Chapter 3

Screaming.

Jack struggled back to consciousness. Something terrible was happening. The team was in trouble. The scream came again. Carter? Jack sat bolt upright, reaching for his P-90, but instead sent a piercing pain through his skull as he knocked something over with a clatter. He heard another scream, close by,and, ignoring the pain, rolled to get up. Instead of the dirt he expected, his feet hit air and he dropped two feet to a hard floor and stumbled, almost going to his knees. Someone grabbed his arms to steady him and called his name—"Colonel O'Neill!"—but he tried to push the hands away. "Team's in trouble. Got to get to them," he mumbled.

"Colonel O'Neill! Jack! It's Janet. Colonel, you're in the infirmary. You're injured. Colonel?"

Reality started to catch up with his semiconscious state, and Jack blinked and looked around. The infirmary? Fraiser?

He must have said the last out loud, because Janet answered, "Yes, Colonel," and guided him back a step so his legs were against the bed he'd jumped out of. He sat down gingerly, and closed his eyes against the pulsing in his head. Thank god, he thought, letting Janet maneuver him so he was lying down again. I must have been dreaming. The problem was, he couldn't remember a damn thing. So, just to make sure, he said, "Team?"

"Just try to relax, Colonel, and let me take a look at you. You managed to give yourself a concussion. . . ."

Jack's eyes shot open, and he pushed away Janet's hands and sat up. He knew the CMO well enough after all these years to know when she was avoiding his question, and that was a very bad question to avoid.

"Doc?" he said, urgency in his voice as his eyes darted around the infirmary. "Where are they?"

"Colonel, you need to...."

"Damn it!" Jack shouted then, causing his head to explode in pain again. He paused, closing his eyes, then went on, more quietly but just as insistently. "You need to tell me...."

At that moment there was another scream, more of a howl of pain, causing them both to jump, and even Janet closed her eyes this time.

Jesus, Jack thought. That was Carter. He hadn't been dreaming. Carter was screaming. Jack looked toward the curtained-off bed in something close to shock. Carter never screamed. He'd seen her take a beating, yank her own dislocated shoulder back into place. . . . Was it that she was dreaming? Had something so horrible happened that she was screaming in her sleep?

Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up unsteadily, eyes locked on the white curtain hiding the bed where his 2IC was now letting out small gasps and moans. Janet reached out to stop him, but he held up his hand without looking at her, and she sighed and took a step back. He felt a surge of vertigo and grabbed onto the small table near his bed, but again he waved Janet off and started to walk across the room. Janet walked by his side, hands slightly raised in his direction as if to catch him should he fall. He passed a bed with an airman curled on his side in a fetal position, arms around his head as if trying to block out the noise, and for a moment Jack wished he could do the same.

He hesitated when they reached the closed-off area, and Janet stepped by him and around to the foot of the bed.

"Sam," he heard her murmur quietly. "Colonel O'Neill is here."

If there was any response other than a hitch of breath, he didn't hear it, but Janet gestured him forward, and he pulled back the curtain and stepped through, letting it fall back behind him.

Carter lay on her side in a hospital gown, her knees drawn up almost to her chest. He scanned her quickly, looking for injuries, but he couldn't see anything, just the usual tubes and monitors. But she was biting her bottom lip hard and grimacing, and there were tears in her eyes, something else she rarely allowed herself, in public anyway. A nurse, Sullivan, sat at her side, holding her hand, and Jack had to give the Lieutenant credit for not crying out herself at the death grip Carter had on her fingers.

Damn.

He schooled his face just in time as Sam lifted her head slightly to look at him.

"Sir," she said, in almost a whisper. "Are you all right? Daniel. . . ." Her eyes went wide then and even Jack could see the spasm that shook her and caused her to sob and then moan.

He reached out to touch her arm. "Carter?" he said.

She looked up at him again and choked out, "Sorry, sir. I'm sorry."

Jack had no idea what was going on or what had happened, but he knew one thing with certainty. "You have nothing to apologize for, Major," he said. Then he turned to Janet. Carter was in agony, and Teal'c and Daniel were nowhere to be seen. He needed answers, and he needed them now.

"What the hell is. . . ?"

Janet cut him off with a raised hand, then turned to Sam. "Sam, I just have to talk to the colonel for a minute. I'll be right back." Carter gave one small swift nod. Her eyes were closed tight and she was biting hard down on her lower lip again. Jack reached out again and grasped Sam's arm for a moment, then pulled his hand back and followed Janet away from the bed. She walked in front of him this time, her heels clicking in a no-nonsense manner on the floor. She stopped at the chairs by the wall and gestured him into one. He shook his head, but she just stared at him and he lowered himself slowly, aware now of aches and pains in other parts of his body. He was suddenly conscious, also, of his bare feet, his ripped BDU pants, the long gauze bandage on his shirtless chest and another smaller one on his right arm, a little blood seeping through. And the pounding in his head. Whatever had happened, he realized, hadn't happened that long ago.

