oOo

She comes to her senses... slowly.

She is wedged, lower body folded against a crease in the main trunk of the tree, upper body draped over a huge branch, its bark scratchy and musty smelling. Her leg hurts and she thinks she has scratched it during her fall. They were walking... returning to the stargate through a dense scrubland. The ground had crumbled... a hidden drop-off, and a ravine where ancient trees grew. She remembers a stumble, tearing pain and then.. blackness.

She hears sounds; scuffling, distant voices calling. She feels something warm touch her forehead, recognises it as a hand, and only then does she realise that there is someone with her.

He's unclipping the P-90 that's beneath her, carefully lifting the strap from around her neck. It's difficult... the side of her face is laying across the top of the branch, and the angle is awkward. But nevertheless, her head is brought up gently and the weapon's weight is gone.

Now he is dabbing at her cheek with something cool, and sunlight is cast warmly across her closed eyes, as one hand pushes back her hair. He wipes from her left ear across her cheek bone to the corner of her mouth, where she can taste the raw tang of blood. Something white and soft is held there then, and taped in place.

She squints lop sided, her eyes opening, and a face swims into focus.

It's the new officer from earth... a pilot, she thinks. His hair is not as dark as John's and it's shorter. They have spoken maybe once, and she does not remember his name.

It seems impossible, but he is suspended here in the treetops along with her. He shifts, turning away to rip open the ties on a pack, and the tree limbs move and shudder around her. The pain in her left leg is growing. It's high up on her thigh, and radiates down to her knee. He is lifting her head again, and she takes this opportunity to track her eyes back and down to look at her leg. In that brief moment she sees enough to understand the seriousness of her situation; she is not so much wedged into the tree as hanging from it. She has been spiked by a short stumpy branch and it has raked up along her outer thigh. The branch is still snagging the torn fabric, and she can see where the blood-darkened material has bunched, almost at her hip; she is being held up only by the thin fabric of her pants.

Before her head falls back, the officer pushes something beneath her cheek. It's black.. smells clean and feels cool; she thinks it may be a shirt.

"Easy now, ma'am. Don't move. Help's coming."

"Water?", she ventures, and in an instant a flask is at her lips and although much of it is spilled, she drinks deeply.

"What happened?", she whispers.

A wry smile is at his lips.

"You took a tumble, ma'am... I followed.", he says simply. Now she sees that his face and arms are scratched, in some places quite severely, and she sees the glitter of bright blood here and there.

He doesn't know her name, so she supplies it:

"I am Teyla... ", but she cannot continue past the weariness she feels.

A real smile now warms his features and he looks a little embarrassed as he answers, "Yes... I know..", then he looks at her with a steady gaze and adds with a polite nod, "I'm Lorne, ma'am... at your service", and the warm smile is back.

There's a sudden sharp pain at her hip, and she gasps, "No...!", because she knows what this is. The tree limb she is draped across is as big as a water barrel, and she feels her chest and arms slide slowly, inexorably around it, as her body slips lower, the weak fabric ripping further up her thigh.

She cannot help the look of panic she shoots at him.

She sees him move forward and one hand grabs at her jacket sleeve.

"You're slipping, but I'm gonna hold you, okay?", his voice betrays his concern, but is at the same time firmly confident and suddenly she is glad that he is with her.

"Trust me", and she is surprised to find that she does.

He's fumbling with something at his waist, working one-handed, and his face is hard. He's taking off his belt.

Suddenly he is very close, leaning his body across the giant branch. She feels his breath on her neck, and she shivers. His arms slide around her waist and he's trying, she realises, to tie her to the tree. She hears his noisy breath, crackling and halting in his throat, and then a curse escapes... the belt is too short.

The air is damp and cold around her head, and it's too thick to breathe. She thinks she has re-established a grip and that all will be well, until suddenly, with a wave of dizziness and nausea, everything slackens, and after a brief moment of weightlessness, she is falling again ...and this time she thinks she will find the earth.

Instead, though, she hears a cracking sound, and she is jerked back from her free fall, eyes flying open in alarm.

There is a breathless, "Hold on, ma'am...", and the creak and shudder of old wood.

She is dangling... by the front of her tac vest. It cuts into her face and neck painfully. She can see flesh... an arm, tanned and muscular, so close to the end of her nose she can smell it: warm skin, sweat, blood. One of her flailing hands finds a leafy tree limb and the fingers crawl over bark and greenery, and she manages to hook her elbow around. Now the branch is locked to her arm pit.

"I'm not letting go... ya hear?", his voice is tense, and has an edge of desperation to it.

"Just hold tight... "

As she hangs there, swaying, her ankles knocking against the swollen trunk of the great tree, she wonders if he means for her to hang on or if he was addressing himself.

One leg is cold; the other icy, and she imagines the blood from her wound is dripping from her boot and pattering softly to the forest floor.

She is empty, feels like a bloodless shell... only her face is warm, where it's pressed against the officer's arm. She moves her cheek against the smooth skin slowly, thinking that this may be the last comforting thing she will ever feel. She tries to speak, to tell this man that she is grateful... grateful that he tried, and that he should feel no responsibility for her death. But she is unable to push out the breath required from her lips.

She hears more voices, her father's is among them, telling her that there are better ways to die, and as she loses both consciousness and her grip on the branch, she silently agrees with him.

oOo

TBC and thanks for reading!

It's been a long time away from writing, at least it seems a long time, real life can do that to you! My other stories are pulling at me too, but this is just a quickie that came to me last night... hope you like it!