Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author. But if you ask, we'll probably say yes.
Title: Acceptable Casualties
Authors: Lin L. Barrett and Sazz
Summary: The team is trapped in a cave after Jack and Daniel are possessed by two alien entities
whose enmity has destroyed their race.
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete.
Category: Action/Adventure, Drama; Heliopolis Challenge response #348
Pairings: Itty bitty Jack/Sam mentions, lots of Jack/Daniel friendship
Spoilers: Minor for Holiday, Legacy, Crystal Skull; Barrett's "Casablanca"
Season/Sequel: Any time after "Crystal Skull"
Content Warnings: Some violence, and the words these people use!
Authors' notes: We began this fic well before September 11, 2001, and did not knowingly create the eerie resonance to that awful day in the first few paragraphs of this work. Please be warned, and be aware that the distant similarity is accidental.
Our friend Mary beta'd for us at a very difficult time in her own life. Our friend Jenni gave us another magnificent beta reading. Our gratitude to both of them.
Acceptable Casualties
The images of P2C5J9 were graphic.
The UAV had flown over still-smoldering buildings, over multitudes of bodies flung onto the ground, lying spilled in all directions as far as the camera�s eye could see.
SG-1 had been warned.
A MALP went through, its camera showing the image of a cave lined with still-functioning machinery that had Carter, among others at SGC, twitching to go through that Gate.
They waited three days for what Frasier defined as "postmortem plagues" to run their course, watched the images of P2C5J9, and prepared themselves to step onto a planet they knew to be dead.
SGC and earth herself were desperate for anything to help in the fight against the Goa'uld. If scavenging the newly-dead got them help, they'd send in SG-1 to see what they could find.
So SG-1 was doing triple duty: first-contact, salvage, last-contact.
On the fourth day, at 08:00 local time at Star Gate Command, the team stumbled through the wormhole and onto the planet. All four looked skyward, squinting their eyes against ashes falling on them like a light, peaceful snow.
The ash dusted everything -- the Gate platform was coated with it, the trees hung with it, the surrounding brush nearby was white with its blanket. Every footfall raised a small cloud of gray.
And when they got close enough to the city, the stench came forward to meet them.
They hadn�t anticipated that.
It wasn't smoke or burning. The smell was not a stink of death; there is none such. The odor of decayed flesh became an assailant whose weapon was proximity.
The population was six days deceased, and bad things happen to bodies in the first six days after death. SG-1 could still see that these people had been tall, long-limbed and slender, longer of head, hand, arm, leg, and foot than a human being, fair of skin and hair: Nordic in appearance. The bodies draped the burning buildings, half-escaped from windows, blown through doors, to lie piled in families or groups whose purposes would never now be known. Six days post-mortem, they were swollen and split-skinned by the passage of time, or wizened and dried by the heat of fires.
Multitudes of the dead saturated the area in stench; it became impossible to breathe without tasting them, without having their flavor settle in the pores like humidity.
The entire team paled, and Teal�c�s normally impassive fact was tight.
This was a planet of the dead, although its air was safe to breathe. Not pleasant, merely safe.
SG-1walked eerily quiet urban streets. The only sounds were the crackle of dying fires and the occasional creak from ruined buildings.
Daniel saw his first group of dead children, their small arms wrapped around one another for comfort or protection when there was none of either to be had. He just made it to the bushes before his body revolted and he vomited helplessly, violently, until there was nothing but bitter acid left in his stomach, a foul taste in his mouth, a hollow in his heart, and rage in his mind.
Carter was not going to follow his example, she told herself firmly. Sterner stuff. Soldier. Gulf War. Her stomach heaved a couple of times, then settled, but the tears kept prickling behind her eyes.
Daniel got himself upright again, and scrubbed the back of his wrist across his mouth. "I'm okay," he said, though no one had asked (and no one believed him). The other three found themselves unable to risk speaking just yet.
How do you grieve for thousands dead?
"Let's just - keep moving, huh?" Daniel added, his voice shaky; he kept his watering eyes turned away from his teammates�.
The team evaded sprawled dead limbs and stepped around drifts of corpses to reach the adit the MALP had shown.
Jack, stepping around a small child still clutched in the arms of her dead mother, felt his own eyes heat with tears, sneaking in behind the numbness he imposed on himself. Numbness was an old habit, born of necessity. Impossible either to break or to follow here.
He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, leaving wet smeared trails in the ash he, like all of them, wore. He said, his own voice sounding strange in his ears, "Teal�c, you�ve got six; Carter, you�re Daniel�s eyes-behind. I�ve got point."
He halted for a moment in front of the cave the MALP had shown them -- their goal. The point of all this.
Jack could see no signs that said "Insert Quarter Here" and knew himself to be out of his depth in guessing what these things might do. He took his P-90 off safety, got out his flashlight, holding it in his left hand, and crossed his left wrist over his right, so that the flashlight led the P-90 into every distant nook and cranny of the cave.
Daniel followed, flashlight in his own hand.
The cave was dimly illuminated by glowing objects on the ceiling, but the corners and edges were dark, shadowed in mystery. Aprons of dirt and debris cascaded from cracked walls of rough, cold gray stone.
The debris was surfed by toppled machinery and smashed artifacts. A decapitated idol, its face and head lying beside it in pieces, stood near the entrance.
Carter followed the trail of Daniel�s light, which revealed more machinery and the incongruously bright and merry shards of broken objects and artwork.
******
Teal'c
This race had possessed a strong sense of beauty. Many of the objects housed in the cave, or thrown into it when the walls and ceiling were damaged, were beautiful, even when knocked over, broken, and littered with debris.
DanielJackson stopped to pick up one such piece, a humanoid standing -- the figure resembled the pale, long-limbed aliens of this planet. He held it out in front of him, solemnly regarding ancient beauty that once had been and was no more.
DanielJackson's hand trembled a little as he held the statue. He sighed, set it on the damaged altar we had found near the cave mouth, and stared at the symbols on the base of the ruined idol for a moment.
"Their writing looks like Chinese dancing to disco, " he said, his shaking voice belying his words.
O'Neill snorted in response.
Our mission was limited to retrieval of any remaining technology. DanielJackson and Major Carter were to make records and, later, decipher as much as they could from our findings. It was arranged for SG-3 to join us in the morning to assist in bringing anything of use back to the SGC.
I picked up the broken statue that had so fascinated DanielJackson. It was odd that a race which could perceive and articulate such beauty would be responsible for bringing about its own demise, but we had been able to discern that the bombs that had destroyed the inhabitants came from two separate locations on the planet itself.
I had thought only the Goa�uld were capable of wreaking so much destruction, of battening on infinite death.
I set the ceramic object down, and resumed my duties on six.
The cave itself had glowing objects placed at irregular intervals, providing a dim light. I could not discern what powered these objects.
DanielJackson shined his flashlight over a piece of equipment centered along the back wall. On the stone floor of the cave, carvings similar to those on the altar encircled the machine, many of the markings obscured by dirt and scattered debris.
The machine itself appeared still to be working. Faint blue-green lights and alien text flashed across its surface at intervals and it was draped in thick cables.
But as O�Neill and his flashlight moved closer, the "cables" resolved themselves into two alien corpses. Now blackened and twisted in death, they had died with their hands locked tightly around one another�s throats, lying over the top of the machine.
"Whoa!" O'Neill said. "That's nasty."
DanielJackson and Major Carter exchanged an uneasy look. My teammates seemed quite troubled by the sight of these two dead aliens. That, in itself, was odd; we had all seen many deaths and many bodies before this mission. Perhaps it was the quantity that upset them, or the death throes of these particular cadavers.
It could also have been the smell. The smell was . . . intense and unpleasant.
"Oh boy," DanielJackson said, shakily. He sounded as if his stomach was still unquiet.
"Don't touch that thing yet," O'Neill said, putting one arm in front of DanielJackson in a manner I have observed in persons driving Tau'ri automobiles toward persons riding in the front seats, although DanielJackson had not, in fact, moved any closer to the equipment. "Remember what happened with Machello? Twice?"
"Yeah," DanielJackson said quietly. "How could I forget. . . ." His voice faded. He remained still, staring at the bodies, and he wore the pain of recollection on his young face.
******
Jack
Daniel was wide-eyed, staring at the alien crispy critters. If I knew my Dannyboy, he was feeling out the level of hatred these two had for each other. Dying with my hands locked around, say, Maybourne's neck, even, doesn't seem like such a good idea to me.
These two had felt differently.
Daniel was looking green, and even my normally stoic 2IC was slightly pale. (I wasn't exactly feeling my usual chipper self, either.) Teal'c said later that the place gave him the creeps -- all right, all right, he said, "My instincts warned me that all was not right with that place." Really wish he had said something then.
It must have been the smell, I told myself, even though I knew that was only half of it.
It wasn't the air. It was the hate hanging around these two. You could almost feel their animosity -- touch it.
"Sir, that looks like a computer they're lying on. Can we pull them off so I can have a look at it?" Carter asked.
"You think that's a good idea?" I asked her. "You know, these dead guys might be a bio-hazard, maybe even worse than the back of my refrigerator."
"Sir, nothing is worse than the back of your refrigerator." She paused at Daniel�s barely suppressed snort of amusement, then said firmly, "Don't make skin-to-skin contact, and we should be all right."
I don't necessarily believe that tone of voice from her (except about my refrigerator). But I thought it through and couldn't get any better idea going.
"Teal'c, you've got point, just in case anything moves. Daniel, give me a hand here," I said, pulling out my P-90. I hooked it under the closest alien's belt. Daniel picked a long metal bar up off the ground and did the same with the other alien.
I swung my carcass up and off the machine -- he, she, or it was heavy, despite being withered. He, she, or it was also surprisingly tall.
I got it clear and began to lower it to the ground. The belt split, and the corpse fell a couple of feet to the floor of the cave, one of the arms flopping over to hit me smartly on the hand.
"Daniel," I said, my voice a little high in my own ears, "watch out for these guys, they'll hit'cha when you're not looking."
Just as I said that, his did almost exactly the same thing. Daniel being Daniel, though, when his fell, one long leg flopped up and kicked our archaeologist on the point of the chin.
Daniel jumped back, scrunched up his face, and strangled a cry of disgust. Then he darted an apologetic sideways glance at me, embarrassed by his squeamishness.
I don�t know why. I was squicked too.
******
Daniel
Okay, Daniel, I told myself firmly, get a grip and take a deep breath through your mouth. You don't want to puke all over the place again. Of course now it would be more like "dry heave all over the place" -- there was nothing left in my stomach.
It wasn't just the stench, although that alone was enough to gag a maggot. All those bodies outside, those poor kids. . . the air was heavy with desolation, despair hanging over us like a shroud, a warning.
I've been around death plenty of times; you can't be an archaeologist and not be well-acquainted with death. But those deaths had been of Egyptians, and their sendoffs were decorous, ceremonial. The Egyptians took great care with their dead, dispatching them to the afterworld with forethought. The tombs are dry, the bodies protected from the ravages of time, the air giving off a faint cinnamony smell. That's true only in Egypt, though.
It certainly wasn't true here. This was just . . . bad. Painful, horrific, and ugly.
Those two aliens had strangled each other, locked in a hatred so intense, so deep, that each had sacrificed himself to kill the other. For each, the light faded to dark on the other's hate-filled face. Their dying hands spasmed tighter on a throat struggling to breathe. The last passion they felt was murderous rage.
I join you in hatred. Let not death put us asunder.
Okay, that reminded me a little too much of Amonet.
I hate the Goa'uld from the depths of my being, more than I thought it possible to hate anyone or anything, and I couldn't do that. I can't hate even those parasites enough to want to die with Apophis' throat in my grip.
. . . well, I might make an exception for Apophis.
"Daniel? Still with us?" Jack's voice startled me out that train of thought, which was probably a good thing. I was most likely six shades of green again, and Jack's observant --he would notice it, and worry.
"Oh yeah, just fine, still here, " I said jauntily, then added under my breath, "unfortunately . . . ."
Jack stared, catching that too, of course. What could I say? The place was getting to me.
Sam picked her way cautiously through the debris on the ground and sidled by the bodies, entangled now beside the still-running machine. Once close, she put a hand on its top and squatted by the lit screen, watching the illuminated dancing figures chase one another across it.
I scuffed the dust aside with my foot, and looked down at the squiggles on the ground, trying to make some sense of them.
Most places we go have writing which displays some link to Earth's languages, usually the long-dead ones. Not so here, as far as I could tell. The aliens� writing, if that�s what it was, had no roots in any Mediterranean language. It was angular, resembling Japanese, Chinese, or the runic languages of northern Europe, which would be congruent with the natives' physiognomy.
On the other hand, I think the honest thing to say here is that I had no idea why the script looked Asian and the people Nordic-slash-alien. You got me.
We would never know now.
I joined Sam by the machine, and after a minute or two, she slanted her eyes up at me, a question in them. I shook my head. Sorry, Sam, can't read squat.
"Can we pull it out a little, away from all that stuff, so I can see the screen on the other side?" she said.
And move it away from those bodies? I thought she really meant. Of course, with Sam, I never know for sure. She can be more military than Jack, sometimes.
I looked at the flashing lights again, and felt suddenly, inexplicably nervous. Sam had touched the machine with no ill effects, so it should be safe to move it, but still, this place was seriously giving me the creeps. The hairs on my arms were standing on end. Get a grip any time now, Daniel. This place just reminded me of the chamber where we found those dead Linvrus, which must be what was triggering the jitters.
Jack motioned for me to give him a hand again and moved closer to the machine, gripping it around the edges. After a moment, I did the same.
I could feel energy swiftly build up under my hands, and the machine started humming like crazy, as if it was going to blow up. Sam flew back like something had pushed her, but I couldn't move -- I couldn't let go. Neither could Jack: I could see his wide, shocked eyes, locked onto mine.
What the hell?
A jolt of intense pain ripped through my hands, raced up my arms, into my chest, my head, everywhere -- my breath caught hard in my lungs. I couldn't breathe.
Then, there was a voice in my head, a voice that didn't belong to me. It screamed, screamed in hurt and rage. . . Oh God, what�s happening to me, stop, stop it -- get out of my�
******
Carter
As soon as Jack and Daniel grasped the machine, it began to hum. A giant hand seemed to push me away, as if I were a rag doll, and I stumbled back, my fingertips tingling.
Jack and Daniel were bolted into position, clenching the machine, their knuckles white, wrist tendons standing out in strain, and their bodies rigid, knees locked.
"Colonel! Daniel!" I shouted -- to no effect.
Blue sparks of electricity poured out of the machine, racing up their arms and across their bodies. Both their faces tightened with pain. Both bodies began to shake wildly. Both pairs of hands were locked onto the machine.
Over the hum and crackle, one of them groaned in pain. I couldn�t tell who, and as much as I wanted to help my friends, the machine�s power held me back, a force field thickening the air in front of me.
Teal'c had come, alarmed at my shout, and pointed his staff weapon at the machine, but I raised a hand, and shouted over the noise, "No! Wait, Teal'c!"
He hesitated, a baffled expression on his face. We were both unsure whether blasting the machine would free the colonel and Daniel, or do them more harm.
I remembered all too well what happened when Teal�c fired his staff weapon at the crystal skull when its energy was enveloping Daniel. We had nearly lost him forever that time.
Without warning, the machine whined to a halt. The hum and the crackle subsided, and the charge that had been visible against the darkness behind the surface died down, sucked back into the machine. Sparks, like a child's firework, coruscated over my teammates' skins, then went out on the surface of their bodies, or sank into them.
