AN: This was originally posted in three parts on the GateWorld forum. It's being posted here by popular demand. If this is the first thing of mine you read, I urge you -- run back to my profile and pick something more representative of my writing abilities. This was just for play, and was the result of three twenty-minute drabbles in the middle of the night. It's cliché, probably rife with typos and/or grammatical errors and is being posted exactly as it was on GW.
Thanks go to Sally for providing the prompt (I know how much you hate angst, so sorry!), Polrobin for making me continue after the first cliffie, Rachel500 for urging me to pick up the conclusion (even if it was after 1 am here in the States!) and RegularAmanda, the loudest of the many who asked me to please please post it here.
Enjoy.
--
Jack could feel the muscles in Sam's forearms trembling from the effort it took to hold on to his free hand. His other hand was still wrapped tightly around the tree root and he let out a grunt as he tried to shift his weight further from the edge of the precipice.
Sam let out a gasp. "Oh my god, sir ... I can't hold on much longer."
The weight of the pack was causing her struggles, its thirty-five pounds straining her grip and pulling Samantha ever closer to giving in -- however unwillingly -- to the sheer drop.
"Carter," Jack said. "You've got to be kidding me. You and I have been in tighter spots before. You just have to hold on until Daniel gets back with the rope." He felt her palms growing more damp by the second, and focused on buoying her spirits. "Remember that time when T decided to retrieve his staff weapon from the bottom of that ravine? Took all three of us to lift him back out."
"Yes, Jack," Sam gasped, and his gaze jumped to hers at the use of his first name. "I do. But this time ... there's only one of you on that end and I just ... I can't ..." the final two words were bitten out between struggling breaths, and Sam made a desperate lunge with a hand to better her grip, her feet kicking helplessly in space.
The sweat from their struggles only served to aid Samantha's slow-motion downward slide, and her eyes met Jack's one final time as their fingers slipped free of each other.
"Sam?" Jack nearly threw himself into the nothingness he reached so desperately in her direction. He felt his shoulder pop free, and the pain ripped through his body, but it was nothing in comparison to the agony he felt at watching her fall away into the infinite distance as his fingers closed around empty air. "Sam!"
As she faded away into the darkness, one hand reached out to him in the silence. The surreality of the situation stunned him and Jack dangled there on the precipice, the sound of his breath and the pounding of his heart the only sound to break the quiet.
In seconds she was gone.
Vanished from his sight.
And it hit him.
He'd lost Sam...
--
As Sam's fingers slipped away from Jack's there was a moment of connection in which the seconds seemed to stretch on forever. Her eyes met his. She let out one final gasp, the air leaving her lungs in a rush as gravity took control.
She watched as Jack's eyes widened along with the gap between their hands, the realization hitting him just a moment too late. His desperate lunge followed by a shadow of sheer disbelief.
His form grew smaller and Sam belatedly realized...
She.
Was.
Falling.
A breathy, "Oh," left her lips as she dropped away, the darkness stealing her breath as the butterflies in her belly multiplied. The forces of acceleration pulled so fiercely at her body and she flexed her body on instinct, her abdomen going so rigid with a feeling more akin to surprise than fear.
Jack vanished from view as the darkness grew complete and in the back of Sam's mind she wondered exactly how far she would fall, all the while chastising herself for the very thought.
Her eyes focused on the sliver of sky that remained just as it spun from view, an explosion-like impact on her back tossing her by a shoulder into a tight spin away from the vertical wall of the canyon.
Sam tried to scream but found herself unable to draw breath enough and she settled for pulling her arms tightly against her chest, chin down.
The blood rushed to her head, the rushing air drowned out by the buzzing of the blood from her pounding, drumming heartbeat.
And then...
She stopped.
As the vertigo hit her, Sam rolled over, retching into the dirt, only absently aware of the fact that death should have been full of more pain and less vomiting.
Brushing the back of a trembling hand across her mouth, Sam tried to sit up, only then realizing she couldn't quite touch the rocky floor of the canyon, dusty in the faint beams of light that filtered down.
Sam reached out a tentative finger, pressing it toward the floor, and found her mass was effortlessly repelled from its surface.
Eyes widening, Sam realized ...
The device worked. The hunk of technology they'd ripped from the wall of the temple before the tremors began -- the tremors that had caused this unfortunate plunge -- the technology worked as a stabilization against the effects of gravity in conjunction with object surfaces.
It must have been activated when her pack was struck on the way down.
--
Jack held on to the rope with everything he had as Daniel pulled. The wall of the canyon scraped inexorably by as Jack fought the urge to drop away and disappear along with Samantha into the abyss.
Soon he was on his hands and knees in the dirt, fists full of grass, his breath coming short.
His eyes were open, but he didn't see the ground before him. The image of Sam falling, falling ... a hand outstretched in his direction, her eyes wide with surprise ... it was burned into his mind, he could process nothing else.
He felt himself sinking, but didn't register the motion until his forehead dropped against the dirt.
All the while, he could hear Daniel's voice, buzzing in his ear, and he raised a hand to swipe at the sound.
Finally, a few words swept through.
"Jack," Daniel was saying.
"Yeah, Daniel," he murmured to the dirt. "I'm here."
"Yes, Jack, I know that. Where is Sam?"
The words bit at him, because he'd seen Sam ... Oh, God ... Sam. After everything they'd been through together, fought together, the binds they'd found themselves in, she was taken by a damned stinking hole in the ground.
Jack threw a hand in the direction of the narrow canyon, hoping Daniel would just get the message already so he wouldn't have to say the words out loud.
Scuffling footsteps moved toward the edge of the hole, and Jack braced himself for it.
Instead of the freak-out he expected from Daniel, he instead heard the soft murmur of the man's voice. Jack forced the palm of his good hand to the dry earth, grass crackling between his fingers. He pushed himself over onto his side, grunting a little as his injured shoulder took too much of his weight.
Daniel knelt next to the stunted tree that had saved Jack O'Neill's life and Jack momentarily cursed the crooked plant for keeping him from being with Sam all the way down.
At least she wouldn't have been alone, he mused as words from years before came to his mind. I'd have rather died myself…than lose Carter.
He knew they still applied.
Daniel reached out.
Grasped a hand.
And there...
Was.
Sam.
Jack's heart stuttered and he blinked, trying to clear away the apparition. It was Sam. Looking far too pale, far too shaky, and very, very dusty...
But it was Sam.
Jack swallowed back the shout that threatened to burst from his throat, and instead settled for scrambling the short distance to where she had appeared. He moved to her on his hands and knees and one good hand -- because it would have taken far too long to stand.
She embraced him with the same amount of energy he put forth, wrapping her arms tightly around Jack, pulling him close ... and Daniel took a step back from the pair.
Jack heard a soft, "Ok-a-a-ay," from the man, but ignored it because for God's sake -- it was Sam!
"You fell," he murmured, feeling her breath coming fast at his ear.
"I know," came her reply, soft and shaky but very much alive.
His hand cupped the back of her head, and his fingers threaded through her hair, his forehead dropping to her shoulder as they held on to each other.
Jack pulled back to look her in the eyes, his hands coming up to cup her face, his thumbs rubbing reverently across her flushed skin. He smiled, and she returned it, though she allowed her eyes to drop toward the ground almost shyly first.
So many questions he wanted to ask, but for now he would settle for the miracle because she was Sam and she was alive.
--
The End.