EVAPORATION.
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Evaporate n. 1. To be changed from a liquid or solid into a gas; become gaseous. 2. To give off moisture. 3. To fade away, to disappear; be dissipated.
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He was fascinated.
Carefully, he peeled his hands from the surface of the table, and sure enough, it had happened again. Faint, smudgy outlines of the hollows of his palms and fingers were left on the table, ghostly impressions that swiftly faded into nothingness.
Jack O'Neill waited until the moisture had completely disappeared, and then placed his hands, fingers spread out, back onto the cold tabletop. He counted to ten again, slowly, and then took his hands off the table. They were there again.
He tentatively ran a finger through the palm of one outline; the water beaded onto his skin and he watched it disappear from the tip of the digit.
It was amazing. No doubt Carter would have a reason –
His brain skidded to a halt.
Carter.
Carter, lying still in the infirmary, hooked up to numerous blinking machines.
Carter; the only reason that he was sitting in the commissary, accompanied only by a rapidly cooling coffee and hand prints on the table, at some god-awful early hour in the morning.
*Not* going there.
His mind performed an agile dodge-and-leap as it scrambled to find another, less tumultuous topic to think about. One that wouldn't clench his gut in a vice and make his stomach writhe restlessly within itself and one that didn't involve acknowledging, let alone *facing* a dangerous blend of guilt, anger, fear, relief and something akin to the l-word; Jack was afraid that the mixed cocktail of feelings would go straight to his head and disable whatever was holding together the shattered shards of his control.
So, instead, he resolutely concentrated on his coffee. Steam had long since stopped rising from the surface; it looked tepid and undrinkable but he gazed blankly at it, even as he heard cautious footsteps approaching him and the chair opposite him squeak, protesting, as a figure sat down.
A silence stretched between them – a bleak, empty silence that drove Jack to reckless speech.
"Look at this!" he said brightly, placing his hands, fingers outstretched, on the tabletop. Stubbornly refusing to meet the eyes of the man sitting across from him, he counted to ten under his breath, and with a flourish, removed his hands from the tabletop. "See?"
"Jack."
"I'm sure there is a good reason for why this happens-" Jack was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn't seem to stop the rush of words. "I'll have to ask Carter next time I see her – I'm sure she'd know -"
"*Jack!*" Daniel's voice, louder and more incisive this time, cut through Jack's blather. "I understand," he said simply.
All the anger and self-recrimination that had been simmering beneath the surface slipped through Jack's carefully constructed wall of denial and exploded into blistering cloud.
"No, you *can't* understand!" he shouted, standing up, shoving his chair backwards violently. It crashed into another table, and the vicious sound of metal colliding with metal bounced off the walls of the commissary, filling the empty room with tension. "*No-one* can understand! She *died* today, Daniel – SHE DIED, and I couldn't do ONE –GODDAMN – THING ABOUT IT."
His fist started aching dully; belatedly, he realized that he had pounded it against the table for emphasis and his coffee had spilt over the table from the force of the blows. However, the pain couldn't force the unwanted images from earlier that day from replaying themselves in his head...
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"Lucky for us that there are stepping stones, sir."
Jack looked around the dim cavern in wonder; glistening crystals encrusted the numerous stalactites dripping from the ceiling and their counterparts rising in spires from the floor. A wide, though very shallow stream was seeping through the cave, and the acoustics amplified its tiny trickle, filling the vast cave with the sound of rushing water. It took him a good couple of seconds to notice the five or six flat stones that bridged the water.
"Some of us don't mind getting our feet wet, Carter," he answered lazily, looking back up at the ceiling - it was almost close enough to touch, covered with drips of water.
Sam laughed, stepping onto the first stone. "With all due respect, sir," she said over her shoulder, as she jumped lightly onto the next, "I doubt you'll be saying that after our 10 mile hike h –"
The third stone had proved treacherous and had tilted sharply as she landed on it, and she flailed her arms wildly, fighting to maintain her balance. Jack watched in amusement as she managed to grasp a stalactite, stopping herself from falling into the water by what seemed to be a physical miracle.
Sam resurrected her balance on the stone, and was annoyed to find a hot flush creeping up her cheeks. Damn it! Glad for the covering darkness, she wiped her stinging hands on her BDU's and flung a glare in her C.O.'s direction.
