A/N: Double length chapter today- but it's a trade-off. No guarantees about Saturday, folks. Thank you for the reviews and follows!
qelah22- Thanks! I had no idea there were actual books for SG-1 and Atlantis (besides thousands of novel-length fanfics) I'll definitely look into those!
Mlanie Meda- Suspense you say? *blinks innocently*
On with the story!
Jack sat on the cold ground outside, trying to keep the smoky fire going long enough to cook the bird-like creature over it.
It had taken almost two hours to start a flame in the damp conditions, even with a zat to help speed things along. He had chosen to boil the meat instead of grilling it, hoping to end up with a nutrient rich broth for Carter.
Yes, he was fully aware that his efforts were unnecessary, considering that they had four days worth of food for two people tucked away in their pack. However, Jack was never one to sit around and do nothing, especially when the only other task that presented itself was staring at his 2IC's pale face.
He had seen the blood she vomited up, and knew its significance.
Carter was bleeding internally. He kicked himself for not noticing earlier, but he reminded himself that it had been dark every time she'd gotten sick before… and he hadn't exactly wanted to get up close and personal anyways.
No wonder she couldn't hold anything down, he mused; her stomach had been cut.
He'd checked their medical kit for the hundredth time for supplies to start an IV.
Even if there had been the right things, he knew he wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell to everything set up correctly.
They needed help.
Fast.
Faster than Teal'c or Daniel figuring it out on their own.
He stirred the meat with a stick, considering their options.
His leg had been throbbing more and more as the pain pills he'd indulged himself in slowly wore off. Not that the super dose of ibuprofen had really touched it in the first place.
Whatever his pain may have been, he reminded himself, was nothing compared to the pain Carter felt every time she took a breath.
He'd seen that Carter was trying to maintain a tough face when he was around, stoically refusing the last shot of morphine for when it got 'worse'. When she was asleep, however, the pain showed through in the way her body stiffened at the slightest touch, the quickness of her breathing, and the way her features remained taught despite the somewhat relief of sleep.
Having to watch her pain was worse than his own. He knew the regulations in place were there for a reason, but it was getting harder to suppress his protective, almost fatherly, instinct to care for her, especially now that she was too weak to move.
He pulled the pot of meat off the fire and checked to see that it was done thoroughly. No need for food poisoning on top of their current situation.
He sat back, wincing as he shifted his leg. He would need to redo the splint soon- it was getting tight from the swelling. He severely doubted his ability to put it back on correctly without Carter's help.
Carter. He should go check on her.
He hobbled across the ledge, leaning heavily on his crutch. He slid in next to Carter, being careful not to jar her. She was curled on her side, knees drawn up to her chest. Her face was pale and sweaty and she was shivering violently.
When he laid a hand on her forehead, Jack realized she was burning up with fever.
Swearing softly, he snagged a thermometer strip. 101.7.
Jack sighed and crawled back out of the cave.
Going over to their pack, which he had set out in the sun to dry, he surveyed their supplies.
His eyes fell on the rope he'd used to go stick fishing.
Looking up across the shelf of rock, Jack spied a lone tree growing out of the rock twenty feet above him. He'd have to walk to the end of the ledge, where it tapered off into nothing, just to reach.
The tree looked scrawny- yes, but if might have to do. If push came to shove, Colonel O'Neill would climb.
He went back to the pot of cooling broth, carefully pouring some of the savory liquid into their canteen, and mixing it with cool rain water.
He rummaged through the medical kit for their drugs. He didn't want to risk lacing the broth with too much medicine, upsetting Carter's damaged stomach even more. One pill would have to do. He looked over his selection. Sedatives, anti nausea meds, and a pain reliever/fever reducer combo. He didn't think any amount of anti nausea medication would help Carter at this point. She was sick from the gash in her stomach, not a little flu. He put it back in the bag.
After some more thought, he eventually chose the pain reliever/fever reducer, not that the "pain reliever" part would do anything.
He opened a capsule and poured it into the broth, hoping it'd be enough to dull. her pain. Maybe he'd just stab her with the morphine and hope she didn't slug him.
Again.
o-O-o-O-o
He woke Sam gently, moving her into position to drink. His heart sank when she didn't even make a sound at his touch. He was positive that she wasn't going to keep the first swallow down, but she seemed to be too weak to move, much less toss everything up again.
After the first swallow stayed where it should be for five minutes, Jack carefully tried another. She swallowed it easily, but shortly after, her eyes rolled up into her head and she passed out.