He turned to Janet. "What the hell's going on? What's wrong with Carter and where the hell are Teal'c and Daniel?"

"Colonel, we need to get you changed. . . ."

Jack felt a spark of rage tinged with fear, and he jumped up from his seat. The pain spiked in his head and he staggered back and almost went down, but he righted himself.

"Damn it, Doc, you tell me what happened, now! Where's the rest of my team?"

A med tech across the room, Sgt. Halas, made a move toward them at Jack's angry words, but Janet just shook her head at the young man and turned back toward Jack. She sighed, and Jack knew he was finally going to get some information from her.

"Teal'c is in surgery," Janet began, using her "clinical voice," the one Jack had heard in a hundred briefings. "He has two apparent knife wounds, one to his chest and the other to his upper thigh. Providing there are no complications, Dr. Warner expects him to make a full recovery, with the help of his symbiote. Major Carter has been poisoned."

Jack actually felt himself pale. What the hell? Poisoned? He closed his eyes, trying to remember something, anything, that would help make sense of what he was hearing. "Is she going to be all right?" he asked.

As if in answer to his question, he heard a crash from Carter's bed, and he turned to look and saw that the IV pole was on the ground and Carter was jerking on the bed as if in convulsions.

"Oh, God!" she shrieked out. "Ah, not..."

"Doctor!" Sullivan called, but Janet was already at Carter's side. Jack went to the foot of the bed and watched as Janet checked Sam's pulse and held her other hand and said, "C'mon, Sam, breath through it. C'mon," as if Carter were having a baby not fighting off some alien poison.

What the hell? thought Jack. Out loud, he said, "Don't just talk to her, Doc. Give her something! Do something!"

Janet shot him a look but kept talking to Sam, who a minute later stopped jerking in the bed and lay still, panting as if she'd just run a marathon. Janet stood there for a moment longer, then straightened up wearily, and he bit off the yell he was saving.

She nodded to him and once again they stepped away from Sam's bed. "Sit down, Colonel, please."

Jack bit off his rejoinder and perched on one of the chairs, glancing back worriedly in Carter's direction.

"I don't understand. . . ," he started to say.

"No, Colonel, I'm afraid you don't," Janet interrupted. "She has been poisoned by an alien substance. We have no idea what we're dealing with. We are waiting for bloodwork and analysis of the sample Major Carter managed to bring back, but even then I don't have high hopes that it will help us. If I give her something now, without understanding how the poison works, and it interacts badly with whatever is in her system, and it could make things worse, or even kill her. . . . Do you understand now?"

Jack looked at Janet, who stared back unapologetically for the harshness of her words, and he realized he deserved it for suggesting that she wasn't doing everything she could for her patient and friend. He thought maybe he should apologize, but instead just nodded. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to know what was going on; he needed to remember. Teal'c and Daniel. . . .

Jack blinked and a new feeling of dread settled in his stomach as he realized just what Janet hadn't said, not yet. He thought about how she'd told him about Teal'c first, and then Carter, even though she was right there in the room, and hadn't. . . . God, he thought, please let it be because he's being debriefed or in his office trying to come up with a solution or . . . something.

"And Daniel?" he asked, so quietly he wasn't sure she heard him at first.

He saw Fraiser hesitate, and the no-nonsense look in her eyes was replaced with one of pity, and the rock in his stomach became a boulder. Oh, God.

"Doc?" he said, bracing himself for the worst.

"Colonel. . . ." she said.

"Doc, just. . . ." He made a gesture with his hands that she should just say what she needed to say.

"I don't know," she said, finally.

He stared at her, not understanding what she meant. "You what? What?" he repeated himself. "How could you not know?"

Janet hesitated again, then asked, "Exactly what do you remember, Colonel?"

At Janet's evasive answer, Jack felt himself lose it, as panic and anger battled each other for dominance. "Damn it, Doc, this is no time for games! Where the hell is Daniel?"

Janet still didn't answer, and he could tell from the look on her face that she was about to tell him instead to calm down, but before she could, another voice, weak and filled with pain, called his name.

"Colonel?"

Sam. As desperate as Jack was for answers, he couldn't ignore her call, not when she was suffering the way she was. He took a deep breath to calm himself and turned toward her bed. She said something else, but he couldn't make out the words, so he took several steps in her direction.

"What was that, Carter?" he said.

Sam pushed herself up part way on trembling arms so she could look him in the eye.

"We left him behind, sir. We left Daniel behind."

Jack froze where he was, the words hitting him like a sledgehammer. He worked his jaw to say something, but he couldn't make the words come out. He looked to Janet, hoping she'd say that Sam was confused, wasn't remembering correctly, but the doctor wouldn't meet his eyes.

Finally he said, simply, "Where?"

Janet looked up slowly. "I believe the planet designation is PX0-4593 . . ." she started to say, but at Jack's impatient gesture, she said, "Polistia."

Jack put a hand to his head, then rubbed his eyes. "Polistia? You mean the guys who wanted farm equipment? Why would. . . ?"

