Doubletake, part two

By BadgerGater

Season: 7

Episode: After Fragile Balance

Spoilers: Eps dealing with the Asgaard

Sequel: Refers to my previous fic Faith and Brotherhood, but does stand alone

Category: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Drama

Pairing: None

Summary: Part Two: Jack sets out for revenge.....

Rating: PG

Warnings: Kleenex needed.

Disclaimer: Don't own Jack, Thor, Carter, Daniel, Teal'c, the General, but I did invent Joe, so yup, he’s mine.

Author's Note: A guest appearance by my original character Father Joe

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

I barely noticed when the door opened, well, appeared, actually, silently.

Admittedly, my mind was elsewhere, remembering a long ago time, when Joe and I were kids, up at the cabin, staying with Grandma and Grandpa. It must have been Christmas vacation, because there was snow and we were sledding. The air was crisp and clear, and there wasn't much of a hill, so we couldn't really get the sled moving, and then something hit me... whap!... in the back of the head. I turned around and Joe was just standing there, looking all innocent. And then he burst out laughing. Serious, studious, saintly Joe, had committed a sneak attack.

I started toward him, floundering in the deep drifts, determined to get him.

But he was laughing.

How could anyone stay mad at Joe when he was laughing?

...and right in the midst of that memory, the freakin' Asgaard came back.

At the sight of the little gray creature, my anger surged, soared, built into a roaring, raging murderous fire.

But I stayed calm.

Stayed still.

Didn't look, just listened.

Waited.

Lying on the floor, Joe's cold dead body still clutched in my arms, I bided my time.

Ignored the Asgaard.

Good thing he couldn't measure my blood pressure, or my heart rate, or my intent, because none of them were good.

"O'Neill, you are to come with me."

I kept my eyes focused on the blank spot on the wall, where I'd been staring for the last unending grief-filled hours.

"O'Neill?" There was a question in the voice now. "O'Neill!"

Those little guys are quiet, but I've got good ears. It was quiet on the ship, and his bare feet made tiny little slapping noises when they hit the floor.

He was coming closer.

Closer.

Soon he'd be close enough.

I could sense his approach, hear his breathing.

A moment more, a few steps more.

And then he stopped.

I really wanted to look at him, to know what he was doing, but I forced myself to maintain the blank stare.

"O'Neill?" he asked, once more.

And then I heard a little click and he was speaking, but not to me. "I require assistance in the guest quarters."

I almost laughed at that. Guest quarters. Guess the Asgaard have a weird sense of humor after all, calling this empty space 'guest quarters.'

Of course, the fact that Loki, I assumed that he'd been the one, had called for Freyr was not good news. Freyr carried that nasty little red stone. I'd seen, and felt myself, what that damn device could do. I'd have to be quicker, smarter, deadlier.

The silence stretched for several minutes. Loki, unfortunately for me, fortunately for him, didn't come any closer.

My rage built.

Damn freakin' aliens.

Kidnapping people.

Messing with people.

Messing with my family.

Killing my brother.

The Asgaard had such scrawny little necks.

Fragile.

Breakable.

I wondered how it would feel, cracking beneath my fingers.

I'd killed before, but never with such anticipation.

I fought back the urge to smile.

Uttered a silent apology to Joe, for what I was about to do.

Maybe he could forgive, but not me. Not ever.

Loki was shuffling his feet, and then I heard more subtle noises, followed shortly by a second voice, sounding irritated. "What is the problem?"

"O'Neill is unresponsive."

I needed them to move closer.

Though I tensed my muscles, ready to spring, I made myself wait, pushing aside the worries that after so many immobile hours, I'd be unable to move.

Because I would. Anger, and adrenaline, allow the human body to do amazing things.

"O'Neill." That was Freyr's voice.

I stared at the wall, mind churning.

"O'Neill!" Freyr, again, sounding angry.

Not as angry as I, of course.

"O'Neill!"

I ignored him, as I ignored my leaden heart.

Let myself feel only the anger and the hatred.

Thought only of revenge and retribution.

Let the fire build into a raging inferno.

------------------------------------------

"O'Neill!

He stepped forward, into my peripheral vision.

Into my reach.

I moved, as fast as I've ever moved, sliding out from underneath Joe's body, spinning to my feet, hands reaching, fingers clawing at his hand that held the red stone.

The killing stone.

I grasped for it, felt the long fingers give and snap beneath my crushing grip, tore the device from his hand even as my other hand found his throat, my long fingers wrapping easily around his thin neck.

"No!" screamed Loki behind me. "Do not harm him!"

I didn't look at him, dismissed him as harmless, because I had the stone, and I held the fate of Joe's killer in my hand. "Not so tough without this, are you?"

My fingers began to tighten. Squeezing, I could feel the shifting cartilage, or whatever the Asgaard have that hold up their heavy heads. Freyr’s eyes bulged, his gray face turning purplish.

One more twist of my fingers and the sonuvabitch would be dead.

Dead like Joe.

And then I hesitated.

Joe's voice rang in my ears, asking me to forgive.

I ignored it.

"Spare him and I'll return you to Earth!" shouted the frantic voice behind me, so high-pitched in fear it sounded more like Heimdal than Loki.

Somewhere, from deep inside my brain, the voice of reason shouted at me. Reminded me that I was on an alien ship I didn't know how far from Earth, and that I needed these little bastards to get home.

To take Joe's body home.

To be buried in holy ground.

Not that it mattered to me, but it would to him.

I stopped, my fingers relaxing just slightly, and I felt Freyr take a shuddering breath and saw a little of the purple disappear from his face. He blinked, coughing, his mouth working.

I felt the adrenaline leaving my body, no longer masking the pain flaring in my back, and I staggered as my legs wobbled weakly but I locked my knees and forced myself to stay upright.

"Over there, beside the wall," I ordered Loki, and watched while he obeyed. Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I tucked the red stone inside my shirt. Using my free hand, I reached down and unbuckled my belt, binding Freyr’s hands behind his back with it.

One hand still holding Freyr by the throat, I pulled the stone back out and waved it at Loki. "Let's go to the bridge."

"Bridge?"

"Bridge, control room, pilot's compartment. Wherever the hell you work the ship from," I ordered. "And don't try anything or I'll snap his neck." I squeezed the scrawny gray flesh beneath my left hand. Freyr squeaked.

Loki blinked and nodded, and walked out in front of me.

I followed him through the ship, working hard not to let the pain show in my steps, keeping a firm grip on Freyr's neck, every now and then giving it an extra little squeeze to remind the little bastard that I was one Tau'ri he shouldn't mess with.

It was a long walk to the bridge through the tangle of corridors.

At last, Loki stopped, and turned back to look at me. “O’Neill…”

“Shut up and open the door,” I waved the stone at him threateningly.

