First Contact, Last Encounter

by Jb

part three, of five

Just as Daniel felt his arms give way and the head of the staff start to dip down toward the ground, the volley of gunfire cut off abruptly. He let off a few extra blasts just for good measure, and in between his last two shots he thought he heard an outcry coming from the direction he'd been firing toward. Okay! He threw himself forward onto his belly, intending to shimmy to the nearest clump of bushes for better cover, so he could get up to have a better look around. He came very close to letting out a cry of his own as it became clear that would be impossible. Not only was he laying on the damned rope, but having to hold the staff in the grip he did, there was no way he was going anywhere without rising at least back up onto his knees right where he was. And most likely getting his head shot off if their attacker was still there and able. Wait. Maybe instead of getting up, he could move by -

There was a moan from close by, and he glanced back over his shoulder. Teal'c was stirring, feebly moving his legs and tossing his head. Daniel gnawed on his lower lip. He had to get Teal'c under cover before it became obvious to their attacker Teal'c was still alive. He also needed to get that bleeding stopped, and contact Jack. Praying their attacker had been hit and was no longer able to target them, Daniel turned onto his right side, gathered up the trailing rope, pulled the staff weapon parallel to his body, and awkwardly rolled. Biting back a cry as his hip hollered in protest, he rolled to Teal'c and then maneuvered himself into a low crouch at the Jaffa's shoulders. Damn. There was blood, and not just from Teal'c's shoulder. The far side of Teal'c's head, the side turned away from Daniel... something... he couldn't see it very well. Oh no, God, please don't let Teal'c have been shot in the head!

Thoroughly expecting to be caught in a hail or bullets at any second, Daniel's heart hammered in his chest and his breathing was harshly laboured. He had to move Teal'c somewhere safer where he could properly check him out, right now, but without getting them both killed. His eyes burned as he squinted into the distance trying to see anything and everything all at once. He sat next to Teal'c, his hands clenched in a death grip on the staff, aiming it roughly in the direction he thought the last burst of fire had come from. Waited, listened, eyes darting, muscles trembling, chest heaving.

There was nothing.

It took a minute for it to sink through the hyper-arousal. Nothing, there was... nothing. Only his own heartbeat slamming into his chest and head, the sound of his own irregular breathing, and the evidence of Teal'c's efforts to wake up. Move! Do it now! Get, while the getting was good! Daniel struggled to his feet and bent to grab hold of Teal'c. He hovered there for a second, puzzled as to why something didn't seem right, then with a disgusted imprecation directed at himself threw the staff weapon behind him into the nearby thicket of bushes.

Tossing the end of the rope across Teal'c's chest, Daniel reached out to grab the back of his collar, only to immediately freeze and stare in heightened anxiety at the puddle of blood which stained the earth beside Teal'c's ear. He gently rolled Teal'c's head, screwing his eyes shut for a split second as his team mate twitched and moaned loudly, and then felt his heart settle back into its proper position in his chest at the sight of not the damage from a bullet as he'd feared, but an ugly gash centered in a swelling bump just above Teal'c's ear. The thwack he'd heard? Daniel scanned the ground, and yeah, there it was, a large rock right by Teal'c's head, stained with blood. He hoped the impact had only been enough to knock Teal'c for a loop, resulting in a concussion and nothing worse. Teal'c hadn't been out for longer than a few moments, so maybe they'd be lucky and that's all it'd be. Even though it was a head injury, Daniel had to admit it was a relief all the same - potentially a hell of a lot better than the headshot he'd feared. Which was still a possibility for the both of them if he didn't get a move-on and get them under cover.

He grabbed the collar of Teal'c's jacket, and pulled with all his strength. Teal'c slid with him as he took a step backward, but the movement seemed to bring awareness of the pain, and Teal'c reacted with an uncoordinated attempt to resist the pull on his jacket. He groaned out an objection in Goa'uld, dug in his heels and tried to roll away from Daniel's pull. Even as disorganised as the attempt was, it was enough to interfere with Daniel's balance and he pitched sideways onto the ground. He felt a hand on his ankle, then a sharp twist, and kicked out in an attempt to free himself, without success. Teal'c was gaining strength as he woke, twisting around to grab at Daniel. The Goa'uld he was spouting ever more loudly with each passing second made it clear he was confused.

"Mai'tac! Jaffa, sha'lokma'kor!"

Daniel lay passively, neither resisting nor attempting to touch Teal'c. He spoke urgently as Teal'c kicked out and clawed at his leg, evidently believing Daniel to be an assailant. "Teal'c! Teal'c, it's me, it's Daniel. It's all right... please, Teal'c, shhhh... quiet... you have to be quiet."

"Kree, Jaffa! Tau'Ri!" Teal'c lurched forward, raising his shoulders off the ground, shouting, "Shimrota! Sha'lokma'kor ha'ta'aka Tau'Ri!"

Daniel winced over his own stupid mistake, then grimaced as Teal'c viciously dug his fingers into his thigh. Teal'c's aim was inadvertently exquisite. The iron grip shifted and Daniel felt a stab of heat and flush of moisture from the graze on his leg. His heart in his throat, Daniel corrected his error and spoke softly in Goa'uld to Teal'c, anxiously scanning the treeline across the clearing, certain they were about to be gunned down at any moment. He urged Teal'c to stop and listen. "Teal'c, ne'nai, ne'nai. Ni'ya! Kree'ta, mid`cha." To listen to who he was, what had happened, and what they had to do. "Mid`cha... Daniel... Daniel, swaic? Tau'Ri Ash'rak, Teal'c, ki`bunja`swei."

The grip on his leg slowly relaxed as he repeated his message over and over. Teal'c sank back down to the ground, his breathing ragged and eyes closed. "Kel'sha, Daniel Jackson. I am sorry."

Daniel twitched out a small smile of relief, and quietly returned Teal'c's greeting. "Kel'sha, Teal'c. Do you think you can move? Get up?"

Teal'c let go of Daniel's leg, and with Daniel's help he sat up. His face twisted with pain. "You said we must hide... from an assassin. You believe there is yet another taken by a symbiote?"

Daniel climbed to his feet and ineffectually pulled at Teal'c with his bound hands, trying to assist him to stand up. "Well, someone shot at us, Goa'uld or not. Hit you. I'm, I think..." He gasped as Teal'c grabbed him around the waist and pulled himself part way up using Daniel as a support pillar. Ouch. "I'm not sure, but I think I might have got him with a staff blast. I don't know. At least, it looks like he's stopped shooting for now anyway. But we have to get under cover."