Janet saw Jack's eyes widen and knew the exact moment it all came back to him. He staggered as if he'd been kicked, and he croaked, hoarsely, "Those sons of bitches; those goddammed sons of. . . ." He stopped mid-curse and went to his knees, grabbing for a nearby wastebasket, and started to vomit. Janet walked to him quickly and put her hand on his back.

"Easy, Colonel. It's the concussion," Janet said, even knowing that was only part of it. She nodded to Halas, and he moved to Jack's other side to help him up. "We'll just get you back to bed. . . ."

Jack practically growled then and yanked his arm from the med tech's hand. "No," he said flatly as he struggled to his feet. "I need some clean clothes. Now."

"Colonel," Janet said, although she knew she had little hope of getting him to listen, "you're in no condition to. . . ."

Jack didn't even wait for her to finish, just shook his head, walked to the infirmary doors and shoved them open. A passing airman started as the doors slammed open and looked even more startled when he saw who was standing there bleeding and half-undressed. "Get me a clean uniform, now!" Jack barked out and let the doors swing shut in the man's face. Then, not bothering to look at Janet, he stalked over to the phone and grabbed it off the hook. Janet knew it was pure adrenaline that was allowing him to move like that at all, and that when he crashed, it wouldn't be pretty, but she also knew he wouldn't be Jack O'Neill if he weren't behaving exactly as he was.

"This is O'Neill," Jack said into the phone. "Get me Hammond."

He turned to Janet while he waited and said in the same no-nonsense tone, "How long was I out?"

"A little over 10 minutes," she answered, and he nodded, before speaking into the phone, "I'm fine, sir, yes, sir. No. No, sir. I need four teams up and ready to go, stat. Full weapons complement, Goa'uld grenades. I'll be in the Gateroom in ten minutes. . . . Yes, General, I can. No, we can't afford to wait. . . . The MALP's still there, if they haven't destroyed it. Yes, sir. It's the only way, yes. . . . what? . . . No, no sir, I'm fine. . . ." Jack grimaced and held the phone out to Janet, who stepped forward to take it, ignoring the hard stare he was giving her. He had his job, and she had hers, and he knew better than to think he could cow her into doing anything against her medical judgment. Still she didn't find what she was about to do easy. She knew what it would cost him to be kept from going back for Daniel.

"General?" she said into the phone.

Hammond didn't beat around the bush. "Is Colonel O'Neill fit to lead a rescue mission through the Gate, Doctor?"

Janet tried to keep her face neutral and didn't look toward Jack, but internally she braced for the explosion she assumed was coming.

"No, sir, I'm afraid he isn't. The colonel was unconscious for more than 10 minutes, is still suffering from light-sensitivity, dizziness and nausea. . . ."

The doors swung open again, and the young airman came in with a neatly folded set of BDUs he'd obviously grabbed from the supply room down the hall. He'd managed to procure some boots as well, and Janet silently cursed the youth's initiative as Jack stalked past her, his mouth in a grim line, grabbed the uniform and boots with a mumbled dismissal, then spun back toward one of the private rooms attached to the infirmary.

". . .Thank you, Doctor," General Hammond was saying. "Would you please put Colonel O'Neill back on the phone?"

Janet took the phone away from her ear and held it out toward Jack's retreating back. "Colonel," she said. Jack hesitated, and for a moment she thought he'd keep going, but he turned and came back, looking right through her as he walked. He dropped the boots and put the BDUs down and took the phone.

"General," Jack said flatly, then, "No, I can't do that, sir. No, sir. . . . I need to. . . ." Jack closed his eyes as he listened to the general speak, and balled the hand not holding the phone into a tight fist. "Yes, sir," he said, finally, his emotionless voice belying the expression in his eyes. "I'll need to brief them, sir, or they'll be going in blind." He listened to Hammond's response, then turned back toward Janet and she almost winced at the look on his face, not anger exactly, although that was there, not despair, but something darker.

"He wants to talk to you," he said.

She took the phone. "Yes, sir?"

Hammond, as always, spoke calmly, though she knew how hard he too must have found his conversation with his second. "I'll need Colonel O'Neill to brief the rescue teams," he said. "You'll release him to the Gateroom?"

"Yes, sir, General. I'll send one of my people to escort him, just in case."

"If he complains, Doctor, tell him those are my orders."

"Yes, sir."

Janet hung up the phone and braced herself for another outburst from Jack, but when she turned he had already disappeared behind the door to change. Hardly two minutes later he was out, fully dressed. He stopped by Sam's bed and mumbled something, then walked past Janet, barely looking in her direction. She nodded to Halas and said, "Colonel, I'm going to send Sgt. Halas with you. General Hammond's orders."

Jack, his back still to them, raised his hand in a "come ahead" gesture without slowing his pace, but then suddenly stopped and turned around.

Colonel? she asked and waited.

"Take care of her, Doc. And Teal'c. Take care of them both," he said, then spun around again and walked rapidly out of the room.