Water Over Stone
Part 2 of 4
"—Which makes just about as much sense as everyone else in the galaxy speaking modern English!"
Sam grinned at Daniel's long-winded gripe about the impossibility of the yetis—the Ganar—being able to speak a relatively modern Earth language. Usually, she was the one who hated it when something defied logical explanation, but poor Daniel was tangling with more than just a linguistic mystery.
He also had to deal with the relatively rare occurrence of being wrong about something.
Daniel wasn't perfect, of course, and neither was she. Being wrong was something Sam had a hard time accepting, especially if someone like Rodney McKay was in the right. For Daniel to have been proven wrong by an "amateur" like Cameron Mitchell, though, was surely a blow to his scholarly ego. In an attempt to recover, the linguist was doing what he did best: argue.
"Maybe there's another explanation," Cam suggested, smearing a new layer of sunblock over the back of his neck and the bridge of his nose before jamming his field cap on again. "Maybe some Chinese-speaking people have come through the Stargate in the last few hundred years or so. The big guy did say something about having met people like us before, so maybe they've had other visitors."
Daniel frowned. "I thought you understood only about one word in ten."
"Okay, so it's more like one word in five, but I'm not about to try striking up a conversation. Anyway, if we're talking about a culture that developed somewhat parallel to the one on Earth—"
"—Then it's possible the language could develop similarly," Daniel finished.
"Exactly!"
Unable to help herself, Sam exclaimed, "Oh, for crying out loud!"
"What?" both men asked, surprised by the outburst.
"Oh, nothing," she smirked, watching a broad smile spread across Teal'c's face. "Used to be, it was me and Daniel doing the 'geeking out' while Colonel O'Neill complained."
"Oh, funny," Cam griped, rolling his eyes while Vala sniggered.
Daniel's jaw twitched, and Sam could tell he was holding back a smile. She wished he would just let it out, as it had been way too long since she last saw him smile. Not since before his capture by the Ori, at the very least, since she couldn't recall him being in much of a mood to kid around with General O'Neill after being 'rescued'. Usually, the general could snap Daniel out of a funk, but there just hadn't been enough reason to joke after witnessing several more Ori ships enter the galaxy as a result of the deployment of Merlin's weapon. If simply reminding Daniel of good times with his closest friend could lighten his mood so easily, then Sam resolved to have the general on the next plane to Colorado as soon as they got back to Earth... or Daniel and the General both on planes to Minnesota.
"Without meaning to sound like a whiny child," Vala began, "are we there yet?"
Daniel rattled something off to one of their guides, receiving a growling response shortly. "We're making better time than they expected, but it's still another... well, I'm not quite sure how they measure time, but it's probably still a few hours. It's only midday, after all."
"Great," she huffed.
"Something wrong?" Sam asked, thinking Vala looked a little too red-faced beneath her floppy boonie hat. She'd been applying sunblock like the rest of them had, but was she still getting sunburned?
"Well, it's just that you all have longer legs than I do, and these bulky pants are rather difficult to walk in over these big rocks."
Cam slowed to walk beside her. "Should we take another break?"
"Well, I... maybe we..." She swiped at the ponytail sticking to the back of her neck and shifted the weight of her pack. "Actually, that's probably not a bad idea."
"Jackson?"
"On it," Daniel answered, and went back to talking to their escort. "Um, they say this really isn't a good time to be stopping. Apparently, we're in one of the more dangerous parts of this route."
"Why didn't they say so earlier?" Cam complained.
The linguist shrugged, though he didn't look any happier about it than Sam felt. "Maybe they didn't want to worry us?"
"I'd rather be worried than unprepared," Sam answered.
"Ditto," Cam agreed. "Buck up there, princess. The sooner we get to the mine and back, the sooner Jackson here has to take you out to dinner."
Vala shook her head. "Oh, no," she panted. "If Daniel had backed me up back in the village... that'd have been two... against two on the whole... 'let's go hiking across monster-infested boulder fields'... idea." She irritably hitched at her bulky clothing. "At this point... he owes me dinner and a movie."
"Mitchell still had the final say," Daniel reminded her.
"You're not getting... off the hook that easily... Daniel."
Lips pressing together, Daniel asked something else of the Ganar leading the party, and after a short discussion with the rest of his group, the leader slowed his pace considerably. "Only for a little while, though," the archaeologist informed them.
"I'll take it," Vala puffed, taking a swig from her canteen. "For that, Daniel, I just might buy the popcorn."
