Track of the Apocalypse Ch8 Ficbit – Quiet

It was the quiet that woke Jack up in the morning. No howling winds, no hammering rain; none of the creaks and clacks of the Koutetsujou barreling down the tracks away from the latest disaster. Just the murmurs of a hundred-odd people going about their business in the early morning, punctuated by laughter and a splash that sounded like it had to be a good thirty feet below them.

Which was good. Water below, fine. Water flooding the tracks, not fine.

Taking a deep breath of lovely rain-free air, Jack rocked his head gingerly side to side. Ow. Not too bad an ow, but sleeping cramped up with Daniel on a hard foldaway cot with only a dry shirt and part of their gear as a pillow always led to achy mornings after. Though, hey, at least it was a bed. Compared to ha’tak prison quarters this was the lap of luxury.

His storm-achy joints weren’t buying it. Ow.

He cracked open one eye at a time, deliberately taking his time waking up. Yesterday had been exhausting for everybody, SG-1 were still strangers to these people, and there were kids running around. Better to take a few extra seconds to get oriented than risk an aftershock of adrenaline firing off combat reflexes. Because they were not in combat, or he’d be hearing a hell of a lot more gunfire about now. Kurusu’s bushi were good.

…Unless Dogen’s Kongokaku had gotten the drop on them in the night. Which, again, he’d have heard gunfire, or at least slicey.

Oh hi there, post-combat paranoia. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.

Deep breath. Daniel was still sleeping the sleep of the just archaeologist beside him, tucked up against the armored hull, but his eyebrows were making those little squinches that meant his brain was considering joining the land of the vertical, or at least the Quest for Coffee. And on the bunk below, Jack could hear a bitten-off swear that sounded like Sam had just found out the hard way how much you ached after fighting a hurricane.

Stretching out some of the crackles, Jack indulged his inner ten-year-old, and peeked over the edge of the bunk upside-down. “Everything still in one piece, Major?”

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