Descent and Ascent

By BadgerGater

Season: 6

Episode: Descent

Spoilers: that ep, really nothing else

Category: Gen, Epilogue, hurt/comfort

Pairing: None

Summary: Jack shouldn't have gone swimming

Rating: PG

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: Don't own. Love 'em though.

Author's Pledge: This fic, like all Badgergater fics, is honestly and accurately labeled.

Author's Note: Thanks to Sid for the beta; Margo, Sis, and all those who feedback…

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yeah, it was a mean thing to do. But I couldn’t help it.

The kid’s just so bleepin’ smiley.

No one ought to smile that much.

And it worked, I did wipe that smile off his face.

Of course, the smell, in that glider cockpit... ewwww.

Guess they don’t have airsickness bags on Kelowna. Or on Gould gliders, either.

So yeah, I shouldn’t have enjoyed it quite so much.

But I couldn’t help it.

It was funny, at the time.

And he did forgive me.

That’s the other thing wrong with him.

He’s so bleepin’ forgiving.

No one ought to be that sunny.

/----------\

So there we were, out of the water and into the air, having escaped the sunken mothership via a pair of gliders, Teal’c having taken the lead.

You’d think things would be simple from there, right?

Nope.

They never are.

Because, there we were, in the air, in alien spaceships that didn’t belong on Earth. Not *anywhere* on Earth. So where the heck do you land the things without setting off a million new UFO stories? As if we weren’t already going to have to come up with one whopper of an explanation story for that big splash when the mothership crashed. The Air Force spin doctors were going to be mega-busy.

I shivered and checked around the controls for the heater controls, turning them up to max.

That felt better.

"Ah, Colonel?" I’d almost forgotten my passenger, who’d gotten real quiet since our little loop-de-loop victory roll.

"What?"

"Ah, isn’t it getting awfully warm in here?" Jonas asked.

Kelownans must have high metabolisms or something, if he thought it was too warm. With a sigh, I reached forward and turned down the heat. Just one notch. Compromise, see? Who says I can’t be a nice guy? Even to him.

I shivered.

Which I'd been doing a lot of since my little swimming episode. Swimming in all your clothes, figuring you are about to drown any minute, and in ice cold water to boot, is so not on my list of favorite things and I don’t think it would be on yours, either. Personally, if I liked swimming that much, I'd have joined the Navy.

Just thinking about the whole thing made me shiver again...

/----------\

Trapped.

The water rising.

Carter desperately searching the compartment for the open-sesame switch.

Me, desperately searching the compartment for something I could break to get us out... Door, window, wall…

The cold water rising steadily.

I could feel my whole body turning into one giant ice cube.

Cold induced tremors in my voice.

My clothes weighing me down.

Frantically stripping off as much of my gear as I could, knowing it was futile because, once the water level reached the ceiling, whether or not I was swimming wasn't going to matter at all.

The icy feel of cold seawater reaching my neck, climbing up my throat to my chin.

Treading water, I cursed the slowness of Jacob and his snake buddy, wondering if drowning or hypothermia would get us first.

Thinking this was the stupidest way to go, drowning in a bleeping space ship.

‘I'm never getting in another one of these damned Gould ships, never, ever,’ I vowed silently. They always seem out to get me. They’re full of Goulds or Jaffa or Replicators, they crash on planets, they go rogue and send you off into a bad episode of Lost in Space, and now one was trying to drown me.

I hate space ships.

I really, really do.

Running out of airspace.

Underwater. Fighting the urge to breathe, ordering the lips to stay closed, the throat to keep still, the lungs to hold on, hold on hold on hold on... the grayness was there, the blackness right behind, rushing in....

Damn it, Jacob…

The horrible moment when I couldn't hold on any longer, couldn't hold out, when my body’s need to breathe won and my lungs demanded air which I knew wasn't there but I couldn't stop it...

I gulped.

Bitterly cold salt water in my mouth, sliding down my throat and into places water shouldn’t go, like my lungs. Coughing, choking, thrashing desperately, knowing it was over... and then my head broke the surface, and I sucked in a breath that was air not water...

Oh God.

Air.

Sputtering, spitting out water, clearing my throat, my ears ringing, grabbing a bobbing Carter whose face looked as gray and desperate as mine must have....

And then the water was retreating as fast as it had entered the compartment.

