Daniel really wouldn't have minded if Jack could've been a bit faster. Having someone poke at the huge bruise that was his right side was torment, despite the painkillers that'd come with the first aid kit in his pack.
Nevertheless, he answered, "You'll need to be able to walk."
"Well, the same goes for you. Might even be that I need your help walking. So, you need all the help you can get, too. Which isn't a lot. But there. That's it," Jack smoothed the last bit of tape, and drew his hands away.
Daniel pulled down his shirt and tried taking a deep breath. It threatened to turn into a cough, but he grimaced and stifled it. It definitely didn't feel a lot better than before, but he decided not to tell that to Jack, though the look on his face had probably revealed it already.
"One more thing, Daniel. Lesson 101 on broken ribs. The most important thing is to keep breathing. Deep breaths. And coughing is good, too. Even though it hurts. I know it does. I've been there as well."
"Why?"
"Because. That's what the docs tell you. It's got something to do with avoiding collapsed lungs and pneumonia, I think."
"Well, that's convincing."
"I don't need to be a doctor to figure out that breathing's good and not breathing's very bad, so there. Now. If we're all set..."
The radio interrupted Jack's words. It was Sam, once again, and her news weren't any better than the last time.
"As far as we can see, we've only got one way to go, and that's upstairs," she told them.
Jack frowned. "Right. And we've no idea of how big this place is. We'll get our call from the SGC in fifteen minutes. Just stay where you are. Don't go anywhere. We'll check out our ruins to see if we've got any stairs here."
"Will do, sir."
Daniel closed his eyes, leaned his head back, bit his teeth together and breathed in deeply, like Jack had told him to do. It was bad. But he'd have to take even worse. They'd have to start walking around. He wasn't looking forward to getting up, but he was eager to see more of this place, whatever it was. So far, he hadn't seen anything that'd give a hint about who had built it, when and why.
Still leaning on the wall, he stood up.
Jack followed, eyeing the ground as if he was looking for something. After a while, he shook his head.
"If I could just find a stick big enough to help me walk... But I can't see any," he explained, and took a step, testing his injured leg. From the way it looked, he still couldn't put much weight on it. Daniel stepped to his side and offered his help.
"I guess I don't have much choice," Jack muttered, and nodded.
In addition to the door out, there were two doorways in the hall, both in the wall across from them. They made their way to them so very slowly, since the place was so big. Way too big. It was one of the largest rooms Daniel had ever seen in any ruins, and that was saying a lot, since Daniel had seen quite a bunch of ruins during his life.
Finally, they reached the left-hand doorway and walked through it, both of them grimacing and panting from the pain and the effort.
The doorway led to a hall significantly smaller than the first one. There were no stairs there, and no doorways, either. Nothing that'd lead them any closer to Sam and Teal'c.
The long-awaited call from the SGC came just when they'd sat down to rest, and Jack was quick to answer it.
"SGC, O'Neill here. We're in a bit of a situation."
"What kind of a situation, Colonel?" General Hammond's familiar voice asked.
"Long story, sir. About a day's walk away from the gate, a dinosaur attacked us, and we were forced to flee. Carter and Teal'c are stuck in some ruins, Daniel and I are injured, and inside some ruins as well, though they might be different ones."
"Colonel, could you repeat that? Did you say dinosaurs?"
"Yes, sir. Big scary lizards. Very much not extinct."
"Did I get this right--Captain Carter and Teal'c are trapped, you and Doctor Jackson are not?"
"That's the case, sir. Unless Carter has some news--Carter, you listening?"
"Yes, sir," Sam joined the conversation. "We're still waiting for orders."
Daniel was resting his head against the wall, concentrating on deep breaths. When Sam started talking, he thought he heard something. Her voice sounded different from Hammond's. As if it came from more than one source. He wondered if he was just imagining it.
"And you mentioned injuries? How bad?"
