“Sam?”
Daniel’s voice roused her from a light doze and she was awake at once. She never slept deeply off-world, and even less so when the situation was this precarious. It was dark in the tent, but much warmer than outside with the three of them crowded in together. Daniel lay in the middle, inside his own and the colonel’s sleeping bags, Teal’c lay flat on his back and unmoving on one side of him and Sam had been curled up on the other. She could hear the slow, deep breaths that meant Teal’c had entered kel’no’reem, and moved quietly so as not to disturb him.
Sitting up, she pushed her sleeping bag down to her waist and reached over to find Daniel’s forehead. The colonel had ordered them to observe light discipline, so she had to make her way by touch alone.
“I’m here,” she said quietly. His skin felt fevered, which sent a coil of disquiet spiraling up into her throat. On the plus side, at least he hadn’t gone into full-fledged shock. “You want some water?”
She could feel him nod under her hand, so found the canteen — which was now less than half full — and held it to his lips. He took a few thirsty sips and then lay back down with a hiss of pain.
“Bad?”
“Um, yeah.”
She squeezed his shoulder. “Hang in there.”
“I’m hanging.”
She smiled at his quiet stoicism. He’d always been like this, right from day one when he was still reeling from the loss of his wife. “You want me to ask Colonel O’Neill about a morphine shot?”
There was a rustle of movement as Daniel shook his head. “Save it for later.”
She knew what he meant, of course — later, when the pain was more intense. “We’ll be home by then,” she said, smoothing her hand over his forehead.
He made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. “Optimist.”
“Try to get some sleep,” she said, stroking her fingers up into his hair. She remembered her mom doing the same for her as a child and felt a sting of old, old pain.
They were quiet for a while, the sound of Teal’c’s steady breathing filling the tent. Outside, she could hear the colonel moving about on watch. He was probably trying to keep warm. They’d not lit a fire, for obvious reasons, so there was nothing to do but keep moving. She peeked under her Velcro watch cover at the glowing face — twenty minutes until she had to relieve him. No point in trying to go back to sleep. Not that she’d been sleeping.
“Sam?” Daniel again.
“Shh,” she soothed him, stroking his head.
“No, Sam, there’s something…” She looked down and saw his eyes glint in the almost total darkness. “I… I think I saw something, before.”
Her hand stopped moving. “What kind of thing?”
“A person,” he said. “I thought I saw someone out there, watching us, right before I passed out.”
“Right before you passed out?”
He caught the skeptical tone of her voice. “No, I’m sure it was real,” he persisted. “A girl in the mist.”
“Okay,” she said, stroking his head again. “But we did a thorough recon of the area, Daniel. There’s not much here.”
He scrubbed a hand across his face, brushing her fingers. “I know what I saw.”
“Okay,” she said again. “I’ll tell the colonel. We’ll keep our eyes open.”
“Girl in the mist,” he muttered, more drowsy. “I saw her…”
Sam sat with him a few minutes longer, waiting until he’d drifted down into a feverish sleep. Then she struggled out of her sleeping bag, leaving it for the colonel to use, and crawled to the door of the tent and unzipped it slowly, quietly. She shoved her feet into her boots, tied the laces tight and slipped her tac vest back on, as much for the additional warmth as the protection.
Closing the tent, she picked up her weapon and glanced around in search of the colonel. They’d camped just into the tree line, looking down over what she’d named in her head as the Stargate Valley. Before the light had failed she’d still been able to see the gate in the distance, and beyond it she’d glimpsed a gunmetal gray strip of water at the far end of the valley. Not the sea, but maybe an estuary of some kind. Behind the tent, hills rose up high but not quite into mountains. It was all lost in the darkness now, though. If this planet had a moon, its light wasn’t visible tonight.
They’d found no fresh water, but she’d rigged one of the tarps to catch whatever snow or rain fell overnight, although she wasn’t entirely sure it would be uncontaminated. She crouched and peered inside the tarp. There was already a thin covering of slushy water. She’d test it in the morning to see if it was safe to drink.
At least the ground here was free of the ashy fallout that had gathered in the valley. She’d insisted they all brushed as much of it off their clothes and belongings as possible as soon as they’d left the valley and started heading up to higher ground. Colonel O’Neill had grumbled about the delay, but only half-heartedly — almost as if he was going through the motions. He knew the danger as well as anyone.
Once they’d made camp, they’d all changed into dry clothes and packed their wet — and probably contaminated — clothes away into their packs. Sam had been keen to just discard them, but Colonel O’Neill had insisted on keeping them. An extra layer could be the difference between life and death.
Standing up again, she glanced around, but had to take a few steps away from the tent before she saw the colonel. It was marginally lighter outside, the thin snow cover reflecting back what little brightness the sky had to offer, and she could just make him out sitting on one of the rocks that littered the hillside, gazing out in the direction of the dark water.
Bracing herself for a brusque reception — he was always brusque these days — she walked toward him making enough noise that he’d hear her coming. It was never a good idea to startle an armed man on watch. “Sir?” she said, when she was close enough to talk quietly. “Time to turn in.”