Teal'c made it to his feet, but immediately staggered back down onto his knees. He hung with his arms around Daniel's waist, his hands clutching at the back of Daniel's jacket, head lowered, gasping. Daniel's worry skyrocketed. Teal'c had suffered wounds far worse than the shoulder injury and still had been strong as a bull elephant. "Teal'c? What is it? Are you hurt anywhere other than your shoulder and your head? "

The reply was muttered, but certain. "No. Nothing further." The embrace around Daniel's waist weakened and Teal'c slumped further, his body leaning against Daniel's legs, head pressed against Daniel's hip and slowly sliding southward. He was in danger of slithering right on down to fall flat on his face. Daniel's shaky legs didn't feel up to the task; he was hard pressed to keep his balance and stay upright.

"Pa'kree, Teal'c? Then what's wrong?" Teal'c just shook his head. A mumbled apology turned into a slur of words which seemed to include something about being dizzy, and then his full weight sagged against Daniel in a pull he was helpless to fight against. Wobbly knees gave in of their own accord, going with the flow, and as Teal'c lost consciousness Daniel just barely managed to avoid them becoming irretrievably tangled together in a jumble of arms and legs and the trailing end of the rope as they fell. Damn. The only explanation was the head injury. A bad concussion, then, at least.

Crap! A sudden crashing of brush from across the other side of the open dirt area scared the shit out of him. Daniel jerked upright, Teal'c in a crumpled heap at his feet. He came within a hair's breadth of losing control of his contracted bladder as the sound of something large moving without caution through the woods opposite was repeated. No! Oh God no, not now! He bent over and grabbed at Teal'c, but he couldn't get a strong enough grip to actually shift the big man. Shit! Shit, shit! There was a sudden hair-raising inhuman shriek from the woods, and Daniel felt his testicles retract to safety inside him with astounding alacrity. He'd never known any part of him was capable of moving quite so fast. Hysteria edged close as he thought, gosh, now if he could only get the rest of him, and Teal'c, to someplace presumably safe with such efficiency.

Another crash came from across the way, and without conscious forethought Daniel snatched up the trailing end of the leash to pass it under Teal'c's arms. He frantically tried to shove it all the way around, to create a noose surrounding Teal'c's upper body, but the bulky backpack was in his way. He unsnapped the pack quickly and discarded it, locking the rope into place against Teal'c's back by placing his knee on it, so he could bring his hands back around to grab the free end. Snugged the resultant noose up under Teal'c's armpits. Stepped back, and pulled. And pulled again, trying to ignore the way Teal'c's head lolled and his body scraped against the ground. No time. No time. There was more noise from beyond, and another howl. No time! Pull! Again... and again. His arms and legs trembled as he dug his heels into the ground with each haul. Step back, dig in, pull. Step back, dig in, pull. He stumbled through scrubby undergrowth that snatched at his burden and increased the difficulty, grunting with exertion, his left hip twanging miserably. Mai'tac! He wasn't fit for this... too tired, too sore... too shit-scared.

God! Gunfire erupted. Rapid-fire bursts like before, only this time much shorter and erratically intermittent. Daniel couldn't locate the precise direction they came from, didn't know where they were aimed at; and didn't even try to figure it out. The rope burned into his palms as he threw himself backward with every bit of strength he had, and oh thank God, landed in suddenly waist-high bushes. Sitting on his butt, he dug in his heels and leaned back, pulling Teal'c right up onto his lap, and abandoned the rope in favour of a grip on Teal'c's utility belt. He scrabbled backward inch by inch deeper into the brush, yanking Teal'c along with him, and only stopped when he sensed the large tree he had lounged against earlier at his back. Daniel collapsed against the tree, dragging in shaky breaths. What now? The staff. He had to go find the staff weapon. And the pack. There might be a medkit in the pack. But first - He dragged Teal'c to the base of the tree, checked his pulse and breathing, and managed to arrange him into a fairly acceptable approximation of the recovery position.

The intermittent shooting stopped. Daniel absently wondered just how many clips the guy had, and how much of each was used up with each burst. He knew it'd depend on what he was using - if it was a weapon from SG2 or from SG11 - and while he understood the reason why a member of SG11 might be firing on them, the possibility that such a disaster might have fallen upon the missing members of SG2 was beyond tolerable. Daniel wasn't sure if what he was hearing came from a P-90 or from a - Oh hell, did it really matter? Bullets were just as deadly no matter who was holding whatever barrel they spat from. Get going. He pushed up onto his knees, telling himself again that the pain in his hip and pelvis was nothing, just a twinge, as he moved off to one side from Teal'c in order to put some distance between them before making himself a moving target. He allowed himself one quick glance back toward Teal'c, and taking a deep, shaky breath, began to snake his way through the brush back to where he'd thrown the staff and left Teal'c's pack.

Daniel moved slowly and carefully in order to avoid disturbing the bushes around him too noticeably. Already overtaxed muscles cramped with the tension of such precisely controlled movement, and he was so tightly strung that even the faintest noise not of his own making brought him to an abrupt, terrorised halt no matter the inconvenient position he happened to be in at the time. It was great fun. A laugh a minute. Abruptly, his knee found the staff weapon, crunching sickeningly as his kneecap impacted with the hard rim of the head of the staff and shifted in his joint as his knee rolled off the edge. A wave of nausea and dizziness accompanied the painful grating sensation, and with his stomach churning Daniel flopped forward to lay on the ground, trembling, supporting his upper body on his forearms to keep his face out of the undergrowth. His knee joined with the rest of his aching body in throbbing in time with the ebb and flow of acid in his throat, and he started to seriously doubt his ability to continue on even once the queasiness did subside.

