A/N – Few things to say about this one…First of all, staying up late talking about Stargate with your best friend can lead to some wacko ideas being thrown around. Turn on the song "Pet" (Aka "count bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums") by A Perfect Circle and you get a story like this one. So here's my attempt at exploring the darker side of Samantha Carter. I want it to turn out emotionally charged, thought provoking, and hopefully more than a little disturbing. ;)

On the note of pairings…Pretty much this story has it all. Ultimately it will be just regular old Jack/Sam, but on the way to becoming that it has a bit of femmeslash and slash, both implied and actually there…though some of its just buddy fucking. I'll try to warn you at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter 1: Don't Fret, Precious

It was the first time they'd been off world in what felt like months, but was probably only weeks. Sam knew she had enough crap in her lab to keep her occupied on base as long as needed, but she also knew that her teammates, Jack in particular, didn't. And so they all relished the chance to get out of the dank, underground complex and go somewhere that wasn't the local bar and grill.

In fact, P49-936 was about as far from a bar and grill as it was possible to get. The various probes had returned no signs of a current civilization, though after a five minute walk from the Stargate, SG-1 found themselves in what Jack described as a big pile of rocks and what Daniel described as the archaeological find of the year. So the bespectacled archaeologist was off in a flash to take rubbings of one of the pillars.

Having nothing better to do, Sam whipped out one of the sensors from her backpack and switched it on. She was surprised when the needle jumped. "Sir, I'm picking up an energy reading from…" She looked up, then pointed to the center of the ruins where a large building was still intact, for the most part. "There."

"Go check it out, Carter," Jack said, nodding. "Teal'c go with her. I'll secure the perimeter and make sure Danny-boy doesn't get into any trouble."

Sam nodded and started off towards the building, the large form of the Jaffa close on her heels. She was severely disappointed to find the only entrance to the building sealed off by a formidable hunk of stone, engraved with lines of writing that looked more like a child's doodles to Sam, but that Daniel would probably be able to translate fast as all get out.

Sam held the sensor against the door, watching as the needle pushed the upper limits of the register. She let out a sigh and pushed fruitlessly against the door.

"Teal'c, give me a hand."

The Jaffa set his staff weapon aside and they both pushed and shoved, though nothing happened except a small shower of dust and stone chips fell on their heads. Sam pulled out her radio and told Jack and Daniel they needed help.

Ten minutes of watching Daniel translate what was written on the door and Teal'c gave up being patient and went off to look for something to raise his eyebrow at. Sam and Jack sat down on a large piece of stone and pulled out water canteens and sandwiches.

"So what do you think is in there that needed to be sealed up so bad?" Jack asked.

"Advanced technology." Sam took a swig of water. "Some old goa'uld laboratory maybe. Or an Ancient one, if we're lucky."

"We usually are." Jack thought about that one for a moment. "When it comes to saving the world though. We do that more often then find technology."

"SG-1, guardians of the planet," Sam muttered.

"We'd be on the cover of TIME if it weren't for the whole confidentiality thing," Jack said, taking his baseball cap off and running his fingers through his hair. "We'd be regular celebrities." He replaced the cap and carefully used both hands to shape the brim, then looked at Sam from behind his dark sunglasses.

"Good thing the confidentiality's there," Sam replied. She was glad they weren't celebrities. The last thing they needed was to have their private lives splashed out across the cover of tabloids. General Hammond might like to think that his flagship team was the perfect military operation, abiding by all the rules and only wanting to serve their planet, but Sam knew better. Daniel knew better; Teal'c acted fairly naïve when it came to these things, but he knew better also. And Jack most definitely knew better.

Sam poured some of the water from her canteen into her hand and splashed it over her face. The planet's sun was high in the sky and the air was warm. She was glad she'd remembered to use sunscreen.

Hell, even Janet knew they were far from perfect. The petite doctor wouldn't make a bad psychologist; she could read people as well as she read medical files. Even if she and Sam didn't spend so many late nights talking about the lives of their co-workers Janet would probably have been able to guess most of it.