My body ached from the cold, my lungs hurt from the effort of holding on, my soaked clothes weighed a thousand pounds.

I was *cold.*

I hadn’t been that cold since Antarctica, and that was one adventure I didn’t care to think about again. Ever.

/----------\

I’d been cold ever since. No, not since Antarctica, but since that delightful salt water bath. The ship had been cold, damn cold, what with life support only partially functional. And then walking around in clothes so wet a fish could have lived in them didn’t do a damn thing to raise my body temperature.

Cold has never really bothered me. I was born in Chicago and raised in Minnesota, so I’m used to it. But I’ve never, ever, liked being cold and wet.

Grandma always said that was the way to ‘catch your death of cold, kiddo.’

The next few hours could have qualified for one of Granny’s mega-lectures on the subject.

But I didn’t have a choice. We hadn’t taken any spare clothes along with us. Anubis had apparently taken everything with him when he’d abandoned the ship, including the towels and the clothes dryers.

Shivering does warm you up, however--you do know that, don’t you?

So I shivered a lot, and kept moving, and somehow managed not to freeze solid.

/----------\

Good military issue BDUs don’t dry out easily, by the way. Add that to the list of facts which could one day save your life.

Or more likely not.

I was still wet when we climbed into those gliders. I was pretty sure there was water pooled in my boots, which had to be absolutely ruined from the bleepin’ salt water. There was water between my toes and in my ears, and itchin’ under my armpits, and, ah, elsewhere, what with the salt and all. Not to mention my butt was sitting in a pool of ice cold Pacific Ocean…. Funny, though, the air in that little alien scout ship, despite all the moisture in our clothes, seemed awful dry, irritating my throat to no end. Coughing didn’t seem to help, either.

Although, I do have to say it, flying that glider was fun. Wiping that smirk off Jonas’ face was really fun.

/----------\

They made us land down in Nevada, at one of Groom Lake’s super secret fields.

Half the base’s security contingent must have been waiting for us, maybe more, when we finally set the ships down on a cleared runway lined with Humvees, APCs and tanks.

A stern looking Security Forces master sergeant stood in front of the troops, guns up and aimed at us I noted as I popped the canopy on the glider and climbed stiffly out of the cockpit. I jumped off the wing, landing with a knee-popping jolt that reverberated through my bones all the way to the top of my head.

And started me coughing again.

Must be that dry Nevada air, a real shock to the system after living aboard the good mothership Titanic.

The sergeant, meanwhile, wasn’t sure if he ought to salute me or shoot me. You’d think he’d show more respect to a full bird Colonel. Of course, it didn’t actually say Colonel anywhere on my uniform at that moment, come to think of it. But I’m sure someone had told him I was a Colonel.

After the chill of the sea, the sun felt hot and very, very pleasant.

The desert wind was chill though, like it was coming straight off a glacier. The really odd thing was that it seemed like they’d turned up the gravity on the planet, or maybe that ship had had superlight gravity? Like space? Whatever, breathing suddenly seemed like a chore, and walking too.

"Colonel O’Neill?" the SF asked.

"In the dampish flesh, Sergeant."

He saluted and I answered. "That’s Mister Quinn, and Teal’c and Major Carter," I pointed at the others who had now joined me. "Let’s…" I coughed… "let’s make like a tree and leaf, huh, kids?"

Once we arrived at the base HQ, I saw some familiar faces, one of the SF non-coms from the SGC. "Sergeant McMasters?"

"Yes, Sir, Colonel. General Hammond dispatched my team down to escort you back to the base, Sir."

Right, standard mission return protocol. Until we could be vetted and certified clear of nasty little surprises like snakes in the head, we weren’t about to be given free-run of the planet. The SGC had learned that lesson the hard way, too many times in the past.

Given dry clothes at last, and new boots, though mine were a bit small and pinched, we were finally loaded into a pair of familiar dark-blue government issue Suburbans. Teal’c and I were in one, Jonas and Carter in the other, each of us flanked by armed SFs.

With nothing else to do during the hours-long drive back to Cheyenne Mountain, I slid lower into the seat, pulled my borrowed hat down low on my forehead, closed my eyes and went to sleep. After all, it had been a very long and very rough day.

