Fic: A Rock And A Hard Place

[galaxysoup]

FANDOM: Stargate SG-1
RATING: PG13
SUMMARY: To save Daniel's life, Jack has to do that hardest of all things: talk.
SPOILERS: the movie, Enemy Within, Upgrades, Foothold, Broca Divide, The Curse, Window of Opportunity, Within the Serpent's Grasp
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a sort of response to a kind of challenge on the OurStargate message board (how's that for assertive?). Tiv pointed out that Jack and Sam froze together in Solitudes and Jack and Teal'c froze together in Tangent, but Jack and Daniel have never had that particular bonding experience. I don't think this was precisely what she had in mind, but what the hey. It's what got written! Many gratuitous thanks to Barb, as always, who is truly a woman of many talents. ;-)

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

You don't get to be a colonel in the US Air Force without the ability to notice inconsistencies in the behavior of those around you.

Take right now, for example. I'm in the infirmary, which sadly isn't all that inconsistent with my character. What is inconsistent is the sudden lack of any experienced medical personnel. Fraiser has vanished along with most of her senior staff. The only ones left are Nurse Clark, who I swear hasn't left the infirmary since West was in charge, and Nurse Rafferty, who has only been working here for two weeks.

Odd. I didn't hear the Gate alarm, so no one's come back in pieces. I know for a fact Fraiser's on duty until five because she gave me lip about it. Add to that the way Nurse Rafferty keeps giving me sympathetic looks and the way Nurse Clark is studiously ignoring my existence, and it all comes to one thing: there's something going on that they don't want me to know about.

All right, let's look at this logically. No on-base alarm, so it must be off world. No Fraiser, so it must be medical. No daily visit from Carter or Teal'c, so it involves my team. No Daniel, because he's off world with SG-12 on a dig.

Ah, shit. I told him he wasn't allowed to get himself in trouble.

I hit my call button. Rafferty jumps about a mile, and good old ratchet-faced Clark heads in my direction.

She gives me a huffy look. "Colonel O'Neill?"

Wow. If you could bottle that condescension you could use it as an offensive weapon. I give her my best charmer smile. "Nurse Clark," I say sunnily. "What happened to Daniel?"

For about a split second she looks surprised, then wham go the poker-face shutters. "You'll have to wait for Doctor Fraiser to get back," she says, and stomps back to her magazine.

Well, that's that then. If they won't tell me, I'll just have to find out for myself. I wait for Clark to take her cigarette break and Rafferty to pinch Clark's magazine, and check myself out of the infirmary. Fraiser will give me hell later, but it's not like I didn't give them a chance to do this the legal way. Clark knows me well enough to expect something like this. I'm not even that injured - just a slight run in with a knife-wielding native trying to skewer my astrophysicist. It wasn't Carter's fault I got sliced, either, although to hear her apologize you'd think she was responsible for everything up to and including Kennedy's assassination (the president, not the NID guy, more's the pity). If she hadn't been distracted by the star chart on Daniel's temple wall, she would have seen him coming a mile away and kicked his ass from here to Netu.

But I digress. First stop: locker room for clothes. Next stop: Ferretti. He's a good guy and, more importantly, knows what my kids mean to me. He'll tell me what's going on.

I run Ferretti to ground in SG-2's gear-up room. His face falls when he sees me. Like I said, we go back.

"Hi, Ferretti," I say, still using the cheer I tried on Nurse Clark.

"Colonel," he says in a resigned way. Too much more of this and I might start getting offended.

"Ferretti, this base shows a distinct lack of Fraiser and a distinct lack of the rest of my team. Please explain."

He sighs again and sits down on one of the benches, probably so I'll sit down too. Sneaky guy, our Lou. That's why we like him. I sit.

"Okay," he says. "You remember the ruins Daniel and SG-12 were excavating?"

"Your use of the past tense fills me with foreboding," I say. "Yes, I remember them."

"Right. Well, it turns out the plateau they were on is really unstable. Part of it collapsed, taking a lot of the ruins with it. All I know is that Fraiser and the engineering team shipped out about an hour ago, and then they sent back for a few teams to help out with S and R. We volunteered. Before you ask, I don't know if Daniel's been hurt, but Major Carter and Teal'c are already there, and given Daniel's luck he's probably right in the middle of it."

I have to wince; he's right about that one. Daniel attracts trouble like a dress uniform attracts pet hair. He's a monument to good intentions and living proof that no good deed goes unpunished. I dread to think who he was in a past life to have to work off this much bad karma.

"Ferretti, I need to get off-world," I say. Good man that he is, he isn't even surprised.

"I figured as much. Now, I'm guessing you checked yourself out of the infirmary?"

I nod. He's done the same thing himself. He knows the drill.

"Okay. I'll take you with my guys when we go if you can arrange for Hammond not to notice. And if you promise to deflect the wrath of Fraiser."

I shrug. "I'll take care of Hammond. Fraiser I probably can't do anything about." I'll be too busy trying to save my own ass to worry about Ferretti's.

He makes a face. "It was worth a shot. We ship out in twenty minutes."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Twenty minutes and a promise to Graham Simmons to put in a good word for him with Carter gets me a conveniently distracted Hammond for those crucial five minutes it takes to get through the event horizon. Carter will understand. She has this big sister sort of thing for Daniel, so as long as she's convinced it will somehow help him she won't get pissy with me. I hope.

The Gate on the other side is situated in the center of a large plateau. It used to be in the center of a city, too, but the city long ago turned into the ruins Daniel finds so fascinating. Ferretti's men head for the northern part of the plateau, or at least whatever passes for north on this planet, and I trail along behind trying not to make it too obvious I'm limping.

I got knifed. So sue me.

There's a bustle of activity up above. A command tent has been set up in the shelter of one of the half-collapsed buildings, and even from here I can see Fraiser hovering nervously. About a hundred feet from the tent someone's set up a line of Caution tape which presumably marks the edge of safe ground, and about a hundred feet beyond that the ground disappears like it's been cut with a knife. The ruins there are mostly rubble, whether from the ravages of time or the ravages of disappearing archaeological teams I don't know. I don't see Daniel anywhere, but since I can't see Carter or Teal'c either I'm determined not to take it as a bad sign.