Daniel heaved a martyred sigh.
Grinning, Sam turned to see what Teal'c thought of the goings-on, knowing that the Jaffa reveled in the team's interaction. It was sad to think, but she felt the team he had known had, in some ways, drifted apart despite their decades-long isolation aboard the Odyssey. It had to be hard on him, seeing these people who were just like the friends he'd watched grow old, and at the same time, very different from those he had known.
Instead of his now-habitual amused smile, Teal'c was wearing a deep frown. Altering her pace, Sam slowed to walk beside him. "Is something the matter?"
"I am unsure." Teal'c's gaze swept the ground before him. The terrain had been relatively smooth and sparsely grassed near the Ganar village, but had grown steadily rockier after entering another canyon. They now wound their way through a region of waist and head-high formations and boulders. "If the beast our guides fear is a mountain-climber, then we are already deep in its territory. Unfortunately, I have yet to see evidence to indicate a population of large predators."
"Maybe they're relatively small and travel in packs," Sam suggested, "like wolves or hyenas."
"Perhaps," the Jaffa answered, "but I am... uneasy."
That set the hair on the back of Sam's neck on end. If she'd learned nothing at all in her years on SG-1, it was that Teal'c's instincts were correct just as often as Daniel's theories were, if not more. Grimacing, she shifted her grip on her P90, bringing it into a more-ready position.
Cam noticed the motion. "Sam?"
"Teal'c has a bad feeling about this," she explained.
Immediately, the rest of the team made small adjustments to their own weapons, eyes darting about as though trying to see through the irregular rock formations making up the majority of the canyon floor. "Yeah, I've had a bad feeling since before we left the village," Daniel agreed in a low voice.
Vala thumped him on the shoulder. "And you didn't say anything?"
Any attempt to reply was cut off as one of the Ganar shouted and pointed. Following his direction, Sam caught a glimpse of something dark and low to the ground, but it moved too quickly for her to see what it was. Another figure moved out of the corner of her eye, and she spun to track it. It, too, had disappeared. Then there was a third flash of movement—in yet another direction—and Sam felt her heart plummet.
They were surrounded.
Trying to swallow back the dry, uncomfortable feeling in her throat, Vala clutched at her P90 and backed up until her shoulder bumped into Daniel's arm. "Now I wish you hadn't said anything."
"Yeah," he agreed, bringing his own weapon up defensively.
Their Ganar guides were forming a protective circle which didn't include SG-1, forcing the team to provide for their own safety. Feeling just a brief flash of annoyance at the Ganar's deliberate exclusion of their "guests", Vala dismissed her irritation in favor of filling her own little spot of the team's defense. It was the one thing about SG-1 that gave her the greatest joy: she fit... she belonged. She might have gotten off on the wrong foot with them—what with the whole stealing the Prometheus and kidnapping Daniel thing—but once she'd been accepted onto the team, she was accepted completely.
And while it was truly an honor to work with them, she'd really hate to die with them. Being pinned down by the soldiers of the Ori in their quest for the Ark had been frighteningly too-close to the real thing, for herself, Daniel, and especially Teal'c.
"Here they come," Cameron muttered.
Firming her grip on her weapon, Vala turned her attention to her area of coverage, and caught her first sight of their attackers. A dark-colored cat the size of an average Tau'ri dog leapt gracefully atop one of the rocky mounds, letting out a strangely high-pitched cry more akin to a scream than a roar. The sound was chilling, especially once the call was echoed by a number of other predators lurking in the choppy terrain.
One of the beasts sprang out of nowhere, but the quick reflexes of both Sam and Teal'c brought it down with sharp reports from their P90s. Another pounced, and this time Vala's rifle sounded alongside Daniel's. The wounds staggered the creatures, but didn't fell them, and soon more and more of the cats were making daring leaps at their would-be prey, while the wounded ones pressed further forward.
An angry roar sounded to her right, and Vala risked a glance at the Ganar party, wincing as she witnessed one of the warriors go down with a puma's paws wrapped around his chest. Subsequent glances showed the attacking cat was quickly speared and slain, but it was too late for the Ganar whose throat had been torn out by its powerful jaws.
There was another high-pitched cry and the cats retreated a short distance. Despite the break in the attack, they continued to stalk the two groups from beyond the bodies of their dead fellows, and behind the sheltering rocks. A part of Vala hated to see so many of the sleek, graceful predators dead, but she was far more concerned with the lives of her own friends than she was with those of a bunch of over-grown mouse-catchers.