/----------\

I was drowning again, cold water seeping in around me, covering me as I flailed helplessly, the water closing over my head as I gulped for air that wasn’t there. Coughing, I woke to find myself not on the ship, but in a car; shaking with cold, though at least I wasn’t wet.

"O’Neill?" there was concern in Teal’c’s familiar rich tones.

I cleared my throat, but the feeling of drowning lingered, as if I wasn’t getting enough air. I shivered. "Hey, guys, can’t you turn up the heat in here?" I asked the SF behind the wheel.

Sergeant McMasters, riding shotgun up front, turned around, an odd look on his face. "Colonel, it’s probably 105 out there." He waved a hand at the desert that surrounded our speeding vehicle.

"Well it must be 20 in here," I griped, still trying to clear my throat.

"It is *not* unusually cold, O’Neill," Teal’c insisted.

I started to answer with one of my usual brilliant retorts when a terrible realization hit me…I knew these symptoms…. Chills, fever, coughing, working at breathing…. Even I can spell pneumonia.

"Oiy," I muttered, sinking back on the seat, wrapping my arms around my chest.

"Colonel?" McMasters sounded worried.

"Just get us back to the SGC, huh?"

/----------\

By the time we arrived back at Cheyenne Mountain, I felt worse. Wretched, actually. Lungs all cottony, head all achy, shuddering with chills when I wasn’t sweating with fever, and coughing with every other breath. I told Teal’c I was fine, but even though he’s an alien, I didn’t fool him one little bit.

His steadying hand on my arm was nice, though, and helped a lot when, in the elevator about halfway down to the SGC, my knees got suddenly wobbly.

I leaned back, letting the wall and Teal’c’s strong arm prop me up, closing my eyes, sweat soaking through my shirt.

/----------\

When the elevator stopped, I did not object when Teal’c steered me toward the infirmary.

/----------\

I hadn’t fooled Teal’c, and I didn’t fool Doc, either, bless her heart.

I hadn’t gotten more than one step into the infirmary when she came running. Of course, the coughing fit I had at the doorway, deep hacking, wracking coughs that didn’t help get any air into my lungs, might have had something to do with the look on her face as she hurried toward me.

"Colonel!" she pointed across the room at a bed and for once, I didn’t protest. I was just glad to sit down before I fell down, which would have been both painful and embarrassing.

Someone slapped an oxygen mask on my face, and instantly, I felt better, not right, but better.

Doc pushed up my shirt and stuck her stethoscope against my chest. It felt cold, and I shivered some more.

"Deep breath," she ordered.

I tried, and couldn’t, the effort evaporating into a coughing spell so deep and ragged I was seeing spots before my eyes.

And then I looked up at Doc’s worried face and just as suddenly, I knew I was in trouble, big, deep trouble.

Oiy.

"I need a CBC and blood culture, stat," Doc ordered, turning to one of her nurses. "Get the portable chest x-ray unit in here now!"

Somebody was cutting at my clothes with a scissors, and I tried to sit up, to tell them they didn’t have to do that, damn it, but as soon as I tried to take a deep breath to talk it felt like my airway just closed right on up. Despite the oxygen mask I’d been given, I began to cough and wheeze again. For a moment, I thought I was going to pass out but I managed to push back the gray curtain that was sweeping toward me.

"Colonel, keep still!" Fraiser ordered.

I sank back on the bed. When Doc uses *that* tone, I know I’ve either done something really really stupid or really really annoying, and probably both. At which point, it pays to listen to the lady with the big honkin’ needles.

Although, technically, she didn’t have the needle at the moment, one of the nurses did. She was sticking it into my arm, drawing out blood, filling one of those little tubes and then another one and another one until I was wondering if medicine had returned to the dark ages when they used to try to cure people by drawing out half their blood, or three-quarters or maybe even all of it.

Sheesh, if I wasn’t sick already, how was I supposed to get by without half the blood in my body?

Okay, so maybe that was an exaggeration, but that’s what it looked like.

And then I quit worrying about needle pokes and vampire nurses because suddenly the room was getting hot, like I was back on Netu, which had been one of the really fun destinations on my personal tour of the armpit planets of the galaxy. The nurse with the scissors had me nearly naked and I was still feeling like I was boiling from the inside out.

I realized Doc was trying to talk to me.

It sounded like she was talking from a long ways away, and I shook my head and tried to listen closer and could finally make out her question.

