Characters: Jack O’Neill, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal’c
Part: 6
ESRB Rating: Teen
Themes: AU/Stranded, Team
Prompt: 081 How?
Season: 2-esque
Written: January 06
Revamped: August 06
No one quite knew what to do with themselves, not even Man of Action Jack O’Neill. Everyone wanted to sit and watch Teal’c. It was Carter who eventually broke free of it all, if sluggishly.
First, she collected a lockable sample bag from her kit and tucked Junior inside. She was reasonably sure it was dead, but just in case she double-bagged it. Not that, she thought, that would really stop it if it wanted out, but hopefully they’d hear it before it was too late. Then she went about getting water for the camp and boiling it. Daniel and Jack had moved to watch Teal’c, Daniel holding the Jaffa’s infinitely larger hand in his own.
Lastly she went a good half-mile out and set snares. Field survival training at its best. She did this all without direct order. Coming back into the camp, she let the Colonel quietly know what she’d done which seemed to bring Jack back to himself.
“That… yeah. Good work, Carter.” Jack had propped himself up on a fallen log and was keeping a hooded eye on Teal’c. Now he felt remiss in his duty as Fearless Leader and set himself briskly into motion with a rough grunt and shove up.
“We should go about making some arrows and spears and stuff. I want to conserve the ammunition for as long as we can.” Carter nodded, already heading out to forage for materials. Jack went about building the fire up again and shucking his field knife out of its hip sheath.
They had been so cocky, so sure, they had this “gate travel” thing licked. Two years, just over one-hundred missions through and back, it was routine by now. There had been casualties along the way, of course, but SG-1 had always made it through. Somehow they were able to cheat Fate and Luck both. They’d even saved the planet from nothing short of an entire Goa’uld invasion. They were invulnerable. They were invincible.
But they weren’t. Not really. They were just as fragile as they always had been, over-confidence a poor suit of armor against the realities of an indifferent universe.
What did it care that Teal’c was a good man, a great man. A man who had sacrificed everything he knew and everything he was for the chance of freedom. He was dying, Junior already dead, and there was nothing the rest of them could do but sit and watch.
Swallowing roughly, Sam went about stripping branches.
Daniel didn’t want to tell them. Because what would he tell them? He had no idea what was really happening. He just kept his attention on Teal’c, mouth pursed sharply and sculpted eyebrows drawn together over his glasses while he sat vigil over his dying friend.
For a while, Teal’c fever had spiked dramatically and Daniel was afraid Sam wouldn’t be back in… time. But he kept a cool compress on the man’s smooth head and occasionally tipped the canteen to his mouth. Reflex took over and accepted the water for him. And then…
And then Teal’c’s fever seemed to go down. His breathing regular and not in the least bit shallow. Daniel kept checking the pulse point along his thick neck, but it was steady. Weak, but steady.
When the stars began coming out, and Jack was spitting the rabbit-thing Sam’s snare had caught them, all three kept one eye on their camp chores and one eye on Teal’c.
Clearing his throat, Jack’s knife paused while he frowned down at his work. But it wasn’t the grisly job at hand that made the lines around his mouth stand out in sharp relief. “How.” Another rough clearing of his throat. “How long until…?”
Daniel and Sam exchanged glances and, setting her shoulders, Sam stood up to the plate. “From— from what we know of Jaffa, Teal’c should have… he should have already….” So it was a bunt instead of a home run of intell. It was enough to make Jack nod.
“That’s what I thought. So. What’s going on?”
Two of the greatest minds on Earth and neither of them had a clue. Each of them shrugged their shoulders and all six eyes went back to the comatose man.
They ate dinner in silence.
It was two more days of watching and waiting. They didn’t want to stray too far from camp, just in case, but Teal’c did nothing more than lie still and drink water when it was given to him.
Daniel was his primary care giver, freeing Jack and Sam to be the primary providers. Breathing slow and regular, fever all but a memory, Daniel sat and watched Teal’c… sleep? Eventually the man would starve to death if nothing else.