"Do not laugh," she said tersely, stepping gingerly onto the next stone in the line.
Jack blatantly smirked back at her; she was flustered, he could tell, and this was a rarity and he wasn't about to waste the opportunity! He opened his mouth to begin a smart wisecrack about women and shoes, but it was forgotten as an ominous rumble reverberated though the cave. Both of them looked up instinctively; little rocks started sprinkling into the stream, landing with amplified `plinks' and Jack winced as dirt showered down into his eyes.
"Carter, I think we should get out of here," he snapped out, squinting up into the blackness.
"Coming, sir," she answered swiftly, turning carefully on her stone. Jack rolled his eyes in frustration. Women!
"To hell with keeping your feet dry, Carter. I'll give you my spare pair of socks. Just – watch out!"
A large rock was plummeting from the ceiling, but his warning was too late; he watched in horror as it struck her on the temple, swiftly banishing all the light and life from her eyes as if some greater power had flicked the switch of her consciousness. She seemed to fall in slow motion and Jack extended his arms involuntarily, helpless as she splashed facedown into the water, and lay unmoving. Before he could move toward her, the ceiling fell with a cloud of dust and a large wall of debris cut him off from her.
"CARTER!" he shouted, his heart in his throat, as he fumbled with his radio. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Two pairs of running feet cut short his struggles with the buttons, and he instead started a vicious assault on the barrier.
"What is it, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, halting beside O'Neill, beginning to clear away the wall also.
"Carter – she's in there – unconscious – facedown in water," Jack replied frenziedly, punctuating his sentence with flying rocks. His palms started an angry stinging as the sharp rubble pierced his skin, and the warm blood oozing from the cuts made his grip slippery, but uncaring, he continued to pull the rocks from the wall. Panic was making his heart pound erratically and he gritted his teeth against the image of Carter lying face down in the water; she was *not* going to drown, goddamn it!
Even with the combined force of Teal'c, Daniel and Jack, several long minutes had ticked past when a gap big enough for a person appeared at the top. Without a word, Teal'c boosted Jack up and through the wall, and he tumbled roughly down onto the other side, little caring for his smarting elbows and knees.
She was still lying facedown in the water.
SHIT!
He splashed to her side, dropping to his knees and turning her in one motion. Her head lolled awkwardly as his fingers sought her pulse, leaving thick red and brown streaks on her white skin.
No pulse.
Nothing.
Oh, God!
Quickly, he stretched her out flat in the shallow water, and tilted her head back. Trying not to think about the awful clamminess of her lips, he covered her mouth securely with his and blew two long warm breaths into her waterlogged lungs. Her chest rose gently, but there were still no signs of circulation.
He swore violently under his breath, and shifted round her body. Stripping her rapidly down to her tank top, all but tearing her jacket off her, he carefully interlocked his fingers and compressed her chest rapidly with the heels of his palms, counting as he did so.
"One, two, three, come ON Sam, five, six…" He reached fifteen, stopped, breathed into her, and started the compressions again. Mechanically, he repeated the process and he was midway through his third repetition of the procedure when he saw her chest rise spontaneously. Hardly daring to hope, he bent over her mouth. A slight breath tickled his hair, and then she coughed, once – and then again. Warm waves of exquisite relief overwhelmed him as he helped her sit up, and he silently thanked every deity he had come across in the galaxy as Sam coughed up what seemed to be a good third of the stream.
"She's breathing!" Jack's shout of jubilation echoed throughout the cavern and he heard Daniel's answering yell of relief though the rocks.
"What – happened?" Sam said, feebly, still trembling from the vicious coughing fit.
"Shhhhh…" Jack carefully picked her up, and carried her out of the stream and onto dry ground, where he sat down against the wall, letting her rest against him. "You're going to be okay." His heart swelled almost painfully, and his arms tightened slightly around her. The temptation to press a kiss into her hair was almost overpowering.
Sam coughed again, her chest shaking. "My chest hurts," she said weakly.
"Well, I had to do C.P.R…" His voice trailed off, realizing that it hadn't been the most tactful thing to say.