The colonel's arms dropped away and he sagged, slowly dropping to his knees. Daniel took a few shaky steps backward in my direction, and then his legs buckled under him, too. He sat down so hard I heard his teeth click together from the impact, and he fell back until he banged against my legs.
Teal'c went to Jack, after darting another quick glance at the exterior of the cave. He crouched beside Jack, and called to him, his face creased with worry.
I took hold of Daniel's shoulders to keep him from falling over as I moved to kneel beside him. He had lost his glasses when he fell, and he was trembling so hard it vibrated up my hands.
"Is the colonel okay?" I asked Teal'c, before returning my attention to Daniel. He seemed to be in shock: his mouth was slightly open and his eyes fixed straight ahead.
"I cannot tell. He is conscious, but not responsive," Teal'c finally answered. "How is DanielJackson?"
"The same! Daniel, can you hear me?" I looked directly into his blue eyes, but they were blank. He stared through me, unseeing.
A cold wave of fear rushed through me. "Daniel, answer me!" I took his chin in my hand and tried to force him to look at me. That empty look in his eyes was terrifying.
Nothing. He kept looking blindly right through me. I put my fingers to his neck and felt for a pulse. It was racing furiously. I realized suddenly that he was holding his breath, or simply couldn't breathe.
I grasped his shoulders tighter and shook him slightly. "Breathe, dammit!"
His head rolled back, then dropped forward again, limply.
******
Jack
That machine was pretty heavy. I flexed my abused knees, and then the thing began to hum. Before I could get my hands away from it, a charge like a jolt of household current locked my grip tight to it. A voice began to thrum in my head -- words I didn�t understand, a language I�d never heard before.
The current became a sharp pain, an intense hurtful energy, especially in my chest and head. It got stronger and stronger and stronger, coursing through me. I clenched my teeth, biting back the pain. I heard a groan, but couldn�t tell if it came from me, or from Daniel. Everything sounded muffled, I felt separated from my body, with everything happening far away.
Then suddenly, someone else was looking out of my eyes with me.
We looked across the machine to see Daniel's eyes locked on ours. They were Daniel's wide eyes, but someone else was behind them, looking at me through his blue gaze.
We saw Daniel stagger back and fall at Carter's feet and I -- we -- let go of the tep'an'orl, as I now knew the machine to be called, and our knees sagged and we sank down slowly.
The thing that was now in my head watched Teal'c's face approach, his concern evident. He touched our shoulder and said, "O'Neill, are you injured?" Then, in reply to some question from Carter I didn't hear, he said, "He is conscious but not responsive."
What did Teal'c mean? I was responsive. I moved to touch his hand on my shoulder -- oh. I couldn't. Why couldn't I? I'd lived in this body for forty-five years, and now it signed a contract with somebody else? What the hell?
The thing in my head had taken over.
This was bad. It hadn�t figured out the pedals yet, but I�d definitely been elbowed out of the driver�s seat. What the hell?
It got the power steering figured out suddenly and used my mouth to scream breathlessly, my lungs afire, "Sa te, Orahn! Sa te ohn sha!"
You don't want me to translate that. You really don't.
Teal'c slapped me lightly across the face. "O'Neill!"
Ow! That wasn�t fair. I wasn't driving. And, Teal'c being Teal'c, I felt that! I took in a deep breath. I didn�t realize until then that I hadn't been breathing -- my chest had been as paralyzed as my body, my lungs aching and starved for air.
I could hear Carter calling Daniel's name, trying to get him to answer her. I moved my eyes, the only thing I could control at this point, in their direction.
Daniel was completely out of it, his eyes wide, shell-shocked and empty. I wondered if I looked as bad.
What the hell had just happened to us? I wanted to call to him, but my driver had firm control over that -- I couldn't get anything out.
Across the cavern, Carter had pushed Daniel down flat, gripping his chin and getting ready to breathe for him. But suddenly he groaned, closing his eyes tightly as if in pain, and his hands flew up to his head.
"Daniel, can you hear me?" Carter called to him, laying her hand on his chest.
Daniel gasped in a ragged, choked breath, like a drowning man who has just been pulled out of the water, and shook his head, trying to clear it.
He turned his head toward me and our eyes met across the cavern. I was seeing my friend and colleague, Doctor Daniel Jackson.
The driver was seeing her (don�t ask me how I knew this - it was just there, that knowledge) mortal enemy, Orahn, and repeated the "Sa te" bits again. Louder this time, with feeling: intense, gut-wrenching anger, and a hate I was happy not to feel for anybody. Not even Maybourne.
Daniel, and I presume his recently inherited driver, looked surprised and a little horrified at this. Daniel staggered to his feet, swaying slightly, and yelled back, "Cra te, Rashan! Sa te orkajonos, malif se!"
I won't translate that, either. You can thank me later. --Carter and Teal'c were looking at us like we�d just sprouted two heads. Appropriate, huh?
"What's going on?" Carter asked Teal�c. "No Goa'uld could have survived that long in a dead body!"
No. It wasn't a Goa'uld. I could have told her that, if I could have told her that.
"It is not possible," Teal'c replied, raising his voice to be heard over the two of us spewing cartoon curses at each other, but he looked skeptical in spite of his words.
My driver decided to get physical with the whole thing, and went for Daniel. Or tried to -- she still wasn't familiar with the dials and gauges, and she kinda oversteered.
I realized suddenly that my arms and legs were, from her point of view, awkward -- too short. I thought of all those long-limbed corpses.
Teal�c got us corralled pretty easily and held us while we flailed and thrashed. We really wanted to get over there and trash Orahn.
Yeah, whatever. Fine by me. Fight. I like a good fight.
That is, if we can leave Daniel out of it.
******
Teal'c
O'Neill screamed in an alien language I had never heard before and moved in the direction of DanielJackson, who was still unsteady on his feet.
I went to O�Neill and grasped one of his arms, wrapping my other arm around his waist. It was easy to restrain O'Neill thus -- he is only slightly smaller than I, and is very fit and well-trained, but he did not have the usual control of his body. He was as strong as ever, but somewhat clumsy, his limbs moving only after telegraphing his intention to do so, and this made it easy to hold him back.
His unaccustomed clumsiness was a fortunate thing. Only the fact that I have lived much longer than he allows me to win our usual contests of skill. My symbiote gives me greater strength than a Tau�ri, but O�Neill is strong as well. Whatever had befallen him was giving him an advantage which I have heard DanielJackson describe as "adrenaline."
O�Neill was still twisting and cursing, but not fighting me with so much energy. I relaxed my grip somewhat, hoping that he was returning to himself. I realized my error as he immediately elbowed me at the point where my larval sac is attached.
This is a very vulnerable area on any Jaffa. In all of our regulated sports, no one may land a blow to it. I doubled over, and O'Neill twisted free of my grip.
He launched himself at DanielJackson, snarling furiously.
DanielJackson blocked his first attack with an upraised arm, and spun around with the momentum of O'Neill's attack. He landed a kick to the inside of O'Neill's thigh, and I saw O'Neill's face change. It would have been a painful blow to me as well.
O'Neill swung a fist at DanielJackson's nose, but DanielJackson was able to avoid it by jerking his head to the side. Nonetheless, O'Neill's fist caught him on the jaw, the force of the blow snapping DanielJackson's head back.
I was able to straighten by then, and I grasped O'Neill around the body, pinning his arms to his side to restrain him.
Major Carter threw her arms around DanielJackson�s waist but did not attempt to pin his arms; she knew, I believe, that her upper-body strength was no match for his.
He had his hands raised defensively in front of him, a posture I have never before seen DanielJackson take. He dragged Major Carter along behind him, trying to continue his fight with O'Neill, but he too, was clumsy, unsure of his limbs, and Major Carter�s weight further hampered his progress.
"Daniel! Stop it!" Major Carter shouted. "What are you doing?"
He took no notice, and tried to stagger toward O'Neill. Major Carter braced her legs, dug her heels in the ground, and was able to impede DanielJackson's progress markedly, but she could not stop him -- he dragged her along with him toward O'Neill.
O'Neill, meanwhile, was less awkward than I remembered, as if he had now relearned how to use his body. He wrenched an arm free and elbowed me once more at the vulnerable point on my abdomen. I doubled over reflexively, but this time I did not lose my grip. I straightened, only to have O'Neill follow up with a head-butt that left me on the ground, my ears ringing and my nose broken.
He went directly to the alien bodies, and pulled an object from the belt of one of them. He pointed this weapon, if such it was, at DanielJackson and Major Carter.
******
Carter
I looked past Daniel at the grunt of pain coming from Teal'c as he went down hard.
"Teal'c! Are you okay?" I shouted, and got no answer.
The colonel threw himself over to one of alien bodies and pulled something out from its moldering clothing.
I was still trying to hold onto Daniel, to hold him back as he struggled furiously to get to the colonel. He was surprisingly strong, but doing nothing to get me to let go of him. All his attention was fixed on our OIC.
Daniel's a fairly big guy, something you don't realize when he stands beside Teal'c, but I didn�t remember him being this strong in any of our sparring matches.
The colonel crouched to the ground, picked up something that looked way too much like a weapon, and pointed it at us.
"No!" I ducked and tried to pull Daniel down with me, reaching for my sidearm at the same time. Would I be able to shoot the colonel? �- I really didn't want to know the answer to that one. I guess I knew, somewhere, that I would if I had to.
If I absolutely had to. Please, Jack, for God's sake!
The colonel fired the weapon rapidly from his position on the ground. A blue laser ripped out. Daniel dove to the ground, and the first shot flew by no more inches from his head.
That alone told me it wasn't Jack doing the shooting. Jack, in his own emotionally constipated way, loves Daniel; one minute he treats him like a pesky little brother, the next like a surrogate son. Jack would never intentionally hurt Daniel.
I saw Daniel get up again, fast, and in a crouched position, trying to make his way to the colonel, taking cover behind debris as the colonel kept aiming for him, firing at him.
Insanity. This was nuts, on both their parts.
But Jack had the weapon. Could I shoot to wound? If I had to, could I shoot to kill?
. . . I didn't want to know that.
The laser sang its "zzzit" song all around us. The cave walls and ceiling fortunately absorbed the bolts, not reflecting them, but that, in turn, sent rock and debris raining down on us.
A deep shudder ran from the wall behind me up across the ceiling, and then down to the wall behind the colonel and Teal'c, who was on his knees at this point.
"Drop your weapon, now, sir!" I shouted at the colonel. "Don't make me shoot you!" Please, don�t make me shoot you!
A large rock gave up its grip on the ceiling, and came down with a couple of the lighted objects illuminating the cave, abruptly darkening it to twilight, and leaving a thick cloud of dust in the air.
The stone bounced once and struck Daniel, throwing him off balance, pushing his stumbling steps into line with one of the colonel's laser shots. It hit Daniel's left shoulder, radiating out from the point of impact like one of those lightning lamps, and he cried out in pain and dropped to the ground, flat amidst the rubble.
Rocks and dirt poured over all of us, making it hard to see and to breathe. I coughed as I inhaled a lungful of dust, then dove for cover under a metal table covered with machinery and set along a cave wall.
The cave went dark, save for the twin beams of light coming from the flashlights we had dropped earlier -- they had miraculously survived the downpour of debris. I'd forgotten all about them.
The colonel rose to his feet, heading for Daniel, moving in for the kill. There was just enough light for me to see the look on his face.
Chilling. Murderous.
"Colonel! No!" I cried out, hoping to reach him somehow.
I heard Teal'c's zat whine as it charged, then its energy danced over the colonel's body. He stood wavering for a moment, then his face contorted and he folded to the floor.
Teal�c moved quickly to the colonel�s unconscious form. Teal'c kept the zat charged and ready by his side, pulled ties from his pack, and bound Jack�s hands and feet.
I crawled out from under the table, grabbed a pack, and tried to make my way to Daniel. Dirt was still raining down all around us.
Then, with a roar, the cave mouth gave way and the dust engulfed us. I flattened myself to the ground, ducking my head under my arms. When the dust and the noise finally subsided, everyone except the colonel was coughing hard, and the darkness was almost complete.
One of the flashlights was pointed in the direction of the where the cave�s entrance used to be. I could see that the cave mouth was blocked. We were trapped.
Damn.
The two cones of light from Daniel's and Teal'c's dropped flashlights provided the only illumination to be had in the cave.
The entrance was now covered in boulders and debris. Teal'c and I might be able to move some of them, but could we free ourselves without having the whole place collapse on our heads?
Probably not. The subterranean grumblings and moanings of rock formations shaken from their foundations reverberated throughout the cave already.
On the positive side: It hadn't collapsed on us yet. None of us had been injured by the cave-in. All the damage we had suffered so far had been done to Daniel at the colonel's hands.
On the negative side: Someone else was going to have to argue that our OIC was sane. Daniel was definitely hors de Jack and compromised too. The least experienced of the three soldiers on SG-1, one Samantha Carter, was in command.
Hell and damnation.
Okay, Carter, think. Remember your training. You can have the melt-down later. Right now three people you care about more than anyone else in the world are depending on you, and you�ve got to focus.
Get hold of yourself and get a plan of action happening.
I got to my feet, took a deep, shaky breath and tried to see through the dust and darkness.
I heard a short cry of pain from Daniel, and could just make him out, trying to sit up.
That settled the question of "what next." Teal'c doesn't have first-aid training. I do. I began to work my way over to Daniel.
Teal'c picked up one of the flashlights, began probing the cave, trying to locate me in the dark. "Major Carter, are you all right?" he said, sounding muffled and slightly nasal - the colonel had probably broken his nose.
"I'm all right, but Daniel's been hit twice, once by that rock on its way down, once by the colonel."
"By the alien weapon?" Teal'c asked, his deep voice rumbling.
"Yes." Damn, I could hardly see, and I was having trouble running the obstacle course without leaving bits of skin here and there, courtesy of sharp rocks and pointy-cornered equipment. Why do so many cultures master the 90-degree angle? Ow, dammit!
"Use caution, he may be as dangerous as O'Neill," Teal'c said sharply, training the flashlight on us.
When I got to Daniel, he was clutching at his upper arm, hugging himself, doubled over and breathing hard. Teal'c's light showed a bloody wound on Daniel's shoulder, the skin seared and blackened, raw flesh exposed.
I swallowed. I'd seen a lot of wounds in my tours of duty, but nothing like this on anyone who was still conscious.
The pack I grabbed was Daniel�s own, crammed full of archaeological necessities, with the medkit hidden at the bottom and hard to reach. I cursed under my breath, digging for it with a shaking hand.
Teal'c took in Daniel�s injury with a quick glance, noted my scrabbling haste with another, and handed me his own pack, medkit efficiently at the top.
I took hold of Daniel's hand and pulled it away gently. He didn't fight or resist me when I took off his scorched jacket and tore away part of his T-shirt, exposing the wound.
The alien weapon had torn a deep, uneven gash from the sternum side of his pectoral muscle on out through the deltoid muscle of his left shoulder, and it was bleeding heavily.
The outside edges of the gash were burned, blistered. The gash itself needed stitches and I didn�t have the curved needle to close it. I settled for cleaning it with peroxide, applying antibiotic ointment, using little Xs of first-aid tape to close it, and putting gauze over top, to pad the injury.
The only response from Daniel was an occasional grimace and flinch, but he stayed silent.
Teal'c kept his zat gun ready and trained on our injured friend and teammate as I worked.
"Daniel?" I asked, but still didn�t get any response. He ignored me and watched Teal'c impassively as I wrapped the gauze around his upper arm and taped it down to keep the whole clumsy job in place.