It was all too much. He didn't know how to do this. Couldn't do this. Taking in slow deep breaths, Daniel fought against both his emotions and the nausea, dipping his head to allow his forehead to come into contact with his fisted hands on the ground. He couldn't handle this. He was so tired. Would a host to a symbiote be this exhausted, Jack? He choked back the cry welling in his throat, the remains of his composure all but crushed under the weight of an intolerable burden. Overwhelmed. Worn out. Needed to close his eyes, to sleep. To grr-rrr-rest.. slow his breathing, relax his aching muscles. Recharge the batteries. Let go... let it all go, just for a godammed blessed moment... just -

No! Oh God, wake up! Teal'c was helpless. Teal'c needed him. He had to do it. He had to... to... whaa...? What did he have to do? He was crawling around for a reason, here, wasn't he? Damn it, get it together! This was no time to fall apart, to give up. Disgusted with himself, Daniel gave his head a sharp shake both to wake himself up and to rattle his brain into some semblance of rational functioning. He vaguely felt the stem of the staff weapon laying under his thigh. Right. Yes, that was it, get the staff. Protect Teal'c. And, and... and what else? What... oh, that's it, yeah, he had to find the pack and do what he could to treat Teal'c's wounds. Okay, good, the juice was starting to flow again; he could think a bit more clearly now. Promising he wouldn't allow himself to lose it again until they were well and truly safe, Daniel collected himself to move on. He had to find the pack, get back to Teal'c, and he had to use Teal'c's radio to contact Jack and Sam.

Daniel rolled onto his side and extracted the staff from underneath him. Holding it awkwardly, he pushed himself up into a crouch, testing out his knee against the ground. His kneecap was on the way far side of tender, but now that the initial shock had subsided it wasn't so painful as to be immediately disabling. The larger problem was to figure out how to move without the staff either poking up in the air above the brush and giving away his position, or getting in his way as he tried to crawl quietly through the bushes. How the hell he was going to manage both the staff and the pack, once he found it, without figuratively erecting a flashing neon sign pointing to himself? Okay, hang on... here, this was good. Moving with the staff angled carefully in front of him, he could half-lay on his right side, and use his hip and elbow to propel himself carefully along. Not too much visible movement of the brush around him, if he continued to be as caref - Shit! Oh, shit!

All care vanished under a flood of panic as a barrage of noise erupted and spurts of dirt and torn foliage splattered his head and shoulders. No! He rolled as fast and as far as he could in the opposite direction to where the shots had hit the ground, knowing within the next second it was hopeless. The hail of bullets erratically followed him, not right on target but definitely moving along in the same direction as him. There was a moment's lull, and full well knowing there was no way he could endanger Teal'c by going back toward the cover of the thicker brush, Daniel used the end of the staff as a support and lurched to his feet. Fully upright, leaning against the staff, he whirled quickly and caught a glimpse of a dark shape moving through the bushes at the edge of the woods to his left, on the far side of the wide clear pathway.

Just as the figure stopped, straightened up, and squared itself off facing right at him, Daniel marshaled every drop of the adrenaline threatening to immobilise him and frantically broke to his right. Away from the clearing, away from the bushes concealing Teal'c, and away from his attacker. He ran with everything he had, chanting at himself to 'go-go-go-go-go' as he leaped over small bushes and dodged the larger ones. The staff waved chaotically, low undergrowth dragged at his feet, and through his panic he was aware of his knee feeling spongy, hurting with every step, and his hip twanging mercilessly. His throat closed up to seal in everything but the most meagre of wheezing breaths. He didn't think he was going to make it to the edge of the woods.

No, don't think that way. He could. He had to. No choice. Stopping to try to get organised enough to aim and fire the staff without the cover of the deep woods was patently foolish. This was the only way. He had to make it. Do it or die. He was acutely aware of being pursued, of the noisy crashing of brush somewhere behind him, and then the gunfire came once more, following him all too closely behind as he finally hurdled over the deadfall that marked the edge of the woods. Daniel pelted into the heavy forest and kept right on going, zigzagging amongst the trees, running blindly in whatever direction the going seemed easiest. The gunfire behind him was replaced with a fairly constant howl of what Daniel interpreted as frustrated rage, with an edge to it he sincerely hoped was evidence of pain. He crashed through the woods, not really caring where he was going - that he was being chased was obvious, and as long as he was leading this thing-person-whatever away from Teal'c any direction was as good as another. Holding the staff angled closely across his body in an attempt to avoid whacking any trees with either end of it, his two-handed grip almost painfully tight on the weapon, he had to struggle to keep his balance and avoid tripping over it and the wildly flapping leash.

Daniel struggled to keep moving for what seemed an eternity, time seeming to slow to a crawl, the trees passing by in a contradictory slow-motion blur no matter how quickly he tore past them, his limbs moving as weighted by sandbags. Through his increasingly impossible fatigue, it occurred to him there was no way to tell if the noises he was running from were of his pursuer's or his own making. He knew the shooting had stopped, the howling was an unpleasant memory, and really, he had no way of knowing if his attacker was even still back there. He kept going anyway, for Teal'c's sake he hoped, tripping and crashing his way through the woods, his strength and coordination steadily degenerating until forward motion was more like some desperate parody of the night before the morning after than it was a means of escape from a threat.

A painfully disabling stitch in his side joined with the staff and the trailing end of the rope to defeat him as he stumbled badly over them, and was sent crashing hard to the ground in a narrow space between two large trees. He lay sprawled amidst protruding roots and fallen branches, eyes squeezed shut against the fire in his side, barely able to breathe, the loud thumping of his own heartbeat in his ears all but completely obscuring awareness of any other sounds. Every cell in his body was telling him there was no freaking way he'd be going any further. He tried to concentrate on relaxing his cramping muscles, breathing in irregular gulps of what seemed not nearly enough air to support life, and haphazardly thought about making an attempt at climbing to his knees to... to... oh, God, he felt sick. Maybe he'd just lay there for a bit longer. Just for a bit.

As the stitch in his side settled down and his brain started to catch up to his heartbeat, Daniel remembered the chase and groped for the staff. He was in a race for his and Teal'c's lives here, and couldn't afford this. He had to get up, get ready for what was out there. Opening his eyes and raising his head as a starting point, Daniel immediately discovered that in this second heat of this particular race the start and finish lines were one and the same. A sickening flush of warmth ran through his body just as strange pinpoints of white appeared in his field of vision, and he abruptly passed out.

A training run. Just do it as if it was a training run. Consistent pace, controlled breathing. Balance, shoulders square, good arm movement. Eyes ahead. No wasted energy, no wasted time.

Jack spared a quick glance at his watch as he ran. He and Carter had found Griff forty-six minutes after they'd left Teal'c and Daniel, but part of that time had been spent in dealing with the beast-things, and then tracking Griff's signal. If they'd left the path at around... okay, yeah, that was about right. Griff's position was about thirty-five minutes out from Teal'c and Daniel, at the moderate jog he and Carter had used until the local version of sabre-tooths had scared him into stupidity. Just how many mindless, bad decisions was he going to make on this trip?

