Chapter 9 - Warmth

The death glider sank abruptly and dove for several seconds, then pulled up just before touching down on solid ground. Jack blinked awake at the sensation and looked around but only saw darkness until he looked up to see bright stars above a tall forest canopy. He heard ocean waves lapping the shore rhythmically some distance behind him, and the comforting crackle and pop of a campfire close by.

"Oh, yes!" he exclaimed enthusiastically as his eyes adjusted and found the silhouette of the glider cabin backlit by a warm glow. He nudged Carter awake but found little response, so he bent his face closer to hers, "Carter? Come on, wake up."

Her ice cold skin and shallow breaths startled him when his chin touched her cheekbone and he waved Teal'c over to help lift her out of the seat. It had been a short flight but exhaustion had taken its toll as she woke sluggishly.

"Sam?" A familiar voice called anxiously from the darkness as Teal'c started to make his way carefully down to the ground with the woman cradled in his arms.

"Jack! Sam! Are you okay?" the voice insisted, raising in alarm as the trio emerged from the craft and into the low light.

"Daniel! We need to get Carter warmed up fast. She isn't doing so well," Jack warned as he dropped to the ground and splayed his hands into the cool sand to steady his landing. His stiff knees protested as he straightened them painfully.

"Bring her to the fire, Teal'c. Take her jacket off," Daniel said as he started to shrug his own off despite his injury. But within seconds he let out an involuntary yelp of pain and staggered as if dazed.

"Slow down, Daniel! Slow down," Jack urged, grabbing his shoulder to steady him. "Let me help." He untangled the tac vest layered on top of the jacket and soon had both free. He helped Daniel sit by the fire, and in the flickering light he saw the deeply discolored injury to his wrist. The scientist kept his eyes tightly closed, grasping his arm to his chest, but nodding his thanks for the assistance.

Carter's unfocused eyes stared into the fire as Teal'c kept one arm wrapped warmly around her. He had laid out her jacket by the fire to dry on heated stones. She shivered in the chilly night, but looked up at the colonel gratefully as he brought the replacement jacket around her shoulders. She pushed her bare arms inside the sleeves, and he zipped it up to her chin, rubbing her arms to generate some heat from the friction. The jacket still held the warmth of Daniel's body heat and she sighed with relief, snuggling the lower half of her face inside the upturned collar.

"O'Neill, your clothing is wet as well," Teal'c observed, moving over to make space for his friend at the edge of the fire ring. Teal'c had removed his own tactical vest in the glider before going into the water, but he had set his jacket aside hours ago on board the Ha'tak. He regretted his complacency during their time on the mother ship as they each shed gear that would have been valuable in this situation.

Jack waved him off, settling in front of the flames and stretching his soggy stockinged feet as close to the heat as he could stand it. "I'm fine, T, the fire is warming me up already," he assured him. His toes tingled as they rapidly warmed after being numb with cold. He looked at each of the men, "How are you two doing? Daniel, how did you do that to your hand?"

"Oh, let's just say the death glider could use some air bags," Daniel frowned from his seat on Sam's other side. In the flickering firelight he held up the arm which had swollen to the size of a grapefruit at the wrist. "I'm no orthopod, but I'm pretty sure it's broken, and there isn't much I can do about it."

"No medical kit?" Jack asked as he winced sympathetically, when Teal'c shook his head. "Okay, well, sit tight for now. We'll find something to make a splint." Daniel nodded in resigned agreement and tucked the arm close into his chest again.

Jack looked at his team all together again. He did not know what the hell had happened or how they had been split up, but he was grateful they had not all ended up in the water. It did not escape his notice that Teal'c had flown at a ninety degree bearing to get them to land. That meant he and Carter had been swimming basically parallel to the shoreline in the dark. They would have never reached it.

He shook off that troubling thought. It no longer mattered, because they had not drowned. He had many questions, but most of them would have to wait. Returning home to get proper medical care took priority, and he needed to know how they would get off this planet, "What about the Ha'tak? Is it operational?"

"It is unlikely," Teal'c replied somberly as he added two more thick branches to the fire. Newly fallen debris from the storm littered the nearby forest, and Daniel had managed to drag out some large dry pieces protected from the rain by the dense foliage. Sparks climbed high into the sky as the dry fuel crackled and burned easily. "The hyperdrive breached and caused cascading failures throughout the mothership. We just managed to escape in the death glider before the Ha'tak exploded in the upper atmosphere. If it has not fallen to the planet yet, I believe it will soon."

"Great," the colonel replied grimly when he saw the archaeologist nodding slowly in agreement. "What about supplies, food, communications?"

"Well, the supplies are meager at best. Besides the usual items in our two vests and our sidearms, waterlogged though they may be…" Daniel paused to look at Jack's weapon still secured in its leg holster, then continued, "we have some Jaffa-sourced rations of unknown age, one canteen, and a zat," Daniel counted them out on three fingers. "The Goa'uld aren't exactly Boy Scouts. Well, in more ways than one," he amended with a raise of his eyebrows.

Teal'c looked at him inquisitively, unfamiliar with the reference, but turned back to answer O'Neill's other question. "The long distance communications array on the mothership was not repairable so I was unable to send any distress signal. I regret that no one has been alerted to our situation."

