BY BILTONG

" But sir, I still don’t see why they want to see us both in Washington, it’s against regulations to leave a base in the hands of junior officers."

General Hammond snorted in exasperation at a clearly upset Colonel O’Neill. He had to be really upset to be quoting rules and regulations at him.

Hammond sighed, settling back in the car seat and regarded his 2IC closely.

" Jack," he said trying to stay calm in the face of such fury, " I hardly consider two majors to be junior officers, and as to why we are both going? It’s because we were ordered to, and we follow orders. You do, I do, hell, the entire United States Air Force does, so like two good little soldiers, we go."

He glared at his petulant 2IC. " And that is that."

To Hammond’s relief, Colonel O’Neill wordlessly subsided back in his seat and stared out the window, sulking quietly.

Actually, he could understand his Colonel’s frustration. He didn’t like it either. The quarterly base review couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Gou’ald were trying their level best to wipe out all traces of the Tok’ra, and they had two new Gou’ald to contend with, Osirus and Annubis. They knew one Gou’ald. The other was a complete enigma.

Sg1 had been gearing up to go on a quick information-gathering mission to PDI 4V2 when the call came in from Washington.

The president wanted to see both senior officers of the SGC.

ASAP

As expected, Colonel O’Neill was livid, suspecting the heavy hand of Senator Kinsey, but there was nothing he could do. No one disobeyed a presidential order and kept his career, so he reluctantly waved his team goodbye and went to pack a small bag.

He would go to Washington and be the perfect soldier, and when he saw Senator Kinsey he would kill him.

Quietly.

General Hammond had rarely seen Colonel O’Neill so icily annoyed. At least he was humming to himself, which boded well for the trip. It was only as they entered Peterson AFB that Hammond recognized the tune for what it was. It was Abide with me. His second was humming a funeral dirge.

Gritting his teeth, General Hammond delved into his briefcase, trying to distract him.

" Colonel, are you familiar with requisition form B 192 because they are likely to ask…"

Colonel O’Neill fixed his dark brown eyes on the General.

" The one about the requisition for three thousand extra rounds from Remington?"

Sometimes the depth of knowledge that O’Neill kept from everyone astounded the General, making him wonder why he did it. " Yes Colonel, that one."

O’Neill’s eyebrows rose. " Surely they won’t call us up on that one? We used all of the rounds in stopping a system lord, a good use of money in my book. Now, if they investigated B 97 on the other hand…"

Their brains occupied, they were soon at their destination, making both men look vaguely out of the window. One man immediately smiled, the other frowned in dismay.

" Hello, a Gulfstream." Colonel O’Neill cast a suspicious look at his impassive boss.

" Somebody sure wants us in a hurry, unless you ordered it especially, sir?"

General Hammond was feeling unhappier by the minute.

" Well, I left the actual ordering of the airplane to Sergeant Jacobson, unfortunately she knew that I was going to see the President, and might have let something slip…"

His second gave a wide grin. " In the end, really, who cares, right sir? "

"We. Are. Going. In. Style."

The end of his sentence was lost as he jumped out of the car, leaving General Hammond to find his own way out. Exiting the car he stared at the plane with his heart sinking. He had never mentioned this to another living soul, but he hated flying fast objects. He found them noisy and not at all fun. He by far preferred the slower twin-prop variety, the unglamorous planes that nobody else wanted to fly.

The Air Force being a big organization, with airplanes of all types and shapes, was more than willing to accommodate his desire for a more sedate way of flying, which had pleased him immensely.

" Colonel, I am not going to fly in this…" He looked for his second, to tell him of his misgivings, only to see him grinning like a schoolboy.

" I always wanted to fly one of these babies, sir." Gesturing grandly at the lowered steps O’Neill waved him aboard.

" After you General."

Feeling like he was going to his own execution, Hammond started up a couple of steps, only to find he was alone.

" Colonel" he said in a tired voice, "stop prancing around like a teenager and climb aboard."

A head popped out from under the wing and flashed him a quick grin and a muttered apology.

At least one of us is feeling better, Hammond thought darkly, as Colonel O’Neill immediately headed for the cockpit.

=============

Colonel Jack O’Neill was in heaven. Not for the first time he regretted not flying for a living. He had been going to, in the early eighties, then someone noticed that he was better qualified to do other things, things that he was still doing a couple of decades later.