Thirty-five minutes. So, as long as he kept his pace even - if he could maintain this fast a run without bursting a lung or his muscles tying up - it looked like he'd make it in something over twenty. He'd been steadily running at this clip for close to fifteen minutes so far, and the surrounding terrain helped to confirm his calculations for him. He recognised the treeline along here, and the dips and curves of the pathway. From what he could tell he was just about ten minutes out from where he needed to be. Provided he could keep this up.

Tem minutes. Crap, what a balls-up mess he had made of this! Ten minutes was about how long he'd loitered back there with Carter and Griff, outwardly adopting a manner of self control and decisiveness - trying to convince them and himself that he knew what he was doing, that his staying with them there had nothing whatsoever to do with procrastination and uncertainty. Trying to convince himself they'd hear from Teal'c any moment; his friend would calmly announce over the comm that no, O'Neill, of course there was no problem. Nothing other than a small matter calmly and efficiently dispatched. And that Daniel Jackson was in fact Daniel Jackson and had nothing to do with anything. They would all smile, and everything would be fine. But then they'd heard more gunfire, this time unaccompanied by the sound of the staff. Some minutes after that there had been yet more, fading off into the distance as Jack had stood there impotently, all too aware of Carter's renewed unsuccessful attempts to contact Teal'c... all too aware that the staff weapon was far, far too silent.

Fear of the unknown pushed him on, his sense of urgency growing as he got closer with still no word from Teal'c, and with no sign that his two team mates had been this way. His eyes continually multi-tasked, both watching out for possible hostile activity and carefully scanning the ground and the surrounding treeline for signs that anyone other than he and Carter had passed through here recently. There was nothing. Jack felt his legs beginning to burn, and his ankles were sore from the uneven ground. He forced himself to push past it. Easy on the breathing, count off the steps, maintain the rhythm. Just like on a training run. God, what a mess. He'd told Teal'c to give Daniel fifteen minutes, then to set out. They'd taken more, sure, but if they hadn't even got this far it was possible whatever had happened to them had started even before he and Carter had heard the first burst of weapons fire. His fault. He'd had a man operating at far less than one hundred percent who was possibly compromised, maybe even posed a threat to them, and what had he in his great wisdom done? He'd separated the team anyway.

Damned if he hadn't just done it again, too. Carter was back there with Griff, who was oh so so less than one hundred percent that the man had barely been able to breathe much less tell them what had happened to him and Pierce after SG1 had left the bivouac site. Anger at himself distracted him, and Jack stumbled slightly on the path, cursing as he narrowly avoided falling. At this speed, that'd hurt big time. Okay, an object lesson. He had to stop this fretting over what was already done, and get back on track with dealing with the results. But that was hard; he'd just left Carter alone even despite knowing he'd made the wrong decision with Teal'c. What else could he, should he, have done though? An echo of a never-to-be-missed wry voice sounded in his mind, drawling out one word... 'choiceless'. Yeah? Choiceless? Well, fuck that, ArseButt. So not true. There were always choices, sometimes just not ones which were easy to make. Subject closed. Just get on with it, and save the dissection for later.

Two minutes, now. Jack's lungs felt like rocks, and the accessory muscles in his chest and abdomen were working hard to keep him supplied with enough air. He slowed, ever alert to his surroundings, shortening his stride to settle into a slow jog. Once he'd spit out whatever saliva he was too short of breath to swallow that had not already run down his chin, and felt he would be able to speak, he reached up to key his radio. He was on channel four - Teal'c's frequency - with Carter, and they'd set Griff's comm to channel one for Carter to communicate with SG3. He thumbed his activation switch and in a whisper asked Carter for an update. She advised him Griff was hanging on, seeming a bit stronger. That was good. All was quiet so far. That was even better. SG3 was making steady progress toward them, with no new encounters or discoveries. That was both good and bad. Jack told Carter where he was, that she should maintain radio silence with him as he scouted the area for any sign of Teal'c and Daniel, and signed off.

He reached the onset of the gradual bend in the trail, and quietly moved over to the inner edge of the wide dirt pathway, making his way slowly around the curve. Weapon at the ready, he slowly advanced until he could see the first clump of trees, and beyond that the tree where he and Carter had left Teal'c standing with an exhausted Daniel. Past that was another copse of trees, surrounded by much heavier brush cover. The entire area was quiet, and apparently unoccupied. Where the hell were they? Jack moved again, coming right the way around the bend to fade quietly into the trees along the trail as he approached closer. He skirted the open area keeping to the edge of the woods, and when he was a good one hundred sixty degrees from where he started, halfway around to the backside of the heavy growth of brush surrounding the far cluster of trees, he paused for a moment. There were clear signs of someone, or something, having entered the woods here; the crushed undergrowth, torn leaves, and broken twigs on the bushes were dead giveaways. Daniel? Teal'c wouldn't leave a messy trail like this. He reached out to gently finger one of the thicker branches, and felt the residual moisture at the point where it had snapped. So... not too long ago.

Jack was torn between following the swath of destruction into the woods and turning back to properly explore the immediate area. He hesitated, gazing first into the clearing and at the far trees where he had last seen his team mates, and then into the woods behind him. Five minutes. He'd take five minutes to check out the site where they had rested, and then he'd set out to follow the trail of who or whatever had crashed into the trees here. That decided, Jack did a quick survey, and then made a rapid dash to the first cover on his way back to where he'd left Teal'c and Daniel. He skidded into knee-high brush that quickly tangled up his feet, and he slowed, stepping more carefully into the waist-high cover around the trees. Ignoring the trees themselves, he circled around the perimeter of the thick brush to the other side in order to head over to their resting place. Once out of the thick growth here, the space between the two groves of trees was more or less wide open, and although he'd had no tingles or hair-raising premonitions, he'd have to be careful in the open... would have to make a dash for it just in case.

Cutting the angle, he inched past the larger tree to his right and stepped out at a crouching run. Shit! All at once, there was an indefinite sensation under his boot, his ankle twanged, something cracked loudly, and moisture flew up into his face and neck. Crap! No! His thoughts muddled as panic surged, Jack frantically threw himself off his feet toward the trees, the certain knowledge he'd stepped on a boobytrap and had just been showered with his own blood sickening him beyond rational thought. He was going to puke. Oh, fuck, he'd done it now. He'd killed himself. He landed in a heap, struggling to keep both his head and his P90 up, his heart in his throat and his guts churning with dread, his breathing harsh and laboured.