He pressed a small indentation in the wall and the doorway whooshed open to reveal the familiar scene of an Asgaard ship control room. I wracked my brain to remember what little I’d learned on Thor’s Replicator-infested ship, but I really wasn’t very good at this Asgaard technology stuff.

They really ought to put labels on those stones.

Loki had stopped again, staring up at me, waiting for me to give him further orders.

I looked out the window, or viewscreen, or whatever it was that showed the outside of the ship. There was nothing outside but the all-too familiar emptiness of space. “Where’s Earth?” I demanded.

Loki pointed out the window. “We have left your world far behind.”

“Take us back.” I ordered.

Loki hesitated.

My fingers still wrapped around Freyr’s neck, I picked the little guy up and shook him like the proverbial rag doll.

He made some choking noises.

“Stop! You are injuring him.” Loki pleaded.

I bent down toward the alien. “Do you really think I care?” and shook Freyr once more, just for the sheer pleasure of it.

“Please.”

“Then do what I told you to do.”

“That might not be wise.”

“Not wise?” my voice rose in agitation. “Not doing what I tell you to do is ‘not wise.’”

“O’Neill, we are in a dangerous part of space…”

“That’s not my fault.”

“No, it is not. But it would be better to maneuver elsewhere…”

“You’re stalling. Maneuver here.” I glared at the alien.

Loki stared at me for a long moment before tilting his head and moving toward the control panel. He picked up one of the teardrop shaped stones, and moved it, twisted another at a 90 degree angle. I couldn’t feel the ship’s movements change, but through the window I saw the stars wheel and shift as we turned. “How long will it take us to get back to Earth?”

“Approximately one of your days.”

“A day?” How the hell far had we traveled? Asgaard ships are incredibly fast.

Just then, something on the control panel started blinking.

“What’s that?”

“I must go to the lab immediately, I am needed there to complete...”

“Ah, no, not so fast.”

Loki stopped. “It is important.”

“What, the ship’s going to blow up?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not important.”

“I believe you will consider it to be very important,” he stated and moved one of the stones.

Another door opened, into a room that was also familiar to me. I’d spent a week in a place just like it not so very long ago.

Loki’s lab.

And suspended in mid-air was a human form.

“What the hell? Who else did you kidnap?” I demanded of the Asgaard rebel scientist.

“No one else. You will see.”

The little guy stepped forward and I followed, still dragging Freyr. As I got closer I could see that the body was dressed in pajama bottoms and t-shirt, feet bare.

It looked an awful lot like me.

Almost exactly, in fact.

Except... my heart nearly stopped.

Except I didn’t own a pair of pajamas like that.

And I had more gray in my hair.

And more lines on my face.

And…

Oh God, it couldn’t be.

Had to be.

-------------------------------------------------

“Joe? Joe!” Shoving Freyr to the floor where I could keep an eye on him, I stepped to Joe’s side, reaching out a hand to shake his shoulder and wake him.

He didn’t respond.

“Joe?” Nothing happened. I turned back to the Asgaard. “What the hell did you do to him?”

“He is comatose, as are all the subjects of my experiments while they are on the ship. It is past time that I administered the drug to awaken him.”

“This is really Joe? Not a clone?”

“Indeed, this is the original. The clone was destroyed by Freyr. His body lies in your accommodations.”

Loki touched a set of controls and I saw Joe’s body shudder and take a deep breath. In a moment, the brown eyes fluttered and opened, looking around in confusion.

My knees went weak with relief, a black pall lifting from my heart.

It was Joe.

Oh, God, yes, it was Joe.

Joe was alive.

Joe was living and breathing and yeah, I’ve seen a whole bunch of things that most folks would consider miraculous, but this was amazing. Stupendous. Splendiforous. Wonderful.

Joe was alive.

And very, very, confused.

“Jack? How’d you…? Where?” he was looking up at me in bewilderment, then let his eyes drift until they latched onto Loki. His face went a shade whiter and he sat bolt upright, hands clutching his head.

I knew how he felt, in need of an aspirin and the nearest bathroom, not to mention being desperate for a ton and a half of explanations.

I could have used a couple of those aspirin myself, right about then.

“I’ll explain later,” I offered.

“You better explain now…”

“We’re on an alien ship. You were abducted…”

“Abducted by aliens?” Joe was wearing that stunned expression he, er, the clone, had worn back in my office what seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Yes, aliens. I’ll give you the full fifty cent tour when we get back to Cheyenne Mountain…”

“Cheyenne Mountain? Where you work?”

“Yes, where I work. In a top secret Air Force program that travels to other planets, meets aliens, the whole ‘take me to your leader’ thing…”

“This is not a time for jokes…”

“I’m not joking,” I insisted. “I know it’s a bit much to take in all at once.”

“Yes.” He was trying to get up, swinging his legs toward the floor, steadying himself with his hands, obviously dizzy. “Why do I feel like this?”

“Drugs. But don’t worry. It wears off.” I answered knowingly.

I could see another question forming, and before he could utter the words, it happened.

One minute I was standing, upright and steady and damn near normal, and the next I was staggering, my feet sliding out from underneath me, crashing to the floor.

Okay, I was having a bad day and I’ll admit I wasn’t feeling quite up to snuff, but I wasn’t that damn dizzy, I thought as I used an arm to brace myself and push upward to get up on one knee.

And then I looked across the room and saw Loki sprawled on the floor, too, in the split-second before the floor tilted and all of us slid sideways. Still holding onto Joe, I crashed into Loki, and then we were sliding the other way into the far wall in a tangle of two sets of long O’Neill limbs and short slender Asgaard ones.

Damn.

Asgaard ships don’t usually do this.

“Warning. Shielding has been damaged,” said a mechanical voice from the ship as the vessel rocked once more, throwing us across the room to the other side.

Something, or someone, hit my back, and everything went gray and glittery for a moment as I gasped for air and tried to ignore the sudden searing pain.

“Do something,” I ordered Loki. “We’re sitting ducks here…”

He shrugged. “The ship is not mine, it is his. I do not have the proper codes to use the weapons.”

I turned to Freyr and he looked back at me. I swear the little scoundrel looked smug.

“You will need to unbind me if we are to survive this attack.”

I glared at him, but, having no other choice, removed the knotted belt.

He stood, rubbing his wrists, then walked in that odd stilted way of the Asgaard back into the control room.

I got up to follow, or tried to, the scorched tissues of my back refusing to answer my orders. Joe reached down a hand to help me up and, leaning only slightly on him, I staggered into the control room.

Smack in the center of the viewscreen was a Goa’uld mother ship, big and gold and menacing.

“What’s that?” Joe asked, his eyes wide and round and scared.

