The Harder They Fall by babs

Ow. This doesn't feel good. I can't move and I feel myself being moved at a rapid pace. I want to open my eyes. I can hear talking, but I don't know what they are saying. Why can't I move?

"Colonel O'Neill." Ah, that would be good ol' Doc Fraiser. "Colonel, open your eyes for me."

Geesh! You don't have to shout, Doc. See? I'll open them right now. Or maybe not. Give me some time here.

"Colonel." Now she sounds mad. Did I make her mad?

My world swings and tilts and I feel sick to my stomach. Did I ever tell anyone I get sick on roller coasters? Nope, don't think I did. Not even Daniel, the speed demon in disguise.

Light flashes in my eye and I grunt in surprise. I wasn't expecting that. I should have though because anytime Fraiser is around I either get a light in the eye or a needle in my butt.

Voices swirl around me--loud and annoying when all I really want to do is sleep.

"I want a complete head and spinal series ASAP." Fraiser is demanding in her 'I'm the doctor, get your butts in gear' voice.

Someone else says something about reflexes and still someone else yells out some numbers. That damn light flashes in my eyes again and I yelp this time.

"Colonel, wake up."

It's an order and I obey, even though I outrank the good doctor, but the blurry white and green I see makes me feel even sicker. I close my eyes again and try breathing through my nose, slow breaths I remember being told will help with nausea, but it's not working.

"Let's get him on his side," Fraiser says and I'm tilted again. Just in time I might add as my last meal comes up and out.

A gloved hand wipes my mouth and then I'm flat again and moving. There are whirs and clicks and I'm pretty sure it's x-ray or some such machine. I don't want to bother to open my eyes to find out.

I'm goddamn freezing. I wish someone would realize that.

"Here you go, sir," a male voice that's calm and soothing says, and something warm covers me. "Is that better?" We're moving somewhere and someone touches my hand as we go. It's just a little thing but it feels good, like I'm not just a side of beef to these people, that I'm a living breathing person.

I open my eyes again and this time I make an attempt to keep them open.

"Sir?" Fraiser is leaning over me and I try to focus on her face which has too many eyes and not enough noses. "You with us?"

"Doc." Hey what do you know? I can talk. She's patting my shoulder and then she pinches me. Damn that hurts. I pull my hand up towards hers, trying to push her away but I miss.

Something brushes against my feet and it tickles. I hear a comment from Fraiser about pinpricks and reflexes and a call for Doctor Mecklin.

My team. Oh God. My team. How could I be forgetting them?

"The rest?" I hear myself ask, but no one answers me. We were on some planet, I can't remember the numbers, but we were there and walking through a downpour and then I think we came through the gate pretty damn fast, but that's it. Daniel, Carter, Teal'c--I haven't heard their voices or their names mentioned. Is that good? Does that mean they are okay? Or is it bad? Does it mean they didn't make it through? Does it mean they did, but they're hurt?

It's too much to think about and I close my eyes again. My head really hurts, damn it. I wish Doc would just give me a couple of aspirin and let me go hunt my team. But she's busy talking again and I just don't feel like keeping my eyes open anymore. Maybe I'll take a nap and when she's done I can ask her.

Now this is nice---dark, comfy, that kinda comfy when you're lying in bed in the middle of the night and you are under covers and all nice and warm. There are some muffled sounds which makes me think I might be in the infirmary and it might be night 'cause it's always quieter then. Ow---damn that light. Fraiser's at it again.

She's talking to me and I manage to bring her face into focus.

"Yeah I'm fine, Doc. Just want to sleep a little more." I'm not so sure she understands what I'm telling her because she gets this little frown on her face which means she isn't happy with my response.

"You can sleep in a little bit," she promises. She fiddles with something out of my line of vision and then asks me my name.

"Jack." I don't really feel like talking Doc. I want to sleep some more.

She asks me something else but I don't feel like listening.

"Night," I tell her and go back to sleep.

