Guardian of the Gate

by Jb

part three, of five

18 Colonel Jack O'Neill


I nod at Carter, and she confirms the order into her comm. And we wait for the door to open... and we wait... and wait...

Shit! Fighting to keep a handle on my tone of voice, I'm on my comm to Davis asking why the damned door is still closed, and he's answering, saying if it's still closed there's nothing he can do about it from there because his screen says it ought to be open. Well, shit, I'm here to tell you buster that it's... uh uh, okay. Deep breaths. Control. No point in abusing the technician. That won't help.

"Sir. I was worried about this. It wasn't very functional before; it barely closed back up for us. I think the additional stress of using it damaged, on top of the resonance of the..."

I almost yell at her that, yeah, yeah already, I know. The clatter-clancy-kitty vibration thing, and I don't hear the hydraulics even trying to kick in this time. It's fully stuck closed and we're goddamned shut out of the gateroom, and I can't fucking believe this! Davis asks if he should try the other door, C1, and four voices scream "No!" into their comms at the same time. No, don't try to open the door, for Christ sake... but it jars some brain cells. We all stare at each other for an instant and turn to pelt up the stairs. We're like stampeding buffaloes going through the control room to the back stairway and into the C1 corridor. Davis barely gets the door between the control room and the corridor open for us in time; Teal'c nearly lost his nose on its edge. And I think I almost nailed that guy in the white coat holding his clipboard, at the top of the steps. What the hell exactly does he do around here, anyway? Never mind. We're at the other blast door now. Carter and Teal'c give Davis the go ahead to give it a try. On our count. One... two... three, and...

The door is noisily sliding open - just a few feet, though. Damn thing's all warped to shit. We need to get in there fast and get that door closed. As we charge through the opening, I'm scanning the walls and ceiling near the door and hollering both at my team and into the radio. "Big black spots, people. Look for the dark side." We're all in. "Close it up!" Teal'c and Carter both repeat the order, and I hear the door slide and seal up behind me. "Anybody?"

Six frustrated voices all report... nothing. Damn. Me too. It's hard to interpret just what I'm seeing. There's shades of grey of varying intensities everywhere; heat sources, not quite the well defined familiar shapes I'm used to seeing in here. I can make out SG3 moving around - whitish man-shaped blobs, creeping and leaning over some other human-looking blobs on the floor. They're checking out the guards. Good.

What if I'm wrong about this? Porter was cold, yeah, but that doesn't mean this will work. Hell, for all I know these goggles just make us more blind to it. For all I know, we could have already let the thing out. God, I hope we didn't - Wait! There... oh holy hell - there's one big huge chunk of dark nothingness hovering somewhere over toward the other side of the room. Hard to tell where, exactly, though. With these goggles on, my depth perception just isn't what it ought to be. There's definitely a black hole there, but damned if I know where 'there' is.

Teal'c hears me swearing under my breath. His calm voice isolates it for me. "I see it as well. It is located six feet above the far side of the ramp, approximately ten feet in front of the Stargate." How'd he do that? I can discern the outline of the ramp railing now, though, and I can place the thing in relation to it. Thank you, Teal'c.

Carter's standing just behind me, whispering into my ear. "You were right, Sir. It seems whatever it is, it's pretty close to being devoid of heat. No apparent infra-red emissions, or at least none that these goggles can pick up." Why is she whispering? Surely the thing knows we're here. "Maybe with some of the really sensitive, more sophisticated..." She's still going on, and I shush her with a light swat to the shoulder.

Ugh. It just hit me that it's real. Mason was right. It is here. Oh holy shit... so how much of whatever else he told us was right? Did this thing attack - Oh my God. Daniel. It's hovering right above where we saw Daniel go over the rail. We have to - No, never mind that. It doesn't matter because he's dead. He's really dead, he's... but all of a sudden I have this overwhelming need to check on him. There's this huge swell in my chest and... and I'm not so sure anymore? I need to go see Daniel. God, oh God. All at once there's two voices in my head, screaming at me. One is telling me to forget it, he's dead, dead, he's dead... and the other's hollering he's alive, and that I need to get my butt over there, like, yesterday.

I'll pick alive for five hundred, Alex.

"Heads up and keep your eyes on the prize, people." I fire directly into the black hole. Nothing. The thing just moves slightly to one side. I know that was a direct hit, and yet it's still hanging there. Damn. "Teal'c, try your staff. Aim dead centre." A flash blooms and streaks out. It's blinding through the goggles, and for a second I can't see anything but that line of bright white. Then Carter's crying out, and I see it. It didn't like that; it's still in one piece, but it's flattened out and is flitting around up at the ceiling, darting back and forth over top of the Stargate. Away from where it had been. Away from where I need to go. Okay, good... but we've got to move now, while we have the chance. If we even do have a chance. That thing is fast. "Carter... with me." I'm whispering now. Why am I doing that?

I hate these things. I can't see properly. The last thing I need is to stumble and end up shooting myself. A quick flip of my hand solves the problem. Two steps forward and through normal vision I see Harris. Damn. I wish I were still wearing the goggles. Six long strides, I'm rounding the steps at the bottom of the ramp, and in the dim light I see him, laying there half under the ramp about mid-way along its length. "Teal'c? Still got it?" Carter's come up beside me. I take a quick glance over toward Teal'c. Yeah, he's on it, and it hasn't moved. "Teal'c, you and Makepeace be sure not to take your eyes off that thing. What about survivors?"

Makepeace answers. "Four, all pretty much out of commission, plus one uninvited guest in the form of Captain Brody, regrettably undamaged. He's, it's... whatever it is, it's just standing there. Hasn't moved."

"Don't let it touch anyone." Shit. Only four guys out of eight. Okay. Time to go get Daniel. "Carter, take that thing off your face so you can see. Let's go check him out."

19 Dr. Daniel Jackson


Oh, going to puke.

What happened? Don't remember... can't move, can't see anything but starbursts - white spots on black, blooming, growing, fading -

Loud buzzing in my ears. Other noises, something fast and loud and then gone, and... voices? Could it be voices? Dunno. Pretty fuzzy here. Pain in my shoulder and my chest, not so fuzzy... that's really clear, thanks.

Hard to breathe. Almost wish I could stop breathing; chest is really hurting.

Why? Oh wait. Box, P3Y665. Okay, yeah. SG8. And, and... oh, a big cold foul-smelling - Oh God. Her. Sylestria. They let her out! Blood in my mouth, I can taste it now. I'm, uh... oh. Feeling woozy here. But all the same, I'm alive and I'm me. Alive. Me. I'm me.

I'm... me. Oh shit, I am still me. Which means, oh no, it means... I failed. Oh, damn. Not a good thing. Very Bad.

So she's out? On the loose? Must be. Somebody... we... no, I... I really blew it. Wasn't supposed to go like this. Jack is going to kill me - or at least going to grind me into the ground with his tongue in front of everyone in the whole damn room.

Uhh... in the room. What room am I in, anyway? Wait, not sure, but I think maybe I'm still in the embarkation room? Can't tell. Dizzy. Hurts.

Hear noises. Voices? Somebody here? Anybody? Is anybody...? Please. Help. I need, agh... help...

Not enough air. Chest hurts. Need more air. If I ever find out the name of that Mack truck of an airman who killed me all wrong, I'm... I'm gonna... gonna...

Gonna pass out ... that's what...

I'm... gonna...

20. Colonel Jack O'Neill


Okay, smart ass. You really did it now, didn't you? All that confidence over having made the right decision, despite the look on Carter's face. Yeah. That look. The one I'm getting a repeat, only more intense, version of right now. Oh damn. God damn. Mason didn't kill him after all. Yeah, right... he left that to me.

She's got the layers cut and peeled away now. I can see it. Pretty much the mess I expected it to be, and right dead centre, but... different. I'm thinking I know what may have happened here, and if I'm right, with luck it just might be okay. God, please, make it be okay. Yes. It will be. It's okay. Yeah, sure it will. Liar. Fool.

"Sir. We really need to get him some help. The lock down..."

Yes Carter, I know that. I know it. All right, yeah, so it's not exactly okay right now, but still, it's not the fatal wound we expected. My knees hurt, crouching here like this. Just about as much as my neck is hurting from swiveling back and forth at top speed from where the others are keeping an eye on that black unholy hole, to... to this. What the hell am I going to do? Where's all that certainty now, smart-ass? Hmh. It's drowning in that sticky mess of congealing blood on the floor here; that's where it is. Nothing like a little bit of 'it's-alive' to punch a big hole in conviction. Shit.

