YESTERDAY.
by Lingren.
Italics...indicate the internal conversation between the host and his Tok'ra symbiote.
Previously:
They watched in silence as the chevrons lit up almost sombrely as if it knew this was a poignant occasion. Once the wormhole had established the party moved off into the event horizon with the earthly remains of the Stargate Command's main sponsor, to the strains of the last post and the salute from the SGC personnel.
Chapter 13
They found the plot reserved for Ryan and lowered the coffin into the previously dug grave. General Hammond had ordered SG-1 to dig the grave beforehand, well, Teal'c anyway,and they had taken through the supplies necessary for Jack's return. It was all carried out in secret and without arousing any suspicions. Now they left the Doctor to open the lid and try to rouse Kanan.
Edward Miller was a little freaked at first, coming face to face with his dead friend. Ryan was beyond pale but not as grey as his actual death would have left him. He tapped Ryan's cheek calling out to the Tok'ra inside the still body.
"Kanan!"
A moment or two later, the corpse opened its eyes which glowed eerily making Teddy shrink back a little. He had seen and spoken to Kanan before but it still came as a bit of a shock that this lifelong friend was supposedly dead and was now 'waking up' as it were.
"Dr. Miller!"
"How is he?"
"I have healed the wound, though he is weakened from the loss of blood."
"Okay, I'll try and warn the medical staff to be prepared. Tell him we'll be waiting for him. Everything he needs is here, and good luck," Miller said, and then more pensively he whispered. "See you soon my friend."
He left the Tok'ra to revive his host and joined the others back at the Stargate to return to earth. The fact that he was standing on another world was lost on him. He was too caught up in his emotions to take much note of his surroundings, and the trip was over before he'd really registered the fact.
OoOoOoOoO
"Jack! C'mon buddy time to wake up!"
Jack groaned and tried to roll over but found himself confined.
"What the...?"
"Jack, it's okay. You are in a coffin. Remember? You're alive, you're okay!"
"I am? God...I don't feel it!"
"Give it a few minutes, and you will."
"You certainly picked a hell of a way for me to die, Hiss! Why? Whatever happened to the supposed heart attack?"
"Someone beat me to it Jack. Some crazy guy stabbed you and I was hard put to stop you from actually dying!"
"Don't remind me, though I don't really remember much about it; just pain and it was hard to breathe."
"That's not surprising. Anyway, time to get up and get yourself changed. Everything you need is waiting for you so just...move your butt!"
"Is that any way to speak to the dead?"
"Hah! You don't look very dead to me. But then again you don't look very much like you are alive either right now. You will feel a bit weak for a while. They don't normally perform blood transfusions on the dear departed, so you're a little bit short of the red stuff."
"Great!" Jack muttered. "I told you we should have gone with the plans earlier, and then I wouldn't have this problem."
"Just shift your ass so we can get home where Doc Frasier will be waiting with a fresh supply!"
Jack dragged himself from the confines of the coffin and suppressed a shudder when he thought about his own mortality and the weirdness of rising from the dead. He dressed in his BDU's and vest, before closing the lid on his coffin and burying it under the mound of soil to look as if it had been a normal funeral. He sat there for a while, exhausted and sweaty from the labour of shovelling dirt when he felt so weak. When he'd finally regained his breath and had sufficiently stopped shaking from the effort, he clipped on his P-90 and proceeded the hundred or so metres to the Stargate.
General Hammond's promise was as good as his word and Jack had found the slip of paper with the co-ordinates inside a pocket in his suit. He punched in the glyphs and took a deep breath, then rushed headlong through the event horizon, knowing he was going to hit the other side hard, but it was necessary to have some sort of bruising to show for his 'recent' tumble.
P7X 592 was one planet that hadn't yet been explored. He was the first person from Earth to actually set foot on its soil. Jack's intention was to find something on the other side that he could pretend to injure himself on, but, the best-laid plans don't always work.
He shot out of the wormhole rapidly and then he found himself flying. As he fell, the old proverb...'look before you leap!'... echoed though his mind at the same time that he yelled.
Everyone knew that when you ran into the wormhole that joined two worlds together, you exited like a bullet, even more so when the ride through was a rough one.
And Jack had a wild ride alright.
The experience of this always held a thrill for him. Sometimes not knowing what was on the other side was a bonus, at other times a disappointment.
This was one of those bonus times.
Jack discovered that fact the hard way. Had he known what was waiting for him on the other side, he would have taken it at a more leisurely pace. However, he needed something to claim that he had been injured when he was thrown from the gate, and now...well, now he had his proof of a hard landing!
After landing awkwardly, he lay stunned and in considerable pain at the bottom of a steep rocky incline, battered and broken. It was too steep for him to be able to climb out unassisted, he would need some rope and someone to haul him back up the 20 feet or so again. He moved to sit up and take a look around him, but pain lanced through his head, side and shoulder and encouraged the darkness to clamour for his consciousness.
"Ah crap!" was the last conscious thought he had before he fell into the dark abyss.
"You can...say that...again!" Kanan's voice echoed faintly before fading from Jack's unconscious mind, and then he too was enveloped by the dark.
OoOoOoOoO
FRIDAY EVENING.
General Hammond stared down into the gate room through the control room window, his gaze fixed on the group gathered there ready for their next mission. They were there for a mission to an unexplored planet, but he knew they would find something very interesting there, more so thanany strange landscape. Though of course, he couldn't tell them that. He had delayed the departure as long as he could but now he had to let them go, hoping that they would find their 'surprise' relatively near to the gate. He was more or less expecting them back within the hour.
The loudness of the kwooosh as the gate exploded into existence dragged him from his reverie. Major Thompson glanced up at the window anticipating the General's order.
"SG-8, you have a go. Good luck out there people and God speed!"
"Thank you sir!" Thompson replied with a smart salute. "SG-8, move out!"
The four team members walked into the event horizon and disappeared from the General's view. Moments later the wormhole winked out and the room fell quiet.
Hammond's eyes were still glued to the now idle gate; he couldn't help but think of what the Major's reaction would be when they discovered Jack there. Providing of course, that Kanan had managed to revive the Colonel in time, if at all. He could only wait and see, but as he knew from past experience in this assignment, waiting was never the easiest thing to do. It hadn't gotten any easier over the years, in fact it had became harder. Each and every member, no matter to which team they belonged, had grown to be a good friend, and as Jack's 'dying' had proved, his level of attachment was far greater than in any ordinary command situation.
You couldn't keep sending good men and women out there to face the constant dangers that they did and see them come home again either wounded, or in many cases dead, without feeling something. How he had kept doing it year after year, he didn't know? Nevertheless, he knew from bitter experience that until the right time and right person came along, he would continue to do so.
The few days under General Bauer had taught them a lesson never to trust a complete outsider to know how things worked at the SGC; and for this reason, he was fully expecting Jack to fill his shoes one day. Now he was assured that with all that Jack had gone through for the past 40 years that he was indeed the right man for the job; providing he was alive and discovered by SG-8.
TBC
Thanks once again to all of you who reviewed. Just acouple more chapters to go, then I will have another treat for you...one I'm currently working on which some of you may have already read the first parts...namely Junior.