Sheppard and Teyla turned into the nearby woods where the remaining villagers had already sought shelter to wait for the next ship to take them to safety. The forest floor was covered with a thick overgrowth of brush that made it impossible for walking but perfect to hide in. Sheppard stopped short of the refugees who were huddled together in silence and turned to Teyla. "It's going to take at least two more trips to get these people out of here."

"I agree." She said looking at them, then back to him and studing him carefully as if sizing him up.

"What?" he asked.

"We could attempt to reach the Stargate on foot." She proposed. "Too many people would draw attention from the Wraith. However there is a chance the two of us could slip past them undetected."

Sheppard nodded. He knew exactly what she was thinking. She hadn't wanted him to leave the Jumper in the first place. She certainly didn't want him hiking to the Gate through a field of dense brush. But at this point anything seemed better than sitting on a log in the woods and waiting; especially when he didn't have aspirin and the wind that did manage to penetrate the trees seemed to be growing icier by the minute. "Let's go" he decided.

They trudged through the brush and snow toward the Stargate keeping close to the trees and away from the Wraith.

"What?" Sheppard asked when Teyla glanced at him for what had to be the tenth time in two minutes.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

"I'm fine." He said, his tone a little more clipped than he'd intended. "A little cold actually" He confided by way of an apology. Their breath was coming out in white puffs of condensation and the cold air hurt his lungs. Teyla seemed to be handling it just fine but he still hadn't completely warmed up from his little freezing-to-death-with-McKay stunt. And now he was tromping through fields on a planet he was already nicknaming 'Hoth' in his mind while his fingers turned numb.

They were halfway to the Gate, skirting a particularly dense clump of brush in the field when the ground gave way beneath Teyla's feet. The only sound she made was a sudden sharp gasp as what she'd thought was solid ground gave way to freezing cold water and swallowed her.

Sheppard reacted instantly reaching out for her, dropping to his knees on the earth -which in retrospect could have easily been ice- and reaching into the water searching for something to hold onto. He finally caught a handful of fabric as she sank and pulled hard as Teyla struggled to push herself up towards the hole in the ice. He yanked on her jacket and succeeded in pulling her head out of the water, then shifted his grasp on her to hooking one arm under her armpit, still holding her jacket with the others hand, and dragging her out onto the bank.

Teyla coughed hoarsely, she had succeeded in not swallowing any water, but sucking in air so suddenly upon resurfacing had burned her lungs with the cold and her chest ached with it.

"Come on" Sheppard grasped both her arms with fingers numb from hours of cold -followed by a freezing cold water chaser- and dragged her to her feet. "If we don't get you back soon you're gonna freeze to death." he started walking faster while keeping an eye on Teyla whose clothes were already starting to stiffen and freeze.

The twoof them turned as onewhen they heard an all too-familiar high pitched whine behind them. "Oh hell" Sheppard saw the Wraith dart headed in their direction and quickly upped his pace to a dead run. Teyla stumbled over the rough terrain with legspainful and weak from cold and Sheppard grasped her arm running headlong towards the cover of the woods when the white light overwhelmed them.