My hand is on my comm switch, but I don't know what to do. It's a miracle he's still alive after taking one to the chest like that, but that doesn't alter the bottom line. The base is sealed. We can't risk that thing getting loose. Ah, hell. This is Daniel. He's one of my team. A friend. But that changes nothing - Oh for crying out loud. Who am I kidding. Yes it does. The bottom line just morphed big time. Push the damn button and spit it out.

"O'Neill here. Call Fraiser. Get a med team through to corridor C1, then lock it all back up after them." Carter's hand goes up to her earpiece as she listens to the tech repeating what I want done. Yes. Med team through the corridors to just outside the embarkation room C1 blast door, and yes, trap them in there. Carter gives her confirmation without even looking at me. It's set. Done now. There's going to be a group of people right outside that door in no time flat. Now all I need to do is figure out how in the hell we're going to either get them safely in here, or the injured safely out there. It's going to have to be option number two. No way I'm giving that thing more people to choose from. Not to mention we really need to get Daniel to the infirmary.

"Sir? Colonel... Daniel just... It looks like he's trying to wake up." What? Carter looks at me and nods toward Daniel. His eyelids are doing a little dance. Oh, no. Damn it. Can't this guy cooperate with me just once? The last thing we need is a conscious, squirming, suffering Daniel when we drag him over to the door.

Carter's bending over him, right in his face, talking to him. "Daniel? Hey, Daniel?" Well, shit... stop that, Carter! Don't wake him any more than he already is.

"Damn it, Carter." She's done it; his eyes are open, more or less. I momentarily make it more rather than less, and can see his pupils are huge as serving platters. He's looking pretty glazed. No doubt a combination of it being pretty dark in here and he's not really with us, half-open eyelids notwithstanding. Good. The best thing short of a deep state of unconsciousness. "He's still out of it. Get him ready to be moved, Carter." She gives him a test jab in the shoulder near the embedded glass. She's pushing our luck, but there's nothing. Not even a moan. Your typical 'good news - bad news' scenario here, then, but I'm not sure which belongs to what, exactly.

Doesn't matter; it's time we got moving. I raise my voice just enough so Teal'c and Makepeace can hear me. "We're going to try to clear the wounded out through C1. You guys will need to keep that thing away from the door when the time comes. Think you can do that?"

"Yeah. No sweat." Makepeace is already organizing his men to move the four injured guards to the blast door. I glance over there and see Teal'c staring up at the ceiling behind the Stargate. So that's where it is right now.

Holy sh... No, it isn't ! Cold, across the back of my hand... freezing cold...

21. Dr. Daniel Jackson


Hey! Listen up. Whoa. Dizzy. I'm okay, I'm okay... no, I'm not... it really hurts. Okay, never mind that. This is important. Jack, the box! An alien, Jack. It's Sylestria; it's here. She's escaped her box... dangerous... You can't let her out of the embarkation room! Jack? Hey! Hello? Hel-looo?

Geez. They're both here hovering over me, and they're both ignoring me. Sam? Jack? Down here... right here. Hello? Stop the radio chatter and look over here... radio chatter... what's he saying? Med team? Oh, good! I could really use...

No! Wait! You can't open the door! What, Sam? No... not you too. Listen to me! I'm right here. Hey, listen up! Christ, what's a guy gotta do? Uhm, it sure is cold in here. Feeling, oh, a bit sick. Don't gag... no gagging. It'll hurt too much. Agghh, oh God! Hell. Nobody listens to me, not even me. That sucked. Oh, there. Good. Sam's looking down now.

"Sir? Colonel... Daniel just... It looks like he's trying to wake up." Uh, no, Sam. I'm already wide awake. Got something important to tell you. "Daniel? Hey, Daniel?" Oh, man. I already told you, Sam, I'm wide awake, I'm right here...

"Damn it, Carter." Huh? What does he mean, damn? Jack... hey! Get your grubby fingers out of my eyes, dammit. "He's still out of it. Get him ready to be moved, Carter."

Uhh... hang on just a minute here... move me? Ah, Nooo. No, please don't do that. I really could use something for pain, Sam. Don't - Aghh! Owww! What the hell was that for? Can't you see that great flipping huge hunk of glass in there?

Okay, wait. This is just too weird. I'm obviously not getting through here. Maybe the only parts of me really working are my brain cells. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Okay, so, concentrate, now. Make a real noise, or move something... my hand. Move my hand... oh, hurts to breathe; my chest hurts so bad.

Never mind that. Just, just move... something...

22. Colonel Jack O'Neill


The feel of something colder than cold brushing across the back of my hand comes in the same instant as a surprised not-quite-cry from Carter. She hunches over real quick as I jerk my hand away from whatever... wait...

Daniel. I'm looking straight into wide open, dark eyes. No 'sort-of' about it any more. Black eyes; enlarged pupils. Huge. It's his hand that brushed mine. Cold. His skin is so... cold... almost like... oh, no way, no way. Is there something still in him? Carter's leaning over him, her face close to his, and I'm suddenly feeling like a little caution might be a good thing here. And yeah, I admit it, I'm a bit afraid. Afraid that we've got him back only to find we don't really have him at all. Shit... Carter. I grab her shoulder and yank on her. Not so close, Captain.

She bats my hand away, and looks up at me in such irritation that now I'm thinking maybe she's the one I ought to be afraid of. "Sir, just wait." And here she goes again... she's bent down over him, talking to him, her hands cradling his face. "Daniel, it's okay. We're here. It'll be all... what?" She bends closer, her body concealing his face from view for a moment, then swivels her head to look over at me. "He must have been able to hear us, Sir, even though he couldn't respond right away. He just said not to bring the med team."

His hand comes up again and pulls weakly on her sleeve, and I can't help but move closer to listen with her. "Don't... can't... Jack, please..." He's working hard to get the words out. How the hell is he even talking to begin with? He's got a bullet in his chest and a skewered shoulder. "Can't... let her out. It's, she's... bad. Very bad."

Bad? Very bad? Okay, this is definitely our Danny. Thank God. Yeah, Daniel, I got the 'bad' part figured out all by myself already. "It's okay, Daniel. We've got it under control. We're going to get you out of here."

He starts shaking his head back and forth and holy shit if he isn't going to try to sit up. "No... don't understand. P3Y665... she's, she's..."

"Yeah, you just said it. Very bad. Now take it easy here... just stop talking and lay..."

"Sir, wait. Daniel, what about P3Y665? Do you know what this thing is?" Carter's giving me one of those significant looks, one of her 'you know what this means, Sir' expressions that are always completely meaningless to me. Daniel's nod turns into a head-loll as a spasm of pain hits him, and his face contorts. Shit. And then she says it. "Sir, you do know what this means, don't you?"

Yeah, Carter, it means he's really going to suffer when we move him. Okay, fine. No. I don't know. Haven't a clue. But I'm sure you'll explain it to me.

"Sir, if Daniel knows what this thing is, maybe he knows how to deal with it."

Of course. I lean over him to ask, but he's heard her, and through the pain he's already gritting out an answer. "Tried. Sorry. Guess we messed up. Still alive. Needed... to die. Jack, someone's going to... have to die."

Oh, no, no, not in this lifetime. The only thing around here that's going to... Ahh, what? What did he just say? Holy... I'm only just processing the words, an unwanted interpretation just starting to niggle annoyingly at the back of my mind, when my comm comes to life with a short burst of static. The med team is in place. But, did he just mean what I think he meant? No. Never mind that right now. Time to go, Danny. I tell him so, but he starts shaking his head back and forth and stuttering at me. Yeah, I know. Don't open the door. Don't let it out. He's grabbing at my sleeve, about to have a small fit here. I'd love to assure him, to comfort him, really I would.. but the best thing for him right now is to get him the hell out of here and into the Doc's hands.

"Daniel. Calm down. We won't let it out." I trap his feebly moving arm across his abdomen. "Teal'c! We need you over here! Carter, put your eyes back on and trade jobs with Teal'c."

She's gone, Teal'c's here squatting just to eleven o'clock of Daniel's head, and Daniel is only just coping, fear and pain in his eyes and literally shaking all over. I'm feeling a little shaky myself. I sure hope we don't shift anything inside him in a wrong direction, don't kill him off here with this little trip. "We've got to get him over to the door. Gently. Wait... where is it, Teal'c?"

He's looking at Daniel, concern in his eyes. "It has not moved, O'Neill. It remains above the Stargate. Daniel Jackson, I am sorry... this will cause you great pain."