"Colonel, what happened?"

Well, crap, I’d been on a crashed alien spaceship, how the hell was I supposed to know what was wrong with me? She was the doctor.

"Colonel O’Neill!" Her hand was on my chin, turning my face to make me look at her. "Colonel, I need to know what happened. Were you injured?"

I shook my head no.

"Did you inhale any fumes?"

I shook my head, then realized, while I hadn’t inhaled fumes, I *had* inhaled seawater. "Water," I managed to mumble through the oxygen mask before another coughing spell started.

"Sorry, Sir, I can’t give you anything now…"

She stopped when I shook my head. "No," I stopped, coughed, dragged up enough breath to say more. "Nearly drowned. Swallowed… water."

"Salt water, Sir?" she asked, looking alarmed.

I nodded, it was so much easier than talking.

"How much?"

Well, crap, I hadn’t exactly been measuring. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Did you inhale it into your lungs?"

How the heck would I know? I shrugged again. "Maybe," I croaked.

Another nurse bustled in, slapping an x-ray on the big light panel and I saw Doc’s face go pale. "His lungs are filling…" she turned back to me. "Colonel, you have pneumonia, a very fast acting, virulent pneumonia. I’m going to give you something that should make you more comfortable, and we’ll get treatment started right away." She turned to the nurse. "Get him on IV fluids, let’s start at one hundred twenty cc’s per hour, monitor blood gases and we’ll start him on antibiotics, the Rocephin." She turned back to me. "Colonel…"

"Still here," for the moment, anyway, because I really wasn’t feeling all that well, what with things pretty much spinning around and my head pounding and that big wall of black hovering right on the edge of my vision.

"Colonel, you have some fluid in your lungs, that’s why you’re having trouble breathing. We’re going to have to monitor you carefully, but we’ve caught this early," she was trying to smile, but it wasn’t making it from her mouth to her eyes, and that worried me. A lot. "I’m going to give you some morphine…"

"No." I hate that stuff. Sure, it makes the pain go away, but it also turns your brain into non-functional mush. It also gives me weird, creepy nightmares.

"Just a low dose, Sir, but it will make you a lot more comfortable."

"Low," I rasped. "Promise?"

"Yes, I promise. The most minimal doses I can give to help you, okay?" She started to turn away, but I reached up and grabbed at her arm, just snagging her sleeve.

"Doc…"

"Colonel? What do you need?"

"Carter… in water," that’s all the words I got out before the coughing started again. Damn.

Fraiser understood, though. "Major Carter was in the water, too?"

Unable to speak past the squeezing in my throat, I simply nodded.

She patted my arm. "We’ll check her over, Sir. Promise."

/----------\

Doc left then.

I slumped on the bed, feeling rotten, maybe even right on down to wretched.

The nurse came back in, hanging a couple of those clear plastic bags on the coatrack doohickey beside the bed, hooking them up so more stuff dripped into the line that ran into the needle taped into the back of my hand. She clipped one of those annoying monitor thingies to the first finger on my left hand. Finally, she adjusted the bed, semi-upright, which did seem to help me breathe easier.

Still feeling too hot, I pushed back the covers.

Nurse Lee pulled them back up, smiling at me. "Keep covered, Sir."

"Too hot." I managed to tell her before starting to cough.

"I know that you feel too warm, Colonel, but you need to keep the covers up."

"Might…scare… nurses?" I tried to joke.

She grinned down at me. "Yes, Sir, can’t have you doing that."

While I kept still and worked hard at breathing, Doc bustled through, then came back in a few minutes. "How are you feeling, Colonel?"

"Peachy."

She nodded. "The good news, Sir, is that Sam seems fine. She doesn’t have any pneumonia symptoms."

"Thasss good."

"Yes, it is," she smiled. "But it does create a bit of a mystery. She told me what happened, how you both nearly drowned. She swallowed some of the seawater, too, but maybe she was just luckier than you."

Luckier than me? Everybody’s luckier than me.

"I did find something odd in her blood, though, a bit of chemical residue. When we looked at your blood samples, we found higher levels of the same substance. We’re studying it, Sir, though at this point, I don’t know if it’s at all related to your pneumonia." She looked over my head at some of the machines and gizmos that surrounded the bed, reaching a hand up to turn something, then turned her glance back to me. "Colonel, I want you to relax and rest."

