Prisoners of War

By Arrietty

Chapter Three

General Hammond was shouting. There had been many men that had caused him to shout and this one man that they were now discussing, had been the one that always seemed to at the top of his list.

"What do you mean? 'He just walked through.' Why didn't you stop him?"

The Lieutenant was extremely nervous and tried his hardest to hide the fact. "Sir, we came over the hill and he was just walking through the Stargate. We didn't get there in time to see the address."

Hammond took a deep breath. "Why was he alone?" He spoke more quietly now, trying to control his anger.

"He ordered us off to do a perimeter check and he waited by the Stargate, sir." The airman was slightly more at ease as he was beginning to realise that the general wasn't mad at him.

"So, you have no idea of where he went?"

"No, sir."

"Dismissed." General Hammond said tiredly. He knew exactly where Colonel, soon to be 'Airman', Jack O'Neill had gone.

Klaxons reverberated around the gate room. General Hammond looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. "What now?" He said quietly.

"Incoming wormhole, sir." Sgt. Davis announced to General Hammond as he walked into the control room.

The look that crossed Hammond's face was a classic O'Neillism, as he thought to himself 'no kidding.'

"Do we have an IDC, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. It is the Alpha site."

"Open the iris, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

Sgt. Davis placed his hand, palm down on the release pad, activating the iris. The iris slid back with the familiar soft scraping sound and locked open. Soon after, two men came through the blue surface, making the individual plopping sound as one after another they materialised.

Teal'c and Jonas walked down the ramp towards General Hammond, who had by now gone down to the gate room to greet them.

"General Hammond." Teal'c acknowledged with a small bow of his head.

"Teal'c, Jonas, my office, now."

With an anxious look, Jonas glanced across at Teal'c. Whose reply was just a raised eyebrow.

They quickly followed the Tau'ri general to his office.

After they were seated, General Hammond proceeded to fill them in on what had happened.

"…of course, we cannot send a team after him. My hands are tied. This planet has been made off limits to all military personnel."

General Hammond picked up some folders that were on his desk and moved them to the side. Still looking at the folders, he continued speaking.

"If you wish to continue your vacation at the Alpha site, you have permission to go. You may have as long as you need."

As he said the last word, he looked up quickly and looked them both in the eye.

"Thank you, you are most kind, General Hammond." Teal'c replied bowing his head slightly as he spoke.

"Yes, thank you, General Hammond." Jonas added.

Teal'c and Jonas started to go through the office doorway, but Jonas stopped and turned to General Hammond.

"Sir, which planet is off limits?"

"Doctor Goren has the details, Mr Quinn."

Three hours later, Teal'c and Jonas Quinn stepped through the Stargate to spend an indefinite time vacationing with Teal'c's son at the Alpha site.

Three hours after that, they were speeding their way through sub space in a Tel'tac towards the planet that Jack O'Neill had gone to, only twenty-four hours previously. It would take them nearly two weeks before they arrived there. And they had to find him on a large planet. They had no idea what awaited them. They knew arriving via Stargate would alert the Jaffa guards, so hopefully they would be able to land without the Goa'uld's knowledge. Fortunately, the Teltac's cloaking system was working.

The door creaked as Sam Carter pushed it open. Lying face down where she had left him that morning, the colonel lay totally still. With growing fear, she quickly crossed the room to where he was.

"Sir?" She asked tentively.

Reaching out her hand, she touched his head. One brown eye opened and stared at her. Sam suddenly realised that she had stopped breathing and let out a lung full of air.

"Carter." Came the muffled reply.

O'Neill pushed up with his hands, but was unable to lift his shoulders from the floor. He closed his eyes in defeat.

Carter dropped the wad of clean rags onto the edge of his tunic that his head lay on and they made clunk as they rolled off the tunic onto the floor. Quickly searching through the rags, she came across a small jar, it had come out of its wrapping and was lying on the floorboards. It was so small it could fit into the palm of her hand and if she closed her fingers over it, you could barely see it. Undoing the jar, she smelt the contents. There was no odour with this ointment. This must be what the Jaffa meant. "Use sparingly," she repeated softly under her breath. Looking up again, she could see that O'Neill had closed his eyes.

Feeling his forehead with her hand, she could tell that he had a fever. Sam decided to wait until she had eaten before starting to clean O'Neill's injuries. It didn't take her long to eat half the contents of the bowl.

With great difficulty, she managed to raise the reluctant colonel into a sitting position.

"That you, Carter?" His voice rasped in his throat.

"Yes, sir. You have to try and eat this." Very carefully, she fed him the sludgy food.

