• SUMMARY : The story behind those nine days in the desert after the parachuting accident.
• 18+

As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Jumping ......................... confident

Falling ............................ exhilarated

Ripping ........................... failure

Realizing .......................... panic

Plummeting ....................... helpless

Hoping ............................ desperate

Knowing .......................... fear

Hitting ........................ broken

Agonizing ........................ nothing

Pain and darkness surrounded Jack O’Neill like the enemy troops amassing in the land where he lay, filling his consciousness, his total world. His every breath revealed their presence. His every movement provided Intel to their location.

He fought a battle against them as they threatened to defeat him. Closing his eyes tightly, Jack fought against the forces of injury and despair seeking to destroy him, with every ounce of bullheaded tenacity he possessed. He fought to keep the fear at bay. He fought against the cowardly groans deserting the battle and fleeing from his throat. He fought to repress the screams of agony he didn’t dare allow to escape. He fought the despair that threatened to consume him. He fought the forces of Death which were attempting to claim him as spoils.

O’Neill battled the knowledge that should he let down his guard and allow Death to win, he would die alone and abandoned in the middle of a godforsaken battlefield in the desert, a casualty list of one. He would die on enemy soil, to be buried by the sand without ceremonial honors, without even a plaque to mark the place where Jack O’Neill had waged his own private battle this day.

Waged with the enemy and lost.

Should he allow Death to win this battle no one would know for sure when and how he’d died.

No one would know; and, in the end, few would care.

Few would care.

Except for Sara.

And that thought kept him alive.

Consciousness slowly reasserted itself as Jack O’Neill struggled to sort out the confusing riddle he awoke to find himself living. Although living might be stretching things just a tad he thought as waves of pain washed over him leaving him gasping for air. It took him long minutes to struggle against the riptide of agony which threatened to drag him under.

Slowly he began to sort through the puzzle and put together the answers he desperately needed.

It had been a solo reconnaissance mission, both covert and clandestine. Each member of his team dropped independently in prearranged locations behind the Iraqi border. Three days for each member to gather the Intel and then rendezvous for a group extraction.

Due to the volatile situation brewing between Iran and Iraq, Special Ops Command had determined a night drop, High Altitude Low Opening, a HALO, was necessary.

Routine, that is, until you realize your parachute isn’t opening. And then nothing becomes routine except the knowledge that you’re about to hit the ground. Hard. Ground you can’t even see in the pitch black night.

And you know that when you hit it you’re going to splat something like a tomato tossed off the Sears Tower. And it wasn’t going to be pretty. Laws of gravity. Don’tcha just love ‘em?

Actually, sometimes they sucked. Big time.

Damn Isaac Newton and his theories. Typical know-it-all scientist. Had to prove he was right. And damn gravity. Why couldn’t it not work just this once? And damn faulty parachutes that fail when you really need them. And damn him for a fool for ever being stupid enough to jump out of an airplane in the first place.

Suddenly you find that you’re spiraling helplessly into a black abyss. That you are living a classic nightmare of falling and this time there is no way you will wake up before you hit the ground. That you’re going to hurt like hell if you are lucky enough, or maybe unlucky enough, to survive and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it.

That stuff they say about your life flashing in front of your eyes was just bullshit. He had often wondered about that and now he knew. Plain old fashioned bullshit, that writers used to create a mood. He knew that now, because all that had consumed his thoughts were blackness and terror. Terror so thick he couldn’t draw a breathe, fear so encompassing that it became an entity in itself. Something he could feel, more fiercely than the air scourging his face as he fell. Something that he could hear, screaming louder than the wind whipping past him. Something he could taste, filling his mouth with bitterness. Who knew terror would be the main course served at his last meal? Hell, even condemned prisoners had a better choice than that.

And then finally when common sense told him it was already too late, he felt the chute snap open.

Too little.

Too late.

Too bad. And then he hit.

The darkness within him slowly merged into the darkness surrounding him, as he forced his lids open. He lay there staring up at the vast expanse of night sky. With nothing to pollute the view it was an incredible sight. Stars that equaled the grains of sand upon which he lay, sparkled so close and yet just out of reach for a wounded man lost in the desert.

Even so he gleaned what comfort he could from them. He tried to imagine that he was on a soft blanket laying next to Sara reveling in her closeness. The moonlight kissing her hair. The starlight reflecting in her eyes. Her lips curved in that special smile she reserved only for him.

And it worked. It worked until he foolishly tried to move. And then pain drove all thoughts of Sara from his mind. Biting his bottom lip to keep from screaming, the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. Jack slowly spiraled down once more into a darkness blacker than the night blanketing him.