“The enemy,” I answered, hoping I didn’t look half as scared as he did.

“So these guys are friends?” he waved a hand at Freyr, who was frantically moving stones on the control panel, and Loki, who was standing nearby.

“Sort of.”

He raised one eyebrow questioningly. “Sort of?”

“Yeah. Long story…”

“I imagine so…”

The ship lurched again, sending me sprawling into Joe once more, my back screaming in protest as it was thumped unceremoniously into the base of some gizmo I didn’t have a clue what it was.

“Don’t touch that!” Freyr ordered.

As if I’d intended to, I thought, needing Joe’s help to get up again as the room spun dizzily and did slow, lazy loop de loops that I didn’t think were part of the ongoing fight.

As if the Gould shooting at us and us sitting dead in space like dead ducks could be called a fight.

Our viewscreen thingy lit up, and an unfamiliar face appeared. From the overwrought clothes and the snarly, growly voice I knew it was a snake, but this was a guy I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t recognize the squiggly line that decorated the forehead of the Jaffa I could see sitting behind the Gould, either.

I didn’t understand a word he said except for the ‘Kree.’

“Who’s that?” Joe whispered to me.

“An alien called a Gould. Bad guy.”

Joe’s eyes were huge and round. “That’s an alien? He’s looks like us.”

“Actually, that’s the host to the alien. He’s probably a human, though from a planet other than earth. The alien’s inside him.”

“And the alien is?”

“This sort of snake thingy…”

“How does it…”

“Don’t ask. Please.”

“But…”

“Space is no Garden of Eden.”

“The Garden of Eden had snakes, Jack,” Joe said very softly.

So yeah, maybe space is the Garden of Eden after all.

I didn’t have any more time to contemplate whether Biblical snakes might have had glowing eyes because the damn Gould was firing on us again. A bright beam of light lashed out of the mothership, and the decking I was standing on suddenly tilted.

Freyr was standing at the console, not doing anything.

“Why are they shooting at us? Don’t you have a treaty with them?” I asked.

“We are in a part of space that is forbidden to all non-Goa’uld ships, even the Asgaard. I informed you that it was not wise to pause here…” Loki answered.

“Well, let’s hit the remote and get this ship off pause and into fast forward. Does the Asgaard vocabulary include the words evasive maneuver? Fight back? Can’t we kick this thing into warp speed or fire the phasers or *something*?”

Freyr turned his great oval eyes to stare at me. “This ship does not have phaser technology…”

“Well, then if we can’t fight, let’s run. Do something. Don’t just sit here and let them pound us into space junk."

“The ship is damaged. I have little control.”

“Well, little control is better than *no* control.” I do have a talent for stating the obvious.

I felt the ship shudder once more, but this time, it wasn’t another hit, it was movement, lurching, unsteady. The gravity was still off kilter and we were listing distinctly to the left. I kept trying not to compare it to the Titanic, because even though I’d never seen the movie, I knew the plot. The ship sinks. So we were in space and we weren’t going to sink per se, but the end result was the same… ice cold water or the ice cold of space, either one equaled dead. Or worse, captured by the Gould. I’d been snaked twice, and I was so not going for the snake-in-the-head hat trick.

Even as our view out the screen shifted and changed, I knew we were going too slow to escape.

“They are pursuing,” Freyr said quietly.

I saw another light beam flash past the viewscreen.

“I believe the unsteady flight path caused by our damaged engines is making us difficult to hit.” Freyr stated.

“It’s a concept called evasive maneuvers,” I muttered.

“Regardless, we are moving far too slowly. The Goa’uld will soon adjust their weapons…”

The little guy didn’t finish the sentence because the snakes had found the range.

The first shot must have hit something important because the ship stopped. It reminded me of the first time we’d been on a Gould mother ship. When those suckers stopped, they stopped.

And just like that first time, I was thrown off my feet, into the wall, hitting with a thud that momentarily stunned me.

The compartment was filling up with acrid, nasty tasting smoke.

Beside me, Joe was scrambling toward his feet.

I reached out, grabbing his arm, pulling him back down. “Stay down! The smoke’s less dense near the floor.” I pulled my shirt up to cover the lower half of my face to filter out some of the smoke, watching to make sure Joe did the same, then turned to look for our alien companions. I couldn’t see Loki, but Freyr was staggering toward the doorway.

“Follow him!” I told Joe, and started to crawl along the slanted floor, ignoring the way the movement pulled painfully on my back. Blinking rapidly, trying to keep the smoke out of my eyes, I trailed along in the wake of the Asgaard.

Fortunately, he didn’t go far, just one door further down the hallway. My first impression was that it was a secondary control room of some sort, because there was another one of those fancy consoles with the little stones stuck to it like magnets on a refrigerator. As Freyr’s gray, knobby fingers flew over the console, moving the stones in rapid succession, images on a small screen appeared and disappeared in rapid succession. Suddenly, his three-fingered hands stopped moving. On the little screen was the round ball shape of a planet. His expression changed, the huge eyes narrowing as little symbols flitted across the bottom of the screen.

I watched him pick up another stone and had a pretty good idea what he was going to do.

I knew it was a gamble. I knew I could be killing Joe, and me, all over again. But I also knew it was our only chance. I could already feel the adrenaline singing through my veins. One chance. One shot. Miss it, and we were toast.

Freyr lifted his hand. Grabbing Joe’s arm, dragging him after me, I launched myself up off the floor and at the little alien just as the bright light appeared.

Once again, we were going… somewhere.

----------------------------

We landed in a tangle, me, Joe and Freyr who was shrieking in a very un-Asgaard like rage.

Fortunately, he didn’t have that nasty red stone, or there might have been two more dead O'Neills.

That might have been the best news, because the next thing I realized, as I rolled off of him, was that it was hard to breathe. Very hard. It seemed like my lungs weren’t getting enough air. Had I been hurt in that awkward landing?

And then I looked over and saw Joe was looking a little gray around the gills, too, his chest heaving in an all-too familiar way.

Oh shit.

What had I done?

Had we leaped out of the fire and into a bigger fire?

Crap.

Freyr had picked this place as an escape from the doomed ship, but just because the little alien guy figured he could survive here didn’t mean humans could. Sure, the Asgaard could live in our atmosphere, but that didn’t say they weren’t capable of living places we couldn’t, breathing stuff that would kill us.

My chest was hurting already from how hard it was working. Pushing myself up onto my knees, hoping being upright might help my lungs work, I locked my knees and weaved to my feet, looking around. We were in an open meadow I guess you’d call it. An odd yellowish grass grew all around us, something that from this distance looked like trees covered the nearby hills. The sky was a little too teal colored to be Earth-normal, the weak sun high overhead shedding an oddly colored light, sort of bluish-greenish, in a sky that held a few puffy, ordinary looking clouds. I shivered in the cool air. There was no sign of habitation, human or otherwise.

