Stargate SG1: Suffer the Little Children (17/19)

[brihana25]

All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Suffer the Little Children


Chapter Seventeen

Jack did not like what he was seeing.

They'd spotted Daniel while he was still alone, out in the open, on his knees in the snow. Jack's first impulse had been to run out to him and get him the hell out of there, but they didn't know where Phillips was or what kind of weapons he might have. There was a very real possibility that Daniel was out there as bait, and that as soon as they moved toward him Phillips would open fire from the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.

So they moved through the trees silently, keeping low and using the snow for cover. They were going to keep moving until they were parallel to Daniel, close enough to him to ask him what was going on and if approaching was safe.

They'd almost reached him when they saw Michael Phillips step out of the trees almost directly across from them. Jack saw the knife in the man's hand, its large blade glinting in the early morning sun, and he started to push up from the ground. Teal'c's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Teal'c, what are you doing?" Jack demanded in a whisper. "It's a knife. We can take him."

"And if he has a secondary weapon, O'Neill? If he has a firearm?"

"I don't give a damn!" Jack's words were coming out from behind clenched teeth now. They were wasting valuable time that they - and Daniel - did not have.

"We cannot save Daniel Jackson if we are dead, O'Neill."

"We can't save him if he is, either!"

Jack saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he turned his attention to it. Phillips was standing way too close to Daniel right now, holding the knife way too close to his neck. Daniel's head was back, his skin grey, his face mottled with bruises, his white shirt stained with his own blood, his eyes barely open and his arms limp at his sides.

Jack knew that Daniel had been pushed far beyond his limits in the past twelve hours, but did he really have to offer his throat to the man so easily?

"Teal'c?" Jack whispered urgently.

Phillips leaned forward and pressed the knife against Daniel's neck, and Jack stiffened.

"Teal'c!"

When Jack saw the blood running down the side of Daniel's neck, he stopped waiting for Teal'c. He jumped to his feet, sighted down the barrel of the shotgun he had aimed directly at Phillips' head, and rushed forward.

"Stop right there, you son of a bitch, or I'll blow your God damned head off!"

The world upended on him again, but this time he couldn't fall over. Instead, he was pulled to his feet and held there by Phillips, who had somehow ended up behind him. The man's left arm was wrapped around his chest, which he supposed should have hurt had his body not been so numb from the cold, and his right hand held the blade of the knife so tightly against Daniel's throat that it pushed his head back against Phillips' shoulder.

"Let him go, Phillips!" he heard Jack shout. "It's over!"

"It's not over, O'Neill. He is still mine."

"No!" Jack's voice had an edge to it that he didn't immediately recognize - harder, angrier than normal. "He's not yours! Damn it, Phillips, let him go and you might get off this mountain alive!"

Jack's voice ...

Jack ...

No. No, that wasn't right. Jack was with Cassie. He had sent Cassie down the mountain to Jack. But Jack was here. Jack was here, and Cassie wasn't ... so where was she?

"Where's Cassie?"

He felt Phillips move behind him, lower his head so that his mouth was right next to Daniel's ear. "What was that, Daniel?"

"I said ... where's ... Cassie?!"

"And if I told you that you'd killed another one, Daniel, what could you do about it?"

Daniel froze in horror ... oh, no. No, no, no! Cassie ... he was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to save her! But he hadn't; he'd gotten her killed. Just like Jenny, just like the little girl in the park, just like the "others".

Jenny was dead. Cassie was dead.

No!

Blind rage replaced the complacency of acceptance, and adrenaline and hatred fueled a body long since empty of all reserves.

Daniel smashed the back of his head into Phillips' face, grabbed the hand that held the knife to his throat, and showed the bastard exactly what he could do.

"It's not over, O'Neill. He is still mine."

"No!" Jack glanced quickly to where Teal'c crept silently out from the trees several yards up from where Jack had emerged, moving around to approach Phillips from behind. "He's not yours! Damn it, Phillips, let him go and you might get off this mountain alive!"

Several seconds went by with no response from Phillips, and Jack saw Daniel's lips move. He couldn't hear what he'd said, or what Phillips whispered into his ear in response.

"I said ... where's ... Cassie?!"

Daniel's voice was loud enough this time that Jack heard what he said, but he didn't understand why Daniel was asking. Daniel knew where Cassie was, because he'd sent her there himself.