There's a strangled noise that might have been the beginnings of a sarcastic laugh from Daniel, but it turns into a gasp and then a gut-wrenching groan as Teal'c slides his arms under Daniel's shoulders and brings his hands around to grab hold of the front of his waistband. The groan becomes an outright cry as I maneuver my arms under his thighs. "One... two... three!"

From laugh to gasp to groan to cry... to worse. Oh man. I hate doing this.

23 SrA Eddie Mason


I killed him.

I killed him... and what am I doing? I'm sitting here, doing nuthin'. I'm responsible. It's my fault. And I'm sitting here doing nothing, like the total waste of space I am.

No - I'm following orders.

Orders. Good little airmen follow orders. Right. Like, orders from a civilian to blow an opening the size of an elephant's asshole right through that alien SG8-wannabe and a baby brother of a hole right into Jackson's chest. Like, following orders from the man who's gonna eat me alive, orders to sit here on my butt waiting for the next order that's gonna strip me of every hope in life ever important to me. Christ, I am an idiot. O'Neill's going to press charges, so as sure as I'm sitting here I'm out of this Air Force and into confinement... and that invisible end-of-the-earth-thing is still free, flitting around threatening everybody... and I'm, what? Following orders?

Screw this. I am so out of here.

I can hear the tech's voice before I'm even all the way down the staircase. Something about waiting for a signal to open C1? What? They're gonna open it up? The guy in the white lab coat - just what is his job here, anyway - barely glances at me, and the tech sergeant doesn't even look at me at all as I come up next to him. The other one, that dark-haired lady, she just gives me a worried look and a strained smile before she turns back to her monitor. They don't know. They don't know I'm dog shit, persona non grata, destined for lesser things.

Okay. I can work with that. Calm, cool, collected. Gotta come across like I'm supposed to be here. "Okay, so where we at here?" Oh shit! Quick... "Uh, Sir." Okay... that sounded okay, unless of course he noticed that slip up there. C'mon, c'mon... gotta get in there...

"Pardon?" He barely gives me a glance. "Oh. Airman. We're just waiting on Colonel O'Neill's okay to let the med team in." Then it clicks in, and he gives me a longer look. "Where's your post? How did you get through to here? Are you supposed to be here?"

Am I supposed to... hell, no. Where? What's he likely to believe? Med team. In C1? "In corridor C1, Sir. I was told to report to assist the Med team, but I didn't make it through before the doors shut. I got caught in C2 and came through to here. I was hoping you could let me into the embarkation room through C2 and I could go across..." Leavenworth, here I come.

He's busy slapping buttons on his keyboard, muttering under his breath as I'm talking, but that last bit gets his full attention. "C2 isn't working, and the embarkation room is off limits anyway. Who are you?"

Fix it. Fix it... just keep playing the same card. Maybe he won't notice it's a joker. "I'm assigned under Sergeant Harris?" Best apologetic stupid-dumb-ass-low-class-enlisted look I can scrape up. "I got trapped in C2, here. I've been directed to go to help out the med team." Please don't ask by who, please don't ask...

"See the flashing red light? Hear the klaxon? This area is off-limits to non-essential personnel." Dismissed, as being a moron of no consequence in the bigger picture. He's going back to playing with his computer.

"Sir?" Okay, listen up here, buster... I need to get in there. I can't just sit around while that thing is doing who knows what to who. Penance. I need to make restitution. "I was ordered to report here, Sir. Permission to go through the control room to the C1 corridor, then, Sir?" He's giving me a look that says he was mistaken, that I'm a whole lot less than a moron of no consequence. But there's a slight nod buried in there somewhere, too. He fusses a bit more over the incomprehensible-looking stuff scrolling on the monitor and mutters something about opening the blast door. Is he talking to me? His fingers shuffle across the keyboard; my feet are doing an imitation on the floor.

I guess he was talking to me; he's gesturing at the revolving red light and glaring at me like he wants to consign me off to the Antarctic. "Well? We are under lock down. I can't keep it open for long." He dismisses me with a wave toward the far side of the control room, and I realize he must have already cleared the route down the far stairwell to the C1 blast door. "Have Doctor Fraiser radio to me when you're in place, for confirmation on closing the door. Get moving, Airman."

Get moving. I can do that. Rear in high gear. Moving my ass. On my way. YesSir Sir... Down the steps. The door is open, go on through, around the slight bend, and there they are, a small gaggle of people mostly dressed in white, surrounded by a large gaggle of... stuff. Some folding field stretcher-things, big red boxes, small blue boxes... a rolling utility-type multi-drawer cart that would send an auto mechanic into lust-heaven...

And one very intensely focused lady, looking both annoyed and surprised to see a less than non-com-poop coming round the corner in what was supposed to be a sealed corridor. Must be the doctor. What's her...? Fraiser. That's it. "Doctor Fraiser, Airman Mason reporting to assist you, Ma'am. The sergeant would like you to let him know I'm here? He needs to close up the corridor." She raises her eyebrows at me and does it, not bothering to ask precisely who the hell I am and if or why she should care. Her attention is more on the other door than it is on me anyway.

Part of me is wondering if they really are stupid enough to open that door and risk these people, and another part is hoping this means they've found a way to neutralize that thing. But no way could they have done that because the damn place is still on lock down, and no knife I've ever heard of would even put a scratch on the tension filling this little alcove. I've got this big bubble building in my chest. They're gonna open up that door, expose these people... the thing moves so damn fast... got to be ready for it...

Ready. Be ready. The doctor is ready; at least she thinks she is. She's got her M.D., F.R.C.P., her grey stethoscope and her stretchers and her medics and her big red boxes and a look on her face like nothing's gonna stop the advance of modern medicine. Dammit if she thinks she's not readier than ready. Her medics think they're ready, too. Steely-eyed determination, muscles bulging under white shirts; hell, similtaneously they can lift a hundred injured soldiers with a single pinkie finger while stitching a wound and poking butts with hypos, and they're gonna do her proud, by God.

Her radio gives a warning, starts a count, and everyone thinks they go from being ready to being completely more-than-ready to go. Yeah well, they don't have a clue just what they're supposed to be ready for. But I do. The bubble is so big it's starting to hurt. No point in telling myself not to be afraid; I'm already starting to shake. But, hey, they're ready. They think they're ready. I can at least try be just as deluded and think so too. So, right, we're all ready...

The door's sliding open. Noise... a grinding, shrieking noise...

24 Colonel Jack O'Neill


Okay. Just stick to the plan. We can do this. The Plan: the make it up as you go along plan? That one? That plan, Jack? Crap. This had better work.

One last glance at the sorry gathering to the left-hand side of the blast door tells me just what the first glance did. That, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into, Ollie. I'm having serious doubts about getting out of this with everyone intact. We've discovered it's totally disdainful of the guns, and it manages to evade the relatively slow-moving energy streams from the zat pretty easily. The zat doesn't have the range to do the job anyway, as most of the time that thing is up on the ceiling. It really doesn't like Teal'c's staff, but again, even considering the speed of the blasts, it's capable of moving so blindingly fast we'd have a lot of trouble hitting it with the staff weapon anyway. Carter and Makepeace are tracking the thing. It must know something is up; Carter just reported it's increasingly more restless, flitting around along the ceiling above the Stargate.

Daniel is first in line, laying right next to the door. Teal'c's and my jackets are underneath his back and hips, the arms tied around his front, so the medics can just grab and shuck him on out of here... hopefully without risk of further shifting the chunk of glass pinning his own vest and jacket to his shoulder. He's bleeding a bit more now, after our less than brilliantly planned and executed move to the door. Looks like we managed to rip him yet a bigger hole there. The four SF's are huddled together just beyond Daniel, and Teal'c and SG3 are ready to start shoveling them all through the doorway.

Carter and Makepeace are set to prevent the thing from moving over there. They've got Teal'c's staff; Carter's planning to fire at the ceiling close to the door to keep it from going in that direction. She's ready. Makepeace is ready. Teal'c and crew are ready. Daniel's... okay, yeah, he's ready too. Past ready. Me? I'm not ready. But never mind that. I jerk the goggles back down over my eyes, locate the sonofabitch on the ceiling, thumb the radio, and give the order. Teal'c confirms it. Davis gives us a three count...

