O'Neill jerked awake as an especially strong gust of wind shook the prefab, making the walls vibrate alarmingly. The blizzard had hit them three hours ago and Tim was beginning to seriously doubt if the shelter would last for much longer if the storm continued at the strength it had displayed so far. If a blizzard could be graded like other kinds of storms, then they were surrounded by a hurricane of ice and snow, driven by winds which shrieked and howled like demented demons. Despite the fact that they were all tired, none of them were getting any uninterrupted sleep.

Lucas shifted restlessly, then settled back under the blankets. O'Neill blessed the resilience of youth, conveniently overlooking the fact that Lucas was only seven years younger than he was. Wolenczak had been quick enough to realise that their situation had become a lot less secure with the news that seaQuest couldn't send an immediate rescue party, but he had obviously decided to believe the others when they had made comforting noises. O'Neill just wished there was someone around to make the same kind of reassurances to him.

His gaze slid in the direction of Krieg and Ortiz. It had come as a considerable relief to all of them when Ben had regained consciousness and promptly started making outrageous claims as to the amount of agony he was in. Knowing damn well that Krieg wouldn't make such a fuss if he really was in serious pain, O'Neill and Ortiz had promptly relaxed and started making sarcastic comments. Krieg had responded in kind and Lucas had taken comfort in the sheer normality of their exchanges.

Despite his show of bravura, however, the other two had realised that the Supply officer was in pain and had only reluctantly agreed to his demand that they gave him only the mildest of painkillers. His determined show of optimism had eventually flagged and now he seemed to be the only one of them who was getting a decent amount of sleep, sheer exhaustion keeping him under except when the wind really peaked.

Ortiz.... Tim bit his lip and tried once again to figure out a way of giving the Cuban some of his share of the blankets without getting his head bitten off. Despite their best efforts, they had only managed to increase the heating unit's output by a small amount and once the blizzard started the temperature had dropped dramatically. Miguel hadn't said anything, but to Tim his increasing misery had been as obvious as if it had been spelled out in neon letters. Luckily, Lucas had realised that this was for real and his obnoxious behaviour had vanished, otherwise blood would probably have been spilled. Tim sighed to himself. When would Wolenczak realise that he didn't have to act the prima donna in order to be noticed? He was far more likeable when he acted like a human being.

"No, I don't want any of your blankets," Ortiz growled, lifting his head to glower at the comtech.

O'Neill stared at him in pure astonishment. "How-"

"You had a 'how am I going to pretend I don't need my blankets' look on your face," Ortiz said irritably. "Will you quit hovering over me like some demented mother hen? So I'm cold. We're all cold. It's not so bad now I've got my clothes back on and we ate some more food. If you want to worry over someone, fret over Krieg."

"I am, but I know how badly you cope with the cold," O'Neill retorted. "Ah-ah, don't you get prickly with me, Miguel Ortiz. I was with you when we were stuck with Hitchcock in the MagLev, remember? You damn near scared me out of my wits on that occasion!"

"Not that that takes all that much doing," Ortiz retorted sarcastically, although there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm behind the barb. He had extremely unpleasant memories of that occasion. "Okay, okay, so I can't take the cold. There's nothing we can do about it, so leave me a little dignity and stop going on about it!"

"Just take one extra blanket, Miguel. Please? As a favour to me. I promise I'll shut up after that, but it'll make me feel better."

"You are such a pain, you know that?" Ortiz demanded tiredly. "All right; one blanket, but if you so much as mention this again I am going to strangle you with your own worry beads!"

"I don't-" O'Neill swallowed the automatic protest and grinned weakly. "So I worry. You worry all the time and I'm supposed to accept it."

"That's different," Ortiz snapped.

"How?"

"Because then it's me doing the worrying and you getting into trouble."

O'Neill waited for a moment for the Cuban to continue. "That's it?" he demanded incredulously. "That's your justification? The logic's a touch shaky, Ortiz."

"I don't need logic," Ortiz sniffed. "I'm Cuban. Logic is for foreigners and wimps."

"Oh, thanks very much. I'm not going to ask what category I fall into! Take the damn blanket and think warm thoughts."

He tossed the blanket over and then tried to find a comfortable spot on the floor. One thing they had discovered when the storm had hit was that the prefab was full of draughts. No matter how hard they tried, everywhere seemed to be in the path of a frigid gust of wind. Muttering darkly to himself in Arabic, O'Neill curled himself into as tight a ball as was physically possible and wondered if he could manifest some version of psi powers which included above-average temperatures.

The crash which reverberated through the prefab had him uncurling again in a terrified rush, only to be met by a gale-driven faceful of snow. For one horrified moment he wondered if he had somehow managed to somehow create some kind of disaster with his incautious thoughts. Then sanity reasserted itself as he realised that an external force had been responsible for part of the prefab wall collapsing inwards.

"Madre de Dios!" Ortiz yelled as he floundered to his feet. "Bears!"

O'Neill had spotted them at the same moment. What the polar bears had been doing out in this weather and how they had realised that the prefab represented shelter from the elements were questions that he had neither the time nor the inclination to consider. All he knew was that three polar bears were currently occupying the same space as they were and none of them looked to be in the mood to curl up quietly in a corner and act like polite guests.

"Lucas, get over here!" Ortiz shouted when he realised that Wolenczak was right in the path of one of the white giants.

To O'Neill's horror, he saw that the Cuban had grabbed one of the crowbars used to open the equipment crates and was scrambling over to where Krieg was beginning to stir out of his drugged sleep. Despite knowing that Miguel was incapable of just standing to one side and seeing Krieg attacked while he was helpless, Tim couldn't hold back the yell of warning when he saw just how outmatched the sensor chief was going to be.

Unfortunately for him, his yell and movement forward attracted the attention of the second bear. Too busy watching Ortiz and making sure that Lucas had done as he was told to pay attention to his own predicament, the first intimation Tim had of the danger he was in was when an eddy of snow suddenly solidified into a wall of white fur which towered over him. O'Neill did his best to change direction, but he knew he had been unsuccessful when there was a terrific impact against his upper arm which sent him spinning off-balance. The sound of Ortiz screaming something coincided with a flare of pure agony which shot up and down the length of his arm before it lodged somewhere high in his chest and abruptly made it very difficult to breathe. Trying to decide why his vision had suddenly decided to acquire interference patterns, O'Neill did his best to dodge the menacing bulk of the polar bear and wondered what the heck they had done to deserve this particular complication.

Too far away and on the wrong side of a polar bear to be of any use, Ortiz was forced to watch in horror as the second bear reared up on its hind legs and took a swipe at O'Neill which connected hard enough to send the comtech staggering. Miguel screamed an incoherent protest, then had to dodge as the bear in front of him decided that it wanted to take issue over the matter of ownership of the prefab.

Ducking the huge paw that reached for him, Miguel swung the crowbar around in a blow which hit the side of the bear's head hard enough to jar his arms painfully. For a moment he thought it had had no effect, then the bear gave a deep-throated grunt and turned away, shaking its head as it did so. Wary of such apparent good fortune, Miguel tried to keep an eye on his own bear while trying to see what had happened to O'Neill.

His heart leapt into his mouth when he could see no sign of Tim, although the second bear was now moving away, heading back out through the gap they had originally torn in the wall of the prefab. The third bear had already vanished, which left the first, and largest, bear to contend with. The initial retreat abruptly reversed itself as the animal gave a roar and lunged towards Miguel, moving with incredible swiftness for so big an animal.

Knowing that Krieg was directly behind him, Ortiz was forced to stand his ground, even though he knew that the crowbar was useless against something of this size when it was ready for him.

A bright flare of light blazed into being from somewhere behind him. Startled, Ortiz glanced around involuntarily and was nearly blinded as Lucas thrust the activated welding torch forward and waved it at the approaching bear. The animal nearly fell over itself as it tried to skid to a halt and reverse its course, the intense light and appreciable heat activating the primal fear for fire which any sensible creature had. Ortiz was knocked off his feet and into a pile of crates as the bear barged past him and made off after the other two, the lure of shelter from the elements cancelled by the hostile reception they had received.

