What Do You Know- Conclusion
What Do You Know- Conclusion
by Revvie
Summary: An off base conversation leads to some big changes for Jack and Sam. Conclusion.
Category: Action/Adventure, Romance
Season: any Season
Pairing: Team, Jack/Sam, none
Rating: GEN
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 2004-12-29
The wind was picking up and the sun was setting on the planet where Daniel was conducting his recently funded archeological expedition, the first of this year's newly budgeted missions.
Teal'C had been on watch now for hours while Sam and Daniel were engrossed in the unearthing of artifacts, possibly of Ancient origin, in a long abandoned site.
Teal'C slowly stood up and stretched to his full height, stiffly unfolding his large form.
"Colonel Carter?" He called, moving towards the site that the two scientists were finding so mesmerizing.
"It is time to make contact with the SGC."
Sam looked up, picturing Jack pacing the floor of the control room back on Earth.
"Thanks, Teal'C. Wow! We really lost track of time. Go dial up, Teal'C, we'll be right there."
With his characteristic nod of respect, he set off towards the Stargate.
"Daniel, how much more time do you think we need to get that set of runes copied?"
"Just a few more minutes, Sam. I'm almost finished now."
Daniel was lying on his stomach carefully recording runes in a dusty notebook from a portion of an old wall that was now on the ground. He was so absorbed in his work that his glasses were halfway down his nose and he hadn't bothered to adjust them.
Sam reached down and affectionately pushed his glasses back into place.
"Come on, we need to go report in to the General."
"Okay, done. Let's go."
The Stargate was just behind the ruins of one of the old city's buildings. As they caught sight of Teal'C just in front of the open wormhole, they saw a flash of what looked like a dart or a small spear hurtling towards Teal'C. He saw it too, ducked and jumped into the shimmering puddle.
A group of men dressed in some sort of metallic suits came rushing up but didn't enter the wormhole, still open before them. They then backed off, looking around the Stargate area intently.
Daniel and Sam immediately backed off and found cover in the ruins, hoping desperately they hadn't been spotted.
Sam's radio crackled. The wormhole was still active.
"Carter, report," she heard Jack's tense voice over her com and could imagine what was probably going through his mind, having seen Teal'C burst through the Stargate at the SGC, under attack and without them.
"Sir. Daniel and I are secure for now."
"Good to hear. Stay under cover, and we'll dial the Gate in 30 minutes to re-establish contact. Dial home immediately if you gain access to the Gate before then."
"Roger, sir. Carter out."
Jack jumped out of his seat next to Siler in the control room and ran down to the Gate level where Teal'C was standing, still breathing heavily from his narrow escape.
"Teal'C! You okay?"
"I am fine, O'Neill."
"What's the situation on the planet?"
This was the worst part of his job, Jack thought miserably, knowing part of `his' team was cut off from the Stargate on a distant planet and there was nothing he could do to help.
"Unknown, O'Neill. The trajectory shot at me was the first warning we had that hostiles were present on the planet."
"Sir," called an SF, hurrying over to O'Neill.
"This came through the Stargate with Teal'C." He handed Jack a silvery, barbed dart.
Jack looked at it angrily, storm clouds gathering on his features.
"Get whichever scientists ran recon on this planet for SG1 into my office, now!"
Jack looked at his watch. Twenty-six minutes to go before contact would be attempted. A groan escaped him as he stomped to his office.
Daniel and Sam were trying desperately to melt into the stone ruins as the band of armed men came ever closer to their position, searching for any sign that Teal'C had not been alone.
Sam glanced over at Daniel and found his serene, blue eyes gazing back at her. Strengthened by his unwavering trust in her leadership, she resumed her survey of their situation, looking for a way to escape unseen.
She spotted a dark doorway still intact in one of the structures across the site from them, and pointed to it.
"Let's go, stay close to the ground," she instructed Daniel with one last glance at the location she had last seen the alien soldiers.
They crawled swiftly towards the opening without stopping to look back.
Shouts and cries rang out behind them as they made it to the darkened doorway, causing Sam's heart to sink.
They had been seen.
They dashed inside.
"Over here," called Daniel, pointing to a stairway descending down into the rocky floor.