Shit! Shit, shit... knew I wasn't ready. None of us were. The door screeches as it tries to slide open along a now-obviously warped overhead channel. Carter and Makepeace are shouting above the noise of the staff weapon, and there's two sudden blinding arcs of white light obscuring any view of everything else - Damn! What were we thinking? We can't see it... we can't see anything except an afterimage of the energy bolts from the staff. Idiots!

Teal'c is hollering, and there's something confusing going on at the door. White blobs shifting and combining and separating and moving - The door is... fuck! Can't see! I rip the damned goggles off so hard I lose a patch of skin on my temple. No! The door's opened about two and a half feet and stuck there. Above far too much other yelling from God knows where or who, I can hear a low pitched whine; the hydraulics are trying to do their job, but it's obviously not gonna happen. Carter's still hollering at me too, asking can I see it... shit! They've lost sight of it. No, Captain, what do you think? I can't see it because I'm still fucking half blind!

I'm scrambling to the blast door as Carter screams into her radio for Davis to close it up, seal up the door, and Teal'c is shouting back just as loud into his comm to belay that and leave it open. And I've just acquired hearing damage in the ear the earpiece is in. I do some shouting of my own, "Everybody shut the hell up!"

I'm at the door trying to make sense of all the frantic activity and flying bodies there. Now that Teal'c, Carter and the staff weapon are quieter, I can make out the source of all the other yelling, and my blood turns to ice. God. It's in the corridor. The damned thing beat us. It's in the corridor with the med team.

There's boxes and people shoving into the gateroom. Teal'c is standing at the door opening pulling and pushing people along, straddling Daniel, obviously trying but failing to protect him from being trampled as blue and red containers and white-clad bodies hurtle through. Teal'c sees me trying to dodge the ones already inside, to get closer, and hollers at me. "O'Neill! It has gone to the stairwell. We must hurry!"

Oh, yeah, no shit 'we must hurry'. Hands come from behind me, reaching out and grabbing the containers and hauling them further into the room, away from the doorway. Carter and SG3. I'm just about to bend over and reach forward for Daniel, and a tug on my arm comes along with a gruff voice in my ear. "Jackson's in the goddamn way! We need to haul his butt out of there."

I'm not sure if I ought to thank Makepeace for the help or slug him for the way he framed the problem. We grab hold of the jackets, Teal'c lifts his foot out of the way, and we pull, a hard yank and long slide... and damn, Goddamn, he's conscious. Daniel lets out a strangled cry of pain, and we're painting a gruesome, broad red streak on the floor behind us as we pull him well clear of the doorway.

He's... what? Crying? Shit. Only seen him do that once before, far too recently for my liking. But I don't have time to think about that, to think about just what he's going through that's enough to bring that on. There's more shouting from the doorway, and something hits me in the back of the head, really hard. Hurts like hell. The staff. Carter just beaned me in the head with Teal'c's staff. I look up and see her pass it off to Teal'c, and goddamn it if he doesn't shove it through the door opening. When he draws his hand back, it's frigging empty. No staff. He's yelling at someone to hurry, and suddenly Fraiser pops through the opening pretty much airborne, like she's been shot out of a cannon, supplies leaping out of her arms and showering everyone as her momentum sends her sprawling to the floor just about at Daniel's side.

I can hear and see Teal'c yelling, "Where is it? You must be precise!" I don't know just what he's doing, but I realize he doesn't have his goggles on. No, not just, he doesn't have his goggles on, but he doesn't have his goggles. Not over his eyes, not up his forehead, not around his neck, not in his hand... not anywhere...

There's an indistinct voice from the other side of the door, a yell, immediately followed by the familiar sound of a staff blast and a flash of light through the opening. Teal'c is hollering like a bull elephant into his comm for Davis to close the door. Without even thinking about it, I echo the order, and I can hear the whine again. The door shudders and starts to move, squealing... and I think I must be seeing things. Because Teal'c immediately shoves himself in its path. But just as quickly he's reached through the opening and is stepping back, pulling his arms back, and with him is coming the ass end closely followed by the rest of someone else.

The door shrieks and dislodges from the point of maximum bind. Closing faster now. Teal'c heaves with his arms and throws his weight backward, and the two of them fall on their butts this side of the door just as it sweeps past them and seals. There's a loud yell from behind me, and an answering bellow from right next to me - right into the same goddamn ear, of course. Carter and Makepeace, looking for it... and I realize how slow off the mark I am and pull the goggles down over my own eyes, sweeping the walls and ceiling.

"It's okay. You won't find it. It's trapped in the corridor." The shaky voice comes from the floor, and I look down. I don't need to take the goggles off to figure out who it is, but I do anyway. Sure enough, there he is, Missing or Moron or Mastiff or whatever his fucking name is, Teal'c's goggles over his eyes and the staff weapon clutched in his violently trembling hand. The staff weapon in his... Shit!

I lunge and grab it from him. "Give me that thing! Carter... confirm it." Just for good measure, I reach out and roughly swipe the goggles off his face, throwing them toward Teal'c.

"I can only confirm we can't see it in here so far, Sir." She's still searching, her and Makepeace each walking their own slow recon around the perimeter of the gateroom, goggled heads swiveling every which way. I signal to the other guys, and the rest of SG3 joins them.

There's activity and quiet chatter behind me. I turn my head and see Fraiser and a medic kneeling next to Daniel, the medic's hands wrapped around a thick wad of already saturated pressure dressings to each side of the hunk of glass still in Daniel's shoulder. Fraiser is bending over talking softly to Danny. She reaches through the layers of fabric Carter cut a hole in, over his chest, and does something to him that makes him arch up off the ground and kick his legs out.

Shit. I think I'll turn back around. Look somewhere else for the moment.

25. SrA Eddie Mason


Twisting my head around, I can see it's him staring at me. The colonel. A hard, steady, hostile glare. Beelzebub just walked in the door. I am dead meat.

Dead, dead, dead. Wait, speaking of dead... holy shit! Been too wrapped up in trying to catch my breath and pretend I'm not still hyped shitless to notice what's going on around me. At least, until that piercing stare sent a bolt of fire through my back and made me turn around. And right there, on the ground just past the colonel, is...

Alive? No, can't be, but - But they have him... he's... the medic has, he's... the doctor, she's talking right to him, she's... Shit! He moved! He kicked out, and now he's slamming the heel of his foot on the floor and reaching out to grab at her... he's fucking moving. He's not dead he's not I didn't... I didn't... ahh, oh man. My chest is hurting, my throat's closed up; I know I'm doing something stupid here... I don't know if it's laughing or crying, but I don't think I even give a flying fuck.

"O'Neill, we may require his help."

Help? Yeah, please, I need help. It doesn't make any sense; nothing makes any sense. There's a freaking alien, God, a killer alien flying around! Joe was right, and I know I killed him, shot him right through the chest, and he fell back over the rail. Look. Look! It's just over there. Look... right over there. See? I'll show you, just follow me. Over here? Come here.. right here. See, blood on the floor? This is where it... it's on the rail right there too, see, blood, it's on the rail because I killed him and he fell back...

"His help? Teal'c, he's - Oh, for crying out loud. Mason... Ah, crap. Mason!"

"No!" Something's pulling at me. Let go. Leave me alone! I'm sorry, sorry, I didn't want to do it... he was always real nice - It's grabbing me. My leg. My jacket. Doesn't believe me. I, I'm, God, I'm sorry...

"Mason! Relax, kid. Come on... "

What? Ah, what? How did I get over here? My hands. There's blood on my... the floor; what the hell is going on? O'Neill is trying to pull me back from the blood on the floor, and I'm an inch away from bashing my head on the ramp edge above. Oh man, oh man, I think I must have wigged out. Oh God, what a fool. Something tells me I'm not cut out for all this weird alien shit stuff.

"We will need his assistance, O'Neill. Perhaps if he sees Daniel Jackson is alive..."

Who? Me? Oh, no, no. I saw him alive, I saw him skewered then entered by some stinky cold floating alien-thing, and then I killed him. I think I've seen about enough of Dr. Jackson to last me awhile. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's alive... man, you have no idea how glad I am about that, but, I got it now, I'm okay now, I am. I don't think I need to actually, up close and personal, see and hear him suffering to have that finally sink in. And I doubt I'm on his list of favorite people to visit with while you're trying to not bleed to death. Besides, I'm just the wigged-out moron new guy who's fucked up everything he's touched today. I think Dr. Jackson is much better off if I stay right here.