For a moment there was only the sound of the wind as it howled through the new opening and gleefully laid claim to the interior of the prefab. Swearing that he was going to make damned sure that he never got pulled for Arctic duty ever again, Ortiz rolled over and got to his feet wearily, rubbing at his head where it had hit the edge of a crate. Lucas was still standing with the welding torch in his hand, looking like he wanted to run and hide but couldn't remember how his legs worked.

"That was a brilliant idea, Lucas," Krieg said as he struggled out from under his blankets and tried to sit up. The lieutenant looked white as a sheet, but whether that was from pure terror at how close a shave he had had or due to his injuries was a moot point. "We'dve probably been killed if it hadn't been for you. Right, Ortiz?"

Miguel barely heard him. Dazed and confused he might be, but one look had told him that O'Neill was no longer in the prefab and he remembered that the last sight he had had of the comtech had been of him staggering in the direction of the hole in the wall with two polar bears in close proximity. Grabbing the crowbar again, he lunged in the direction of the gap, ignoring the wave of dizziness which nearly sent him crashing to his knees.

"Ortiz!" Krieg bellowed, alarm lending his voice a strength it had previously lacked. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"Tim's out there," Ortiz threw over his shoulder. "One of the bears got him and now he's disappeared. I've got to find him!"

"Are you nuts?" Krieg tried to get up and subsided with a strangled cry as his abused shoulder protested the movement in no uncertain terms. "You wouldn't last ten seconds out there. If you go out you'll get yourself just as lost. Miguel!"

It was doubtful if Ortiz even registered what the other man was yelling. All he knew was that his friend was injured and possibly being hunted by the animals they had successfully driven off. No amount of reason could counter the simple fact that Miguel thought that Tim needed help. "Lucas, keep an eye on Ben for me," he called over his shoulder as he plunged outside.

He realised he had probably made a serious mistake the moment he left the shelter of the prefab and a blast of ice-tipped wind sent him reeling off-balance and flattened him. Visibility was almost nil and he couldn't even see the shelter he had just left. It was all he could do to keep breathing as the savage wind strove to suck the oxygen from his lungs. As he struggled to his feet, he stared around frantically, raising a hand to protect his eyes against the ferocious, wind-driven ice. What light there was was a curious bluish-green which made it difficult to focus on anything and made distances deceptive. It was a little frightening to realise that this was the tail end of the storm, the winds robbed of much of the power they would have possessed less than an hour ago.

"O'Neill?" Miguel screamed at the top of his lungs. "TIM!!"

Only the wind howled an answer. Doing his best to fight down the fear which was threatening to choke him, Ortiz tried to find the indefinable sense of Tim which was always a part of him, seeking a direction to follow. His head ached, probably from the clip he had taken during the fight with the bear, but after a moment he thought he felt a tug from directly ahead. Knowing that an injured Tim wouldn't last long in these conditions - especially if those bears caught up with him - Miguel drew his coat tighter around him and set off into the teeth of the blizzard.

oooOooo

By the time O'Neill had followed the wall of the prefab around until he got back where he had started from, he was chilled to the bone and felt as if he had gone ten rounds with one of those illegal cyborg fighters the authorities were always trying to eliminate. It was amazing how powerful a tiny snowflake could become when it was driven by gale force winds and travelled in packs. He lurched through the newly created gap in the shelter and almost fell over Lucas.

"Tim!" Wolenczak grabbed at the comtech and dragged him further into the prefab, displaying a surprising amount of strength as he did so. "What are you doing back here? Where's Miguel?"

"What?" O'Neill pushed his sodden hair out of his eyes and took his glasses off when he realised the melting snow was making it impossible to see the teenager. "What happened?"

The teenager didn't answer, having realised that it was more than melting snow soaking one of the arms of O'Neill's coat. "You're hurt!" he exclaimed, a hint of panic starting to colour his voice.

"Hmm? Oh, it's worse than it looks," O'Neill soothed, then bit down a overwrought giggle when he realised how hopelessly macho that sounded. "Really," he continued to reassure. "The bear managed to rip the coat but he only scored the skin. The cold's already helped to slow the bleeding." He paused and glanced around as it belatedly registered with him that a certain demented Cuban mother hen hadn't descended in berserk mode. "Lucas, where's Miguel?"

"That's what I was going to ask you," Lucas retorted, reluctantly deciding that he preferred to take Tim's word on the matter rather than take a good look at his arm. "He went out to find you when we realised that the bears had chased you out."

"What?" O'Neill stared at Wolenczak in pure horror. "The bears didn't chase me anywhere! I just ducked around the curve of the prefab to get away from them and kept following it around until I got back where I started. If I'd done anything else I would have been hopelessly lost in the first few seconds. When did he leave?"

"About..." Lucas glanced at his watch helplessly, then glanced across to where Krieg was almost invisible under a pile of blankets. "I don't know," the teenager admitted miserably. "Maybe ten minutes?"

"Oh, God," O'Neill breathed.

Ten minutes in the white hell outside was more than long enough to get hopelessly lost. Tim's immediate reaction was to hurtle out after the Cuban, but the look of sheer terror on Lucas' face as he got to his feet stopped the comtech. Wolenczak had already watched one of them dash out into the blizzard and vanish. It wasn't going to do him any good to see the pattern repeated. The momentary hesitation was long enough to allow common-sense to kick in and override instinct. No matter how much Miguel might need him, going off half-cocked was only going to get them both killed.

"All right," he said, more to himself than Lucas. "First things first, then I go after that crazy Cuban. Lucas, did you get injured at all?"

"No," the teenager said a little bitterly. "I never got so much as a scratch on me." He went on to detail what he had pieced together of the frenetic events when the bears had come calling. "Ben wanted to go after Miguel and drag him back," he finished, "but when he got to his feet he just passed out again. I... I didn't know what to do, so I tried to make him comfortable and keep the worst of the cold off him. I was trying to get the partition wall back up when you came in."

Realising that the younger man badly needed some reassurance, Tim forced down the fear that was hammering at his patience and gave Lucas a heartfelt hug. "You did great, Lucas," he said confidently. "All the right things."

"Really?" Wolenczak said hopefully.

"Absolutely," O'Neill said fervently. After all, it was the truth. "Your first priority would have been the wounded officer in front of you. If Krieg had tried to follow Ortiz, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Come to that, Miguel should have known better," he growled, angry with his friend despite guessing what had been going through the other's mind.

"I think... I think he hit his head when the bear knocked him off his feet," Lucas said slowly. "He was rubbing at the side of his head like it hurt him until he realised he couldn't see you anywhere. Then he kinda freaked."

O'Neill's heart didn't stop at his boots at that news. Concussed? If he's concussed, Miguel's not going to realise he can't home in on me. Come to that, I may not be able to find him. Swallowing down the growing fear, Tim did his best to conceal his doubts from Lucas. "In that case I won't kill him too much when I catch up with him," he forced out. "Now, let's see about getting that wall back in place before we all freeze to death."

To his relief, the damage to the partition wasn't all that severe. Through sheer luck - good or bad was something he couldn't make up his mind about - the bears had hit the wall at exactly the right angle to spring the bolts holding this section in place and it had simply fallen inwards. Once the two of them managed to get it back into place, Lucas was able to weld the bolts back into place while O'Neill kept it in position.

His own injuries were beginning to bother him. Now that he was back out of the biting wind, the claw marks had started to bleed again with a sluggish persistence which alarmed him far more than he was willing to let Lucas see. He raided the first aid kit for antiseptic and bandages, then realised that he couldn't bind his arm one-handed. After a moment, he sighed and gave in to the inevitable.

"Lucas, can you give me a hand?"

Wolenczak looked just as reluctant as he felt, but he came over to settle down beside him obediently. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself against what was to come, O'Neill took off his coat and used the scissors from the kit to open up his uniform sleeve and the jumpers underneath. The layers of clothing had probably saved his arm, blunting the force of the bear's swipe until it barely scraped his skin. Unfortunately, what was a scrape for an adult polar bear was pretty serious for a human.