They were like a couple of high-school girls sometimes, and that made Sam want to laugh.

"Got it." Daniel plopped down on the ground in front of Jack and Sam, waving his open notebook at of them. "There's some sort of lab in there, I think. But whoever sealed it up seems to think that the knowledge is too powerful for any one person to know. It'll take a while to break in."

"Good thing we packed our tents then," Jack stood up, stretching and wincing as his knees popped. "You two wait here, I'll go check in with Hammond." Jack pulled out his radio. "T, looks like we'll be spending the night. Start looking for a good campsite."

"Very well, O'Neill." Came Teal'c's reply.

Jack turned and started walking back to the Stargate to contact Hammond. Sam watched him leave. Daniel was absorbed in his notes and Teal'c was still nowhere to be seen, so Sam took advantage of this to stare at her CO's ass until he vanished behind a clump of trees. Then she had to turn back and listen to Daniel explain in detail what was written on the door.

If the daytime had been hot, then the night was warm. Sometimes they'd go to a planet with two suns and an afternoon heat like the Sahara desert, but nighttime temperatures that reminded Sam of the time she and Jack were stuck in Antarctica. Luckily this wasn't one of them.

They set up camp. There wasn't anything that could really be called a clearing, so the two tents had a stand of trees between them. They lit a campfire, though more to provide some light and to keep bugs away then anything else. Worse than the warmth, the night was humid. Sam swore that if she rubbed her fingers together she could feel condensation between them.

Daniel let out a loud sneeze.

"That's it!" Jack said suddenly. "No way am I sleeping with Danny tonight."

"It's the humidity," Daniel complained stuffily.

"And you're going to be snoring!" Jack tossed an empty MRE wrapper into the fire. "Which means you can share a tent with T, cus he doesn't sleep anyway."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but obviously knew better than to argue with Jack about sleeping arraignments. Jack rounded on Sam.

"Unless Carter's got some objection, in which case one of us can sleep outside."

Sam shook her head. She'd shared a tent with each of her teammates at one point or another and had gotten over being bothered by it. Hell, work with three people for almost six years and sleeping with them is the most chaste thing imaginable. And besides, though the three men had more sense than to mention it, Sam was positive they'd all seen her naked at least once. Private showers weren't always an option and sometimes all they had was a waterfall.

Jack always had to stay up for a while after the fire was put out to watch the stars, but Sam immediately went into their tent and lay on her side on top of her sleeping bag, one arm tucked under her head. The only sound she could hear was the chirruping of nighttime insects and the occasional grunting snore from the other tent that was a hundred feet away.

Finally she heard footsteps, then Jack pushed back the tent flap and climbed in, flopping down next to Sam and sighing heavily.

"You asleep, Carter?"

"No." An animal moved in the underbrush near their tent, disturbing the sleep of some winged creature that took off with a loud flapping noise.

"What was that?" Jack propped himself up on his elbows, eyes squinting in the dark. The first of the planet's moons had risen, but all that did was turn everything into thick dark silhouettes.

Sam murmured, "Probably just a bird, Sir."

Jack lay down, but a moment later began shifting around. Sam half turned her head and saw him wrestling out of his jacket. "It's too fucking hot," he growled by way of an explanation. Laying back down he threw one arm out, accidentally brushing his hand along Sam's back and causing her to shiver. "Sorry."

"It's ok."

She felt his hand again, running gently down her back. It wasn't an accident this time. She heard Jack roll over onto his side, mimicking her and tucking his left arm under his head, his free hand caressing languidly up and down her back. Sam knew what he was doing; it was a game they played – see how far they could push each other without actually going over.

Of course, sometimes, they did go over.

Jack's hand moved to her side now and Sam jerked as his fingers brushed a particularly ticklish spot. His arm came around her middle then and pulled her close to him. Sam opened her mouth to say something, then decided against it, pushing her back flush against Jack's chest as his hand flattened against her stomach.

