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  The flare of hope in Hammond’s eyes died. “I see.” He nodded. “Very well, then. We’ll just have to continue praying that their own bodies can successfully overcome these infections. Doctor, I’ll leave you to continue the medical relief effort. If you require any command assistance, I’ll be in my office.”

  “Sir,” she said, and watched him depart. Then she turned to Harriman. “Sergeant, I need some help in the medical supply room. Can you raise Siler for me, and get him to meet me there?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” said Harriman. “Doctor Fraiser…”

  She paused, her fingertips touching the open control room doorway. “Sergeant?”

  His face was somber. “We can do this, right? We can bring SG-1 home safely, in one piece?”

  “We can do our best, Sergeant,” she replied. “It’s all anyone can do.”

  “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “Ma’am, I’ll track down Sergeant Siler for you.”

  “Thanks, Walter,” she replied, and left him to do that.

  The unnatural wormhole spins and roars, ravenous. The g-forces it has spawned are brutal. He’s afraid. So afraid. But he can do this. He has to. Frank’s cracking jokes, trying in heartbeats to regain the ground they’ve lost over years. It’s hard to stay angry at him.

  You want me to forgive you, is that it?

  Yeah. I guess I do.

  Was that all it took, then, to ease the barbed pain of betrayal? A simple apology? An admission of guilt? If he’d let himself see Frank years ago, if he hadn’t slammed the door in the man’s face, would they still be friends now? Maybe. Maybe not. Iraq had been bad. Next to Charlie, the worst experience of his life. Sometimes ‘Whoops. Sorry about that chief’ didn’t cut it.

  But if that’s true, why does he feel different since Frank laid his soul bare? Why is that hot, hating ball of ancient rage beneath his ribs fading? Is it because now, years later, he understands the difference between wanting to keep a promise and being able to keep a promise?

  Only now, years later and dangling above the maw of a monster, does he realize how much he’s missed his friend.

  A voice shouts: “Colonel, look out!” and then he’s caught in a glass storm. Not even dilated time and g-forces save him from the pain. He feels his flesh slice, feels the blood escape down his arms, feels his mortality rise to choke him.

  He loses his grip on the rope. The monster roars louder, so eager. Frank catches him, holds him, keeps him safe. He’s so busy repaying debts he puts the mission at risk.

  “Get up there and arm the damn bomb!”

  “Just climb!”

  “Arm the damn bomb!”

  “Climb!”

  And then it’s Frank who’s slipping, Frank whose rope is cut, flying free. They’re anchored hand to wrist, locked eye to eye. So much to say…

  “Frank! No!” O’Neill shouted, and half-fell off the stool beside Carter’s camp bed. She was too sick to hear him, but another hand caught his arm.

  “Hey,” said Dixon. “Take it easy. You okay?”

  O’Neill snatched himself free and settled back on the stool. His heart was pounding. So was his head. Fresh pain burned through him that had nothing to do with fevers.

  “I’m fine. What do you want?”

  Dixon held up Daniel’s digicam. “Fraiser needs an update on everyone’s condition.”

  His head snapped round. “You talked to Fraiser? Dammit it to hell, Dixon, I’m ranking officer here. You don’t talk for me or this team.”

  Dixon just looked at him. There was irritated impatience on his face… and reluctant pity in his eyes.

  The pity was like acid.

  “Jack,” he said, “I came to get you when I realized it was time to check in with the SGC. You were asleep. I thought you needed the rest.”

  “That’s my call, not yours!”

  “Screw you,” said Dixon. “So long as I’m the one upright and toting bedpans it is my call. You shouldn’t even be perpendicular. You should be horizontal with an i/v in your arm.”

  “You try putting an i/v in my arm, Dixon, and I’ll put one in you where no i/v has gone before.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Dixon. “You’re so weak I could knock you down with my pinky finger, Jack. Enough with the John Wayne routine, okay? You’re not fit for command. And if you’re even a fraction of the man Frank always said you were, you’d accept that fact and my help while you’re at it.”

  Frank.

