zay'tarc machine.

"I didn't leave because…I'd have rather died myself than lose Carter."

"Why?"

"Because I care about her. A lot more than I'm supposed to."

Those words had haunted Carter over the intervening months, making her wish…

I didn't matter. It couldn't matter. But now, she knew exactly how he'd felt.

She pushed her growing anxiety down, striving for professionalism. She had to stay rational if there was to be any chance of saving him. "We have to think of another way," she said finally, turning around to address Teal'c and Daniel. "There's absolutely no way to shut the field down from this side."

Teal'c hadn't faced her when she turned around; instead he remained in his position. Now, though, his eyes were roving over the partition dividing the two caverns, assessing. "Major Carter, after considering the thickness of the obstruction, I believe it may be possible to create a second entrance into the other chamber."

Carter looked at Teal'c, then the wall, then at the Jaffa's staff weapon. "Do it," she ordered, repressing the urge to castigate herself for not thinking of the possibility earlier. There would be time for self-recriminations later.

She backed several steps away, noticing that Daniel had come to stand just behind her to watch. Teal'c took one large step back from the wall and aimed his staff weapon at the rock immediately to the right of the glowing barrier, safely away from O'Neill's direction.

The bulb on the end of the long, slender stave emitted its distinctive whine as Teal'c powered it open. Then he fired.

In immediate response, three things happened in quick succession: First, stone fragments exploded out in every direction under Teal'c's blast. Carter and Daniel each threw up an arm to protect their heads from being pelted by the sharp rocks. Since she was turned away, Carter only heard force field's telltale zap! as it activated and she whipped around in shock. Just as she recognized the barrier's distinctive golden shimmer inside the wall, a terrifyingly low, groaning rumble resounded through the cavern, like some sleeping giant awakening deep in the ground. At the same moment, O'Neill uttered a weak, inarticulate cry.

Ignoring the ominous grumbling of the earth above them, Carter sprinted to the gap and looked into the other chamber. What she saw dropped the floor out of her stomach and sent her heart into her throat.

O'Neill was a pillar of stone with only his head and neck free. That situation was only going to last another minute at the most, however, because the rock was no longer creeping up toward his face, now…it was running, like melting wax dripping against gravity.

"My God," Daniel said next to her in horrified fascination. "It's like it's reacting to us trying to get through." When he realized just how extreme the reaction was, his voice became urgent. "It's going to kill him!"

There was absolutely no time for thought. Instinct and adrenaline shot her forward as if from a cannon. Without making any conscious decision she dove to the ground, where the gap was widest, and rolled. There was a flash of light, just an instant of intense heat, and then she was on the other side.

The rumbling had become very loud, very quickly. It was all around her, now, and stalactites were beginning to fall from the ceiling. In her peripheral vision she saw one shatter at the base of the column of rock trapping O'Neill but she dared not look too closely. She had to stay focused. There was too much going on at once, and no time to think about any of it.

Carter used the inertia from her roll as momentum to spring to her feet and at once dashed over to the wall. The access panel in the first chamber had been located about ten feet west of the partition, and so – with no other choice but to hope the Vak'Umcuu employed symmetry the way the rest of the universe seemed to – she skidded up to the equidistant point on this side.

She placed both hands on the wall and dragged them down, palms scraping over the jagged rock as she sought the hidden seam of the panel. Luck was with her; she found it on the first try and used both hands to press inward. The entire three-foot section of panel – now marked with her blood – shifted back and slid to the side. Another bed of crystals was revealed beneath.

From the gap she heard Daniel's voice. "Hurry, Sam!"

She couldn't help it…she snatched a glimpse at the Colonel over her shoulder and gasped. The stone was covering his mouth, now, and within seconds his access to oxygen would be cut off entirely. His eyes were wide, shooting back and forth wildly in his helplessness. She jerked back to the panel, pulse galloping and blood rushing in her ears. Chunks of rock crashed around her as if flung from the ceiling of the cavern. Resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to shy away from the near-misses, Carter focused on the crystals.