It was way too late to change things now, besides, looking back at his life, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would have wanted to, besides avoiding two countries in the middle east both starting with an initial ‘I’.

Humming quietly to himself, his funeral dirge long forgotten, he stuck his head through the open cockpit door.

And blinked.

" O…kay, things sure have changed since I last saw any of these."

" Sir?"

A young African American straightened in his seat, his eyes wide.

" Oh, er…sir."

O’Neill smiled at the young Lieutenant who was trying to salute him in the confined cockpit, and held up his hands in a placatory manner.

" Relax Lieutenant, neither of us are wearing our hats, so saluting is out for the moment, alright? He was pleased to see the man relax slightly and rest competent fingers on the…Steering wheel?

" Feeling better now?"

" Yes sir, sorry sir," the man replied softly, smiling ruefully.

Jack peered intently at his name badge. " Lieutenant…Masters?"

" Sir?"

" Where’s your co pilot, kid?"

Masters looked up at the Colonel, surprised. " Sir, I thought you were. Major Sanders told me that…and when you said…"

Smiling slightly, Colonel O’Neill held up his hand, stopping the young Lieutenant mid flow.

" Woah. Breathe Lieutenant." When Masters took a deep breath Jack settled himself into the co pilot’s seat and regarded the young man closely.

" Lieutenant, I’d be delighted to, although I’m surely a bit rusty. The General and I both spent most of our careers jumping out of airplanes, not flying them. I haven’t flown anything like this in years." He paused for a moment, thinking hard.

" Lieutenant, if there’s a problem and you need a more qualified co pilot, please feel free to get one.

Masters was quiet for a while, his dark face serious, making Colonel O’Neill’s estimation of him soar.

" No sir. I should have one by rights, but this is a short hop."

O’Neill raised his eyebrows. " You consider the trip between here and DC to be a short trip?"

" In this baby it is," Masters said proudly. " And it’s about as easy to fly as it is to drive a car, sir. I’ll show you when we reach our assigned optimum altitude sir, if you like."

Jack smiled. " I’d like. Just let me get the General settled and tell him what’s happening and I’ll be back." He started to make his way towards the passenger cabin, and then paused thoughtfully.

" By the way, Masters, I drive a truck."

" You’ll manage sir."

Laughing, Jack exited the cockpit, leaving an awed Lieutenant wondering how it must feel to have nobody that can order you around apart from Generals.

He sighed as the engines started to spool up, wondering whether he would ever get to such an exalted rank.

Probably never.

Then the Colonel was back, strapping himself into the empty seat with a sigh.

"Tallyho Masters, and don’t spare the horses," he murmured, making Masters smile.

This was going to be an interesting flight.

General Hammond stowed away his papers as the plane tore down the runway. He had been pleased when Colonel O’Neill has asked permission to spend the duration of the flight in the cockpit. He hadn’t been looking forwards to trying to hide his horror of flying at such a velocity from his 2IC.

In fact the man was so perceptive he knew that he wouldn’t have succeeded.

But now he was alone. Taking a shuddering breath, he settled back and waited for the inevitable. Okay, it wasn’t as if he was a coward, although way back when, even he had thought as much, prompting him to enroll in special operations - or black ops- to prove otherwise. In that he had.

No, he wasn’t a coward. He just liked to be in control of his own destiny. In this flying coffin, one could be knocking on the doors of the Pearly Gates before one even realized something nasty had happened.

Flying something large and slow, like a Boeing 727, as he had in Vietnam, definitely had it’s advantages over these sleek and fancy corporate jets. That was for sure.

He stared out at one petite wing with an unhappy sigh, wondering why anybody in their right mind would actually delight in flying such a small plane.

Hell, the fuselage was so thin he felt that he could punch through it, making him think of horrible worst-case scenarios.

Someone should have warned him that it was really unlucky to have dark thoughts just before defying the elements.

=============

"…. That’s the altimeter sir, and that dial is the ADI."

" Oh really?"

Lieutenant Masters smiled. The Colonel was a quick study, his eyes keen and unwavering.

" It tells me if the wings are level sir. See the tiny airplane? That’s us."

Jack O’Neill nodded. He actually had a very good idea what the ADI did, along with most other instruments Masters had shown him, after all, it hadn’t been that long since he last flown something, well, ten years or so, but the Lieutenant was enjoying himself so much that he decided not to interrupt.

Rather act dumb, he was after all learning new things, and besides, it made the trip go faster.

So far it had been a most informative flight.