His right arm was also rapidly forming a bruise and was slightly scraped, probably from the rock that had bounced off him, but it didn�t look serious. I swiped a dab of antiseptic on it anyway and covered it with a small piece of gauze.
I put the depleted medkit back and rubbed my hand on my forehead, still shaking. This is not standard OIC, or even 2IC, procedure, but I couldn�t stop trembling.
My heart was pounding furiously. I took a deep breath and willed myself to calmness. What to do next?
Teal'c rumbled, "Shall I bind DanielJackson as well?"
Daniel, his face pale and drawn, stared past me, keeping his eyes on Teal'c. His demeanor was passive, as if the fight had gone from him.
"Not yet. He seems calm."
Teal'c gave Daniel another assessing look, then nodded in agreement. He went to the colonel, picked him up and placed his unconscious form gently on the cave floor, closer to us.
Suddenly, a memory from that last golden day the team had spent fishing came to mind. I'd asked, "So what do you do when you're really afraid, Jack?"
He'd said, "Same thing you do, probably: let the training take over. If that doesn't work, I try to think through the situation, find the best solution. If I'm busy, I don't have time to be scared, so I keep my hands and feet occupied if I can't do anything else."
He�d paused then, and we both sent our lines out once more into a lake so clear it might have been a mirror. The sky was bright blue, with the occasional puffy white cloud high above. The air was cold, because we were better than a mile high, but the sun was warm on our faces.
Another ominous groan from the ceiling sent a shower of dirt and rock down in a corner of the cave, bringing me back to reality. Okay, Carter, take the colonel's advice. Get busy.
I stood, taking the other flashlight in hand, and walked around the cave, inspecting the other machines.
I found something that looked like a portable light, encased in a metal cover. Hope springs eternal, and all that. I put the flashlight down and flicked a switch on the case, and wonder of wonders, it bathed the cave in a strong, blue-tinged light, casting everything in an icy duotone.
I set the light under one of the tables to protect it from falling debris, and went back to Teal'c. We turned off the flashlights, conserving them against future need.
Now that I could see properly, I realized that blood was flowing sluggishly from Teal'c's nostrils, and his nose was slightly swollen. Junior was already repairing the damage, but the colonel had cracked Teal'c a good one. "You need any pain med, Teal'c?"
"Thank you, Major Carter, but it is minor. I am fine."
We sat between Daniel and the colonel, to shield them from each other. The colonel was still out and Daniel was sitting quietly, propped against a rock, watching us with a cold, emotionless stare.
I would describe Daniel�s eyes as normally warm and expressive. This coldness was something new. Something alien.
The colonel groaned and stirred, beginning to wake.
******
Jack
Oh, Jesus. Had I dreamed this whole thing? Was I back in Iraq? Hussein's buddies were the only ones who had ever hog-tied me like this.
It hurts. It stretches some muscles to their limit to have your hands bound behind your back, and then get the crap beaten out of you.
Wait a minute. This pain wasn't like being beaten. This pain had the sharper edge and sting of a zat attached to it. I'd been zatted.
By who? This planet was empty of everything except corpses. That left --
"What the --? Teal'c, why did you shoot me? What's going on? Untie me!"
"O'Neill!" Teal'c turned to me, and I stopped struggling, looking at him in surprise. I saw with a pang that I had busted his nose. We had. Right. My driver had. Whoever you want to blame.
My friend, who we had attacked, said, "Do you recall what has happened to you?"
Then it was the driver, straining against my, her, our bonds, as I struggled to recall what had gone on: Daniel and I reaching for the aliens, then we attacked Daniel - oh, God, we attacked Daniel, and shot at him! Daniel, are you all right? Where are you, Danny?
That was me, but not me. I couldn�t get enough control to ask about my teammate, find out if he was okay.
My teammate, my friend, who this bitch wanted to kill. Badly.
We squeezed our eyes shut, and pulled hard against the restraints -- in vain, the part of me that was still me noted. The tendons on my neck hurt before she finally stopped. She? My driver, Rashan, whose name suddenly popped in my head, was a very rabid she, and she used my mouth to shout again in that alien tongue.
Look, it's really better if I don't translate any of it, okay? I was shocked, and I've heard a lot of Language in the last twenty-some years.
Carter came to stand beside us and looked into our eyes. "The colonel's gone again," she said to Teal'c, worry creasing her brow.
Dammit, Carter, tell me something I don�t know.
******
Daniel
I heard Jack's voice, talking in that alien tongue. He sounded as if he were far away, his voice echoing in my head, although I could see him lying no more than four feet away from me. He was bound hand and foot -- why?
Jack?
Then I began to understand the things Jack was saying. All the things he was going to do to me, no -- to Orahn, the voice in my head. Oh God, the voice in my head! That voice that had somehow taken me over, taken away every ounce of control I had over my body. What was it? What was happening? Was this what having a Goa�uld in you felt like?
Oh shit - what if it was a Goa�uld?
Orahn screamed in my mind, as if protesting. Definitely not a Goa�uld then.
I could feel Orahn's memories whirling around in my head. Familiar but unfamiliar, intimate but not known. I could understand his language, the words, if I focused on them, but the cultural subtext, the life that gives language its meaning, was alien to me.
"Alien." Funny, Daniel.
How had he come to share my body in the first place? The last thing I remembered was touching that machine, the tep�an�orl, then a haze of pain, a cloud of fury, rushing into my head. My body moved, my lips moved, but I had no control -- someone else was doing all of that with, to, the body I was in. God, that machine must have done this somehow. . . .
I couldn't think; my memories and knowledge were jumbled up with Orahn's, leaving no clear division between him and me.
I was trapped here in my own mind, pushed aside like an unwelcome memory. My body no longer felt like my own. My heart was racing, I realized that I was terrified, I wanted to scream, run, hide, get away from this, but I couldn't -- you can't hide from your own mind. This was just as bad as when I had Machello's Goa'uld-killing invention in me, driving me mad.
This was driving me mad, I can't stand this -- it's too much -- Shau're must have gone through this --
Okay, Daniel, calm down, don't panic. Can you get control? You have to get control. Try to get control. You have to try.
If I could just move my hand, little by little, regain control. God, it was so hard - it hurt. My shoulder was on fire. Why was my shoulder hurting? -- oh, right, Jack shot me. Jack, but not Jack. That other presence, Rashan, is there, behind Jack's familiar face.
Rashan, I knew from Orahn�s thoughts, was very dangerous, a formidable enemy.
My hand felt strange, almost like it wasn't mine anymore. I looked at it, told it to move, but it wasn't listening to me. Come on. . . .
There, wait a minute, I could feel it now. My fingers moved jerkily.
Sam was looking at me then, at my face, my hand. I could see her lips form my name.
"Daniel?"
She sounded like she was at the other end of a tunnel, but she was right in front of me. I could feel her breath on my face as she called me again, grasping my uninjured shoulder.
I heard someone making an agonized, groaning kind of wail. Was that me? I sounded like some animal caught in a snare. Which is sort of what I was, I guess.
Don't think about that -- just keep moving your hand, just concentrate on that and you'll be okay. There, it's clenching and unclenching now, it feels like my own hand again, my own body now. Have to tell them what's happening, have to, before I lose control again.
I jumped to my feet. Bad move: the world swam for a minute, and my vision clouded -- Orahn elbowed me aside again. No, dammit! Not yet! I have to tell Sam and Teal'c -
******
Teal'c
DanielJackson wailed in a wordless cry of desperation, leapt to his feet, and stood, swaying from side to side unsteadily. His face changed to the icy set I now recognized as the alien presence within him, then flowed back into DanielJackson's habitual expression.
"Get it out of me, Sam, Teal'c, please!" he pleaded.
"Daniel? Stay with us, fight it!" Major Carter said, and grasped his arms, attempting to get him to look at her.
I do not understand the Tau'ri. Major Carter was behaving as if making eye contact with DanielJackson could keep him in control. Perhaps she herself needed the comfort of his gaze, but he could do nothing, it seemed, to aid us. He kept his head lowered, and was very close to panic.
DanielJackson was trembling and his shoulder wound had opened again. The blood, seeping through the stark white of his bandages, was purple in the bluish light.
"Daniel, look at me!" Major Carter ordered, gripping his arms tightly.
DanielJackson took a few deep breaths, trying to compose himself. After a moment, he raised his head, and met her gaze. "Wh-what's happening, Sam? Where are we?" he asked shakily.
Major Carter assisted him to sit down on the ground again, and crouched in front of him with her hands clasped, her elbows on her knees. "We're in a cave on P2C5J9. You and Colonel O'Neill are under some kind of alien influence. You fought each other --"
"Yes!" DanielJackson interrupted. He does not usually interrupt others, so perhaps he remembered now. He looked across the cave at O'Neill's immobilized form, and said slowly, as if not believing it himself, "I watched all of it happen. It was -- it was far away, and I was like a -- a spectator." He paused again, took in the cave and its blocked mouth, and said, "We're trapped here, aren't we?"
"Only for the night. SG-3 is rendezvousing with us tomorrow morning," Major Carter reassured him, reaching forward to touch his uninjured arm. "They'll figure out what happened and dig us out."
"Okay," he said.
DanielJackson�s entire body tensed then, and he was now looking at Major Carter with desperation in his blue eyes, his expression panic-stricken. He grasped at her arms as she had his earlier, holding onto her like a lifeline. He choked out, "Oh, no -- can't let -- no!"
"Daniel, stay with us!" Major Carter repeated.
"DanielJackson, you must fight this influence!" I commanded as well.
"I'm trying . . . can't let -- " DanielJackson abruptly let go of Major Carter and raised his shaking right hand to his injured shoulder. He squeezed the wound brutally. Fresh blood welled up into the gauze, around his fingers, and he screamed in pain.
"Daniel, no!" Major Carter shouted over his cry. "What are you doing?" She took hold of his hand, and tried to pry it off, but his grip was too tight.
I stepped in and dug my fingers into the tendons on DanielJackson's wrist just hard enough to make
him let go.
******
Jack
I heard Orahn scream, and it pleased me mightily. My enemy was in pain.
What the fuck was this? That was Daniel�s voice, no "Orahn" about it.
Rashan�s thoughts and emotions were infiltrating my own. Jack, buddy, you're gonna have to stay awake here. Be aware of what you're thinking. You're right, it'll be worse than going to a shrink. But you've still gotta do it. The alternative is harming Daniel.
So buck up, suck it up, and do it. Just do it. Earn yourself a Nike swoosh.
The scream cut off abruptly, followed by ragged gasping.
I pushed Rashan aside, my concern for Danny giving me a surge of strength. "Carter?" I said, in my best OIC voice. "You around?"
"Jack!" she said, and I could hear a most un-Carter-like desperation in my name.
Usually, on a mission, I�m "sir" or "colonel" to her. This couldn't be good.
And my passenger shoved me aside, choosing that exact moment to scream at Daniel in that alien tongue, then fell silent again, breathing hard, fuming.
"Teal'c," I heard Carter say, "keep Daniel from doing that again. Put him in restraints if you have to."
Daniel's voice was shaking, weary. "Sam, you don't understand. The pain makes him, Orahn, let go. He doesn't like the pain. He backs off to let me deal with it."
I heard Carter say patiently, "Daniel, you'll make yourself bleed to death."
"Better that than this, Sam."
"No, Daniel, it isn't 'better,�" she told him firmly. "It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Remember, SG-3 will be here tomorrow morning. This way, all you're going to do is weaken yourself."
My driver let me scrunch around and angle my neck back so that I could see them. Daniel was so white he was practically glowing in the bluish light, and his face was pinched and damp with sweat.
Blue light? Artificial light, no daylight coming in. The sun had been shining into the cave mouth when we got here. What happened?
Taste of dust in the air. Oh shit. Cave-in.
Carter continued, her voice gentle this time, "Stay still, okay? Try to get some rest, and please, don't hurt yourself again."
"You want me to hurt Jack instead?" Daniel replied, his tone facetious.
Dammit, Danny, this isn't funny. That's Danny, though, seeing the irony at the weirdest times. I wouldn't trade him for a million bucks and the deed to a planet where the fish are always biting.
Teal'c spoke up. "I am here, DanielJackson. I will not allow you to hurt yourself again. I will not allow you to hurt O'Neill either."
Good, Teal'c. Glad you got both sides of that equation.
Footsteps approached, and Carter's legs were in my field of vision -- then Carter herself, crouching down to my eye level. "Colonel?" she said, looking very worried.
Don't do that, Carter. You're OIC as long as I'm -- like this. Don't let 'em see you sweat.
I managed to push Rashan back long enough to ask, "Carter? What happened to Daniel?"
"You shot him, sir. With an alien weapon."
"Shit. How bad is it?"
"Meat of the left shoulder, sir. Very messy and bloody, but you didn't get any vital structures." She considered, then said, "Since you're back in control, sir, can I untie you?"
I could feel her, Rashan, my driver, raging in my mind. An inch away from the driver's seat, doing her best to let me think it was safe, but her anger was too intense to pull it off. I knew what she would do if she got free. I didn't know how to stop her, and I am arguably, next to Teal'c, the most physically dangerous person on the planet, any planet I happen to be on.
"Carter," I said, very, very carefully, "No. It's not a good idea. Not right now."
Her face changed. Not pity, thank God, and not disgust, either. Fear and worry maybe.
Just another load on those 2IC shoulders, that's me. "How long until SG-3 shows up?" I said to distract her.
She checked that glow-in-the-dark, time-in-23-cities thing she wears on her wrist, and said, "Fifteen more hours, sir. Their ETA is 02:00, our time. By the time they figure out what happened to us, I�m guessing sixteen to eighteen hours, sir."
Crap. "Speculate, Carter. What got Danny and me into this mess?"
"Sir, I think that after the alien bodies had touched your bare skins, that machine somehow -- transferred their memories, and maybe even their consciousness, into you. I'm guessing I wasn't affected because I hadn't touched the aliens, only the machine. We know that the human mind is largely composed of electrical impulses. Why should that be different here?"
"Well, for starters, they aren't human, Carter."
She made the sort of frustrated gesture she makes when I'm being willfully stupid. Yes, of course I do that with her. With Daniel, too. How else do you command and control somebody who's so much smarter than you are?
Hell, there I was, lying hog tied at her feet -- you've gotta have some fun.
She drew a deep breath, and I shook my head and said, "Oh, never mind. So Carter, how do you think we can get 'em out?"
"Sir, Daniel was able to fight off the alien by re-injuring himself, inflicting pain on himself."
"Oh, that's just great." I craned my neck around. "Is that machine still running? Maybe another dose of juice would do it."
"It might, sir, or it might - have the opposite effect."
"Carter, put that giant brain of yours to work on the problem. That's an order."
"Yes, sir."
"Carter, I'm losing it here, don't -- " I tried not to panic as I felt Rashan coming to the surface again, forcing her will over mine, pushing me back, away from the controls, into a corner of my own mind, blocking the roads back, trapping me there again. I hope she doesn't do something I won't be able to live with, I --
*******
Daniel
"Orahn! I did not think to see your despicable face on this world again!"
I jumped, and looked over at Jack. He was straining against his bonds, the tendons on his neck standing out and his face contorted with fury. The fury was all directed at my invader, Orahn. My invader, who is nearly as dangerous, physically, as I know Jack to be.
God, what happened between these two that made them hate each other so much?
Jack -- no, the being inside him, Rashan -- was speaking in that guttural alien tongue again, but I could understand the words perfectly now.