She went still in his arms. "I drowned?"
His arms tightened again around her. She didn't need any other answer.
"Shhh. No more talking," he said, softly, and was inappropriately pleased when Sam instantly relaxed in his arms, her head falling heavily on his shoulder. "Danny and Teal'c will get us out of here in no time, and then *I'm* going to have to piggy-back you all the way to the gate – wet shoes and all."
Sam chuckled quietly, and then closed her eyes. She drifted off to sleep almost instantly and Jack was left simply holding her. After so many minutes of fast, almost mechanical physical action, the mental *impact* of what had just occurred had had no time to present itself to Jack, and it did so now with a vengeance, as if making up for lost time. A sickening slideshow flicked through his head, image after image that he was powerless to stop: Sam, lying facedown in water, still, and drowning slowly; Sam, her eyes dulling as the rock pounded into the vulnerable skin of her temple; the icy pallor of her skin, and the clamminess of her lips as he had bent frantically over her, willing life back into her body.
He almost retched, gagging slightly as he breathed in the murky smell of the stream that clung to his skin and clothes, and couldn't help the tremor that rippled through him with surprising force. He leant his head gently against her still damp hair, and closed his eyes.
The woman in his arms, who had the very ability to stop his heart from beating, had almost been taken from him, slowly and remorselessly by an inch of water while he had been trapped, helpless, close by. It seemed inconceivable that something outwardly so harmless could have the power to take something so unbearably priceless from him...
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Opening his hand, Jack noticed that he had opened one of the many cuts that scored his skin, and blood was dripping onto the clean tabletop.
"God," Jack said faintly, his anger evaporating as swiftly as it had boiled over. "You can't understand, Daniel – I nearly lost her and she means –" he grated to a halt.
Looking up, he saw Daniel clench his hands together tightly, and Jack suddenly felt even worse. Daniel did understand; he understood perfectly. Jack closed his eyes, as remorse filled him. Who was he to complain?
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I didn't mean –"
Daniel waved his hand through the air, foreclosing Jack's stumbling apology. "Don't worry about it, Jack," he said, pushing his glasses further up onto the bridge of his nose.
Jack watched as the moisture from Daniel's hands dissipated into the atmosphere. Sam's life had so nearly imitated the water; her very essence had nearly evaporated into the hot cave air, leaving a life of bleak nothingness behind for him.
"Are you staying here?" Daniel's voice broke back into Jack's thoughts.
"What? Oh, yes." Jack said simply, as he pulled a tissue from his pocket, and set about wiping the blood and coffee from the table.
Daniel nodded, clearly expecting this reply, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Well, I'm going to head home, and try and get some sleep in what is left of tonight... He fell into step beside Jack, and they moved towards the exit.
They walked in comfortable silence until Daniel went to diverge; he had moved some few steps down the corridor when Jack called him back. "Daniel?"
Daniel turned. Jack was fiddling with the blotched tissues in his hands.
"Thanks," Jack said, almost shamefacedly, but meeting Daniel's gaze with a raw honesty.
The younger man nodded in reply, and held his gaze just for a moment before walking away toward his office. Lost in thought, Jack was left standing, absentmindedly shredding the thin paper in his hands.
"Jack!" Daniel's voice echoed in the deserted corridor. Jack looked up, startled.
"Say hi to Sam for me," Daniel said, walking backward down the corridor, and smiled at him almost roguishly before spinning on his heel and turning a corner before Jack could formulate an appropriate reply.
Smiling ruefully at Daniel's perception, Jack continued toward the infirmary. He paused outside the door – it was slightly ajar, and he could hear voices inside. Tentatively, he pushed the door open a little further, and a bright chink of light stretched across the floor of the dark infirmary. He winced slightly, certain his appearance would be noted; however, the only occupants of the room didn't notice, for they seemed to be having an animated argument. Pressing his eye to the gap, he saw that Sam was sitting up in bed, glaring at the petite nurse standing next to her bad.
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you leave –" the nurse said, in a placating tone.
"But I feel fine!" Sam all but growled in frustration. "Please, can I just go home?"
"I'm sorry, Major, but they are Doctor Frasier's orders," the nurse said, her voice rising slightly. "You have to stay here until she is sure that there will be no lung complications."