It took him several seconds of lying there frantically listening for the approach of his unseen enemy coming to finish him off before he realised that, hey, nothing actually hurt after all. What the hell? Jack hazarded a quick glance down at his leg as he swiped a hand across the base of his neck. Yep, that was a leg, all right, and what the hey? His hand was damp with... water? Momentary puzzlement dissolved into relief, followed by bubbling laughter he did not dare audibly release, as Jack realised he was just fine. It was only water, and his foot was exactly where it had always been in the same condition it had always been. Okay! The giddy relief turned to embarrassment, even though there was no one there to have seen his... ah, display. Jack flopped over onto his back on the ground, took deep cleansing breaths, and peered over toward where whatever he had stepped on had been stepped on. Just over there, hidden in the brush. He lie there for a moment before pushing himself up, ruefully figuring he'd best go check it out. Maybe it was something Daniel might be interested in... some primitive Unas-y leather or intestinal-gut-stuff version of a water carrier, or something equally as not-thrilling. An artifact.

What he found chilled his amusement into a block of ice in his chest. He found the nozzle top first, a good foot from the container itself. The top had obviously flown off when he'd stepped on the water bottle. Teal'c's water bottle. Last seen securely fastened to Teal'c's utility belt. Damn. Jack picked up the broken bottle, turning his upper body to do a slow sweep of the area. Where ever Teal'c and Daniel had got to, they were without water. Not something Teal'c would willingly have happen, that's for certain. What else might have been left behind? Could that be the reason they hadn't heard the staff firing toward the end there? That it was lost, dropped? No. For Teal'c to drop the staff, he'd have to... stop it. Stop that thought right there. Grimacing, Jack tossed the bottle into the closest thicket and started a thorough search of the undergrowth around him.

Finding the water bottle was a bad thing, an omen he didn't welcome in the least. Finding its owner defied description. Sucked big time. Weak movement of Teal'c's right hand where it lay on his chest told Jack he was alive before he even made it to Teal'c's side, but the shock and fear had already welled up in him at the sight of the man lying there under the tree, mostly hidden in the bushes. His hands were trembling slightly as he reached out to gently check Teal'c's carotid pulse, noting the large bloodstain high on Teal'c's left shoulder and the dark smears of blood on his neck. There was only a low moan in response as Jack gently tapped him on the face, so he tried turning Teal'c's head toward him. Teal'c's eyelids fluttered, his fingers mirroring that movement on his chest, and then Jack caught sight of the laceration on the side of his head. That had to be the reason why Teal'c was so minimally responsive. A head injury. Oh, fun. Just what they needed... not.

Judging from the way the bushes Teal'c lie in had folded back over him, and given the stiffness of his uniform where the blood was all but dry, this had happened a while ago, most certainly before the last volley they had heard some thirty-plus minutes ago. Jack swiveled his head, looking around for the staff weapon, and upon not seeing it anywhere close by suddenly realised there was something else that was nowhere in evidence close by, either. Or, make that, not something but someone. Ah, no, dammit. Teal'c was here in the bushes, injured, and Daniel was nowhere to be seen. He pushed aside the worst, most obvious implications as unlikely. Daniel had been securely tied up last he'd seen him, and Teal'c was no slouch. Goddamn it, Daniel! Where in the hell could -

No! Ah fer crying out - Damn! Jack dove on top of Teal'c as the foliage around them was suddenly ripped to shreds in a hail of bullets. He realised his mistake immediately and rolled to the left, as far from Teal'c as he could manage in one big push, hauling himself up, the P90 already scanning for a target before he'd even made it onto his knees. Pinpointing the direction of the threat as being just behind him, Jack swiveled in a wide semi-circle, already firing on full repeat as he clambered the rest of the way to his feet. He broke left, releasing short bursts toward the direction he thought the enemy fire originated from, staring intently into the trees. And...yes! There! A sudden muzzle flash, just barely bright enough against the backdrop of the forest that he could see it. Dirt kicked up all around him even as he continued to run to his left, but Jack ignored it in favour of concentrating on his own aim.

No go. He'd missed. Crap. Did he even want to hit the target? What if it was... no. No way Daniel could have a submachine gun. From where? He ran in a zigzag pattern toward the treeline, keeping his eyes on the telltale flashes. There was a long pause of nothingness, and for a moment he thought maybe the guy had pulled back, but then the shooting began anew... only this time, it was a different weapon. Damn it! It was a P90 now, distinctive in tone, whereas up until this point he had was pretty sure he had been facing something else, possibly one of the old M16's usually carried by the R&D Support teams. Like the ones SG11 had. Who the fuck else could it be? The Unas? Sure.

How many guns and how many clips his opponent had at his disposal was an unknown Jack didn't want to think about. Didn't matter anyway. He'd need to wrap this baby up right now in any case, because Teal'c needed attention and who the fuck knew where Daniel was and he'd better not be at the other end of this scope... and, godammit, Jack didn't have time for this full-of-doubt shit. It wasn't possible and that was the end of it. He brought the weapon up higher for as accurate a bead as possible on the repeated dim flashes, took a deep calming breath, and gently, almost lovingly, squeezed the trigger. A short, concentrated burst. He knew the outcome even as the rounds left the barrel. Take that, you son of a bitch. Jack smiled grimly when the attacking volleys stopped as abruptly as a light would go out if he'd flicked its switch. Caution was the order of the day, however, and he waited for a slow ten count before moving out, keeping close to the treeline, circling around to where he knew his aim had been true.

Damned if that spot wasn't the very same one in which he'd found evidence of someone having passed through into the woods. He stepped past the very same bushes he'd been examining not long before, weapon at the ready, and crouched down next to the figure laying there. It was a grisly sight. The P90 fired 5.7mm rounds at over 2300 feet per second, and it looked like pretty much the entire burst he'd fired had hit the target more or less, well, right face on. Ugh. Specific identification was dodgy at best, but the uniform was SGC and the shoulder patch said SG11. That was enough for now. His knees buckled slightly under the weight of his relief, his mind offering up a thank you prayer that it wasn't Daniel, even though he'd known it couldn't have been. Jack scrubbed a tired and slightly shaky hand across his face as he surveyed the damage. No matter what the snake in charge had done, including the attack on Teal'c and Daniel, whichever member of SG11 this had been before the parasite had taken him hadn't deserved this.