Smiling sadly, Jack positioned her on her left side in case she did end up getting sick. He sighed, knowing that his final decision was the right one, but still felt terrible about it. She'd specifically told him to wait until the pain was too much to bear. On second thought, Jack realized that passing out from the pain probably constituted "unbearable."
He gave Carter the last morphine auto-injector.
Jack tucked the emergency blanket around her when he was finished, noting with a frown that her temperature was up a point to 102.3, causing her to shiver violently. He hoped that the two swallows of medication- laced broth had been enough to make a dent.
Jack sat down to eat a portion of the bird creature, saving some back for later. Tiredly, he tried the radio yet again.
"Daniel? Teal'c?"
Static.
Then, a garbled voice broke through.
"...klick...six...here..."
He jumped at the radio.
"This is Colonel O'Neill. We need a medical team immediately. We're in a cave on the Eastern face of the canyon by the river about three klicks east of the Gate. We're stuck and Carter's hurt bad."
He waited for a reply, but was met with only static.
"Anyone on this channel, please come in."
Nothing.
Jack sighed. He'd just have to hope that his message got through. He fingered the off switch for the radio, debating the choice.
Finally, he turned it off. It was better to save the battery then hear a response, he reasoned. Carter's pack hadn't had the spare batteries in it. He'd put out a call every ten minutes or so to
It was then that he noticed that the skies had continued to grow darker while he was messing with the radio. He hauled himself to his feet, resting briefly with his hands on his knees as a wave of dizziness overtook him, almost causing him to fall off the steep bank into the river.
He grit his teeth, straightened, and grabbed his crutch.
Shooting a warning glance at the sky, Jack began to load their slightly less wet gear into the cave, taking special care to put their medical kit as far away from the cave opening as possible. He would lay down in front of Carter, between her and the cave entrance so he'd take the worst of the storm.
With all of their gear inside, he went over to check his patient.
She was exactly where he had left her, breath coming in short ragged gasps.
A quick temp check revealed that her fever had come down slightly, but still burned inside her as she battled the infection that was rapidly spreading throughout her wound.
Jack reached for the canteen of broth again. He helped her take a few more sips over the next hour as the storm continued to brew outside. Carter had remained mostly still and quiet, though conscious. She had grown weaker, only making an occasional wimper if he jostled her too hard.
After another hour, Carter managed to keep the whole canteen of broth down. After she finished the last swallow, her head flopped onto Jack's shoulder, exhausted by the effort. Satisfied with her progress, he eased her to the ground again.
He pulled up her shirt quickly to check the bandage. The cloth cut from his pants was spotted with blood, but not dangerously saturated. It would hold the night without Jack causing her more pain in changing the dressing.
He settled in beside her just as the first raindrops fell.
o-O-o-O-o
Not thirty minutes after he'd drifted off, Jack became aware of something warm and wet spreading over his leg. Instantly awake, his first thought was that Carter was bleeding again. He reached a hand down to touch the liquid, but was unable to tell if it was blood by feeling alone.
Carefully, as to not disturb Carter, he reached over to switch on the lantern, covering all but a sliver of light with his hand. He aimed the beam towards the ground, to find not blood, but water.
With a start, he realized Carter had urinated in her sleep. He sighed in relief. Not only did that mean she wasn't bleeding, but that she was hydrated enough for her body to remove waste through urine.
He touched the bandage just to make sure she was okay, and his hand came away clean. The blood on the cloth had dried. His touch, although ever so gentle, caused Carter to awaken with a start.
She hissed air though her teeth, and instinctively raised a protective hand to her stomach.
"Shh," Jack whispered, clicking off the lantern. "It's just me."
Her muscles tightened in response to his voice.
"It's Colonel O'Neill," He clarified.
She tried to turn around to look at him, grunting in pain as she did so. He grabbed her by her shoulders.
"Stay still. You need to rest. Don't move, Carter. It's okay."
"Dan'l?" She slurred.
"No. Carter, it's me. O'Neill."
His voice softened. "Sam. It's Jack."
The muscles in her back relaxed, and she sank into him. "J'ck?"
"I'm right here."
"'m hurtin', J'ck." She said, her voice thick with pain.
"I know, and I'm sorry but you had a small… accident," he said awkwardly, "I need to get you into some dry clothes,"
He moved his hands away from her wound, getting ready to sit up.
Using the now practiced move, he hauled her upright, and leaned her up against the wall.
"Okay, stay there for a minute."