Without hesitation they dove down the crumbled steps and into a dank room below the level of the ground. As they hid themselves in a crumbling crevice, they could hear their pursuers entering the building above them, with yells and the sound of smashing as the aliens aggressively searched for them.
Daniel reached out for Sam, grasping her hand warmly to reassure her that they were still okay, and Sam leaned against his shoulder. They could see no way out as the searching gang drew closer and closer.
Jack couldn't sit down for more than a few seconds at a time as he watched the minutes creep slowly by, so he opted for pacing back and forth in front of the control room window, watching the Gate below like a hawk.
"C'mon, Sam, dial the Gate," he willed fervently under his breath.
Thoughts of the last five weeks played through his mind.
Five weeks ago, Sam and Pete had broken off their engagement. Jack had taken Sam out for a talk, knowing she needed a friend to help her work through her feelings, but the outing had ended up far differently from his original intentions.
Sam had said she loved him.
And he had said the same to Sam.
After that incredible, life-changing admission, both Sam and Jack had worked hard to keep their working relationship unaffected.
The same could not be said for their relationship off base.
Unwilling to appear together in public, Jack had shown up that very next weekend at Sam's door, carrying take out and a rented movie, and they'd spent the evening happily cuddled up on the couch not watching the movie.
The next Saturday Sam had discreetly gone over to Jack's and picked him up for a day trip to the nearby mountains, complete with picnic and blanket. They'd spent the day hiking and laughing and talking, and Jack had never felt so completely at ease in the presence of another person as he did with Sam that day.
That was all.
Work had been busy, and both of them were trying mightily to stick to the slightly mangled regulations until they could find a way to be together that would not tarnish either one's military career.
But the atmosphere between them was so different now. It was so completely without tension or heartache, now that both of them were firmly committed to making a future one day together.
And now she was more precious to him than ever, a fact he would not have believed possible five weeks ago, but his increasing anxiety as he waited for the appointed time of contact was proof of how very much more serious his feelings for her had quickly become.
He rubbed his unruly hair in utter desperation. Five minutes to go, and still no incoming wormhole.
The time had come; the soldiers pursuing them were coming down the steps to the lower room.
Daniel and Sam stepped out simultaneously with zats and opened fire, having decided they had no other recourse but to try and shoot their way back to the Gate.
Daniel's second zat blast hit the rocky ceiling over their enemy's heads and the entire front half of the room unexpectedly caved in.
Sam and Daniel were on their knees gasping for breath in the dust within seconds of the cave in.
The air pocket they were trapped in was totally dark, but they heard no further noises from the direction where their pursuers had stood seconds before. They could only assume that they had been caught in the falling debris. The end of the room near the stairway to the surface was now completely full of rock and dirt.
After endless minutes of silence except for their wheezing in the precious little air left around them, Daniel spoke.
"Sam, are you hurt?"
"I don't think so. You?"
"My leg's trapped."
Sam felt around his waist and down his leg and bit back a curse as she realized his leg was indeed trapped under a large boulder from the lower thigh down.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not yet, I can't feel anything yet." Daniel voice was a bit weak.
"Carter? Daniel? Please respond," the com in her vest pocket flared to life.
She was so relieved to hear his voice, she almost kissed the radio.
"General O'Neill," she responded breathlessly.
"What's your situation, Colonel?"
"We're trapped in a collapsed building. Not sure where the hostiles are. We can't get out. Daniel's hurt. Running out of air."
Her staccato bits of data were spoken with great effort.
"You can't get to the Gate," Jack asked for confirmation.
"No, sir," she answered, then closed her eyes and gasped for breath.
"Stand by, Carter."
Jack signalled to Reynolds, who was waiting his orders.
"Send a probe through right now to check for hostiles and then prepare two SG teams for extraction, possibly under enemy fire; be prepared," Jack barked out.
He wanted nothing more than to charge through that blasted Gate and dig them out himself single-handedly.
"Sam." he called, no longer caring who heard his familiarity with her.
"Here, sir."
"Hang in there. Do you copy? We're coming to get you."
"Hostiles, sir."
"Don't worry about it, Colonel. It's not your problem any more."
"Roger. That. Out." Static was all Jack heard now as Sam's radio clicked off.
She turned her head towards Daniel, although the gesture was useless in the blackness of their rocky prison.