It wasn't until she had finished eating, that she started to remove the cloths that she had put on his injuries the previous night. The smell reached her, before she actually saw the wounds. She wasn't actually surprised at this, because she knew he had a fever. But what she found under the makeshift bandages was not nice. The surrounding skin (what was left of it) was an angry red colour and hot to the touch. A yellow and green discharge was draining from the swollen cuts. Sam knew that the colonel needed antibiotics, but of course they weren't available, so she made the best of what she had and carefully cleaned his back. After cleaning away the foul smelling discharge, she applied the clear ointment to the open cuts on his back and wrists.

Sam had also noticed that the knees of his trousers were blood stained. Rolling up his trouser legs, she gently cleaned and applied the ointment to his badly infected knees. That was when she saw the cuts on his feet. Once again she cleaned and used the precious ointment on them. Sam just hoped that this is what it was for. She had taken a giant leap in trust in using this ointment on Colonel O'Neill. But as far as she could see, they had nothing to lose, because if he didn't start to improve, he would die. Again, that night they slept close trying to conserve body warmth.

Carter woke with a start. The warmth that O'Neill had generated by her side had gone. Opening her eyes, she stared straight into brown ones. Colonel O'Neill was sitting up beside her, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders watching her.

"Sir? Are you all right?" Sam said, as she quickly sat up.

"Peachy!" He replied with a grin.

Carter shot around to his back and started to pull the blanket away from his shoulders.

"Hey! Carter, what do you think you are doing?"

Stopping from what she was doing. "Sorry, sir. Just checking your injuries. I mean you…they…are…were…pretty bad. Sir."

"Heaps better, Carter. But I still don't think I will be on work detail today."

"Yes, sir. I still have some time to check."

Just then the bell went off. Groaning, Carter placed the blanket back onto his shoulders and stood up stiffly. Crouching down again, she handed him half of the loaf of bread and the small jar.

"Keep this hidden, sir. It is obviously working, your wounds are much better."

Nodding in agreement, he tucked the jar and the bread out of sight, under his blanket.

Carter didn't even have enough time to get O'Neill some more water. She ran out of the hut and just made it in time to hand in her things and get through the gate.

Back in the hut, O'Neill pulled the blanket off his shoulders just using one arm. His right arm stayed still, by his side. Rolling his shoulders painfully, he cried out and clutched his right shoulder with his left. "This is not good. Only one wing." He stated.

If he weren't in so much pain, it would have been comical to see him try and put his tunic on with only one arm in operation. But somehow he managed it. This was the day that he had to use to build up his strength again. It was remarkable that he was so improved from the previous day. All the infection was obviously gone. The ointment must have very powerful healing properties. His thoughts immediately went to Doctor Fraiser. "She most probably would give her eye teeth for this." He chuckled to himself.

Using the clean rags he cleaned and re-dressed the wounds on his knees, feet and anything else he could reach. Remembering to go carefully with the ointment, he applied them to his injuries. They were knitting with nice new pink skin and amazing to see. Apart from his shoulder, he had improved immensely.

That evening, he watched the tired cold prisoners come in from the fields. He didn't realise how anxious he was, until he felt relief of seeing Carter trudging her way towards him. He was concerned, as she seemed to be keeping her head down.

"Carter? You ok?"

"Fine, sir. How about you?" She replied, as she plonked herself down beside him.

He still couldn't see her face properly in the dim light. Though he tried to catch a glimpse of her face, she managed to avoid his gaze. Carter quickly scuttled around to his back and started to clean and dress his wounds.

"Sir, please eat. I will finish the rest after I have done this."

"Carter, what's up?"

"Nothing, sir."

O'Neill turned a thoughtful look to the bowl of slop. "I have done all the bits I could reach, Carter. It's just my back."

"Good, sir." Came a tired reply.

"This stuff is amazing." He spoke quietly, as he didn't want anyone else to hear.

He heard her sharp intake of breath, as his back was revealed to her. Without thinking, she shot around to face him and with a large smile. "Sir, it is all healed! I mean, the infection has all gone, no blood, it is healing nice…ly." She stopped as O'Neill frowned at her.

"What happened to you?" He asked quite loudly.

"Nothing I can't handle, sir."

Without thinking, he reached up his good arm and touched with his hand, the livid bruise that was down one side of her face.

"And the other guy?"

"Oh, I think he got the message, sir." Moving back out of his line of vision, he didn't see her grimace as she knelt heavily on one knee.

That night, once again, they lay close to each other, trying to keep warm. They were both on the verge of shivering. O'Neill knew that they would not last long, if this cold kept up.

It was the following day and they were out in the fields. O'Neill was exhausted, it had turned extremely hot during the day and there was no shade. His shoulder was giving him trouble and his tunic was rubbing on the new skin that had formed over his injuries. As far as he could tell, he had another hour, until midday. Looking over at Carter, he could see her surreptitiously putting something into her tunic. Glancing up at O'Neill, she flashed him one of her gorgeous smiles that for some reason always made his knees go weak. Smiling back, he then bent down and carried on pulling out the tough weeds from the now hard dry ground.