" So the general idea is still to keep your eye on three things, your altitude, your direction and your speed," he said, acting bright.

Lieutenant Masters nodded, looking pleased. " That’s it sir, in a nutshell."

" So can I graduate now?"

Masters smiled. The Colonel was turning into a most approachable person with a wicked sense of humour.

" Sorry sir, you have to do more than cram all you can about this baby into one hour. On the other hand, if you had six hours to spare, she’d be all yours."

Jack snorted. " Yeah right. Like I have six minutes to spare..." his voice trailed off as an expression of distaste crossed his face. " God protect us from marauding Senators," he murmured quietly, watching the countryside roll away rapidly underneath them.

Lieutenant Masters knew when to keep quiet. Senators were way out of his league.

Jack was lost in thought for a while, worrying about his team, about the Gou’ald, in fact, worrying about everything for in general. Eventually he mentally stopped himself, ordering himself to concentrate on the here and now, and not on what might be.

" Where are we?, he asked, stretching."

" Masters did a quick sweep of his instruments. " Kentucky sir."

Jack frowned, " Are you sure? Isn’t that a Forest I see down there?"

The lieutenant nodded. "Sure, the Daniel Boone national forest…"

Then suddenly and shockingly Jack O’Neill’s whole world went to hell.

First the window went opaque. From seeing clear blue sky he suddenly saw an eerie white, then a fraction of a second later all the instruments went crazy, making the plane judder and roll sickeningly.

" Masters. What?" Jack managed to gasp as he was suddenly violently thrown forwards then back in his seat.

The Lieutenants face was tight. " Bird strike. I can’t…help me!"

Jack immediately pulled on the controls, trying desperately to help, aware that the tiny plane in the dial was spinning wildly, which meant they were spinning wildly, which was definitely not good.

" Mayday, mayday. This is Alpha Foxtrot one niner six. Mayday, mayday, this is…shit!" A grim faced Masters released his seatbelt and rose, adding his full body weight behind the frozen controls, desperately trying for altitude.

" This isn’t working sir," he gasped.

A sweating Jack O’Neill knew that they were too low; he could clearly see the altimeter spinning down to zero. Five hundred feet, two hundred feet…nothingness

General George Hammond awoke to rain. A gentle misty rain was determinedly soaking his clothes, making him shiver in the comfortable chair he was in. Why was that? If it was raining he should go inside. He’d had enough comments recently from his family about their strange old Grandpa. With a groan he opened his eyes, and moaned in shock as his surroundings swam into focus.

Oh God. The one thing he had feared over all others had come to pass. They had crashed. For a moment he sat in his chair, dazed, content to be alive, then reality intruded.

O’Neill. Dear God, Jack had been sitting in the cockpit.

His heart in his mouth, General Hammond slowly made his way towards the buckled cockpit door.

" Jack?" As expected, there was no reply.

The door proved to be a huge obstacle. The plane’s impact had warped it shut, preventing Hammond from his friends rescue. Unthinkingly, he frantically grabbed the only hard thing he could see, his briefcase.

One, two, three times he used the hard metal edge on the hinges before they gave in slightly. Then it was just a matter of his foot in the right place.

Breathing heavily, unaccustomed to so much violent exercise anymore, General Hammond pulled open what was left of the door with a screech of metal and entered the cockpit.

Or what was left of the cockpit.

" Oh God, Jack," he whispered, dropping his warped briefcase with its sodden quarterly base review to the floor.

He had entered a green hell; full of wet leaves and shattered bark. The planes impact with the forest had turned the small space into a tangled nightmare.

" Dear God." He jumped slightly to hear his voice, sounding so normal in what had turned out to be such an alien place. Gone were the windscreen and dials that made up a usual cockpit, replaced by wires, shattered trees, huge leaves, and water. Amongst this nightmare, Hammond knew, was probably the body of his friend.

" Jack?" he asked hopefully, hoping against hope that a moan or something would alleviate his fears. He didn’t want to find a body; he hadn’t done that in years, since his black ops days. He was rewarded with silence.

George Hammond had never felt so alone in his life. Not even in Vietnam, or thereafter had he been so rooted to the spot. He had always managed to make a decision, act and react accordingly, and triumph. That’s how he had received his stars, so now why couldn’t he move?

Then it hit him. Never before had a close friend been involved.

This time it was different. This time it was Jack.

