Short Stories 10

Cloud Games

by BlueLotus

URL: http://www.stargateslash.com/asb/blotus/shorts10.php
Summary: After an ill-fated mission, Jack cares for his Daniel
Info: Another word challenge entry for SSD. Thank you to Marah for her lovely beta skills!

The noise of the fridge whirring softly in the silence keeps me company as I shake out Daniel's medication. From the kitchen window I can see him lying quietly on the sun lounger, and at this angle he looks fine... normal... But the little plastic bottles of pills shatter the illusion that everything is alright. I count them out; one antibiotic, one muscle relaxant and two industrial strength pain killers. Medication for a man who is so far from fine...

My fists clench and I take a couple of deep breaths to calm myself, but I can't stop the images assailing my mind.

The planet, P5Y yadda yadda, on the outset looked safe, boring even. Nothing but trees and shrubs with rust colored leaves as far as the eye could see, bathing the land in a carpet of red. The pre-mission intel indicated very little, and when we arrived we found no sign of life, no sign of any dead civilisations either, and after a couple of hours of digging in the red dirt near the 'gate and still finding nothing, zilch, nadda, we packed up our stuff and decided to leisurely stroll to the next designated site to take more samples, taking in the warm sunshine of what we thought was a strange colored but peaceful planet.

How wrong we were.

Not six hours into the mission and all hell broke loose. We didn't even see them coming. They came from no-where, out of the trees, from the rusty grasses, from the earth itself. My honed soldier senses had instantly sensed something was very off, and so had Teal'c, but they were just too fast.

Vicious little creatures dressed in red grasses and coated in the red soil to hide their sun darkened skin, they blended perfectly with the land... they could have been there from the start.

Daniel tried to reason with them, hastily shouted at them his 'we come in peace' speech, but to no avail. We left our equipment and ran.

It was two klicks to the 'gate over open ground and we were lucky we made it home alive at all. The attackers had primitive weapons; primitive but effective and they were precise with them, too. Carter was hit with one of the many pelted rocks from the sling-shot type things that swung through the air and ended up with a bad concussion, Teal'c dodged all but one arrow which grazed his bicep, and I twisted my knee again as my legs were knocked from under me when a stick tangled in my hasty strides.

Daniel, on the other hand, came off the worst. He was first to the 'gate, and subsequently was an open target as he stood at punched in the symbols on the DHD. We tried to cover him, but there were too many. The little red fuckers swarmed like ants, scattered through the grasses, we were outnumbered 4 to hundreds. We had no chance.

Three arrows - one in his thigh, two in his back, and a concussion to match Carter's from the hail of rocks, and Daniel still managed to dial Earth and punch in the GDO code... Daniel saved our lives.

I barrelled into him as he fell, lifted him over my shoulder and half limped; half ran through the event horizon of the Stargate with Teal'c carrying Carter on my six.

"Close the iris!" I shouted as soon as we were all home, knowing full well that the red fuckers were following, and listened to the sickening thuds of bodies hitting the shield until the 'gate disengaged.

I staggered under the weight of my archaeologist, but knew I couldn't put him down - he had three arrows sticking in his back and thigh, and I could feel the blood warming my shoulder... smell the coppery scent of pain and hurt.

The activity in the 'gate room blurred as Janet and her team came in and did their thing, and before I knew it, I was in an infirmary bed, ice pack on my knee and worried the hell out of my mind about Daniel.

He was in surgery for four hours. Janet said that the arrows had done some scary damage, narrowly missing some vital organs, nicking others, and to top it off, the arrow heads had been coated in an unknown substance that had caused a severe infection.

Daniel was alive, but nowhere near out of the woods yet.

Junior helped Teal'c to heal and Carter recovered nicely too, thank god, and we all took turns sitting with Daniel as he fought the raging fever that drained him.

That was eighteen days ago. Janet released Daniel yesterday into my care and I finally brought him home. The infection has taken its toll on Daniel and has left him thin and weak, the wounds still give him pain too - hence the medication.

If only I had seen the danger before it was too late. I'll never forgive myself for that.

I shake myself and grab a bottle of water and Daniel's pills and make my way to the deck outside.

"Hey," I say softly, holding out the pills to Daniel. He takes hold of them with a wince. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just, you know..." he smiles through a shiver of pain. "Just fed up of feeling like shit."

I sit down on the twin sun lounger next to Daniel and keep busy by uncapping the bottle of water, and then hand him the bottle and watch as he takes all the medications. Daniel sighs and lays back again, his eyes behind the sunglasses trained on the sky. I know he'll be out for the count soon; those pills pack quite a punch, so I lay back on my own lounger, shade the sun from my eyes with my hand and try to see what Daniel is looking at.

"Have you ever played the cloud game, Jack?" A small smile plays on Daniel's lips and his voice is soft and playful when he speaks.

I blink at his question and memories of lying on the cool grass of a park filter into my mind - memories of a life time ago with my son. "Ah, yeah. Yeah, I have." I look at the clouds and instantly see a rabbit. "There, a rabbit, see its ears?"

Daniel cocks his head and laughs. "Yes, I see that. Oh, oh look..." He points to the cloud approaching my rabbit. "The dinosaur is gonna eat your rabbit!"

"Dinosaur? That's a seahorse, Danny, and my rabbit is gonna morph into shark... See?" And the cloud changes slowly into a blob I claim to be my shark. I smile when I hear Daniel's snuffled chuckling.

"There's a truck... that'll run over your shark, Jack... serves it right for eating my seahorse," Daniel laughs softly.

"Where? I don't see a truck?" I say scanning the sky for a truck. Daniel inhales sharply as a twinge of pain hits him hard when he twists his body towards me. "Hey, take it easy. You alright, Danny?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Danny says breathlessly. I can see he's fighting to control it.

"Come on, time to get you in bed," I decide, bed is the best place for him... the last thing I need is sunstroke on top of everything else.

"Bed, Jack?" Daniel takes off his sunglasses and leers at me. His washed out blue eyes twinkle playfully and I laugh. Leaning down, I gently cover that naughty mouth with my own, licking lightly at the moist, plump lips until Daniel opens to me and I slowly and carefully kiss him.

"Mmmmm..." Daniel hums appreciatively, and sighs happily - any pain momentarily forgotten. I nudge his nose with mine and smile.

"Love you," I whisper, my fingers threading through his soft hair.

"Love you too," he answers back on a breath.

And in this moment, just for a minute, I can put reality to one side and think of nothing else but the love I have for this man. And that's what keeps me going.

Next: Distraction