"Everybody okay?"
"Oh, I'm great," Daniel answered as he reloaded his weapon. "Just peachy."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c began, "there are times when I feel you have spent too much time with O'Neill."
"And times it isn't enough," Sam muttered under her breath. Vala, standing next to her, just barely heard the comment, but from the look Teal'c gave the female colonel, he did, too.
"Indeed," he agreed softly.
Vala wasn't quite sure what they meant. She'd met General O'Neill on only a handful of occasions, finding the older officer to be funny and quite likeable. It was obvious he thought the world of Daniel, too, which definitely put him in Vala's good books. He showed he cared in subtle ways: by teasing, annoying, and exasperating the archaeologist mercilessly.
She frowned, briefly taking her eyes off the circling pumas to look at Daniel. Come to think of it, she did the same thing. Was that her way of showing she cared, too? If so, had Daniel drawn any comparisons between her behavior and that of the general? Vala considered Daniel to be one of her nearest and dearest friends, but she could never be certain the level of friendship was reciprocated. Daniel was often the proverbial closed book, one whose cover didn't reflect the contents at all.
Wow. She was deep when facing the prospect of becoming cat food.
The leader of the Ganar party shouted something, and Daniel's head jerked sharply in surprise. "What?" he exclaimed.
"Jackson?"
Before Daniel could answer Cameron's inquiry, another shrill cry signaled the renewal of the cat's attack, but this time, they weren't alone. Stones began to pelt SG-1 and the Ganar, and though most were too small to be more than irritants, some of the rocks flying past were large enough to do some serious damage if they connected.
"What the hell is going on?" Cameron yelled.
"It's some kind of rival tribe or something!" Daniel called back, ducking as a fist-sized projectile sailed over his head, clattering to the ground near Cameron's feet. "The Ganar practically challenged them to face our 'rattle-sticks'!"
"Well, that was bright!"
Sam gasped as a sharp-edged stone cut a line across her cheek. "We need to fall back!"
"And go where?"
"We should return the way we came!" Teal'c shouted. "There are no stone-throwers behind us, only their trained felines!"
Spotting an incoming rock, Vala pulled Daniel out of its way, then redirected her fire at another one of the cats. "Sounds like a great idea!"
"What about the Ganar?" Daniel asked.
"Let 'em fend for themselves! They're the ones who got us into this mess by not telling us what to expect—" Cameron dodged a missile "—and then bragging about our better weapons!"
Daniel's jaw clenched, but he nodded. Cameron signaled Vala, and she took advantage of their covering fire to dash back to just past Teal'c's position, where she immediately set about clearing their escape route. Daniel daisy-chained past her as Cameron covered his retreat, and the well-oiled machine that was SG-1 began to make slow but steady progress back in the direction from which they'd come.
The Ganar, realizing that SG-1 was in retreat, began their own withdrawal, though unlike the team's measured pace, they charged en masse, driving a wedge in the feline attackers. Thankfully, it was a gap SG-1 was able to take advantage of, and without having to cover so much in the direction in which they intended to move, their own pace began to increase.
It was Vala's turn at the rear of the column when disaster struck. A far-flung rock sailed in her direction, forcing her to dodge or be struck. Unfortunately, she misstepped, struggled to right herself with her movements hampered by the bulky cold weather gear, and wound up sprawling in an undignified heap on the ground.
"Vala!" Daniel shouted, running forward to help her get to her feet. He pulled up short, though, raising his weapon again to ward off another of the yowling beasts. Vala rolled over as quickly as she could and scrambled to her feet. She made it upright just in time to see a shadow cross Daniel's back.
Before she could raise her rifle or draw breath to scream out a warning, the pouncing cat struck the linguist from behind, knocking him off balance. He wobbled, flailed at the air, then went down, knocking his head sharply against an outcropping and slumping bonelessly to the ground.
A similar impact slammed Vala between the shoulder blades, and the world went dark.
The cat he was tracking gave a pained yowl before collapsing on the rocky ground. "Jackson!" Cam called. "What's the hold up?"
There was no answering shout, and Cam realized he hadn't seen Vala go past him, either. Sparing a glance in the direction his teammates should have been, his heart sank when he couldn't see either of them. Just as he grabbed for his radio, another sharp cry went out to the cats. Were the animals about to renew their attacks?
