Chapter 7
She lay not 8 inches from him yet it might as well have been across the room. Reaching out to touch him she told herself it was to make sure he hadn't spiked a fever. She was so very good at self deception. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder and gently, tenderly, she ran her fingertips down to his forearm brushing the hairs there. She wanted to touch more, to mold herself to him. Better yet, she would have him press himself to her so she could feel him holding her tight, feeling his desire. But that shiny diamond ring was the proverbial bucket of cold water quenching any feeling left between them.
He rolled to his side with his back to her and she felt bereft.
He woke up and tried desperately to remember just where he was. At first, the memory of Ba'al gravity experiment sprang to mind; he felt welded to the mattress. But when he opened one eye he saw Carter. In fact, he saw a little more of Carter than usual. She was out of uniform and the outfit she had on was no turtle neck. He could see the swell of her breast and he had the feeling she would tear him a new one if she woke to find him staring down her shirt. He was feeling quite loopy and this view delighted him.
He still had no idea where he was but it couldn't be too bad, not a cell, unless accommodations had vastly improved since the last time. His head hurt, along with most everything else, and rubbing his forehead only made matters worst, his head was bruised and scratched as well as the hand he rubbed it with. And he was cold and hungry and totally exhausted and had an exceptionally foul taste in his mouth but he was alive or maybe this was as close to heaven he was ever going to get.
Jack's memory of the last couple of days was starting to solidify in his mind.
The weather had started to change. It had been a lovely warm day and, after stopping for lunch, a storm front started to move in. They decided to put on their jackets over their t-shirts and get their rain gear at the ready. Just as he, arms over his head and jacket wide open, was sliding his vest back on, the staff blast tore apart the shale outcropping he had leaned his P-90 against. The shale flew at him with tremendous force. Some of it sharp as knives slicing his flesh; some of it, molten from the energy of the staff weapon, burning through his uniform; the rest of it propelled at almost bone breaking force, badly bruising everywhere it hit and that was his entire left side from forehead to his knee.
It exploded again as he was being clothes lined from behind. It must have been Carter. After that thing were rather sketchy. She dragged his ass up hill and down dale; he just stumbled along trying to keep on his feet as the rain began. There were Jaffa blundering through the woods too, clanking in their heavy armor, so noisy and slow that they weren't too hard to elude. Carter and O'Neill dove under a tree whose branches swept the ground so they could catch their breath and bind up the deepest of their gashes. His breathing was so rapid and harsh that he thought that anyone within a mile could hear him. They sat side by side with their backs against the massive trunk sharing her canteen. After bandaging his thigh she had wanted to look under his jacket, at his chest, but he said it was nothing. Nothing, right, you could smell the burnt flesh. There were Jaffa fighting nearby and he remembered pushing Carter down on his lap as he bent over her as the staff blasts singed the tree limbs. He had the distinct impression that the Jaffa were not targeting them; well he could hope anyway. They seemed to be fighting one another and SG-1 just happened to be in the wrong place at precisely the wrong time.
And then when the ground battle quieted as the storm finally hit in its full fury, he remembered running and running headlong into the forest in the downpour. There were loud explosions in the skies, some thunder and lightening, others the space craft of the warring Goa'uld. He remembered her shoving him into a small spot with a rocky overhang and Carter proceeded to camouflage their nest. They were soaked through and muddy but this spot was out of the pouring rain and with the rain ponchos over them and branches covering that, they were well hidden for the night.
It was once they had stopped running for their lives that he could concentrate on how badly the burns and cuts hurt and how damned cold it had gotten. Only a few spots were warm, his ass and back that were firmly against Carter, who was tucked in behind him, and the spots on his chest and thigh that felt as though they were on fire. And he wondered 'What the hell possessed me to want to come on this mission?' Did he feel like he needed to prove something? Did he need to show Carter that he still had the right stuff or did he need to prove something to himself? All it proved, both to her and to himself, was how pathetic he had become.
The next day, although the sheets of rain had stopped, water continued to drip from the trees and the ground was treacherous. They shared a MRE but he found it hard to choke down more that a few bites. He was still exhausted from the trauma of the day before and the force of this planets gravity; his muscles ached and joints felt as though they were ground to powder. They wanted to connect up with Daniel and Teal'c or get back to the gate but that proved to be impossible with the platoons of Jaffa in the area. At first they had assumed they were the target of the attack but it seemed that the Jaffa were unaware of any Tau'ri presence on the planet. Be that as it may, they did not wish to run headlong into the enemy. Since the Stargate seemed to be an untenable goal, he and Carter continued on to the original meeting with the natives and the hope that they could trust them.
Sam and Jack ran as quickly and silently as they could, hoping and praying their sense of direction had not failed them. Well the truth of it was Sam trudged and he shambled and stumbled and had for the most part no idea where he was going. The sounds of Jaffa war horn and the occasional clank of armor and staff blasts sent them to ground but the noise was diminishing as was their strength. O'Neill had fallen twice but refused Carter's suggestion to rest. The third time he fell it was the men of Stord that picked him up and brought them to the cave like dwellings carved into the sides of the fjords, the Great Fjord of Strom.
And the next thing he remembered were hands pulling off his sodden clothes, some vile concoction was poured down his throat while Carter kept reassuring him that everything would be all right. Oh yes and pain, he remembered the pain.
He closed his eyes and tried to forget.