“Where’s Loki?” I managed to gasp out. Talking was hard work, just those few words took too much air that I needed for other tasks, like staying awake and alive.

Freyr was glaring at me. He didn’t look distressed, but looked rather smug, actually. “I assume he is still on the ship.”

“You left…” I had to pause to get more air… “him behind?” Little rat bastard that he was, it was still a rotten thing to do.

“I could not wait.”

“Nor… for us, either,” Joe’s voice sounded raspy and distressed.

“The ship was severely damaged. It would only have lasted moments more.”

“So, where?” I waved a hand in question, which was easier than saying words.

“I do not know the name of this planet, if it has one.” He looked at us appraisingly. “Nor do I know if it is capable of sustaining *human* life.”

“Or care.” I added.

He nodded and said nothing, that little quirky thing that seemed to be a smile crossing his face.

Well, it would have to do. Joe and I, we had no choice, only the hope that Thor and the SGC would come looking.

They’d better come soon, I thought, as I felt my head begin to throb. It was, unfortunately, a familiar sensation, one I’d come to know all too well a few years ago.

On that booby-trapped death glider.

The one that was running out of air and came within minutes of killing Teal'c and me.

Crap.

----------------------------

Your brain does funny things when it’s short on oxygen. Weird dreams. Warped memories.

Hallucinations.

I did remember that this was the third time I’d been stranded on an alien planet… first, there was Edora. I spent three not all together bad months there. Then I was on that moon, with Harry the slimeball. Ew. Three godforsaken, endless weeks. Who’d have ever thought I’d get tired of fishing? And now here… Was I seeing a pattern here? Three months, three weeks... this time, three days, right? Could Joe and I survive three days?

We had nothing as far as resources, no weapons, no food, no water, not even jackets. I had a long sleeve shirt, though it had a rather large hole in the back, and chinos, socks and shoes. Joe was only wearing pajamas, for cryin’ out loud. It wasn’t particularly warm, and what would happen when the sun set? Even if I could get a fire going, there was still the issue of water. You can go a long time without food, I was living proof of that, more than once, including Iraq.

But water… the human body couldn’t last long without water.

Or once the cold set in.

Not to mention the teeny tiny little oxygen problem.

Which was neither teeny nor tiny, nor, it seemed, a little problem, since it severely limited how much we could move around to find water or shelter.

Or to make a fire.

For a long moment, I rued the day I’d quit smoking and stopped carrying a lighter.

Sure, fire making is no big deal. It’s in the first basic survival skills class every airman gets, and a skill I’d put to good use more than once over the years. A little bark, a couple of sticks, a bit of string and a lot of elbow grease and voila… fire. Except, of course, I had no way to know if the bark would be flammable. Or if I could pull any off the tree with my bare hands. Or if we could even get as far as those distant trees.

Just sitting there on the ground breathing was hard work.

Talking and breathing? Harder

Walking and breathing? Didn’t think it was possible.

But it had to be done.

“We need…” I paused for air, pointing to the hills… “to get there…”

“What?” Joe asked. His face looked sort of bluish. I hoped it was from the odd colored sunlight.

There were little frown lines on his forehead, the same kind I was sure were mirrored on my own, the kind you get when you have a headache, a bad nail-in-the-head sort of headache, maybe even the ultimate hand in the forehead version. “How will…help find…us?”

“They'll scan… the planet. Here, there… won’t… make a… difference.” Not in finding us, but maybe in keeping us alive long enough to be worth finding.

"C'mon," I stood up, grabbing Joe's arm and hauling him to his feet.

"What about... him?" Joe nodded toward Freyr who had been steadily moving further and further away from us.

I shrugged. "He's not... our problem." I was afraid taking care of Joe and myself would be more than I could handle.

Bad decision, as it turned out, but then again, my brain *was* a little short on oxygen.

I started walking. It may be an old cliché, but it’s a valid one: a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Made the first step, and the second and the third. Stopped counting, kept concentrating, though, because if I didn’t, the ground would start to shimmy and I tended to stumble. Once in a while, I’d look back to make sure Joe was still coming. He was trying hard, stumbling along grimly, head down.

I don’t think we made it a hundred yards before I had to stop. I sagged, bending over, hands on knees, head hanging, trying to calm my ragged breathing, forcing back the gray curtain that was wavering on the fringes of my vision.

My brother had fallen behind. I may be a year older, and no longer some young pup, but the ticker’s in pretty damn good shape, if I have to say so myself. It’s not that I workout a lot, which I do when I’m stuck on base, but I’ve spent the last seven years walking miles and miles and miles, interspersed with the occasional flat out sprint to the gate, several days a week, in all kinds of weather, over all kinds of terrain. Real world exercise.

Joe didn’t have the same opportunities. He was a priest, and I don’t imagine it’s a career field filled with physical exertion. And he’s not quite as, um, busy as I am. He’s calmer. More easy-going. Less of the perpetual motion Energizer bunny sort of temperament.

When he finally pulled up alongside me, I let him rest. “Breather,” I said, and he looked at me gratefully.

--------------

It takes a long time to walk several miles, one hundred yards at a time.

After the first mile, I don’t think we were even making it a hundred yards between rest breaks. We weren’t halfway to the trees and already the bluish sun had began to slide down the sky in the direction I’d decided was west. We hadn’t found any water, either.

It wasn’t all bad, though. We were both still breathing.

We hadn’t discovered any large, hungry carnivores; come to think of it, we hadn’t seen anything larger than several small flying insect type things.

I was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other when I heard a thud behind me.

Joe was down, on his knees, shaking.

I staggered back to him, slumping to the ground beside my brother as he slid down to lie flat. His face looked gray and exhausted.

I knew how he felt… head aching, legs leaden, mouth desert dry, wanting to do nothing more than lie down and rest.

But we couldn’t.

I knew it, even if Joe didn’t. “Get up!” it was an order, even if a breathless one.

“Can’t,” he mumbled.

“Can,” I insisted.

He shook his head no.

“Have to.”

Joe closed his eyes and ignored me, like he’d done when we were kids.

Except we weren’t kids anymore and if he didn’t move he was gonna die. Maybe he, we, would anyway, but we’d die trying. I guess that’s my other motto, right up there with ‘no one gets left behind.’

“Need… rest.”

“Later.” I wasn’t about to die on some chunk of alien blue rock a couple of billion light years from home, I thought with a sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t I said that once, long ago, to Carter?

“We are… gonna… get… through… this,” I insisted.

He looked at me, and there was fear in his eyes.

He’d been through so much, I’d forgotten that this Joe, the real Joe, hadn’t even gotten the whole explanation of where we were, or why. He had to be scared half out of his wits.