He didn’t move, didn’t respond right away. Then he said, “I thought I saw a light.”
“Where?”
He pointed out toward the black horizon. “Way, way out. And then it was gone.”
She took a few steps closer, the icy air making her nose run. She sniffed. At least the snow had stopped falling, although that wouldn’t do much for her attempt to collect drinking water. “What do you think it was?”
“No idea. Boat? Could have been anything.”
“But if you’re right, sir, it means the planet could be inhabited. At least, part of it.”
“Inhabited by the people who nuked the gate.”
She conceded the point without argument and instead said, “Sir, Daniel told me he thinks he saw someone.”
That got his attention. He turned around, looking at her from beneath the bill of his hat. She couldn’t see his face at all in the shadows. “When?”
“Right before he passed out.”
“Ah.”
“But he’s convinced it was real,” she said. “And if you saw a light… ?”
“Teal’c didn’t find any tracks,” he said, getting to his feet and stamping his feet, trying to knock some heat into them. “Teal’c’s pretty thorough.”
“I know, sir. But I told him I’d tell you.”
He nodded. “How is he?”
No good news there. “He’s still got a fever, sir. I’m afraid he’s developing an infection.”
“Yup,” the colonel said, tight and clipped with concern. “I gave him an antibiotic shot, but God knows what kind of alien bugs were on that planet — or this one.”
“Yes sir.”
“He needs to be in hospital.”
“I know.”
He turned, kicking irritably at the rock he’d been sitting on. “God, we need to get out of here.”
Sam felt his accusation hanging there in the air between them. You misdialed, Major. This is your fault.
There was a time, before Edora, when he’d never have been so unjust, and she couldn’t help wondering if he blamed her for dragging him home when he didn’t want to leave. Was he punishing her? It wasn’t like him, but the colonel hadn’t been himself since he got back and that was the only explanation she could find. She just wished he’d talk about it, but of course he never would.
“This can’t be easy for you, sir,” she said, taking a sideways approach to the subject. “I mean, it’s your first off-world mission since Edora and we’re stuck. Again.”
“Some dumb luck, huh?”
Gritting her teeth, she decided to face it head on. If he was pissed she’d brought him home then she’d rather he told her so upfront. Anything was better than this bristling tension. “Sir, I’m sorry if —”
“No, I’m sorry, Carter,” he interrupted, still scuffing at the rock with the toe of his boot. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions about what went wrong today.”
“Oh.”
“I kinda bit your head off back there.”
“Um,” she said, taking a moment to switch tracks. “It’s okay, sir. You’re worried about Daniel. We all are.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She took a step closer, shoving her cold hands into her jacket pockets. “Sir, I’ve been thinking about it, actually, and I honestly don’t believe I misdialed.”
“Okay.” He threw her a sideways look. “You got a better theory?”
“Yes sir.” She’d been pondering it as they walked up out of the valley, running through the problem over and over. If she hadn’t misdialed, then what had happened? She thought she had the answer. “Sir, just at the moment we left P5X-104, the Death Gliders made another pass. They were firing at the gate as we went through.”
He looked at her and she could see comprehension dawning in his eyes. “You’re thinking just like Antarctica?”
“Yes sir. I think the energy transfer caused by the impact might have caused the wormhole to skip to another Stargate.”
“This doesn’t look much like Area 51.”
“No, but the wormhole could have skipped to another gate, one close to Earth within the Stargate network.”
He shook his head and pulled his cap back on. “Close to Earth, you say?”
She knew what he was thinking. “Sir, I realize that ‘close to Earth’ is a relative term —”
“Without a DHD, Carter, we might as well be on the other side of the galaxy.”
She frowned, studying him for a moment and trying to decide whether he really didn’t get it or was just pretending to be obtuse. But he only played dumb when there was someone to misdirect, and he wasn’t about to convince her he was stupid. Which meant he really didn’t get it. “Sir, you do realize that General Hammond will be looking for us?”
He fixed her with an unreadable look. “Of course I do.”
“So… ?” she said, testing to see if he was following her logic.
“So?”
“Sir, if I’m right, the gate will have connected with Earth before the energy from the weapons strike caused the matter stream to skip. So the SGC will know we tried to dial in. And if they reach the same conclusion about what’s happened, which is very likely given that we’ve encountered this exact scenario before, then they’ll narrow the search to the planets between P5X-104 and Earth. Which means it won’t take them long to find us. Maybe just a couple of days.”
“Lots of ‘ifs’ in there, Carter.”
She shook her head, but didn’t answer; she didn’t know what to say to him. What had happened to the indomitable Colonel O’Neill who never gave up and never questioned the capacity of his team — or the SGC — to bring their people home? She wondered if he was still on Edora, because this wasn’t him, this wasn’t him at all.
Maybe he could see what she was feeling, because an expression flickered across his face that she couldn’t reconcile with the officer she knew. It looked like self-doubt or indecision. “Carter,” he sighed, “this whole situation sucks.”