I was cold, shaking, probably in shock or something -- squeezing my shoulder that way hurt like you wouldn't believe, but Orahn hated it. I could feel him recoiling from it in my mind. For some reason that gave me a feeling of satisfaction. That'll teach the bastard to jump into my head like that.
Orahn was coming back from wherever he had retreated to, responding to his name.
No, no! I pushed down the panic that threatened me again -- fight it, Daniel, fight it, you can't let him --
******
Jack
"Rashan! I watched you die once, and I will kill you again!" Orahn said, using Daniel's mouth, his voice pitched slightly lower than Daniel's.
"But it was I who killed you, and you will die again, only this time it will be much slower -- and I will take the time to savor it!" Rashan retorted. I felt her constrict my face into a hate-filled mask.
Dammit, she was gonna cause me wrinkles, and what if my face froze like that? I'd frighten small children and horses.
She struggled to get to our feet despite the bindings on our ankles. She cursed in frustration, twisting us from side to side wildly.
That's no lady, that's my passenger.
And that wasn't what I had wanted to say to Daniel at all. Daniel, are you all right? For God's sake, don't hurt yourself any more, Danny. We'll get out of this mess without that.
That's what I wanted to say, anyway. Rashan had other ideas.
"It appears that you are in no position to do anything but die, Rashan," Orahn said coldly. Daniel's blue eyes looked like chips of ice, his expression impassive, almost clinical.
He did nothing so obvious as look at Teal'c, but I saw Orahn become hyper-aware of the Jaffa, keeping Danny's muscles inconspicuously relaxed all the while. The moment Teal'c looked away from him, Daniel lunged to his feet, darting to Teal'c's left, seizing the opportunity to go for his enemy. To go for me.
Teal�c reached for Daniel, catching the back of Daniel's T-shirt. But Danny kept coming, the shirt tore, and Teal'c ended up with a handful of black material for his effort.
Orahn/Daniel reached our immobile form. He was moving faster than I've ever seen Daniel shake a tailfeather, and he grabbed us by the collar, pulling us up, and drew back a bloodstained fist, aiming for Rashan's face. My face too, dammit.
"No!" Daniel's voice -- it was Daniel's voice - rang out and he twisted awkwardly, letting go of me and jerking his body away, his limbs moving like a marionette�s controlled by an unskilled puppeteer. He lost his balance and landed hard on his wounded shoulder. Daniel cried out in pain as he struggled to get up again, but his legs folded under him, and he stayed on the ground, gasping.
"No! I won't. I won't do this . . . " he moaned. "I won't. You can't make me, I won�t. . . ."
Before Teal'c could reach him, Daniel clutched at his wound, tightening his fingers around it again, moaning deep in his throat. He paled even more, then doubled over his folded legs, curling himself into a ball, almost passing out.
Jesus, Danny, hang in there. I was glad that he gotten enough control to keep Orahn from smashing my face in, but what was damage was he doing to himself to spare me?
I have a shelf full of awards for "courage." Why doesn't Daniel?
"You are weak, Orahn! You always have been!" Rashan shouted at him triumphantly.
******
Carter
"Teal'c! Restrain Daniel now!" I shouted, launching myself at Daniel. My God, he was quick. He had gone for Jack before we even had a chance to register it.
And then he was back in control again, and had hurt himself again.
Teal'c pulled more straps from his pack and crouched beside Daniel, who had one hand clamped on his damaged shoulder in a death-grip, his entire body shuddering violently from the pain. Blood welled through his fingers.
Teal'c pried Daniel's hand away from his shoulder, the Jaffa's expression somehow managing to be both ferocious and sorrowful.
"No, Teal'c, please, don't -- don't tie me," Daniel protested, trying to pull free of Teal'c's strong hold on him. He was too exhausted to put up much of a fight, though, and Teal'c got the restraint around Daniel's sound arm.
"No, I won't let you, no, no. . ." Daniel whispered. But I understood, and I think Teal'c did too, that Daniel was speaking to that being within him again, using his refusal as a mantra to keep himself sane.
"I am sorry, DanielJackson," Teal'c said somberly, and pulled Daniel's arms behind his back to bind his wrists together.
I winced in sympathy. That had to hurt Daniel terribly.
I had made my first clear-headed command decision: I would not let Daniel torture himself like that anymore - even if it did fight back the presence inside him. We'd hog-tie half the team if we had to and solve the problem of their alien invaders at SGC. That's how it was going to be. Period.
Please, God, let that be right . . . .
Teal'c pushed Daniel onto his uninjured side as gently as possible, then grasped Daniel's ankles and tied them as well. Daniel wearily tried to pull himself out of Teal'c's grip, without success. Teal'c held him tight, overpowering him, securing the bonds.
Teal'c picked Daniel up in his arms, and carried him to his former spot against the boulder, propping him in a sitting position against it.
I knelt down in front of Daniel once more. His eyes were closed and he was taking deep breaths, shivering from shock and pain. The bandage on his shoulder was completely saturated, the blood looking purplish in the blue light.
"Daniel?" I said softly, hoping it was Daniel I was talking to.
"Yes?" he whispered, breathless.
"Are you okay? Do you want me to give you something for the pain?"
He opened his eyes, bright with suffering and unshed tears. "No! He'll take over completely then!" Daniel said in desperation, looking not just at me, but straight into my soul. "Sam, promise me you won't give me anything -- this is the only way I can stay in control. Promise me!"
"Okay, okay!" I said, holding up a hand in truce, then laying it gently on his uninjured shoulder. "I promise!"
He panted, trying to catch his breath, holding my eyes with his own. Then he was able to relax a little, but I realized that having his hands tied behind him put tension on the shoulder. Caused him pain.
Unfortunately, we had no other choice.
Daniel�s brows were contracted over blue eyes washed a shade paler by the light bathing the cave. "Do you think we can get these entities back into that machine?"
He had either heard me talking to Jack, or more likely, had figured out what happened on his own -- Daniel and I think, and problem solve, on precisely the same speed and level, more often than not.
"I don't know, Daniel. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. We've been busy trying to keep you and Jack from tearing each other to pieces."
He was silent for a moment, leaving my last sentence to echo around the cave.
"Is Jack okay?" he asked, worriedly. "I didn't -- " Daniel craned his neck to look at Jack, who was quiet now.
I could feel the colonel's eyes on my back, silently regarding us.
"No, he's fine. You got control before your intruder could do anything. Daniel, are you able to communicate with him -- it? Can you hear his thoughts?"
He thought for a moment. "I can't communicate with him, not yet anyway, but somehow, I can understand his thoughts. I can see his memories. When I, he, went for Jack, I saw a flash in my head of what went on between these two. They were leaders on this planet. The alien inside me calls himself Orahn. The one in Jack is named Rashan. I don't know how, but I can see Rashan's face through Jack's, like a . . . a ghost image." He dropped his head back against the stone, and rolled it from side to side. "They were enemies, on opposite sides of the war that destroyed this place . . . ." Daniel's voice trailed off. He frowned, raised his head to look at me again, then sighed. "That's all, it's gone now."
I touched his face gently, just above the bruise on his jaw, trying to reassure him. "Try to get a little rest, Daniel. You're probably in shock."
I cleaned up his shoulder again, putting on a fresh bandage, then helped him lie down on his side. I found his jacket and put it over him, tucking it around his body. I really wished we hadn�t left all our camping supplies and blankets outside the cave.
I got up again and stole a glance at the colonel. He was still gone, and I could almost see what Daniel was talking about -- that ghost image. Jack's face wasn't his own anymore.
I motioned for Teal'c to follow me toward the front of the cave, out of earshot of the colonel and Daniel.
"In the morning, SG-3 will be able to dig us out of here," I said, not wanting to make it a question, but needing some kind of reassurance.
"They will indeed." Teal'c replied promptly.
And he says he doesn�t understand the Tau'ri.
******
Jack
Orahn's breathing -- no, dammit! -- Daniel's breathing evened out, got a little deeper. He was sleeping -- poor kid was probably exhausted.
To my horror, Rashan began patiently to dislocate my left thumb. If she could do that, we could get free of the restraints. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't enough to loosen her grip on my mind. She kept pushing me back -- shit, she was strong!
Goddammit. "Carter!" I tried to shout, but Rashan got the idea too fast and gagged me. She couldn't do that and work the thumb thing at the same time, though.
Stalemate.
Teal'c came over and offered me his canteen. Rashan shook our head at him. I was thirsty, but did she ask me? No, she did not. Rude kinda gal.
Teal'c's eyes searched ours. I really, really hoped he could see me in there, and that I wasn't driving at the moment -- yeah, everyone tells me I'm high-maintenance.
Teal'c looked at us a moment longer, with sorrow in his eyes. Then he returned to Carter and perched on a rock beside her.
Rashan went back to the thumb thing again. I tried to shout, but now she could both gag me and do the other.
This was bad. This was very, very bad. Her control was increasing over time. How long before I was totally imprisoned inside my own head? I wouldn�t be able to do anything to stop her when she got free.
I saw a flash of Rashan�s memories in my head. Grief and pain nearly took the breath from my lungs. I saw the face of a laughing child, Rashan�s child, dead now. Then, rage again. Rage at what she had lost.
For a moment, I was floundering, lost in a pain I hadn�t felt since the first days after Charlie's death. Lost in the gut-wrenching, soul destroying hellhole that was losing your child. I tried to push the pain aside -- I had my own bad memories, I didn�t need some crazed alien�s.
This wasn�t about me, about us -- me and Danny. This didn�t have anything to do with us, yet we were caught up in it. Forced to feel their pain, trapped under their control. Helpless.
But wait a minute. Danny'd had the right idea. All I had to do was give myself pain, pain that she wasn't anticipating. That would do it.
I'd been a pain to so many others in my life, it seemed appropriate . . . .
I practically bit the end of my tongue off.
Or anyway, I tried to, but Rashan vetoed that idea pretty quick; she was too far in control now. Her thoughts were focused on one thing: she had nothing left but vengeance.
Man, this one was nuts. Pain probably wasn't going to stop her and I didn�t think I�d be able to inflict as nasty an injury on myself as Rashan had on Danny when she shot him.
He probably hurt enough to keep Orahn somewhat in line. With Rashan I think even amputation would only slow her down.
Great thought there, O'Neill. I�m having visions of wolves chewing their own paws off to escape a trap. Not a good thought, and not something I was willing to try just yet. Not that I could reach my hands, anyway.
Or my feet either.
And now my tongue hurts, too.
Crap.
******
Carter
Daniel slept, or lay unconscious, for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I heard him stir, and he sat up awkwardly, his bound hands and feet making it hard for him to find a balance. He winced, leaning his body slightly to his left, trying to take some of the strain off his shoulder.
I screwed the top back off my canteen, wiped it, and went to him. He kept wincing as he shifted his weight, trying to find a comfortable way to sit.
"Here, Daniel, water," I said, and held it to his mouth.
"Thank you," he said, swallowing. For a moment I thought it was Daniel who had answered me, but the planes of his face were wrong, somehow. His eyes held that cold glint again.
"You're Orahn," I said. "You can speak English?"
"Yes, I am he, and you are Major Carter, who is second in command to my enemy's host," the alien said, his voice low and speaking slowly, pronouncing the words carefully. The rhythm was off, though. "I have learned this English through your friend Daniel's thoughts; he knows many tongues."
I looked him straight in the eye - Daniel�s eyes, altered by Orahn�s presence. "I want you out of my friends' bodies now, both of you."
"Ah. To go into the gates of death, yet again." He twisted Daniel's face into an ironic smile. "I believed that I was dead, and hoped that the Order had returned me to a new life. Instead, I was horrified to realize that I, and my greatest enemy, have come to inhabit your friends' strange bodies. Perhaps it was a malfunction of the tep'an'orl that held our minds in stasis while our bodies withered."
Orahn looked stolidly at the machine and at what was left of his body lying in a heap next to it. His expression was stony, unreadable.
He tilted Daniel's head back and looked up at the ceiling. "I wonder how long we will have before the last of the bombs Rashan's people set go off, and this planet disintegrates entirely."
I felt my heart skip a beat as I tried to deal with that new piece of information.
Tried, and failed, utterly, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it anyway.
So I did the next best thing. I got mad.
I realized that we might die here, on this hellhole -- and for what?
"You mean there are more bombs? All of your people, and all of Rashan's, are dead. They're all dead. Now you're going to destroy your entire planet? Why? What for? Why would you find it necessary to kill everyone and everything on this planet?"
I stopped my furious rant to glance at the colonel, hoping for some kind of answer, but he just continued to stare at Daniel.
"You have seen this destruction?" Orahn asked. "How did you come to be here on this planet?"
I turned back to Daniel. To Orahn. "We came through the Stargate, that stone circle not far from here, and walked to what was left of your city. Everyone is dead, everything destroyed."
He let the information sink in, then shook his head. "Not my city. Rashan�s. My people live beside the sea, our countries are separated by the mountains. I am certain that there you would find more of the same death and ruin."
"What was so important that this had to happen? That you had to destroy each other?"
He looked at me coldly. "You would not understand."
"No, I hope not. That many innocent deaths outweigh any argument or differences you may have had."
He sighed and shifted Daniel's bound arms behind him, flinching as he did so. "Once Rashan realized that we had won the war by annihilating the majority of her people, she and her few surviving Advisors decided that my people were too dangerous to be allowed to live. She, Rashan, ordered a succession of bombs that destroyed my people in retaliation. Still to come, perhaps within the next few hours, is the final bomb, the one that will disintegrate this entire planet. The final cleansing, she called it."
Jack's passenger was female? Not that it mattered, really, but it was still unexpected. "Why were your people at war?"
He shifted painfully again; the bandages, at least, were staying white.
Daniel's face became his own for a moment, and then settled back into the stony demeanor of Orahn. "Rashan's people and my own had very different, and irreconcilable beliefs. Her people's belief was that one should live and let live. My people's was that those who do not embrace the Right should not be suffered to further tarnish their souls. Unless they are willing to repent, they are returned to the Order to regain their true spirituality and be reborn in the Right."
He turned his head to Jack, lying bound behind us, and said, "Ne gaste faun, orthos remos?"
"Gaste faun, maik ten orthos remos. Maik orthos temos, negaltos sporuma."
I shifted my own position so that I could see them both. Somehow, the idea of sitting with my back to a Jack who was out of control, even bound hand and foot, still made me nervous.
Orahn tilted Daniel's head back to regard the ceiling again and translated for me, "I asked her, 'Is that not true, old friend?' And she replied, 'It is true, but you are not my old friend. You are my old enemy, the killer of my people.' And alas, she is correct."
I gave myself a second to process that. Then I said, a shade carefully, "I don�t understand what you mean about this �Order.� Do you mean that you kill anyone who doesn�t share your beliefs?"
He nodded, his expression pensive. "They are, were, given the opportunity to repent. If they did not, then they were -- we prefer to use the term �returned to the Order,� rather than 'killed.'"
"But they were just as dead," I replied.
He started to shrug his shoulders, then winced. "No one dies forever if they truly believe in the Right."
I rubbed my forehead, astounded that a culture that seemed so advanced could remain so primitive. "So your people are responsible for starting this war?"
"Yes. We are. We -- Rashan and I -- had gone to meet with one another as a last resort, to see if we could find some common ground. We were here together to use the tep'an'orl. The machine can be set to cause the exchange of memory between two persons. This cave is a holy place, set on neutral ground, and the process of the meeting of minds is sanctified as well."
"And you believed that would help you?"
He sighed. "Yes, we did. We, or at least I, believed that access to one another�s memories would teach us that we were not so very different after all. I had always suspected that our neighbors were very similar to us, yet I had never taken the time to really communicate with any of them, or try to understand them."