No matter what had been done. What had been... Jack reached out and fingered the weapons clumsily strapped to the net vest on the body. One of the automatic SMG's SG11 had been armed with, and not one but two P90's. Jack suddenly straightened up, alarmed. Two. Two P90's. He jabbed at his comm, calling to Carter before he'd fully depressed the switch. She responded immediately, and even though he'd well known the second weapon could never have been hers, he felt something loosen inside him at the sound of her voice. He poked at the various compartments in the vest as he spoke to her, noting it contained three - geez, count 'em, three - radios. He told her about Teal'c, asking her to divert SG3 to his location to help with evacuating their friend, and asked his question. After a brief pause she clicked back on and advised that Griff's weapon had not been taken from him, but had been dropped close by as he'd crawled through the woods too injured to continue to hang on to it. He acknowledged her absently, worry about the origin of the two P90's eating at him, and then was snapped back as she did the very bad thing.

She asked about Daniel.

Shit. Daniel. Where the hell are you?

Jack gave her a curt "whereabouts unknown at this time," and signed off. He had to get back to Teal'c, and he had another equally important task to perform. His guts curdling as he gazed around the too quiet clearing, he reluctantly reminded himself he'd only found Teal'c by accident, and the brush was pretty thick in spots amongst the trees... so Daniel could be in any one of dozens of places. He didn't have much time, but he might not need much if he went about this sensibly. He'd use Teal'c's location as a starting point, and work his way outward.

Ah, God. Damn you, Daniel. How dare you do this? How dare this happen? His jaw clenched so tightly it hurt, and with his mind wandering to places he really didn't want to visit he found himself several giant steps away from the corpse before he remembered there was something he needed to do there. He lurched back to it, grimacing as he shoved his hand down the front of the jacket and groped for the dogtags. They were slick with blood, and it took him a moment to get them off the body.

The grey sky suddenly opened up above him, pelting him with a torrent of rain. He jammed the dogtags into one of his vest pockets and didn't look back as he left the remains of yet another disaster behind.

Water? Was that...? Yes. He was hearing running water. And it felt like... pressure. Something pressing... a tenseness over his bladder? Yes. Damn. He knew he had to wake up, and right away; dreaming of running water was never good. Better get up and go to the bathroom before he wet his bed like a three year old.

Groggily, Daniel tightened the muscles of his lower abdomen and pelvis to hold it in as he shifted his weight in the bed, and immediately came to full alertness as every part of his body screamed at him that not only was this no posturpedic mattress he was laying on, but that a good deal of him was already soaking wet and it had nothing to do with bodily elimination needs. A split second later full memory of his situation hit home, and in a panic he surged forward to sit upright.

A swish of wet leaves across his face as he sat up scared the crap out of him, and he involuntarily jerked to one side. An instinctive attempt to place his hands out to either side of him to regain his balance only made matters worse as his bound arms refused to go where he needed them to. With a yelp, he pitched over sideways, ending up with his sore hip painfully mushed between a large protruding root and the base of a tree into which he'd just planted his face. Acutely aware of every betraying noise he was making, Daniel rolled, got his hands underneath him, and pushed himself back upright. He had a quick look around, but couldn't see the staff weapon anywhere within reach. He wanted to search for it, to scramble madly around in the dirt and leaves until he could wrap his hands around its reassuring shaft, but every cell in his body screamed of the danger in that, of the need to be quiet and remain undiscovered.

Ignoring the increasingly evident painful results of his earlier run, he sat still, his eyes darting from side to side repeatedly, and listened carefully for any sounds other than the splatter of rain against foliage, the gurgle of running water coming from somewhere behind him, and the soft creak and groan of the forest. There was nothing. No crashing, no shrieking, no shooting... just relative silence, and the longer he sat there, muscles protesting the stress in his body, the more frightened Daniel became that any second there'd be a triumphant howl of discovery from whatever direction he wasn't looking. His breath came in short gasps, his heart pounded as if it wanted to knock his ribcage aside and escape his chest, and his neck and shoulders felt frozen with tension.

He had a vague memory of passing out, and then coming to thinking but not at all certain he'd just heard the crash of brush somewhere nearby. His fuzzy memory clarified further, and he recalled being unable to locate the staff without making his position known. Of quietly laying still in a state of intolerable fear and exhaustion, not quite alert and sane enough to be able to tell if the indiscriminate sounds were coming closer or getting farther away. Damn it. He must have passed out again, or maybe even fallen asleep? He'd been stupid, so weak, and now because of that here he was an unarmed sitting duck, no doubt just one noise away from discovery.

How much time had passed? Maybe, just maybe - Daniel held his breath, listening intently, but only heard the natural sounds of the forest in the falling rain. He gradually relaxed slightly, just enough to shift a part of his awareness to his own state. He was hurting in more places he'd even known he possessed, and felt ill. Vaguely bilious, plus thick and sloggy all over with an annoying, unpleasant buzz to his limbs and head. Keeping part of his attention on his surroundings, Daniel tentatively tested out his limbs. He grimaced as he felt a grating sensation in his knee as he flexed it, and outright groaned at the pain in his hip when he slowly rose to his feet and tested out weight-bearing on that leg. He took a step forward, and lurched to one side to thrust his hands out toward the nearest tree to try to support himself as a sharp pain lanced through his hip and down the back of his leg.

Leaning against the rough bark, Daniel stretched his leg out, gingerly placed his foot flat on the ground, and then tried a few half-hearted partial deep knee bends. Both the knee and hip hurt like hell, much worse than before. He hoped it was simply a result of stiffening up after extreme exertion, followed by inactivity - he couldn't believe it; he'd fucking fell asleep for God's sake! - but wasn't going to hold his breath on that one. Regardless, he had to get moving. It was pretty clear by now whoever had been trying to kill him was no longer in the area, and if he wasn't here bothering Daniel, then Daniel had to assume Teal'c could be in danger.

Growing awareness of the passage of time increased his concern for Teal'c, and set off renewed tension in his gut. He needed to get back there as quickly as possible. A reprise of his previous run through the woods was clearly a physical impossibility, but he'd have to do the best he could. Daniel pushed himself away from the tree and very nearly stepped out, before he remembered the missing staff weapon. Wouldn't that have been special, blundering through the woods to encounter some crazed assassin only to remember far too late that he was missing a vital piece of equipment. Very good, Daniel. Jesus.