The gateroom lights snap on all at once, and for a second I screw my eyes shut against the sudden brightness. I open them, and sure enough it's O'Neill right here, his hand still full of my jacket and his face... well, just don't look at his face. I swipe my arm across my eyes. Oh good idea, wipe away the evidence, Mason. Maybe then he won't notice you can't hack it. That thought brings a different kind of bubble than before into my throat, and I almost choke trying not to burst out into hysterical laughter. Doing that would help a whole lot, wouldn't it?

"Sir. It's definitely not in here." I look up to see Captain Carter just coming to a crouch beside me and the colonel. She's talking to him but looking straight at me. Well yeah, I already told you the thing was in C1. I almost say it out loud, but that wouldn't be very helpful either so instead I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Hurts. And how helpful is that? The laughter threatens again, and I think I'm going nutso here. Captain Carter's still staring right at me, and the look on her face is the opposite of the colonel's. She's... breaking out into a smile? What's there to smile about? Okay, so it's not just me; everyone is certifiably nuts. Joe was the only sane person in this whole goddamn place.

She's still looking at me while she's talking to him. "He was right, Colonel. It has to be in the C1 corridor. Sergeant Davis reports the stairwell camera went down right after he closed the door. The staff blast must have driven it back up into the stairwell, and it took out the camera just like it did the ones in here." She reaches out a hand and places it on my arm, and now she's talking directly to me, and there's warmth in her voice. "You did a good job, Airman. Dr. Fraiser says you could use a bit more finesse, but she appreciates your pitching arm all the same." She looks back at O'Neill. "Janet said she felt it brush up against her, Sir. Very cold. She's still a bit shaken and confused about the whole thing, but she's pretty sure Airman Mason saved her life."

The colonel glances at me and then quickly looks away, behind us. "Yeah, well, I think I'll go see what else Fraiser has to say." He's talking into his radio as he turns to leave, something about getting a repair crew to work on opening C2. Yeah. That would be good. Need to get out of here, and when I do, I'm gonna be the first one in line to stick their head into the crapper and let fly.

He's up and gone, heading over to where the doctor is still bending over Jackson. I can see they have an intravenous started; the medic is holding the bag up in the air. For just a split second panic rushes through me, and I twist around and surge over onto my butt, leaning toward where they are. I know it's stupid, but I feel like yelling at him that he needs to clamp his hands down on the bleeding, that's the important thing. Not some plastic bag.

The captain's hand follows me around and tightens around my forearm, and her voice is soft and understanding. "It's okay. They have it under control. Ahm, Mason..." When I don't answer or look at her, she gives my arm a bit of a shake and sticks her head right in my face. Can't help but see her. Look, she's got blue eyes. Not as impressively blue as my brother's or Jackson's, though. Jackson. Blue eyes. Asking me, pleading with me, and finally ordering me. Shit. I scramble to my feet. The urge to do something - God, anything - is overpowering, but there's nothing I can do and nowhere to go.

"Mason!" She's still right here with me, standing next to me now, and her voice is firm and commanding. Command... she's an officer. My training kicks in despite everything. I feel my body turn toward her doing the attention thing, hear my voice saying, "Yes, Ma'am," like the good little soldier I used to think I was. But there's no orders... just compassion. "Daniel was conscious, and he told us... well, he sort of told us... what went on here. It's all right, Mason. We know you did what you thought you had to. We don't blame you."

I turn to her, stupefaction easily overcoming both training and any scrap of common sense I might have left. "What? You think I'm this messed up because of what you people think of me? Because I was afraid you'd blame me?" She looking a bit surprised, but I don't care. The words keep rolling off my tongue. At this rate, she's going to be a whole lot more than just surprised by the time I get it all off my chest. "What are all you people? Totally insane? You fuck around going to other planets, and there's this thing flying around here stinking worse than week old garbage and colder than witch's tits and hey, lady, news flash for you, it kills people! We can't hardly see it, we can't catch it, we can't shoot it... and you're talking to me about if I'm to blame for... for - I never hid that! I told you just what happened, what I did!"

Oh yeah, I'm really on a roll now. Mouth and brain completely disconnected, and that's just A-OK okay with me. "Okay, okay, yes, I fucking shot him, I tried to kill him! It was on purpose, and okay, yeah, I panicked. Okay? I panicked! I admitted it straight out, didn't I? Wasn't me who went fucking ballistic about blame. I can't believe this. My God! Is everyone here nuts? This isn't like debating who dropped the ball in the ninth inning. This is serious shit... I killed people, and there's a goddamned fucking evil-as-shit alien in the..."

I think my spit flew into her face because she just winced and ducked her head a bit. Oh Jesus. Stop. Stop and breathe. Get a grip. She stands there staring at me. Oh crap, I did it again. Meltdown. The floor is real attractive about now. Agh. I think I'm going to puke. There's an ominous presence right behind me, and a real deep voice comes from over my shoulder, pretty much freezing time. If by some miracle I wasn't before, I am so-so-so dead meat now. "Captain Carter. Do you require assistance with this man?"

"No, Teal'c. Everything is just fine." She reaches out and takes my chin, turns my face so I'm looking straight at her. Her fingers are so warm. "Mason, we know it's a lot to handle. Listen to me here... you did everything you could. Don't blame yourself. We need you here. You've had more contact with this thing than we have."

She understands me quicker and better than I do myself. Okay, so I got it now. It's not their blame that's eating my guts out, it's my own. I feel like crying, but I've already done too much of the infantile regression stuff since this whole thing began. I get a mental image of myself, all six foot six and two hundred thirty pounds of hairy me, laying in a crib with diapers on, crying for my mommy. I wish. I only wish my mommy was here. No, scratch that. No, I don't.

"Very well. Captain Carter, O'Neill and Dr. Fraiser request you report to them." Her eyes widen, and she lets go of my chin like it was on fire. She's scared? Yeah. For all her captain-like control, I can see it now. She's just about as pissed scared as me. She turns without a word and is gone. I watch her head over there and kneel down next to Jackson, on the opposite side from O'Neill and the doctor. Their backs are to me so I can't see their faces, nor can I see much more of Jackson than the top of his head past Dr. Fraiser and his legs sticking out past where the colonel is squatting, holding up the IV bag. But I can see Captain Carter clearly, listening intently as the doctor's head nods and her hand waves around and points at Jackson as she talks. And I see the captain swipe at her eyes with one hand as she bends over Jackson and strokes his head with the other.

Oh God. Dying. He's going to die. I may not have killed him outright when I shot him, but I've killed him all the same. The captain brushes at her eyes again. My chest is going to explode. I can't see this. Look somewhere else for the moment.

"You must come." There's a powerful hand on my upper arm. I'm yanked off balance and propelled forward before I can even get my feet fully back under me. Okay, I might top him by a couple of inches or so, but he's way stronger than me. I have no choice here. I guess I... must come.

26. Colonel Jack O'Neill


Thank God for one particular possessed-by-an-alien zombie lurching forward to take on the role of meat in a bullet sandwich. Thank God for through-and-through penetration, velocity reduction, trajectory deflection, and human anatomy.

Fraiser is explaining it all to Carter. Going into a lot more detail than she did with me, but I'm barely half listening. All those big words flying at Carter are icing on the cake, and I'm not in the mood for any sweets right now. I already got the gist of it. That's all I really need. Actually, there's two things I really need right about now: one of them is for who's laying on the floor in front of me, fortunately still alive, to stay that way, and the other is unfortunately locked up in the liquor cabinet at home. There's noises and banging coming from the other side of the C2 blast door; need number one on its way to being fulfilled, I hope.

The medic is trying to open the big blue box-thing with one hand while holding up the IV with the other. I guess the least I can do is help out here so I reach over and take the IV bag from him. The container is open now. Hey, it 's a new fangled self-contained monitor-defibrillator thing. Will you look at that, a Jump-In-a-Box. God, please tell me we won't actually need to use that thing. Don't want to have to use that... no how, no way.

The medic takes the scissors to Daniel's clothing, extending the cut-away around the hunk of glass, slicing through the shoulder seams of his vest, jacket, and t-shirt and on down the outside of both arms. Daniel doesn't react when the blunted front of the bottom blade jams him hard in the forearm. I do. I jump like it's me just got poked. Then there go the sides, right through the vest lacing and all the way on up to the shoulders. The medic takes the whole front of all three layers away all at once, and starts pasting those little electrode patches with all those attached snaky little multi-coloured wires, onto Daniel's chest.