I need this. Sam thought reluctantly as Jack's hand slipped under the hem of her shirt, his fingers lightly stroking the skin of her stomach. The last mission, a couple weeks ago, wasn't overnight and she knew Jack would never pull something like this on base. It was like a drug, this wanting, this desire that the officials in Washington thought they could control with all their regulations and the security cameras that were everywhere in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

But there weren't cameras off-world, and if she couldn't get caught, it was okay to get high off her own personal opiate.

Jack's other arm slipped underneath her, wrapping around her. His hand that had a moment ago been stroking her stomach moved upwards. "…Too fucking hot…" he grunted.

"What is?" Sam moved her hand behind her, letting it rest on Jack's thigh.

"You." Jack's lips were on her neck now, kissing the soft skin as his hands moved to gently massage her breasts. Sam let out a low moan.

"...Pushing me!" She managed to gasp out.

Jack's hips gave a lazy thrust as though to prove to her that yes, he was pushing her, and also to show how much he needed her. Sam's fingers tightened on his thigh and she hissed sharply; she could sense his arousal in more ways than one and it was driving her crazy.

"Shit…I give up…" Jack moved suddenly, pulling Sam onto her back and beneath him. His lips came crashing down, hot and heavy against hers. Their mouths opened against each other, tongues pushing and tasting while hands moved down to push pants out of the way.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sam realized that screwing your commanding officer in the middle of the forest on an abandoned alien planet wasn't exactly a bright idea, especially if your teammates were sleeping well within hearing distance. The thought actually made it as far as her lips.

"Sir…"

"Carter." His voice was gruff and full of the same desire that Sam felt pulsing through her own veins. She needed this. He needed this. They both needed the kind of release that only this could give them.

And, goddamn, her name sounded so sexy when he said it like that. Their lips came together again, and Jack's fingers hooked around the waistband of her underwear, tugging it gently downwards.

For the fifth time that morning, Daniel shot Jack a glare out of the corner of his eye and huffed angrily. Jack couldn't stand it anymore and tore his gaze away from Sam and Teal'c, who were busy trying to blast the door of the temple down, and looked at Daniel.

"Ok, Danny, what's with the huffing and puffing?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed. "Nothing."

"Right, and you're the big bad wolf." Jack said, his voice dripping with its usual sarcasm. "Seriously. You've been shooting me dirty looks all morning."

"I think you know why I'm a little annoyed, Jack."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "A little annoyed? So that's what you call it?"

"Jack." Daniel tossed his notebook and pencil down, rounding on Jack with his hands on his hips. "We're supposed to be a team, right? And team members tell each other things. Especially if you've been working together for what? Six years now?"

Jack gave Daniel a calculating look. "There's plenty of stuff we don't tell each other and you know it."

"Exactly. Maybe we should tell each other things. Like…maybe you should tell me what's going on with you and Sam."

"Carter?"

"Yes, Sam Carter!" Daniel looked severely annoyed.

Jack wondered what this was about. If it was about Sam, or if it was about Daniel being jealous for some reason. Maybe it was all he said and he just thought he should know everything about Jack's life. SG-1 was like a family, after all. One big, incestuous family… Jack thought bitterly.

"You don't ever think about anyone except yourself, do you?" Daniel really was pissed, and Jack just couldn't figure it out.

"No," Jack decided to stick to humor. "Obviously, I was thinking about Carter last night." Whoops, that was not what he'd meant to have come out of his mouth. Honestly.

Daniel made a move towards Jack as though he was about to punch him, and Jack actually sidestepped a little. Instead, Daniel just scowled and muttered, "You're such an arrogant bastard sometimes." Shaking his head, he turned and stalked away towards Sam and Teal'c.

A/N - Please read and review! I'd love to hear what you like/dislike about the story so i can make it better . And of course, keep all criticism polite and constructive, please :) thanky.