Ow, ow, ow. I open my eyes to see who is sticking hot pokers in my back and side but there's only the familiar infirmary. No aliens with some weird sort of pain device. Just me, myself, and I. On second thought, maybe aliens might be a little kinder to me than whatever has caused this pain.

I can't help it. I groan. Hey at least it worked--I've got a nurse by my side.

"Colonel?" she calls rather loudly as if she thinks I'm deaf or something.

"Hurts." That's all I get out before Fraiser comes trotting up.

"Can you tell me where?" Fraiser asks as if she doesn't think I'm gonna share.

"Back, side," I tell her and this time she smiles. Okay, Doc, maybe you get your jollies from people in pai, but I gotta tell you, it ain't a picnic from where I'm sitting, lying...whatever.

She turns to the nurse speaking some quick medical gibberish, but I think she might be telling her to pump me full of some happy juice.

When Fraiser turns back, she nods as she looks at me. "Can you tell me your name?"

"O'Neill, Jack. Colonel in the United States Air Force, member of SG-1." Saying that reminds me..."Where's my team?"

"They're not here right now, sir," Fraiser says. I don't know how to interpret that short clipped answer. "Do you remember what happened?"

I raise my hand to rub at my forehead, noticing for the first time the pull of the IV. "Um, we were on P something or other, mud, rain, happy Daniel in the ruins, happy Carter playing in the dirt, Teal'c not so happy. We came through fast?" That last is meant to be a question because I can't remember the trip through the Gate. I'm just guessing and from Fraiser's concerned look she knows it.

"What day is it?"

I do some quick mental calculation, which is pretty amazing considering my head is pounding like someone has stomped on it. Let's see, we left on the mission on Tuesday, two days on the planet which was actually only one day on Earth. Give a day for being out of it and I figure I've got a safe guess. "Thursday," I try to say it with as much conviction as possible.

"It's Monday," she tells me.

"Monday, huh?" I comment. I'm going for nonchalant but it's pretty hard to do lying in a bed knowing that your ass will stick out if you turn on your side which I won't do because my side hurts. But I wonder how you can go back in time.

"The twenty third," Fraiser adds.

"Oh, that Monday." A Monday which means I've lost a whole heck of a lot more days than one--like almost a week.

"Gate? My team?" I'm reduced to muttering the words because I want to go to sleep. All this work is making me tired and hey, I've lost six days, what's a few more hours?

"Your team is safe, sir," I hear Fraiser say as she bends down to straighten my blanket. "I'll be back in a little bit to check on you."

I mumble a thank you and it's lights out.

I smell vanilla and there's only one person I know who smells like that. She doesn't always smell like that. Try being on a mission with her after a few hours of hiking in the heat, or running from the Jaffa, and Sam Carter can smell almost as ripe as Daniel or me. But still, when she's not sweating like a stuck pig, I've gotta admit she smells nice.

"Sir?" she asks as I open my eyes.

"The one and onl,." I mutter. 'Cause who else would it be?

She's got a file folder on her lap but she leans forward anyway. Her mouth goes all frowny and her eyes go big. "How are you feeling?"

The pain I felt earlier, that hot poker pain, is gone; replaced by a dull ache that extends across my chest and down my back. It's not pleasant, but it's bearable. "Not so bad," I say. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, sir." She kinda looks surprised that I'd even ask. Geesh Carter, give a guy a break. Just trying to be a good commanding officer here.

"Janet says you'll be out of here in a day or so," she says when the silence continues.

"Good." I turn my head a little to look at her better.

"Janet says you were lucky." Carter adds as if she's telling me something very important.

I smell the coffee before I see Daniel. Carter--vanilla, Daniel--coffee, which is probably exuded from his pores because I swear we could be on a mission for weeks and he'd still smell like coffee.

"Hey, look who's awake," Daniel says. Personally I think he sounds entirely too wide awake, which gives me a clue that not only is it Monday, but it's also not Monday morning.