"Dr. Fraiser, I presume," I say as nonchalantly as possible. She whips around and starts to give me the Look of Death, then her expression changes to one of... pity?

Shit.

"Colonel O'Neill." She goes into the tent. I follow her in and sit on one of the little folding camp chairs. She sees my expression and rallies a bit. "I'm saving the lecture for later."

Like I needed any concrete proof that I'm not quite right in the head, the promise of Fraiser retribution actually makes me feel a bit better. "Just tell me what's going on, Doc. How bad is he hurt?"

She doesn't bother to ask how I knew, how I got here, or whether I'm here legally. She knows me too well for any of that.

"We're not sure. When the plateau collapsed, Daniel and Dr. Youngblood were in one of the effected sections of the temple. Major Carter did a UAV flyby and we can see one person on a ledge about twenty feet down the cliff wall, but we can't tell who it is and they're not responding to radio hails."

I have to ask. "What about the other person?"

She hesitates, just barely, then carries on like the professional she is. "There is a body at the base of the cliff. Judging from the distance they fell and what they had to land on, there's no way they could have survived. I'm sorry." She puts a hand on my arm. I'm refusing to believe that Daniel is lying right now at the bottom of an alien cliff with his skull smashed open. That's just not the way Daniel will go when he does. He'll either die in his sleep at the ripe old age of a hundred and three or he'll go out in a blaze of glory he'll never get to bask in. He won't just fall quietly down a cliff.

Fraiser keeps going. "Teal'c is leading a team down the other side of the plateau and around to see if they can get up the cliff from there." She doesn't mention they'll also be retrieving the body. Neither of us needs to have that spoken aloud right now. "Sam's working with the engineering team to try and rig up a scaffolding of some sort that will let them come down the cliff from above, or at least lower some supplies to whoever's on the ledge."

"It's Daniel." This I know. It has to be.

Fraiser bites her lip. "We don't know that, Jack," she says.

First name. Crap. "No," I say. "But I do. I need to get on the radio."

"Colonel - " she starts, but I cut her off.

"If it is Daniel, he's just seen his friend fall down a cliff." Daniel wouldn't be lucky enough to miss it somehow. It's the Jackson luck. The shit hits the fan and then it hits Daniel, and then the fan short-circuits and falls on him too. "He's kind of shaky about heights at the best of times, so I'm betting right now he's having a full-blown panic attack." I keep my best Colonel stare leveled at Fraiser. She wavers a bit and relents, probably more to stop me yammering than anything.

"Fine," she says. "Radio's over there."

I smile. "And I want to see the UAV playback. Can we do that? I want to see how he's set up."

She nods again and leads me to a small table against one side of the tent, stacked with complicated equipment. I sit myself down in the only chair. This will probably take a while, and I don't plan on moving until I hear Daniel giving me attitude over the headset. Fraiser hits a few buttons and a small TV screen lights up, showing classic blurry UAV footage.

Daniel's ledge is located about two-thirds of the way up the cliff. From what I can see it's barely large enough to hold a person and probably isn't all that stable. The blurry blob I won't believe is anyone other than Daniel is stretched out with its head and shoulders sticking over one end. Directly below, I can see a body sprawled on the rocks.

Oh yeah. Major panic attack time.

I click the radio. "Daniel? It's Jack. Can you hear me? Talk to me, buddy." I instinctively gentle my voice, using the inflections I used to use to send Charlie to sleep with only a few pages of Dr. Seuss. It's comforting, it's soothing, and hopefully it will get through to Daniel.

"Daniel, I need you to do me a favor. You trust me, right? You know I won't do anything to hurt you or let you get hurt. I know you can hear me right now and I'm not expecting you to answer me yet, but I need you to listen to what I'm saying, okay? I want you to close your eyes. Just close your eyes and think of... think of Abydos." That's probably a pretty reliable safe place. "Remember the way the heat baked you right down to your bones in the morning? Remember how the sand felt between your fingers? Think about the way the desert smelled right after it rained."

I don't actually know if it ever rained on Abydos, but Daniel spent most of his childhood in the desert. I went on a trip with him to Egypt once, right after we saved the world the first time, and I remember how he seemed to light up as soon as he stepped out into the heat. Egypt means home to Daniel in a way that no place, not even Abydos, ever will.

"Imagine the night sky, the way the moons drowned out the stars when they were full and the constellations you could see when they were dark." A lot of this I'm just making up on the fly, but I figure it's more the sound of my voice than the words anyway. He'll get the point.

"Okay, I want you to remember that, and I want you to move your right hand until it's under your right shoulder. You got that?" I really, really wish I could see down that cliff right now. I have no clue if he's moving, but I have no choice but to trust that he is. "Now I want you to push with that hand and roll back towards the cliff. Not all the way - stay on your side." After a panic attack like the one I'm pretty sure he's suffering from, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets sick to his stomach. I wouldn't blame him. I threw up for about five minutes straight the first time I parachuted.

"Okay, keep your eyes shut. Can you reach your radio now? Just reach over with your right hand and get your radio. Come on, buddy. Give me a sign here."

There's a pause during which Fraiser and I both turn blue holding our breath, and then the radio crackles.

"Jack?" a very small voice says.

Fraiser whoops. "Daniel!" I yelp in an unfortunately very undignified manner. "Damn but it's good to hear your voice. How you doing?"

"Think I'm going to be sick," Daniel says.

"That's okay, buddy. That's why I had you lie down on your side. Just take deep breaths through your mouth and you'll start feeling better."

"Okay." There's a pause while Daniel tries out his deep breathing.

"Feeling any better?"

"Yeah." His voice sounds stronger, at least. I wait a minute. "Jack, aren't you supposed to be in the infirmary?"

That's our Daniel: from terrified to Mother Hen in thirty seconds flat. And he says I'm bad.