Jack found the bag of Carter's clothing and pulled a pair of standard SG team pants out of the bottom. Using his knife, he slashed the legs, leaving himself with a pair of crudely cut shorts. Steeling himself for the task ahead, he reached further into the bag and removed a pair of underwear, immensely thankful that it was standard issue black, instead of Carter's personal choice.
"Okay Carter. We're going to try and make this as quick as possible."
She blinked back at him, looking rather like an owl.
"I'm going to cover you up with the blanket, and then I want you to get your pants off as best you can."
Five minutes later the pants were buried in the bottom of the bag, and Jack was trying hard not to think about the fact that he'd just touched his 2IC's very NOT regulation underwear.
Easy, Jackie boy.
Ten minutes after that, he was sweating hard after Carter had managed to get the fresh underwear on, but not the pants. Why hadn't this been covered in any training course of the last twenty years of his career?
Now, after using a sections of Carter's pants to mop up the floor, he came back over to where he left Carter propped up, and laid a hand on her arm to rouse her.
Her eyes flew open with a sharp cry. Jack's heart hit his boots. She wasn't lucid anymore, starting at a point a mile behind him.
"J'ck? It h'rts so b-bad..." She said, her voice cracking, her hand moving to clutch at the bloody bandage.
He grimaced. Carter would never call him Jack. She would never admit pain, especially not to him. She was tough. But this, this was... different. He automatically knew it wasn't about the clothing anymore.
She was slipping, her body winning over her mind.
The pain was finally more than she could bear, and dammit, the last of the morphine was gone.
He bundled Carter in their blanket and held her close. Unable to suppress her agony any longer, Carter buried her face in his chest and let the silent tears slip out.
They sat there together for a long time. He stroked her hair as she shook with pain and sobs. He knew the rules. But this was different. She was no longer just a soldier under his command. She was a soldier- a tough one, who was going through one of the most painful times of her life. No one on his team would suffer alone.
No one got left behind.
o-O-o-O-o
Carter's condition had only deteriorated throughout the night. She had eventually passed out from the exertion of crying, and he hadn't slept out of worry for her condition.
The following morning, he mixed another broth drink for her. He cradled her again, and fed her one sip of broth at a time, over an hour before she started to push him away in a panic.
His efforts stayed down less than five minutes after her distress began, she was now curled in a miserable ball, losing everything she'd drunk, one terrible tasting mouthful at a time.
The vomiting didn't stop. He held her in his lap for another hour as she struggled to breathe in between bouts. The broth long gone, she was left with blood and stomach acid. At one point, she had clutched his shirt in her fists, her eyes bright from fever.
"Please," she begged. "Make it stop."
He wrapped his arms around her and rested her forehead on his chest, trying to quell his own panic at her burning skin.
"I got you. Take some deep breaths, Carter."
He stroked her sweaty hair, held her close, rubbed her back. Her breathing slowed, and she started to relax.
"There you go. You're doing good. I've got you."
She stiffened, and her breathing quickened.
He held her tighter as Carter's thin fingers twisted themselves in his shirt, and he reached over and pulled the blanket over the both of them.
"It'll pass, Carter. I'm here. I've got you."
She suppressed a moan by burying her face in his chest.
"You're okay, I've-"
She threw up all over him.
Her shoulders jerked and she pulled away.
"Sorry. I'm sorry," she gasped, trying to catch her breath. She inhaled sharply and grimaced as she pressed both hands to her stomach.
He lifted her chin so she was looking at him.
"It's okay Carter." She tried to slide away from him. "Sorry." She whimpered, dragging a trembling hand across her mouth.
He pulled her closer. "You didn't do anything wrong, Sam."
She stopped at his use of her first name.
"Okay," She said quietly.
"Do you feel better?" He asked gently, hoping that this bout brought some, albeit limited, relief.
She gave a small nod.
"Good. Try and rest okay? Let me help you." He had laid her back down, giving up on trying any more medication that morning.
The worst of the fever, fought off momentarily by the lingering drugs in her system, had returned in full force that afternoon after more attempts at broth was met with the same result. Thankfully, she had brought up less and less blood each time.
When he changed the bandages, he noted she had pulled a few more stitches, probably from the pressure of heaving up half the medical kit's supply of fever reducer.
Now, she lay in the cave, burning up with a 103.5 degree fever and mumbling to herself in a fitful slumber.
Jack bathed her body with a cool rag, in a futile attempt to lower her temperature. He had stripped her down as far as he dared, to her black undershirt and homemade shorts, in an attempt to salvage her dignity. He didn't know how much longer she had before the effects of the fever caused brain damage, or her body simply gave up because of the blood loss.