The sun was crawling up the sky before Jack surfaced into consciousness again, immediately aware of the pain which seemed to have grown worse as he had, er, slept. Squinting against the brightness, he would have given just about anything for his sunglasses and some sun screen and, while he was at it, about a gallon of happy juice. Oh, and a ride home in air conditioned comfort would be nice while he was wishing for the moon. He settled for a couple of aspirin he had stuffed in a pocket and a small swallow of stale water from his canteen, hoping to God the pain involved in completing this not so simple anymore task would be worth it.

He wished he could find some shade from the fiercely beating rays of the sun, but the chances of that happening were somewhere between slim and none. And besides, as Grandma O’Neill would have said, ‘If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.’

‘I’d take one of your beggar’s horse now, Grandma,’ he thought.

Having no choice, O’Neill ignored the sun and began to assess his injuries methodically as he had been trained, while moving as little as possible to avoid the stabbing pain that knifed through his head.

Ankle. Broken. Maybe. Maybe just torn ligaments or a bad sprain. No surprise there. Typical in a parachuting accident. Hurt, no matter what it was. Wrenched knee. Oh shit, that sucked. Left leg screwed up royally, then. Crap. He quite definitely wasn’t going to hike out of this easily with just one leg in proper working order.

Hike ... march ... walk ... hobble ... stagger ... crawl.

Oh, just peachy.

He continued his less than encouraging inventory.

A fracture of his left arm. Damn! He must have landed on his left side and been dragged to produce these spectacular results. Lucky he hadn’t shattered both legs. Hell, face it O’Neill, you’re lucky to be alive at all.

He’d have to do something to support the break in that arm. Carefully, he ran his right hand up the damaged limb. Nasty, but, thank God the bone wasn’t sticking through the skin. Given the less than sanitary desert conditions, it would have been next to impossible to deal with an infection that might set in. Still, a simple break was going to complicate an already complicated situation. But, hell, it isn’t like it’s your first broken arm so quit being a baby and deal with it.

Was that it? Any other dislocations, breaks, or strains he needed to consider?

He tried to roll over.

Big mistake.

Oh, God his back!

His back was definitely wonky. He probably jarred the hell out of it when he landed. Hopefully that was all that was wrong. Where was a chiropractor when you needed one? He probably couldn’t find one who would make house calls in the middle of the Iraqi desert anyway, he decided with sour humor. Some people just had no commitment to their profession. He lay there for some time thinking up possible bribes that he could offer to induce a reluctant practitioner to aid a dying soldier in the middle of a baking hot desert. Before he realized his mind was wandering, and he needed to get back on track.

And it was such a bad idea to start thinking along these lines, Jack. Dying? Like hell he was. Shake it off and move on. Were there any other injuries?

Just that soft spot that probably shouldn’t be there on the back of his skull that he was so trying to ignore. The massive headache, the nausea, the niggling that told him it was more than a simple concussion. He could only pray he had somehow avoided scrambling his brain. He wasn’t even going to think about the possibility of internal injuries.

He was so screwed.

The drop plane was long gone. He had been the last package to be delivered. He seriously doubted, given the altitude of the drop and the blackout conditions, that the pilot or crew was even aware of what had happened. His team was spread out over a wide drop zone. He’d get no help from Frank, Charlie, or the others. Hell, they wouldn’t even know he was in trouble until he failed to show up for the pick up. By that time it would be too late to do anything more than live with regrets.

Or, in his case, die with them.

If Intel was correct, the hostilities between Iran and Iraq were going to heat up into a full scale assault by Iraq any day now. There had been bloody border skirmishish for months now between both sides, but war was coming. And he was sitting, okay laying, right in the middle of a potential firefight. And spending time as a guest of Khomeini or Saddam Hussein was so not one of his ideas of favorite vacation spots. Tensions had reached an all time high. And neither side was looking with great favor towards the United States and their offer to protect the oil fields against all internal or regional threats. Talk of another embargo had made the entire Gulf a tinder box and here he was waiting for either side to drop a match.

No, digging in and hoping for rescue wasn’t an option. Even though he knew any one of his team would be more than willing to attempt a rescue mission. Just the same as he would if it had been Frank or one of the others in trouble. But this time it wasn’t going to happen. This time it was totally up to him to get his sorry ass in gear and get the hell out of Dodge.

Decision made, time for action, Jack. You can’t just lay here and wait to die. Sara needs you. She deserves better than this even if she is too good for the lameass poor excuse of a husband that you’ve too often proven to be. Because for some reason, God alone knew why, she loves you. She loves you more than you’ve ever deserved.