"Well, you sounded like you were having so much fun, I figured I'd come over and see if I could hang out."

That gets me a tiny chuckle. Way to go Daniel! Bounces back like a bouncy ball on speed. "Janet's going to kill you."

I groan dramatically and wink at Fraiser. "Don't I know it. You owe me big time for this one, Danny-boy." She gestures for the radio. "Hang on, she wants to talk to you. Put in a good word for me, okay?"

Another wavery chuckle, borderline hysterical but at least he's talking. "I'll see what I can do."

Janet grabs the handset and perches herself on the edge of the table. "Daniel, how are you feeling?"

There's a hiss of static as Daniel sighs. "A little shaky."

Read: scared out of his gourd.

"I think I bruised my ribs when I fell."

Cracked, possibly broken.

"Headache."

Concussion.

"That's about it."

Tip of the iceberg, more like.

"All right," Janet says soothingly. "We're working on getting you down, Daniel. You just sit tight, okay?"

"Okay. Janet..." His voice trails off a little. "Janet, I think Emmett..."

We both cringe at that one. I grab the handset back. "Teal'c's leading a team around the bottom of the cliff, Daniel. They'll check him out when they get there."

It's a testament to how shaken Daniel's still feeling that he doesn't question that one.

"So Daniel." Time to get this conversation out of the serious and into the escapist. "What were you thinking, getting that close to the edge of the plateau? Did I or did I not tell you that you weren't allowed to put yourself in mortal peril unless I was around to supervise?"

"You're here now, aren't you?" Daniel points out, and I relax a little. Pissy Daniel is a lot easier to deal with than Freaked Daniel. "And I get into a lot more trouble with you around, I might add."

Logical Daniel - the best of the bunch in circumstances like this. "Oh, yeah? Name one!"

"The atenik armbands," Daniel says promptly.

What! That wasn't me! "If memory serves, you were the one who started the bar fight."

Daniel's voice is getting stronger. "Did not. All I did was look offended and you threw that guy over the pool table."

That wasn't how it happened, was it? I think back. Damn, I think he's right. "You had that look on your face. I know what that look means."

"What look?" Daniel asks cautiously.

"The starting a bar fight look, duh."

"I have never started a bar fight in my life, Jack." Sadly, this is almost certainly true. "How about when those aliens took over the SGC?"

"The cockroaches? How was that my fault?"

"You made me go to the infirmary. If I hadn't gone to the infirmary I wouldn't have gotten caught."

Oh, whatever! "General Hammond told us to."

"Like I've never disobeyed orders before. You know very well I was planning on going straight to my lab."

Okay, he's definitely feeling better. "You sneezed in the elevator," I point out.

"Which you couldn't possibly have heard, Jack, because you had water in your ears at the time."

Damn. Who said it was a good idea to get Daniel thinking?

"And how about the Touched Virus? I distinctly remember you beating me up."

"I was trying to protect you from Carter," I say sulkily.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Give me another one," I say.

"Okay... How many Marines?" Daniel asks.

I think about that one for a moment. "I don't know - how many?"

"Thirty-one: one to hold the light bulb, ten to try and decipher the instructions, and twenty to throw a party when the first one gets it right."

I laugh. I've heard that one connected to frat boys before. "Okay, how many nurses does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Uh..." he thinks for a moment. "No idea. How many?"

"Two, if they're small enough."

There's a pause while he digests that, and a burst of shocked laughter when he finally gets it. "Ow. Jack, that's awful! You'd better hope Janet's not listening."

Ladies and gentlemen, we have officially passed into the giddy post-adrenaline-rush period of the evening. On both our parts, and I for one am not ashamed to admit it.

"Look who's talking. You realize there are two Marine units here right now?"

He dismisses that for later. "Are there any Tok'ra?"

I check behind me reflexively. "What? No. Don't scare me like that!"

"Okay, then how many Tok'ra does it take?"

"Um... no clue."

"Thirteen : one to infiltrate the Goa'uld and find the light bulb, one to smuggle it out, ten to spy on the other Goa'uld and make sure no one's on to them, and one to convince SG-1 to screw it in just in case it reacts badly to the presence of a symbiote."

I choke and cast a glance at Carter, who's been beating her head against engineering schematics as she tries to build a scaffold to reach Daniel. "You spend time thinking these things up in briefings, don't you? I mean, that's what you're always writing on your pad, right?"

Daniel snorts. "No, actually I take notes during briefings, Jack. You should try it some time."

"Right." Another glance at Carter, who looks near tears. "Do one for astrophysicists." She looks up.

"Um... hang on. Okay - four: One to negotiate for the naquadah, one to build the generator, one to screw in the light bulb and one to explain to the General why the base's power has shorted out."

Carter gives a startled burst of laughter and grabs the handset. "Guess how many archaeologists, Daniel."

"Oh, hi Sam. Um... I don't know, how many?"

"None, they read in the dark."

"Oh, ha ha," Daniel says sarcastically. We give Daniel so much crap for reading in the dark it's a miracle he doesn't get light-up glasses. But seriously - he has crappy enough eyesight anyway, what's he doing trying to read by the light of one puny desk lamp?

"Guess how many Colonels, Sam," Daniel says.

Carter shoots me a mischievous look. "How many?"

"One, to call Sergeant Siler and have him do it."

Carter laughs and hands me back the handset.

The afternoon wears on. Daniel and I run through cross-the-road and knock-knock jokes until we start repeating ourselves. Daniel's starting to sound tired as the giddiness fades, and I'm getting more and more aware of the fact that this distraction thing I've got going only works as long as he decides to humor me.

Carter's gone out with her engineers and her erector set, but Fraiser comes by every so often and gives me sit reps. She has about as much to do right now as I do. I haven't seen Ferretti's boys for a while, but if I had to guess I'd say they're being construction workers for Carter.

One of the other radios squawks and I pick it up. We left the channel Daniel was on for his use and assigned everyone else different frequencies. Since I can't actually do anything else, I'm playing Sparky.

