Daniel shifted slowly in the gravel. The heat was pressing down on him and keeping him from seeking relief from the prickly bed he was on. Daniel finally forced his eyes to open – why was that such a problem on this planet? – and noticed that the sun was almost down. He looked at his watch, did a little quick math, and found that daylight was about fourteen hours long. He'd have to keep track tonight to see how long the nights were.
He pulled himself up to sit against the trunk of a "palm" and looked over at Dr. Jago. She hadn't moved from where he had left her about ten hours earlier. She was still sweating; that was a good sign. He leaned over her and brushed her cheeks with the palm of his hand. She felt hot. He was sure she was running a fever. He didn't know if that was from infection or from heat exhaustion, but he'd have to make sure he got her to drink eight ounces of water every hour until her fever was down.
He grabbed her canteen and gently shook her shoulder. "Dr. Jago…Arwen… wake up. You need to drink some water."
Her eyes flickered open briefly and closed again. "Sick."
"Yes, I know. You're running a fever and you need to drink some water."
Her eyes flew open and she turned suddenly away from Daniel, losing what little there was in her stomach. That made Daniel even more concerned as he knew she couldn't afford to loose the liquids. He also knew that this would make it very difficult for her to keep down the water she disparately needed.
He held her head and pulled back her hair until the spasms passed. She flopped back down, tears of pain running down her cheeks. Daniel was sure that throwing up had caused her some serious pain in her ribs. Her eyes glazed over and she tried to push him away, thinking he was the cause of her pain.
Daniel got her med kit and took out another morphine tablet and a couple of antibiotic pills, hoping to stop infection if that was causing her fever. He moved behind her and lifted her head to rest on his leg. Tapping her on the cheek to rouse her, he pried open her mouth, slipped a tablet to the back of her tongue and held the canteen to her lips. She tried to drink, but only succeeded in coughing up the tablet and dribbling the water over her face and shirt.
Daniel leaned back, wondering how he could get both the medicine and water into her. He dug back into her med kit and found what he was looking for. He blushed, even though she couldn't see what he was holding. He opened the foil package and unrolled the condom. He poured some water into it from the canteen, then took his Swiss Army knife and made a small hole in the tip.
He leaned back over her and pried open her mouth again, slipping the tip of the condom in along with the damp tablet, and let the water trickle into her mouth. Semiconscious, she strained toward the welcoming water, sucking on the latex tube as a baby would on a rubber nipple. When we get back, I'm going to suggest we carry baby bottles! Way less embarrassing.
He repeated this until she drank about half the water in the canteen – or was wearing it - and had swallowed all three medicine pills. He rolled the condom back up and put it in her kit. He'd probably need to do that several more times before she was aware enough to drink on her own.
Slowly sliding out from behind her, Daniel decided it was time to move her closer to the oasis. He found a couple of fairly straight, long dead branches and made a stretcher from the emergency blanket in her kit. He rolled her over on her side, slipped the stretcher behind her back and rolled her back onto the stretcher. He put a backpack on either side of her legs so he wouldn't have to carry them and used a couple more strips cut from his emergency blanket to tie her into the stretcher. Standing between the poles by her head, Daniel hoisted up the front end and started carefully dragging the home-made stretcher toward the oasis.
Daniel followed the cleared path he had made earlier wondering what the rest of the team was doing. He was pretty sure that only he and Dr. Jago had been transported across the planet – if they were even on the same planet. Jack would be frantic, although he'd only show it by being short tempered with everyone else. Sam would chew on her lip and try to analyze everything in sight. Teal'c would frown and want to go searching, but would obey Jack completely.
He was amazed at how much he missed his friends. He still thought of himself as a loner – someone who didn't need other people. Now alone, except for Dr. Jago, whom he didn't know well and who wasn't any company now anyway, he realized how much he'd come to depend upon their support in his life. Jack forced him to open up after Sha're had died. He had been a literal life saver. Daniel didn't know what he would have done without Jack during the years after she was taken and her death.