Shaking, General Hammond started to remove the wreckage. Small bushes, along with all sorts of human debris were dragged back into the cabin and jettisoned out of the passenger door down to the forest floor. Eventually he was rewarded with his first glimpse of a pilots seat. Working faster now, he soon had all the obstacles cleared, allowing him clear access to something he really was dreading.

There were two bodies now visible, but Hammond only had eyes on the gray haired form in the co-pilot’s seat.

Slowly he crawled towards between the chairs.

Both bodies were looking like hamburger meat. Obviously the windscreen had shattered at great force, peppering them with shards of glass. Luckily Jack had been wearing his sunglasses, but the pilot had not. He was half hunched over the controls, as if he had tried to escape at the last moment, his body contorted at an impossible angle. It didn’t take a genius to see that his neck was broken, probably killing him instantly.

Muttering a prayer, General George Hammond leaned forwards and closed the lieutenants staring eyes.

Still muttering the comforting prayer, Hammond turned to Jack O’Neill.

He had faired slightly better, but not by much.

Unlike the pilot, he was still securely strapped in to his seat. Unfortunately, like the pilot, he also had been peppered with glass, making his face into a mask of blood.

He was hunched down awkwardly in the seat, with his head lolling to the right, looking for all the world like a grotesque rag doll.

Hammond could see no obvious signs of injury, apart from the flying glass, but he knew there would be. No one could survive such a massive impact.

Reaching out, he gently removed Jack’s opaque sunglasses, intending to shut his staring eyes.

" Oh Jack, what a way to go…" his voice was soft as he looked down at the slack face of the best 2IC he’d ever had. Jack had a ring of white skin around his eyes from where the sunglasses had protected his eyes, not that it had helped save his life. His eyelids were closed, a mercy really because Hammond wanted to remember his eyes as being full of life, not dark and dead, as they would be now.

Reaching forwards, he felt for a pulse in the neck, needing to confirm what his eyes had already told him. Gently his fingers felt for the carotid artery, Jack’s blood slick under his fingers.

At first the slight trembling he put down to his own fingers, still shaking in shock.

Muttering his prayer again, he closed his eyes briefly, squashing the slight flare of hope.

Jack was dead.

Reaching forwards, he tried again, only to encounter the same small tremors as before.

Despite all the evidence, Jack O’Neill was still alive.

" Jack?" As he expected, there was no reaction.

Groping for Jack’s abandoned glasses, he placed one lens under his nose, sighing in relief at the telltale condensing seen there. Jack was still breathing.

For just how long was another matter.

Taking advantage of the fact that O’Neill was unconscious; Hammond started to run his hands over his body, gently feeling for the telltale lumps of broken bones.

His chest felt spongy to his touch, stilling his hands immediately.

" Shit Jack, you don’t do things by halves, do you?" he moaned.

Broken bones he could sort out, a chest injury needed a medic. He couldn’t even remove Jack from his chair now, because he had no idea how bad the injury could be.

There was something else he could do though. Grunting and heaving, he removed the pilot’s body from the other seat, stowing him in the far side of the cabin. Jack had no need to wake up next to a dead body, that’s if he ever did.

He returned back to the cockpit with a blanket and a first aid box he had found bolted to the wall. For an irrational moment he thought Jack had died whilst he had been gone, but no, the pulse was still there, weak, but there.

" You stay alive for me, okay?"

Deftly he injected a vial of what looked like morphine into his arm, praying that the medical instructions inside the box were correct. Slowly Jack seemed to relax, although it was really hard to tell. Tucking the empty vial in his pocket to give to a doctor later, Hammond gently covered his friend with the blanket and perched on what was left of the pilots seat.

Now for the wait.

God. Never before in his entire life had he felt so alone as he did now. It was as if he was on a different planet entirely, one that consisted of green leaves and water. He was sitting in a dejected heap without a scratch, with one dead man and another set to join him at any moment

" Come on George," he said slowly, shaking himself. " This is earth, you moron, and help is a coming, just you wait and see."

" Yes, but will they be in time?" A small part of his brain asked quietly.

Hammond was a modern American, well versed on radar and transponders.

Some air traffic control official would have seen them disappear from radar and would have notified the authorities who would have seen that the flight was military and notified the Air Force.

" You hang in there, Jack. You hear?"

He was rewarded with a slight moan, the first sign of life Jack had made since the accident.

George sat upright, feeling warm.

" Jack? You hear me son?"

An inarticulate moan was his only reply.