"O'Neill."

"Teal'c, hey buddy. What's the story?"

"We have reached the bottom of the plateau. There is approximately one hour of travel left and we will be below Daniel Jackson."

"Ten-four." I switch channels. "Carter, how's it going?"

"Fine, sir."

Uh-oh. "Teal'c says he's about an hour away from Daniel's position."

"Oh." Her voice softens a little. "Thank you, sir."

I put down the radio and turn back to Daniel. "Hey, Danny, guess what?"

Nothing.

"Daniel?"

"What?" A very small voice says.

Dammit! I left him alone too long. That's the thing about Daniel: not only does he have no self-preservation when it comes to the physical world, he just can't resist torturing himself in his head, too. "In about an hour, Teal'c will be right below you," I promise him.

"What's he going to do, catch me?" There's a tiny waver in Daniel's voice, barely there even for someone who's expecting to hear it.

"No," I say deliberately. "He's going to climb up to you."

There's a minute sigh, and I know if Daniel were in a moving place right now he'd be pinching the bridge of his nose to try and keep his emotions in check. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't sweat it," I say. Come on, Jack, think of something... "Hey, you never did tell me how you got out of that murder rap in Chicago."

"Oh, that," Daniel says. He's still playing along, thank God. "Well, when they gave me my phone call - "

"Wait, they actually arrested you?" General Hammond had a lot of things to say about my unavailability while Daniel was off finding Goa'ulds in the Windy City, but strangely that hadn't been part of the guilt trip.

"Well, no, and actually they can legally hold you for twenty-four hours without charging you or giving you a phone call, but I got the phone call before they had a chance to do anything more than insinuate that I was in very big trouble. Not that Stephen didn't try to make things a little easier for them, of course."

"What a sweetheart," I say sarcastically.

"He was trying to protect his job," Daniel says, and I can almost hear the mental shrug behind it. "Anyway, I called General Hammond, and General Hammond called somebody else, who called somebody, who called the cops and vouched for me."

I can only guess how high up that calling went, because cops don't generally just let people go even if they're just being legally held for twenty-four hours without charges. You know, it's a good thing for Daniel he has us as friends now, because his old pals really weren't anything to write home about.

"And then they sprung you?"

"Yeah. They even gave me have coffee before I left." Typical Daniel, he thinks that was a courtesy thing. They were probably just trying to poison him out of spite. I've had cop-shop coffee before and trust me, it's lethal.

"Jack?" Daniel's voice is quiet again, but it's not the freaking-out quiet from before. This is the little-boy-lost quiet he only uses when he's really hurting.

"Yeah?"

"Emmett's dead."

Shit. "Yeah, I know."

"Sorry. I just needed to say that."

"Yeah, I know." Sometimes it isn't real until you say it. "You want to tell me what happened?"

There's a little sigh. "The ground just gave out. I don't know, Jack - we were just standing there. We weren't... we weren't doing anything really special. We just... fell."

"That's what we figured." Actually, having taken into account the infamous Jackson non-luck, I'd been afraid something a lot more scarring had happened, like Daniel trying to catch Emmett and not being able to hang on. It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of crap Daniel gets put through.

The radio next to me crackles. "O'Neill, we have arrived."

"Hang on a sec, Daniel," I say, and grab the handset. "Teal'c, what's the situation?"

"Doctor Youngblood has perished."

I wince. I had no doubt, but there's something about having Teal'c say it that makes it worse. "What about the cliff? Can you get up there?"

"I am unable to determine that at this moment. We will need more time before coming to our final conclusion."

"Okay. Keep me informed." I switch over to Daniel. "Hey, Danny, cavalry's here. Teal'c's right below you."

"Really?" His voice brightens a bit. "Think I'll take your word for that one."

Right, heights. "Good call."

Fraiser comes running into the tent. "Sir, Major Carter says she's done enough with the scaffolding to try lowering Daniel some supplies. It won't hold a person yet, but at the very least we can get Daniel some water and a first-aid kit."

Well, ain't everything coming up roses. I beam at her. "Daniel, guess what? Carter's going to try lowering some stuff down to you, so keep an eye out."

"Okay." He actually sounds pretty cheerful for a guy stuck to the side of a cliff. I guess the prospect of rescue will do that.

"Hang on, Daniel - I'm going to go out to the scaffolding and take a look."

"You're leaving?" he blurts in dismay, and I just know he's kicking himself for saying it. That's one of Daniel's biggest rules: thou shalt not assume other people care about you.

"No," I say, maybe a little too forcefully, but at least he'll get the point. "I'm taking a radio with me. I'll be right here."

"Right," he says, a bit sheepishly. "Well. Okay. I'm fine, you know... if you want to go. I'm okay."

Another Commandment of Daniel: thou shalt always be 'fine'. Whatever that means.

"I know," I say, practically crossing my fingers behind my back. "I mean, I don't have anything else to do, so I might as well stay."

I can almost hear the sigh of relief. "Jack, we have got to get you a social life."

"Hello pot, meet kettle!" I say, levering myself out of my chair. My leg has stiffened up in the hours I've been talking to Daniel and it takes a few staggers to get to the nearest tent pole. "I have more of a social life than you do!" Mostly because Daniel prefers to talk to inanimate objects in dead languages in what passes for his free time. I'm not even kidding - I once heard him arguing with a vase in Latin as to whether it should be translated in the perfect or pluperfect tense.

"That's not necessarily a good thing," Daniel says dryly as I finally make it to the tent door and limp outside. "I refer you to the bar fight."

"Which you started."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

I come around the corner of the tent and see the scaffolding for the first time. My optimism plummets. It looks like the half-constructed bastard child of a crane and a medieval siege tower, and I would as soon trust Daniel's weight to it as I would hand Apophis a knife and then turn my back on him. Carter, fiddling with something near the base of the construction, sees my expression and stands up.

"It should hold up to five hundred pounds when it's done," she says defensively.

I paste on my best reassuring smile. "I trust you, Carter."