"Daniel?"
"I'm still here, Sam. It's beginning to hurt. A lot."
She could hear pain building in his voice.
"Stay still, Daniel, try not to move."
She placed a warm hand on his shoulder, reassuringly massaging the muscles there.
"Sam. Tell me what Jack and you talked about a few weeks back."
Only Daniel would use a situation like this to blackmail juicy information out of her.
But to keep him distracted from the pain, she answered him.
"He took me to this little pizza place up in the mountains. We talked about..."
After a moment of silence interrupted only by labored breathing, Daniel prompted,
"About what?"
"About Pete. Me and Pete. We broke up."
"I know...you told. Me." Daniel voice was a bare whisper.
"I told Jack...didn't want to marry....Pete...didn't love him."
"I told Jack....I loved him."
"Wait....you said...not love him."
"That was Pete. I love... Jack."
"You... love Jack?"
"Yeah, I ...love him."
More silence, then a gasp of pain from Daniel.
"That's...aghh!... so cool."
More silence.
"So...what now?"
"I don't know...you know?"
"Yeah, get... reassigned."
"Don't ...wanna reass." Sam was breathing faster, more shallow.
"Daniel, I can't... I can't get air," she said, beginning to panic.
"Relax, it's okay..." Daniel soothed in an almost nonexistent tone.
"Don't have... to leave SGC, Sam. Research position...civilian scientist."
"Save ...your strength."
"He loves you....too."
"He told ...me."
"He... told you?"
"Yup."
"Well I'll be," Daniel mused in amazement.
"Sam."
"Daniel?"
"I'm blacking out..."
"Stay with me, please Daniel! Please..."
"love you..." his voice faded away.
Sam tried not to cry, but the tears were slipping down her dirty face anyway. She cradled Daniel against her as best she could, feeling her own brain slipping towards blackness as well.
"We're through the Gate, General."
Reynolds' voice came clearly through the com.
Jack could no longer raise Sam or Daniel.
"No sign of hostiles, sir. We're going to look for Jackson and Colonel Carter in their last known positions."
"Roger, Reynolds. Keep me posted."
Jack was about to jump out of his skin.
Reynolds easily spotted the recent cave-in as dust was still swirling in the air above the site.
In a few minutes, they had dug through enough to allow air into the pocket below the surface, and a few minutes after that they were able to lower a light down to have a look around.
"There's bodies here, sir."
Reynolds stiffened, trying to prepare himself for the possibility that Sam and Daniel had not survived.
"They're...alien bodies, sir."
"Set up a chain and pass the dirt out, let's go!" Reynolds barked as the two SG teams redoubled their efforts, with two men keeping guard on the perimeter.
"Reynolds, report," Jack's impatient voice came over the radio.
"Stand by, sir," Reynolds answered, knowing how to handle O'Neill.
'Stand by,' Jack thought miserably as he paced.
If he got Sam back in one piece, he was going to make sure she never went through that Gate again.
How he was going to make sure of that, he was less sure of, but he was very sure it would kill him to go through this waiting game again.
"Colonel O'Neill," Reynolds finally called.
"Report," Jack returned.
"Close the wormhole. We're ready to dial up. We have retrieved Carter and Jackson and they're both alive. Require immediate medical assistance waiting at the Gate, sir."
"Roger," Jack said, signalling for the wormhole to be shut down.
Who needed immediate medical assistance?
Damn.
"Get a medical team in there, now," Jack shouted at the control room in general.
Sam had never totally lost consciousness, but she was very disoriented as the team pulled her to safety, fighting them with feeble fists as they lifted her out of the hole.
"Colonel Carter, we're rescuing you," a young lieutenant tried to explain to her as he held her arms at her sides.
"Rescue?" She parroted.
"Rescue Daniel...still in there...rock on his leg," Sam pointed as she gasped in the sweet fresh air.
"Yes, Colonel, they're getting him out right now. He's going to be okay."
"Okay?"
"Right."
She closed her eyes in relief.
"Sam?" Jack whispered in her ear as she lay dozing in the infirmary.
Her eyes opened slowly, reluctantly.
"Jack." She whispered his name cautiously.
"How's Daniel?"