"And did this machine of yours do its work?"
"I saw our similarities, yes. I do not know whether Rashan did as well."
Rashan made some guttural comment that was clearly negative. Orahn, watching my face carefully, saw no need to translate.
"I saw clearly the error of my beliefs, saw all the pain and suffering we had inflicted on Rashan�s people over the centuries. I was.. . . ashamed, horrified. I had no idea of the depths of hatred my people had instilled in hers -- hatred toward us, fear of us. I could never bring myself to witness the -" he frowned, seeming to collect his thoughts for a moment. "We called them 'repentances.' When I was in military school, we could sometimes hear the screams; the Ministry was across the river from our barracks. The repentances of blood and fire, of metal and stone, were forced upon the non-believers, some of them barely out of childhood, hardly old enough to comprehend the nature of their 'error.'" He shut his eyes as if he could will the memories away by not looking at them.
"Blood and fire, metal and stone, forced upon them by our Ministers of the Right. They were trained in manipulating the mind by way of the body, and they could be very . . . persuasive." Orahn swallowed, then opened his eyes again, fixing his gaze on the ground. "I believed that in the end, the victims of the Ministry were better off for having repented, that the salvation of the soul was worth the pain endured by the body."
Orahn kept looking down, his eyes carefully averted from mine, but I could still see the tears filling them. "I was wrong. I saw how over the many years we had forced Rashan�s people to plot our demise, and how near we were to destroying one another, to losing everything. I had hoped to negotiate a peace, foster a. . . tolerance, between our peoples. But it was too late."
I said nothing. What was there to say?
A single tear rolled slowly down his face. I watched it trail the length of his jaw, run down his neck and disappear into his collar, as he continued speaking in a voice barely above a whisper. "I had not realized that the fanatics among my people had undermined my leadership and set this plan of firebombing in motion, even before I left for that meeting. Bombs that my people ordered went off as I accessed her memories. We felt the blasts rock the cave. Outside, the city suffered a firestorm and Rashan realized that my people had destroyed hers. She communicated the order for the final cleansing."
Grief stamped Daniel�s features as Orahn's voice wavered unsteadily as he held back further tears. "We fought while another blast tore through the city, sending more shockwaves through the cave. Falling debris struck the tep'an'orl and must have caused it damage. We found ourselves caught in the great machine's power, our grips frozen on each other. My last sight was the face of my killer and my victim. My first sight, through the eyes of your friend Daniel Jackson, was the same."
He rested his head against the rock, and looked at the ceiling of the cave again. "My friend, my enemy, it is time for us to go. We have outstayed our welcome here in this life. Our bodies are destroyed, and we have no right to these."
He spoke again in their alien tongue, repeating this for Rashan's benefit, I assumed.
Rashan shot back something that couldn't be construed as agreement.
"The fact of the matter is," Orahn said, raising Daniel's head off the rock to regard me, "that even if we both wished to do so, I do not know how to -- to let go -- of your friend Daniel. Nor does Rashan."
"Pain seemed to help Daniel -- take control away from you."
"Yes, but it only disorients me. I lose my grip. I do not go -- away. Perhaps it does not matter anyhow. Soon this planet will be no more, and you are trapped as firmly here as we are in your friends' bodies."
"We'll figure out a way to escape this cave," I told him. My voice came out sounding far more confident than I felt. It was a lie, but a good lie anyway. One I needed to hold on to.
"What do you believe will happen to you when you finally die?" Daniel unexpectedly asked his hijacker -- the voice and inflection were clearly Daniel's, and he looked out at a place just above my shoulder with his own eyes for a moment, the icy sheen cleared from them.
Then, Orahn was back. "I will be returned to the Order, to process the lessons of this life, and prepare myself for the next," he said, answering the question with the same mouth used to ask it.
I felt my arms prick with gooseflesh -- that was seriously creepy.
But, Daniel was close to regaining control; a heartening sign, if he was really that near the surface.
Rashan had a few things to say about Orahn�s reply. I guessed that she was starting to understand English now, although she didn't risk speaking it yet.
"Do you wish me to translate?" Orahn said, looking at me with Daniel's warm blue eyes.
"Please," I said.
"She said that one lives once and once only, having but a single chance to live a good life, spiritually. Those are the beliefs of her people. We destroyed their single chance at a good life. Her people felt that our belief that all must serve the Right would bring about their imminent destruction, and she was correct: we acted on that belief. They retaliated - and now no one is left to tell the tale but she and I."
He closed his eyes. "The war is over, but no one won. Your friend Daniel calls it 'a Pyrrhic victory.'"
******
Daniel
Orahn used my mouth, my voice, to add, "It was far too high a price to pay. Our beliefs brought about the demise of our entire race. Not even our god would condone the cost. All we have accomplished is now for nothing."
Rashan spat something, and then Jack, translating for Carter and Teal'c's benefit, said urgently, "She doesn't agree. She's glad they were able to wipe Orahn's people off the planet. Listen, guys, she's --"
But Rashan took Jack over again at that point and she snarled in that alien tongue, something that roughly translated as, "Your people were not fit to live. You, Orahn, know nothing of what it means to have a family, to bring children into the world. To have someone to care about; to have someone who cares about you. You are, were, nothing but a tool, a machine for your fanatics to use in perpetuating their poisonous beliefs!"
Orahn flinched at this, as if from a physical blow. I felt my face constrict in pain, my mouth tighten in a hard line as he fought to hide his emotions from his enemy.
He closed my eyes and I felt his thoughts whirling, felt his regrets.
I saw that Orahn had devoted his entire life to the Right, to his people. His days had been filled with military operations, and he�d worked hard to make his way up the ranks to attain leadership of his people.
He had also come to the startling realization that all of his actions which stemmed from a belief in the Right were horribly wrong. The thought that Orahn had brought about the demise of his own people was tearing him up.
He was military, and there's a military phrase for it: acceptable casualties.
What's an appropriate number of acceptable casualties? I've always thought it was zero. Jack has other ideas and lives with the pain of them.
Orahn had first-hand, full-blown knowledge, now, of what "acceptable casualties" meant.
It meant exactly the same thing as "repentances."
It meant death.
I could feel his anger rising underneath the grief, the near-psychotic rage that I had felt when he first came into my head. Rage directed at Rashan for destroying their world. Rage at his own people for going behind his back and denying him the chance to negotiate the peace that he had hoped for. Rage at himself for not acting on his gut instincts sooner and trying to prevent this war from happening a long time ago.
He clenched my bound fists tightly behind my back and dug my fingernails painfully into my palms. He strained against the bindings on my wrists, and we both jumped at the sharp pain this caused my shoulder. The pain redirected his thoughts, settled his rage somewhat, and I felt my closed eyes prick with tears again.
I could feel that Orahn was tired, not just from our battle of wills, but spiritually tired. He wanted this to be over.
And the feeling I got of his enemy, the feeling coming from Orahn's memories swirling in my head: Rashan was rabid for personal revenge - revenge for the death of her family and for all the people she loved. She wanted Orahn to suffer so badly I could see her vibrating with fury through Jack's tense muscles.
Orahn - we might have reasoned with Orahn. Rashan though -- in the fathomless depths of Rashan�s hatred, she had found the will to be as dangerous and as deadly as the people she despised.
As if on cue, she said gutturally to Orahn, "I will live long enough to kill you, murderer. Long enough to see my daughter's dead face in yours. Long enough to know that the children she will never bear will be avenged in your death."
All this, and Rashan was in Jack, who knew way too much about how to be dangerous. I really, really hoped Sam and Teal'c wouldn't let him loose.
I felt Orahn's grim amusement at my fear. He may have been tired, but he was not ready to roll over and die at Rashan's hands just yet. His anger was still there, boiling under the surface. Rashan had, after all, personally ordered the deaths of all his people and would be responsible for the end of all life on this planet.
And maybe four life-forms from two other planets, too. Don't think about that, Daniel. You have enough to worry about as it is.
Jack might be bigger and fitter than me, but Orahn knew he could take Rashan. Besides, he was just as dangerous as Jack, maybe even more so.
Wow, what a comfort. . . .
******
Jack
"Bitch" is an incredibly useful word in the English language. She's dislocating my thumb and it hurts like a bitch. My passenger is a bitch. It's a bitch, lying here and not being able to do a damned thing about what this bitch is doing to my thumb ouch! except bitch about it! Ow!
She twisted my hand slowly around within the restraint, corkscrewing my fist out of it.
It's a bitch.
******
Carter
"Orahn, do you have any idea how much time we might have before those bombs go off?" I asked. Another one of those damn questions you don't want the answer to.
"I do not know -- how much time has passed since our demise?"
"Our first sight of your world was three of your days ago, and all the bodies we saw were three days old, we think, then. We've been here for. . ." I glanced at my watch, "five hours now." God, has it only been five hours? It felt like five weeks. Focus, Carter. Their "day" is nineteen of our hours long. "I�d estimate six and a half of your days."
"We have one more day, two more days, perhaps," Orahn sighed. He eased his arms from side to side, his face tightening with pain. "Tomorrow, or possibly the next day, are sacred to Rashan's people; it would be fitting for the bomb to detonate on that day."
Better than I'd feared; less than I'd hoped.
Having his hands tied behind him was clearly agony for Daniel. The bandage on his shoulder was showing specks of dark red again and his cheekbones were flushed, his brow dampened with sweat.
I knelt in front of him and looked deeply into Daniel's eyes. "Daniel? If you can hear me, give me some kind of sign."
He locked his eyes on mine for a long moment, frowning, then took in a quick, sharp breath, and said, "Sam?"
"Teal'c, I need your help for a minute," I said, glancing his way. Teal'c promptly stood and moved close to us.
"Daniel, do you promise not to do anything to hurt yourself again?" I asked my other teammate, watching his reaction carefully.
He looked at me with those familiar blue eyes and nodded slowly.
I said to Teal'c, "Keep an eye on Daniel while I tie his hands in front of him. It won't hurt him as much that way."
Teal'c looked at me in surprise, raising an eyebrow. "Are you certain that is wise, Major Carter?"
"No, Teal'c, I'm not. But having Daniel's hands behind him like that is making his shoulder bleed again." I stood, turning my back to Orahn, and touching Teal�c�s arm lightly, I motioned him further back toward the entrance of the cave, out of Orahn�s earshot. "I don't care much about Orahn or Rashan, but Daniel's in a lot of pain. Until we get out of here, we need to keep him in the best shape possible. That means not letting him go into shock. I�m also hoping that by showing Orahn a little compassion, we may gain leverage in reasoning with him. His control on Daniel seems to be loosening more and more. Maybe the pain is weakening him," I told Teal�c quietly, keeping my voice low.
"I see," Teal�c said.
You can never tell if he thinks you don�t know what you�re talking about, or if he thinks you have a good idea.
You also can't tell if he just thinks you�re nuts. I said, "Are you ready?"
"I am," Teal'c replied. We both went back over to Daniel. Teal�c charged the zat and pointed it at him.
I crouched again, and pulling Daniel forward a bit to reach his hands, I loosened the restraints. He held still as I placed one wrist, then the other, in his lap.
I tried not to notice how much pain this caused him and failed completely. Daniel bit his lower lip, stifling a moan, and I heard his sharp intake of breath when I held his wrists together and bound them so that his hands were perpendicular to one another. I wished I could give him something for the pain, but I�d made a promise, hadn�t I?
When I was finished, Orahn regarded me solemnly. "Your friend Daniel has knowledge of a great many cultures. He thinks our war was very similar to some wars on your planet. Much death has been brought about by the fanatical adherents to different spiritual beliefs."
"It's true we have had many religious wars, and that we have them still." I paused, unsure of my reasoning here -- my specialty is military, not cultural, history. "Every belief system has its valid points, but those who can�t find tolerance within themselves are to blame for those wars."
"That is very true," Orahn agreed, then sighed, raising his bound hands carefully to pinch at the bridge of his nose, an unconscious Daniel mannerism that twisted my heart. "That has been our downfall and my error. We brought about this war long before it started. Rashan has reason to hate me and my people as much as she does."
I had no reply to that. Perhaps there was none to make.
Orahn kept his head lowered, then continued, his voice quiet. "Rashan is right. I am weak. I knew, deep down, that the Ministers of the Right were overzealous in their beliefs -- that the pain and death they inflicted on our neighbors was wrong, but I did nothing to stop it. Nothing, until it was far too late."
I had no reply to that either, and even if I had, it would have been interrupted by a sudden groan and creak from the ceiling, right over our heads.
I looked up from my position in front of Daniel and got to my feet again -- just in time to get a shower of dirt and pebbles on my head. I threw my arms protectively over myself, ducking a few seconds too late. I let out a yelp of pain as a rock bounced off my temple. I could feel the trickle of warm blood flow down my face, as everything swam out of focus and my legs suddenly felt wobbly, my knees buckling . . . .
"Major Carter!"
Teal'c's voice came from behind me. I felt his strong arms close around me and he shielded me with his own body as the rocks continued to crash down around us.
"Oh God! Teal'c! Daniel and the colonel will be crushed -- they can't move out of the way on their own!"
I strained my neck to see Daniel pulling at the restraints on his ankles. He managed to free himself of them, ducking his head against the shower of debris. I couldn't see the colonel.
Teal'c started to move me toward the tables for shelter, then I felt him stiffen, and his grip slackened, but his large body took me down with him.
"Teal'c!" I shouted, but he landed on me hard, knocking the wind out of me in a whoosh and pinning me to the ground. My head spun, the cut on my temple poured blood into my eyes, and I couldn't breathe.
And I was lying under what felt like half a ton of immobile Jaffa.
Struggling for breath, I eased out from under Teal'c enough to see that the colonel had freed himself of his restraints and was on his feet. He pulled at one thumb, yanking it back into a straighter position, and winced -- Jesus, she must have dislocated his thumb, and pulled his hand through the restraints. I was taught the same trick in my "What to do if the enemy captures you" classes. It hurts. It hurts like crazy.
The colonel picked up a bar of some polished metal, about three inches thick, and maybe four feet long -- the same bar that Daniel had used to move Orahn's body off the machine. The end of it was now wet with blood.
Teal'c! Oh God, he'd used it to hit Teal'c!
Teal'c, who was now out cold and weighing me down very effectively. I watched, helpless, shoving ineffectively at the Jaffa, as the colonel gripped the bar tightly in both hands, and stalked toward Daniel.
I struggled to get my legs out from under Teal'c. I still couldn't breathe.
The colonel's lips curled into a malicious smile of anticipation as he approached his enemy. Rocks and dirt rained down around him. The colonel -- no! Rashan -- didn't notice, or didn't care.
I saw Daniel get to his feet, his still-bound hands held defensively in front of him. Orahn said, composed, "Very well, Rashan, let us finish this once and for all."
Teal'c was still breathing, heart still beating, but out cold. Great. That left me to referee these two?
First, I have to breathe. Dammit, Carter, breathe!
******
Jack
We swung the metal bar at our enemy. Or at least Rashan swung it at Orahn; I was pretty busy doing whatever I could think of to slow her down, like try to pull it back, slow the swing, make the impact lighter.
I failed, mostly, but maybe my interference saved Daniel from that first skull-shattering blow. He jumped back and the tip of the bar, wet with Teal'c's blood, missed him by inches.
Rashan swung again, but this time Daniel closed with us and grabbed the weapon mid-swing, pulling
on it and completing the swing with more energy than Rashan had put into it. Daniel yanked the bar from our grip, keeping it. He had to stifle a yelp as he worked the injured shoulder, and fresh blood began to show through the bandages.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Carter whooping for air on her knees beside Teal'c, who was still out cold, bleeding from the blow I�d given him.