"I know it doesn't look like much, but it /will/ work."

"I know. I believe you."

"It would have gone a lot faster if we were closer to the Gate."

"Carter." I wait until she looks at me. "Good job."

She relaxes a fraction, which basically means she doesn't look tense enough to make a pretzel out of the next I-beam that looks at her sideways. "Thank you, sir." She turns back to Ferretti, who's standing next to a small motor connected to a winch. He takes a tiny step back and holds up a wrench defensively.

"All right, Major - let's try the motor again. Are you ready?"

Ferretti shoots me a look of pure gratitude and hits the switch. "Yes, ma'am."

You have to love Carter. Centuries of 'this man's army' mentality and she still has career soldiers like Ferretti scared to death of her.

The motor coughs, rattles, and starts running. Carter and Ferretti hover over it anxiously until it's been going smoothly for a few minutes, and exchange relieved smiles.

"Looking good, Danny," I say into my radio.

"Yeah, well, fingers crossed," he says nervously.

"Okay, Janet," Carter calls. "Give me the supplies."

Fraiser hands over a pack and Carter attaches it to the end of a long wire strung up over the top of the contraption. She lets go and it swings out over the cliff.

"All right. Let's try lowering it."

"Supplies are coming down," I tell Daniel.

"I can see them!"

Carter switches channels on her radio. "How's the positioning, Daniel?"

"Looks good so far. I'll have to scoot down the ledge a bit but it shouldn't be a problem."

I raise my eyebrows. Daniel must be feeling pretty good if he's ready to try moving on that ledge. Of course, that's the other thing about Daniel - engage his brain and give him something to work towards, and there is no obstacle he won't overcome.

I should know. I've been that obstacle.

"Wait - Sam," Daniel says. "I think it's hung up on something. I can't see it any more."

Carter frowns at the suddenly lax wire vanishing over the cliff. "Okay, hang on. I'm going to pull it back up and move it over a little."

Ferretti reverses the motor and Carter starts attacking one of the metal struts on the side of the contraption.

"There will probably be a bit of trial and error about this, sir," she says briskly as she works. "Since we can't see the pack as it goes down, we have to guess where the cliff face will be smoothest - "

And then night falls.

Literally.

Everybody freezes instinctively, and there's a moment of silence.

"Carter?" I say pointedly.

I hear a rustling near the base of the contraption and then a click. Carter's found her flashlight, which she immediately shines straight into my eyes. I wince and she hastily points it down.

"Sorry, sir," she says. Around me I can hear cautious movements as everyone else starts looking for light of some kind, and the occasional apology as someone accidentally gets too friendly.

"Carter?" I repeat. Same inflection. Deadly calm. This is my Not Pleased voice, my Holding Onto My Temper, Make Me Happy NOW voice. It was bad enough that Daniel was trapped on a tiny ledge halfway down a fricking cliff, but I was handling it. Pitch dark night had no place in my handling of things. We have now officially reached a whole new level of Not Cool.

"I..." Carter says, and I can almost hear her mental gears grinding. "I think this planet's rotation must be somehow different from our own. Maybe it's something in the atmosphere, because we still should have been able to notice a gradual decrease in the sun's light..." her voice trails off, and I sigh. Great. Even Carter has no idea what's going on.

"Can we still lower stuff down to Daniel?"

She nods, and looks a little more confident. "Yes, sir. It'll just take a little longer, is all."

Well, that's good at least - crap! Daniel! I click on my radio. "Daniel? It's just nightfall. We're still working on the supplies."

Little known Daniel fact: he really dislikes the dark. I won't say he's afraid of it, but it unnerves him. I think it reminds him of being blind or something.

"Okay." His voice sounds reassuringly steady. I think I got to him before he had time to do any major freaking out.

A thought occurs to me. "Carter, can we tie a flashlight onto the pack? Then Daniel will be able to see it coming." Not to mention watching for it will give him something to focus on.

She brightens. "Yes, sir - that's a great idea!"

Well, it happens. I switch channels. "Teal'c?"

No answer.

"Teal'c, come in."

The radio crackles. "Major Coburn here, sir. Teal'c had just started up the cliff face when the light went."

Oh, shit. "How far up?"

"Not too far, sir. About twenty feet."

Twenty feet is still enough to make a major dent, even in somebody like Teal'c. "Can you see him from where you are?"

There's a pause. "Negative, sir. He's behind an outcropping. I think I can hear him climbing down, though."

Well, that's a plus. At least he's moving. I'm not sure what I would have done with two team members stuck on a cliff. "Keep me informed."

"Yes, sir."

I let go of the radio and rub my forehead. Lordy. I'd ask what else could go wrong here but I don't particularly want to find out.

A hand on my arm startles me out of my increasingly depressing thoughts. I look up to find the Napoleonic Power-Monger herself with that world-conquering look on her face.

"You should really get off that leg, sir," she says, and the way she says the 'sir' makes it sound like something a lot less complimentary, like 'moron' or 'idiot'. I review my choices: Get stubborn and probably be allowed to stay out here but have to go through the physical to end all physicals when we get back, or give in and preserve what's left of my dignity.

Duh. Like I'd voluntarily sign up for one of Fraiser's infamous retaliatory physicals.

I limp behind her into the tent and sit down again. She fusses over the leg for a few moments, mostly I think to make herself feel useful, then wanders out of the tent muttering something about making sure nobody gets dehydrated. I pick up my radio again.

"Danny, you there?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not here at the moment," Daniel says snarkily. "I'm off doing cartwheels down the Champs Elysees, but if you leave your name and number I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Beep!"

I snicker. "Good to see you've still got your sense of humor, Daniel."

"Are you kidding? Captive audience, Jack. You should just be glad I haven't started giving lectures yet."

"Ha, ha," I say. That's so terrifying it doesn't even bear thinking about. "You do that and I'll pull rank and make somebody else listen to you."

"Good to be the boss?"