Jack could hear Sam's sigh of exasperation from the door. "Well, you try sleeping on one of these pillows, and you'd understand exactly why I am complaining."
Grinning widely, Jack pushed the door open further and stepped inside the infirmary. "Not causing trouble, are we, Carter?" he said, as Sam blinked owlishly at him, squinting slightly as the bright light flooded the room.
"Colonel O'Neill!" the nurse said, discomfited. "I didn't see you there."
"Could I speak to Major Carter?" Jack asked, politely, closing the door behind him. The room relapsed into a blue dimness, lit only by the soft glow of the bed light next to Sam and the numerous, occasionally blinking machines.
"Certainly, sir," the nurse told him instantly. "Just don't let her leave," she amended, looking threateningly towards Sam, who glowered back at her.
"I won't," Jack replied cheerfully, earning a glare from Sam. "Why don't you go and get yourself a coffee?"
The nurse bit her lip, clearly tempted. "Technically sir, I'm not supp-"
"I can take care of things for a couple of minutes. Go – it's three in the morning, for crying out loud!"
Casting a suspicious look at Sam, who smiled innocently at her, the brunette looked surreptitiously into the corridor, and then left the infirmary with quick steps.
"You'll let me leave?" Sam asked, but with very little hope.
"And face Frasier?" Jack grimaced. "No. You are staying here."
Sam gave an exaggerated sigh, and nearly pouted. "What are you doing here, then, sir?" she asked curiously, watching him fiddle with remnant of a tissue, which by now resembled white powder.
Suddenly aware of her scrutiny, he stuffed the mess into his pocket. He crouched beside her bed, resting his chin on his arms and looked up at her. She smiled quizzically down at him.
"Couldn't sleep," he told her simply, by way of explaining his appearance at her bedside.
She nodded. "Me neither."
He studied her face, his heart swelling as he took in the golden glow of her hair and the intelligent sparkle in the blue depths of her eyes. Thank God he hadn't lost her. A large lump, turning slightly purple marred the creamy skin at her temple, and his eyes changed from tenderness to concern. Noticing his gaze, she involuntarily reached up and felt the bruise.
He winced. Observing it, Sam's heart constricted tightly and she reached out and touched his arm lightly.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said softly.
Thinking he hadn't heard her properly, he inclined his head toward her. "What?"
"I should have moved quicker. I'm sorry –"
"Carter – what? Don't –" Jack stammered in complete bewilderment. Regaining some coherency, he shook his head. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I should have dug you out quicker." He stood up, the guilt a sore, dull ache in his heart.
"No, sir, it's my fault," Sam told him, pleadingly. "I shouldn't have worried about the stepping stones – "
"Carter…" Jack ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "It's *my* fault – I'm the responsible for all of SG-1 and so the blame falls on me," he told her firmly, leaning over her bed to emphasis the point, and smiling despite himself at the strangeness of the conversation.
"Sir – "
"Shhh." Reaching out, he planted a finger firmly across her lips.
The effect of the simple action was unintentional, but immediate – her eyes flew to his and a long moment stretched between them, the tension quickly arcing from one to the other. As if mesmerized, Jack traced the outlines of her face with the tips of his fingers, and Sam's eyes fluttered shut as he caressed the line of her cheek, the contact intimate and electric. Clenching her jaw slightly, she pressed one palm tightly against her stomach; his feather light touch was sending tiny, icy shivers through her body, centering low in the pit stomach.
"You weren't breathing," he said hoarsely. "I thought I'd lost you."
Opening her eyes, she met his gaze and something inside her quivered as she drank in the raw emotion she could see in their dark depths. "You haven't lost me," she breathed helplessly, captive in the heated look he fixed on her.
Something flared within Jack, hot and irresistible, brought on the intoxicating blend of relief and her very presence. Moving slowly, his touch became more secure, and he cupped her face with one hand. Sam felt her heart start to hammer and her breath caught tightly in her throat as he leant closer, closer, so close, till his coffee- scented breath was tickling the skin around her mouth delightfully and nothing but the barest wisp of air separated them.