He had already checked her dog tags for her blood type. He was AB negative, and she was A positive. He had heard of people doing a person to person blood transfusion, but he still didn't have supplies, and they didn't match anyways.
He wiped her sweaty face once more before limping out of the cave. He turned on the radio and repeated his message of distress. Static.
Jack sighed, resigning himself to the brutal task that lay ahead.
He turned back towards Carter. "I'm going to try and climb for a better radio signal. Hang in there."
She didn't move.
He hated leaving her, but he didn't see another option if they wanted to get out of there anytime soon.
He tied a slip knot in the end of the rope, making a large loop that would cinch closed when he pulled on his end.
It took over fifty tries to rope the tree; granted his angle was horrible- but that didn't stop the echos of his former drill instructor yelling at him to move faster.
Finally, FINALLY, he snagged it in a way that would allow him to hang his weight.
Preparing himself mentally for what was sure to be an incredibly painful trip, he gritted his teeth against the shooting lightning from his leg, set his crutch aside, and started inching along the rock wall, away from the cave opening, and down to where the rock shelf tapered off into nothing. Once he was finally below the tree, he noted that he only had just enough room for his boots to firmly set on the edge.
He took a deep breath, and began to haul himself up. After about 10 feet, his vision started to close in, so he stopped to catch his breath. He reached for the radio, repeating his location.
A garbled transmission crackled though.
"O'Neill. Is this you?" Teal'c's voice.
Ecstatic, Jack grabbed his radio again.
"Yes! Get a medical team to the east face of the ravine by the gate. Carter is seriously injured, repeat, we need an urgent medivac."
If Teal'c replied, it was lost in the static.
"Teal'c? You there?"
Jack hauled himself another 5 feet up the rope and tried again. Static. Damn. He clicked off the radio and hoped it'd been enough.
Jack knew the descent would be harder, which was immediately proven true when his leg contacted with the rock face and he bit back a startled yell. He carefully made his way down the rock face, slick with last night's rain. The burning of his hands slowly faded away as zeroed in on the repetitive movements.
Clamp with both hands, unlock the knees, slide down an inch, wrap his good leg round his bad one, hold it there, unclamp his stiff fingers, move them down, repeat.
Just as he was getting into a good rhythm, disaster struck. His good leg slipped out of it's lock at exactly the wrong time- as his hands were repositioning themselves on the rope.
He let out a startled yelp as he tumbled to the thin ledge below. His hands grabbed at something- anything to stop his descent, but found nothing but slippery rock. Dangling with one hand from the rope, he dug in with his good leg, trying one last attempt to haul himself up to the ledge.
If he'd had two good legs, he would have made it. Instead, his chest scraped along the rock as he slid down towards the river, digging his fingers into the rock.
Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed his arm in a death grip. That's all he needed. He grabbed the hand and dug in with everything he had left, finally managing to put his good leg over the ledge, and roll over onto his back, there was just enough space for him to squeeze against the rock.
Carter lay on her stomach, her face pale but flushed from the fever. She was covered in sweat and breathing hard. A trail of blood streaked back as far as Jack could see, and was starting to pool beneath her.
"I popped my stitches," She said in a remarkably clear voice before her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.
o-O-o-O-o
Nothing Jack could do would wake her. He coaxed, shook, ordered, and called her by every title he could think of before finally giving up. He laid her flat on her back, no longer concerned with her comfort, but with stopping the flow of blood from her freshly opened wound.
She'd been correct in her assessment; all of the remaining stitches had ripped out. He'd used their only sutures the first time, and now could only pack the wound with the tattered shreds of Carter's pant legs.
After an hour of heavy pressure, the bleeding finally stopped. Jack bundled her tight and elevated her legs on their pack, before sticking another thermometer strip on her.
Her fever was at its highest yet.
Jack went outside to where he'd set the pot of food out earlier, only to find it knocked over and raided by some wild animal.
Almost all of the meat was gone, and most of the precious broth had been spilled. He cursed under his breath. Then, he stopped for a moment, then repeated his string of curses, this time at full volume.
He nodded. Yup, that felt good.
He quickly poured the remaining broth into their canteen, eating the last bits of meat from the ground. Looks like he'd have tasteless rations going forward.
A/N: Hey, I just realized I could have literally left Jack hanging off a cliff for the end of this chapter. Oh well, I think this situation is dire enough. Please review with constructive criticism/whump requests. I'm always up for hurting either of these two in new ways. Also, I'm working on a post Shades of Gray fanfic that's just a Danny whumping party. Anyone interested?