Phillips was whispering in Daniel's ear again. Jack couldn't hear what was being said, but from the way Daniel's eyes widened, from the way his entire body stiffened, he knew it couldn't have been good. When the look in Daniel's eyes changed from fear to hatred and when his body began to shake from tension instead of cold, Jack was willing to admit that it had probably been bad - very, very bad.

When Daniel's right hand started to move toward the knife at his throat, Jack knew it was about to get worse. He shot a frantic glance in Teal'c's direction, seeing immediately that the Jaffa was as aware as he of the sudden volatility of the situation.

When Daniel smashed the back of his head into Phillips' face, breaking the other man's hold on him, Jack saw the chance he needed to take control.

"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c yelled.

"Daniel, drop!" Jack's shout mixed with Teal'c's.

Whether Daniel simply didn't hear them or was beyond hearing them, Jack didn't know. What he did know was that by the time the words had left their lips, Daniel had spun on his captor. He twisted Phillips' wrist hard enough and fast enough to make him lose his grip on the knife, but not before earning himself a rather nasty gash across his left arm. Then the struggle was over, and the handle was firmly in Daniel's right hand.

Jack and Teal'c kept their guns aimed and burst forward as one, their momentum seriously impeded by the knee-deep snow.

"Down!" Jack screamed. "Daniel, get down!"

But Daniel was too fast. With a cry of rage and pain, Daniel swung the knife upwards and across in front of him, slicing it through the air and across Phillips unprotected throat in one violent arc. The blood that sprayed out from the gaping wound, splattering Daniel's face, chest and arms, didn't seem to register with him at all. With one last burst of strength, Daniel pressed both hands against Phillips' chest and shoved the still-standing body away from him, to fall in the snow three feet away.

Even from Jack's position, he could see that Phillips' open but lifeless eyes were locked on Daniel's face, shock and pain and betrayal clearly written in them. Daniel stared back into those eyes, the knife still in his hand at his side, and spoke with a vehemence that Jack didn't know the man possessed.

"How beautiful is it now, you sick son of a bitch?"

Jack and Teal'c stopped their advance entirely.

"Daniel?" Jack said gently.

Daniel's head fell back as his shoulders heaved with every breath he drew. He was shaking, though whether it was from pain or horror or cold or the adrenaline let-down, Jack wasn't sure. He couldn't see Daniel's face from where he was standing, but he could see the blood that covered his arms.

"It's all right, Daniel." Jack took a carefully measured step forward. "It's over."

He was amazed that Daniel was even on his feet, let alone fairly steadily so. He knew that medical attention for Daniel was required, even as he knew that medical attention for Phillips was pointless, but he was leery of approaching him until he knew for absolute certain that Daniel would recognize them. He was slowly edging his way forward, drawing up beside Daniel without moving any closer to him.

"Put the knife down, buddy. Just ... put the knife down, and let's go home."

This time, Daniel heard him. He turned his head slowly, and Jack was shocked at what he saw. Daniel's eyes were an incredibly bright blue, made even brighter by the dark red mask of blood that covered his face. The shaking became more pronounced even as his breathing slowed and shallowed. The knife slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the ground, sinking through the blood spattered surface snow and leaving a bright red smear on the pure white underneath.

"Jack?" Daniel's voice was shaking, his eyes wide, confused and terrified. "I think I need ... your help ...”

Jack took one step forward before Daniel's eyes rolled back in his head and he pitched forward. He landed face-down in the snow, only feet from Phillips outstretched arm, and Jack and Teal'c were running again.

Motioning for Teal'c to check on Phillips - even though there was no doubt of his fate - Jack fell to his knees at Daniel's side. The cold and wet of the snow seeped through his fatigue pants immediately, chilling his legs from ankle to hip as he sank into the whiteness. He reached out with his right hand, grabbed Daniel's arm, and slowly and gently rolled him onto his back.

"Daniel?" he asked as he began brushing snow from Daniel's battered face, wiping as much of the gore away with it as he could. There was no response to either his voice or his touch. "Daniel!"

"Michael Phillips is dead," Teal'c announced. He went to one knee across from Jack, standing his shotgun upright in the snow like a staff weapon. "What is the condition of Daniel Jackson?"

"Alive," Jack answered shortly. "But not for much longer if we don't get him the hell out of here."