He’d move, he’d survive this. For Sara.

And so he moved. Slowly, and agonizingly, and painstakingly. He stripped out of his jump gear. And his training began to kick in.

By the book Flyboy, you know the drill. Develop a Contingency Plan of Action, CPA. Start focusing on what you have available. Think positive. You’re alive although staying that way was going to prove a challenge, but it was a damn good start. Take SERE out of the classroom and use it. Survival, evasion of the enemy, resistance, and escape. You’ve read about it a hundred times. Now use it. Do what you’ve been trained to do. Otherwise you’re not even gonna get the luxury of going home in a bodybag.

Water was going to be a problem. He had enough for three days. There wasn’t much he could do about that. He’d have to ration what he had. Stretch it, make it last. So despite his raging thirst he simply moistened his mouth.

Make it last, Jack. Until you’re out of this mess, that’s your new motto. Make it last. It’s all that’s going to keep you alive. That and pure iron-willed Irish stubbornness which is the one thing you have in abundance.

And dying is not an option, O’Neill. Not when Sara needs you.

He spent the remainder of the hot miserable afternoon slowly completing what little first aid he could. Not that there was a whole lot he could do about the broken bones. Some basic damage control would have to suffice. Do what ever was necessary to get him on his feet, or foot in this case, and as mobile as possible.

It had taken every ounce of willpower to carefully straighten the bones in his left arm. Sweat beaded and then dripped down his sunburned face despite the fact that he was suddenly shaking with chills.

Rifling through his gear he realized with a sick feeling deep down in his gut that he was ill-prepared to deal with injuries of this magnitude. With so little to work with he was going to have to get creative. Real creative. But the problem was that creativity was not proving to be his forte when his brain was making a substantial effort to escape through the crack in his skull.

He was pretty limited as to what he had available to use for splints. About the best he could do was use the flares he had in his pack which he should have put to use for pickup, three days from now. Fat lot of good they were going to be for that purpose unless he could actually get somewhere close to the pick-up point. And he sure as hell didn’t dare use them out here. They’d draw any enemy troops down on him like mosquitoes in Minnesota in the middle of summer. So now the flares had a new use. They were going to help get his sorry carcass out of this mess.

Using his knife, Jack cut strips from his abandoned parachute and laid the flares where he could get them easily. Grasping his left wrist, he tried to ignore the trembling and sweating that made it difficult to maintain his grip. Just one good firm yank. He’d been taught how to do it. He knew the drill. Hell, once he’d even had to set Frank’s arm in the jungles of Central America. But, dammit, it was a lot easier practicing in a classroom or helping your best friend than trying to set your own arm when it was your life was on the line.

Just one firm yank.

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! He did not want to do this.

But he had to.

So he did.

It was simple when you came right down to it. He had no choice. And despite the fact that he really hated that choiceless feeling, and despite the fact that he could bitch and moan, all his cards were on the table and nothing was going to change. So he’d play the hand he’d been dealt. Even when it was one handed poker and everything was wild.

Before he could apply his makeshift splints, Jack suddenly lost the contents of his stomach. Shit, he did not need this when dehydration was already a given in the glaring sun. The nausea left him shaking and his head pounding unmercifully. Still he had no other options, but to ignore it and carry out his objective.

With a sigh that sent fresh waves of pain through his head, he reached for his pack of flares to see if he could make a mole hill out of the mountain of difficulty with which he was trying to deal.

And it hurt. Every bit as much, and more, as his over-active imagination had told him it would.

As the first rays of the sun sank over the horizon, Jack finally garnered the strength to move. It had taken a long time, way too long for him to accomplish his task. The flares made an awkward splint around his arm, but they held when he finally tied the last strip of cloth and pulled it tight. He cut a sling of sorts from the parachute material and managed to immobilize his aching arm.

Then, preparations complete, he finally gathered up his courage and his flagging energy to do what he could to care for the other injuries. The ankle was better off in the boot. So he had used two more of his flares to support either side of the damaged ankle and wrapped them in more of his home-made bandages. Hopefully, between the boot and the splints, he would still be mobile enough to stand a fighting chance.

There wasn’t a whole lot he could do with his knee, so he simply wrapped it as best he could. At least the stupid parachute had been good for something after all. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to cheat the tax payers out of their hard earned dollars by having a useless parachute.

Far in the distance he could make out the shadow of the Zagros Mountains. Frank was somewhere northwest of there. He may as well have been on the moon. No, his only chance was to move south through the Shat-el-Arab waterway and try to make his way towards the Persian Gulf and into Kuwait. Hopefully there he would meet up with U.S. troops.