"Jackson, Vala, respond," he muttered over his radio.
In the silence that followed his query, Cameron realized that the attack on the team had apparently been halted, rather than renewed. No more stones were being hurled over the tops of the rocky formations, and no more mountain lions growled and snarled in threat. "Teal'c, Sam, regroup on my position. I've lost sight of Jackson and Vala, and they aren't answering."
"On our way," answered Sam immediately. Moments later, she and Teal'c were picking their way through the boulder field toward him, weapons lowered now that the danger seemed to be past.
"What happened?" Sam asked as soon as she drew near.
"Hell if I know," Cam answered disgustedly, changing the clip on his rifle as he began to walk to the archaeologist's last-known position. "I was busy dodging rocks and trying to pick off the damned cat that was stalking me. Finally got the bugger before I realized neither Vala nor Jackson had come this way." He shrugged uncomfortably, scanning the surrounding area. "I thought maybe they just got pinned down—"
"—But then the attack ended," Sam finished.
"Yeah, and not a peep out of 'em." He grimaced and kept moving, achingly aware that he'd just passed what had been Jackson's position in the line.
General O'Neill always jokingly blamed his gray hair on Jackson, and it was no wonder! Cam had known the archaeologist for less than a quarter the amount of time the older officer had, but had already experienced quite a number of scares in that short frame. It wasn't that Daniel did stupid things—well, some might be construed as stupid—but that he just seemed to have no sense of self-preservation if someone he cared about was in harm's way.
If Vala had gotten into trouble... and Jackson had come to the rescue...
Jackson might get gruff with the irrepressible thief at times, but Cam remembered all-too-well the extra hours Jackson put in when Vala got herself kidnapped by the Trust. Cam had even caught him asleep at his desk, having worked through the night to find clues as to her whereabouts, the motive for grabbing her, and anything else he thought might speed the search. When they'd finally caught up to the amnesiac alien, Jackson had put his life on the line to convince her of his sincerity and friendship.
Either there really was something going on between them, or Jackson and Vala were two of the most clueless idiots in the galaxy.
"Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c warned softly. He touched a shiny patch on a rock not far from where Vala had made her stand, and his fingertips came back smeared with blood.
Cam let out an expletive. He was going to be as gray as the general in no time.
It was times like this that made him wish he'd kept his little bungalow out in the suburbs, despite the mess Osiris had made of the place. The neighbor's kid had cranked up his stereo again, rattling the adjoining apartment walls with the deep rumble of the bass. The beat had taken over Daniel's pulse, rattling the blood through his brain and sending technicolor sparks shooting across the backs of his eyes.
"Daniel?"
And just how the hell did Vala get in his apartment, anyway?
"Daniel, wake up."
"Nggh." It wasn't the most intelligent thing for a man of his education to say, but he didn't have it in him to be a conversationalist at the moment.
"Look, I'd love to let you sleep a while longer, but I think the natives are getting a little restless." There was a pause. "Not that I can understand a word they say, mind you, but it's more of a general attitude."
"Vala?" Daniel slitted an eye open, wincing at the brilliant sunlight filtering through his lashes.
Sunlight?
Coming swiftly back to awareness, Daniel tried to sit up, only to discover that the pounding in his head had absolutely nothing to do with irritating neighbors on a planet thousands of light years away. Rolling to his side and curling up, he then tried to check out what was surely an egg-sized lump on the side of his head, but his hands jerked to a stop still inches away from his face. Daring to open his eyes again, he looked down and found his wrists were bound with a short length of coarse rope between them. The rope then trailed from one wrist to some point beyond his feet.
He closed his eyes briefly to try to gather his scrambled wits. In times of stress, Daniel found it useful to draw upon the meditative techniques he'd learned from kel'nor'reem sessions with Teal'c, and what Jack now called his "Ascension 101" lessons at Kheb. He'd long possessed the ability to ignore his body's needs—he'd studied for three post-graduate degrees, after all—but ten years at the SGC had enabled him to turn the "bad" habit into a remarkably useful discipline.
It had helped him survive torture a number of times, come to think of it.
He'd just successfully pushed aside the ache in his head when something hard nudged him none-too-gently in the ribs. As Vala protested his mistreatment, Daniel rolled over in time to see a dark brown, fur-covered figure walk back over to where more of its fellows waited.
"Rival tribe?" he guessed, annoyed that his glasses seemed to be gone. He really should consider getting laser surgery so he wouldn't be blind every time some bad guy took his glasses from him.