"How are we to move him?" Teal'c asked. "We have no equipment."

Jack unzipped his heavy coat and pulled the right sleeve down, shrugging out of it quickly. "We wrap him in our coats and we carry him to the cabin. Doc'll be there; we get him to her and she'll do the rest."

Teal'c removed his own coat, as Jack had done, and reached down to help him move Daniel into a sitting position long enough for them to cover him with them.

"Careful of his shoulder, Teal'c," Jack warned as he finished draping his coat across Daniel and zipping it up. "Cassie said he couldn't move his arm, and he definitely wasn't using it when he ..."

Jack froze for only a second, his eyes locked on Daniel's still form as Teal'c wrapped his coat around Jack's. Despite the quick clean-up Jack had attempted, Daniel's face was still smeared with streaks of Phillips' blood. It covered his hair, and Jack knew that beneath the heavy green coat, the front of his white shirt was beyond saturated with it. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a bad horror film.

But this horror was very, very real.

The sound of Teal'c zipping his coat up around Daniel brought Jack back to his senses quickly, as did the sounds of people running up the mountain toward them, breaking through the tree line.

Jack didn't have to look back to know who it was.

"He's dead, Doug," Jack said. "Teal'c checked to make sure, but other than that, we haven't touched anything. The knife's somewhere in the snow."

Doug stopped beside Jack and looked down; Jack ignored him, moving around Daniel to take up position next to Teal'c so they could lift him up from the ground.

"Jack, what happened here?"

"No idea," Jack lied. He crouched down next to Daniel and slid his arms under the unconscious man's knees. "We found them like this. We're taking Daniel down to the doc."

Doug nodded and walked away, his eyes focused on Phillips' body. "She's in the cabin."

Jack nodded at Teal'c, who had positioned his arms behind Daniel's back, and together they stood, lifting Daniel easily between them. They started back down the mountain without another word, leaving the grisly scene behind them, leaving the FBI to try and figure out what had happened.

They'd entered the trees before either one of them spoke again.

"O'Neill, why did you lie to Agent Baker?"

"Phillips is dead, Teal'c and with any luck, Daniel won't remember how." He glanced at the Jaffa quickly before returning his attention to the footprints they were following back to the cabin. "That means you and I are the only ones who know what really happened back there. I just ... I'd like it to stay that way."

"As you wish, O'Neill."

Jack sincerely hoped that Daniel never remembered what had happened in that clearing. Something terrible had happened to him; something inside his mind had snapped. Jack doubted that he'd ever know what Phillips had said to set it off, but he wasn't all that certain that he wanted to know anyway. It was a fitting punishment for Phillips - certainly no more than he deserved - but Jack wasn't entirely sure that Daniel would see it that way.

Hopefully, between the concussion Jack knew he had and the confusion that hypothermia tended to cause, Daniel would lose enough of his memory naturally that Jack would never have to find out exactly how Daniel would see it. He wasn't completely certain that he was prepared to lie to Daniel about it, but Jack saw nothing wrong with refusing to fill in any missing details for him.

"Daniel Jackson did only what needed to be done."

"That he did, Teal'c," Jack agreed softly. "That he did."

"Doc!"

Jack and Teal'c quickly stepped through the door that Carter had opened for them.

"On the bed, Colonel," Janet ordered as she jumped up from the chair she'd been sitting in and rushed through the bedroom door ahead of them.

Janet moving gave Cassie a clear view of Daniel as they carried him through the room. Jack watched her face react to what she was seeing, and suddenly wished he'd had more time to clean Daniel up before they'd brought him in. The last thing Cassie needed was to see Daniel like this - wasn't that why he'd sent her back to the cabin in the first place?

"Daniel!" Cassie jumped to her feet and ran toward him, her hand covering her mouth in horror and tears streaming down her face. "No! Daniel! Daniel!!"

Sam intervened quickly, moving to intercept Cassie before she reached them. She knelt down on the floor in front of her, took Cassie's face in her hands, and spoke as calmly as she could. "Cassie, honey, look at me. Look at me."

Cassie forced herself to do as she was told, focusing her red-rimmed eyes on Sam's face.

"Daniel needs your mom right now, sweetie, okay?"

"No ... he's dead." Cassie was shaking violently, her body wracked with sobs. "I know he is. He's dead!"