“First… alien planet… sss always… an adjustment,” I tried to smile.

So did he.

Though what I really wanted to do was lie down and rest, too, I grabbed Joe’s arm and pulled him up. He groaned, but helped me, getting his legs underneath himself and somehow forcing himself to his feet.

Shoulder to shoulder then, we staggered onward.

Futilely, as it turned out.

We never made it to the trees.

Didn’t need to, as it turned out.

Have I ever mentioned that I love Plan B?

--------------------------------

I could see we weren’t going to make it into the hills before dark. The sun was sinking rapidly, the edge of the odd-bluish disc already touching the horizon and Joe and I had only traveled maybe halfway. My brother was all but out on his feet and I wasn’t feeling any better. It had been a long and sort of stressful day, after all, even for me, Colonel Jack O’Neill, interplanetary traveler and scourge of the Gould.

Though I felt decidedly un-scourge-like at the moment.

It’s amazing how quiet it is on other planets, the ones like this one at least, where there are no cities, no cars, almost no people or animals. Nothing but our footfalls and the quiet sounds of nature, like the soft sigh of the wind, or the gurgle of water over rock…

Water.

My throat constricted just at the thought. I stopped, Joe staggering to a halt beside me, looking baffled in a weary, done-in sort of way. I turned my head, trying to tune in to the sound, hard to hear over the constant pounding in my oxygen-deficient head. “That way,” I pointed off to the left.

Joe just nodded, trusting me, like he’d trusted me when I was five and he was four and we got lost at the zoo. I’d had the O’Neill bravado even then. I’d been scared, nearly as scared as he was, but I’d never let it show. I took his hand and stilled my quivering upper lip and told him it would be okay, and we waited by the lion cage until Mom found us. I was the big brother and it was my job to take care of him, then and now. “Joe, c’mon.”

We stumbled up a little incline, the additional work of it nearly too much for us, pausing every dozen or so steps to rest, then force ourselves on. Over the crest of the little hill, and then I could see it and smell it as well as hear it… water.

Most of the time, water is an incredibly ordinary thing. People walk to the kitchen and turn on the tap and take it for granted that it will be there.

Too many times in my life, I’d been in places without that assurance, where finding water was the difference between life and death.

Like here.

Even though we couldn't drink it.

Staggering down the hill, across the yellow grass, down to the water’s edge, sinking to his knees.

Joe reached out a hand toward the water.

I grabbed it, pulling him back.

“Don’t…” The too-small amount of oxygen reaching my brain was definitely slowing my thinking. Thirsty as we were, we had to use caution. The water could be even more deadly than the air.

Joe was staring at me.

“Might… make you…sick,” I explained. "Kill, even."

His face took on a stricken look, a sudden realization that this little bit of hope we’d found might not help us at all. “But…”

"We can... wait. Maybe rescued...before we need... to try." I knew he was thirsty, I was too, terribly. But I also knew that a human could go days without water, not comfortably, but it could be done, without doing any permanent damage. It would be hard, here where we could see and smell the stuff, but patience is something I've learned as a necessity. I'm by nature an impatient guy, but when my life is on the line, I can be as patient as Job.

My brother the Father was just staring at me. "Then why...here?"

"Fire."

He looked at me like I'd just lost my mind.

There weren't trees here, sure, but this stream obviously flowed down out of the forested hills. Maybe there would be some driftwood. Saying all that would take more air than I could spare however, so I pointed to the now dusk shadowed hills. "Stream... starts there... Maybe find wood here..."

Getting wobbily to my feet, I staggered downstream. There, ahead of me, a bend in the waterway's path, and sure enough, on the far bank, a pile of rubble including fair sized branches and tiny little sticks. Fortunately, they were up on the bank, thrown there during a flood, I assumed.

I gasped at the cold as I waded out into the icy water and across to the woody debris. Sorting through the wood, I picked out a two foot long, flexible branch and a handful of smaller sticks. Joe, who'd followed me, carried an armload of bigger stuff for the fire.

Picking a nearby spot along the stream, sheltered from the wind, I set about making a fire. I stripped bark off the larger branches Joe continued to carry over, adding it to the handfuls of dry grass I'd pulled.

You make a fire with friction, moving an upright stick against another piece of wood that acts as a base. Usually, you carve a little hole in the base, but I had nothing to carve with except my fingernails, or my teeth, neither of which were going to work for the job. I stopped then, stumped, feeling defeated, hampered by my slow moving brain cells. There was a solution, I knew there was, there always was.

Joe had sat down beside me, huddling against the stream's high bank, shivering.

My own hands were shaking.

Getting wet had made us both colder.

I folded my arms across my chest, sticking my hands in my armpits to try to warm my fingers, trying to think.

Somewhere in my head there had to be a still-functioning brain cell. Concentrate. Ignore the cold. Ignore the headache. Ignore the pain in the back. Assess the problem. Find a solution.

Joe was depending on me.

Think.

What resources did I have?

Pants, shirt, socks, shoes, belt...

Belt.

Belt buckle!

With near-numb fingers I unbuckled my belt and pulled it off. Using the tongue of the buckle, I gouged a small hole in the flat piece of wood I'd found for the base of my firemaker.

Panting, I sat back, pleased with what I'd done.

What next?

I needed to do something more...

Make a bow, to move the little stick in the hole.

I had a long, flexible stick for the bow but I needed string.

On any normal mission, I carried a length of nylon fishing line coiled up in the bottom of my pack. Not that I hardly ever actually got the opportunity to fish, hadn't ever fished, come to think of it, but it's basic standard emergency gear.

Except, of course, I didn't have my pack because I wasn't supposed to be out here, wherever here was.

Bootlaces. They worked.

Except, of course, I didn't have my boots because I wasn't supposed to be out here.

Crap.

Time for plan B.

No, wait. I'd already used Plan B.

Plan C then.

Or maybe plan D.

Think, Jack.

String, or something like it.

"Joe?" I raised my head.

He looked miserable.

Probably the way I looked.

"Got... a string?"

He shook his head no, or maybe he was just shuddering from the cold.

"Damn," I muttered. Making a fire without the string was damn near impossible... and then I saw that Joe was moving his arms, pulling something up around his head, reaching his arm out to hand it to me. In the near-darkness, I couldn't make out what it was, but I reached out and took it. Something cold, hard and metallic pressed into my palm.

His cross.

It might bring comfort to Joe, but it was not what I needed.

And then he let the rest of what he held drop into my hand.

Not string, but something damn near as good, a long bit of leather from which the cross hung suspended.

In the dim light, I saw a flash of white that must have been his smile.

I set to work, tying the leather strip to the flexible stick to form a small bow. Wrapping the string twice around the stick, I stuck the end of the stick in the little hole in the wood base, pressing down on the little stick, seesawing the bow back and forth, turning the stick.

