Long Road Back, part 2

As they made their way back to the ‘gate, Daniel was aware of the sidelong glances he was getting from SG3 and from Sam. The part of his brain that automatically registered such things catalogued their expressions: admiration, speculation, grudging respect and from Sam, worry. Not that he really cared much. Actually, that wasn’t quite true: now that the immediate fear for Jack’s life had subsided, leaching away with it much of the cold fury he had felt for Jack's captors, and they were actually on their way home, he was starting to feel slightly ashamed of himself over the exultation he had felt about getting some small measure of revenge on these people.

No, strike that, he was starting to feel very ashamed. He had actually enjoyed shooting that creep, cutting a bully down to size, getting one back on Jack's behalf, watching the man's oily self-assurance degenerate into abject snivelling. For a brief moment he had had the power of life or death or excruciating pain over another being and it had been a rush. Oh, he could rationalise his actions back at the cells to himself – the need for speed, the overriding imperative to find Jack and get him back again safe and whole, his selfish and fervent desire not to lose another person that he loved: the whole scene the product of adrenaline. But not just that, a sneaky little voice whispered at the back of his thoughts: the rush of feeling such power had been almost orgasmic in its intensity. The thought made him feel hot and cold all over and he would have started to shake if he hadn’t looked at Jack again, used the sight of him to bolster his flagging resolve.

Jack. Lying still and slack, cradled in Teal’c’s arms as they jogged along the corridor. Christ, he looked terrible: too thin, far too thin for his lanky frame. His face was gaunt under the scraggly grey beard where the flesh had fallen away from his cheekbones, his eyes sunken. His skin had a yellowish tinge and was mottled with bruises on the exposed wrists and ankles where the drab coverall he was wearing had ridden up. Daniel thought back to the last night before the fateful mission, pictured Jack fucking him like an angel, hard-bodied and strong. He felt the rage start to bubble up inside him again and welcomed it, hugged it tight to his chest as it boosted his determination and kept him going. Time enough to worry about all the other stuff when they were finally down the ramp in the Gate room.

They were by no means out of the woods quite yet. They were making good time to the ‘gate, but it couldn’t be expected to last. They might have to fight their way out of this eventually. Ahead of him, Major Wade held up his fist in the signal to stop as he reached a turn in the corridor and motioned to Lieutenant Morrison to take the other side. Smoothly the two men moved to round the corner, one high, one low, only to duck back quickly as a sudden burst of weapons fire narrowly missed them.

Daniel cursed in the privacy of his own head, fighting a niggling feeling that by allowing the thought he had pulled the reality down onto their heads, and turned his attention back to the direction from which they’d come. He was starting to feel really antsy now, the small space between his shoulder blades cold and prickling in the expectation of a shot finding its mark out of the darkness at any time.

He scanned the corridor behind him: a swift movement caught his eye, far off in the gloom. He had been right to feel antsy then, and he almost grinned at the thought that apparently something of Jack’s sixth sense for trouble was starting to rub off on him. But the impulse faded as he thought through the implications. They were coming, and now the SGC personnel were trapped. He whistled softly to attract Sam’s attention, a tiny sliver of sound between clenched teeth, and gestured down the corridor. Sam ghosted over to his side.

"What is it?"

"Movement, back there. I think they're onto us."

She peered back and yes, there it was again: a tiny flicker of movement in the shadows. Daniel whispered to her again.

"Did you see that?"

"Yeah. Not many of them I don’t think, or they’d come in more confidently. They must know we’re bottled up here so they’ll be hoping to sneak in close and either snipe at us or catch us in crossfire."

"Which makes us the fish in the barrel. I kinda wish you hadn’t chosen to plant that image in my mind."

She gave a shrug and a closed-mouthed half-smile. "Well, it’s what I’d do if I was in their position." She turned away and whistled softly in her turn, the merest thread of sound, attracting the attention of the next man in the chain. She passed on the information with a series of rapid hand signals, careful to hold her pale palms out of sight of their pursuers, and watched as it was passed along to Major Wade.

"Sam, what if we could manage to turn the tables? They can’t know we’ve made their positions. We’re standing in a lot deeper shadow than they are, and anyway they wouldn’t still be sneaking forward if they did. Maybe we could manage to take them out."

She considered for a moment. "It might work at that, if we’re careful. Hold on while I suggest it to the Major."

Again Daniel had to wait for the silent pantomime to run its course, curbing his impatience to be actually doing something now that the idea was on the table. He saw Sam make a ‘thumbs up’ signal.

"Okay, Daniel, we have a go."

"So how do we go about it?"

Sam considered for a moment, chewing her lip. "Those recesses we passed on either side of the corridor, very nearly at the next light. If we can make it to them before they do and without being seen, we can wait there until they’re on us, take them out when they're least expecting it."