It was a daunting task, but the only way to end a journey was to take the first step.

Shit, he was beginning to sound like a fortune cookie. Confucius, he say, ‘Quit stalling and get your ass moving, Flyboy.’

And so, he did.

He rolled over onto his stomach, and drew his knees up under his body with agonizing slowness. Resting his head on his forearms, he was ready to give up except that he’d be damned if he was going to be found dead with his ass in the air like that. So, slowly, with his head spinning and every inch of him protesting to the nth degree he gradually hauled himself upright.

Swaying, and with the feeling that the remotest breath of wind would knock him back down to his knees, he began to move.

One sickening footstep after another he slowly began to make his way across the sand. Each pace forward was a battle he must wage, an enemy to defeat, and yet each one brought him that much closer to home.

Home and Sara.

And it was thoughts of her that kept him going. Forced him to drag himself just a little further, push himself a little harder. Reach inside his soul when he felt he had nothing left and still keep going.

Keep going until he collapsed. And then he would begin again.

There were so many things he had to be alert to. Not the least of which were enemy troops. But Nature had her own traps laid out. He had to be constantly on guard for vipers hidden in the sand. The little saw-scale viper was common to this area. Should he cross one of those ill-tempered snakes he wouldn’t stand a chance. They had been warned during training of the snake’s penchant to attack any intruder who was foolish enough to cross its path. A bite was a guaranteed death sentence.

There were other hazards, other snakes just as poisonous, scorpions, and insects carrying yellow fever. Oh yeah, a plethora of ways of perishing via the catering service of the Grim Reaper.

He traveled at night, knowing he had to avoid the devastating effects of the sun, the crippling heat cramps, the draining heat exhaustion, and the final deadly blow of a heat stroke, for as long as possible. Given the circumstances he knew it was a foregone conclusion that the sun would wreak havoc on his already badly abused, rapidly weakening body. But he was going to do everything in his power to minimize the damage. And that meant using his fucking head.

No matter how badly he wanted to strip out of his uniform and try to get some relief from the heat, he knew he couldn’t afford to succumb to the temptation. His full desert camos offered a three-fold benefit he needed badly: providing protection from sunburn; trapping the moisture his body was losing while he was sweating; and also camouflaging him against being spotted by enemy troops.

The sweat-dampened clothes provided the only cooling relief he could get given his current situation. And at this point he was damn glad to have any relief what-so-ever.

The bandanna he had tucked into his hat kept the back of his neck from frying. In addition it helped to keep the hordes of biting insects from driving him mad. But it also made him feel like an extra in a freakin’ remake of Beau Geste.

Kawalsky would have had a field day if he could have had seen him; looking like a refugee from the French Foreign Legion. And this would be one little detail that never got mentioned in the mission report for that reason. Kawalsky didn’t need any more ammunition for his warped sense of humor. He wasn’t like Frank. Frank was more covert with his humor. You had to watch your back with Frank.

Whereas Kawalsky hit you head on with some lame-ass practical joke, Frank was subtle. So subtle that most of the guys never realized they’d been had until later. Much later. Usually not until he and Frank were back in the barracks laughing their asses off.

God, he missed Frank right now, and Kawalsky, too, but especially Frank and his steady as we go no nonsense attitude when things got tough.

And things were sure as hell pretty much as tough as they could get, right about now.

Never once had Frank let him down. He knew, better than he knew his own name, that he could always rely on Frank to get him out of trouble. Out of trouble and back home to Sara. Just as he knew he would do anything he could to get Frank out of trouble, and home to Liz. It was their pact, their pledge, to look out for each other. The only problem was Frank didn’t know he was in trouble this time.

And, until then, Jack was on his own.

Take one step. Hope to God you didn’t fall on your face, because every time you did it got harder and harder to find the willpower to get up and try again. Harder to find the strength to keep going towards the end of the tunnel. A tunnel so long, and so dark, there was barely a light to be seen at the end. Just a glimmer, maybe. A tiny flicker. A distant beacon towards which he knew, somehow, subconsciously, that he had to keep moving.

Sara. His beacon in an often frightening and uncertain world.

He remembered looking at the stars with her. Watching the heavens. Lying in her arms and gazing upwards. Being lost together in a contemplation of tiny dots of miraculous light, shining down from positions millions of light years from Earth.

And so he looked up towards the heavens now. And he kept his eyes focused on the lights he could plainly see there. The starlight that was a connection to Sara. The starlight that was leading him towards Sara.