"You have no idea," I say fervently. Why does he think he always gets stuck synopsizing Carter's science reports for me? It ain't because I'm too busy to read them myself, that's for sure. "Hang on, I'm going to check on Teal'c."

"Okay."

I switch channels. "Coburn, how's it going?"

"He's almost to the bottom, sir. If you wait a minute I think he'll be able to talk to you."

"Okay." I bide my time until Teal'c's distinctive bass comes across the channel.

"O'Neill."

"T, what's the word?"

There's a brief pause where I can tell Teal'c is debating between playing the dumb alien and asking what word I'm talking about, or getting on with it. I swear, half the time he's just getting a kick out of messing with the gullible Tau'ri idiots.

"The material making up the cliff is loosely packed and treacherous. In the light an ascent might have been possible, but in the dark it would be unwise."

I sigh. "Okay, Teal'c. Hang around down there for a little while, all right? Can you see what Carter's up to from where you are?"

There's a pause, I guess while he moves to a better place to watch. "If you are referring to the light being lowered down the cliff face, then I am able to observe Major Carter's actions."

"Good. Get on her channel and tell her what you can see, it might help." It's worth a shot, anyway.

"Understood," Teal'c says, and the line goes dead.

"Hey, Daniel, I'm back."

"Praise the Lord," he says, and it's a good thing I give him as much crap as he gives me because otherwise this friendship would look awfully one-sided to someone who didn't know us both. "How's Teal'c?"

"His usual witty self."

"Do you ever get the feeling he's just messing with our heads?" Daniel asks pensively.

The night wears on. I keep checking in with Carter and Teal'c, but nothing much seems to be happening. Carter's still having trouble getting the supplies down, because she has to keep the wire close enough to the cliff that Daniel will be able to grab it, but not close enough that it gets hung up. The getting hung up part is most of the problem, so far. The good thing is she's gotten it to be weight-bearing, so if and when we ever get the damn thing to Daniel he will be able to use it to get up.

I'm halfway through a completely blasphemous story involving Kawalsky, an Iranian prostitute, and a bag of imported toffee when it occurs to me Daniel's been awfully quiet lately.

"Daniel, you still there?"

"Well, yes, Jack."

Ask a stupid question... "The reason I ask is you've been awfully non-responsive."

"Kawalsky, toffee, prostitute. I'm listening."

"Daniel, I just said the capital of Iran was Tabriz and you didn't correct me."

"It's Tehran," Daniel says wearily. "Happy now?"

Well, no. "Daniel."

"Jack..."

"Daniel."

There's a long pause. "I'm just tired."

"And?"

There's an even longer pause. Daniel's obviously working up to saying something he knows will Worry Me. Daniel puts a lot of effort into never saying anything that will worry me. Usually it's because he's afraid I will be (justifiably) angry over whatever hare-brained stunt he's pulled this time, but sometimes... it isn't his fault.

"I'm a little cold," Daniel says finally.

I take a moment to think and realize that in the past half hour I've zipped up both my jacket and my vest and stuck my free hand in my pocket. I hadn't even noticed because I've been so busy talking to Daniel, but it must be even worse for him - he can't move.

As the French say, crap. "Are you having trouble concentrating?"

"A little," Daniel admits.

As the Italians say, double crap. "Fraiser!" I holler out the door.

She comes running. "What? What is it?"

"Daniel says it's cold and he's having trouble concentrating."

I can see the comprehension dawning in her eyes. In these conditions, especially considering Daniel's been hurt, hypothermia is a real possibility. I can't believe none of us thought of that before now.

"Keep him talking," Fraiser says curtly. "I'll go talk to Sam."

"So, Daniel, tell me a story," I say with as much casualness as I can muster.

"Sure," he says, and I really hope I didn't sound that forced. "What do you want to hear about?"

The world narrows down to me and the radio, and Daniel's increasingly scattered recitation of whatever I can think to ask him about. We cover grad school, Abydos, Linear A versus Linear B, and some guy named Ashur-something-pal who is not to be confused with Ashur-something-else-pal. Carter's still having no luck, and on the rare occasions when she comes into the tent for something and happens to overhear Daniel's straggling monologue she leaves looking close to tears. Fraiser doesn't seem to know who to hover over since the person she really wants to be hovering over is stuck down a cliff, so she mostly ends up wandering aimlessly in and out of the tent absently biting her fingernails. Me, I'm just trying really hard to convince myself I'm helping somehow.

It suddenly occurs to me that the pause in Daniel's lecture about the Eleusinian mysteries, which are just as mysterious to me now as they were before Daniel started talking about them, has gone on for way longer than it should have.

"Daniel?"

Nothing.

"Daniel!"

"I'm h-h-here," he chatters finally.

"Daniel, you have to keep talking." There's a pause where my heart makes a concerted effort to crawl up my esophagus. "Daniel?"

"T-t-too tired," he mumbles. "Sorry. Too t-tired. C-can't... can't think."

"You don't have to think," I say, and I don't even try to keep the desperation out of my voice. "Just keep talking."

"D-demeter..." he pauses. "D-demeter... I c-can't r-remember."

"Okay. Okay." I rack my brain for something he can do without thinking. "Conjugate 'caleo'."

"Ha ha," he says weakly. "And p-people think you're... d-dumb."

I may have spent a lot of my enforced stay in the time loop goofing off, but even I couldn't avoid picking up a little Latin here and there. 'Caleo' means 'to be warm or hot' in Latin.

I wait until he's partway through the present active indicative before bellowing for Fraiser again. She appears so quickly I know she had to have been standing right outside the tent flap.

"Yes, sir?"

"Get Carter. I need to talk to her."

She frowns in the direction of the radio that is quite capable of reaching Carter, but leaves anyway.

"What is it, sir? I think we're almost done and I need - "

"It's not going to work," I say curtly, regretting it immediately when Carter's chin comes up. "I don't mean what you've done is wrong," I amend hastily, "but listen to him. Do you really think he's going to be capable of climbing up a cliff?"

Carter's face falls and I see a bit of panic in her eyes. I quickly lay out my idea before she can start technobabbling to reassure herself. "How much weight will that thing hold right now and will it be able to reach Teal'c?"