No, Rashan had given him. Me, all I'd done was feel it connect all the way up my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders. Felt my heart skip a beat when the bar connected. Thank God, Teal�c was a Jaffa, because a blow like that would have been enough to kill anyone else.
Rashan backed away from Orahn, her left hand searching through the debris on the tables, and she came up with a small, very sharp piece of metal. I used the distraction to shout, "Watch out, Daniel, she's -- " and then Rashan shut me up again.
Damn.
I saw Carter push Teal'c over on his side, check his pulse and breathing, and then go scrabbling through the debris. What was she looking for? His zat? Good thinking, Carter. You go, Major.
Then Rashan turned our head and Carter slid beyond my line of vision. I was still doing everything I could to sabotage Rashan's valiant effort to do Daniel some serious damage. Well, actually, she didn't give a hoot about Daniel -- Orahn was the one she wanted dead. Daniel was, in her view, an innocent bystander, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Rashan's people didn't care much about innocents.
I did, though.
******
Daniel
Oh boy, here we go again. Orahn got us to our feet awkwardly, our hands are still tied. That was going to put us at a bit of a disadvantage here.
Orahn didn't seem to feel that way. He more or less told her to bring it on already.
Damn, these two were going to tear each other -- no, us, me and Jack -- apart.
Jack came at me with a metal bar, slick with Teal'c's blood.
I glanced over to see Sam frantically digging around for Teal'c's zat. God, will the second zatting kill Jack? I hoped not. That was funny, considering that I myself might.
Not funny at all, really.
Rashan swung the bar at us, just missing our head. She swung again but we managed to wrench it from her hands. We flinched from the amazing, nausea-inducing pain this caused our shoulder. Orahn firmly clamped down on the cry that wanted to come out of our throat. He knew how much Rashan enjoyed our pain, and refused to give her the satisfaction.
She backed away from us, hand scrabbling at the tables. I could see Jack trying to fight her, the face they shared passing between Rashan's snarl and his own set expression from moment to moment. He tried to shout out a warning, but then Rashan shoved him back down, pushing him away again.
I could almost feel Jack's helpless rage and terror. I knew too well how he felt.
Come on Jack, fight her, please fight her. . .
I tried to push Orahn back, but I couldn't. I couldn't get control. He was ready for this. He wanted to get this show on the road and end it.
And, even if I could get control, Rashan would still try to tear my head off.
God, Jack, what are we going to do?
******
Carter
Dammit! I couldn't find the zat, buried somewhere in all this rubble. The colonel, Rashan I mean, had gone for Daniel with the bar, but Daniel had managed to fight him off for now. Daniel now
gripped the bar tightly, if awkwardly, in his bound hands. Ready.
That's not Daniel, Carter. That's Orahn, fully in charge.
Blood dripped into my eyes, stinging, blurring everything into a red haze for a moment.
Dammit to hell! I swiped my hand over my eyes trying to clear the blood. I had to find that zat! I dug frantically in the dirt; I felt nails break, and metal or rock scratched my hands. I had my sidearm, but I couldn't shoot the colonel, couldn't shoot Daniel.
I glanced up to see the colonel lunge for Daniel again; he moved so fast I hardly saw him coming. Neither did Daniel, because the colonel kicked at him, catching Daniel on the knee and buckling his leg. Daniel stumbled, but somehow managed not to fall.
Catching himself, Daniel swung the bar hard at the colonel's head, favoring his shoulder and twisting his body slightly to grip the bar tighter in his right hand. The swing was clumsy because of his bound hands, but it was still strong enough to do some serious damage to my CO.
"Daniel! No!" I screamed, trying desperately to reach him in there.
******
Jack
Orahn swung the bar at us and nearly took our head off. Jesus, Danny, fight him! You did it before!
We threw our arm up in front of our face, catching the blow on our forearm. I felt it thrum all the way up to my brain and heard the bone crack. Shit, that hurt! Rashan used my mouth to scream in pain. She wavered in my head for a moment.
Daniel was leaning heavily to the left, close to toppling over. His left arm was streaked with blood and shaking badly. I realized that Daniel was fighting Orahn, but Orahn was strong, very strong now -- I could see a glimmer of desperation that was all Danny's behind that unnerving glacial gaze of Orahn's.
Daniel, watch out, dammit! -- I tried to scream, but Rashan shoved me back again with a howl of fury as she used my shaking hand to thrust the sharp metal into Daniel's exposed right side.
Christ! Danny!
******
******
Daniel
I felt the metal slide with sickening ease into my ribs, cold as it went in. Then fire as Rashan shoved as deep as it would go, twisting . . .
Everything blackened for a minute, then snapped back into a haze of excruciating pain as she yanked it out again, the metal grinding along one of my ribs. I -- we -- screamed, our voice mixing in with Rashan's blood-curdling cry of triumph.
I staggered slightly. My entire side was on fire, definitely my side, no "our" about it. God, it hurt -- Orahn was too furious to feel anything right now.
I felt him just. . . lose it. My head exploded in a red haze of murderous fury. He was screaming in my head just as he had when he first entered me. Oh God, stop it, that's going to drive me crazy! Stop it!
To my surprise we still had a grip on the bar. In a burst of adrenaline, strength I didn't know my body possessed, we -- he -- swung the pole at Rashan again, and connected with Jack's collarbone. I felt
the blow connect, felt my arms tingle, felt Jack's collarbone crack.
Rashan dropped the piece of metal with a clatter, her -- Jack's -- hand spasming open.
Orahn furiously pounded Rashan again, the blow connecting low on Jack's ribs, knocking the wind out of him. Rashan gasped, and staggered, hands at Jack's throat, trying to wheeze some air into his lungs.
Stop it! This isn't his fault! I was screaming at Orahn, screaming over his rage, but he wasn�t listening. Not to me -- not to anything but his fury.
I heard Sam cry out, "Daniel, no! Fight it, Daniel!"
I�m trying, Sam, but I can't stop him. I can't. . . .
I felt tears of pain and frustration run down our -- no, down my face. Orahn didn't care what he was doing to Jack.
I cared, and I couldn't stop the bastard.
******
Carter
Teal'c started to come around. I slapped his face. "Teal'c, come on, wake up, I need you now!" I said, startled to hear my own voice sounding like a five-year-old's petulant whine.
I froze, my heart skipping a beat, when I heard Daniel and Jack both scream at the same time.
I looked up to see Daniel stagger, then go for the colonel with a vengeance, using that damned bar, which had to have been all of four feet long. How fast will the end of it be moving when it connects
with Jack's body? It only takes eight pounds of force, properly directed, to break a human bone. Force equals weight times momentum expressed in --
Jeez, Carter, shut the hell up! This is no time to dredge up memories of your physics classes. Get out the goddamned sidearm. You can't find the zat. This is it. The time has come. Shoot to wound,
not to kill.
The colonel was defenseless, reeling from the force of Daniel's blows.
"Daniel! Orahn! Daniel, stop!" I screamed, but I don't know if he heard me. Daniel's boyish features were contorted in absolute fury.
Daniel raised the bar as far as his bound hands and shoulder injury allowed, the weapon poised over
the colonel's skull, ready to end Rashan's life and Jack's with it.
Forget the sidearm -- I got myself into a runner's crouch, ready to lunge at Daniel, but then I saw the bar lower. Daniel's arms were shaking crazily as he tried to let go, one of his hands managing to loosen
its grip.
I felt a surge of relief, but then, before I had any chance to react, the bar swung up again to catch the colonel on the shoulder, the blow clumsy but still hard enough to knock him off balance. Jack staggered toward the machine -- that goddamned machine that started all this.
I heard Daniel cry out in frustration; it was Daniel's voice, but Orahn had control. Daniel held the weapon in one hand only now, his other hand was curled tightly, twisted away -- as if he were still
trying to resist, refusing to take hold again. But he was unable to release the grip of his other hand on the bar. He was still partially trapped under Orahn's iron-fisted control and Orahn swung at the colonel again, sending him sprawling over the machine.
It exploded in a shower of sparks, electricity dancing all over the colonel's body. He jerked spasmodically and then crashed to the ground, nearly taking the computer, or whatever the hell it was, down on top of him. It wobbled, sparked again a few more times, then fell dark and silent.
Oh, my God. I stood stunned.
Daniel's arms dropped, his hand relaxed, and the bar clattered to the ground, shattering the sudden silence. Daniel wavered, unsteady on his feet, staring at the colonel's fallen body.
*****
Teal'c
When O'Neill lost consciousness after he fell on top of the machine, no one moved for a very long moment.
I got to my feet. My vision was slightly blurred from the blow to my head. Nonetheless, I rushed to O'Neill, as did Major Carter.
She felt at his neck, and shouted, "Dammit, I can't find a pulse! Teal'c, go check on Daniel! See if he's okay! I have CPR training, and you don't!"
I watched her for a moment, as indeed I do not know how to do this. I had not thought it would ever be necessary. I resolved to train when we got back home.
I went to DanielJackson and kept Major Carter and O'Neill in my view.
Major Carter turned O'Neill over onto his back. She ran her fingers through his mouth but apparently he had nothing in it to block his breathing. She placed her ear at his mouth to listen for breath sounds and, finding none, placed her fingers under his jaw and tilted his head back.
He was truly unconscious. His jaw fell open.
I moved to the side of DanielJackson and kept watch over him so that he could harm no one, although it appeared that his fight was finished, and the alien presence within him suppressed.
DanielJackson was staring at O'Neill's unconscious body in shock or disbelief.
Major Carter blew air into O'Neill's mouth twice, watching his chest closely throughout. I saw it move up and down with the second breath. She breathed for him again, and checked his neck for a pulse, pressing down upon the large vessel in O'Neill's neck that turns purple when he is very angry.
I do not believe she found a pulse, because she then straddled his body at the waist, found the end of
the breastbone, and measured a hand's width below it. She grasped the hand placed on his body with her other hand, and quickly leaned her weight, quite hard, on his chest. She counted aloud to fifteen, repeating the compressions. I heard his ribs creak in protest.
CPR does not appear to be very kind to the victim. However, it is better than dying.
She got off him and went to his head again. She repeated the breaths, again found no pulse, went to his chest.
As she again pumped O'Neill's chest, I took hold of DanielJackson's arm -- he was wavering unsteadily, close to collapsing. I suddenly realized that he was bleeding heavily from a wound to his right side. His hands were still bound, but he had his forearm pressed awkwardly against his ribs, the blood spilling over and below it. I reached for my knife and quickly cut the bindings around his wrists.
He allowed me to help him sit on the ground, hardly seeming to notice as I did so. He kept his gaze fixed on O'Neill.
I heard O'Neill's ribs creak. I greatly hoped that Major Carter was performing CPR correctly.
Major Carter changed positions again and breathed once more for O'Neill.
"I'm sorry," DanielJackson whispered, watching them, slowly shaking his head from side to side, his lips flecked with blood. His eyes were locked on O'Neill's battered, unconscious form. "Oh, my God, Jack, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered, his eyes filling with tears.
I compelled DanielJackson to lie on his side, with the injury up. I have never taken human "first aid," but we Jaffa learn this sort of thing at the hands of Fate, I think you might say, on the battlefield. If blood must pump upward against gravity, it works harder at getting out of the body.
I felt that this was urgent. DanielJackson's shirt and pants were already soaked from waist to knee
with blood.
I saw the jolt that ran through O'Neill, and Major Carter got off him, again, throwing her own head back, gasping deeply for air. Then she knelt beside him once more, checking his neck for a pulse, listening for breath sounds.
She must have heard them, for she rolled to the side, and sat next to him, one hand on his chest, and gasped for air, trying to catch her own breath.
While she did this, I found a medkit, wadded up some gauze, and leaned as hard as I could on DanielJackson's wound. I felt his ribs creak, and he moaned in protest. I lessened the pressure slightly.
I watched as Major Carter ran her hands down O'Neill's body, trying perhaps to see if she had, in fact, broken his ribs. She winced at what she found.
It might have been Orahn rather than Major Carter who had broken the ribs, but even if she had broken them herself, she still had saved O�Neill�s life in the process.
Major Carter pulled a loosened strip of thin metal off one of the tables and used gauze from another of the medkits to splint O'Neill's dislocated thumb. She checked his pulse and breathing once more,
and must have found them acceptable, because she swiped at her eyes to stop herself from crying. I do not know why; my face was wet with tears of my own. It is acceptable among the Jaffa to cry at the pain of your comrades.
If it is not acceptable to do so among the Tau'ri, I do not care; it is not a custom I will abandon.
Major Carter knelt beside DanielJackson and felt his neck for a pulse.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered again, his voice even quieter this time.
Major Carter leaned forward and placed her hand on his jaw, and said intensely to him, "Daniel, listen to me -- this wasn't your fault. The person who did that was not you. I know you tried to stop Orahn. The colonel is going to be all right. Yes, he scared the life out of me there, but I think it was that damned machine that did the worst damage. He'll be okay. Right now, you need to put all your energy into recovering. Do you understand?" She wiped a few tears off DanielJackson's face.
He gave no response.
"Daniel, answer me!" Major Carter grasped his jaw again. "Do you understand that this wasn�t your fault?"
A small sob escaped his lips, then he nodded slightly. Major Carter seemed satisfied with this reply, then took off her jacket, folded it, and put it under his head, supporting his neck so that it was not
pulled to one side as he lay. She was very gentle as she did all this.
DanielJackson was breathing in short, pain-filled rasps as I kept up pressure on the wound. He coughed suddenly, and blood mixed with saliva flecked his lips with pink.
The coughing hurt him a great deal; he cried out and lost consciousness.
I kept up pressure on his wound until the bleeding slowed. Major Carter tore away yet another portion of his tattered shirt, then cleaned the wound, which was a deep puncture, the full width of the blade, situated just between DanielJackson's two lowest ribs.
She looked worried. "I have no idea how deep this is, but coughing blood is very bad, Teal'c. He may be bleeding into his lungs or his abdomen."
"I did not see how this happened."
"I didn't either. It must have been when they screamed like that -- together. . . ." Her voice trailed off and she shuddered.
"Perhaps," I said. "It is of little consequence now."
Major Carter took a shaky breath, then nodded. "Yeah, you're right, Teal'c. It doesn't matter now. What matters is getting them both home alive." She removed the longest of the elastic bandages from all four of our medkits and laid them out side by side, along with a thick gauze pad.
"Lift Daniel up a bit, will you, Teal'c? I'm going to see if I can pad that wound and wrap the padding in place to slow the bleeding."
DanielJackson groaned very quietly while we did this, but he did not fully waken.
Major Carter was crying again, or at least the tears were running down her face.
******
Carter
I went to the colonel and checked for pulse and breathing. Still fine. I sat down with my back to a different machine, making sure to keep my distance from the damned alien Model T that started all of this.
Teal'c rumbled, "Tell me the extent of their injuries."
I said wearily, "I think that machine shocked the colonel and made his heart stop. He�s breathing and keeping a pulse on his own now. He has some fractured ribs. Probably I did that when I gave him CPR. The colonel's right arm is also badly bruised, or may even be fractured. His collarbone might be broken. Rashan dislocated his thumb -- I�m pretty sure that�s how he got free of his
restraints."
I sighed and dropped my forehead into my hand, wishing I could massage away my cares. "The colonel should be okay, but I need to stay close to him. I�ve only got four minutes to respond if his heart stops again." I laid my hand back on his chest.