Wolenczak whimpered and looked as though he wanted to throw up. Taking his first good look at what had been done to him, Tim felt like doing the same thing. Three deep scoring furrows started at his shoulder and travelled downwards until they petered out just above the elbow. Shallow they might be, but they had bled copiously and bruising was already developing all around them, making the entire picture even worse. They also hurt like hell.

Swallowing down his nausea, Tim set to work cleaning out the clothing fibres which had been driven into the wounds and would cause infection if they weren't removed. After a moment of hesitation, Wolenczak joined in, trying hard not to hurt him any further. The scores continued to bleed, but as Tim pointed out to a slightly green Lucas, that was actually a good thing since it helped in cleaning the wounds.

Eventually Tim decided that he had done the best he could under the circumstances. Besides, he was starting to run out of antiseptic. With Lucas' help, he managed to bandage everything up and then did his best to rearrange his uniform back over the injury to protect it from the cold. With that out of the way, and having checked to reassure himself that Krieg didn't seem any the worse for his exertions, Tim turned his attention outwards again and immediately noticed one big difference.

"Can you hear anything, Lucas?" he demanded after a moment.

Jerked out of his own thoughts, Wolenczak tried to work out what O'Neill was talking about, then his eyes widened. "The wind," he blurted out. "I can't hear it any more."

O'Neill was already scrambling for the door. One look outside and he realised that the blizzard had died down as swiftly as it had originally struck. Offering up a brief prayer of thanks, he ducked back into the prefab.

"Right, this is probably going to be my best chance to find Miguel," he said briskly. "Hand me that bag, Lucas. I want to take some things with me, just in case the worst comes to the worst."

"But... if the snow has stopped, seaQuest will be sending help, right?" Lucas protested a little timidly.

O'Neill nodded as he continued to select the bare minimum of things he thought he'd need. "That's right, but even if they started out as soon as they realised the blizzard was blowing itself out, it'll still take them at least four hours to get here. There's going to be a lot of fresh snow, Lucas, and the 'cats don't travel at their best over loose snow. It slows them down."

"Shouldn't you check with seaQuest before you go?"

There was a distinctly desperate edge to Wolenczak's voice now, and O'Neill felt a stab of guilt as he realised how scared the teenager was of being left on his own with an injured Krieg to care for. It wasn't strong enough to make him consider abandoning his plan, though.

"With Krieg out cold, I'm the ranking officer, Lucas. It's my decision to go after Miguel. Even though the snow's stopped falling, he could still die if some kind of help doesn't get to him." He conveniently turned a blind eye to the fact that, as ranking officer, it was his responsibility to stay where he was and take care of those of his charges he knew to be safe. He'd deal with the consequences of his decision later. "I doubt if the bears will come back here, given the reception they had last time. I'll be taking a location signal with me, so when the snowcat arrives from seaQuest, they'll be able to pick us up when they swing back to the boat."

"But-"

"Lucas, I can't leave him out there to freeze to death!" O'Neill shouted, then flushed with shame at his loss of control. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you, but it's too damn easy to die here."

"I'm sorry too," Lucas mumbled. "I guess I'm scared you'll die as well if I let you go."

Finishing off stuffing items into the bag and rolling a couple of blankets into a tight bundle to fasten on top, O'Neill paused to rest a comforting hand on Wolenczak's shoulder. "Lucas, no-one is going to die if I have the slightest thing to say about it. I'm going to do my damnedest to find Miguel and I may even get him back here before the snowcat arrives! He might be on his way back now the snow's quit falling."

And he might already be dead. O'Neill ruthlessly suppressed that unwelcome thought but he couldn't help but dwell on the fact that he wasn't getting anything along the link he shared with Ortiz. Shaking off the morbid direction his thoughts were taking, Tim went over to Krieg and carefully removed his coat, replacing it with his own. When he turned back to see the puzzled look on Lucas' face, he grinned a little sheepishly.

"Ben's coat doesn't have air-conditioning in the sleeve," he explained ruefully.

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Uh, Tim?"

"What?" O'Neill braced himself for another barrage of arguments.

"Take care, okay?"

O'Neill paused and turned to stare at Wolenczak, then gave him as reassuring a smile as he was capable of. "Always," he said reassuringly. "Miguel's the one who specialises in crazy stunts."

The snow might have stopped falling but it was still bitterly cold when he stepped outside. Closing the door behind him, and waiting until he heard Lucas fasten it behind him, Tim was nevertheless conscious of an odd lightening to his spirits. At least he was doing something now, rather than sitting back and passively accepting what fate decided to throw at him. Now all he had to do was track down Ortiz and get them both back to the prefab before they froze to death.

Nothing to it. What'll I do in my free time? Gazing around him, O'Neill swallowed the sigh which threatened and tried to decide on a direction. The cliched view people held of the Arctic was a flat wasteland which stretched as far as the eye could see, where anything dark stood out like a beacon against all the white. That kind of landscape existed, of course, but unfortunately it wasn't the one they were inhabiting.

Of course not. That would make my life too easy, wouldn't it? Tim fumed to himself. The whole reason behind their being in this area was the fact that the thick ice was showing signs of stress and possibly in the process of breaking up during the summer period. Huge slabs the size of office buildings had torn free of the main mass and had been pushed up by the pressure of the surrounding ice. Chunks had in turn broken off those slabs and fallen down to pile haphazardly around, while the blizzard had blanketed the entire region with a dense blanket of thick snow.

Well, he wasn't going to get anywhere by standing here and fuming over the inconvenience of the terrain. O'Neill shut his eyes against the harsh glare of the sun and tried to see if he could sense that indefinable something which was Ortiz' contribution to the link. For some reason, Miguel was always better at this kind of thing than he was. O'Neill could usually only track Miguel down if the Cuban was doing the mental equivalent of screaming for help, while Ortiz seemed to be able to find O'Neill any time he felt like it. At least, that was how it seemed to a frequently disgruntled Tim.

Of course, there was the small fact that Miguel didn't seem to have any psychological hangups about psi powers. Tim often thought that life would have been far simpler if it had been Miguel who had manifested psychic abilities. After his initial reaction of pure consternation, Ortiz had reacted to the idea of a link between him and O'Neill with a mixture of mischief and his usual catlike curiosity. Tim was guiltily aware that he had hurt the Cuban by rejecting any mention of the link so vehemently. It had taken him too long to realise that Miguel had taken the rejection personally, and it hadn't helped that O'Neill had found it difficult to talk about a subject which struck so close to his basic beliefs unless he was forced to. By the time he had started to accept what was happening to him and tentatively begun to experiment, Ortiz no longer permitted the subject to be raised, no doubt because he expected another tirade. Tim kept meaning to do something about that, but the opportunity just never seemed to arise except in an emergency when the chance to chat was at a distinct premium.

Now the possibility that there would never be another opportunity was haunting O'Neill and he couldn't help wishing that he had given in to Miguel's initial demands that they explore the link and find out what it could do. Tim suspected that Miguel had been doing a little investigating of his own, just as he had been doing of late, but since neither of them had had the courage to raise the subject, neither of them knew what the other might be capable of.

There! Tim's head jerked up as he felt the faintest brush against the strange sense he wasn't yet completely comfortable with. Impossible to describe, it nevertheless spelled 'Ortiz'. Hoping against hope that he wasn't mistaking wishful thinking for reality, Tim set off in the direction the feeling was strongest in.

As he'd expected, walking was pure murder. What looked like solid ground was often a thin crust of ice over a deep morass of loosely packed snow. Even worse was when he unexpectedly stumbled over a buried block which his boots skidded off and he ended up flat on his face or back. He was utterly exhausted after half an hour's walking and he dreaded to think how Miguel had coped while travelling the same route in the teeth of a blizzard, even if it had been dying out.

If he had come this way.

O'Neill shook his head and chased away the defeatist thought. He knew he was pinning all his hopes on that undefinable tug which still pulled him in this direction and even seemed to be getting stronger as he continued to walk. He didn't think it was his imagination or wishful thinking on his part, even though he recognised that he would never have been able to explain it to anyone else, not even Bridger.