Carter's realizing now it's not as bad as it seemed, and she's well into her maternal comfort routine. Good. That's good. I think Daniel knows we're here, although it's kind of hard to tell for sure. Judging from the moaning and groaning going on, it must hurt like hell. Looks like it should; there's that glass in his shoulder and a ragged, gory hole about the size of a nickel dead centre in his chest. That one's not bleeding much now; he's just starting to swell and bruise up in a patch all around it. A puffed-up red-blue line of bruising heads from the entrance wound on over to the right and up toward his armpit.

There's footsteps and slight scuffing noises, and damned if Teal'c isn't dragging Mason over here. They stand beside Carter, and both of them stare down at Daniel. The kid looks like he's trying to decide whether to puke up all over the place or bolt and run. Or fall down. Something that feels vaguely like, ah, crap, no, not compassion, can't be, runs through me and I wave the IV bag at him. "Kid. Here. Sit down before you fall down. Take this and make yourself useful."

He stares at me like I'm the alien. Teal'c shoves down on his shoulder and he folds, his knee bashing Daniel in the hip as he thumps down. I'm about to yell at him, but the jarring seems to have given Daniel that little extra bit of stimulation he needed to focus; he's definitely with us now, blinking up at Sam and saying my name. Not sure if that's an insult or a compliment. Or, whichever for whoever. I shove the IV bag into the kid's hand, and without even looking to see if he's with it enough to know what to do with it, scoot around past Fraiser to tell Daniel that, yeah, I'm here. Right here, buddy. God, it feels good to say that to him.

He turns his head toward me, his eyes searching for the source of my voice. He's blinking like crazy, and I'm not too sure he can see me. But his eyes fix right on my face, and a bloodied hand comes up to grab at my sleeve. His mouth is moving, he's working hard at it, but I don't think the croaky, barely recognizable facsimile of a greeting which comes out is quite what he had in mind. He's trying again, a little better at it this time around. Fraiser stops spitting orders at the medic and torturing Daniel's arm with the blood pressure cuff, just long enough to lean over and in no uncertain terms tell him to relax, quit moving his arm around, and not try to talk.

Blecch... I think the face he just made is supposed to be a grin? Could use some work. He licks his lips, and this time does a pretty good job of coordinating real words with his gasping breaths. "Hey. Who... died... and made... her the boss?" I'm trying to decide, as far as inappropriate jokes go, just how far down toward the bottom of the scale that one belongs when his expression goes all serious, and he clutches at my sleeve so hard his hand starts to shake. "Jack... don't let it out... Hammond, keep it away."

I tell him it's okay. That Hammond is in the infirmary with a bump on his head, the thing is trapped in C1 corridor, and everyone is safe for the moment... and he looks pitifully sincere as he tells me what a shame it is he's still alive. "Sorry. Messed up, was too soon; let it get away... did it too soon..." I think I'm going to bop him one in the mouth if he keeps it up.

My radio comes to life, but I don't like what I'm hearing. They can't fix the door without removing it entirely and replacing both upper and lower tracks with new ones. I'm about to tell them to just go ahead and do whatever, when Makepeace's voice comes through, asking them if they're certain if they take it off they'll be able to replace it and get it working reliably. Shit. Who cares? Just take the damn thing off, because - Ohh, wait, the answer... okay, I guess I ought to care; it's a yes, but it'll take no less than four hours to cut any appreciable sized opening through this door so they have a starting point to remove it, another six or so to actually get it off, plus at least twenty-four hours more to obtain and put new tracks and a new door into place. That thing can stay trapped in C1 for a millennium for all I care, but Daniel... four hours. That's too long.

Carter is briefing Fraiser on that, and the look she's getting from the doc is not encouraging. There's a hoarse voice from down at knee level; Mason is muttering not quite under his breath, something about it all being just too weird. He's upset, pretty shaky at having to sit and watch and listen to Daniel, the man he killed. Daniel tries to lift his head to look to see who's there, but he can't quite do it without jarring the chunk of glass still lodged in his shoulder. He vibrates with the pain, kinda like a taut piano wire, and Fraiser interrupts her doctor-pokey-probey-assessy-thing to glare at him. Which he doesn't notice because he's still too interested for his own good in trying to see just who it is jerking the IV bag around and sounding as if the world has come to an end.

"It's you... isn't it? You, you saw it, right?" Daniel is stubbornly trying to raise himself up. He bats at me when I try to push him back down, and lets fly with a particularly pathetic version of the "Jack please, " ploy I know and don't-love so well. I know he isn't going to give up on it just because Fraiser is getting fed up so I give in and slip in right behind him, spread my legs, and slide my arms under his shoulders to grab him by the belt. As gently as I can, I ease him up to lean against me. Fraiser lunges forward and clamps her hands to the dressings around the glass, stabilizing it, giving me a look that would fast-freeze a flame. But her voice is soft and reassuring for Daniel, telling him to just breathe through it as he bites back whatever rises up in his throat, gags a few times, and rests his head back against my chest.

Fraiser warns me about probable cracked ribs, a definitely fractured sternum, and possible cardiac contusions and oh crap, about the location of a miraculously still intact sub-something-avian-artery in his shoulder right about where the glass is lodged. Oh, shit. Okay, this was so, so, so not such a good idea, then. I can feel Daniel shaking against me, and for a second I think about laying him back down, but his hand clamped over my own tells me he wants to stay just where he is. Besides, now she's got me so afraid that I think twice even about taking a deep breath of my own in case my chest expanding shifts him. The medic has the monitor all hooked up now, and he and Fraiser stare at it like it holds all the secrets to the universe. I move just a bit, taking Daniel with me, the lines go all ziggy-zaggy, and Fraiser turns that impressive glare onto me again.

We sit here, me barely daring to breathe and Daniel barely able to, while Fraiser and Carter punish us both with these pinched up, disapproving looks on their faces. Yes, ladies, yes, okay, I feel like a fool. First some alien-thing tries to kill the guy. Then Mason. Now I just took a stab at it. Geez, Daniel, I'm sorry. Some guys never get a break, eh?

It takes Daniel a couple of minutes to get over the worst of the distress caused by my actions, but it's worth the wait because once the pain settles, his breathing actually seems easier than when he was laying down. Which makes me feel a bit better... not a lot, but, a bit.

Fraiser is broadcasting strong enough 'seriously pissed off' signals that everyone in the whole base is likely looking over their shoulders in fear. Daniel takes one look at her, and as calmly as a man in his position can manage, says, "Hey, Doc, if you want a shot at killing me, you're gonna have to take a place in line... just like the rest of us." I almost laugh out loud at hearing my own sentiment so glibly expressed by my victim, but there's a choking noise come from Mason. He obviously doesn't know our Daniel is the bounce-back king, because he's staring at him like Daniel's just come up with the most outrageously in-bad-taste thing anyone's ever said, anywhere.

Well, I guess from Mason's point of view, actually, it is pretty outrageous. Far too close to home to be tolerable, I guess. I glance down there to see Mason looking totally shocked over Daniel's flippancy. Hell, over Daniel, period. I gotta admit, he isn't the one one to ever have felt at a loss over Daniel. I have this sudden, unexpected urge to reassure the kid -

Shit. What the hell's wrong with me?

27. SrA Eddie Mason


Oh man, oh Jesus. I don't believe what I just heard. That clinches it. The deal is sealed. The writing's on the wall, the horse in the barn: these people are completely crazy. Nuts. Jackson included. God, and he seemed so normal when I was up on the outside gate.

As if it all didn't seem bizarre enough before, now it's worse. It's like my mind is going numb or something. Not even able to try to make sense of anything anymore. I'm staring down at the guy I did my best to kill, watching him bleed, seeing him suffer what I did to him, listening to him joke - make a fucking joke - about it all while there's still a man-eating alien just the other side of that door, and everything seems so damned surreal I think my brain's jumped the tracks.

Jackson is rolling his head, his eyes searching out... God, no, not me, not me. Shit. Me. He's asking me the same thing he did before. "You did see it, right?" Oh, yeah, I saw it, but I wish I hadn't. I want to go home. I only realize I must have just grunted or done something else that means yes when he nods at me and continues, "Okay. Good. Do you think... you could follow it, see it, if we... we got it to do it again?"

Got it to...? What's he... oh, no no no. Do it again? Do that... again? I can't keep it in; it just explodes out of me. "What! Are you fucking crazy!? Do it again? What the fuck are you? The king-shit sado-masochist of the universe?"

There's a strong hand on my shoulder plus a warning growl, and if I could grab the words and stuff them back in I would. Captain Carter is looking at me wide-eyed, her mouth clamped shut in a straight line, and the colonel, his cheek laid against the top of Jackson's head, narrows his eyes into little slits as he stares at me. I don't think they understand what Jackson's just asked me; all they know is I just yelled at him. Any awareness of what came just before that must have gone right out the window the second I raised my voice at him.