"How, exactly?"

"Depends exactly how many of them there are and how quiet we think we need to be."

Daniel shuddered inside at the implications of ‘being quiet’ - knife work, which he loathed - but suppressed it and said merely, "I’ve been watching while you’ve been chatting with Major Wade." Sam rolled her eyes at the term ‘chatting’, but made no comment. "I think I’ve seen three definite movements: there might be another one, but there’s certainly not many of them. Not surprising, we zatted a fair few on our way to the cells and they can’t possibly have recovered yet."

"Okay then. Once we’re sure that they’re all past us, we shoot them if there’re only three or four – we should be able to manage that easily - and then hightail it back here. Hopefully by the time we’ve done that, SG3 will have cleared the way forward and we can get through to the ‘gate. That sound like a plan?"

"That sounds like a plan to me."

And if we pull it off and manage to stay in one piece, it’ll be a fucking miracle, he added internally. Still, the two of them might just manage to even up the odds a little, buy Jack a better chance. And that was all he was really concerned with right now. But he said nothing out loud, just tightened his grip on the Beretta he was holding, flattened himself against his side of the corridor and started to edge towards the recess.

It was nerve-wracking to be creeping towards danger rather than away from it and Daniel was thoroughly glad when he was able to round the angle of the wall into the pool of deeper shadow that lay there and could squat down to minimise his potential as a target. So far, so good: if he was honest, he was surprised that they had made it this far without being made. But in many ways his position now was far worse in that he had no clue how close the opposition were or what they were now doing as the angle of the wall hid them completely from his sight. Not for the first time he wondered to himself how Jack had functioned for years at this level of adrenaline rush. He seemed to thrive on it: it just made Daniel feel sick.

But thoughts of Jack were good, they reminded him of the absolute necessity of fighting their way through to the ‘gate, and as soon as they could manage it. The number one priority was to get Jack home as quickly as humanly possible and he was quite certain, as he carefully checked that his knife was where it should be, that if he had to kill again to do that, he would. He had rarely encountered an abstract that was worth killing for, but show him something concrete that he cared enough about to protect and he was quite capable of killing. In that at least, in the ability to kill when necessary, he and Jack were more similar than either cared to admit.

Suddenly all hell broke loose at the other end of the corridor as a stun grenade was set off, closely followed by the rapid chatter of automatic fire. This proved to be the enemy’s undoing, as they rushed forward to support their colleagues. Daniel found himself with three of the opposition in his sights and managed to down two of them as the third man whirled and fired off a couple of shots in his general direction. Daniel flung himself to the ground, but was not quite quick enough and felt the sting of an energy bolt grazing his shoulder. He heard Sam opening up from the other side of the corridor as he retained the presence of mind to roll rapidly to his right, hearing another bolt sizzling past his ear and feeling small chips of stone scoring his cheek. Damn, that had been close, and his heart leapt in his chest as he realised just how close. There was a smoking hole in the wall just behind where his head had been a couple of seconds before.

When he cautiously raised his head again, there were three bodies lying in the corridor, two of them unconscious and one moaning feebly. Shit, where was the fourth one? He got his answer as a single shot rang out and the man who had been about to shoot him was spun around by the force of its impact and discharged his weapon wide of its intended mark.

"Thanks, Sam."

She grinned, "No problem," her teeth flashing briefly white in her darkened face before she scanned the gloom to check for any other pursuit. She gave a quick ‘thumbs up’ and they both turned and ran back towards the mayhem at the other end of the corridor. Teal'c was still guarding Jack, his large frame in its full Jaffa body armour shielding the unconscious man from further harm.

He looked up at them as they skidded to a stop beside him and squatted down.

"Were you successful, Major Carter?"

"Yes. Four down and no sign of any others. They're bound to be on their way though. How’s SG3 doing? And how’s the Colonel?" As she spoke, she reached out to check the pulse in the unconscious man’s neck, pulling a worried face as she did so.

"I believe they are prevailing. The return fire is diminishing very rapidly. O’Neill’s condition does not appear changed."

"Sam? What is it?"

She chewed briefly on her bottom lip. "His pulse is very slow – it seems a bit slower than it was before. Damn it," she muttered in an outburst of frustration, twisting around and peering towards the noise of the battle taking place, "what’s taking them so long? There’s no way this bunch of morons should be able to hold off a crack Marine unit for this long." She drummed a tattoo on the stock of her P90 with her fingers, then abruptly reached a decision. "I’m going up ahead, maybe I can help. Keep an eye on him, Daniel. And watch out for more company coming."

"You got it. Be careful..."