"Wait, but I thought..." the scientist interrupted, "What were you doing at the console on the pel'tak if you didn't send a call for help?"

"I sought the coordinates of the ring platform on the planet where you sent Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter," he explained with a cocked eyebrow, as if the task should be obvious to the scientist, "so that we could retrieve them."

"The ring transporter?" Sam suddenly spoke up as she processed the information, causing Jack to jump at her unexpected energy, "That's right, I remember now! Colonel O'Neill and I had gone to engineering to stabilize the hyperdrive and something within the crystal interface exploded. The ring transporter was in the next room," she frowned at the incomplete memory, "but I don't remember…"

"Yeah, Carter had me pulling crystals at the next station," Jack added as the memory gap partially filled in, "and that's all I know. How did we get to the rings?"

"Uh, that was me," Daniel swallowed nervously. Jack and Sam both turned their attention to him as he shifted uncomfortably. Teal'c only raised his chin and carefully kept his eyes forward, studying the crackling flames as the man continued. "See, we heard the explosion. When you didn't respond over the internal comms I went looking for you and found you both unconscious on the floor next to the charred consoles. Sam, you had a cut that was bleeding quite a lot," he saw her reach up reflexively and wince when she found a tender spot at her hairline. She shared a look of surprise with Jack at the undiscovered injury, but they did not interrupt the story. "Teal'c said we should abandon ship, so I pulled you onto the ring platform and, uh, I, um," he hesitated, forcing himself to meet their eyes. They both waited for him to continue, so he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and spoke in a rush, "I activated the transporter and sent you down to the planet," he raised his eyebrows, then lifted his gaze again when they remained silent at his admission. "I planned to follow you down..."

"Daniel?" Jack spoke first, slowly drawing out the man's name to several syllables, "how exactly did we end up in an ocean?" The scientist ducked his gaze quickly then jumped when Jack raised his voice in accusation, "In the middle of a hurricane!"

"I don't know!" he insisted plaintively, firelight flashing off his glasses. "The system had already detected the planet's ring platform. I didn't know, Jack. I didn't think to double check. It was an emergency!"

"You dropped us into the ocean, Daniel! Unconscious!" The colonel's eyes widened and his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he enunciated each word clearly. "That… was your evacuation plan?"

"No! Of course not!" he protested defensively, missing the side glance Jack shared with Sam who turned her head to hide a grin. "As soon as four hundred gallons of seawater showed up in your place, flooding the room, I tried to reverse the transport, but realized I had no way to know if you were still fully on the platform…" he trailed off as he revisited the disturbing image of potentially dismembering his teammates. "I couldn't…"

"Unbelievable," Jack said with a straight face, his eyes locked with Daniel's.

"I'm sorry! Okay? I felt… I feel... terrible!" he patted his chest with his open palm, one-handed as he kept his injured arm tucked in close along his side. He turned to the others for forgiveness, "Sam, I couldn't, I didn't…"

She could not suppress the laughter any longer and it bubbled up, "Daniel," she interrupted, grabbing his agitated hand and stilling it against his leg. "Daniel! It's okay, we're fine. We're both fine," she insisted, looking pointedly at Jack who sighed and rolled his eyes but raised his eyebrows in agreement.

Daniel calmed immediately as his eyes locked with hers gratefully, and she squeezed his hand again. Despite the chill of the night and the cool breeze coming off the ocean, her hand felt hot and dry.

"Sam?" he questioned as he held her hand in his for a moment, then reached for her cheek. It too burned with fever and he could see even in the firelight that her face was flushed pink. "How are you feeling?"

The sudden concern in his voice caused Jack to lean forward quickly and look her over. He noticed she was still huddled inside the jacket, while he already felt comfortably warmed by the huge fire.

"I'm fine, sir," she insisted before the colonel could speak, but she could see in his expression he did not believe her. "I'm just cold from the water. I'll warm up soon." Even the brief words agitated her lungs and triggered a new bout of coughing. She could barely catch her breath as her body betrayed her.

"You have a fever, Sam," Daniel reported bluntly. "You're not fine. In fact you are burning up! Can we get some water? Something?" he called out without taking his eyes off of her, as if breaking eye contact would allow her slip away from him.

Teal'c had already retrieved the canteen of water and passed it to Jack. After a moment the Jaffa stood up and moved quietly into the darkness of the forest.

"Here drink this," Jack instructed, but sensed her hesitation when she looked up at him. "Don't worry, Carter, we have more. There's a whole creek over there." As he leaned in to help her tip the canteen back, her hands trembled. Even at that distance the heat radiating from her face was noticeable. He placed a palm on her forehead and she leaned into it with her eyes closed until he pulled it away gently. His brow knitted with worry but he said nothing.

"Jack, what are we going to do? Sam can't stay here, she needs to be in the infirmary," Daniel whispered urgently, although Carter no longer protested. Her eyes closed and she listed to one side, so Daniel wrapped his good arm around her to keep her from hitting the ground. She dropped her head to his shoulder, exhausted but breathing more evenly. "Jack!"

"I know, Daniel!" he responded sharply, cutting him off before he could start up again. He saw Sam jump but she did not raise her head. He softened his tone a bit and whispered, "I know. We need a plan."