Maybe he should consider getting captured less often.
"Not quite," Vala answered, scooting across the hard ground on her knees before sitting down beside him. Her hands were bound much as Daniel's were, and also seemed to be tethered to some point beyond his present line-of-sight. "Looks like we're going douche on our date," she remarked.
"'Going Dutch'," he corrected automatically, forcing back a grin at her verbal mix-up. It was just one of the many ways Vala resembled a female version of Jack O'Neill. "Wait, what do you mean?"
"Splitting the bill? You pay your part, I pay mine?"
"I know what 'going Dutch' means, Vala, I meant—" He turned his head to stare at the figures in brown fur, realizing they were speaking the same variant of Mandarin some of the Ganar knew. The guards turned to look at their prisoners, and Daniel felt his jaw drop. "They're human?"
"And not at all happy to see us," Vala sighed.
Sam hated it. Absolutely, positively, with every-fiber-of-her-being despised it, and yet she knew there was no other way. "We have to go back to the SGC."
Cam kicked at a small rock in frustration. "I'm not arguing with you, Sam, I just..."
"I, too, wish there was another choice," interrupted Teal'c, "but we were severely out-numbered and have little intelligence regarding the forces we may be facing. Nevertheless, I believe the IOA will order General Landry to abandon any attempt to retrieve Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran until the Odyssey finishes relocating the refugees from P8K-R52."
"See, that's what I'm worried about, too!" Cam exclaimed. "That and the fact that Jackson and Vala might not have the time it'd take us to return to Earth and back, regardless of any IOA interference."
Sam shook her head. "If the rival tribe had wanted to kill them, they'd have already done it. I think the fact that they took Daniel and Vala with them speaks for their desire to keep them alive."
"Okay, how 'bout we compromise?" the other colonel suggested. "We go back to the Ganar village, find out everything we can about this rival tribe, and make a decision then about whether to head to the 'Gate or not. The more we know, the more complete our report to General Landry will be."
"Only one problem: Daniel's not with us to translate."
Cam gave her an incredulous stare. "Hello, Sam! Who's the idiot who almost caused in interstellar incident by making a reference to pig-headed apes?"
"You called the Ganar pig-headed apes?" she gaped.
"No, I was calling Jackson a pig-headed ape 'cause he was being so damned stubborn." He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. "Look, Sam, I may not be as good as he is, but at least I speak the language. Sort of. It's better than nothing, anyway, and a hell of a lot better than having to go back to the SGC for a translator."
"I am in agreement," Teal'c announced. "The Ganar elders seemed fond of Daniel Jackson, and I do not think they will be pleased to hear of his capture. It is an advantage we should press for as much as we can. General Landry is far more likely to authorize additional SG personnel if we have allies on this world willing to aid us in our search."
Cam snorted. "Yeah, allies who refused to tell us what sort of trouble we were walking into, then goaded our attackers into using us for target practice."
"It's the best chance Daniel and Vala have," Sam agreed. "I can't say I'm happy about turning to the Ganar for help, but we don't have a lot of options... other than waiting until the Odyssey becomes available again."
"Back to the village, then?"
"Indeed." Teal'c set his jaw and began his determined stride back toward the Ganar village. Sam and Cam exchanged glances before following.
No one messed with Vala and especially Daniel without getting on Teal'c's bad side. This was, after all, the same Jaffa who'd hiked across several miles of rugged mountain terrain while severely wounded, determined to rescue the archaeologist and the former space pirate from the clutches of the Ori.
Sam clenched her own teeth. The same determination went for her, too, because nobody got away with messing with SG-1 on her watch.
Nobody messed with family.
Vala staggered again, feeling the yank of the ropes around her wrists, before righting herself and stumbling onward. This time, she couldn't blame her lack of grace on the bulky cold-weather clothing, as the Shan-wi had stripped their captives down to their BDUs. The removal of the extra layer hadn't bothered Vala a bit while the sun was still high in the sky, but as it crept downward toward evening, a chill was beginning to settle in.
Of course, some of her fatigue might have something to do with the fact she hadn't slept well the night before, and had been hiking—or unconscious—for the better part of the planet's twenty-eight hour day.
"At least they let us keep our boots and gloves," Daniel muttered, shooting her a sympathetic look.
"Yes, I'm eternally grateful," she answered, rolling her eyes.