But Jackson, he's not reacting to my outburst like them. He just gives a small shake of his head, and asks it again. "Would you be able to, to... track it taking over, if we got it to do the same thing?"

The penny drops. I see and feel it happen. Captain Carter's eyes almost pop out of her head, and she transfers that clamped-up look from me to Jackson. There's a low grunt from Teal'c and an easing of the pressure he's put on my shoulder. And O'Neill... he straightens up with a jerk and stares down at Jackson as if he only just realized he was even there.

O'Neill is so surprised I don't think he knows he's even moved. Jackson sure knows it, though. Hurting big time from the quick shift in position. I'd say something, but just like my feet before, my mouth and my brain suddenly don't want to cooperate with my intentions. Luckily, Dr. Fraiser is more in tune with Jackson than the rest of them are right now, and she pokes the colonel in the arm to get his attention, indicating Jackson with a slight tip of her head. The glove on her hand leaves a bloody mark on his sleeve. A small, smudged, half-circle. Going quickly from deep red to a muddy brown on the dark green fabric. I can't tear my eyes off it.

Jackson's voice isn't nearly as strong as it was just before. "No, no... wait. Listen. The historical records on P3Y665; the only way to trap the, the... had to kill the host before it got out... trap and kill the - Jack, it's the only way. It's... there's no other way... It's all we have..."

"What? So you're saying we need to let that thing take over one of us and then we gotta lock them up in the box?" Colonel Makepeace? Yeah. I didn't know Makepeace was even over here. "Sounds pretty typically harebrained to me, Jackson." O'Neill gives Makepeace a glare that's even worse than the one he gave me.

"No... no, we probably couldn't... get them... into the box." I can barely hear Jackson's answer. He's fading on us here. Makepeace snorts as though he's thinking he's just been proven right or something.

"But..." Carter interrupts herself with a thoughtful look, and her eyes widen. "Okay, you say the legend indicates the only way to kill the alien is to have the host die. But Daniel, you have to have seen the corpse in there."

Yeah, well, even if he didn't see it, which I'm sure he did before he got clobbered by that alien thing, he'd have to know it's there. It's hard to miss. I understand what she's getting at, and I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing that his suggestion about the way to kill it is wrong. O'Neill must agree because he's saying what I would say if I had the cooperation of my tongue and any guts at all left.

"She's got you there, Daniel. That is one very dead person in there, and we still have one very live alien flitting around. So, kids, while it's nice to know killing one of us may not be the solution after all, just where the hell does that leave us?"

"No, no, uhm, yes. Yes, I saw it. But that doesn't mean... doesn't mean anything. Jack, the legend, it says..." Jackson's voice is barely above a whisper, the words riding on short, laboured breaths, and he can't finish it. The effort he's putting into staying with us makes my knees weak. Me. I did this to him.

Makepeace chimes in again just for good measure. He may have helped me up off the floor in the other corridor, but I'm getting the idea he might be a bit of a son of a bitch. "The hell with legends. It means the alien survives the death of the host. That's what it means."

Jackson's pretty upset. He tries to say something but instead just lets out a long, low moan that tells everyone just what he's going through and... ah hell, something's happening now that makes me feel like the outsider of the century, makes something rip apart inside my chest and my eyes heat up and sting. Shit. I can feel the lump forming in my throat as I see O'Neill tip his head forward and give the side of Jackson's face a small nudge with his nose and cheek.

The message is clear: it's okay. Compassion, strength, support. Friendship. It'll be okay. There's a small nod in return, and I know Jackson gets his meaning and is sending a message of his own. Thanks. I'm okay. I can do this. It's okay.

Fuck. No, it's not okay. It isn't. I can't do this.

28. Colonel Jack O'Neill


Damn that Makepeace. Fine, I understand what's he saying, and I can't say I disagree. But you'd think he'd find a nicer way of saying it. There's something going on with Mason; he's shuffled around to sit with his back to us. Can't say as I really care what's provoked that, just so long as he keeps proper hold of that IV bag.

Daniel is shaking his head - well, sort of; it's more like just giving up on any semblance of control, letting it loll from side to side on my chest. I figure it's purposeful, though, because he's also doing the 'no, no' thing by flopping his free hand around in his lap, and I can feel him breathing it out, trying to actually say the word. It gets lost in the midst of a low groan, though.

"All right. That's it. The hall of legends is closed. Everybody go home." Fraiser has had enough. She's stuffing the earpieces of her stethoscope into her ears as she's shooing Carter to pull back from Daniel. She leans forward and listens to his chest, moving the thing around from stem to stern. Dead centre, down low, then up nearer to his shoulder, and now right next to the hunk of glass. Listening intently. Her frown deepens. Her eyes dart to Daniel's face, then back down to his chest. She pulls off the stethoscope and sits back, and I know there's a momentous decision on the way. Daniel does too because he's trying to reach out for her, shaking his head in denial and whispering her name. It's pretty obvious he's got something he desperately wants to tell us, and he doesn't want her to shut him down quite yet.

She's having none of it. "No, Daniel. Don't even try." Hah! You'd think she'd know him better than that by now. She turns to me. "So our chances of getting him out of here anytime soon are...?"

I key the comm and ask how they're doing with getting a person-sized hole cut through that door. Yeah, that door - the one Siler is now reminding us has a full six inch thick core of layered steel, specifically designed to withstand exactly what they're trying to do to it. I look over at Fraiser and simply shake my head, no, not good, and she closes in on her impending decision with a vengeance, turning to her medic and rattling off what she needs. A second IV started. Oxygen. No, never mind; didn't bring any. A thora-something set-up. The medic is looking kind of insecure over that request, his eyes darting from one big box to another and his forehead creased into a frown. Fraiser gives him an impatient stare, telling him, well then, improvise with what's in the emergency kit. Wake up and make do. Sure am glad I'm not him. Fresh pressure dressings. Non-narcotic analgesic. Local anaesthetic. A sterile drape. New gloves. Skin prep. Sutures. That last grabs my attention but good. What's she up to?

Sure enough, Daniel is still trying. His fingers dig into my hand, and he manages to gasp out a few words. Not many, just a couple-three-four - okay, maybe six, max. - but enough to gather in the rapt attention of all of us. "No. Interred alive. Sylestria. Escaped... alive."

Shut into that box while alive? Who? Sylvester? Isn't that a big black cat? An incredibly stupid black cat? I understand what he's trying to say. That Sylvester person was locked in the box while alive, and the alien left him, her, whatever, before death. The thought of being trapped in there, suffocating to death with that thing hanging about, turns my stomach. I'm not the only one not very appreciative of that particular horror. Carter's "Oh God" is almost unrecognizable, her voice is so strangled. Fraiser has blanched almost as white as Daniel.

I realize what he's really, bottom-line, trying to say underneath what he actually said. And, no. No frigging way. I won't accept that anyone's going to have to die here to kill off that thing. Piss. Damn. Crap. Hell. Shit. Did I miss any? Yeah, yeah I missed the grand poobah of them all, Fu... huh? Carter?

"Yes! Okay! P3Y665!" Boy, she recovers quickly. Carter leans forward, her hand looking for Daniel's but ending up clawing at mine instead. "Daniel! I remember now. Isn't that where we found evidence of a died-off Greek-offshoot culture? There was a story... something about treason?"

He's nodding, but he's having too much trouble breathing to talk He barely manages to get out something about computer files before he gives up even trying, and Carter is immediately on the comm to Davis, asking him to access Daniel's translation files associated with the mission to P3Y665. Daniel is gasping like a fish out of water, mouth and throat and chest working hard with little reward. As for me, I'm getting mighty alarmed here. Breathing is scary. I can handle bleeding and guts hanging out and lopped off limbs but, man oh man, people having trouble breathing is really scary.

The medic is scrambling around, and Fraiser's busily filling this huge syringe, complete with attached honking huge needle, with fluid from a big vial. I know what that is. Been stitched up enough times to recognize a vial of xylocaine when I see it. She moves over to a handier position and starts playing around with Daniel, injecting it directly into him all around where the glass is embedded. She's having some macabre medical fun changing the location of the needle, welding it like it was a straw in an extra-thick milkshake or something. Pulling it in and out, rotating it. Pushing it back and forth in him as she slowly depresses the plunger. He's an even deadlier white now than he already was, hissing and gasping, weakly kicking out with his legs like it hurts, ohh, a whole big, big bunch.