I think the drug kicked in about then because I started to feel sort of loopy and disconnected and then, somehow, I fell asleep.

Exhaustion, and heavy duty drugs, will do that to you.

/----------\

The drugs must have worked because, after a nice nap with only a few odd dreams about being assigned escort duty to the new first lady, Marge Simpson, I woke up feeling better, not right, nor well, but better.

Better being relative, of course, to how rotten I'd felt a few hours before. I still felt feverish but I wasn't hacking like a pup with kennel cough or feeling like there was a whole bale of cotton stuffed in my lungs.

Doc was beaming, however, and even forgot to chastise me when I asked her if I could go home.

"Not yet," she said, "but you're making progress," and I felt even better.

The next 24 hours passed slowly.

I slept a lot. That's pretty much all I remember, sleeping, which meant I was sick or drugged, though probably both, because, unless I'm one or the other, I can't ever stay in bed long. I know a quite a bit of time passed because a lot of people came and went.

Hammond visited, telling me he was glad we'd made it back, and thanking me for securing the gliders. They weren't as good as a real genuine honest to goodness mothership, not by a longshot, but they were something. I think I nodded and breathed noisily and fell asleep.

Teal'c was there a bunch of different times, quiet as always, his presence calm and reassuring. Just having him around makes me feel better. Safer. Sleep sounder. If they gave an Olympic medal for sleeping, I'd have won the gold, with his help.

Carter came by, too, and talked a lot, which she always does, about things I didn’t understand in the slightest. At least, being sick, I didn't have to apologize for falling asleep in the middle of her babbling.

Even Jonas stopped in. The light reflecting off his ever-dazzling smile made my headache spike, but other than that, his visit wasn't overly painful.

Someone brought me Jello, which wasn't much of an excuse for supper, but at least it was something. And probably better than the lemon chicken, come to think of it.

Night arrived. The infirmary got quiet, that unmistakable daytime bustle disappearing.

I dozed and came suddenly awake, wondering if the base’s life support systems were on the fritz because the room was definitely too cold. I pulled my blankets all the way up to my neck, and shivered. Maybe all that stuff Doc had been doing to lower my temperature had just lowered it too far.

Then again, I realized slowly past the raging headache that throbbed inside my skull, maybe I was still sick.

Oiy.

In a while, though the headache continued unabated, the chills passed, and I began to feel warm once more. Too warm. Sweating. Clammy.

Oh crap.

Right about then, I had another visitor. So, okay, I should have realized that seeing Daniel was a bad sign, because he had been gone for months now, but being both drugged and feverish, I admit I wasn’t thinking too straight at the time. Daniel did look amazingly real, too, not glowy or squid-ish or anything weird. He was just standing there beside my bed and shaking his head at me. "Still abusing yourself Jack? You know, you really need to take better care of yourself or you'll end up here with me."

"Not going your way, Daniel," I whispered.

"You never know, Jack."

"I know," I insisted.

"Who are you talking to, Colonel?" Nurse Lee was standing by the bed, little frown lines on her forehead.

"Why, Daniel," I pointed to the chair beside my bed.

She turned and looked and got this weird look on her face and turned back to me. "Daniel Jackson?"

"Yeah." I smiled.

Putting her hand on my forehead, which, come to think of it, did feel sort of sweaty and hot, her smile disappeared into a frown. "I'll be right back, Colonel," she promised, patting my arm.

I got a sudden sinking feeling.

When I looked over at the chair, Daniel was gone, too, without even a word of farewell, either, damn him.

Doc was with the nurse when she returned, her bright smile from earlier in the day having disappeared. Tired, she must be tired, I decided.

"Colonel, how do you feel?"

"Hot. Tired," I answered without thinking, suddenly wondering how I could possibly feel so wrung out when all I'd been doing all day was sleeping.

"Your temperature is back up a little."

Oh. That would account for the fact that I felt sort of clammy all over.

"We're going to change your meds a bit, get rid of this nasty bug, okay?"

"Yup. Sure. Okay. Anything you say Doc."

/----------\

The night passed slowly.

I was too restless to sleep. Guess I'd slept too much during the day. Then, of course, there were the constant intrusions… nurses checking this and tweeking that and asking me dumb questions like, 'How do you feel?'