But she was gone. Daniel scooted over to take her place: Sam was right, Jack’s pulse did seem to be slowing down even although it still felt quite strong and the rise and fall of his chest seemed to be slowing down too. Worry gnawed at him: what if the sedative morphine shot they had administered had made things worse, not better? Shit, that was all they needed, to have found Jack alive and then to have hurt him further with the best of intentions. He puffed out a breath and tried to channel his worry into irritation. Sam had been right – what the fuck was taking those idiot jarheads so long?

"Daniel Jackson. They are doing as much as they can and as fast as they can. Major Wade is as determined to get O’Neill home as we are."

Daniel sighed out his next breath and tried to will the tension to ebb away.

"You’re right, of course. It’s just- -"

"I understand. Inaction is always the most difficult task. But SG3 is being both speedy and efficient."

Daniel looked at Teal’c, and realised just how much it was costing the Jaffa not to be a part of the battle to win through to the ‘gate. Wordlessly, he reached out and gave him an awkward pat on the arm. He cocked his head and listened, then jerked his head in the direction Sam had taken.

"Firing’s stopped."

Teal’c rose to his feet in one fluid motion, then bent to gather Jack up again.

"Indeed. It would be as well to be ready to move out as soon as we are instructed to do so."

Daniel scrambled to his feet, and then tightened his grip on his weapon as the sound of running feet floated down the corridor towards them. Lieutenant Morrison appeared out of the gloom at the corner, waving his free arm in a ‘move out’ gesture.

"Go, go, go! The way’s clear to the ‘gate, but I don’t know how long it’s gonna stay that way."

Morrison waited until Teal’c and Daniel moved up to his position, then fell in behind them to guard their rear as they rounded the corner. "Doctor Jackson? The Major wants you to dial us out. We'll provide the necessary covering fire."

"About time," Daniel muttered under his breath, then flushed a little and added, "Sorry," as he realised that Morrison had caught what he’d said. He took off around the corner at a good clip, but soon had to slow up to avoid slipping and almost falling in blood that had been shed. Whose, he had no way of telling. Still, he got to the DHD in good time, making straight for it and beginning to dial out without waiting for the order. Only once he had dialled in the seventh symbol did he stop and look around. Sam had moved forward to send the GDO signal and the others -- were all there. All of them, praise to all the powers that be, although Major Wade was holding his right arm awkwardly.

The wormhole exploded outwards and settled into its watery pattern just as Teal’c came forward with Jack, Morrison still walking backwards, alert for any threat from behind. Jack looked very still. Too still. Daniel moved out to meet them and felt Jack’s neck for a pulse.

"Teal’c, wait!" Daniel put a hand on Jack’s chest as Teal’c stopped his forward progress. Nothing. Again, not fully believing what he was feeling, he groped for the pulse in the neck, feeling it faint and thready under his fingertips.

"He’s not breathing. Damn it, he’s stopped breathing. Let's go!"

Teal'c surged up to the wormhole, his face grim, Daniel hot on his heels. The trip through the event horizon seemed to take forever before they emerged in the gateroom and raced down the ramp to put Jack on the floor.

It felt like he was wading through quicksand, everything in slow motion, as Daniel watched himself from outside when the training kicked in and he started CPR. Two breaths, fifteen pumps. Two breaths, fifteen pumps. Come on, Jack, don't give up here, don't you dare die on me now.

"Medic! Medic now!" Teal'c's roar cut across the clatter of feet down the ramp.

Two breaths, fifteen pumps. Again. Again. You die on me now, just when I've got you back, I'll kill you – I mean it, I'll kill you for sure, you bastard! Two breaths, fifteen pumps... count them carefully... seven, eight, nine...

Eleven, twelve, thirteen... and at last, Janet's voice, and firm hands moving him out of the way.

"I've got it, Daniel – move back. Gurney! Where the hell's that gurney?"

"Ready? One, two, three, lift..."

"Intubate - - do it now! Move, move!"

"I'm in!"

"Okay, bag him. Major Carter?"

"One ampoule of morphine --"

"He's in A-fib!"

Snatches of orders whirled around Daniel's head, slowly receding and leaving him cast up on the shore in their wake, oddly stranded and purposeless now that his immediate involvement was over. He slumped back, feeling behind himself to find the deck, no thoughts in his head except an insistent mantra: 'C'mon, Jack. You can do it, Jack. You have to do it, Jack, you can't, you mustn't leave me now. C'mon, Jack. You can do it..."

He hardly noticed the approaching medic and paid little attention as he was hustled along to the infirmary, not until he finally arrived and witnessed the flurry of activity around one of the occupied beds. As he passed, the curtain was whisked shut by a grim-faced nurse. For a moment, the rhythm of his internal chant was broken: how long had Jack been down now? For the life of him, he couldn't quantify it; his internal clock was still dragging its feet. He dismissed the thought and went back to willing Jack to pull through.

*

Part 3