Obviously I'm not the only one this bothers. Carter is looking away, and I hear a snorty-noisy inhalation come from someone else. It's Mason. Had to turn and look, eh, boy? "What are you doing? That's... you're hurting him..." He's saying what I have on the tip of my tongue, but in a much nicer way than I would have if he hadn't beat me to it.

Fraiser ignores him, and with one hand holding Daniel's arm out from his body some, she transfers her efforts to a spot somewhere not far south of his underarm, injecting more of the local there. She looks up and snaps out a "Well?" to her medic. He gives her a slightly panicky glance, mumbles something, and fiddles faster with what looks like a couple of catheter collection bags, some sort of tubing, some clamps, lots of waterproof tape, and a bottle of saline. He holds up a makeshift linked-bag-system-thing, and she nods brusquely, mumbling, "that'll work" under her breath. The medic looks relieved and reverts to his usual self-confident behavior, bustling around getting a stack of supplies ready for whatever she has in mind to do.

She's done torturing Daniel now, hands away the mostly empty syringe, and sits back on her heels frowning at the monitor. Oh, I can't help it. "Well? " I echo both the word and her impatient tone of voice, and she glances at me, annoyed at first, then her expression softens.

"It's okay, Colonel. It was local anaesthesia. It stings, but it will help with the pain when I..." She frowns again, staring at the monitor, and mumbles, "Some ectopics and T wave depression." She looks thoughtful for a minute, and my heart is jumping right along with all those jiggy lines. Is there something wrong with Daniel's heart? Maybe the bullet didn't stay in one piece, or didn't deflect along his ribs off to the right quite like -

Fraiser suddenly announces, "Okay, just some minor irritability," and bends over Daniel, taking his face in her hands and speaking softly to him. "Daniel? The glass has punctured the muscle and punched a small hole through into your chest cavity. There's both air and blood leaking in, putting pressure on your lung. That's why you're becoming increasingly short of breath. We don't know how long we're stuck in here, so we're going to take care of it now, okay? We'll give you something for pain through the IV before we start."

Oh, yeah, now she offers the drugs. After she let him sit here for the last fifteen minutes in pain, and then did the archaeologist excavation thing with the honking huge needle. Carter breaks into my thoughts with a speculative comment about punctured lungs and sucking chest wounds in general and hey, in particular, if that's the case here shouldn't Daniel have asphyxiated by now. Christ. Who raised that girl to be like this, anyway?

Fraiser is fussing with putting new gloves on. "No, the point of penetration is distal to the outer margin of the lung, Sam. It's very unlikely there's a lung puncture. I strongly suspect that when the glass entered the chest cavity through the muscle initially, it formed a reasonably functional seal on its own. But there's been considerable movement since then, so that's not the case any more."

The medic has started a second IV and is injecting something, going real slow with it, into the port in the line. I can feel Daniel start to relax slightly against me before the syringe is even empty. Fraiser is still officiously chattering away and I find myself - incredibly, unbelievably enough - actually interested in what she's telling us. "The air leak isn't huge, and we might be able to control it by dressing around the glass... but there's bleeding into the chest cavity as well, and it's going to be a while before we can get him out of here. I have to deal with both problems now to relieve the pressure and prevent any further compression of the lung."

Okay, I understand now. She's going to remove the glass and seal the hole with a proper pressure dressing. And that double-baggie-creation is a sealed system to attach a drainage tube to; she's going to put in a chest tube to drain off the blood. Okay. Been there, had that done. Not a biggie. Stab, jab, bam, a dubious thank you ma'am. No more hole, no more air sucked in; blood drained out, no more pressure on his lung.

Right. Sounds like a damned good plan. I hope.

Oh, for crying out loud, Daniel... don't you ever stop? What is it now? What?

29. SrA Eddie Mason


It's only just now starting to sink in. Even though it's not really all over with yet - there's still an evil man-killer flying around, and we're all still trapped here in the gateroom - I'm clueing in now it's pretty much all over for me. I'm just window dressing here. It's up to these people to deal with it all, not me. I don't have anything to do any more except sit here and hold up these IV bags until my arm gets so numb and my shoulder starts to burn so bad I can't do that any more. I suppose it'd be easier if I just stood up... but even though my mind is starting to understand I'm all done here now, I made it, I'm alive and okay and I don't have to face that thing again, my legs don't seem to believe it yet. No way will they hold me up for long; my knees still feel just as weak as they did when I - No, never mind. Don't think about that.

The doc says Jackson will be okay. It was scary when he started kicking out like that, my back being turned and all so I didn't see why, but now I know what's going on. She'll get him all fixed up. They'll get a hole through that door in a few hours, and then they'll take him and the other guys to the infirmary, and everything will be okay for them. There's not a whole lot of activity going on over there where the medics are dealing with the others. Every so often one white-shirt or other comes over and snags a word with the doc or something from one of these boxes, but overall it's pretty quiet. Not nearly so much fuss as there is right here with Jackson. I'm hoping that's a good sign; that it means they aren't too bad off.

A few of the guys are laying on blankets. One of Makepeace's men is over there helping out. The other two are keeping tabs and weapons-at-ready on the one remaining guy-thing from SG8. He's over there practically plastered up against the C1 door, staring like he can see straight through the door at the ceiling of the corridor or something. Teal'c went off a few minutes ago, and I saw him doing something with the dead... sitting cross-legged, unmoving with his eyes closed, next to each body in turn. When he got to Joe, I had to turn away to keep myself from bursting into tears. Done too much of that already. He's with Harris now, taking a bit longer than he did with the others.

Captain Carter is talking to the control room again, more about how to locate some computer files. Something about Dr. Jackson's translations. Hey... it hits me all of a sudden that's what Dr. Jackson must have been doing down on the ramp with the box before all this started. He must have been reading those squigglies on the side of it. Wow. That is so cool; really cool he can do that, actually understand the stuff.

I'm catching on real good now this guy is something more than just a run of the mill civilian advisor. Up on the main gate and at the elevator, I just thought of Jackson as some kind of consultant, nothing real special... nice as all get-out, his friendly 'good mornings' and 'see you tomorrows' a refreshing change from the usual military 'you-are-invisible-to-me' treatment, but still nothing to write home about. But today I saw him all geared up and how he dealt with being abused by the other guy over the box, and how Sgt. Harris deferred to him... and I saw him willing to die to save everyone else, and he... he thanked me as I killed him. No wonder Colonel O'Neill wanted to rip me apart with his bare hands.

My new understanding of just who and what Jackson is forces me to turn and look at him, and I'm just about swamped by shame. Ashamed... that I turned my back on him before just because I was too guilty and scared and stupid to face up to what he can't turn away from. He's still hurting and all tensed up, but the medic is injecting more of the drug, and I can see Jackson start to sag down some. There's still something got him juiced up, though. He's working hard, struggling to tell the colonel something, plucking at the colonel's arm and turning his face up to him. Something about C1, I think? I don't know; it's hard to tell. He's really short of breath, and it's painful to watch him struggle like that. Like the coward I am I want to turn away again, to pretend I never noticed, but there's no way. Not again. I won't be turning my back on him again, dammit.

He's all nestled into O'Neill, snugged up between the colonel's legs and held sitting up against his chest by the colonel's arms around his waist - and it makes me realize there's even more to Dr. Jackson than all I learned in the last hour or so. It's obvious all these military people - the colonel and the captain, Teal'c, the doc, and even to some extent, I figure, Makepeace - they value this guy beyond just his status, his smarts, and courage, and they don't hesitate to show it. And in the military, well, hell, that's a real big deal.

Just look at O'Neill sitting there like that, calmly accepting not only command of the whole situation but also responsibility for getting a team member through the pain. I wanted to be an officer, hell, a freaking general some day. I wanted to go to school and get a degree in something, in anything, so I could become an officer. I had plans. I thought I was going to be a somebody... a somebody who could make a difference. Somebody worthwhile. Somebody like O'Neill.

I was wrong. I was stupid and naive. Even if all this had never happened - if I wasn't doomed to be kicked out on my can and probably even imprisoned - no matter what I did or how far up I got, I would never really have been a somebody. I didn't even know what that meant. But I do now. It takes more than just following a path to become a somebody.

I'm not ever going be anything but a big nobody. Never was.

Dr. Jackson, Colonel O'Neill... they're somebodys. Me? What a joke.

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 © February 15th, 2001, the author