"No, no, honey," Sam consoled her, pulling the child to her in a tight hug. "Daniel's not dead, Cassie. He's hurt and he's sick, but he's not dead. I swear."

"Is he gonna be okay?"

Sam wanted so badly to say that he would be, but she couldn't even convince herself that Daniel could survive what had happened. She hadn't seen much as the Colonel and Teal'c rushed past her, but what she did see ... there was so much blood ...

"He saved me, Sam."

"I know he did, honey." Sam buried her face in Cassie's hair and wrapped her arms even more tightly around her. "I know he did."

Jack and Teal'c had Daniel laid on the bed and were already removing their coats from him when they heard Janet close the door behind them.

"I need him out of those wet clothes, Colonel, and I need him ..."

Jack finished pulling his coat out from under Daniel, and Teal'c gently laid him back on the mattress.

"What, Doc?" Jack turned his head only to find Janet frozen in place near the door, her eyes fixated on Daniel. Jack glanced back down at the shirt that Teal'c was quickly unbuttoning, and he understood immediately what she was reacting to.

"It's not his, Janet. Not all of it."

"Should I ask ... whose it is?"

"No."

Janet nodded her head quickly and jumped into action. Her first order of business, going by the bluish color of Daniel's skin, was to find out just exactly how cold he was. Jack and Teal'c finished removing his wet clothes while she did that, and then began wrapping him in the blankets Janet had piled at the foot of the bed.

"Temperature's only eighty-nine," she announced. "Go tell Sam that I need those hot water bottles, STAT."

Jack turned toward the door.

"And, Colonel?"

He started to turn back around when a heavy blanket hit him in the side of the head.

"Unless you want to end up on this bed next to Daniel, you'll get out of that wet uniform and go sit in front of the fireplace."

"Doc ..."

"No 'buts,' Colonel. Go. Teal'c, you too. Go get warmed up, the both of you. That's an order."

Teal'c nodded once, walked past Jack and opened the door. Jack followed him, but turned back around to look at Daniel one more time before he left the room.

"Keep fighting, Danny," he whispered. "You stay alive."

He stepped into the living room and pulled the door closed behind him.

Jack had decided that compromise was the order of the day.

He left his uniform on, but he did wrap the blanket around himself. He stayed near the fire, but he paced instead of sitting. He was grateful to see that someone, he guessed it was probably Carter, had thrown some sort of rug across the bloodstains in the corner. Part of him wanted to walk over and see if she'd picked the ropes up or if they were still there, but the rest of him didn't want to take the chance of seeing them again.

"Jack?"

The voice was soft, hesitant, and still slightly shaky. Jack smiled down at her fondly and accepted the cup of hot coffee she was holding out to him. "Thank you, Cassie."

"Jack, where's ..." He knew what was coming, and he'd already decided how he was going to answer her. She, more than any other conscious person in the cabin, deserved to know. "Where's Michael?"

"Michael is gone, Cassie," he said softly. "He'll never hurt anyone again."

She looked up at him through her tousled and slightly tangled hair. She understood the meaning behind the words he'd just said, that much was obvious. "Should I be sad about that?"

Jack shook his head. "Not if you don't want to be."

"Is it wrong if I'm happy?"

Jack smiled softly. "Is it wrong for you to be happy that you're safe? That you're not hurt? That Daniel's alive, and safe, and that Michael Phillips will never hurt him, or you, ever again?" Jack shook his head once more. "No, Cassie. That's not wrong."

"Then I am," she said softly.

Jack put his coffee on the table, leaned down slightly, and pulled her into a tight hug.

The bedroom door burst open, and Janet and Sam ran out from it. Jack looked up, and Teal'c, who had been sitting against the wall and meditating, opened his eyes.

"Colonel," Sam said, her voice frantic. "We have to get Daniel off the mountain."

Jack stood straight, keeping his hand on Cassie's shoulder until he'd passed her, and stepped forward.

"The helicopter's coming," he answered in confusion. "It should be here in about fifteen minutes."

"No, Colonel, we can't use a helicopter," Janet answered quickly. "He can't go up any higher than he is right now. He has to go down, immediately."

Teal'c climbed to his feet gracefully; Jack looked quickly between him and the two women in front of him.

"What's going on?"

"It's not just hypothermia, Colonel, it's altitude sickness. His lungs are filling with fluid," Janet explained. "He's drowning."