  The dream was still salt raw, still screaming in the back of his mind. The horror in Frank’s eyes as gravity sucked him towards the wormhole. He’d always been a science buff. He knew exactly what was waiting for him on the other side. Endless death, atom by atom. Seconds lasting eons. No hope of reprieve.

  God. Frank.

  He felt his guts contract. Tried to keep the dream from showing on his face. Dixon was watching him, and Dixon already knew too much. He looked at Carter, stripped out of her heavy field uniform and redressed in lighter, kinder surgical scrubs. Reached out to her, and let the tips of his fingers rest against her bare wrist. Beneath his cold touch he could feel her sluggish pulse. Her sunken eyes remained closed, but she was still breathing. She was still with him. He hadn’t lost her, yet, or let her down.

  Beyond SG-1’s small tent he could hear the sounds of transplanted Mennufer. Squabbling children, fretful and afraid. Adult voices raised to soothe them. Other sounds, as the afflicted tossed in their fevers and worse, suffering.

  On the trek from the valley he’d thought they’d never make it. Too many people, too much fear and confusion, too big a task looming ahead. But they’d managed it. They pitched all those tents, set up all those camp beds, the field kitchens, the latrines, the makeshift hospital. Georgetown had sprung to life in the wilderness.

  And that was largely because of Colonel Dave Dixon, who’d quietly and calmly, without fuss or fanfare, thrown his back to the wheel and worked without rest, without complaint, to see the job got done. Who did indeed carry bedpans, and do medical rounds, and take blood, and put in i/vs, and hold hands with the sick when their pain overwhelmed them.

  Dave Dixon did that.

  God, Frank, I want to hate him.

  He looked up. “So what are you waiting for, Dixon? Make Fraiser’s damned home movie. How’s she doing, anyway? Any closer to coming up with a cure?”

  Dixon fiddled with the digicam’s buttons. “Don’t think so. She didn’t mention it. She’s looking pretty rough. Hammond too.”

  Really? Maybe we could trade places…

  Except that wasn’t fair. In Hammond’s place he’d give exactly the same orders: no way could this Goa’uld-inspired disease cocktail be allowed anywhere near Earth.

  “They say anything I need to know?”

  Dixon shook his head. “No.”

  O’Neill shifted on the camp stool, feeling the grinding ache in his bones. Not since Iraq had he felt this damned bad. “How are you doing, anyway?”

  Surprised, Dixon stared. “I’m fine.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I am tired.”

  “You should get some rest.”

  That made Dixon grin, sarcastically. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that, Jack. Just let me, y’know, brief the relieving medical team.”

  Smartass.

  He looked at Carter, so still and distant on the camp bed beside him. It seemed the flesh was melting from her bones. Beneath the disfiguring red rash her skin was translucent. She hadn’t opened her eyes for him in quite some time.

  Oh God. Please God. Don’t let her be dying.

  Resting his hot and hurting gaze on her he said, “I’m glad you’re here, Dixon. Things are easier, because you’re here.”

  “Hey,” said Dixon.

  He looked up again, braced for something maudlin, something personal. A bonding moment.

  “Smile! You’re on candid camera!”

  Teeth gritted, he let Dixon record his scabby, crusted, blackened-pustuled face, his slitted eyes, and the fre
sh stinging blisters on his back and chest. He pushed to his feet, trembling, so the man could film Carter without interference, paying particular attention to the way her joints were distorted with swelling.

  “Okay,” Dixon said eventually. “I’m done. Jack…”

  “I know, I know,” he muttered. “I need to lie down.”

  But he also needed Dixon’s help to do it. Dixon’s arm supporting his weight, easing him onto the camp bed, helping his legs to swing up from the ground. Movement was painful. Hell, breathing was painful.

  “When did you last eat?” said Dixon, stepping back.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Didn’t ask if you were hungry, Jack.”

  “Screw you.”

  Dixon smiled. “When I’m done filming I’m coming back with food.”

  The man was impossible. “When did you last eat?”

  “A couple of hours ago.”

  “And how long since you’ve slept?”

  Dixon shrugged. “I’ll get my head down for an hour once I’ve sent Fraiser what she needs.”

  He scowled at the tent’s sloping khaki ceiling. “For all the good it’ll do us.”