Shaking his head over his muddled thinking, Daniel started a visual search for the staff. He saw it after a few minutes of squinting into the bushes around the trees, laying almost entirely hidden amid low brush a good distance beyond where he had collapsed in between the two trees. It must have literally flown out of his hands when he'd fallen. He tried to step his way cautiously through the root system toward it, but he was hard pressed to go even the eight feet over to where the staff lay without reaching and grabbing for support at everything within reach of his bound hands. At this rate, how the hell was he going to get back to Teal'c before the turn of the century, never mind before some crazy man did? If he hadn't already, that is. Oh, please, no.

Shoving aside thoughts of failure and the accompanying twist in his gut, Daniel reached down and snagged the staff. He turned around to go back the way he'd come, and telling himself he could do this, that it'd be fine, he held it firmly in front of him in his two-handed grip and tried to use it as a walking stick. Unsuccessfully. The only thing he achieved was to displace his centre of gravity far enough forward that he was in danger of toppling over with every step. Daniel cursed under his breath as rising frustration and anger combined with his worry for Teal'c. Breathing in short, shaky gusts, his arms starting to shake with stress, he gave it up and angled the staff, stepping forward without its support, but before he'd even made it back to the gully between the trees he tripped over the end of his leash. Before he could catch himself, he was flat on his face on the ground, elbows scraped, his arms thrust forward, the staff weapon laying half underneath him. Argh. Demoralized and sore beyond belief, he turned his head and lay his cheek on the soft, wet moss underneath him and just lay there in brief surrender. Closing his eyes, a quick flash of memory - a mental image of half-laying, half-sitting in exhaustion at the base of another tree, at another time - momentarily confused him. Where was he? What was he meant to be doing?

Teal'c! Yes, right. He was meant to be protecting Teal'c... but he was doing one hell of a poor job of it. Damn it, he really had to get a grip here, stop being such a wuss. He smiled faintly to himself as in his mind he heard Jack's 'dammit, Daniel,' heard Jack's voice urging him to damned well get up and get on with it. Physical stamina was hardly Daniel's weakest point, and he knew that to this point he'd put up with more than many people would have been able to... but with lives at stake, no matter how well he'd done or how much he'd had to cope with, no way would Jack allow Daniel to indulge. No way Jack himself would be just laying here like this, wasting time. Right? So if Jack could do it, he could too. Right? He was every bit as capable of pulling this off as Jack. Right?

Ohh, no, actually... not necessarily right. A fleeting, sour smile passed across Daniel's lips again at the knowledge that he and Jack were different, and no matter how much Jack swore at him there were some expectations he was bound not to be able to meet. But in this particular instance nothing less than full compliance was acceptable, even to Daniel. He had to get moving, no matter how bad off he felt. With renewed determination, purposefully maintaining Jack's voice in his head egging him on, Daniel started to clamber to his feet. He only made it part way before he was jerked back down as his arms refused to come up with him. What the hell...?

The rope around his wrists was snagged on something. Daniel pulled his arms upward what little he could, peering underneath, and found that a loop of rope from the underside of the knot had caught on a sharply broken-off, protruding branch of a tree limb mostly buried in the ground. Was that the bottom part of the loop which Teal'c had pulled downward in the cave? If so, struggling to release it by pulling upward could result in the bundle of knots between his wrists tightening. They were quite sore enough as it was, thank you very much. Daniel relaxed his arms, leaned forward, and carefully slid the snagged rope off the raggedly pointed stub. Thankfully, it came away without too much trouble, and he was free.

He was... free.

Free? Daniel stared at his bound wrists. At the tightly braided leather rope. Free. An instant replay of his own panicked thoughts sounded in his mind. 'I'd know if I was a host. Anything else was inconceivable, impossible. Wasn't it?'

Daniel shuddered, aware of little else other than the recurrence of unpleasant images and increasingly loud and fearful words in his head. 'I'm not inhabited by a Goa'uld. I'm not. It was impossible.' Oh, God.

'...the sounds and smell of gunfire, the image of Loder being catapulted across the clearing as a snarling mass clubbed the man aside...'

'This couldn't be happening. Couldn't be. But it was. Three men I'd worked side by side with for the last ten days were dead, and now my own team thought...'

'Not just the three lost here. How many Goa'ulded, how many dead?'

"Listen to me, Daniel. Will you hear me? There is danger here."

"Listen to me, Daniel..."

What? Teal'c?

"Will you hear me? There is danger here."

Teal'c? Teal'c!

Daniel's heart leapt into his throat and he scrambled to grab the staff weapon. What was wrong with him? He had to go! Teal'c. There was danger - Teal'c was hurt and Daniel had left him all alone. He had to hurry. Get back there. Awkwardly, he scooped up the staff and struggled to his feet. He stepped on the trailing rope as he did so, and even as unnerved as he was, some remnant of sanity chided him for his attempt to ignore the obvious. He was going to be less than helpful in his current state. He could barely walk unassisted never mind hot-foot it to anywhere, and once he got wherever there was he'd be no better able to handle an emergency than he had been before.

He had to get the rope off.

It was the only answer. With his hands free not only could the staff be used for support, but he'd be much more efficient should he need to fire it. Except that - damn it. He was fooling himself. There was no time to fuss with the rope now. It'd take forever to do that, and he'd already wasted God only knew how much time. But, with it on, he couldn't even... he couldn't... he'd had to run away , for Christ's sake! His only option had been to turn tail and run like hell because he couldn't properly... he hadn't been able to... but he had to get back; Teal'c was alone and that monster knew -

"Agh, God! Jack!" Daniel involuntarily screamed out loud in confusion and fear. He waved the staff in a fit of adrenaline-hyped frustration, railing up at the heavens through the green canopy overhead. "Fuck! It's all fucked up, Jack! Tell me what to do!"

The burst of emotional energy fled immediately after the outburst and he slumped to his knees, knowing full well no one was going to magically appear and take the responsibility away from him. He was on his own. He was on his own, and he had to get the rope off. He was useless with it still on. He'd made a huge mistake in being so prissy about it with Jack before. Now, he only hoped Teal'c hadn't already paid with his life for that bit of stubborn stupidity.