"And DanielJackson?"
"Daniel�s in pretty bad shape. I think that his lung may have been punctured. As long as his lung doesn�t collapse, he should be able to hang in there -- for a while. . . ." I lost it all of a sudden, and sighed shakily, "Oh, God," tears pricking my eyes. "Shouldn�t SG-3 be here by now?"
"They will be here soon," Teal�c said gently.
Teal�c rose, took off his jacket and carefully laid it over the colonel, covering my hand on Jack's heart, which beat with a reassuring steadiness under my palm.
Teal�c found a medkit and sat beside me, pulling out antiseptic and a bandage. I looked at him questioningly.
"Your head is still bleeding, Major Carter," Teal�c said quietly. In the commotion of patching up Daniel and the colonel, I�d forgotten all about it.
Teal�c swabbed at the cut on my temple, the antiseptic making it sting. He then covered the cut with a strip of gauze and tape, his motions surprisingly gentle.
"Thanks, Teal�c," I said, then remembered. "How�s your head? You were out for quite a while."
"I am fine, Major Carter. My symbiote has already repaired the damage."
I nodded and just sat for a while, keeping my hand on Jack�s heart, not wanting to move too far away from him until I was sure he was stable. Teal�c had gone over to Daniel�s side, staying with him, holding his hand and talking to him in a voice too low for me to hear.
The colonel was unconscious for quite a while. I dozed a little, too.
I woke when the colonel started to rouse. His eyes rolled rapidly under the closed lids, and he muttered under his breath, but I couldn�t make out what he said. I combed my fingers through his hair gently and whispered to him until he quieted, then faded into unconsciousness again.
"He�s going to be okay, but we really need to get him and Daniel home soon." I started that train of thought, but couldn�t bring myself to finish it.
Teal�c said firmly, "We will."
I was grateful to him for many things, that reassurance among them.
I slept again for a while. My watch said nine more hours to go when I woke. Neither man had stirred, but both were still alive, still breathing.
Teal�c�s turn to rest.
******
Jack
I hurt everywhere.
Carter and Teal�c were talking close by. I could hear their low voices, but I couldn�t make out the words.
Damn, it hurt to breathe.
I saw Daniel�s face in my mind�s eye, contorted with fury, trying to kill me.
Why?
Orahn and Rashan.
Hey! Wait a minute -- I was alone in here! I took a deep breath and really, really wished I hadn�t done that.
"Ow! Crap!" I choked out, once the cave finally stopped spinning around in nauseating circles.
"What?" Carter said, jumping about a foot. I hadn�t realized she was right beside me.
"Rashan�s gone," I said, gazing at her. "Felt her die."
Carter gaped, then grinned happily at me. "Are you sure, sir?"
Teal�c came to my side, and he had a goofy grin on his face, too. Well, almost. You�d have to know Teal�c to know that that�s what it was.
"Oh yeah, I�m sure. I�m me again." There wasn't enough room in here for her and my ego; I'm only
I was so relieved I didn�t know if I wanted to laugh or cry, or both. The feeling of Rashan�s death was hard to put into words, into logic. I had felt her last thoughts -- felt my own thoughts mingling with hers, felt my own consciousness trying to leave my body. Then Carter had shown up with the
kiss of life thing, combined it with what felt like a trip through a cement mixer, and brought me back.
I guess I wasn't meant to leave this crazy universe just yet. But God, that had been close.
I lifted my hand to rub my forehead, and a sharp twinge of pain directed my attention elsewhere.
"She broke my hand." I raised it much more carefully now, to eye level, inspecting Carter�s amateur job of setting and splinting.
"It must have been when your heart stopped!" Carter blurted out.
Teal�c and I looked at each other, then at her.
"When you felt Rashan die! It must have been too hard for her to stay in your body when you were dying!" Carter still had the big sappy grin of relief plastered on her face, although her eyes were overly bright.
O-kay. You kick the bucket, your 2IC and the light of your life pretty much says, "Great!"
"And this is a good thing?" I asked her, trying for the full-out O�Neill Sarcasm. My voice wasn�t strong enough to do the job, though. Damn.
"Not that your heart stopped, sir, but that Rashan�s gone. Maybe there�s some way we can get Orahn out of Daniel."
Daniel�s pain-filled and angry face flashed in my mind again. I remember stabbing -- no. I remember Rashan stabbing Daniel. His scream of agony was still echoing in my head. I could still see my own hand gripping that makeshift knife, thrusting it out, the tip piercing Danny's skin, the blade sinking in, grinding along his rib . . . .
My heart threatened to skip a few more beats. "Danny? Is he okay?" I tried to see him from my position on the ground, but Carter and Teal�c were hovering over me, blocking my view.
"He is not well, O�Neill," Teal�c answered, while Carter glanced over to where I assumed Danny was. "Rashan has inflicted a serious injury on him."
"Goddammit! Let me see him." I strained to get up, but that turned out to be an even worse idea. Ow! My ribs ground painfully against each other. How many times am I going to have to break my ribs in this lifetime, for cryin� out loud?
"He�s sleeping, and you should try to get some more rest yourself," Carter said, gently pushing me back down again. "He�s stable for now, sir."
Carter was back to "sir" again -- guess I was going to be okay, although my ribs and my hand and various other spots here and there were saying different.
"How�s the pain? Let me give you something for it," Carter said, moving for the medkit.
"No!" I felt an irrational wave of fear at this prospect. "Pain's good. It's my body again, Carter. The pain lets me know that," I told her, catching her wrist.
Of course, there's a limit to how much fun your abused nerve endings will let you have at once. Everything fuzzed out. . . maybe I�d just close my eyes for a minute . . . .
******
Daniel
My side hurt, my shoulder hurt, everything hurt, but I was still there, Orahn was still there. . . .
I rolled slowly onto my back. It felt a little easier to breathe that way, and lying on my shoulder was killing me.
Moving was not a good idea. Didn�t care. I shifted slightly, moving off a rock digging into my spine -- there, that�s a little better. . . .
Orahn was content, quiet: he had killed Rashan. I didn�t know how he knew this, but he did.
Oh my God, Jack! If Rashan was dead . . . .
I followed the sound of voices to Sam and Teal�c, both of them hovering over Jack. Then I heard Jack�s voice, weakened, but there. A wave of relief flooded through me, leaving tears behind it. They ran down the sides of my face, into my hair. I was too tired to wipe them away.
Thank all the gods there be. I thought we�d killed him, and that scared me more than anything I�ve ever encountered in my life.
Looked like Rashan might be taking us along with her though -- staying true to her nature, I guess. You kill me, I�ll kill you back. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. One bomb for another.
I was losing focus there, probably getting delirious. Not a morphine high though. Had enough of those to know the difference. This was a plain old blood-loss delirium. Had enough of those, too.
Everything hurt far too much to have any morphine in me anyway. Sam stuck with her promise and hadn�t given me anything. An officer and a gentleman. No, an officer and a -- a friend.
Orahn was unconcerned about dying, believing he would come back to another life, to another purpose. I almost wanted to ask him how he would be able to come back to another life when there was soon to be no planet to come back to, and no one left to bring forth that new life. Would his soul find a different place to be reborn, or would it be lost, forever?
I checked that thought before Orahn could process it. Despite what he had done to Jack, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to instill the fear of death in him.
I wished that I could be so nonchalant about dying. I�d been dead before, but I really didn�t want to do it again, thank you very much.
There was no sarcophagus handy, for one thing. Not that you could ever get me within ten feet of one of those things again, dying or not.
"Are you afraid to die? What do you believe happens when you die?"
This surprised me. Orahn was talking to me inside my head. I didn�t think he could do that.
I tried to give him an answer, although having an internal dialogue with my psychotic alien hijacker about dying was precisely the last thing I wanted to do at the moment.
Be that as it may, I answered, "Many of my people believe in an all-seeing god, and when we die, we go to a better place, a place where we are happy and see again the loved ones we have lost."
"And do you believe this as well?"
"I don�t know, Orahn."
"But you fear death?"
"Yes, I do. I don�t know what it will be like. No one does. One of our poets called it �the undiscovered country.�"
Wonder if he�d caught my line of thinking after all?
I lost interest in the conversation then. I really didn�t want to talk about it anymore because I wasn�t planning on dying just yet -- there�d been far too much death as it was. Didn�t want to think about dying anymore.
Dum spiro, spero -- As long as I breathe, I hope.
I was very tired, though, it was hard to breathe, and every part of my body hurt, hurt so much . . . .all the fighting, all the hate had left me feeling wrung out, my mind slow and my chest tight and aching. I felt another tear escape from under my closed lids. It felt cold as it trickled down my face and my neck.
I wrapped my good arm around my ribs, hoping to still the fire in my side, holding myself tightly. It comforted me, for some reason.
Orahn was quiet, pensive. He was thinking, but about what, I couldn�t say, and I was far too tired to care at that moment.
He spoke in my head again, startling me. "You are weary. I will allow you to rest."
He retreated, staying silent; I felt alone all of a sudden. Fog drifted into my head, and I was thankful when the world went away for a while.
******
Carter
The colonel was asleep again. Daniel too.
I couldn�t believe how close we had come to losing Jack. I didn�t want to think about how close we still were to losing Daniel.
My hopes had narrowed to a small one: that they could hang in there till morning's rendezvous, another five hours.
Twenty years ago, it seemed, we had left SGC. My watch, usually accurate, said we�d been here thirteen hours.
My watch was a damned liar.
I slid over to Daniel to check on his breathing. It was very labored, but his breath didn�t end in a gurgle each time, and his ribs didn�t creak with every inspiration. Maybe the stab wound wasn't as deep as I feared.
Daniel moved his head from side to side, muttering in that alien language, his brow creased in a frown. I stroked his forehead lightly to soothe him and was shocked at the heat of his skin. Infection, probably. He turned his head toward me, reacting to my touch.
Oh, Daniel. My heart wrenched when I saw the silvery tracks of nearly dried tears on his dirt-smudged face.
Janet would be displeased, to put it mildly. We�d checked out one archaeologist/linguist in mint condition, and he�d be coming back just this side of the scrap heap.
God willing.
Daniel opened his eyes and regarded me silently for a moment. "Rashan is dead," he whispered, more statement than question.
I had to strain to hear him, moving my head closer to his lips. I couldn�t tell if it was Daniel or Orahn talking to me. "Daniel?" I said, hopeful.
He shook his head slightly, closing his eyes tiredly for a moment. "You humans care for each other a great deal."
"Yes, we do," I said. "If I could, I�d give you a taste of what you and your enemy did to the colonel and Daniel. Using them to exact your own personal vengeance was wrong. This was your war, your fight, not theirs.
"There are always innocents who suffer in a war. I feel this pain as much as Daniel does, if that gives you any satisfaction."
"No, it doesn�t. You and Rashan were not waging war. This was personal. Like you said, Orahn, the war is over."
He closed his eyes again for a moment, but said nothing.
I found I wasn't finished and felt myself getting angry again. "Your planet will soon be gone. There will be no trace of your people, nothing will be left of what you cared about, and nothing will remain of what you accomplished. That is what you bring back to your �Order.� What you and Rashan have to show for yourselves is hate and destruction, and nothing more."
All this death, all this pain - it was so . . . pointless.
Orahn gazed at me thoughtfully with Daniel�s pain-dulled eyes. "You are correct. I will return to the Order having accomplished nothing. Perhaps I have not learned as much as I thought I had." He let out a small sigh. "If I could leave this body, I would. I am tired, and it is a good day to die, as heroes of Daniel's have said."
"I can wish you peace, Orahn. But please, don't take Daniel with you."
"After all this, you can wish me peace?"
"I would wish peace to anyone who is dying," I said flatly. Don�t expect flowers, bastard.
"I will do my best not take Daniel with me when I go into your �undiscovered country.�" He smiled enigmatically at me, then closed his eyes again, drifting off.
I watched Daniel�s sleeping face, wondering how Orahn meant to do that.
******
Jack
I opened my eyes to see stone above me, stone beside me, stone all around, but everything looked kind of blue. Where the hell was I? I tried to sit up and everything came back to me. Including the pain.
Still in the cave, still trapped. I raised my hand to look at my watch, which read 22:13. Has it only been a little over fourteen hours since we stepped onto this stinking, godforsaken planet? It seemed more like a week.
I was so sore, I couldn�t even move. I felt like someone had thrown me off a cliff, twice. I really wanted to go over to Danny and see how he was doing, but my body was saying pretty loudly, no way, Jose, not just yet.
I turned my head to see Carter propped up against a rock halfway between me and Danny. She was sound asleep, a small bandage taped to her forehead, blood dried in her bright hair. Must have dozed off during her watch, because Teal�c was a bit farther away, doing his kel-no-reem thing, looking a little worse for wear himself.
Shit. Danny and I had really put all of us through seven kinds of hell here, hadn�t we?
My eyes snapped open to the sound of someone groaning, then trying to stifle a gasp. I hadn�t even noticed falling asleep again.
The groan repeated itself -- wait a minute, that sounded like Daniel.
I got myself about half propped up, almost to a sitting position. Ribs were grinding against each other, the pain catching my breath in my throat; I couldn�t call out to him. My eyes followed the sound Daniel was making -- Jesus, Danny, what are you doing?
Daniel had somehow managed to haul himself over to the tep�an�orl and was standing shakily beside it, fiddling with it. The thing started humming again, sparks shooting up from the surface of the screen.
Going up farther each time the machine cycled.
Carter jolted awake at the sound, seeing him too. "Daniel!"
He looked over at her, but the face was not Daniel�s. Orahn gave Carter an odd, sad smile. Before either of us could react, he wrapped his arms around the machine, hugging it tightly.
To Daniel�s body.
Daniel jerked, the sparks rising as they had the first time, coursing over and through him, throwing his head back, jolting his body wildly.
"No!" Carter and I screamed at the same moment, time standing still.
Daniel, Jesus H Christ, what have you done? What have you done, Orahn, you sick bastard?
The cycle ended, the machine released its grip, and Daniel slid to the ground, falling onto his back.
Pain in my ribs all but forgotten, I found myself at Daniel�s side, grabbing for him. He was arching his back, his entire body wracked, his face contorted with pain. He was making a gurgling, choking noise.
"Danny!" I pulled him into my arms, which wasn�t smart; my entire body protested being asked to move so vigorously.
I ignored it. I ignored it in Iraq, when there was only me to worry about; I could damn well ignore it here, for Danny.
Every single one of his muscles was iron-bar tense, arms, legs, back, belly, neck. One completely rigid Doctor of Archeology and Linguistics nearly spasmed out of my arms.
His hand closed, luckily on my good hand, gripping it painfully, convulsively. I didn�t have a clue what to do.
Carter did, though. "He�s seizing!" she shouted and pulled him out of my arms. I didn�t want to let him go, but common sense got the best of me after a split second, and I helped her to lay him down, trying to press his arched body flat, grunting a bit at the barking my ribs were doing.
He kept his tight grip on my hand. Good. I wouldn�t let go of him anyway. God, hang in there, Danny.
Carter grasped his chin firmly and tilted his head back, prying his mouth open and sweeping her fingers through it.
How did she do that? He was rigid as a board.
She put her mouth over his and pinched his nose, blew into his mouth a few times while intently watching his chest.
He suddenly gasped, gulping in air like he hadn�t breathed in a week. Which is probably what it felt like to him.
His tensed body slowly relaxed as he kept taking in shuddery breaths, and his grip on my hand loosened. I kept hold of him, though, not wanting to let go just yet. I used my splinted hand to gently wipe away the pinkish trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Oh, God," Carter said, in invocation, or prayer of thankfulness. "Stay with us, Daniel." She laid a hand over his heart, feeling it beat.
