Disclaimer: I don't own the concepts, I don't own the characters, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep, though on a positive note I absolutely love feedback (in other words, please review).

Warning: this story is a sequel to Under Alien Skies - Propagation, if you've read that story you know what this is about, if you haven't this probably won't make much sense. You should also be warned that this story deals with adult issues up to and including rape.

Timeline: this takes place shortly after the episode 'Solitudes'.

Note about the series: while this is the seventh and final story in the Under Alien Skies universe, the only one of those that is pretty much a must read in order to follow this one is Propagation.

Under Alien Skies - Cold Stormy Night
Chapter 1: Escape Velocity
(Sam's POV)

I can't believe that I'm still shivering, that I still feel like I'm never going to get warm but then again that is better than the alternative. In fact there's a part of me that still can't believe I'm alive. That is the real shock. I was so sure I was going to die on that ice planet, only it turns out that that 'ice planet' was actually my own... that we were on earth all along.

That is something that is going to take some getting used to, especially because it goes to show how little we can really tell about a planet by its stargate. Sure, on a rational level we've always known that when we 'explore' a new world we usually stick to the immediate vicinity of its gate, that even our most sophisticated probe has a range of only a handful of miles and that --at least when it comes to first contact missions-- we rarely go beyond the area that is literally within walking distance of the gate so we are barely scratching the surface but in spite of that we assume that we have sufficient information to make a judgment. This incident proves that we don't, it proves that our probes and assumptions can be badly mistaken.

I mean, if a probe had been sent through the Antarctica gate we would have deemed that planet to be virtually uninhabitable and probably uninhabited. We would almost certainly have sticked with something similar to my original theory about it being a planet in the middle of an ice age in which the gate had been overrun by a glacier, we would have crossed that planet off our list and we would never have looked back. That is a sobering thought, one that makes me wonder what else we could be missing whenever we dismiss a world.

Well, the good news is that at least they figured it out somehow and we are back home, back at the SGC under Janet's watchful eye. That means that I'm going to have plenty of time to think about what happened and what it all means because the bottom line is that SG-1 is not going to be going anywhere for a while... not until the colonel recovers and I know that that broken leg of his is going to take months to heal. That is definitely frustrating, especially because we had only been back on active duty for a couple of weeks.

Of course, considering that I had all but come to terms with the fact that I was going to die on that 'planet', a few months don't seem so bad... or they wouldn't seem so bad if I weren't stuck in bed second-guessing myself, going over all the different things I could have done and the clues I missed, clues that should have made me realize that we were on earth almost from the moment we set foot in that ice cave.

Sure, the possible existence of a second gate on earth was something we had never even considered before but that doesn't change the fact that if only I had been paying attention I would have realized that for once gravity felt exactly like it should, not a little stronger or a little weaker as it does on other planets, and that in turn should have been a dead give away as to the fact that we were on our own world. I mean, even though all the planets we've visited so far have had a mass that is roughly similar to that of earth --after all that is one of the most important parameters we consider before we send a team through-- that still refers to a certain range and up until now none of them has ever had a mass exactly like that of earth. There are always minor differences, differences we've learned to compensate for without really giving them much thought but still differences that are significant enough for us to perceive them.

The thing is that even though I'm a physicist and the relevance of that fact should have jumped at me right away, I just didn't think about it. I saw an ice cave and I assumed that we were stuck in an uninhabitable world with a malfunctioning gate and that assumption almost got us killed. I tried to get that DHD to work but it failed to engage, it failed to recognize the point of origin when I tried to dial home... and it never occurred to me to do something as simple as to try a different set of coordinates. That would have solved the problem but I didn't even think about it... I had no reason to consider it and that almost ended up costing us our lives.

Of course, at the time I wasn't exactly thinking clearly. The situation was desperate, the colonel was hurt, our supplies were limited, Daniel and Teal'c were nowhere to be found and we were trapped but that is no excuse, far from it. I am a soldier and in that cave I was the only member of my team that was in any shape to do anything about our circumstances, it was up to me to figure out a way to keep my team safe, to get us out of there in one piece, and in that regard I failed miserably.

That is something I'm going to have to come to terms with, just like I'm going to have to come to terms with my feelings about some of the things that happened in that cave. What's funny is that what's bothering me right now is something I didn't even think about at the time but it is also something I can't seem to be able to get out of my mind now: I ended up having no choice but to share body-heat with a member of my team, a very male member of my team. That wasn't exactly an eventuality I had contemplated since Simarka but now that I think about it I am deeply relieved by the fact that I managed to pull it off... or at least part of me is. I know that if I had stopped to consider it I would have found the whole prospect to be utterly terrifying but I didn't, I just did what I had to do without giving it a second thought and that is definitely a good sign, unfortunately it is also only half the story.

The other half is the one having to do with the colonel's actions and that is where I'm afraid that we may have a problem. The thing is that even though sharing body-heat was the logical course of action under the circumstances he never suggested it and that bothers me. Sure, that might have been due to the fact that he was pretty out of it for the most part so he may not have thought about it but there was also that stupid crack of his about his sidearm --and I am fairly certain that it really was his sidearm, though it did startle me for a moment-- and that one would seem to suggest that he was at least somewhat worried about how I was going to react to the whole thing. That is not so good because if he was aware and didn't order me to do what he must have known we had to do to stay alive then he may have been willing to jeopardize his own well-being rather than run the risk of making me uncomfortable and that is not something we can afford.

The problem is that I can't exactly go up to him and ask him about it, not now... especially not if I don't want Janet to have my hide. Right now he is her patient, he is at her mercy and that is something I know better than to mess with.

Well, at least the good news is that we survived and the whole experience is behind us... and in an odd kind of way for the first time in a really long time I finally feel like I'm really going to be able to leave Turghan behind someday, even if it doesn't happen tomorrow.

Author's notes: Hi guys, welcome to the final story in the Under Alien Skies universe, I really appreciate your patience (and your reviews). I also wanted to take this opportunity to mention that I have a new BSG fic out today. It is 'Long Shadows' and its story id is: 3135873, in case anyone wants to take a look.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you'll like this,

Alec