Characters: Jack O’Neill, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal’c
Part: 5
Themes: AU/Stranded, Team, mini-Death
ESRB Rating: Teen - Alien Death Depicted
Prompt: 030 Death
Season: 2-esque
Written: January 06
Revamped: August 06
They stayed at the gate camp site for two more days before their need for fresh water became necessary. Colonel O’Neill was reluctant to leave the area, but he also knew they had little choice. He set Daniel and Carter off to make some sort of sign post; something that could tell the SGC they were here and alive if they somehow found the place. Jack and Teal’c went about closing down their impromptu home.
When everything was packed and distributed between back packs, they struck out towards the tree line. Jack figured even if they didn’t find running water, the water table had to be abundant enough there to support that kind of growth and something was better to work with then nothing.
It took them a day and a half to cross the whole of the meadow and still there was no sight of anything that resembled civilization.
“I thought you said the UAV reported people, Carter?”
“It did sir,” was her labored answer. They’d just come down from another rolling hill and Sam was in desperate need to clear her dusty throat. But she didn’t dare, not until she knew for sure it wouldn’t be a waste. “But it was hundreds of clicks away from the Stargate. I’d say a good seven days hike. The results of our evaluation would have told SG-4 whether or not it’d have been worth the diplomatic relations.”
His muted response was only a nonplussed “Ah.” Well, then that was a bridge they’d cross when they came to it. If they came to it.
Night had fallen by the time they truly entered the forest, but the light of the full moon was so bright it might as well have been a cool, silvery noon. A thicket of clouds seemed to tease them with the idea of rain and for as often as Jack had grouched about planets with more trees and more rain than Seattle, he’d welcome it with open arms.
Carter’s tests had assured them that the various vegetation they’d been passing was both safe and edible, and Teal’c set about making a “salad” of the odd watercress he’d become so very obsessed with in the very short time. They ate the last of their MREs supplanted by the oddly bittersweet greens and handfuls of lavender berries (they tasted a little like purple grapes) when the rain finally began. They all set out their cups, plates, canteens and damn - their hats to catch the water.
Daniel leaned out of their mylar tent and stuck his tongue out to catch the water, making Sam snicker. It was a nice sound, a sound that reminded Daniel that maybe things might be alright after all. If Sam could still laugh, the world couldn’t be all that bad, could it?
Teal’c ate his watercress as Jack took first watch. They hadn’t seen anything more dangerous then a few deer-things, some squirrel-things and once some bird-things, but Jack wasn’t going to take any chances. It’d be Jack, then Teal’c, then Sam and lastly Daniel so he could make the morning coffee just the way he liked it. Not that they had coffee anymore, but — it was a set routine and one Jack stuck them too if for comfort then anything else.
Daniel couldn’t rouse Teal’c from his kel’no’reem. He’d been trying gently at first; usually you just needed to say the man’s name and he’d snap open his eyes, but by this point, Daniel was shaking him almost violently. Rough enough and loud enough to get Jack and Sam up.
Sam’s voice was laced with concern as she came up besides the cross legged man. “What’s wrong?” She was feeling his forehead for a temperature.
“I can’t get him up and he hasn’t responded to a thing I’ve done.” Daniel ran his hands through floppy hair, worry a hard line on his otherwise clear brow.
Jack, Man of Action, knelt with popping knees before the Jaffa and gave him a few swift swats with the back of his hand. “Hey Dorothy, time to leave the Munchkins alone. We’ve Oz to find today.” But Teal’c kept still. Jack darted a piercing look at Carter.
She could only shake her head. “I don’t feel a fever, his breathing is shallow but regular…” Her shoulders hunched helplessly.
They laid Teal’c out under one of the tents: no easy matter, but one they managed eventually. They still needed water, maybe now more then ever. Jack took the risk.
“Daniel, you feel good staying here on your own? I’d like to take Carter and her gizmos with me to find some sort of water supply.”