Sara. The stars. His only beacons in a world of pain and agonizingly slow progress.

Using his compass he worked his way towards his goal. Cassiopeia was to become his closest friend during the lonely pain-filled nights, watching over him silently as the miles crawled slowly by. Along with the North Star and the Big Dipper who also helped to keep him moving in more or less a straight line. One hurting island of humanity lost in an ocean of pain.

During the day he curled up as best he could in a shallow pit he scraped out of the sand, gnawed on a small piece of a ration bar, and washed it down with a sip or two of water, praying that the contents in his canteen would somehow miraculously last until he escaped from this Hell in which he was trapped. If God could make one day’s worth of oil last eight in the story of the menorah, was it too much to hope that He might make the water in one lost soldier’s container last as long as he needed it? Making three days worth of water and supplies last for who knew how long was certainly going to take something along the lines of divine intervention. That and a good dose of Irish luck. At this point he wasn’t betting on either one.

Using his survival blanket from his kit to provide a small amount of shade, he would fall into an exhausted sleep hoping that he would be able to forget just how desperately thirsty he was, how badly he hurt, and how far he had to go if he was ever going to find help.

O’Neill was well into his third day when Mother Nature decided it was time to teach this intruder just who the ultimate alpha bitch was within this territory where he had chosen to trespass.

The sandstorm hit with such sudden ferocity he had no warning before it swept over him. Jack was driven to his knees by the sheer force of the wind, his shout of intense pain lost against the sudden and all-consuming roar of the storm. In a matter of seconds the swirling wall of sand surrounded him as Nature sprung her terrifying trap.

Suddenly devoid of the use of his senses, O’Neill fought the urge to panic. The wind scourged his face with a thousand points of pain as the sand tore at his skin. He was unable to see, unable to breath. It was as if he had been buried alive in this thundering tomb of a storm; as if he were drowning while on dry land.

Jack snatched his hat off his head, completely unaware that his bandanna had been torn away like Dorothy’s house in the tornado.

Burying his face in the cap saved him. Holding it like the lifeline it was, Jack was able to grab quick snatches of air without swallowing mouthfuls of sand. Laying flat, to offer as little resistance as possible to the savage tempest, he concentrated on breathing.

In.

Out.

Again.

Once more.

When had he experienced that recently?

He struggled to blank out the storm. To distance himself from the frightful reality that was doing its best to engulf and swallow him up.

Breathe, Jack.

And then it came to him.

He felt silly. He felt damn ridiculous, but Sara had insisted.

"You were there when this baby was conceived, Jack, and you’re damn sure going to be there when it’s born."

He had done his best to reassure her. It was a long time away, after all. She was barely three months along. There was plenty of time to learn all this breathing crap. Why the hell did he have to learn it anyway? Wasn’t she the one who was going to need it?

But Sara was just as stubborn as her husband and she had been a military wife long enough to know you didn’t take anything for granted. There was no guarantee Jack would even be in the country when the time came for Lamaze classes, so carpe diem, Flyboy, carpe diem! We’re doing it now.

And Jack knew when he was whipped. So he began learning the breathing techniques and he practiced coaching methods and he gradually became used to the fact that he was going to be a father. Not only became used to it, but began to revel in it.

A dad. He was going to be a dad.

He told everyone on base the wondrous news, ignoring their amused grins. He lay in bed at night, his hand resting gently on the growing mound of Sara’s stomach, discussing names. He went out with Frank and bought baseball equipment and hockey gear and completely ignored Sara’s teasing that perhaps his daughter needed to be a little older before she learned the fine art of bunting or sliding home.

It was a boy. He knew it was. He was going to have a son. And he was going to do his best to be the best damn father ever.

He was going to be a dad.

And then Sara lost the baby.

Things were going so well. There had been absolutely no warning. The Cromwells had come over for dinner and the four of them had joked and teased and enjoyed each others’ company until late. Just like always.

The girls had started discussing plans for the nursery, and when they got to pink and blue rocking horses, the hard guys jumped into the conversation with both combat boots on. No son of a Special Forces captain would be able to stomach pink and blue, much less rocking horses. No sirreeeyabetcha! Hell, it would give him nightmares. He’d be barfing up his formula just thinking about it. Nope. Fighter jets; now that was a nursery theme for an O’Neill. And on it went.

They had talked about planning a ski trip after the baby arrived, the five of them. And Jack had gone to bed thinking of the trip with the woman he loved, their baby, and two of his closest friends. He was at peace. He was contented. He was happy.

Sara’s cry of pain had shocked him awake.