Her eyes flew over them, scanning the utterly alien technology for some way to stop what was happening to O'Neill. But with dismay she realized that she had no idea what to do. She'd had some experience with the crystal technology the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra used, but in those cases there was usually someone there who could at least point her in the right direction. She simply couldn't make sense of the foreign configuration in so short a time. Maybe with a few days – hell, even a few hours – to examine and experiment she could've made a reasonable determination about each crystal's function, but…

But that wasn't possible. And Colonel O'Neill was out of time.

She didn't dare look at him. She knew he couldn't breathe, now. Neither could she. Her lungs had seized up in paralyzing sympathy.

Carter picked a crystal at random and prepared to yank it from the socket, hoping desperately that the circuit might trip and shut the whole thing down. She started to pull, and that was when she saw it. In the upper right hand quarter of the panel, in the same place as in the other crystal bed…a flashing orange one.

Carter seized it, ripped it out of the wall. The panel immediately went dark as it powered down, and she spun toward O'Neill.

The rock around him was dissolving, running down his body in liquid rivulets that became solid again when they reached the ground. The pillar of stone resembled a melting ice sculpture, O'Neill a living, writhing man being thawed out.

The Colonel panted for air, then fell face forward as the earth released him completely. By throwing up his arms at the last instant he saved his face from a painful meeting with the ground, and he just lay there prone for a moment, recovering. Belatedly, Carter realized the force field had shut down, also. She suddenly became acutely aware that she had just disobeyed orders, and even more so of what she'd just revealed to every member of her team. Forgotten for the moment was the destruction going on around her; she had eyes only for the fallen man before her.

He pushed himself up to his knees and looked over, his gaze on her heavy with the weight of all the unspoken meaning in his eyes. She saw it all there the same way she'd once watched him realize he loved her.

Now he knew. All the veiled glances, all the silent communions…all the ambiguity they'd been hiding behind because they couldn't allow themselves to acknowledge the truth. It all faded away when he looked at her.

There could be no more pretense. There was no way to disguise what her ability to pass through the force field meant.

Stunned, not having any idea of what to say, Carter opened her mouth. Too many words came…

…I was so worried…

…Are you all right?…

…I thought I was going to be too late…

…Where do we go from here?…

…and she bit them all back, settling on "Sir, we've got to get out of here."

He nodded, his eyelids closing like shutters on the emotion apparent in the dark depths of his eyes. But they widened again just as he pushed himself to his feet, his gaze caught by something above her. "Carter, look out!"

Carter had no time to react before there was a sudden, sharp pain in her skull. She was dimly aware of the ground rushing up to strike her, but then the darkness reached out and enveloped her before the blow came. Then there was nothing.

VV

The steady, reassuring rhythm of the machine monitoring her heart let her know she was alive.

The beeping was the first thing she was aware of. The second was that she was not alone.

Before she even opened her eyes, she knew it would be him. As many times as she'd awakened in the infirmary over her tenure at the SGC, she'd become quite familiar with the constants involved in the experience. The light blanket resting atop her was standard-issue, and she knew without looking that it was pale blue. She knew that the monitor displaying her heart rate, EEG waves, respiration and other vitals would be at the head of her bed, to her left. On the other side would be the IV stand, dangling one or two saline bags at varying levels of fullness.

She knew all of these things from experience, just as she knew Colonel O'Neill would be there waiting for her, like always.

Before opening her eyes she conjured him in her mind. He tended to hang around the periphery while treatment was being administered, only moving in to stand next to the bed when the situation was stable. For the long haul, however, she knew he preferred to pull an infirmary stool up near the foot of the bed where he could keep a watchful eye.

Colonel O'Neill wasn't a big fan of inactivity, however. She'd actually only ever seen him voluntarily still and focused in two distinct types of situations…the first being any business relating to missions, where constant attention was essential. In the field and during a crisis he operated like a finely tuned instrument, fully in his element. The only other time he managed to remain still was when he was keeping vigil over a fallen comrade. Even in the latter circumstance, though, he very nearly always found something to occupy his hands.