The academic nodded, pulling his zat from its holster and laying it across his thigh. “I’ll be fine. Go do what you have to, I’ll watch Teal’c.” They’d turned their radios off to conserve batteries, but now Jack turned his and Daniel’s on. They shared a nod before the team split.
They hit pay dirt two hours into their hike. A creek more than a stream, it probably fed into a larger river down the way if the speed of the current meant anything. Jack radioed Daniel on the status of the situation. Carter ran some tests; they’d been a little careless the night before with the rain, and Sam wanted to quadruple check now that there was nothing ‘wrong’ with the water.
“Anything?” Jack didn’t need to specify for Daniel.
“He’s starting… he’s starting to look bad, Jack. Ashen. And he still won’t wake up. But he drank water when I put it to his mouth.” As a quick after thought, Daniel added, “I gave him the last of my ration.” It was ’safe’ SGC recycled water then.
“Alright. Carter and I’ll head back and we’ll move camp here.” Which meant moving Teal’c. Was he a terrible man for wishing for once Daniel — lighter, infinitely easier to move around Daniel Jackson — had been the one to fall into a space-coma?
Daniel and Jack took shifts pulling the travois while Carter took point and look out with her P90. The two hour trip turned into three and a half, and that was after the two it’d taken to get back to the start of the tree line. Dusk was setting in and it was a weary three of SG-1 that sat down around a small camp fire. The MREs were gone, so it was the local flora for supper. They would have to hunt tomorrow.
Teal’c hadn’t so much as shifted through the entire thing.
And he was indeed looking worse. His skin was pale, lips chapped, and he now very much had a fever. They were out of the SGC water, but he drank whatever they pressed against his parched mouth, and he drank a lot, so Jack was still leaning towards the hopeful.
“Sir, I can only postulate it’s the naquada-b.” That’s what Carter had taken to calling the mysterious chemical found in practically everything on this planet. “I tested it against us — humans — and found no reactions. But I didn’t… I just. I never thought to test it against his symbote. It just didn’t even occur to me.” Guilt set hard lines in Sam’s face, her fingers twisting together hidden in her lap. Daniel reached out and let his hand drop over hers, fishing them out so he could hold one.
Jack was quick and swift with his reassurance. He needed her at peak performance and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get that if she was kicking herself with what ifs. “It’s alright Carter. T’s a big, strong guy. I’m sure he and Junior are just working through it and they’ll be fine.” Then he split the watch into thirds and sent the other two to bed.
It was Daniel’s watch again when the situation changed. Daniel was looking out over the creek, lost in his thoughts when Teal’c let out a piercing wail in the pre-dawn light. He scrabbled off the rock and was already on his knees by the man when Jack and Carter rounded on the tent’s edges.
The material of Teal’c shirt over his pouch was saturated and now pulsing. Jack recoiled in narrow eyed disgust but Daniel and Sam were working together to push it up the Jaffa’s chest. Junior was making a break for it.
Teal’c arched his back and snatched huge handfuls of the earth around him as the immature Goa’uld wormed and writhed, eventually freeing itself with a fat, wet sound. Daniel was shoving himself back as fast as he could, not even bothering to stand. He simply crabbed backwards on his hands and heels to get away. Jack was leveling his beretta at the thing while Sam lifted both hands and made herself as unobtrusive a target as possible.
None of them needed to really worry. Junior lifted its pathetic head, the beady eyes bright… and then dull as it fell lifelessly to the ground. They all stared at it while Teal’c sucked in harsh, ragged breaths.
Jack recovered first. “Is it really…?”
“I— I think so, sir.” Sam swallowed, too overwhelmed at the moment to think through all the implications this meant.
“Teal’c?” Daniel pushed himself up and went to kneel by the dark man’s head. He kept his eye on the potentially dead symbote, but his attention was for the dark, fluttering eyes of his friend.
The sound that broke over cracked lips was reedy and thin. “Daniel Jackson. Tired. Free.” Teal’c slipped back into unconsciousness.
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