Unfortunately, the Shan-wi didn't like for their captives to talk, a point which they emphasized by thumping both offenders with the leather-wrapped ends of their Y-shaped staves. Daniel had called them "lacrosse" sticks earlier, and suggested they were the reason behind the human inhabitants' impressive stone-throwing abilities. Before he was whacked into silence by one of the sharp-eyed guards, he promised to explain the reference later.
Frankly, Vala was getting tired of being smacked with a stick every time she tried to speak. She was tired, cold, and hungry, and so far nothing was being done to alleviate any of those things. Daniel had tried unsuccessfully to speak to their hostile escort, but had gotten little more than the name they called themselves. Asking for food, water, rest, or even their heavier garments back had earned the linguist nothing but bruises—from the stupid sticks—and the beginnings of a black eye—from a "misplaced" elbow.
Sweaty, dirty, and sunburned, Vala couldn't even stage a proper sit-down strike, as she and Daniel both had their wrists bound and tethered via long ropes to the narrow hand-drawn cart at the head of the column. For the most part, the guards kept Daniel and Vala walking along with their ropes stretched almost as far as they'd go, but as the party continued to climb the cliffs, the occasional switchback forced the Shan-wi to release the tethers from the cart and guide them by hand.
It was at the beginning of one of these narrow turns that Vala stumbled yet again, a loose rock sliding under her foot the culprit this time. She pitched forward into the guard holding the other end of her rope, knocking the man off-balance and sending them both crashing painfully into the cliff wall. Snarling angrily, the man shoved her off him, releasing the line as he did so.
He'd shoved too hard, though, and Vala had no way to stop her momentum. As she pinwheeled backward, her left foot came down on nothing but air.
"Daniel!"
The panicked scream tore through him, and Daniel did the only thing he could in the circumstances. Ignoring the armed guards, the archaeologist lunged for the rope sliding past his feet. Thankful his captors had let him keep his gloves, he tightened his fingers on the coarse line and braced himself as best as he could.
Vala, he remembered belatedly, was always a lot heavier than she looked.
His boots skidded on the rocky slope, and he fell to one knee trying to regain his balance. Pain shot through the offended joint, but he resolutely dug in further and held on for dear life. A sharp tug on the rope and a short cry announced that Vala's rapid and unintended descent down the cliff had been arrested. Despite the gloves, Daniel's fingers ached from the strain of catching and holding the rope. He closed his eyes briefly, drawing once more upon his "mind over matter" techniques. When he was confident he could ignore the dull pain, he opened his eyes again.
"Vala, are you okay?" he asked, tuning out the voices of their escort. He couldn't spare the concentration translating their words would take, anyway.
"I-I'm not sure," came the shaky reply from below. "Nice catch."
Part of him wanted to sigh in relief; the other part wanted to groan. He was proud of how, in a short span, she'd gone from scared out of her wits to calm enough to joke, but found himself equally annoyed by the inappropriate flippance.
Knowing her bound wrists had to be hurting fiercely—if not sprained out-right—by the sudden stop, Daniel called down for her to try to hold onto the rope with her hands. "I'll pull you up, but if you can sort off walk up the wall while I pull..."
"Got it," she answered, and the rope shifted as she positioned her feet. "Ready as I'll ever be."
Pushing more meditative thoughts through his muscles, Daniel stepped sideways around a nearby bush, using its thick trunk as a makeshift pulley. With his own hands tied, he couldn't pull more than a few inches at a time, but he was determined to keep up a steady pace. "Just hang on tight, Vala. I won't let you fall."
"I know," she answered. "I trust you."
The sincerity in her voice caught him off-guard. Daniel had bollixed this particular first contact situation from the start, but Vala still trusted him, still believed in him. Oddly enough, her trust in him was one of the few things he knew he could rely on, and in the last year, he'd slowly begun to let himself trust her, too. He couldn't lose her now.
"You're almost there," he coaxed, pulling a few more inches of rope through his hands. When Vala's gloved hands finally appeared at the lip of the canyon, Daniel knotted his end of the tether around the base of the hardy bush, then turned around and stepped forward to help her. As he squatted down to catch her hands and help her climb over the edge, he heard footsteps on gravel. Finally, one of their guards was going to help.
A moment later, he realized he was wrong yet again. Rough hands pushed at the small of his back, and Daniel had no way—and no one—to stop his fall.
Author's Notes:
Now THAT's a cliffhanger! *drumbeat cymbal crash*