Making fire is simple, but it's hard work.

Especially in the thin air.

In moments, I was gasping for oxygen, my arms feeling leaden, my fingers numb. I was getting warm though, exertion will do that.

I kept working, waiting to see the first tiny ember as heat built up.

There.

A tiny bit of red. I stopped moving the bow, bent low to blow on the ember, hoping to blow a spark into the dry grass.

It wasn't catching.

The ember went out.

Damn.

-----------------

Back to the bow and mindless action, which was good, since my mind wasn't functioning well.

Keep moving.

That I could do.

Until I ran out of air.

It seemed like hours.

I could feel sweat dripping down my forehead.

Another spark.

Once again, I bent down, blowing softly on the ember.

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

I could hear Joe's teeth chattering.

I stripped off my long sleeve shirt and handed it to Joe, ignoring his muttered "no," and, arms bare now, went back to work.

Nothing...

Nothing...

Nothing...

Oh please, come on... spark damn you...and then the grass caught. I bent down and blew out another soft breath, fanning the tiny flame, carefully feeding bits of bark and small sticks into it.

The heat felt heavenly.

We huddled side by side, our knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them, soaking up the fire's warmth. I could feel Joe's body shaking when his shoulder touched mine, but eventually the shudders died away just like the goose bumps on my own arms disappeared.

"This... is nice," Joe mumbled.

"Yup. Only... need… marshmallows... to roast," I added.

"Mean of you... to mention... food."

"Sorry." I do have a bad habit of blurting out what I'm thinking, though frankly, marshmallows wouldn't do the trick. I was thinking more along the lines of a hot cup of coffee or a classic thick, juicy steak sizzling on the fire. Hell, I'd even have settled for a cup of yogurt and I hate yogurt.

"What next?" Joe asked, finally.

"Waiting. They'll… find us." I suddenly realized Joe wouldn't know who they were. "Air Force... will come… looking. Or Thor."

"Thor?"

"Alien guy... Like Freyr... but a friendly."

Joe was quiet for a moment. "You've been... to lots of... other planets?" he asked in what I could tell was a disbelieving tone, despite the stress of talking at all in the thin air.

"Lots. It's... what I do," I told him.

"You... fly… space ships?" he asked. Joe's look was skeptical.

I shook my head. "Device... called the... Stargate… big, round. Aliens… left one... on Earth."

He nodded and seemed to be thinking.

"You still got... that… St. Christopher’s?" he asked at last.

I laughed. Joe and I do have a similar dry sense of humor. "Don't know... if it works... on other planets."

We were quiet then for a long time, listening to the crackling flames. I got up a couple of times and threw more wood on the fire. Eventually, a tiny moon rose and then a much bigger one.

The night got colder. My back ached, my head ached, my feet got too toasty and my back was cold, so I shifted around to warm my backside. That wasn't such a great idea, though, because the warmth made my back hurt again.

I'm sure I've spent more miserable nights in my life, but this one was gonna be right up there in the misery top ten.

Eventually, Joe fell into a restless sleep. I couldn't, wouldn't let myself, knowing I needed to keep awake and on guard.

Dawn arrived slowly, the sky slowly lightening off to the east, and then the odd-colored sun peeked above the horizon. Joe woke, so I gave him stern warnings about watching and that he should wake me if he saw anything moving, and then I laid down and napped for a couple of hours.

By the time I woke, the sun was high and warm.

Joe still looked awful, and I was pretty sure I didn't look much better. We were thirsty and hungry and short on air. Our bodies were working way too hard.

Sitting still and waiting would probably be the smart thing to do, but then, I'd never been one to do what was smart. I'm too restless, too in need of doing something.

Ahead of us was a fair sized hill, the biggest one we'd seen so far.

I nudged Joe, who seemed to be dozing again. "I'm going... for a walk."

He looked oddly at me. "What?"

"Over there. See... what I can see."

"There's nothing... to see."

"Might be… don't know… got to try. You.. wait here... I'll be back."

"Waste... of energy," he warned.

I shook my head. "It's what... I do."

Joe stared hard at me, contemplating. "'Kay. You do... what you… do. I'll do... what I do."

As I climbed to my feet, I heard Joe quietly muttering a prayer.

----------------

It took me a long time to climb that hill. My back hurt and my head pounded with every pulse of my overworked heart. I wasn't sure how long we could survive here, considering the strain on our systems. I could feel how hard my heart and lungs were working even when I stood still. Moving was even worse, but I soldiered on doggedly, putting one foot in front of another, over and over.

Reaching the top of the hill at last, my vision grayed out and blurred from the air-depleting exertion, I stopped, dropping to sit on the ground, head down, sucking in the thin air. Finally, my vision started to clear.

I looked back to see Joe where I'd left him, down in the little valley next to the stream, a thin wisp of smoke rising from the smoldering fire. I looked left and right, but could see nothing. Gathering up my strength, groaning as the movement pulled on my injured back, I climbed to my knees, then to my feet, and began to scan the surroundings.

Over there was the big meadow where we'd 'landed.' Bigger, tree-covered hills marched off into the distance, still far ahead. More grassy, undulating plains rolled away to my left. To my right, the hill dropped away into a valley, then another series of hills.

And on the third hill over, something...

I stared, wiping at my eyes, trying to see better.

I wasn't seeing things was I?

I raised my hand to shade my eyes and stared.

That wasn't a hallucination was it?

Wasn't a mirage, either, right?

It *was* real, wasn't it?

Yes, it was there.

Something not natural.

A shape too perfect to belong in nature.

Something manmade, er, something made by someone besides Mother Nature.

Something big and round and our ticket off this airless rock.

"That little bastard," I whispered. Freyr had known all along that there was a Stargate on this world, and he hadn't told us.

Hope giving me energy, I started back down the hill toward Joe. The trip down that hill went a lot faster than the trip up it had taken.

He must have seen the excitement on my face, because my brother was on his feet by the time I got back to the creek.

"C'mon. We're… goin'... home."

"Rescue… ship?" he asked, his face looking brighter despite the gray hue.

"Better… Stargate… ‘ss faster," I told him.

**********

We walked, following the stream for a while before cutting off to the right.

The first hill went pretty good, buoyed as we were by the knowledge that we had a way home.

The second hill seemed endless. I was exhausted, every step a challenge. I'd watched a documentary once about those crazy guys who climb mountains, big mountains like Everest, and how their thinking went weird at high elevations, and every movement was excruciating.

I knew just how they felt.

And I also knew that people died from spending too much time on top of those mountains, in that thin air. That TV show had called it the death zone.