So. Get the damned rope off. He sniggered softly to himself. Oh, sure. Right. No doubt it had been less of a trauma for Tycho Brahe to have had his nose cut off than it would be for Daniel to try to accomplish this. He stared blankly at the ground in front of him, feeling worse than inadequate, his mind only slowly registering what was right in front of his own nose. The sharp stub of wood he'd been caught up on and the thick limb it was attached to, with its numerous broken branches poking their way erratically up from the mulch of the forest floor. Of course. Daniel quickly held his hands up so he could get a look at the underside of the mass of rope between his wrists. He could see the slightly lax portion which had become snagged, and also saw the ends of the woven strips which made up the rope and marked the presence of the near end of the rope as laying somewhere in the mess of knots. He was pretty sure the loosened loop was the segment Teal'c had pulled down on, so theoretically if he pulled from below it'd tighten the whole thing. So he had to... okay. There? If he worked at that portion right there, then maybe it'd pull that loose loop in and up, which would what? Tug on that portion under there. Right?

Yes, that looked right. With any luck that would bring the long leash end right on up through the knot. Step one in getting the thing off. He'd have to try it, and if it worked then figure out where to go, what part to try to loosen off, from there. Okay. Okay! There you go, Daniel. Work it through; use those Piled-Higher-and-Deeper underachieving brain cells and solve this dilemma. Taking a calming breath, relieved to be doing something more productive than panicking, Daniel sat back on his haunches and scanned the limb for a broken branch of the right size which came off in the right direction. The first one he found was too weak, breaking off almost immediately after he'd pried it up into the right spot in the knot. Which was okay, because he'd had to contort himself too much to get it aimed up into the top of the bundle of leather properly, and his arms and shoulders had protested to the point he'd been hard pressed to hold the position even as long as he had. He'd never have been able to wiggle and waggle it under just right to actually accomplish much.

Trying out several more candidates met with equally unproductive results, and just as he was about to lapse into despair again, there it was. Sticking up from the mangled end of the limb was a thin, jaggedly curved shoot of wood, tapering off to a sharp point aimed at a slightly downward angle. Daniel scrambled toward that end of the limb, climbed over it to the other side opposite his new prybar, and brought his arms up, around, and over to the other side of the limb in front of him. It was perfect. It was better than perfect. A bit of hokey-pokey brought the pointed end into the knot, and some gentle shimmying ensured it'd stay there while he worked at loosening and pulling up on the loop.

Yes! The D-ring reappeared on the top of the bundle of knotted leather, getting floppy as it enlarged. He worked it up and out as much as he could. Satisfied, Daniel abandoned the fallen limb in favour of finding something really strong. He needed leverage. He needed... that. That tree branch right over there. It came off the big tree at a level over the ground somewhat above his full height, sticking out proudly despite being broken off within three feet or so of its origin at the tree trunk. He approached the tree, and noticed the condition of the bark on both the tree and the branch. Roughened, damaged. Daniel shuddered as he saw the deep claw marks there, realising the branch had been broken off by something quite large and powerful. Something that could climb trees. He fervently hoped it had been just an Unas. Do Unas climb trees?

Never mind. Just one more reason to get this done. Get on with it. Reaching overhead, he found the height just about right, and with some difficulty carefully guided the slack loop over the branch end and along it toward the tree trunk. He had to stand on the tips of his toes at one point where the short branch took a temporary upward turn, and he got stuck several times on the rough surface before he managed to get it looped along over a thick enough portion that the branch was less likely to break off once he started hauling on it. He dropped his weight, pulling downward. The loop slowly enlarged slightly as he carefully applied more downward pressure, and Daniel almost sobbed as he saw the stubby trailers sticking out from the jumble between his wrists move upward into the knot at the same rate. It wasn't what he had expected, but at least something was happening.

Not only was something happening, but it looked like he might have finally been granted a bit of luck. As he realised it was not the long trailing leash but the short end of the rope moving, it suddenly occurred to him maybe the convoluted-looking knot wasn't really a knot per se, but in fact just might be a series of haphazard loops of the rope around a central section between his wrists, with the short end shoved into and through the whole thing... possibly in one go. Oh, please let it have been pushed through in one go! He felt a strange mix of satisfaction and vague nausea as he realised that if this was the case, his early attempts to pull his hands free was probably what had kept him trapped there in an ever tightening grip around his wrists, which meant that now the whole thing might just unravel once he'd pulled the line through a couple of times. Jesus. If so, that meant he probably could have done this at any point. Oh, Teal'c.

Daniel clenched his teeth over the time he'd wasted vacillating over what to do, and pulled downward sharply, lifting his feet right off the ground, allowing his entire body weight to yank on the loop. There was a slip-slide, a momentary catch, and then all at once the short trailers sticking out from the knot were whipped up through into the jumble and in short order Daniel found himself landing hard onto his butt on the ground. He came close to greying out for a second as his hip screeched at him, then shook it off, and stared stupidly down at his bindings not really clear for a moment on what he was seeing. Daniel blinked purposefully, hesitant to believe it really could be that easy. The D-ring loop was gone, the short end now longer and flapping about, and while the mess stayed a congealed jumble of coiled loops it had loosened considerably. He quickly picked at the coils he could reach and then tentatively pulled his hands apart, watching dumbfounded as the whole thing suddenly unwound.

Ohmigawd. He did it. He was free. Well... either he was, or his sneaky, hiding, yellow-bellied Goa'uld. No. He didn't have a Goa'uld. But if he did, it'd be yellow-bellied for sure because when it came right down to it, they all were. He didn't have a Goa'uld, but he did have a responsibility he desperately hoped he hadn't failed to meet, though. Daniel painfully got to his feet, untangled himself from the rope, secured it into a coil, and ducked his head and arm through it to sling it over his shoulder and across his chest. He studied his watch - now that he had access to it - and was disappointed to find it was fatally damaged, the face glass cracked and the LED display dark. Ah well. He hobbled over to pick up the staff weapon laying in the low brush, surveying where he was and where he'd come from.

Oh, shit. His heart hammered in his chest, a sudden spike of fear sending his body into overdrive. Where had he come from? He swiveled his head wildly. Which way - There? Yes. Oh, thank you God! He remembered that small hump over there, beyond the trees he'd, crap, fallen and fallen asleep between. He knew that some distance beyond it there was a huge waist-high bush full of menacing thorns he'd only just avoided crashing right through the centre of during his run.

He was okay. He knew how to get back to Teal'c. He wasn't lost. Everything was going to be okay now.

Go on to part four

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Within the context and limitations of the site Disclaimer, Any and All original characters, situations, story line, dialogue and narrative © March 15th, 2002, the author