Part Three: Running
When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear.
~Mark Twain
"Unscheduled off world activation!"
General Hammond leapt to his feet and hurried to the control room. It was getting harder and harder to hold out hope, but maybe this time.... The circumstances of Major Carter's capture had left him ill, and, like the remaining members of his flagship team, he had hardly eaten or slept since.
"It's SG-1," Sergeant Harriman affirmed as he arrived. "Opening the iris."
"Get a medical team down here." The wormhole exploded into life, and Hammond found his heart beating faster at what might step through. But it was Doctor Jackson, and Doctor Jackson alone, and the look on his face and uncertainty in his voice sent chills through the older man.
"General. I know it's not really protocol, but, um… could we kinda clear the room?"
The younger man's anxiety was infectious. "Walthers, Culligan, Harriman, stay. Everybody else out," he ordered softly.
Once the room was down to two guards and only Walter and the general in the control room, Daniel touched his radio. "Okay, Jack."
Colonel O'Neill stepped through the gate next, and the general couldn't hold in a soft gasp. He carried Major Carter in his arms, and she looked like hell. A jacket that clearly didn't belong to her covered most of her skin, but what he could see – including far too much of her bare legs for his comfort – was bruised or bleeding.
"God," Hammond breathed, and one hand involuntarily touched the glass in front of him.
SG-3 followed Jack through the Gate, and Colonel Reynolds silently ushered his team out of the embarkation room. Teal'c came last, and he stood watch at the Gate long after the wormhole shut down.
"Sam!" The exclamation came from Janet Fraiser, who accompanied a stretcher and a medical team into the room. One of the nurses was a man, and Daniel gently pulled him aside as Jack set his 2IC gently onto the stretcher.
"Janet," Sam gasped, frantically wrapping her arms around her best friend's neck. All of SG-1 looked at her in surprise, and General Hammond surmised that those had been her first words since her rescue.
"Oh, sweetie," Janet comforted, gently rocking her friend as she would a small child. When her patient had calmed a bit, the doctor drew back and pulled a sheet carefully over her. "Let's get you to the infirmary, huh?"
Unlike every other time the general could think of, SG-1 did not follow her. Daniel sank onto the foot of the ramp and pulled off his helmet, dropping it to the floor before hiding his face in his hands. The helmet made a noise as it fell that startled Jack, and he picked up the offensive object and threw it against the nearest wall as hard as he could. "Dammit!"