“Yes sir.”
“Not just —” He broke off and shook his head. “We really need to get home.”
“We will, sir,” she said, surprised by his vehemence. “General Hammond won’t give up on us. We don’t leave our people behind, remember?”
“Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t look any happier. “I remember.”
“Do you?” She didn’t meant to sound pointed, but it had apparently only taken him three months on Edora to give up on them.
He skewered her with a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean, Major?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing?”
“No sir.” She looked away, squinting out toward the horizon — a slight hint of gray was emerging through the murk of mist. “You should get some rest, Colonel.”
He was silent, but she could feel his eyes drilling into her and she braced herself for a reprimand. But he said nothing and after a while moved past her toward the tent. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
A couple of steps behind her, the colonel stopped. “Carter?”
She turned. “Sir?”
He looked at her as if he might be about to say something reassuring, something more like the old Colonel O’Neill. But in the end he just said, “When it’s light, make coffee. We all need something warm in our bellies.”
“Yes sir.”
With another nod he turned back to the tent and she turned back to studying the horizon. Soon she heard the tent unzip and zip up again, and she was alone with her thoughts on this cold, bleak planet.
She hoped the sun rose quickly here; she was yearning for a little warmth.
The ritual of kel’no’reem was beneficial on many levels. Rest and restoration of the body was but one advantage. A more profound gain, if practiced with discipline, was a heightened level of self-perception that allowed a great deal of insight into one’s own motivations. A Jaffa so trained could not be surprised by his response to any situation, and the self-command thus gained was of incalculable value, not only in battle but in many other walks of life.
Teal’c had long observed that there were many among the Tau’ri who would benefit from the meditative discipline of kel’no’reem — O’Neill first among them. He had suggested this once, but his attempt at tutoring O’Neill in the art had proven… challenging. And, ultimately, futile.
Rising out of the deepest levels of meditation, Teal’c was slowly allowing consciousness to return when O’Neill crawled into the tent, bristling with tension. Teal’c, in his heightened state of awareness, could feel it as surely as the static charge of an open wormhole.
It was a pity that O’Neill had proven so resistant to the calming art of kel’no’reem, for this aura of unease had surrounded him almost from the moment Teal’c had first seized his hand through the rocky surface of Edora, and had only grown more intense since their return to Earth. Its cause, Teal’c could not guess, but its effect was evident.
O’Neill doubted himself, and increasingly, Major Carter and Daniel Jackson doubted him. It was a dangerous position for a commander and Teal’c was surprised that O’Neill, whose ability as a warrior he valued second only to Master Bra’tac, would allow such a situation to develop, let alone endure.
He was minded to challenge him about his behavior, but was hesitant to do so until they had returned to Earth. It would do no good to provoke a confrontation here, where all their lives depended upon cohesion.
At his side, Daniel Jackson stirred, feverish. His condition was a matter of great concern and it was his care that must be their first priority.
“Jack… ?”
“Hey.”
“Are you touching my head?”
There was a moment’s silence. “I’m checking your temperature.”
“I’ve got a fever.”
“I know. Go to sleep.”
“Yeah…” He hissed a little as he moved. “Turns out that’s not so easy with a hole in your side.”
O’Neill shuffled about, getting into the sleeping bag and settling down to rest. “I can’t give you morphine yet,” he said. “You have to stay with us a little longer. We might need to move again soon.”
“I know.”
There was another silence. Teal’c opened his eyes and, through the thin walls of the tent, he began to see a faint light that promised dawn.
After a while, Daniel Jackson spoke again, his voice containing that slight teasing edge it often did when talking to O’Neill. “You know, Sam was stroking my hair earlier, to help me get to sleep…”
But O’Neill did not rise to the bait as once he might. He simply said, “Good for her. Now go to sleep.”
A longer time passed, the walls of the tent slowly becoming visible, gray shadows among gray shadows. Teal’c let his eyes close again, hoarding his energy against the day to come.
“Jack?”
O’Neill sighed. “What?”
“You’re being pretty hard on her, you know.”
“Daniel —”
“I’m just saying — you’re being hard on Sam.”
O’Neill did not answer immediately, but Teal’c could sense the way he lay tense and unmoving. “Carter’s an Air Force major, Daniel. She can take it.”
“Yes, but I don’t understand why —”
“Daniel, stop.”
Another silence, this one brittle. “I just wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong,” O’Neill snapped, “is that you’re hurt, we’re stuck in the backend of nowhere with no way to get home, and I need to — We really need to get back. That’s what’s wrong.”
“We both know there’s something else,” Daniel Jackson said, sounding weary and defeated. “But if you don’t want to talk about —”
“What I want,” O’Neill said, “is half an hour’s sleep. So just shut the hell up, will you?”
Daniel Jackson said no more, but Teal’c could hear him moving and shifting in pain. Teal’c did not think all his discomfort was caused by the injury he carried.