Her jaw drops as she gets my plan, and I can tell she's just kicking herself for not having thought of it already. "Yes, sir!" she says, and makes like a tree and leaves. Which wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for, but it's close enough.

Speaking of which, there's silence on the radio. "Daniel?"

"L-l-lost... my p-p-place," he explains.

"Future active subjunctive," I throw out at random.

"Is... is... isn't one."

Oh, for crying out loud. Even hypothermic the boy's a know-it-all. "Present then."

"C... caleam... cal... cale... caleas..."

I lurch to my feet and hobble out of the tent. I've had enough of sitting around. I know I can't do anything but there is no way I'm going to keep sitting on my butt if there's some chance of being able to see what's going on.

They've set up a bunch of floodlights all around and there are people hurrying back and forth putting the final touches on Carter's contraption. I find Fraiser and her medics and stand next to them against the wall of the tent, out of the way but with a good view.

"Doc."

"Colonel."

Over the radio, Daniel's still struggling through caleo, and it makes me unreasonably angry to hear him having that much trouble with something he's never had to think about before.

"Sam's worried the ground won't hold her scaffolding with too much weight on it," Fraiser tells me.

I wince. That hadn't occurred to me before... and naturally, I picked the heaviest guy to try and collect Daniel. "We'll send someone else instead of Teal'c."

Fraiser shook her head. "Teal'c's the only one on Major Coburn's team who feels confident enough to attempt it, and Sam doesn't want to send anyone down because she wants to keep weight off the edge of the cliff for as long as possible."

I nod. Anything that gets knocked off the cliff at this point will come straight down on Daniel.

I really, really wish I was able to be more in the thick of things. Not that I mind talking to Daniel, of course, but I hate sitting when I could be doing. I guess Fraiser sees some of that in my face, because she gives me a reassuring pat on the hand.

All of which calls my attention to the ominously silent radio. "Daniel?"

Nothing. Fraiser and I exchange worried looks. "Daniel!"

Still nothing. I put my finger and thumb in my mouth and whistle as loudly as possible into the speaker. If that doesn't get your attention, nothing will. Kawalsky used to do it to me sometimes back when we were both Captains. Always at the most inappropriate times, too, the bastard.

There's no reply. I close my eyes for a moment, interrupted by Carter's worried "Sir?"

"Daniel's not responding," I tell her.

Her forehead creases with worry. "We're ready to send down the wire, sir."

"Okay." I switch channels so I can listen in on her talk with Teal'c.

"Let me know when you've got the harness, Teal'c," she says.

There's a momentary pause. "I have it secured," Teal'c says finally. "We may begin the ascent."

Carter hits the switch on the winch and it chugs to life. She's got the Marines hanging on to ropes tied to the front of the scaffolding, presumably to try and take some of the weight off the edge of the cliff, though I don't know how much good it will do. To my practical eye it seems a little pointless, but to a physicist it probably makes sense.

"I think it's mostly to get them out of the way," Fraiser says, and for a moment I think I spoke out loud but then I realize she's just followed my gaze.

Well, then I guess it makes sense practically as well.

"Major Carter, I am approaching Daniel Jackson's ledge," Teal'c says, and Carter slows the winch down a bit.

"Cease operation of the winch now," Teal'c orders.

Fraiser can't contain herself any longer and grabs the radio from my hand. "Teal'c, how is Doctor Jackson?"

"Unconscious but breathing," Teal'c says promptly. "He has sustained a wound to the side of the head, and while it is difficult to say in the dark his lips appear to be an unhealthy shade."

"They're blue?" Fraiser clarifies.

"Indeed. I will put him in the harness now."

Fraiser hands my radio back, recognizing the dismissal for what it is, and goes back to biting her fingernails. I never took her for a nail-biter before, but now that I think of it she's always had short nails. Actually, given my uselessness at the moment, nail-biting is looking more and more attractive.

"We are prepared," Teal'c says. "Please begin the ascent."

Carter starts the winch slowly, increasing the speed and therefore the weight gradually. The ground under the contraption groans and even as far back as I am I can hear stuff shaking loose and tumbling down the cliff. The Marines lean back against the ropes, and I find myself really, really hoping Carter didn't just give them busy work.

The ground shudders a bit and a crack starts to form in the earth between us and the scaffolding. Carter gives it a nervous look but keeps going. I'm thinking come on, come on, come on, and it's not until Fraiser starts chanting along with me that I realize I'm saying it out loud.

If that cliff goes, it takes my whole team with it.

Slowly, nerve-wrackingly, Teal'c and Daniel appear over the edge of the cliff. Daniel's head is tipped back against Teal'c's shoulder and Teal'c's got one arm around Daniel's chest, more for security than any real practical purpose given how securely they're strapped together. Even from this far away I can see the blood on the side of Daniel's face.

As soon as they clear the top of the cliff, Ferretti takes a few cautious steps forward and tosses them a line. Teal'c catches it on the first try, hooking it to his climbing harness, and Ferretti passes the other end to the Marines. Carter starts letting out the winch and Teal'c and Daniel float slowly in from the edge of the cliff to land on the ground next to the base of the contraption.

Everyone freezes for a moment as the ground trembles and the cracks get wider. Fraiser's holding my hand so hard I can't feel my fingers anymore and I think I've cracked the casing on the radio. Teal'c reaches up and carefully detaches himself from both the winch and the Marines' rope and then, as the ground gives another shudder, scoops up both Daniel and Carter and makes an almighty lunge for safe ground.

There's a rumble that throws us all off-balance and for a moment I can't see anything through the dirt. The spotlights spark and vanish, either pulled after the contraption or knocked over by the tremor. And then the dust clears to show a new cliff line, no scaffolding... and all three of my teammates in a dusty heap barely two feet from the edge.

Fraiser and her medics sprint for the cliff and I follow along behind them as fast as I can limp. They crowd around Daniel, who's been quickly detached from Teal'c, so I veer to the side.