" You hear me Colonel? This is a direct order. Don’t die on me."

To his surprise, he was rewarded with a faint chuckle.

" What…ya…do if…I disobey? … Court marshal…my…corpse?"

" Jack!"

The man’s eyes were open, if a bit glazed.

" General? What…where?"

" We crashed. Do you remember?"

He was rewarded with a faint smile. " President…gonna…be pissed…."

Hammond opened his mouth to answer as he heard the faint sound of helicopters somewhere overhead.

" There here Jack. Ya hear me?"

But Jack O’Neill had sunk back into the comforting darkness.

===================

<Light>

<Pain>

People shouting, yelling at each other, and then at him.

<Movement>

<Peace>

===================

Jack awoke to the sun. It was streaming through a partially open window, the accompanying breeze gently swaying the curtain. The room smelt of mown grass, making him long to be outside. He moved his arm, only to be bought up short by the painful tug of an IV needle.

Okay…he was flat on his back in hospital. So what was new? Patiently his eyes swept the room, trying to identify where he was. Definitely above ground that went without saying, so he had better watch his mouth. Scowling, he tried to wiggle into a more comfortable condition, aware that his heartbeat was increasing. That stupid machine over there told him so.

Damn, he hated hospitals.

" And just precisely what are ya doing?"

She had fiery red hair, large green eyes, and a voice like Dolly Parton. The rest of her wasn’t bad either.

" Un…comfortable," He whispered.

" Bullshit mister. You have enough sedative in you to knock out a horse. You wouldn’t complain if I took out your spine through your left ear."

"Might.."

" Hmm, you might at that." Smiling, she reached for his chart at the end of the bed.

" Now lessee. O’Neill, Jonathan, Colonel." She looked at him over the clipboard. " Do Colonels usually carry dog tags around their necks?"

Jack closed his eyes, only to rapidly open them as darkness threatened.

" Jack… not Jonathan. Dog tags…sometimes." He was having a problem getting his breath, something the red haired doctor noticed. She placed a cool stethoscope against his chest and listened closely.

" Hmm."

Jack hated that sound. " Please…don’t." A thought occurred. " Who are you…Where am I?"

She frowned worriedly and pressed his call button. " Samaritan General Hospital in Lexington. I’m Dr Lucille Carr."

" Civilian?"

" Uh-huh, but we work closely with Blue Grass Field."

Jack thought for a moment. " In Kentucky?"

" The one and only." Trying not to let her worry show, she moved her stethoscope slightly, feeling the distended abdomen on his right side. Shoot, she thought they had caught that.

Looking up gratefully she made a quick motion to the two nurses who had answered her summons.

" Tell you what. You let us sort out your breathing and I’ll tell you everything before they send you home, okay?"

The man nodded sleepily.

Goodness he was a gorgeous man, craggy under the tiny glass scars, with dark brown eyes that contrasted sharply with what must be prematurely gray hair. Happily married as she was with two small children, she still felt her heart go pitter-patter as he gazed up at her trustingly.

" I’d like that, Dr Lucille Carr."

She never got that chance. Four hours later found him in intensive care on a ventilator, his right lung having collapsed.

An hour later four tough medical types came to take him back to Colorado

===================

" …and they had such skewed up theories about some sort of cosmic alignment of the pyramids. I’m telling you Jack; I almost leapt to my feet and told them just how much crap their theories were, only common sense and the official secrets act stopped me…"

Daniel? Jack frowned. What was Daniel doing in Kentucky? He opened his mouth to ask only to find something in the way.

" Jack?" He felt his shoulder being gently shaken. " Jack?"

Slowly he opened his eyes to see a fuzzy blob with sandy hair leaning over him.

" Hey Jack, welcome back." The voice sounded close to tears, confusing him. Where had he been? Oh yes, Kentucky, with that sexy lady doctor. He tried to tell Daniel that, but there was something holding his jaw open.

" Don’t try to talk. Dr Fraiser will be here shortly, alright?"

To Jack’s relief, the room was slowly swimming back into focus. He could see a white ceiling, one olive wall and a whole lot of machines, surely more than were necessary.

Wait a minute, an olive wall. There was only one place in the world that painted three walls white and the fourth olive, Academy General Hospital in Colorado Springs.

Okay, he was home.

" Jack, are you still with me?"

He frowned at his friend, noticing the dark hollows under his eyes. Danny hadn’t been taking care of himself again, something he would have to remember to tell him when he was able to speak.