Another worry presented itself during the brief rest stop he granted himself after an especially bruising fall which left his injured arm aching fiercely. Nursing it as he struggled to get his breath back, Tim eyed the darkening sky worriedly. You didn't have to be a meteorologist to guess that the blizzard was on its way back. O'Neill realised that he would have to find Miguel quickly if they were going to have a chance of getting back to the prefab before the storm hit. Determinedly shutting out the pain from his arm, Tim forced himself to start walking again.

In the end he fell over the Cuban. So much for worrying about how accurate this damn link is, he thought a little giddily as he frantically searched for a pulse. Miguel's skin felt as cold and lifeless as the snow and ice which surrounded and half-buried him and for a moment O'Neill feared the worst. Ortiz was curled up in a foetal ball, almost invisible under the snow which had drifted over him, and it was a miracle O'Neill had found him at all.

It took a few minutes for the fluttering rhythm under his fingers to register but Tim almost fainted with relief when he understood that he wasn't too late. Now he had to decide what to do next. The clouds were looking more and more threatening, while the light was beginning to fail appreciably. O'Neill knew that he wasn't that far off exhaustion and he couldn't be certain that he could carry Miguel's dead weight back across the treacherous terrain he'd just travelled.

Basic survival training at the Academy had never really covered this kind of situation - submariners didn't generally have to cope with being stranded in the Arctic - but O'Neill was a voracious reader and had a retentive memory for anecdotes and right now one of Crocker's tall tales was coming back to him, along with the vague memory of a book he'd read. True, the focus of Crocker's story had been completely unrelated to this, but Tim was remembering the throwaway reference to snow shelters and how they could save a person from quite lethal conditions.

Was the snow around here suitable? Hastily untying the blankets and shaking them out, O'Neill did his best to roll Ortiz up in them, gritting his teeth against the way the Cuban remained bone-limp and insensible. First things first. Once he had them under shelter he could do some serious panicking over Miguel.

His initial explorations left him deeply frustrated, with the snow too loose to be of any use. He persisted, mainly because he couldn't think of anything else to do and the wind had already started to pick up, bringing with it lowering temperatures. To his relief he found the deeper layers to be much firmer, with the hole he was excavating remaining in place and not collapsing in on itself.

Digging soon became a kind of torture. It hadn't occurred to Tim that he would be burrowing through snow, so he hadn't brought anything to use as a tool. It didn't take long for the pain in his shoulder to break through the mental barrier he had erected around it and after that it was a case of gritting his teeth and doing his best to ride the waves of agony that kept travelling along his arm and eventually spread to his entire left side. He favoured the injured limb as much as possible, but the sense that time was falling away from under him grew stronger and he was too afraid to dig any faster in case he brought the entire thing down on top of him.

He was shaking from a mixture of tiredness and reaction by the time he judged the hole was large enough to take Ortiz and himself. The wind was carrying the first flakes of snow as he dragged Miguel into the hole and then started to rebuild the wall until there was only a small airhole left which pointed away from the direction the wind was blowing in. O'Neill had no intention of letting them suffocate after all his work and provided the direction of the storm remained constant the hole should remain open without too much work on his part.

He still wasn't one hundred per cent certain that this was going to work. The book had talked about sheep surviving for days while buried in snow, while Crocker had insisted that a snow hole beat any kind of fancy survival aids hands down. Neither he nor Miguel were sheep and it hadn't occurred to Tim at the time to ask the Security Chief if there was any special trick to building the damn things. The bit about the airhole he remembered, but after that it was pure guesswork.

The first hard gusts of wind made him flinch and hold his breath, but nothing collapsed around his ears and after a while he dared to relax slightly and turn his attention back to Miguel. The Cuban hadn't so much as moved during all of this, although Tim thought he felt the tiniest bit warmer when he unwrapped him from the blankets and checked his pulse again. At least the marble-like texture of his skin had disappeared and some of his colour had returned.

There wasn't much room within the shelter. O'Neill had deliberately left it small for the purposes of retaining heat and strengthening the overall structure. He shifted Miguel over to one side and reached for the bag he had brought with him. He could sit here and hold his breath waiting for the roof to fall in on him or he could work on the assumption that he had done something right and they were safe from the elements for the time being. In the meantime, he needed to get Miguel's core temperature up as fast as was safe under the circumstances.

Taking out the space blankets he had shoved into the bag, Tim unfolded them and lay them across the floor of the shelter and as far up the wall as they would go. Every bit of heat he could retain would mean the difference between life and death for them. The chemical heat packs came out next; not very powerful, perhaps, but they were light to carry and didn't need any external power source. Unwrapping Miguel from the blankets, he remembered what Lucas had told him and checked his friend's head. There was a small lump and some bruising on the left temple; another thing to worry about, he thought anxiously.

"Don't you dare die on me, Miguel," he muttered under his breath as he started to take off the Cuban's wet coat. "I want to have the pleasure of killing you myself!"

Pessimism made him strip off a glove and one of Miguel's boots and socks. To his relief there was no sign of the dead white flesh which would have signalled frostbite and he replaced the items of clothing.

"Ortiz luck, right?" he forced himself to say cheerfully. "Anyone else would have bits falling off them, but not you, oh no. You just turn into an aesthetically pleasing lump of ice!"

Tim knew his tongue was running away with him out of pure fear, but even inane chatter was better than the wind-accompanied silence. He hated it when Miguel was laid low like this, hated it with a passion which frightened him with its intensity. Perhaps it was because Ortiz was normally so full of life and optimistic. When Tim stopped to think about it, he realised that he had somehow acquired the idea that Miguel was almost indestructible. Maybe the reason was that Miguel always seemed to be there when O'Neill needed him. It stuck in Tim's craw that he couldn't return the favour.

Activating the heat packs, he slid them inside Miguel's uniform before taking off his own coat and putting it on Ortiz. That seemingly simple task took long enough for him to realise just how difficult dressing an unconscious person was, especially when one of the dresser's arms was next to useless.

"Just let me get Miguel sorted out and secure and then I'll stop and rest."

It became a kind of mantra he chanted under his breath as he struggled to finish getting Miguel settled. Once he'd got the coat on Ortiz and fastened it, he hesitated, lifting his head to listen to the eerie wailing of the wind which seemed to be coming from every direction at once. So far his decision as to where to place the airhole seemed to have been the right one and he didn't think he was imagining the fact that the snow cave was already warmer.

He couldn't think of anything further he could do, at least not until Miguel regained consciousness and could take hot liquids. Reaching into the bag for the limited first aid supplies he had brought along with him, Tim got three painkillers and swallowed them dry, hoping that they would dull the fire which seemed to have permanently lodged itself under the skin of his arm. Shoving aside his own inhibitions for the moment, he settled down beside Ortiz and pulled the blankets over them both. Miguel needed the extra heat and Tim was willing to admit to himself that he needed the reassurance of knowing that his friend was safe. Hugging Miguel to him, O'Neill tugged the edge of one of the blankets over Ortiz' head, resting his own chin on the curly head to keep it in place, and did his best to relax and wait and see what the immediate future was going to bring.

oooOooo

Crocker stared out through the door of the prefab and conceded that the weather had beaten them once again. When he and the rescue party had arrived at the shelter, it had come as a shock to discover that both O'Neill and Ortiz were missing, although Crocker had done his best to conceal the bulk of his worry when he realised just how close to an emotional collapse Lucas was. The teenager had held up admirably, given the traumatic events which had occurred, but being left alone, coupled with Krieg's continued unconsciousness, had worn down his natural exuberance.

At first the Security Chief hadn't been all that concerned. O'Neill had apparently taken a location signaller with him and, when Crocker had checked, the signal had come through quite clearly. The lieutenant was less than three miles away as the crow flew. Unfortunately, the snowcat wasn't a crow and the terrain surrounding the prefab meant a lot of detours and dead ends in order to get where the signal said O'Neill was. Even that was more inconvenient than disastrous, but then the warning had come through from seaQuest of worsening weather conditions and ten minutes after that the first blast of ice-tipped wind had shaken the building.