"His leg is broken, but he is in pretty good shape other than that."
"The aliens that were after us?"
"All dead in the cave in, as far as we could tell. There were only four of them. I don't get it. There's no sign of indigenous people on that planet anywhere we've looked."
"Well, I've been thinking about that, sir."
"In your sleep?"
"I think they came from somewhere else, through the Stargate, and were off exploring when we came through. Maybe they thought we would cut off their access to the Stargate."
"You weren't threatening, so why would they attack?" Jack countered.
"Like you said, I was asleep when I thought of it. My theory may have a few holes still."
"You nut," Jack teased.
"Been thinking about something else, too."
"What's that?" Jack was holding her hand, taking advantage of the nurses' absence.
"I want to be reassigned. I want a research position, no more field assignments."
"You sure?"
"I am. The biggest attraction about field missions for me is now sitting behind a desk running the SGC."
"You love field missions. We need your expertise out there."
Jack was playing the devil's advocate, making sure she knew what she was requesting.
"Well, look at it this way. When SG1 started, there were two teams- SG1 and SG2. We were basically inreplaceable back then. Now there's 24 teams. There's lots of expertise out there in the field, but more artifacts and technologies are being brought back than can be processed efficiently. I only want to do the lab work now. That's where all the answers are going to be to 'finding technology to defend ourselves against the G'ouald.'"
"So that's it? That's what you want and that's why you want it?"
"You know exactly why I want it, sir," Sam smiled bewitchingly.
"And that's exactly why you're going to get it," Jack promised dangerously.
The nurse came back in.
Jack sat up, distancing himself, but with his eyes still locked with Sam's.
"Good night, Colonel," he said officially as he left.
Daniel was standing in her lab door three weeks later, leaning bonelessly on his crutches as if it was the easiest thing in the world to be hobbling around with a casted leg.
"Hey, Daniel, how's the leg doing?"
"Great, Sam. I heard some news about you."
"That I've been reassigned to full-time research on alien artifacts and technology at the SGC?"
"That's what I heard. So I guess you want to thank me, then?"
"Ummm, thank you. For what?"
"I believe it was my brilliant idea for you to take this position so you can remain on the Stargate program but be outside of a certain someone's chain of command?"
"Be quiet, Daniel!" Sam hissed, her cheeks coloring as she looked at the young scientists working in the room behind her.
"Actually, you have me to thank for more than you will ever know," Daniel said with a mischievous smirk as he literally dashed off, leaving Sam amazed at how fast he could go on crutches.
Her curiousity peaked, Sam excused herself from her colleagues and made her way to Jack's office.
Repeating her short conversation with Daniel to Jack, she seated herself in front of his desk with a quizzical look on her face.
"Do you have any idea what he meant?"
Jack looked confused, until Sam literally saw the lightbulb go on in his brain.
"So, Daniel suggested to you that you take this new research position. Daniel is also the one that just happened to tell me that you and Pete broke up."
"I knew it!"
"And suggested that you needed to talk to me, me specifically, about it. And made sure my afternoon was covered that day and told me so. Well, maybe we do owe Daniel a very big thank you. Sounds like he's been playing Cupid for a while now. That sly dog!"
O'Neill looked appropriately impressed and pleased.
An hour later, O'Neill was watching down the hallway from his office, after having called him to report to him immediately.
"Okay, here he comes. Ready?"
"Of course."
"Jack?" Daniel called out.
Daniel walked into the General's office, confused as to why the lights were out if he had just been told to report there. He snooped around, looking on Jack's desk and down into the Gate room, trying to find a clue as to where O'Neill had gone.
Then he heard it.
A giggle, a very suggestive giggle, from O'Neill's coat closet.
Then a lower growl, which could only be Jack's voice.
Shuffling, more giggling and the sudden clunk of a broomstick hitting the floor.
Was that-- no, it couldn't be...it was...moaning!
Daniel turned and fled. Trying not to laugh out loud, Jack and Sam watched him through a crack in the door.
After a good laugh, one in which Sam actually had tears running down her cheeks, they relaxed against the coats stuffed into the tiny closet.
"As long as we're in here," he began.
A predatory look stole over Jack's face.
"What!?"
"Ow!"
"Ohh."
"Mmmmm."
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Revvie
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