Halfway up the second hill, I suddenly found myself on my knees, shaking with exhaustion. Joe stopped beside me, weaving on his feet, but offering me a hand up. Calling on my last reserves of strength, with Joe’s help I got back up.

We reached the crest of the hill at last, and now Joe could see the Stargate.

"That's... our way...home?"

"Yeah."

We rested for a few minutes, but I knew we couldn't delay too long. I could feel my strength ebbing, and I had the awful feeling that our time was running out. My lungs hurt with every breath, and that awful gray-blue look was back on Joe's face.

We staggered on, dragging each other forward.

At the bottom of the third hill, I stopped and looked up to the Stargate, high above us.

Why did the bleepin' aliens have to put the gate way the hell up there?

I looked over at Joe and really hoped I didn't look as bad as he did because it would scare the crap out of him if I did. He raised his gaze and looked at me, and I knew I really did look that bad, because I saw the fear in his eyes.

Die trying.

"Last hill," I told him optimistically. “Piece... of cake…”

With a weary sigh, he nodded and straightened and we started upward.

It was steep, a real hill, half a mountain really.

No, more like a real mountain, like Everest.

Like a hundred Everests.

More like climbing than walking.

I didn't count how many times we fell to our knees, scraping hands and shredding knees. Move a few steps and stop to breathe, move a few steps and stop to breathe.

My heart and head were pounding in opposing rhythms... boom-boom boom-boom, boom-boom.

I moved blindly, no longer thinking, no longer feeling, no longer aware of anything but the need to go on.

I was concentrating so hard on moving that I almost missed it, a low, distress-filled noise, and I looked behind me.

Joe, following me, had stopped. He was lying flat, his head down on his hands, his breathing harsh, loud enough to be heard over the rough sound of my own lungs fighting for the inadequate air. I slid back down the hill beside him. His face was gray, his eyes closed, but they opened when my hand touched his. The chill feel of his skin scared me.

“C’mon,” I ordered.

Joe looked up at me beseechingly, like that little boy at the zoo all those years ago, and he shook his head.

“O’Neill’s… don’t quit.”

“You don’t…” he said, letting his head drop back down. “Go… for help.”

“Goin’ nowhere… without… you,” I insisted.

“No.”

Okay, it didn’t say Colonel on my uniform, since I wasn’t in uniform, and as a priest, he didn’t have to obey my orders, but by God he was my brother, my little brother, and I’d do what had to be done because no one gets left behind on my watch. No one. So I grabbed his hand and started to pull him up. At first he did nothing to help, but finally I felt him join me in the effort. Side by side, slipping and falling but moving upward together, we struggled on.

And then suddenly, we were there, crawling up onto the hilltop together.

There was a platform, the Stargate towering above us.

The DHD stood nearby.

I collapsed, rolling onto my back, the pain there overwhelmed by the never-ending ache in my lungs. I could hear Joe's rasping breathing as he clambered up beside me.

I wanted to stay there, resting forever.

'Dead forever,' the little self-preservation voice in my head whispered. 'Get up.'

It took me three tries to get to my feet. Finally, mostly upright, I stumbled over to the DHD and looked dumbly at the symbols. I waded through my barely-conscious gray matter, searching for something, something important.

Seven symbols.

Last one the point of orange… origami... origin... which meant... someplace, no this place.

Think.

I concentrated, brow furrowed, staring carefully at each of the 39 symbols, which made my head pound even harder, though that seemed impossible.

Thirty-nine was so many.

Why couldn't the Ancients just have like nine or nineteen? Even 29 would be easier.

I studied the DHD, running my fingers over each symbol, using the physical touch to help the all too blurry visuals. Familiar. Familiar. Familiar. Don't know that one... over and over, all around the dial.

In the end, there were nine symbols I didn't recognize.

I nearly cried then.

Salvation was right there, at my fingertips, if I could only solve the puzzle.

Think, damn you.

Think.

Thirty-nine symbols.

Seven symbols to go home.

Nine unknown symbols.

Way the hell too many symbols.

Daniel would figure it out, he'd been the one to figure out how the Stargate worked.

Carter would know the answer, she knew every answer.

Me, I was just the simple guy, Mr. Practical.

So be practical.

Nine symbols I didn't know.

Duh.

Dial up the six numbers to Earth's address, then try one of the unknowns. The gate would only connect when I found the right one. Keep trying until I found the right one.

Simple!

I tapped the first symbol of Earth's address. The gate spun and a chevron locked and lit up.

I saw Joe's head snap up at the noise, and he stared at the gate and then over at me, and I tried to grin reassuringly. I dialed five more familiar symbols, and then tried one of the unknowns.

It didn't lock.

Nothing happened.

Wrong symbol.

I dialed three more times before hitting on the right combination.

The seventh chevron locked and lit and the gate spit out its surging wave of... stuff... and I walked toward Joe, helping him to his feet. Together we staggered toward the blue pool.

Something nagged at the back of my nearly-useless brain.

The little survival voice inside my head was screaming at me to stop, but all I could see was home, a footstep away.

--------------------

It was Joe who saved us, inadvertently.

As we lurched up to the gate, Joe pulled back, dragging me to a stop.

Despite the exhaustion, there was fear in his eyes.

I reached out a hand and touched the blue surface and it rippled like the water it was not. "I… do this... real often..."

"It's... safe?"

"Yeah."

I actually had started to take the step, had one foot in the wormhole when my brain sputtered and a couple of the remaining functional neurons fired and I had a coherent thought.

The iris!

I hadn't sent the iris code!

I jerked back, pulling Joe with me, both of us crashing onto our backs on the platform. My head snapped back, my skull encountering stone with more force than my already drained brain could handle, and blackness descended.

****************

"Jack?"

Someone was shaking me, and calling my name, and I really wanted him to stop because the blackness was comforting and I really wanted to stay there.

"Jack. Wake up. Jack!"

The voice sounded breathless and scared.

A familiar voice.

My brother's voice.

Joe.

"Jack, wake up. Please... open… your eyes."

Groaning, I did as he asked, regretting it immediately, because the moment light hit my eyeballs, I swear my whole brain spasmed. I had a brief glimpse of Joe's pale face above me, though it was swooping around dizzily. I felt my stomach boil, and frantically I rolled onto my side, unable to stop the urge to retch despite my empty stomach.

"Jack?" Joe's hand was on my shoulder.

"I'm... 'kay." I muttered as much to convince myself as to convince Joe. If I’d thought my head hurt before, it hurt a thousand times more now, like a whole platoon of jackhammers was battering the inside of my skull. I opened my eyes again, but slammed then shut immediately because the spinning sky and ground and brother were doing really, really bad things to my stomach. "What happ'n'd?"

"You... hit your head... when… you pulled us... back."

I remembered, we'd been at the gate, ready to go home, but I'd pulled us back.