Frantically flipping on the light next to the bed, he froze. Sara was balled up in pain. Her hands clutching the little mound just below her stomach.

And then Jack saw the blood staining the sheets.

The doctors called it a spontaneous miscarriage.

So clinical. So damn void of the loss, the hurt, and the fear that rocked their world.

Sara cried. Often. She tried to talk to Jack about how she felt, but he had retreated behind an impenetrable barricade. And no amount of pleading on Sara’s part could breech his citadel. He grew even more distant when she talked about them someday trying again.

He had refused to even discuss that possibility.

It was almost a relief for Jack, when he received his orders to ship out to the Gulf as hostilities increased between Iran and Iraq. It was so much easier to deal with a war than to try to share his feelings and pain with his wife.

And so he left. Left with so much unsaid between them.

It was so much easier to ignore the pleas to talk he had seen in her sad blue eyes. Easier to pretend that everything was alright with half a world between them. Easier to forget Sara’s pain, and hide his own as they parted. It was so much easier to risk his life doing his job than cope with the stinking latrine his hopes, fears, and dreams had become.

God, what a mess he’d made of everything.

And then he had received the letter.

Mail delivery was so unpredictable, that Jack’s delight in hearing from home outweighed the thoughts of what the contents might say. Later he cursed himself for his stupidity in being so unprepared and naive as to think that Sara would write idle chit-chat. He should have known her better than that. He should have suspected she would see through his cold, uncaring facade, the military bravado he wore like a part of his uniform. But the bottom line was - he loved Sara; and despite the fact that it was easier not talking to her about his feelings, he couldn’t deny that love. And that made him vulnerable. So when the letter arrive he could hardly wait to get back to his bunk and read it in private instead of ripping it open and sharing it aloud with the other guys not as fortunate to have received a letter as he.

In hindsight he could only thank God he had forced himself to wait.

The letter was folded and hidden away in the Van Dyck cigar box in his locker. He didn’t need to look at it to see its contents. He had lain in his bunk reading it and rereading it until he had it memorized. Held it clutched in his fists until it was wrinkled and sweat-stained. And even when he lay awake staring at the ceiling he saw the words. He saw Sara’s sad eyes. And it all frightened him.

He was silent and withdrawn for days. Shunning his friends, ignoring their looks of concern. Frank, knowing him better than anyone, put a firm hand on his friend’s shoulder, looked him squarely in the eye, and said quietly, "I’m here, Jack, if you want to talk." And left it at that.

But he couldn’t. Just like always. Not talking had caused the whole sorry mess. And he couldn’t talk to his best friend about things, any more than he could talk to his wife. It was as if he had a wall behind which he had to hide whenever anything personal even remotely looked as if it needed to be brought out into the open. A barrier that meant he couldn’t reach out. Because if he exposed his feelings he revealed his vulnerabilities, and that, somehow, down the years, had meant weakness. Having an Achilles’ heel. And, by God, no way was he going to show that to anyone. He was strong. Invincible. Indestructible.

Yeah, right.

The team received their orders two days later and Jack carefully tucked thoughts of the letter away until after the mission.

Nearly a day and a half passed before the sandstorm blew itself out. But by that time Jack was barely aware of the fact that the winds had ceased to buffet him. Having been unable to swallow even a modicum of water during the storm, dehydration had devastated what little strength he had retained as the sun beat down unmercifully on the semi-conscious man.

Strong. Invincible. Indestructible. Oh, yeah, Jack. Of course you are. It might help to relay that message to his body.

It was a pitiful excuse for a groan by anyone’s standards. He would have laughed at it if he’d had the strength. But it was simply too much effort to try. In fact it was simply too much effort to do anything, except marvel in the fact that he was still alive at all.

It was too much effort to sit up. Too much effort to raise his head. Too much effort to move at all. Almost too much effort to keep breathing. But some seed of survival managed to take root in his brain. Take root and grow enough that he was finally able to gather the strength to reach for his canteen and bring it slowly to his cracked lips.

Forcing himself to take tiny swallows of water when he wanted desperately to gulp down the entire contents, the tiny root of survival grew.

Considering how much sand surrounded him, it must have been a cactus root, he thought, wryly.

His ears hurt. Who would have thought grains of sand could be so irritating? But they were. He had to force himself not to stick his fingers in his ears in an attempt to dig them out. The way it felt he would have had to use the neighbor’s kid’s beach shovel and bucket to get it all out. There was probably enough sand in there for the kid to build a fair size castle. At least enough to fill a cat’s litter box. Which, he decided, was a much more appropriate analogy, because he really felt like shit.