In her mind's eye, Carter placed a small object in the hands of the colonel sitting at the foot of her bed, and then opened her eyes.

Colonel O'Neill was perched atop a stool just beyond the foot of her bed, his face hidden from her.. All she saw was the top of his silver head as he hunched over, fiddling with something. The image nearly perfectly overlapped the one she'd envisioned, and she smiled at her accuracy.

She must have made some small, amused sound, because he quickly looked up at her. His dark eyes lit up with relief. "Hey, Carter. How ya feeling?"

Only then did it occur to her to wonder why she was in the infirmary. Suddenly it all came back to her…the cavern deep in the earth, O'Neill's rocky imprisonment, the barrier. She also vaguely recalled a pain in her head, and reached a bandaged hand up to her scalp. "What happened?" she asked.

O'Neill stood and approached, still carrying the item he'd been fiddling with. Carter saw that it was a tongue depressor and imagined that one of the nurses had offered it to him in exchange for some more intricate, more costly instrument. "You got beaned by some debris from the ceiling. Teal'c's blast triggered a minor cave-in. Luckily, it stopped right after you got knocked out, and we were able to carry you out of there. Doc Frasier says she wants to keep you under observation for the concussion, and your hands'll need to stay bandaged for awhile, but otherwise you're fine."

He looked down at the thin, wooden reed he held for a moment, then shifted his gaze to a spot on the blanket approximately over her knees, unable or unwilling to meet her eyes. "No uh…effect that she can tell from the force field," he added.

Carter's cheeks heated, and she found herself staring at the same spot on the bedspread. She hunted for something to say. "That's…good. I guess Daniel's translation was accurate, then."

"Yeah," O'Neill replied. "Oh, and apparently I was blocking the bottom part of the inscription. You know, because I was obviously trying to sabotage his efforts at translating it by getting stuck and almost dying right there."

Carter grinned, and he went on. "Anyway, Daniel made an etching and translated it when we got back; it talked about how the energy field went all the way around the room, inside the rock."

"D'oh!" Carter said with a smile.

O'Neill returned it, his eyes meeting hers again with pleasure at the quote. "That's what I said!"

He went still again, his gaze once more returning to the blanket. "Still…knowing that would have only bought us some time, which wouldn't really have helped. I mean, you were right. The controls you needed were on my side."

There was no way to avoid this conversation. Carter took a deep breath, prepared to face the consequences of her actions. "Yes, sir. About that…"

"I know what you're going to say, Carter. Don't bother."

"But sir, I disobeyed a direct order."

O'Neill shrugged. "We all have, for one reason or another. Saving my life was a pretty good one, I'd say. Much better than a craving for steak, for example. I'm hardly going to bring you up on charges for it."

Suddenly he seemed shy. His voice grew softer and his fingers resumed fidgeting with the tongue depressor, belying the calm demeanor he projected. "To be honest, Carter…I ordered you not to go through the force field because…well, I didn't know… I mean, I know there's always been this…this thing." With the wave of a hand he indicated the space between them. "But I always thought that I felt…more. Than you, that is. It was your suggestion to leave it in the room, and all. I didn't want you to risk it, because I didn't know for sure that you…"

"That I love you," Carter finished for him, surprised at how easily it came out. They'd avoided talking about this issue for so long; now that he'd finally broached the forbidden topic she found it a lot easier to say than she'd thought she would.

From his expression, Carter gathered that O'Neill was surprised, too. 'Shocked' was probably a more accurate description. His lips were parted, his eyes riveted on her. It looked like he'd stopped breathing. "Yeah," he said faintly, "that."

It was Carter's turn to shrug and pretend indifference. "Well, now you do."

O'Neill kept staring at her. In fact, he couldn't seem to take his eyes away. As the moment drew out, she began to feel uncomfortable under his intense gaze. She wasn't sure what he expected from her, but she knew what she must do. "It doesn't change anything," she said.