"We are all awake, DanielJackson," Teal'c informs him. I can't smell Teal'c at all, because I don't know--must be some kind of Jaffa thing that they don't have BO. Although I wonder if that will change since Junior has gone bye-bye. I'd shrug my shoulders but I think it would hurt big time.

Next thing I know Fraiser is by my bed too. Hey, I can't help it if my overwhelming charm draws everyone to my bedside.

"How is he, Janet?" Daniel asks.

"Hello? Awake here, Daniel," I point out.

His eyebrows rise above the rims of his glasses and he frowns at me. "You know where you are this time?"

"Kansas?" I reply, being sure to add a snarky tone to my voice and I see his lips twitch as he tries to control a smile.

"Anyone mind filling me in on what happened when we got thrown through the gate?" I ask.

My team exchanges glances and I'm not sure why. I'm alive, they are alive, and except for me lying in an infirmary bed, we're all healthy.

"Well, uh, Jack, we, uh..." Daniel is doing that little avoid-telling-the-colonel-outright spiel he does when something has gone wrong. "Um, actually, you, we, I mean..."

"You fell down the stairs, O'Neill," Teal'c states.

"What stairs? I don't remember stairs on that planet."

"Well, they weren't exactly on..." Daniel tries again, only to be interrupted by Teal'c.

"The stairs between Level 19 and 21," Teal'c explains. "You were too impatient to wait for the elevator."

Okay, so I fell down some stairs. "Who pushed me?" Daniel is studying the floor intently so my guess is he might have something to do with my current state.

"You must remember to tie the laces of your footgear, O'Neill," Teal'c continues. I hear a strangled noise from Carter's vicinity and she turns away and coughs. She'd better not be laughing, but I think she is.

I fell down the stairs, because I tripped over my shoe lace?

"Yes you did." Daniel responds. Crap, I didn't think I said that out loud. "You're very lucky by the way."

"Concussion, two broken ribs, and bruised back," Fraiser rattles off my injuries in a matter-of-fact tone.

Well, that would explain the aches all beginning to shout for my attention. I'm not sure what Fraiser sees in my expression but she motions for the others to leave and presses a button near my hand.

Even with the joy juice starting to send me into blissful, mostly pain-free la-la land, I notice Daniel has ignored Fraiser's request. Gee who'd a thunk Daniel wouldn't leave?

He sits in the chair Carter has vacated and appears to be settling in for the duration. Fraiser says something so quietly I can't hear her and Daniel smiles and nods back.

"Hey," I say once Fraiser leaves, just to be nice and make some conversation.

The smile he had for Fraiser disappears to be replaced with a frown. "You scared us, Jack."

Oh, it's that kind of frown; a concerned frown which is way better than pissed off frown.

"I didn't do it on purpose," I say in my defense. I can just imagine all the fodder for the SGC gossip mill.

"Yeah, I know." Daniel replies. He swallows hard, so hard I can actually hear it. "But next time, make sure your boots are tied, okay?"

I figure this is all the sympathy I'm gonna get for this particular injury, even though broken ribs and a bruised back hurt the same no matter how you get them. "I will," I promise and close my eyes. Good ol' Doc sure knows the good stuff to send a guy to sleep.

I'm in that spot between awake and asleep when I hear a noise and then sense Daniel moving closer to the bed. His hand covers mine and he squeezes it before removing it.

"Go to sleep. I'll stay here," he whispers. There's a rustling sound as if he's moving again and then I feel warm moist heat as he brings his mouth close to my ear. "And don't you dare scare any of us like that ever again."

It's then that I realize for the first time that I've frightened them badly; that while I was drifting in my hazy world of pain and confusion, my team, no, they're not just my team, they are my friends, the people I love and would die for; was worrying that the man they knew might not be the man they got back.

"I won't," I mumble and there is a pat on my shoulder and all the confusion and pain of the past day melts away. Daniel is by my side and everything is going to be alright.

FINIS

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