Trust Goes Both Ways Chapter 1, a stargate: sg-1 fanfic

Title: Trust Goes Both Ways

Author: Arrietty

E-mail: K+

Archived: Incoming Wormhole, Jackfic, SJ/A, fanfiction net and Heliopolis.

Summary: Jack and Sam pick off more than they can chew.

Category: Action/Adventure, SJ, UST, Character Death (please don't be put off by that), Angst.

Spoilers: Little itty bit for Season 5 'Proving Ground'.

Status: Completed

Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Prod and Gekko Prod. This story has been written for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author.

Author's Note: This is my first fic. Set in season 5 after Proving Ground, but before Meridian. A big thank you goes to Spyro for her bits of advice and encouragement and an extra special thank you for Beta reading it for me.

Trust Goes Both Ways

By Arrietty

Chapter One

As SG-1 stepped out of the Stargate onto the sandy steps of PX 169, the heat hit them like a physical blow. Sweat broke out onto their skin instantly. As far as humanly possible all they could see were rolling hills of sand. With his right hand, Colonel Jack O'Neill lifted his cap off his head and ran his other hand over his grey hair and let out a big sigh, then placed his hat back on his head. "This is going to be a hot one kids! Carter, where are the ruins?"

"South west, sir," came the firm reply.

"Okay. Teal'c and Daniel you're off to collect 'rocks'. Carter you're with me. Didn't you say that there could be naquadah deposits hereabouts somewhere?"

"Yes, sir, north east."

"Okay. Daniel, Teal'c, radio contact every two hours, meet you back here in eight hours. Any questions?"

"No. I do not have any questions, O'Neill." Teal'c replied calmly.

"No, Jack see you later," chirped Daniel, who was already trotting off towards the ruins that SG-6 had spotted on an earlier visit. As Daniel used his binoculars, he could just make out the unusual shaped structures. They were just a shade darker than the surrounding sand dunes.

Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter had been travelling for four hours. So far, they hadn't come across any sign of naquadah deposits – not even a hint.

"Are you sure we are going in the right direction, Carter?"

"Look, sir, it isn't as though there are landmarks to follow, only the compass direction that they gave us and we should have come across some sort of naquadah deposit by now."

"Maybe they walked a lot faster, Carter," O'Neill replied sarcastically as Major Carter was standing still, facing the opposite direction to O'Neill, trying to get a bearing on the compass.

Ignoring the comments of the hot, tired and irritable colonel, Carter replied. "Sir! Something is wrong with this compass."

"What's wrong with it?" O'Neill replied with a slight hint of concern in his voice.

Carter frowned while she looked at her compass, pointing straight out in front of her, she queried, "Okay, north is meant to be this way," looking up towards where she was pointing, "but the compass is showing north in the opposite direction to what it was five minutes ago."

Immediately, O'Neill moved to her side. He took the compass from her, studied it and looked up at the sky. "Ugh, that's not going to work," he said with a grimace. "Two suns! Hang on a minute, have you moved, Carter?"

"No, sir."

"Well apparently, north is now that way." O'Neill pointed away from Carter in the opposite direction from where she had been pointing earlier.

"I think we are in trouble, Major." O'Neill grabbed his radio and called in Daniel and Teal'c, but there was no reply on the radio, it seemed to not be working.

Three hours later, there was still no answer from the radio.

All Carter and O'Neill could see was sand, even with the binoculars. To make matters worse, the first sun was beginning to set, though this made things a bit cooler, they knew that it was going to get very cold and dark in the near future. There was no wood to build a warm fire and no shelter to keep the cold of the desert air from them.

Major Carter released her pack from her back and crouched down to retrieve some food for their evening meal. Maybe it was going to be cold, but at least it was food. While she was doing this, Colonel O'Neill noticed what looked like a hunk of wood at the bottom of the dune. The sand looked like someone (a huge someone) had punched down their fist into the sand, making a very large deep pit.