"Well, nothing critical, neither of us is about to die, but it's bad enough to limit our mobility. Bruises and broken bones. We could use some medical attention. I think we'd better get out of this dino-land and back home as soon as possible."
"What would you recommend, then, Colonel? Do you need backup?"
"Possibly. We've just started checking the ruins we're in. It's still possible we're in the same ruins and we'll find our way to Carter and Teal'c, so we can get out together and walk back to the gate. Give us half an hour and call us again, and we'll probably know more."
"Very well, Colonel. Half an hour it is. SGC out."
Daniel had been listening very closely ever since he'd heard Sam speak. He thought he'd caught something else, heard Teal'c's voice, and Sam's, though they hadn't joined the radio conversation again.
"Sam, Teal'c," he called into his radio. "Are you near to a wall? Could you say something near it, as loud as possible?"
"Daniel? Yes, we're next to a wall... Why?"
"Because I thought I heard you speak earlier. Just checking if I was imagining things. Don't talk to the radio. Turn it off. Just shout something."
"All right..."
Jack was gazing at Daniel as if he was nuts. He shrugged. They waited and listened.
They both started, when they heard a voice, Sam's voice, calling "Hello." It was faint, but clear enough. It came from behind the wall they were leaning on.
Daniel turned to face the wall and shouted, "Sam! Teal'c! Can you hear me?"
He heard Teal'c's deep voice answer, but since it was so low, it came through a lot less clear than Sam's. Nevertheless, Daniel was was pretty sure he'd said "I hear you, Daniel Jackson."
"We're in the same ruins, all right," Jack noted.
"Too near, and still too far." Daniel knocked on the wall. It was solid stone. Definitely too thick for them to make a hole in it. Still, this was good news. At least they weren't miles apart from each other. And if they were in the same ruins, there would probably be a way from their side to the other.
"Carter," Jack took up the radio again, so they could hear clearly without shouting. "We need to check another doorway. Just in case. You just stick to this wall, and we'll contact you later."
Daniel got up reluctantly, and they began their slow and painful walk towards the other doorway.
They found a third hall, smaller than the first one, but clearly longer than the second one. There was something odd about the far end of this hall. Definitely no stairs leading up. Instead, the low growth of bushes ended abruptly at one point, and the floor seemed to disappear.
"Not good," Daniel uttered.
"Definitely not good."
They had to know for sure, so they walked on some more. When they were finally near enough, they slumped to the ground to rest again, and to curse their lack of luck. Instead of stairs leading up, they'd found steep stairs leading down, into gloomy, uninviting depths. Even though they were in the same ruins with Sam and Teal'c, it didn't look as if they had any way of getting to them.
"Damn," Jack cursed.
"Yeah," Daniel answered breathlessly. He was having a hard time trying to catch his breath, despite of Jack's not so useful advice on the importance of breathing. It just hurt so much. He didn't know how much more walking he'd be able to take.
Jack gave him a worried look. "I think we'd better get back to that other hall, near to Teal'c and Carter, but... Hey, look at that. There's something for you."
Jack was pointing at the wall. It was interesting enough to take Daniel's mind off his side, and before he noticed it, he was breathing evenly again, if not all that deeply.
The wall was covered with carvings, and some of it looked like writing of some sort. Daniel couldn't recognize it. The symbols reminded him of cuneiform, except that they were made of narrow slashes instead of wedge-shapes. As if they'd been drawn with a blade. Or a claw, considering that the accompanying images mostly depicted different dinosaurs.
"What do you make of it?"
"Umm... Not much, but then again... Wow. This is a really wild guess, but I think it looks as if there might be, or might've been, an advanced culture of dinosaurs here. I mean, look at the writing--the way it's made--and the lack of any other creatures in the pictures... But that's just looking at this one scene in this one room, there might be a lot more out there."
"There were some in that other hall too. Didn't you notice?"
Daniel frowned. No, he hadn't noticed. He hadn't been paying attention to the walls. "Not really. No."