"All right," he decided. "We might not be going anywhere but I think we'll all be a lot warmer and more comfortable in the snowcat. Doctor Westphalen, can Lieutenant Krieg be moved?"

Westphalen glanced up and nodded briskly. "I'd prefer him to be in the snowcat, as a matter of fact, Chief. He's suffering from concussion but moving him that short distance won't do him any further damage."

"Tobermory, see to it, will you?" Crocker gestured at the huge Scottish security guard, then turned to Wolenczak as the teenager came up beside him.

"What did you mean, we're not going anywhere?" Lucas demanded anxiously. "We can't leave Tim and Miguel out in this weather. They'll die!"

A possibility which was biting deep into Crocker's conscience, and he didn't appreciate Lucas raising the point. Knowing the fear which motivated the slightly aggressive note in the youngster's voice, however, the Chief did his best to keep his irritation under control. "They're experienced officers, Lucas, and between them they've got more lives than a dozen cats. Even if Ortiz was in trouble, O'Neill would have seen the weather change and got under shelter. You told me he took supplies with him, remember?"

"What shelter?" Lucas protested. "There's nothing but snow and ice out there!"

Westphalen glanced around as she heard his voice rise and came over to rest her hands on his shoulders in wordless empathy. Crocker looked at her and saw the same expression of helplessness in her eyes as he was certain was in his.

"Lucas," he tried again. "I have to believe that O'Neill and Ortiz are surviving out there, no matter how remote the possibility seems. The plain fact of the matter is that the snowcat just can't travel any distance in this weather. With visibility down to zero and fresh, loose snow being deposited by the truckload every few minutes, we'd end up in a crash before we'd gone a hundred yards. You know the kind of terrain surrounding us. Can you honestly say we'd be able to navigate it?"

"No, but...." Wolenczak's voice trailed away in frustrated misery. "I just wish there was something I could do!" he finally wailed. "I just stood here and watched the two of them leave and I didn't do a thing to stop them! I feel so helpless."

"If it's any consolation to you, kid, you're not the only one," Crocker remarked ruefully. "Now, get over to that snowcat and settle down. Waiting's one of the worst things the good Lord invented, but I'm afraid that's what we're going to have to do until this blizzard decides to blow itself out. As soon as it does, we'll lock in on O'Neill's signal and go and get them."

"If he's found Ortiz," Lucas growled, determined to be pessimistic.

"Oh, he'll have done that," Crocker said confidently. "It'd take more than a blizzard to keep O'Neill from finding Ortiz when he wants to nail that damn fool Cuban's hide to the wall."

oooOooo

Tim jerked awake and gazed around in momentary confusion, trying to place his surroundings. Memory clicked into place at about the same time he shifted position and felt a jolt of pure agony rocket along his entire length and eventually lodge somewhere in the base of his skull and try to blow it apart. Gritting his teeth against the nausea which flooded through him, Tim did his best to ride the worst of it out.

Gradually the pain started to ebb back to a level where he could bring into play the mental disciplines he had learned along with his martial arts. It took longer than he liked, but he was eventually able to pay attention to the outside world once again. Such as it was. The snow cave seemed exactly the same as when sleep had claimed him, although it was definitely warmer. For a moment, Tim frowned in puzzlement. Given the distinct warmth of his surroundings, he almost expected to see some of the snow beginning to melt, but everything seemed just the same.

Strange, but he had more important things to think about. Miguel had shifted slightly sometime during his sleep and had wrapped himself around Tim. O'Neill was torn between embarrassment and amusement, wondering how his friend would react when he woke up. Knowing Miguel he would see nothing wrong with the situation whatsoever and would consider Tim's discomfort yet another sign of how inhibited he was. O'Neill felt a momentary wistfulness over how comfortable Miguel was with the physical side to his nature. It had its downside, of course. Tim didn't have to be a fully fledged empath to recognise that there were times when Ortiz felt alienated in the 'keep off' culture which prevailed on seaQuest. It had even occurred to the American that that might account for the way Ortiz flirted so outrageously with so many women. It was the only way he could think of to get the physical contact he was used to.

O'Neill frowned a little over the way his mind kept wandering off the point. He wasn't as unfocused as this usually, especially when he had someone else depending on him. Shrugging off the faint unease that touched him, he placed a hand against Ortiz' shoulder and shook him gently. At first there was no reaction, but when he persisted, to his delight there was a definite mumble of protest.

"Hey, come on, rise and shine," he called softly.

"Grrf," came the irritated response as Ortiz attempted to burrow deeper into him.

"'Grrf' to you, too," O'Neill retorted, feeling laughter well up inside him at the normality of the reaction. Ortiz in the throes of waking up was a sight to behold. "I think it would be a good idea to get a little more coherent than that, though, Miguel. Come on, open your eyes."

With a final mumbled grumble, Ortiz complied obediently and cracked open an eyelid. He focused a little blearily on O'Neill, then gave a heartfelt groan and subsided back down, closing his eyes again. "Oh, great, it's you," he mumbled. "Go 'way."

"Ah, you don't love me," O'Neill said mournfully, covering up his mingled relief and embarrassment with flippancy. "You said you'd respect me in the morning."

"What!" Ortiz went from semi-conscious to awake in a couple of seconds. His attempt to leap to his feet in outrage dissolved into some heavy-duty swearing as pins and needles sabotaged any idea of moving and momentarily diverted his attention. "Damn it, O'Neill. You have one seriously warped sense of humour, you know that? Where the hell are we?" he demanded as he finally paid attention to his surroundings.

"We're in a snow-cave," O'Neill replied blithely.

"No? Really? A snow-cave. I'd never have guessed. The fact that we're surrounded by snow conceals the fact so cleverly," Ortiz shot back, glowering as he gradually came up to speed and started to remember what had happened prior to his losing consciousness. "Do I get another dumb answer if I ask where this cunningly disguised snow-cave is?"

"Out in the snow."

O'Neill couldn't help it. He dissolved into helpless giggles when Ortiz' exasperation went critical and the Cuban looked to be on the verge of exploding with frustration. Tim had no idea why things suddenly looked so funny. Part of him was giddy with relief that Ortiz was finally conscious and seemingly unaffected by what had gone before, but that didn't account for the almost uncontrollable urge to lie down and laugh until he cried. The look of consternation which claimed Miguel as he stared at his giggling friend didn't exactly improve matters.

"Tim? Are you okay?" Ortiz eventually ventured cautiously. He reached out to lay a hand against the comtech's forehead, then snatched it back with an oath when he felt the heat that radiated from there. "What the hell...?"

"Naughty, naughty," O'Neill clucked reprovingly. "You shouldn't swear, Miguel. It's not nice."

"If you think that's swearing, just stick around," Ortiz said grimly. "Tim, you're running one hell of a temperature. Are you conveniently forgetting to mention something to me?" His eyes suddenly narrowed and he stiffened. "Wait a minute.... I remember now. One of those polar bears clipped you, didn't they?"

O'Neill's humour evaporated into panic, uttering an apprehensive squeak as he attempted to scrunch down to avoid an Ortiz who suddenly loomed over him. "Don't yell at me," he demanded plaintively.

"Yell? Who's going to yell?" Ortiz rumbled threateningly as he tried to remember which arm had been struck by the bear. "I'm not going to yell."

"That'll be a first," O'Neill observed warily. He gave an indignant yelp and tried to wriggle away, slapping at Ortiz' attempt to undo the zip on his uniform. "Hey!" he yelped.

"Oh, stop acting the outraged virgin!" Ortiz snapped, his temper rapidly shortening as he realised that the situation wasn't anywhere near as safe as he had assumed. "I want to check on your shoulder, that's all."

O'Neill continued to splutter in outrage and make ineffectual attempts to block Ortiz, but when the Cuban finally lost his temper and yelled at him, the junior lieutenant subsided into sullen obedience, relying on passive resistance to make Miguel's job as difficult as possible.

