Title: When the Water Rises
Author: Flatkatsi
Email: flatkatsi@optusnet.com.au
Status: Complete
Category: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Series
Pairings: None
Spoilers: None
Season: Any
Sequel/Series Info: Sequel to When the Smell Lingers
Rating: PG
Content Warnings: None
File Size: 25kb
Archive: Incoming Wormhole, Jackfic
Summary: Jack just can’t get a break.
Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
Author’s Note: Sorry – I can’t help myself. I like whumping.
They should have heard the thread snap, but they didn’t.
They had relaxed; all three of them overcome by the events of the past hours. But the thread had been thin and stretched to breaking point.
The room was still, only the sound of the machinery a small quiet hum in the background. The sudden alarms startled them into awareness and they stood, stunned. They were rigid pieces of stillness in the frantic activity, their faces reflecting their horror.
When the crisis was over they still stood, numbed.
This was just too much to take in. Too much for their exhausted senses to handle.
It seemed to them that they had lurched from one crisis to another, each time thinking that it was over, only to be proved wrong yet again. And each time their understanding of what this man meant to them had grown.
They were not about to give him up. He was a part of each of them and they a part of him. They were tied together as inexorably as a parent to a child.
The guilt was still there. Knowing that they had left him behind to come so close to death.
Deep within them they knew that there had been no choice. That they had done the right thing. But it still had gone against everything that the Colonel stood for - it was one of the fundamental rules that he lived by.
They would each have to deal with that guilt in their own individual way. But now was not the time.
As they stood together watching over him, they knew that the guilt would have to be put aside for the moment. Their strength was needed.
Jack had heard the thread snap. The end had slipped through his fingers when he let himself rest for a moment. It had surprised him. He had thought that he was safe now. Home. But that safety had just been an illusion. A seductive one, but an illusion none the less.
He could feel the forest within him, the trees gigantic and suffocating. Even in death, they tried to snare him, their ghosts filling his lungs with pain. He had struggled against them – still struggled.
He had always known that trees would be his nemesis.
No one could understand why he had returned with symptoms of drowning to complicate the effects of the fire. He hadn’t been able to speak, to explain. As he lay there now, he felt the water fill him, submerging the forest and leaving its own imprint on his abused body. Drifting on the edge of consciousness, he could not help but give a small deprecating laugh. He could almost hear the jokes from his team – only he could drown in a fire.
Behind his closed lids he sensed shapes and movement, but there was no sound. They were there, he knew. Teal’c, Carter, Daniel. His team was there. His friends.
He knew that they were there. They had been before.
They wouldn’t leave him now.
Would they?
He was getting weaker.
They each knew the other’s guilt. They didn’t need to talk.
Teal’c glanced up - the sound had been almost too quiet to be heard. A laugh? The man in the bed hadn’t moved. He must have been mistaken.
The Colonel looked so small, lying there, suddenly bereft. Slowly they moved forward, worried, but not for any reason that they could put their finger on. The quiet nurse scanned the readouts and hurried to call the doctor.
“Jack?” Daniel was the first to speak.
The eyes flickered open, red rimmed and hurting, then shut almost as quickly. He couldn’t speak yet, but he did the next best thing.
Hurting, the water rising within, he still managed it.
He smiled.