His throat was sore. His skin was sore. His eyes were sore. He felt battered and beaten. The back of his neck was raw from where he had been sandblasted. His injured leg had stiffened up. It was definitely going to be tough to get moving again. But he wasn’t going anywhere if he didn’t hydrate.

So, with an agonizing slowness, that made him ache in places he hadn’t remembered existed until now, he sat up. And sipped at his meager water supply. And looked out over the landscape. Sand. And, would you believe, more sand?

Sand which is here. He wished he had a sandwich here. Or better yet he wished he was there having his sandwich.

He could feel the heat in his skin. Heat beyond that caused by the sun. He was losing his focus. And needed to hold on hard to reality. Fever was setting in. Delirium.

What was that show Sara’s mother like to watch? That soap that had her glued to the tube every afternoon. When no one was allowed to talk and the phone would be ignored if it rang.

‘Like sands through the hourglass... so are the Days of Our Lives.’

Ah hell, he was losing it. He must have brain damage if he was thinking about a soap opera. And if he didn’t get his butt moving again the days of his life were going to run out and right now an hour glass full of sand was just a little too ironic to dwell on for long.

Jack rested until dark. Doing his best not to worry about his dwindling water supply. He still had a little over three quarters of his last container. It would have to be enough. There were no alternatives.

Well, there was one. He had the option of admitting defeat, laying down, and dying. And he’d be damned if he would do that, now, or ever. Jack O’Neill wasn’t a quitter. He might be a hard to get along with pain in the ass, but a quitter he wasn’t. He had too much to live for to let this giant sandbox defeat him.

He had a wife who needed him and wanted him.

Whom he needed and wanted just as badly.

And his weary mind locked onto that thought with a padlock no amount of training could have taught him to pick.

As the sun lost its ferocity and began to sink towards the horizon, Jack struggled to his feet. He had a job to do. He had a war to win. Each step he took was one battle won on the long and painful road to overall victory. And to the winner of this war went the prize. Not medals to be worn on a uniform, not commendations from superiors, not even promotions in rank. No, the prize which forced him to his feet and prodded him into battle was worth far more than any of those temporal glories.

He would win this war for the right to see his wife again, to talk to her, to hold her.

Sara was worth more to him than any honor he could ever earn. And she deserved to know it. She deserved to have him be the one to tell her how much she meant to him. How much he loved her. How he carried thoughts of her with him on every mission. And it was those thoughts that oft times kept him sane when the filth of the assignment couldn’t be washed off his soul. It was thoughts of her trusting eyes looking at him, and shining with her inexplicable love for him, that purified him enough to go on another day.

She deserved to hear of his love; and of his regret at leaving her the way he had; and of his desire to make things up to her; and of his grief at the loss of their baby. And, above all, his belief that they could, and should, try again.

And she deserved to hear these things from her husband and not platitudes from a base chaplain who had come to comfort the grieving widow. She deserved more than a folded flag and an empty coffin.

Sara deserved to hear that he would rather die than have anything happen to her. And that it had terrified him when she lost the baby because he thought she would die as well. She needed to know that he had never been more afraid in his life than he was that night when he saw the blood and heard her muffled sobs of pain. She needed to know that he was afraid for her to try to get pregnant again because he was petrified that he might lose her if something went wrong again.

He had to tell her that he had thought about the things she had said in her letter and that he was willing to try once more if she wanted to. Because if he got a second chance, he still wanted to be a father to her child more than anything.

And so he had to win this war. Because he had to tell Sara all this, and more. He had to make her understand. It would be tough. Sharing his feelings had never been easy for him, but that was another battle for another day. Another war to win. And he would be victorious and tell Sara just how much he loved her. But first he had to defeat this foe, this enemy who surrounded him now.

And thus the battle raged.

Time lost all meaning. His exhausted mind would latch onto a wisp of a thought only to have it evaporate in the heat.

There was only heat. Sand. Thirst. Pain.

And a picture in his mind. A memory of a pixie-like face with fair hair haloed around it, caught in a gentle breeze that existed in another world. A remembrance of a shy smile from a time he could barely recall. A dream of eyes that shone with a love he somehow knew he would have to work hard to deserve again. A recollection of hands that had held him with a tenderness he ached to feel again.

It took him some time to realize that the landscape had changed. He couldn’t remember when exactly it had happened. He only knew something was different. The ground was different. Harder to walk on because he kept breaking through the hard crust on the surface.

Something was gnawing at his memories, just as the swarms of insects were attacking his raw skin. He knew about this place. He’d studied it somewhere, in some other time. He found it impossible to ignore the pieces and yet he couldn’t put the puzzle together.