Daniel had a brief, fleeting vision of Teal’c in Janet Frasier’s infirmary — wires snaking around his thick arms, monitors beeping softly, and each of them taking turns to watch over the Jaffa while Janet made him well — and he was struck with just how very far away from home they all were. Was Teal’c to survive whatever had happened to his symbote just to waste away here in the middle of no where?
This was the dark train of thought Daniel was on as he whittled more arrow shafts for Jack and Sam. He was so absorbed in the task and his brooding he almost missed the whisper of his name. But then it came again.
“….Daniel Jackson.”
“Teal’c!” Daniel was up! Daniel was down. He tripped over both his feet and then the log he was sitting on all in his haste. “Teal’c!” He simply crawled to the big man, glasses crooked on his nose. “Oh, God.” Cupping the Jaffa’s cheek, his breath caught in his throat while the tears caught in his eyes. In another frantic second, Daniel was waving a finger at Teal’c, the universal sign language for ‘one second, don’t go anywhere!’ Like back into a coma.
Standing in the center of camp, Daniel threw his head back and bellowed. “Jack! Sam! Jack!” He had no idea how far away they might be, but he knew they’d hear him. He just knew. Then he was back on his knees helping Teal’c sit up.
A second later the United States Air Force came crashing through camp, Jack’s eyes wild, Sam’s mouth small. They were each brandishing weapons, ready to take down what ever danger threatened.
“The… hell?” Jack knocked his cap off in his effort to scratch the crown of his hair.
“It is… good to see you too… O’Neill.” Daniel was pressing more water into Teal’c hand, letting the man drink for himself.
“How is. I mean. No offense, but. Teal’c — shouldn’t you be dead?” Ever the scientist, Sam was dumbfounded.
“Yes,” was his tired but calm response. “I should be. But… I am not. I am, however… hungry.”
Sam threw together a weak ’soup’ with creek water, Teal’c’s watercress and a fish she and Jack had caught earlier that morning. While that was simmering, they tried their best to not pelt Teal’c with too many questions. But it was hard.
“I did not feel well after I gave my watch up to Daniel Jackson, so I entered kel’no’reem. I thought that, whatever was ailing me, my symbote would heal.” Teal’c was leaning against a tree, still looking pale but no where near as ashen as he had this time almost four days ago. His captive audience of three sat rapt around him. “Then there was a great struggle within me. My symbote… was dying. I entered a deeper state of kel’no’reem.” He fed himself tiny bits of watercress. “I thought that, indeed, I was to die. And I prepared myself. But then, I… I woke up. And I saw Daniel Jackson by the fire. And now we are here.”
No, he answered, he did not remember telling Daniel that he was “free”.
Sam was putting pieces of this bizarre puzzle together in her head slowly. “Teal’c, you’ve eaten more of that stuff then any of us.” She pointed to the bitter herb. “Do you just like it that much? Or have you felt… compelled? Did you— do you crave it?”
Teal’c only looked down at the spindly leaf in his hand. “Yes.”
Carter’s lips pressed together. “Yes to which. Yes you felt compelled? Yes you craved it.”
“Yes to both, Captain Carter. I have wanted to do nothing but eat this. Eat more of this world.” He not so subtly looked over her blonde shoulder towards the cooking pot over their fire.
Jack smirked, testing that the fish was at least cooked through before dishing a helping up. Sam just frowned. Daniel caught on where she was going with things.
“Your naquada-b?” Daniel stood, tucking his hands under his shoulders as he folded his arms across his chest. Sam shruged her shoulders lightly. ‘Don’t know, can’t be sure,’ they said.
“I mean… maybe? It’s in everything. And I mean everything. And he’s very much alive.” To which Sam could grin at. Beam at, practically. Teal’c tried to smile back around his spoon.
“But what about his immune system? Or, lack of one. Supposedly.” Sam could only shake her head in baffled confusion. Daniel squinted harder into a frown.
“I’ve no idea. Wrong kind of doctor.” It was an old joke between them all, but one that was very appropriate right here and right now.
“This is terrible,” Teal’c said, handing Jack his near empty bowl. “Give me more.”
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