"It…doesn't?" O'Neill asked slowly. She remembered the way he'd looked at her right after the mind-stamp incident, when they'd been left alone for a moment as they began to remember their roles in real life. She'd called him 'sir' then, reminding them both that he was her commanding officer, that they had obligations, and that the fragile relationship they'd begun as Jonah and Thera was impossible to continue. When he'd repeated the word his voice had been heavy with disappointment, touched by bitterness at the regulations, at their situation. It had sounded then just like it did now.

Carter's discomfort quickly took on a different, more pleasant texture as her stomach was suddenly invaded by a mass of butterflies. "Does it?"

"I think it does," he said, still watching her.

Carter bit her lip, keenly conscious of the dangerous ground they were on. This discussion alone could get them both in big trouble. But it couldn't go unsaid, not anymore. "This…thing," she started, borrowing his word to sum up the feelings between them, "has been here for a long time, Colonel. It's never been enough to…" What? Break the regs for? Risk our careers for? "…explore, before."

He had a quick answer for that one. "I never knew you loved me, before."

Carter felt a blush coming on, and fought it back through force of will. "And now that you do?"

O'Neill started to speak, then hesitated. His mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. Apparently she wasn't the only one aware of the fine line they were walking. Finally, he said, "Let me put it this way. If things were different, and we were able, would you want…?"

He floundered, attempting to find a way to say what he was asking that wouldn't get him court-martialed. Since Carter was pretty sure there just wasn't a way, and since she knew what he was trying to ask her, she took pity on him. "Yes," she said simply, meeting his eyes.

His own brightened, gleaming. "Yeah?" he asked, his expression akin to that of a little boy upon coming down the stairs Christmas morning and finding scores of presents under the tree.

She couldn't resist grinning back at him. This time she lost the battle against her blush, however. "Yeah," she confirmed. Then, needing to know, she turned the question around on him. "If things were different, would - "

"Oh yeah," O'Neill cut in fervently before she could even finish. "Definitely."

Oh boy. The flush on her face was nothing compared to the heat that shot through her at his words. And the way he was looking at her made her breathing deepen and her skin tingle all over. To her embarrassment, her accelerated heartbeat was dutifully recorded by the vitals monitor attached to her and broadcast via the quickened beeping. O'Neill's slow, sexy smile at hearing it did nothing to calm her pulse. "That's not fair," she muttered.

"Don't worry, Carter," he comforted her wryly. "You're not the only one."

Despite the warmth that flooded her at his words, she was nevertheless mindful of the barriers that still existed between them. The ones she couldn't just jump through and hope they wouldn't burn her. Her heart, so briefly buoyant, began to sink. Her sudden depression must have showed on her face. "What?" he asked.

"It still doesn't change anything," she said quietly. "We're still who we are, and things aren't different. The situation hasn't changed."

O'Neill was shaking his head, all levity forgotten. "I don't accept that. Not anymore. It was one thing when I wasn't sure how you felt. Easier to believe that everything else was more important. But now… There's gotta be a way," he said, voice full of frustration.

Something about his denial of the facts, his refusal to give her up that easily, made her eyes sting. She blinked rapidly, looking away. "What we're doing is important, Colonel. And the regulations are very specific."

She saw him approach from the corner of her eye. "I don't think you understand what I'm saying here," he said, drawing her gaze back to his as he leaned in toward her. Something deep in his eyes burned. "I want there to be a way."

God, she did, too. "I don't know that there is one, sir."

Her words seemed to have a sobering effect on him and he glanced down, noting their proximity with a degree of surprise. He made a visible effort to back off, retreating a step away from her as the vitality in him seemed to drain away, leaving behind only the Colonel. Cool, sardonic, professional. There was a snap, and Carter realized he'd reflexively cracked the tongue depressor in half.

Even though she knew this was the way it had to be, she mourned the loss of the new, tenuous connection between them.

"Sir," he repeated, running a hand over his face in a gesture of weary surrender. "Sometimes I hate that word."