It didn't take long for O'Neill to reach his goal, he slid down the steep side of the pit and bent down to take a closer look at what he thought was a piece of wood. It was a sandy brown colour not unlike the sand that they had been walking on, just a shade darker. As he bent down to reach for the piece of wood, not only did the wood move, but also the ground that O'Neill had been standing on moved violently. He found himself flipped up on his side and something clamp onto his boot and leg. The pain was excruciating. The piece of wood was not what he thought, but a large claw measuring about twelve feet long. Only a small piece of the claw had been sticking out of the sand and it wasn't alone. It was one of a pair and following the pair of claws was a large scaly head. By that stage O'Neill had let out a large roar of pain.

"Arh! Carter! Watch out!" yelled O'Neill.

Carter immediately looked up and couldn't see her CO anywhere, but she did see the monstrous back of a crab-like creature. As she crawled closer to the edge of the hollow, what she saw filled her with horror. The creature had her colonel by his foot and was slowly dragging him towards its mouth. There was no doubt in her mind what the intentions of the creature were. O'Neill had managed to retrieve his P90 and was now trying to shoot the monster, but with no effect, the bullets were just bouncing off its scales. The creature by now had managed to extract itself from the sand except for its tail, which was slowly sliding out of the sand below where Carter was standing.

All this, Carter took in a moment and without thinking she grabbed a hand grenade off her belt, pulled the pin and threw herself over the side of the hollow. As she scrambled down the side, she threw the grenade into the open maw of the monster and then fell on top of O'Neill to protect him from the flying debris of the explosion. Neither of them saw that the sand had finally released the tail from the side of the pit. The tail came down with an almighty thump on Carter's back knocking the wind out of her, seconds before the crump of the explosion sounded inside the nameless monster. It seemed to take an eternity for it to die, but as it did, bits of the creature were scattered around the hollow, over Carter and O'Neill.

Carter slowly got up, looked around at the dead creature and cautiously poked it with her foot to make sure it was dead and then she turned around to O'Neill.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Yeah, Yeah, just fine, a bit stuck that is all."

Carter bent down and tried to remove the offending claw. It was wedged firmly into the leather of his boot, but however hard she tugged, she was unable to shift it. But as far as she could see, to her relief, his foot was still attached to his leg.

"Sir, I think your boot saved your foot."

"Carter."

"Yes, sir?"

"Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine, sir. Why do you ask?"

As Carter was saying this to O'Neill, she had straightened up and started to move towards O'Neill's backpack that had been dragged off his back earlier. Just as she bent down to retrieve the pack, suddenly her hips and legs gave way. Carter let out an oomph as she collapsed onto the ground just a couple of feet from O'Neill's head.

"Carter! What's wrong?"

"I don't know, sir, I can't move my legs." Carter slowly dragged herself around and then moved closer to O'Neill.

O'Neill carefully sat up. Except for his foot and a few scrapes on his back from being dragged through the sand, he was uninjured. He quickly checked Carter's injury to her back and noticed that it was strange, because on her lower back was some blood, not much, just enough to discolour her shirt. He carefully lifted her shirt and what he saw worried him immensely. The blood had come from a puncture wound about the size of the palm of his hand, but what was disturbing was a fluorescent yellow marbling effect on Carter's skin, that spread out from the wound. He quickly pulled her trouser legs up out of her boots and there was the discolouration again.

"Sam, look at this." O'Neill didn't realise that he had used her first name, but the concern in his voice was apparent.

Sam dragged herself up by pulling on O'Neill's back, not noticing the wince that crossed her CO's face as she inadvertently put pressure on his scraped back. "Yuck. What is it? It's a horrible colour, not my colour at all!"

O'Neill looked at Sam in surprise. He wasn't expecting any kind of levity in this situation from Sam. "Does it hurt at all?"

"No, it doesn't, sir. I just can't move my legs at all."

The two of them sat together, Sam clutching her CO to stop herself from falling back down onto the sand. O'Neill started to rummage in his pack.

"Well the good news, Carter, is that the compass is now working properly," said O'Neill as he lifted out the compass and waved it under her nose. The bad news, of course, was that neither of them could move. They were both stuck at the bottom of the pit as good as if they had been anchored there.