Miguel eventually ran out of swear words and contented himself with running through all the various ways O'Neill contrived to make his life as inconvenient as possible. The fact that Tim agreed docilely with practically every observation did little to sweeten his mood. What little mental equilibrium he had managed to retain vaporised the second he got O'Neill's jacket off and he checked the bandages covering the wound on his arm. The discoloration to the wrappings was ominous enough, but the swelling along the entire arm and the degree of heat which he felt under his gently questing hand was downright terrifying.

For a moment, Ortiz couldn't think of anything to say. Any glib words were stuck somewhere in his throat and all he could do was stare down at his friend in horror. He studied Tim in the light of this new information and the fits of laughter and slightly wild look in the lieutenant's eyes took on a whole new meaning. An ominous one.

After a moment, he forced his numb mind to start working again. "Okay," he said determinedly. "Did you bring medical supplies with you?"

"Maybe I don't want to tell you," O'Neill sniffed. "Maybe I don't like you anymore."

Ortiz reined in the hot rejoinder which sprang to his lips. He'd coped with a feverish O'Neill before now and he knew that the lieutenant never really meant the things he said when he was rocketing around his mental stratosphere. "Fine, don't bother. I can find out for myself."

It didn't take long to locate the pack which O'Neill had brought with him, but it took considerably longer to wrestle it away from an O'Neill who couldn't seem to make up his mind if he wanted to dissolve into giggles or live up to his nickname of 'Tasmanian Devil'. Ortiz had to keep reminding himself that Tim was ill and hardly responsible for his actions, otherwise he would have flattened him out of sheer bad temper.

He eventually managed to gain possession of the pack when O'Neill made the mistake of resting his weight on his injured arm. It promptly gave way beneath him and he ended up on the floor of the snow-cave, his face momentarily as white as the ice and snow which surrounded them. Pushing aside the fear which immediately threatened, Ortiz did his best to ignore the comtech's small whimpers as he burrowed through the pack, giving a small yip of triumph when he came up with some bandages and a dented tube of antiseptic.

"What are you going to do with those?" O'Neill demanded warily as he focused on Ortiz.

"Clean that wound of yours," Ortiz explained shortly as he inched forward on his knees and made a grab for O'Neill's arm.

"Oh, no you're not!" O'Neill yelped as he somehow managed to avoid Miguel's grab and teleport across the cave. "I don't need anything cleaned, thank you very much. Everything's as clean as it needs to be."

Ortiz took a deep breath, closed his eyes and counted to twenty. "Don't mess with me right now, Timothy Mackenzie O'Neill," he growled. "I am not in the mood for it."

"You look mean," O'Neill observed a trifle nervously.

"That's probably because I feel mean," Ortiz shot back. "Are you going to hold still?"

"Um..." O'Neill gave him another wary look, then sighed and shrugged. "Okay. Is it going to hurt?"

"Probably, so the sooner I get started, the quicker it'll be all over. Now sit still and stay that way."

O'Neill continued to grumble under his breath, but he was sufficiently cowed to do as Ortiz ordered and remain still. Miguel quickly undid the old bandages, then winced as he saw the inflamed claw marks which were revealed. It looked as though Tim hadn't managed to get the wounds completely free of clothing fibres and this was the result. Swearing under his breath, Miguel did his best to clean out the infected matter, although he was pretty sure that Tim would need to pay a visit to Medbay and surrender himself into Westphalen's tender mercies as soon as they got back to the boat. The Cuban very deliberately turned a blind eye to the fact that there were several large obstacles between them and that highly desirable state of affairs.

"You're hurting me, you know," O'Neill observed plaintively after a while.

Ortiz winced, then covered his automatic reaction of guilt by glaring at the American. "It's your own fault," he growled. "Why didn't you stay at the prefab where you were safe?"

O'Neill gave him a wide-eyed stare. "You were lost. I had to find you," he pointed out in tones of sweet reason.

It was on the tip of Miguel's tongue to retort that O'Neill should have remained where he was and let Ortiz take his chances, but he swallowed the comment. O'Neill could no more have gone for the soft option when Miguel was in danger than Ortiz would have if their positions had been reversed. He was afraid for his friend, though, and characteristically he substituted anger for fear.

"You're mad at me."

Ortiz sighed at the small voice. "Not really, Tim. I'm mad at this whole situation. I wish you weren't so damn quick to act the hero, though."

"'S your fault," Tim said, peering down at his injured arm curiously, then turning slightly green and looking away. "You're always acting the knight erring."

Miguel blinked for a moment before working it out, then he snorted. "I do not! That kind of stuff is for idiots. I just take calculated risks. Hey!" he protested, as O'Neill started to shake. "Stop that!"

"Cal- calculated risks?" O'Neill echoed in strangled tones. "That... that's o-one way of looking at it!" He gave up the unequal struggle and dissolved into a fit of slightly hysterical laughter.

Ortiz glowered at him but bit his tongue against his hot rejoinder. He concentrated instead on finishing the rebandaging of O'Neill's wounds, holding the end in place with surgical tape. He wondered if he should give Tim something for the fever, but realised that he didn't know enough to make an informed decision. Besides, there didn't seem to be anything beyond the simple basics in the bag.

Burrowing further inside the pack, he found some self-heating cans of soup. Pulling a face, Ortiz decided that beggars couldn't be choosers and popped the one which made the unlikely claim of being chicken soup. Both he and O'Neill would benefit from getting something hot inside them, but if Tim was running true to form his appetite would have dwindled down to next to nothing and the most he would take would be a couple of mouthfuls.

"What's this?" O'Neill demanded suspiciously when Ortiz eventually offered him the can.

"Chicken soup."

Tim glowered at it as Miguel made him take it. "If this thing came within a mile of a chicken while it was being made, I'll eat my hat."

"Eat the soup instead; it's better for you."

"Wanna bet? Oh, well," O'Neill sighed. "Maybe the preservatives will help stop me from freezing to death."

"Trust me, Tim; with the temperature you're running, the last thing you need worry about is freezing!" Ortiz said dryly.

O'Neill surprised him by choking down nearly half the can before he gave it back. "It's nowhere near as good as Mama Ortiz'," he observed mournfully.

"No-one on the planet makes chicken soup as good as my mother," Miguel agreed complacently. "Not that I'm biased, of course."

"'Course," O'Neill agreed sleepily. "Yours is pretty close, though."

"There speaks either a true friend or someone with a lousy sense of taste," Ortiz laughed. "Why don't you get some rest?"

"Mmm, I suppose so. At least it's nice and warm in here."

Ortiz said nothing but bit his lip anxiously. While he'd estimate the temperature of the cave as being marginally below freezing, there was no way it could be described as warm, even by someone as normally resilient as O'Neill. The Cuban truly envied the lieutenant his adaptability where the weather was concerned. About the only thing Tim detested was torrential rain, while Miguel felt miserable as soon as the temperature went into the lower end of the cool temperates. He still remembered the winters at Annapolis with a shudder, although Tim had eventually managed to persuade him that a decent snowball fight was worth frozen fingers and toes.

He watched as O'Neill settled himself, automatically favouring his injured arm. The observation started Miguel fretting all over again and he drank the cooling soup absently, grimacing as the artificial taste, while he considered their options. There weren't all that many. He'd found the location beacon which O'Neill had brought with him and satisfied himself that it was broadcasting properly. At least seaQuest would know where they were. There was precious little chance of a rescue party setting out into the teeth of a blizzard, though, so they were stuck here for the foreseeable future.

Shivering as the cold reached deep inside, Ortiz pulled his coat closer and huddled in on himself, absolutely certain that he had never been more miserable in all his life. If only he wasn't so damned helpless, forced to sit and watch his friend suffer. Chewing on his lower lip, Miguel watched as O'Neill whimpered softly and shifted restlessly in his sleep. The Cuban inched forward carefully, rearranging the blankets so that Tim could at least benefit from his body warmth. It was a pathetic enough offering, but it was all Miguel had. He settled himself facing the airhole, hoping that their luck would hold and the wind remained in its present direction. Pulling the blankets around the two of them, he lay back and wondered how long it would take for the blizzard to blow itself out.