"Teal'c? Carter? You guys okay?"

Carter sits up and shakes dirt out of her hair. "Fine, sir - how's Daniel?"

I glance over in Daniel's direction. Sometimes I think Fraiser must have trained as a conjurer or a magician or something, because they're already got Daniel wrapped in blankets with an IV starting. They're moving quickly but not frantically and don't seem overly concerned.

"He'll be okay." I've had a lot of practice watching medics.

About that point I notice that Teal'c, of all people, has that perturbed look on his face that means he's in some kind of pain. "Teal'c, are you all right?"

He looks disgusted. "I will be fine."

I manage an awkward kind of crouch next to him, my bad leg stuck out at an angle and my good knee popping loudly, and I have to wobble for a minute before I'm sure I won't pitch myself off the cliff. "Where are you hurt?"

If anything, the disgust deepens. "Major Carter's left knee has adversely effected a delicate part of my anatomy," Teal'c says stiffly. "I will be fine."

Carter looks horrified. "Oh my God, Teal'c - I'm so sorry - "

There are a lot of people you really shouldn't laugh at for something like that. I'm a guy, I know how it feels, and trust me, there's nothing like having someone laugh when you're in that situation to really put the icing on the cake. But I can't help it. The look on Teal'c's face, Carter's mortification, Daniel's safety and yes, that good old post-adrenaline giddiness all combine to get me laughing so hard for a moment I think I really am going to take a header down the cliff. Fortunately Teal'c unbends enough the push me (a little harder than necessary, I might add) in the right direction and I flop on my side away from the edge instead.

Oh, God. I think I need a vacation.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Maybe it's the father part of me, but there's something I really like about watching my kids sleep. When I'm on watch on a mission, or just keeping an eye on them in the infirmary, there's something kind of peaceful about it. Teal'c, okay, he's not as much fun because he just meditates, but Daniel and Carter... when they're asleep you can imagine them as kids. When they're awake they're on the move, their brains are working and their mouths are moving (boy, are their mouths moving...) and you kind of loose track of how they had to be young at some point.

Carter - and she'd die if I ever told anyone this - but she talks in her sleep. Not interesting talk either - she goes over equations with herself. Daniel does the same thing with languages sometimes, but I can never tell if he's translating or just mumbling. The best thing about Daniel, though, is that he sleeps like a kid - all sort of curled up with his hands tucked under his chin.

That's why it's always sort of perplexing to watch him sleep in the infirmary, like now. I mean, aside from the bruising and the stitches on the side of his head, it just seems wrong to see him all neatly laid out on his back like that. I always have to restrain myself from poking him to make him move, because I know Fraiser would do really unpleasant medical things to me if I did.

Daniel's hands twitch and he frowns a little. I sit up a bit straighter - those are the first signs of Daniel regaining consciousness. Carter always turns her head to the side just a little, probably getting ready to bite whoever's closest. Always the left side, too - don't know what's up with that. Teal'c coming to scares the crap out of me. He just sits up, bam, no warning. He's going to give me a heart attack one of these days.

Daniel frowns again and squinches his eyes shut, then opens them and blinks blearily at the ceiling.

Houston, we have consciousness!

"Hey, Daniel," I say, nice and quiet because he's still got a concussion and believe me, loud noises do not a happy concussed archaeologist make.

He squints, a sure sign he's got a headache. "Hey, Jack." He frowns. "Sam and Teal'c?" Another Danielism - he always asks about the rest of the team. He slipped on the ice in front of my cabin one winter a few years ago and the first thing he asked when he woke up was if Sam and Teal'c were okay. They weren't even in the state at the time.

"Everyone's fine," I tell him. "Let's go over something, Daniel... what is rule number one of going on a mission with another team?"

Daniel sighs and rolls his eyes. "Don't get injured, kidnapped, killed, brainwashed, copied, or married," he says dutifully. Sadly, these are all things that have happened in the past. I'm sure there will be more by the time I retire.

"Or?"

"Or you'll never let me forget it, that's what. And for the record, P34 98X was not a brainwashing."

Oh, whatever. "Close enough to make a good warning," I tell him crisply. Daniel makes a gesture with one hand that would probably translate into something incredibly rude if I wasn't pretending not to have seen it. "And what is rule number one of getting injured?"

Daniel frowns. "Don't?" he guesses.

"Tell Jack you're injured," I correct him. Just like I'd guessed at the beginning of this little misadventure, the bruised ribs were in fact cracked, the headache was most certainly a concussion, and he'd made absolutely no mention of the very noticeable bleeding scrapes down his right arm and leg.

"I've got to start writing these down," Daniel sighs, giving the ceiling an innocent look that doesn't fool me for a moment.

I snort. "Yeah, what with your advancing age and everything, I bet they're hard to keep track of."

Daniel smiles a bit and fingers the edge of the blanket. "By the way, thanks for talking to me."

I fiddle with an anonymous piece of medical equipment Fraiser would probably confiscate if she knew I was playing with it. "No problem."

Daniel clears his throat awkwardly. "I mean, it helped."

I shrug. Oooh, look at the shiny part. "That's what friends are for." What the hell is this supposed to do, anyway?

Daniel nods at the periphery of my vision. "If you're ever stuck on a cliff, let me know. I'd be glad to talk to you."

I snort. "I bet you would." I'm paying very close attention to my doohicky. See, if we aren't making eye contact, we're not being sappy.

"Well, captive audience and all that," Daniel says briskly. "When can I get out of here?"

I put the doohicky down with relief. "Fraiser just wants to give you a little checkup, make sure you don't puke up the Jell-O, that sort of thing."

Daniel wrinkles his nose. "Thank you, Jack. That mental image will make it so much easier."

I smirk at him. "I do what I can. I'll go see if I can find Dammit Janet."

Daniel snickers and holds his ribs. "Ow. Dammit Janet? You better pray she never hears that."

I smile and start towards Janet's office. "Only if you tell her, Danny-boy - only if you tell her."

THE END