Why?

There'd been an important reason.

Keeping my eyes closed, I sorted through my scattered, half-formed thoughts and eventually remembered what that something important was.

No iris code.

I didn't have a GDO.

Someone moaned, and I realized it was me, and I felt Joe's hand tighten on my shoulder. "Made a... mistake... dialing..."

"But it...worked."

I started to nod, realized immediately that was not a wise thing to do, and stopped. "Need… to dial… over." I raised my hand, asking mutely for help in rising, and felt Joe grab it and help me to my feet. My legs were all wobbly, and the ground seemed to be rolling beneath my feet, but we got over to the DHD. Joe propped me up against it, and I grabbed onto it to stay upright, wracking my brain for an alternative. Alternative. Our alternative site. Alpha site. No iris there.

Decison made, I opened one eye cautiously, which seemed to ease the dizziness, and began dialing, hearing the clank of the gate moving and the chevrons locking. As soon as I hit the seventh symbol, I shut my eyes once more, savoring the reassuring darkness that wasn't spinning like a top, and listened for the kawoosh. "Let's...go," I told Joe as soon as I heard the sound of the wormhole forming.

Together, his arm around my waist and my arm over his shoulder, we staggered to and fell through the wormhole.

**************

Even before the voice registered in my head, I was aware of lying on the ground, elbows and knees having made painful contact with hard stone, but there was air, and I could breathe.

I sucked in a deep breath, and felt Joe stirring beside me.

"Colonel O'Neill?"

I opened my eyes for an instant and saw dusty boots and familiar camo BDUs, and a lot of guns pointed at us.

"Yes," I mumbled.

I heard footsteps approach and a louder voice shouting, "Captain, what is going on here?"

Seriously wished the loud guy would shut up because my head hurt.

A different voice this time. "Colonel O'Neill? And... Colonel O'Neill?"

Oh crap. This was going to take some explaining, which meant I was going to have to open my eyes again and use my brain. I tried. I forced the eyelids to rise and concentrated on focusing the eyes, and recognized Major Griff. "Major, just call the SGC. They'll explain."

Things happened pretty fast then, most of which I heard but didn't see because opening my eyes was too much work and the dizzying consequences too much to tolerate. I was moved away from the gate, and I answered the medic’s questions, and then blessedly someone placed an oxygen mask over my face and I could feel the air saturating my overworked lungs and then everything pretty much faded away.

***************

I drifted slowly to awareness.

Wow, that had been one hell of a dream, I thought lazily in those not-quite-here-but-no-longer-there moments between sleep and wakefulness. I've had some weird dreams in my time but that one took the cake, Thor and Loki and Freyr and... Joe?

That thought woke me up completely, snapping me to consciousness and an instinctive move to sit up and look at my surroundings.

Dumb move though, because I was all tangled up in something, which turned out to be IV's stuck in the back of my hand, one of those clip things on my finger, and one of those oxygen thingies covering my face. Raising my head made the room spin alarmingly in the split second before something in my back protested quite vociferously.

Crap.

I sank back on the bed with a groan.

Getting up was something my body definitely wasn’t ready to do.

"Jack?"

Oh boy. No dream. That was Joe.

"Joe?" So, okay, when I just wake up I don't exactly make the wittiest conversationalist. Besides, it was taking most of my concentration to stop the room from doing those nauseating concussion-induced loop-de-loops with which I was all too familiar. I got one quick glimpse of his face, looking pale but thankfully no longer gray or blue, before I decided that keeping the eyes open was just not worth the dizzying consequences.

Talking with my eyes closed was much preferable to trying to keep them open and being unable to talk, as I’d be throwing up all over the nice clean sheets. Which would make Doc mad, and an angry Doc Fraiser is nothing to take lightly.

“You don’t look so good,” Joe said softly.

“You neither.”

“How can you tell? You’ve got your eyes closed,” he retorted, very unpriest-like.

“I had them open.”

“Not for long. Dizzy?”

“Umhuh.”

“The doctor said you had a concussion.”

“Oh yeah.”

“But otherwise we were lucky.”

My body didn’t feel very lucky, though it did feel alive. ”Lucky?”

“Another couple of hours on that planet and we’d have suffered permanent damage.”

I wasn’t so sure there wasn’t damage anyway, I thought, but didn’t say.

There was silence for a few moments while I studied the inside of my eyelids, very black, very still, very comforting.

“So, this is where you work?” he asked at last, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Well, not *here* here, in the infirmary.”

“But underground here.”

“Yeah.”

“When you’re not traveling through that big wheel…”

“Stargate.”

“Wish I’d been more awake to really enjoy it.”

“It’s pretty cool, actually,” I admitted.

His voice took on a wondering tone. “And you really have been to hundreds of planets…”

“Maybe not hundreds. But lots.”

“And you’ve met aliens…”

“Oh yeah.”

“Someone named Teal’c was here to see you a while ago. He’s an alien, too, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“The General was here before that.”

Oh-oh. I opened one eye a fraction, focusing on Joe’s face. It looked pensive.

“He seemed like a very nice man.”

Okay, then, I probably wasn’t demoted to airman. Maybe just to lieutenant. I let the eye go closed again. Keeping it open used far too much energy.

“He said he was glad we made it back.”

Even better. Maybe only demoted to captain.

“He and your friend Thor and a lot of people here on the base apparently spent the last several days searching rather frantically for us. He said, even though you’re frequently a great deal of trouble, on the whole you’re far too valuable to let aliens just kidnap you.”

Excellent. Maybe I wouldn’t get demoted, just be assigned a mountain of paperwork.

“He said you were a ‘damn fine officer.’”

Forgetting the dizziness thing for a moment in shock at that, I opened my eyes, then slammed them shut again. “You said damn!”

“I was quoting the General,” Joe defended.

“A Major Carter and a Dr. Jackson stopped in, too. They explained all about the Asgaard and the cloning, and the genetics they wanted from you. And me.” He shook his head. “Apparently, I wasn’t their answer either.”

I shook my head no.

He got quiet then. Experimentally I raised one eyelid a fraction, just enough to see the puzzled frown on his face. “You okay with this?” I asked, worried.

“With what?”

“The aliens and stuff,” I waved my non-IV’d hand in the air in front of me.

“I guess.”

“There’s nothing in the Bible about aliens,” I suggested cautiously.

“Noooo,” he said tentatively.

“But there’s nothing that says there can’t be aliens, is there?”

“No,” Joe answered more confidently.

“Well, there, then. It’s okay.”

A long moment of silence followed and finally he said, “Yeah, it’s okay. And Jack…” he hesitated.

I opened one eye and peered over at him.

“What you do, it’s amazing.”

I smiled. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

-----------

Finish...........................................