  “Hey,” said Dixon, and nudged the camp bed with his boot. “Frank heard you talking like that, he’d kick your ass.”

  Frank. Frank. The fear in his eyes as the wormhole swallowed him…

  “I told you, Dixon. I’m not talking about Cromwell.”

  “No,” said Dixon, after a moment. “No, you’re not talking about him.”

  And then he left. Outside the tent, in the fading sunlight, he said, “Hey, Daniel. How you doing?”

  So it was Daniel now, not Jackson? My, my, my. Weren’t they all just a cozy little team.

  “Okay,” said Daniel. “Is Jack awake?”

  “Awake and biting,” said Dixon. “I’ll see ya. Cinematic glory awaits.”

  The tent flap pushed open and Daniel came in. “Hey. How are you feeling?”

  It was galling, having to lie flat on his back and reply. But the effort of sitting up, even onto his elbows, was too much. He was drained again, all his energy poured into sitting over Carter.

  “I’m fine. You’re not sick. Why aren’t you sick?”

  Daniel blinked. “Ah… I don’t know. Give it time?”

  “You don’t even have a headache, do you?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “Thank you.”

  O’Neill sighed. “How’s Lotar?”

  Daniel’s smile disappeared. “Dave keeps pumping antibiotics and vitamins into her, everything Janet can think of to keep her system strong, but…” He shrugged. “She’s dying. Probably it’s a miracle she’s lasted this long.”

  “And Teal’c? Where’s Teal’c?”

  “I shoved him into his tent and made him promise he’d kel’noreem before he collapsed.”

  Crap. That was his job. He was SG-1’s team leader, he was the one supposed to be holding things together. They were his kids. His people. His… family.

  “Hey,” said Daniel, and pulled a camp stool closer. Sitting on it, he reached out a cool hand. “You’ve still got a fever.”

  “I told you. I’m fine.”

  “Oh, Jack,” said Daniel, half-smiling, half-frowning, and removed his hand. “You are so far from fine. How’s Sam?”

  He rolled his head on the miserly pillow, so he could see her sleeping face. “Well, she’s not dead.”

  “Jack.”

  Shrugging irritably, he pulled a face. “What? What do you want from me?”

  Daniel heaved a sigh. “Nothing. Just… shut up. Go to sleep.”

  He didn’t want to sleep. Frank was lurking in the dark behind his eyes, spinning… falling…

  “I’m fine. I don’t need a nanny, Daniel. You should sleep. You may not be sick but you still look like crap.”

  “Can’t,” said Daniel, around an ambushing, jaw-cracking yawn. “I need to help Dave with the next round of blood samples, skin swabs and injections. That’s not something the healthy villagers can handle. When was the last time you ate?”

  God almighty, what was this? Tag-team harassment? “I’m not hungry.”

  “Yeah. I’ll go get you some soup. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  There was no point protesting. “Daniel!”

  Daniel turned. “I know. I know. If it’s not chicken noodle you’ll throw it at me.”

  “Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to — ” He let air hiss between his teeth. “I’ve hardly set eyes on Teal’c since we got back to the gate. You know what he’s like, Daniel. If one of us is sick or injured, he hovers. Like a Jaffa hummingbird.”

  “What do you expect, Jack?” said Daniel, gently. “He’s blaming himself. He thinks if he’d just fought Hammond that little bit harder the mission would’ve been scrubbed and we wouldn’t be in trouble now.”

  “That’s nuts. Washington was never going to let Hammond scrub the mission. Not with a Goa’uld-free supply of naquadah up for grabs.”

  “I know that. You know that. Even Teal’c knows that… but he’s blaming himself anyway.”

  Of course he is. He’s Teal’c. Anger and grief and frustration clawed at him. This isn’t his fault. No-one wins an argument with Washington, not even Hammond. Not even me.

  Abruptly he was too tired to think any more. Too tired to talk. Way too tired to eat.

  “Daniel, forget the soup,” he said, hearing his voice slur. “Go help Dixon. Or better yet, get some sleep. Tell Teal’c… stop being an idiot. Nobody blames him. This isn’t his fault.”