Quick steps coming back along the corridor broke the moment neatly in two, and Jack just managed to put a respectable distance between them before the nurse re-entered the room with a streaming mug of coffee. Sam shut her eyes, and concentrated hard on calming her breathing, both relieved and incredibly frustrated, and grateful that Jack was blocking her from view. Just one second more!
One second more, a little voice inside her head taunted her, and you'd be facing a court martial. Sam blew out a long, shaky breath.
Jack was equally flustered, and rummaged quickly through what was left of his brain for anything, however irrelevant, to say. "Daniel said hi," he said, finally.
"He did?" Sam squeaked, completely sidelined by this surprise attack. The nurse looked over in curiosity. "He did?" she repeated, in a more normal tone.
"Yes," Jack said, nodding desperately. Nothing in his entire career had prepared him for this situation. What was he supposed to he say to his 2IC when he had almost, so nearly kissed her?
"That's – nice," Sam replied, feeling decidedly lost.
"Yeah." Looking satisfied with this reply, Jack sat on her bed and reached for something metal and shiny lying on the table next to Sam.
Sam put up a brief fight with the insane urge to laugh, and lost the battle miserably. Covering her mouth with one hand, she collapsed into a fit of almost silent giggles, her chest heaving with the effort of holding in her mirth.
Looking decidedly relieved by the turn of events, Jack bent toward her conspiratorially. "No giggling," he hissed at her, which only made Sam laugh harder.
"Ow!" she yelped, as her still tender ribs protested.
Grinning broadly, Jack watched her as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"Carter?" he asked, when she looked like she had got herself under control.
"Sir?" Sam folded her hands neatly on her stomach, and looked at him seriously.
"You know when you put your hands down on something cold, and you count for a while and then you take them off and there are these little bits of water on the table?"
Sam slowly processed this rather jumbled explanation of the scientific phenomenon and nodded carefully, a smile threatening at the corners of her mouth.
"What causes that?"
"What?"
"Why does that happen, Carter?" Jack spelt out, laboriously.
Sam stared at him, completely nonplussed by this sudden turn of conversation. She carefully scrutinized her C.O. He *looked* serious. He certainly didn't look like a man who had suddenly gone crazy. But then, not much of what had happened in the last five minutes did make sense. Shaking her head slightly, she tried to prod her brain into thinking, but for once it failed to cough up the answer to his question.
"Well, I don't know, sir," she said slowly, an enormous yawn threatening to swallow her sentence. "I'd have to think about it."
"You do that." Somehow, sneakily, his hand laced itself into hers, and her fingers tightened around his. "Go to sleep, Carter."
"Is that an order, sir?" she said sleepily, through suddenly heavily eyelids.
"If it needs to be," Jack replied, squeezing her hand lightly.
"Yes, sir," she smiled, dozy already, and surprised to find how natural it felt to be drifting of to sleep holding his hand.
Jack watched as her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing became slow and regular, and then settled into a more comfortable position on the bed, carefully maintaining his grip on her fingers.
He would stay and watch her sleep until the morning, but when she woke up, he would be gone.
Just as if he had evaporated.
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Story Notes: SPOILERS: General to about season 4. It's really a floating story – I'd set it somewhere after D&C in season 4.
A/N: This is my first fic for this fandom – I've been lurking on this list for some time, waiting until I felt I had something remotely publishable, so this is a bit of a leap in the dark for me. Also, I don't have a beta for Stargate fic, and as I'm Australian, I would love it if an American would offer, as my complete knowledge of American jargon comes from TV. All you need is a good knowledge of the show, and the courage to rip my work to shreds. Easy! Please?
############# stands for a flashback.
FEEDBACK: Everything constructive welcomed!
EMAIL: stars_like_dust@hotmail.com
A/N: This is my first fic for this fandom – I've been lurking on this list for some time, waiting until I felt I had something remotely publishable, so this is a bit of a leap in the dark for me. Also, I don't have a beta for Stargate fic, and as I'm Australian, I would love it if an American would offer, as my complete knowledge of American jargon comes from TV. All you need is a good knowledge of the show, and the courage to rip my work to shreds. Easy! Please?
############# stands for a flashback.
FEEDBACK: Everything constructive welcomed!
EMAIL: stars_like_dust@hotmail.com
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]