The events were slowly coming back to him, the summons, the Gulfstream and the crash.

The General.

Kentucky.

Shit.

He wondered what had happened to Lieutenant Masters.

Turning his head slightly he stared at the machines. There were at least four of them, all giving out readings, which meant that he had been pretty badly hurt. Not first the first time he thanked his lucky stars that he was in the military. No bills to pay. If he were a civilian, that’s a true civilian, not like Danny, his medical insurers would probably have disowned him years ago.

But then again, if he had been a true civilian, none of this would have happened at all.

His eyes turned back to Daniel, sitting there uncomfortably, casting anxious looks at the door. Daniel with his lean face and close cropped hair. The years of working inside the military had changed Daniel forever, something the poor man didn’t even realize.

Gone was that uncertain archeologist geek he had first met, replaced with a hardened soldier.

A case in point. Not long ago two men armed with knives had attempted to mug him. Daniel had broken both their arms before calling the base. Not 911, but the base, like a good little soldier. When this was laughingly pointed out to him, he had looked dumbfounded. He shouldn’t have been. He was part of the Air Force now, and part of his team, his family.

It was good to be home. If he could speak he would tell him so.

Cautiously he lifted his heavy hand, his fingers feeling for the obstacle preventing him from moving his jaw, only to have Daniel’s warm hands stop him.

" It’s a tube Jack, to help you breathe."

Ah of course it was. Silly of him, he should have known.

Suddenly the door opened and Dr Fraiser charged in, followed by his team and General Hammond.

" Colonel…O’Neill."

Jack tried to smile around the tube, found it impossible, so contented himself with blinking his greetings. They all had huge smiles on their faces, meaning that he had worried them.

Sorry guys. Blame it on Senator Kinsey.

Then General Hammond swam into view.

General Hammond. Ignoring his team for the moment, his eyes focused on his CO, noticing the livid bruising down one side of his face. Drawing strength he carefully lifted his hand, trying to touch him.

George Hammond knew what he wanted.

Stepping forwards he carefully took Jack’s hand, vaguely noticing how cold it was.

" It’s okay Colonel. I’m alright." He gave the man a brief smile, noticing him begin to relax. Gently he tucked the hand back on the bed and stood back to allow Dr Fraiser to look at her patient.

" Soo, here we are again."

Jack blinked sleepily as he saw the General herding out the rest of SG1. He must have ordered them out, or they wouldn’t be leaving.

The problem was, Jack couldn’t remember Hammond saying anything.

The drugs were winning because he was beginning to lose small sections of time.

Fighting the approaching drowsiness, he looked up at Janet Fraiser.

" Colonel, you still with me?"

He managed a small nod.

‘What happened?’ He thought at her. ‘Please tell me.’

Somehow she heard him.

" You were really lucky this time, Jack."

Sighing, she sat in the chair that Daniel had recently vacated.

" The first time we knew that there was something wrong was when we got a phone call from a National Guard station outside Lexington, telling us that both you and the General had been involved in an air crash. Well as you can imagine there was chaos. Luckily Colonel Anderson had arrived back with SG8, and was able to get things rolling. He ordered both of you moved back here to Academy General as quickly as possible, which as you know in the Air Force, means yesterday. The General had no problems with the move, and arrived back at the infirmary on the base slightly concussed, but no worse for wear."

" You, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. You had a cracked breastbone, and five ribs were broken in your chest." She looked at him with a motherly air. " I won’t even mention the broken legs or the collapsed lung. Thank God medical help arrived quickly."

Her eyes were serious dark pools of thought. " You would have died if they had been delayed. If General Hammond had tried to move you, you would have. Thank goodness he didn’t. And thank goodness for the Kentucky National Guard. They have a really good young medic, an ER person from some Baptist Hospital they have there. He recognized your symptoms and treated you accordingly before even moving you from the forest."

"From there you were moved to a Lexington hospital where you stayed for two weeks. You were just going to be moved when one of your lungs collapsed, necessitating some quick work by the doctor there before you were moved here."

Dr Carr. He would have to phone and apologize for not hanging around for her explanation.

" And you have been here ever since."

He made small motions at the ventilator.

" When can you come off the ventilator? In a while, depending on how fast you heal. So sleep now, and we’ll make that decision later, okay?"

Nodding by millimeters, Jack closed his eyes and obeyed her orders.