He took another step and as his boot broke through the surface again he fell forward with a grunt of pain.

The hole he had broken through to was nearly thirty centimeters deep. He could see water glimmering at the bottom of the hole. Eagerly he cupped his hand and reached down to claim his prize.

The smell hit him just as the water touched his lips. Alkali. Salt. Suddenly everything snapped into focus and made sense. He was in the Shat-el-Arab waterway. The salt marshes along the Iran-Iraq border. The water was completely unusable thanks to the high salt content.

Flinging the offensive liquid aside, Jack wiped his stinging lips with the back of his hand. The training manual said the water here could act as a corrosive to boots, clothing, and skin. Damn, he would have been in deep shit if he had actually drank it.

Noticing that his hand was burning, Jack found that the palm was covered with tiny reddening blisters where the alkali had made contact with his skin.

Oh crap, add that to the list of ways not to spend your beach vacation, he sighed.

Taking a drink from his water bottle, Jack noted that little water remained. Shit, if he didn’t find help soon it wouldn’t matter that he had survived the accident. The result was going to be the same. He was going to be so dead one way or the other. With another weary sigh, he stumbled on.

The stars were beginning to fade. Soon he would have to stop and try to rest. At least he had escaped from the nightmare of the salt marshes sometime during the night. He thought it was during the night. Time had actually lost all meaning for him.

The last of his water was gone. Just like the last of his food some time ago. He couldn’t remember exactly when. He just knew he had ceased to feel the hunger pains in his gut. It just didn’t matter any more.

He had lost track of how long he had stumbled through the salt marsh. Lost track of how many times he had broken through the crust and fallen. Lost track of how often the sharp crust had ripped through his fatigues and sliced his skin. Lost track of how often he had wanted to just lay down and give up.

Now he was just plain lost.

And Jack knew it was over.

He was just too stubborn to admit he had lost the battle.

Lost the war.

He had always promised Sara that his last thoughts would be of her and at least that was one promise he would keep. His thoughts of her had been something precious to cling to. Now they were everything he had.

Soon he’d have no energy to keep going. Soon he’d have no choice but to lie down and let Nature take her course. Let Nature win.

He raised his weary head one last time to look towards the stars that had guided him this far. That had reminded him of Sara, and lying in her arms. The stars that, like his memories and thoughts of Sara, had been beacons on his journey. The stars that now, like Sara, seemed so far out of reach. Beyond him. And despair ran through him like a shot of lightening. And if his body hadn’t been wrung so dry he knew then, that, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he would have cried. Because Sara would never know. How he died. Where he died. When he died. But, more importantly than that, she would never know how sorry he was for the things he hadn’t said.

And he looked up to the heavens in a despair that was so heavy and pressing, that he found himself sinking down, to his knees. And, somehow, he knew he would not find the strength to get up again.

And then . . . he saw it. Through red-rimmed eyes. A sight so incredible it could only be a mirage. One last cruel trick Mother Nature had deemed him worthy of enduring.

Red, white, and blue. Stars and stripes waving proudly against the azure sky of the breaking dawn.

Representing freedom ... Mom’s apple pie ... baseball ... ideals ... the American way ... home.

Somehow . . . incredibly . . . unbelievably . . . he had made it.

Somehow, he had won. If the Statue of Liberty had beckoned him herself, he couldn’t have felt more welcome. An American outpost in the deserts of Kuwait. It hadn’t rained. He hadn’t seen a rainbow, but he sure as hell had found a pot of gold.

Pulling out his signal mirror from his pack, Jack awaited the green light to go home.

He had a letter of his own to write. He wouldn’t be able to say all the things in his heart, but he was pretty sure Sara would be able to read between the lines. When he shipped home he was going to hold his wife and make sure she knew just how much he loved her, how important she was to him. And even if he couldn’t find the right words, he’d find every damn way to show her that he possibly could. Yeahsureyabetcha.

He’d been a fool, but he’d be damned if he would ever be a coward and that was exactly what he had acted like. He had deserted Sara when she needed him the most. He’d gone AWOL in their marriage.

Never again.

Never.

No matter what happened.

He was going home to his wife and they were going to make love. They were going to make a baby. A baby they would love and raise, protect and cherish. They would have good times and memories to cherish until they were old and gray.

They would be a family forever.

Author’s Note: Those few words Jack shared about his past in the ice cave in Antarctica have always intrigued me. This is my interpretation of that mission gone bad. It was originally published in ‘New Worlds and False Gods #6.’

© August 2005 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.

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