Our eyes met over Daniel�s unconscious body, and hers were huge with shock.
"What the hell just happened?" I demanded.
******
Carter
I wanted a hot bath, a stiff drink, and a good cry. Not necessarily in that order, either. First, though, I had to report to my CO.
"The machine stopped Daniel�s heart and breathing, sir, just as it had yours, earlier. He had some kind of seizure, too, but he recovered faster than you did. His heart started again on its own, maybe because he�s younger, or the shock wasn�t as strong, I don�t know. I didn�t have to do CPR, just a few rescue breaths."
"Why the hell did he do that, anyway? Was he trying to give me another heart attack along with him?" the colonel said shakily, looking at Daniel�s very still form. Only the short rise and fall of his chest indicated any sign of life.
I just shook my head. "You okay, sir?"
"Dandy." The colonel lay down right where he was, beside Daniel, spent.
I got up to get our jackets and tucked one around the colonel again. Teal�c watched all this silently, then came near to sit with him.
I checked on Daniel once more. His breathing was shallow, ragged, and I thought I detected a gurgle in his lungs now.
He was still deeply unconscious, and his stab wound had resumed bleeding. I got another pad from a medkit, and put pressure on it until it stopped.
He was assailed by a bout of coughing that brought up more blood, making me worry about his lung again. That little stunt of Orahn�s had probably caused it to collapse. I wiped his mouth gently and covered him with the jacket.
I sat down in the small space between the colonel and Daniel, feeling about a thousand years old. "What did just happen here, Daniel?" I whispered to him. I took hold of Daniel�s hand in both of mine, trying to warm his cold fingers.
I thought about what Orahn had said to me. That almost serene smile he had given me by the machine was burned into my brain. I�d remember it to my dying day.
"Sam?"
I jumped and realized that Daniel was awake. Me, too, now. I glanced at my watch again -- I�d dozed for about an hour.
"Daniel? Are you okay?" Stupid question, Carter. Of course he�s not okay. "How are you feeling?"
A ghost of a smile passed over his lips and he whispered, "Orahn is gone."
I felt my face stretch in that big grin again. The colonel and Teal�c had turned their heads toward us, too. I brushed the sweat-dampened hair back from Daniel�s forehead, my eyes pricking with tears of relief. I just hoped now that he could hang in there until SG-3 found us.
"He released me," Daniel whispered. "He told me that he wanted his life, this one, here, to have some purpose. . . he started the tep�an�orl and. . . released his memories into it. . . as . . . a warning . . . a lesson." Daniel paused wearily, trying to catch his breath.
The colonel got up, groaning. Teal'c helped him once he realized what the colonel wanted to do, which was get closer to Daniel.
"He�s in that machine now?" the colonel asked Daniel, skepticism in every word. He groaned as he got down to his knees beside Daniel, Teal'c helping to support his weight.
Daniel shook his head slightly, looking up at the colonel with exhausted eyes, "Just his memories. He�s dead. I�m free. . . of him . . . we�re free, Jack. . . ." His whispering voice faded and he lost consciousness again.
The colonel touched Daniel�s face lightly. "We�re free," he repeated, so softly I thought I might have imagined it. He lay back down, curling himself carefully around Daniel, and was gone into sleep a few minutes later.
Teal�c and I had an MRE each, which, of course, tasted like chicken. I could have been eating sawdust for all the appetite I had.
Not much water left.
Midnight, the witching hour. Two hours to go.
When SG-3 shoveled the first of the debris out of the cave mouth, I thought I would break down and cry. I didn�t, though.
******
The next day, Dr. Janet Frasier came briskly through the infirmary doors, nodding to a nurse, who was headed the other way. Jack and Daniel, on adjacent beds, had been lying there bored for hours.
Well, Jack was bored. Daniel was scribbling away on a notepad he had somehow managed to acquire, probably by batting his eyelashes and sweet-talking one of the nurses. He was balancing the pad awkwardly around the sling on his left arm and the assorted wires and tubes trailing over him.
"Hey, doc!" said her least favorite patient. Her favorite patient tried to hide his notepad under the covers, and smiled at her, a little glazed from his pain meds.
Better than having him a little glazed from the pain. The shoulder bandage and the one taped around his ribs were still white. Good.
His breathing was regular now, assisted by nasal cannula. The stab wound had punctured the lowest lobe of his lung and partially collapsed it, but they had gotten him back to base in time. Just.
Luck of the archaeologist, perhaps.
"Colonel, Daniel," she said, coming to a halt. She put the sheaf of papers down on the bedside table between them and pulled out O�Neill�s paperwork first. "You, Colonel, can go home in three days," she said, watched his face fall, and braced for it.
"Aw, doc, come on, I�m fine -- I don�t need to stay here."
Not the total O�Neill whine, so he wasn�t feeling quite up to par yet, and was a little glazed himself. He had a set of fractured ribs, a cracked forearm and collarbone, a dislocated thumb, and far too many bruises to count.
Too much to be up for the complete O'Neill routine.
She said firmly, "Your heart is still arrhythmic from time to time, colonel, and your EKG tracings aren�t fully back to normal. I want you where I can keep an eye on you for another seventy-two hours."
"And then I can go home?"
"And then we will re-evaluate. I didn�t get you back just to let you stroke out, or have a heart attack while I�m not watching. Got it?"
He pouted at her. It was the adorable hundred-percent O�Neill pout, and she wasn�t buying it. Not for a second. It wasn�t getting him anywhere.
This woman had a heart of stone. Or so she liked her patients to think.
She turned her back on her least favorite patient, and turned to her favorite, who was going to get equal treatment -- like it or lump it. He didn�t have much choice in the matter.
"Daniel, I�m afraid that the stab wound and the lung injury are going to keep you here for at least a week, and I don�t want you moving around much for the two weeks after, either. You lost a lot of blood, and that shoulder injury is also pretty serious. Your heart and your EKG are kind of funky, too."
"Kind of funky?" her favorite patient said, his brow wrinkling in protest. She heard Jack snigger and ignored him. Daniel looked at her with those great big baby blues and said, "I�m a linguist, Janet. I�m exempt from 'funky.'"
"Nope, sorry, Daniel," she said firmly. "We�ll get the monitors off both of you in a day or two," she continued, and Jack moaned theatrically.
"Colonel, I can certainly write orders that your temperature be taken rectally every two hours around the clock. Do you want me to do that?"
The moaning mysteriously ceased.
"And Daniel," she turned to him again, holding her hand out, "no working, I want you to rest, now. Give."
He blinked at her innocently. "Give what?"
"Those orders for a rectal thermometer can go for you, too."
He sighed, pulled the pad out, and handed it to her reluctantly. "I just wanted to write down what I remembered of Orahn�s memories before they fade completely. Their civilization would have been fascinating to study. The planet�s gone; all that history lost."
"And good riddance!" Jack broke in.
"No. . . the loss of an entire people, an entire culture, is never good riddance. I just wish we�d had enough time to get the tep�an�orl back to base. Orahn told me how to safely reactivate it and access it."
Jack�s face was a study in stupefaction. "I can�t believe that after the hell that thing put us through, you want to study it! For cryin� out loud, Daniel!"
"I wanted to use it once, to understand their people, try to understand Orahn. He wanted his death to have some purpose. Orahn killed himself to release me, to set me free. I feel I owe him that." Daniel looked down, self-conscious, unable to describe the strange feeling of loss within him.
"You owe him nothing, Danny. Releasing you was probably the one good thing he did in his life." Jack plucked at the coverlet over his legs. "That was purpose enough for me."
"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit," Daniel said quietly, looking drowsily down at his bandaged ribs.
Jack stared at him. "What?"
Daniel glanced up, frowning. "What? Oh. . . sorry. It means, �perhaps one day it shall be good to remember even these tragic things.�"
"Janet, he�s spouting proverbs at me -- isn�t it time for his medication?" Jack looked at the doctor, scowling, obviously trying to change the subject.
She shook her head slightly and placed the test results in their patient files, and when she was done she looked up to see Carter and Teal�c approaching. "Your team�s here, gentlemen," she said. "I�ll see you both later." She smiled at the other two, then went to her office.
"Carter, Teal'c," Jack said.
"Sir. Daniel."
"Hey, Sam."
"O�Neill, I am glad to see you better."
"Thanks, Teal�c."
"DanielJackson, you will be well soon."
"Not soon enough. Thanks, Teal�c," Daniel said, closing his eyes tiredly.
"I will go now. I wish to speak to Doctor Frasier about learning CPR."
They watched the Jaffa�s broad back depart. Jack said thoughtfully, "I really don�t want him giving me CPR."
Carter, who was holding Daniel�s hand with one of her own and gently brushing the hair off his forehead with the other, said, "I really don�t want him needing to, and not knowing how. He�d break your ribs and you�d die." She looked at Daniel�s tired face. "Or Daniel�s and he�d die, or mine and
I�d die."
" . . . I�d rather Teal�c knew what he was doing, myself." Daniel was too tired to open his eyes and could feel himself starting to drift off again. He didn�t, therefore, see the look that passed between OIC and 2IC. "Sam," he said, his voice fading, a little slurred, "I�m going to sleep now. Go distract
Jack, will you? And Sam, thanks."
"Any time, Daniel."
"I sure hope not," he whispered.
"Me too." She laid her cheek against his, kissed him gently, then withdrew. Daniel looked like he was already asleep.
She brought a chair to Jack�s bedside and sat in it.
They sat looking at one another, both of them peripherally aware of the presence of nurses and other personnel drifting around them.
"What�s it like, to do CPR for real?" Jack asked.
"Pretty horrible, sir. I could feel your ribs crack under my hands, but I couldn�t stop."
Jack shuddered. "Sorry I asked."
Major Samantha Carter performed a fast, thorough, and furtive reconnoiter of the area, then let her eyes rest on Jack's face. "Sir, I told you something before we left on this mission that I -- need to recant."
He watched her, waiting for her to continue.
"Do you remember that time at the lake when you tried to teach Teal�c to light a fire?"
"Yeah."
She found herself unable to look him in the eye. "That last day, I said that the concerns of two individuals weren�t important, in the larger picture."
"Yes, you did, Carter."
She glanced around the infirmary once more before she took a deep breath and continued. "Jack, Orahn and Rashan taught me that I was wrong. All we have to leave behind of ourselves is the love we feel for one another. That�s all that matters in the end."
He was silent for a moment, then looked down at the sheets covering his body. "I can't argue with that. So now what?"
"Now, you need to get some rest, and Teal�c and I have a debriefing to go to. You and I can talk later." She rose, reluctantly, and touched his palm softly, very gently. Their fingers trailed down each other's hands, lingering briefly at the tips, before they parted.
"Didn�t you debrief when you got back?"
"We were a little too out of it. Janet kept Teal�c and me here overnight. We both got a pretty good crack on the head."
"Teal�c? And you? I didn�t --" His eyes found the new bandage on her temple and the delicate purple bruising surrounding it.
"No, sir, you didn�t -- a rock got me. Rashan got Teal�c."
He felt a weight, one he hadn�t known he carried, leave his heart.
Janet came back and jerked a thumb unceremoniously at Carter.
"See you later, sir."
"See you, Carter."
******
Three a.m. The darkened infirmary was silent, save for the quiet beeping of their heart monitors and the hiss of Daniel�s oxygen tank.
Jack O�Neill had slept, troubled by dreams of fire and flight and killing, since eleven a.m., except for those times when he was wakened to take his pain medication, and now he was wide-eyed.
Slept himself out, as his mother used to say.
He was bored. This was a dangerous state for Jack O�Neill. Bad things happened when he got bored.
Although at the moment, he acknowledged ruefully, he wasn�t really up to much mischief. The monitors and IV lines and whatnot kept him tethered to the bed, and his thoughts were troubled.
Daniel slept in the bed beside him.
Well. If Daniel were asleep, Jack could talk to him, safely.
"Danny?" he said cautiously.
No response.
"Danny, I -- it was horrible. . . back there, with Rashan wanting to kill you."
Jack paused, plucking at the threads on his blankets. "I. . . couldn�t stop her. I tried, Danny, but I couldn�t. . . stop her. I thought I was going to lose you." Jonathan "Jack" O�Neill, Colonel, USAF, swallowed the lump in his throat. "I -- I don�t know what I would have done if that happened, Danny."
"I know, Jack. It was pretty bad." The archaeologist lay still, keeping his eyes closed.
Jack�s mouth opened and shut like a fish�s. "Jeez, Danny, give a guy a warning, will you?"
The blue eyes opened, but Daniel didn�t look at him. "Why, so you can hide behind the wise-ass routine some more? I love you, Jack -- you, Sam, and Teal�c. I don�t mind saying it, and I don�t care who knows. When I thought I had killed you I --" The archaeologist painfully swallowed the lump tightening his own throat. "I thought I -- I couldn�t live with that. I couldn�t."
"You -- love me?"
"Come on, Jack, don�t get weird on me. Not hearts and flowers -- you know what I mean. You guys are my family -- all the family I have. You�re the closest thing to a brother I�ve ever had. We argue, we disagree about a lot of things, but I still look up to you. We conflict, sure. But ultimately, I know you�ve got my back."
Jack swallowed. "Danny, I couldn't control her. She was nuts! She hated Orahn so much, there
"You probably did stop her from hurting me worse than she did -- it�s all right."
Jack choked back the tears. "But I couldn�t get control over her - I really tried. Her hatred was so. . . so deep, so irrational - there was nothing I could do to stop her. I would have sunk that knife into my own ribs before hurting you. But I couldn�t stop her -- I --"
"Jack. It�s all right. I know." Daniel broke in, his voice wavering. "I know. I couldn�t stop Orahn
either."
Jack, for once, disregarded the "guys don't talk about this kinda stuff" dictum he'd lived by all his adult life. The last time he remembered crying, he'd been about eight years old. He hadn�t even allowed himself to cry when Charlie died, but Danny might manage to make him do it here.
After all this time. After all this pain.
Jack�s voice shook slightly as he choked out what had been haunting him since he regained consciousness back in the cave, free of Rashan. "But -- we could have been responsible for each other�s deaths, Danny. It was my own hand that stabbed you. I keep seeing. . . ." Jack�s voice faded.
Daniel turned his head to look at his friend, and watched as Jack wiped away the tears running down his face.
"Jack. Your hand may have held the knife, but your will wasn't behind it. You weren�t responsible."
Jack met the younger man�s gaze and gave up trying to hide his emotions from his best friend. Who was he trying to fool, anyway? This stuff needed to be said, be put out there so they could move on.
Daniel�s bright blue eyes were intense, burning into the other man's soul. "Orahn and Rashan would have had two more deaths to add to their tallies. That was never about you and me, Jack. We were just -- acceptable casualties." Daniel shifted a little in the bed, wincing. "If you and I hadn�t been able
to get in the way of those two and fight them, we�d be dead."
"Yeah," the colonel said, his voice raspy. "I guess you�re right."
"I am right. You can depend on it." Daniel closed his eyes again, and Jack saw his face relax.
"I depend on you a lot. I love you, Danny."
"I know. Likewise, Jack." The battered archaeologist grinned drowsily, keeping his eyes closed. "And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I�ll have to kill you."
Jack tried to laugh, but his ribs weren�t having any of that. It came out as a snort instead.
Daniel said peaceably, "Now, go to sleep."
And with Daniel's benediction, Jack could sleep, troubled by his dreams no more.
~ Finis ~