====================

General Hammond was consumed by guilt. Colonel O’Neill had told him that he hadn’t wanted to go, and he had made it an order. To make things worse, he had felt so certain that they would crash, and they had.

Deep down he knew that it was illogical that he should shoulder the blame; that he too had been ordered by people with more stars on their shoulders than he had, but still he couldn’t stop hating himself.

Maybe the Colonel knew this was going to happen, that was why he had objected so vociferously, maybe…

Every night he made a point of visiting the Colonel, just to see how he was getting along. Mostly he was asleep, but recently he had been awake, although still groggy.

He hadn’t realized how his behavior was impacting on others until his 2IC made him aware of it.

=====================

" George, please. Stay."

General Hammond was caught frozen at the door. It was the tone of the voice more than the use of his first name that got him. Colonel O’Neill sounded…pissed off

" Colonel?"

Hammond returned to his 2IC. " Is something bothering you?"

" Yes." He took a deep breath, grimacing at the pain his action caused. " You."

General Hammond smiled tightly. " Why? You’re the one hurt, not me."

It was then that Colonel showed some insight that General Hammond hadn’t thought he was capable of.

" Wrong."

" Oh?" George Hammond raised his eyebrows, his eyes unwavering. " How so?"

O’Neill struggled to talk past the drugs. " We both hurt. Mine. Visible…yours. Not."

He gestured speechlessly at the hospital room for the moment. " O’Neill. Bad luck, all…this. Don’t blame you. Never. Will."

General Hammond took sighed softly as the Colonel sank back in bed with an almost inaudible moan.

General George Hammond felt wretched. Here he had been silently berating himself for what happened, unaware that his injured 2IC had picked up on his distress. And if he had, drugs and all, then surely the personnel on base had as well. No wonder they had been sneaking around him recently.

" God, I’m sorry Jack."

Two sleepy brown eyes looked at him. " See MacKenzie…regulations."

Hammond rocked back on his chair, a smile on his face. " Am I hearing correctly? You want me to see your nemesis? The one man you wouldn’t mind leaving on

PJ6 5GH. You know, the one with the Dinosaurs?"

" Yeah…Pond scum, but he does the job." Jack’s eyes flicked to his. " PJ6 5GH… Can I?" His look was so pitiful that George roared with laughter, the tension of the last few weeks sloughing off of him.

" Don’t even think about it."

Jack’s hollow eyes were merry.

" Too late. You tell him that…" He swallowed painfully, gratefully accepting a glass of water Hammond found, taking a small sip. " You tell him all…when you visit him, which will be sometime today."

Hammond snorted. His second clearly had no idea as to what time it was. " Jack, it will have to be tomorrow," he said gently. " It’s gone 21H00.

The glazed brown eyes found his. " Tomorrow then." Hammond was treated to a small smile. " You did good sir. You saved…my life. And stayed with me…until help came."

" I felt so alone," Hammons said, startling even himself with his frankness. " You were dying, and I felt it was all my fault. You had resisted going on this flight to Washington, and I had made it an order, something you had to obey."

" Nah," O’Neill said with a faint smile. " …Wasn’t your fault at all. Was mine. What fool hums a funeral dirge before…" His eyes flashed.

"I was thinking of Senator Kinsey sir."

" Understandable," Hammond said.

" Then, your prayer… in the cockpit…whilst we waited…it helped, even though I leave the religious ‘I have seen angels’ thing to my brother."

" Well, did you?" Hammond asked curiously. " See angels?"

His second’s gaze was level, guarded. " A lot…a lot of things happen in this galaxy of ours, things that I struggle to comprehend." He shifted in his bed with a grimace, before subsiding.

" I’m not… too sure what I saw, or even if I saw it, but I will say this… We were never alone. This I know with every fiber of my being... someone was…keeping watch."

Hammond rose to his feet with a smile.

" That is such a nice thing to say, Jack O’Neill, and coming from you, extremely unsettling." He smiled broadened as he headed for the door, feeling more alive than he had in weeks.

" You sleep now Jack, and I will see MacKenzie tomorrow, as ordered. After that I will personally apologize to…" His voice trailed off to a whisper, as he looked back and saw O’Neill with his eyes shut.

" Goodnight, my friend," he said, carefully closing the door behind him, feeling for the first time in weeks like he could really do with a long talk with a certain catholic priest.

And him a protestant too.

" Goodnight my friend, and thank you for living."

EINDE

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