Doc of course was in and out constantly. She kept reassuring me that I was going to be fine, and that I would begin to feel better any minute because the medications should be taking effect soon.

"When, Doc?"

"Soon, Colonel."

We had that conversation once, and then again, and then again, and by about the fourth time, I could tell Doc was having a hard time believing it herself. Which would have worried me a lot, if I hadn't been so wiped out by the hard work of breathing.

/----------\

I woke feeling like I was drowning, again. I was struggling to get enough air, and coughing. I could actually hear the breath wheezing in and out of my lungs. My chest hurt, abominably, like a squad of Jaffa were standing on it, jumping up and down while carrying tons of naquadah in their back pockets. Each cough seemed to be starting down in my toes and building intensity all the way up to my chest. Instinctively, I tried to sit up, my hands reaching for the oxygen mask that seemed to be choking me, not helping me.

Nurse Lee was right there, pulling my hands away from my face, calming me. "Easy, Colonel," her steady voice ordered. "Breathe."

Breathe.

Easy for her to say.

I suddenly remembered telling Sara to breathe, on that amazing day when Charlie was born.

Breathe, Jack.

I saw the nurse reach again for the head of the bed, adjusting something, and then she was holding my wrist and taking my pulse and counting respirations.

I knew I wasn’t breathing right. I was taking shallow, almost panting breaths, and feeling headachy and sort of, well, off. Way off.

"Colonel, I’ll be right back. You’ll be okay for a minute?"

I nodded, wiping at the sweat that was running down my face. I looked over at the clock and realized I’d slept maybe four hours.

I felt like I’d been run down by a squad of Jaffa, two squads maybe.

The nurse was back in little more than seconds, Fraiser with her.

Doc had me sit up and sort of lean forward, which started me coughing of course. She gave me a minute to get back in control, then set her stethoscope against my back, moving it around. Done, she looped it around her neck and looked at me appraisingly. "Does your chest feel tight?"

I nodded, loathe to speak because every time I did, I started that awful raging cough.

"We need to take another chest x-ray, then, Colonel."

I nodded again.

When the x-ray came back, Doc’s frown deepened. Finally, she turned back to me, looking positively grim. "Sir, the x-ray shows fluid accumulating around your lungs, making it more difficult for you to breathe. We’re going to need to put in a chest tube to drain the fluid."

Oh crap.

I’d had one of those inflicted on me before, and they were about as much fun as going to the dentist and letting them drill big honkin’ holes in your teeth without a drop of anesthetic.

Doc was talking again, but I wasn’t listening, and she must have realized because she reached down and put her hand on my chin, turning my head towards hers. "Colonel, I’m not going to sedate you because I don’t want to risk further affecting your breathing. I’ll numb the area where I make the incision, using a local anesthetic."

I nodded agreement, just hoping what she was going to do was gonna help because those Jaffa were still stomping all over my chest pretty steadily and I was getting right damn tired of it.

The nurse was setting out stuff, bustling around while Doc pulled the covers down off my chest. The nurse swabbed something chilly across my chest just below my collarbone, and then draped some cloth around the spot.

Doc came back, holding a needle this time.

Oiy.

"Sir, I’m going to anesthetize the site. You’ll feel a sting from the needle, that’s all."

I flinched when she stuck me, then relaxed, as much as I could, as nothing else happened. In a couple of minutes, she was tapping my chest. "Ready, Colonel?" she asked.

I nodded.

I think Doc finds it hard to know I’m watching her. It’s not that I don’t trust her, but I think most people look away when someone starts cutting on them. Me, I have this morbid need to watch. I think concentrating on what’s happening helps me cope. Weird, I know, but that’s me.

Her hand moved toward my chest again, this time holding a scalpel. Her eyes were tight with concentration.

I could feel the metal contact with my skin, but it didn’t hurt, just pressure and more pressure and a bit of blood was trickling down my skin under my armpit, and crap crap crap I needed to cough again. Desperately I tried to stop it but the urge was overwhelming and Doc was muttering and telling me to hold still and I was trying, and I could feel something hard and metal sliding in under my skin. "Almost there, sir, almost there," Doc’s voice was tight with concentration and the pressure on my skin was suddenly gone. The tube was sticking out of my left pec like an arrow in a cavalryman.