He jerked awake in shock as an elbow rammed into his stomach. Frantically trying to get his breath back, Miguel jerked away instinctively from the arm which swung into his range of vision and headed straight for his face. Ortiz grabbed at O'Neill and tried to contain his thrashing, doing his best to force reassurances past the constriction fear brought to his throat.

"Take it easy, Tim. Calm down, okay, before you hurt yourself, you stupid idiot!" Ortiz could see that his words simply weren't getting through and after a while he saved his breath and concentrated on trying to keep Tim from hurting himself.

The fit, or whatever it was, ended as quickly as it had begun. Taken by surprise once again, Ortiz practically fell flat on his face when O'Neill suddenly relaxed underneath him and went still.

"Dammit, Tim, I wish you wouldn't do this.... what are you looking at?" he demanded suspiciously when he got a good look at the lopsided grin on O'Neill's face as he focused over Ortiz' shoulder. Realising that it was suddenly a lot darker than it should be, Ortiz followed the comtech's line of sight. "Are you starting to see things no- Madre de Dios!"

The polar bear snarled in response to his yell of pure terror and tried to move further in through the air-hole, a huge paw gouging at the hardened ice. Too stunned to even think, Miguel was taken completely by surprise when O'Neill suddenly slid out from underneath him and headed straight for the bear.

"Nice doggie!" he carolled.

"Doggie?" Ortiz screamed in disbelief. His lunge after the American missed by a mile and he ended flat on his face. Spitting out a mouthful of snow, he scrambled back up in time to see Tim throw his arms around the neck of an extremely startled bear. Miguel gave a strangled moan and froze, frantically trying to get his mind to work.

"Does doggie want a Scoobie-snack, then?" O'Neill inquired cheerfully as he ruffled the bear's fur.

Miguel hadn't the faintest idea what O'Neill was raving about, but he was all too aware of the way the bear was starting to snarl, lips peeling back from a set of teeth which would make a Great White feel inadequate. Realising that if he didn't do something pretty quickly, Tim was likely to wind up as a light snack, Ortiz threw himself to his feet and lunged forward, waving his arms and shouting.

"What the-"

O'Neill lost his grip on the bear as he flinched away from Ortiz' approach and slipped on the ice. Landing against the curving wall of the snow cave, he blinked up at the Cuban in astonishment, then gave a yelp when the polar bear - after an initial retreat - threw itself against the small opening and roared with fury as it struggled to get at what it obviously considered its prey.

"Don't you yell at Miguel like that," O'Neill said indignantly. "Bad doggie!"

So saying, he hauled back and landed a respectable clout directly on the bear's snout. The huge white beast gave a yelp and pulled its head back out of the hole. From where he was, Miguel could see it standing outside the entrance, weaving its head back and forth in seeming indecision. After a moment, it gave itself a thorough shake and loped off out of his range of vision. For a moment, Miguel simply stood still, scarcely daring to breathe and wondering if he had dreamed the last couple of minutes.

"Silly doggie," O'Neill said ruminatively. "Never liked the animals. Always slobbering over you."

That broke the spell and Ortiz transferred his attention to where his friend was lying where he had fallen, muttering to himself in an increasingly bizarre monologue which somehow went from dogs to potted geraniums by way of late Gothic architecture. Miguel genuinely didn't know whether he wanted to hug or murder Tim, so he contented himself with cautiously approaching to airhole to check that the bear had really gone and that the blizzard had apparently blown itself out while they had slept.

"Hi, Miguel," O'Neill said cheerfully as Ortiz settled down beside him.

"Hi," Ortiz responded absently as he edged his head around the edge of the hole.

"Did you know that you're my best friend?" Tim continued in far too bright a tone for Miguel's taste.

"You usually mention it when you know you're going to get flayed alive in the near future," Ortiz agreed vaguely. He really couldn't see any sign of anything moving outside.

"Oh. Is that going to happen to me?" Tim inquired with interest.

"As soon as we get back to seaQuest, and that's a promise," Ortiz said fervently.

"Ah. Maybe I shouldn't tell you that I can hear someone coming, then?"

O'Neill commented.

"No, I don't think it would be... what did you say?" Miguel demanded, spinning around and ending up on his backside as he forgot the treacherous nature of the terrain he was on.

"I can hear someone coming," O'Neill repeated obediently. "Lots of someones. They're all spiky," he complained.

"They're...." It suddenly dawned on Miguel that O'Neill wasn't talking about hearing in a physical sense. As often happened, fever caused his empathic talents to surge and he was currently picking up something from nearby. At least, Ortiz hoped it was from nearby.

"Do you recognise any of the someones, Tim?" Miguel asked carefully. He never knew how O'Neill was going to react to being questioned about something relating to his talent.

"Uh-huh. Lucas and Westphalen. I think maybe Krieg and Crocker, as well, but Krieg feels awful strange. Kind of blurred."

"Considering the state we left him in, I think blurred is probably a pretty good description for Krieg at the moment," Ortiz said. He could feel a bubble of almost hysterical relief building up inside him and he suppressed it ruthlessly. He would wait until he had got Tim safely back to seaQuest and under Westphalen's care before he found somewhere private to let go of the emotional backlash to this little adventure.

"I wonder if the captain would let us keep the doggie?" O'Neill mused quietly.

"Keep the...." Words momentarily failed Ortiz and he gazed at Tim with a mixture of irritation and concern. The comtech was not so much on another planet as in the next galaxy! "I don't think so, somehow. Submarines aren't noted for their doggie crewmembers."

"I don't see why not," O'Neill objected. "He could guard the speeders and the launches and bite people when Crocker told him to and stuff like that."

"Don't give Crocker ideas," Ortiz said absently, his attention caught by the sound of a snowcat's engine rising above the eternal keen of the wind. "You weren't imagining things," he said in relief.

"Excuse me?" O'Neill did his best to draw himself up to his best insulted height without actually getting off his knees. "Are you insulting me or something?"

"Or something."

"Oh, that's okay, then. Do we go out and say hello, or do we stay inside and throw snowballs at them?" Tim inquired curiously.

Under less serious circumstances, the latter suggestion would have appealed to the frivolous streak in Ortiz. As it was, he wanted O'Neill on board that snowcat and delivered into the tender mercies of Westphalen as soon as was humanly possible. "We'll go out and meet them," he said firmly. "Hang on while I widen this hole."

It took quite a few minutes to break off chunks of the hardened ice ringing the airhole, but since its hardness had prevented the polar bear from tearing its way in to snack on them, Ortiz held down on the cursing. Tim's attempts to help soon ceased and Miguel bit his lip when he saw how pale and stressed the American was looking. God knew what Westphalen would say when she saw his injuries.

They finally managed to break out just as the snowcat hove into view behind one particularly large slab of ice. Miguel gave an enthusiastic wave to signal their location and gave a laugh of pure exultion when he saw the compact vehicle alter direction slightly to bear directly towards them.

"Come on, Tim," he said cheerfully as he carefully ushered the comtech down the slight slope on an intercept course. "We'll soon have you nice and warm and full of all kinds of nice-"

His world suddenly shattered into breathless chaos as something big and heavy crashed into him from behind. He lost both balance and footing and went tumbling to the foot of the slope despite his efforts to slow his fall. The sound of Tim's voice screaming something penetrated the buzzing confusion in his head and he struggled up into a sitting position, shaking his head and staring around in an effort to see what was so exciting O'Neill.

Miguel's stomach abruptly plummeted down into his boots while his heart somehow lodged itself in his throat. Tim was less than a dozen feet away from him further up the slope, his entire body visibly vibrating with outrage as he squared up to a huge bear which was weaving from side to side in obvious confusion. O'Neill seemed to be yelling at it in every language he knew, his arms waving in eloquent emphasis.

"You crazy idiot!" Ortiz screamed. "Get the hell away from it!"

Even as he scrambled to his feet, Miguel knew there was no way he could get to Tim before the bear attacked him. O'Neill swung around to look at him, swaying dangerously on the treacherous ground. The bear reared up on its hind legs and took a swipe at the lieutenant just as his balance went and he came slithering down to slope towards Miguel. The Cuban caught and held on to him, watching in absolute horror as the bear, clearly annoyed at having its attack fail, began to lumber after them.