The weather had changed drastically in the last couple of days. Blazing hot during the day and freezing cold at night. The ground was hard with frost in the morning that numbed their feet, as they walked out to the fields. The heat was bad, as it drew out their much-needed moisture during the day. They never had enough time in the day to replenish what they had lost. The rest of the day was taken up in walking or sleeping. O'Neill flicked the sweat out of his eyes, as he bent over the ground. Picking up some more small stones, he threw them to the side. They seemed to get in the way all the time. He just hoped that they weren't expected to clear them too.

Thankfully, he heard the clanging of the midday bell. His half of the bread had already got pretty dusty and even a little sweaty. Trying hard not to think of that, he stiffly climbed to his feet. Pulling out the now, disgusting bread he started to chew on a piece of it. His stomach rumbled in appreciation. He had started to walk towards Carter, but she had turned away from him and went with the other women to a different shelter. Not thinking clearly, he dismissed her behaviour and thankfully sank down on an old log beside the water barrel. Now was the time to tank up on all the lost fluids.

It was towards the end of the half hour break that it happened. Three men had surrounded Carter and were pushing her. All the other women had quickly left the shelter and gone back into the fields. Though he knew that Carter was quite capable of looking after herself, he didn't want her to be treated like he had, when he had got into a fight previously.

Standing up, he swiftly moved over to the small group.

"Is there a problem?"

One of the men had Carter's arms behind her back, while another was pulling her bread out of her tunic. There wasn't much left, as she had eaten most of it. The man that was holding her captive sported a bleeding nose. The third man turned and faced O'Neill.

'Oh, crap!' "We gotta stop meeting like this."

It was the man that had killed Lorton. Number one troublemaker of the prison camp. Before the man had a chance to react to O'Neill's presence, O'Neill threw himself in a full body dive at him. It didn't take long for the other two men to join in the melee. Carter then tried to pull off one of the men from O'Neill, as he seemed to be at the bottom of the pile.

Carter felt two strong arms come around her waist and drag her away from the fighting men. Two other Jaffa guards pulled the men apart. Instead of Lorton lying still on the ground, it was O'Neill, though, fortunately, he was still breathing.

Coughing on the dust, he slowly stood up. Turning around, he looked at the Jaffa guards who were glaring at him.

"Not again!" Closing his eyes, he held out his wrists to them. Well one wrist, as the other one still was fixed to his side. The recent fight had freshened up the pain in his shoulder.

"Get back to the fields." The Jaffa that still had his arms around Carter said.

The three troublemakers moved quickly towards their designated field, while the other two Jaffa followed them.

O'Neill stayed rooted to the spot, he was not going to move until this Jaffa had let go of his major.

"It's all right, sir."

Slowly. Almost reluctantly the Jaffa released Carter.

"Back to the fields and stay out of trouble." He admonished and walked away.

"Sir that was the Jaffa that gave me the ointment and bandages."

"Oh, good, Carter." He nodded.

Glancing at the retreating back of the Jaffa, he signed her to go in front of him. "We'd better get back to work."

"Yes, sir."

He honestly wasn't sure how he made it up the steps to the hut. This was the first day that they had managed to receive a full bowl of 'food' each. He was almost too tired to eat. Carter was carrying both blankets. He had nearly forgotten to grab one and if Carter hadn't called him back they would have been very cold tonight. His mind was hazy, he couldn't think clearly. He automatically scooped the food into his mouth and swallowed the disgusting mush down without tasting it. He watched as Carter laid one of the blankets down on the cold floorboards. Without even speaking or thanking her, he laid himself down on it and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Something had woken him. It must be because he was cold, as he was shivering. Moving closer to Carter, he lifted his good arm over her and pulled her closer. The moonlight was coming in through the window and shining onto her hair. As the warmth from her body began to alleviate the shivering, he watched something move in her hair. Jack watched mesmerised as a small light brown insect crawled along a shaft of Sam's hair.

Jack woke with a start and sat up. He must have fallen asleep again.

"Carter, you have lice." He announced in a loud voice.

Fortunately, the bell that woke everyone up in the morning drowned out his statement, but not Carter's reaction.

"What!"

Jumping up, she ran her hands unsuccessfully through her hair and rubbed them back and forth to try and get rid of the lice.

"UGH! What's so funny?" She watched in horror, as O'Neill clutched his middle while he laughed at her antics.

Peering closely, she looked at his hair.

"Hah! You've got them too." She said with a triumphant grin.

"Crap! They must be in the blankets." While getting up off the floor, he scratched his itchy head.

Peering out the window, O'Neill beckoned to Carter. "Come on, or we'll miss dinner."