  He was out before the tent flap fell closed again.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The only way to take care of Jack was to ignore him and his irritable outbursts. Daniel fetched a mug of reconstituted chicken noodle soup, courtesy of the Air Force’s finest culinary chemists, but when he returned with it to SG-1’s tent Jack was so deeply asleep he didn’t even wake to the whispered magic words: Mary Steenburgen wants to jump your bones.

  As the soup cooled in its thermal mug he stood over his friend, noting the changes the Goa’uld bioweapon had wrought in him. Jack looked as bad as he had that time in Antarctica. Not for the first time he felt a prickle of guilt that he wasn’t suffering so much as a cough or a sore throat. Which was crazy, it was nuts. They were damned lucky he wasn’t sick. No way could Dixon and Teal’c cope with this mess on their own.

  But even so. Just a little sore throat, to show some solidarity…

  He turned to Sam and felt his heart’s rhythm hitch. Man, he’d never seen her so still. All of her Sam-ness, her energy, her humor, her intelligence, smothered beneath this weight of terrible illness. Crouching, he brushed his lips across her dull, brittle hair.

  “Hang in there, Sam,” he whispered. “Don’t give up the fight. Don’t let the bastards beat you.”

  No response, not even a flicker of eyelash.

  Oh God.

  He left her, and sat on the camp stool beside Jack. “Hey. Jack. You want this soup or not?”

  Still no reply. Just like Sam, there was no hint his presence had made the slightest impression.

  “Okay,” he said, and pressed his hand to Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll leave the mug here.” He set it on the ground beside the camp bed. “If it’s still warm when you wake up you should drink it, okay? Otherwise you’ll hurt the cook’s feelings.”

  Which ordinarily would’ve provoked a sarcastically amusing retort. The persistent silence was hurtful.

  Abruptly aware of his deep exhaustion, Daniel braced his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands. He felt floaty. Disconnected. He might not be sick, but he had one hell of a migraine brewing. He should take a Tylenol. His eyes drifted closed…

  The whooshing sound of an opening wormhole had him sprawling off the camp stool. “What? What?”

  He’d sent the thermal soup mug flying. Cold soggy noodles littered the ground like dead worms. Gross.
/>   Groggy, disoriented, he staggered to his feet. He’d fallen asleep? Damn. For how long? He checked his watch. Hell, nearly forty minutes. He looked at Jack, then Sam. Still breathing. No sign of waking. It was so wrong, them sleeping through a gate activation when it was practically on top of them. Just another reminder of the dire straits they were in.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. We’ll win this. We have to.

  He mopped up the soup spill then washed his face and hands and brushed his teeth, because somehow clean teeth always made things feel better. After that he took some painkillers, and went in search of Dixon.

  The colonel was in the medical supply tent, unpacking the requisite equipment for the next round of sample-taking. His expression was melancholy, his eyes grieving and shadowed.

  “Lotar died,” he said. “While I was filming her. I know we gotta cremate her but… Bhuiku wanted a little time. I figure an hour won’t hurt.”

  They’d been expecting her death, but even so… the loss was like a knife thrust in the gut. A silent wail of grief pushed against his closed throat.

  “You okay?” he asked Dixon, after a minute.

  Dixon shrugged. “Sure. I’ve seen people die before.”

  In some ways Dixon and Jack were a lot alike. “Doesn’t mean it’s not awful, Dave.”

  Carefully, methodically, Dixon continued counting out the syringes and tubes. “Death is always awful, Daniel. Even when it’s a blessed relief, it’s still awful.”

  And now they were straying into painfully personal territory. “Yeah. Look, if you don’t mind I’d like to go see Bhuiku. Then I’ll do rounds with you.”

  Another shrug. “Sure. Teal’c and I can make a start.”

  “Great,” he said, and then he hesitated. Harsh reality, creeping close. “Um — Dave — I’m thinking… maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to cremate Lotar. If there’s a way Janet could perform an autopsy…”

  Dixon nodded. “Thought of that. Don’t see a way round the Code Red protocols.”

  “We could try. We could start by asking Bhuiku’s permission.”

  “Guess it can’t hurt,” said Dixon, after a moment. “The worst he can do is say no. Okay. Knock yourself out.”