The sound of a disrupter being fired made Ortiz jump out of his skin. He realised he had momentarily forgotten all about the snowcat and looked over his shoulder in time to see Crocker take fresh aim with the disrupter rifle he was carrying. O'Neill suddenly started to struggle upright.

"Don't hurt the doggie!" he yelped, trying to stagger towards Crocker and being frustrated by Miguel's relentless grip. "Leggo, you dog-hating Cuban, you!" he snapped.

"Not even if you paid me," Ortiz said wearily, dodging an elbow heading for his face and wishing that Tim would do something convenient like pass out. "Crocker's not trying to hit the damn animal, okay? He just wants to scare it away."

"Bad Security Chief," O'Neill slurred, finally surrendering to the fever raging through him and slumping to the ground. "Mustn't frighten the pretty doggie."

"Consistent you're not," Miguel observed. "Five minutes ago and you were screaming all kinds of abuse at it." A look over his shoulder revealed the bear in full retreat and he finally felt safe in relaxing completely.

"That," O'Neill sniffed, "was a completely different matter. I was doing it in foreign languages, so the bear couldn't understand me."

"Oh?" Miguel could see both Westphalen and Crocker hurrying towards them and the urge to lie down was nigh-on overwhelming. "How do you know it wasn't a multilingual bear?"

The last thing he clearly remembered was Tim turning a stricken look in his direction. "I never thought of that!" he yelped.

oooOooo

O'Neill opened his eyes and peered up with dark suspicion at the overhead. That particular bit of metal looked depressingly familiar. Medbay again, he thought ruefully. What the hell did I do this time? He had only the haziest of memories of his immediate past, but the acute recollection of pain had him prodding his shoulder gingerly and grimacing at the obedient throb he received in return.

It didn't take him long to pin down the essentials and he immediately looked around for Ortiz. His last truly clear memory was of worrying about the possibility of Miguel suffering from hypothermia. There was no sign of the Cuban and after a moment of indecision, Tim closed his eyes and tried to put out a delicate probe in order to get the lie of the land. He immediately got a surge of tired delight from the other end, followed by a definite slap and a warning.

"Tim? How are you feeling?"

The touch of Westphalen's cool hand on his forehead made O'Neill start and he opened his eyes quickly to smile up at the doctor's concerned face. "Much better, but a little confused," he replied truthfully. "What happened?"

"How far back do you want me to go?" Kristen teased. "Basically, we waited at the base camp until the blizzard blew itself out, then came to get our two stray lambs. Before you ask, Krieg is well on the way to mending and is currently resting in his quarters. I've told him to come in for an examination tomorrow morning, but the first aid you gave him gave him a good head start."

"What about Miguel?"

"Ortiz?" Westphalen blinked in surprise. "What about him? He was wet, cold and thoroughly miserable by the time we got to you. I gave him a check up, but apart from being tired and worried about you, he was fine."

O'Neill frowned. That was probably the truth but for some reason he found it difficult to believe. "Can you ask him to come and see me?" he asked.

Westphalen shook her head. "He can come and see you tomorrow, the same as everyone else, Tim. Right now, you need to get some more sleep and let the antibiotics do their job."

"Just for a few minutes," O'Neill wheedled. "No more. I just want to see for myself that he's all right. The last thing I really remember clearly is finding him unconscious in the snow. After that, nothing really makes sense."

"Considering the temperature you were running when we arrived, I'm not surprised," Westphalen said dryly. "All right," she said, patting his arm. "I'll go and see what I can do, but if he's asleep, you'll just have to wait. Agreed?"

"It's a deal," Tim said in relief. He already knew that Miguel was awake, although there was no way he was going to tell the doctor that.

He contained his impatience as best he could until a small noise brought his attention back to the doorway and the sight of Ortiz hovering in it indecisively. The sight of him made Tim realise that he had actually told Westphalen the truth when he had said that he needed to see the Cuban in order to believe that he was safe.

"What's wrong?" he demanded, gesturing at Ortiz to come closer.

"What do you mean, what's wrong?" Ortiz said evasively.

"You feel a little strange, up here," Tim explained, gesturing awkwardly at his head. "Are you going to tell me?"

For a moment he was treated to an unfathomable look, then Ortiz relaxed slightly and smiled. "Ah, it's nothing much," he mumbled, shrugging. "It was just a little too close for comfort for my tastes. I guess I'm still on the emotional yo-yo."

"Westphalen didn't say anything about it being close," O'Neill protested.

"Well, it was," Ortiz said shortly.

O'Neill eyed him suspiciously. He knew Miguel too well. When it came to someone he cared about, Ortiz could magnify the common cold into double pneumonia without even trying. "I wasn't the one who went dashing out into the teeth of a blizzard while suffering from concussion-"

"Sshhh!" Ortiz said, making frantic gestures with his hands.

"What?"

"Concussion?" Westphalen appeared as though conjured from thin air. "I think you neglected to mention that little detail, Mr Ortiz."

"I wasn't concussed," Ortiz denied, giving O'Neill a filthy glare.

"Yes, he was," O'Neill insisted, enjoying his chance to get some revenge. "Lucas said he hit his head against some crates and there was a bump on his left temple."

"Oh, there was, was there?" Westphalen said grimly. "Come along, Miguel. I think another examination is called for. Go through there and take off your clothes."

"What?" Ortiz shrieked. "Why the hell do I have to take my clothes off for you to examine my head?"

"Because I know how much it annoys you to have a full examination and I don't feel very charitably disposed towards you at the moment. In there and off with everything - and that's an order!"

Westphalen stalked off and Ortiz swung back to glare at an O'Neill frantically trying to control the giggles which were threatening. "This is all your fault, O'Neill. Why did you have to open your big mouth?"

"If you hadn't lied in the first place, you wouldn't be in this situation," O'Neill pointed out virtuously.

"I didn't lie. I just... left out irrelevant bits, that's all. Why does she always want me to take my clothes off?" he demanded irritably.

"She told you; because it drives you up the wall. You'd better get in there and at least show willing, otherwise she might call a nurse - a male nurse - to help you."

Ortiz made an odd spitting noise and stalked off. O'Neill settled back, sensing with relief that the discordant emotions which had bothered him in waking were already gone. Miguel had told the truth; he had simply been trying to deal with the emotional consequences of what had happened without having the sense to come and let O'Neill help him. Sometimes the Cuban's prickly pride made O'Neill want to smack him up the side of his head.

"Haven't you gone yet?" Kristen demanded as she reappeared at the door. "I'm going, I'm going," Ortiz said sulkily as he slid past her.

"You're not really going to make him strip, are you?" Tim asked curiously as he settled back down.

Westphalen gave a snort of laughter. "Of course not, but half the fun lies in persuading him that I actually mean it this time. Now you be a good little patient and get some rest. When you're feeling a little stronger, the captain would like to have a chat with you about your demand that he hold off leaving the area until you find some dog or other that you think would make a good pet."

"Dog?" O'Neill repeated in bewilderment, then his eyes widened in pure horror. "Wait a second; the captain wants to see me about a demand I made?"

"That's right. Apparently you were quite forceful about the matter. Something about reporting him to the Animal Welfare people if he didn't do the decent thing. And it's no good hiding under the blankets, Lieutenant. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to discharge you."

"Send Miguel back in here!" O'Neill wailed. "Tell him that he has my full permission to flay me alive for anything he thinks I've done in the last few months!"

Kristen smiled to herself, remembering Nathan's bemused expression as a delirious O'Neill had rambled on about 'cute doggies' needing a decent home while a highly embarrassed Ortiz had explained about the polar bears. Tim wasn't to know that she was teasing and she had a pretty good idea that the thought of having to face Bridger would keep him obediently in Medbay until she decided that it was time for him to leave. That would make a nice change. Nodding benignly to herself, she calculated that Ortiz had had time to get down to his underwear by now, so she left O'Neill trying to pretend he was a lump of laundry and went in search of the second half of the Terrible Two.

Sometimes, the doctor actually did manage to get her own way!

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