"We should be getting back there anyway. You up to it?"
"Let's go."
Luckily, this was likely to be the last stretch of walking they'd need to do in a while. Jack had clearly noticed how bad Daniel was feeling, since he tried to put more weight on his injured foot. As a result, they were even slower than before.
They got out of the room with the stairs only to find themselves surrounded.
Gathered in a semi-circle around the doorway stood a pack of small dinosaurs. Even the largest of them was about tall enough to reach Daniel's chin. But they had mean-looking claws, and they hissed and growled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Definitely meat-eaters, and apparently angry.
Jack had drawn a pistol, and pointed it at them. Daniel wondered why he didn't take a bigger gun indeed, but he must have spent all his ammo on the Tyrannosaur.
Before Daniel got his zat armed, the dinosaurs started advancing, closing their circle around the doorway, leaving Jack and Daniel nowhere else to go. They had two options--to shoot or to flee. They'd fled from the Tyrannosaur, but these were a lot smaller.
Jack had apparently made the decision. He shot at the nearest beast. Daniel did the same, but the dinosaur he'd targeted was so fast it was able to dodge.
They'd only managed to make the creatures more angry. They moved even closer, snapping their jaws. Daniel couldn't understand why they didn't attack. Of course, he was happy they didn't.
"Let's retreat. Nice and slow," Jack said in a low tone.
As if walking hadn't been hard enough to begin with, now they had to move backwards, slowly, guns pointed ahead, mad dinosaurs growling at them. Daniel was sure that without the extremely threatening situation and all the adrenalin coursing through his veins, he'd be lying on the floor, too tired and sore to move at all.
They got back through the doorway, into the room with the stairs, and the dinosaurs followed them. They regrouped in a semi-circle as soon as they were in the room, moving as if it was all pre-planned and organized.
"The big one. In the middle. I think it's the leader," Daniel whispered.
Jack nodded.
They stopped for a while. If they'd keep going backwards, they'd end up at the stairs. But the dinosaurs wouldn't let them stop. As soon as they did, the creatures started growling louder, moving around, lunging towards the two of them and drawing back again. Urging them to move on.
"We can't go down there," Jack noted. "We've got to shoot our way out. Start with the big one."
Daniel bit his lip, but nodded, and pointed his zat.
"Now!" Jack yelled.
They fired almost simultaneously--but faster than the bullet and the bolt, another dinosaur leaped ahead to take the hits. Jack fired again, and Daniel followed his lead, but the same thing happened again, they missed the target, and even the self-sacrificing one that took the damage didn't seem badly hurt.
The big one howled something that sounded like an order, and the whole pack started moving on, slowly but inevitably, getting closer than ever before.
Jack and Daniel started backing away again, as fast as they could. One of the dinosaurs leaped away from their line, slashing at them with a sharp-clawed foot. It just missed Jack's shoulder.
Another dinosaur launched a teasing attack, lashing forward with a hand that almost hit Daniel's knee.
They were at the stairs a lot sooner than Daniel had expected. He stepped backwards, and all of a sudden, there was no floor beneath his foot. He would've fallen down if not for Jack's help. Jack had been more wary, and steadied him.
They had no choice. They started retreating down the stairs. For a moment, it looked like the dinosaurs might have given up on them. Then, one of the beasts leaped down the stairs, landing right in front of them. It growled at them, pushing its open jaws awfully close to Jack's foot.
Jack jerked back--it was the instinctive thing to do, of course. Unfortunately, he lost his balance because of it. He grabbed Daniel's sleeve, but Daniel wasn't exactly the steadiest support he could've found. This time, they both stumbled and fell back.
The last Daniel saw of the dinosaurs was a quick flash before he hit the stairs. The biggest one of the beasts waved a hand over the stairway. It looked like it was wearing a hand device. Its eyes glowed.
Then, there was nothing but chaos, pain and hard stone, as they crashed down towards the darkness.