"I need to put in a suture to hold that in place, Colonel," Doc told me. She never forgets my need to know what’s going on. It’s part of my control thing… tell me what you’re doing to me, don’t leave me wondering whether there’s something gone wrong, make me part of what’s happening.

I could see the needle moving, going into my flesh, but didn’t feel a thing as she quickly tied a neat little knot, and smiled down at me. "There you are, Sir, all done. Everything okay?"

"Fine," I mumbled through the oxygen mask.

And though for sure it wasn’t fine, it wasn’t long until it began to help. I no longer felt like a whole squad of Jaffa were playing hopscotch on my chest, just one. Maybe two.

It didn’t last, of course. It didn't seem like very long, and I could tell things were spiraling downward, even without Doc’s worried frown.

Can I just tell you, pneumonia is no fun?

Breathing is such an ordinary thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you aren’t even aware that you’re doing it. Now, the desperate need to keep doing it consumed all my concentration.

Even I could hear my body straining, my lungs gurgling with every breath, the blood rushing in my veins as my heart pumped.

It went on and on forever, or so it seemed, endless repetitious cycles.

Hot.

Cold.

Damp.

Shivering.

Sweating buckets until I, and my clothes and the sheets were soaked and the nurses would come bringing clean and dry clothes and bedding and more needles full of stuff that didn’t help at all.

Hot.

Cold.

Damp.

Shivering.

Sweating

Shaking with cold until the nurses, bless them, covered me with stacks of heated blankets, and finally, exhausted, the shivering would stop.

Only to wake to the next cycle, so hot I threw off all the covers and tore at my clothes and the nurses were back with one of those cooling blankets things.

Hot.

Cold.

Damp.

Shivering.

Sweating.

Shaking.

I was getting tired, not the tired that lets you sleep, but that bone-deep weariness that makes you want to throw in the towel and quit the fight.

I think all that kept me going was that picking up that proverbial towel, much less throwing it, would have used more strength than I had left.

"Doc?" I mumbled.

She bent down very close to me. "Yes, Colonel?"

"Felt better."

"I’m sure you have, Sir," her hand was stroking the wet hair back from my sweaty forehead. "We’re working at this. You just have to hold on."

"Holding," I promised. "Thought… drugs… working."

"They were, Sir. But there was a contaminant in the water you swallowed, something with traces of an alien substance, we’re not sure what. Sam thinks it was something from the ship’s engineering systems. It irritated your lungs, that’s why you have pneumonia."

"Fix… it?"

"There is no fix, Colonel, as far as I can tell."

Oh crap. No fix. Oh crap. I was gonna be like this forever? No way.

"Sir, can you hear me?" she reached out and touched my chin, and I realized I’d drifted away in the middle of her explanation. "Colonel, listen to me. Sam analyzed the contaminant, she thinks it’s a form of naquadah. It’s *not* poisonous, and from all the computer simulations she’s run, we think there’s no reason to believe your lungs can’t recover from this. You just have to fight off the pneumonia, give your lungs time to heal. And, Colonel," her hand was back on my chin, "if anyone can do it, you can? Do you hear me, Sir?"

I nodded.

"You have to hold on, while the supportive therapy we’re giving you gets you over the hump, and the pneumonia runs its course. Can you do that, Colonel?"

I nodded, because I knew that was the answer she wanted, and besides, nodding my head yes took much less energy than shaking my head no.

"You won’t quit on me, will you Sir?"

"No," I mumbled.

"Good. I won’t lie to you, Colonel, it won’t be easy."

Oiy. It’s never easy for me.

/----------\

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Move chest.

Work lungs.

Gasp in oxygen.

Ignore the headache, and the aching chest muscles and the exhaustion.

Fight for every breath.

People came and went again. No one did much talking, but it was nice knowing they were there.

Comforting, actually.

Encouraging, even.

Even though I was floating in that weird here-not here limbo that’s somewhere between awake and unconscious, I appreciated them, and the connection they brought, keeping the connection intact, soul to body, grounding me in the world of the here and now when I felt like drifting away into the nothingness that surrounded me.

Keeping the nightmares at bay.

Mostly.

Sometimes, I still dreamed I was drowning, but not so often anymore.

/----------\

At some point, I haven’t a clue how long later, but it felt like a long time, I realized I felt heavy, weighed down, real, like my body had substance again.

That’s when I knew I was gonna live.

/----------\ FINISH /----------\