Till We Run Out of Road

Chapter 4

She put them to work on the ship, and they all disbanded to the various corners, somehow knowing that she wanted to be left alone as much as possible. They seemed to have decided that Teal'c would be a liaison between the groups. Teal'c and Cameron were concentrating on the actual physical space of the ship--making sure that damaged sections were either repaired or closed off. She wasn't sure what Jack was doing, but there were things she noticed that were suddenly fixed. Mostly lights.

Sometimes she felt him look in on her, although she never let on, just kept working on getting the damn engines to start forcing air into new places, checking for hull damage. She wasn't finding anything irreparable, and in week two, she began to think that they might get off the ground after all.

But when she noticed his presence, she couldn't concentrate. She was, for the moment, existing only as a mind that happened to be attached through her hands to the tools she was using to resurrect the Odyssey. But when he came near, she remembered that she was more, remembered the feel of his body over hers, under hers, the way his mouth felt as he tasted her.

It had been a mistake. She knew that. A moment of weakness. Unfortunately, Jack didn't seem to agree.

"We need," he said, his voice a little too loud in the enclosed space, "to talk."

She shook her head. "Nothing to talk about, sir."

"Bullshit."

If he was expecting her to argue, he was going to be disappointed. Sam leaned into a panel, checked the crystals for damage and, more importantly, unnecessary redundancy and spare parts.

"Sam--" Jack exhaled. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? Because I'm not."

"Maybe I am!" Sam said, pulling out of the panel to look at him. "It was--it was a--" but she couldn't say it, not even though she'd been thinking it for the past two weeks.

But Jack finished it for her. "A mistake?"

Sam flinched.

Jack regarded her calmly, watched her turn an extra crystal over in her hands. She couldn't think with him looking at her.

Finally, he got up. "It wasn't," he said, leaning on the doorway. "When you figure that out--" he sighed heavily. "Never mind." He left, then, his footsteps sounding slow as he moved down the corridor.

How could he be so sure when she wasn't sure about anything?

She told herself to keep working. They didn't have time to dwell--couldn't afford for her to crash and burn now, especially not now that it seemed as if their plan might work after all. She just wished that ignoring it didn't feel like a much worse mistake.

Two days later, she sent Teal'c and Cam to patch up the systems on the bridge. "Red wire to red wire. Gray to gray, etc. You can't mess it up."

Teal'c didn't even have time to remind her about asteroids and bombs before the words tumbled out of her mouth. "I made sure everything was color-coded myself." He shared a small smile with her, and she tried not to think about how her mouth had run dry at Jack's words that day, or how she'd realized in despair there was nothing she could do. She had to trust to chance. She had hated that then. Hated it more now.

They would be gone hours. She blinked sleep away from her eyes, uncertain when she'd rested last. Not that that was important right now. She'd run another test, take a look at some more of the programming on the engineering computers. It seemed they'd gotten lucky--it looked like everything was there, just waiting for the hard connections to be reestablished.

A voice breathed in her ear. "Sam."

She wanted to ignore it. There was work to be done.

The breath tickled. "Sam. Wake up."

She was awake. She was working on the computers.

"Sam!"

She opened her eyes. Blinked. Where had her light gone? The emergency lights were on, but not the main bank.

"I took the liberty of starting work on the electrical systems to the bridge." The voice sounded amused. "I may have cut the wrong wire, but I'm too tired to find it at the moment."

Jack.

"Wha--"

"Hang on, sleepyhead. We have beds, you know."

She knew. Lots of beds. Filled with ghosts. Or not. No one had died in their beds.

She was lifted up to her feet, and an arm wound around her waist. She leaned into the warmth, was guided through her piles of tools and wires through the corridors and into a soft bed.

By that time, she'd recovered enough to wonder, but not enough to censor herself. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

He stopped in the middle of standing up. For a long time he said nothing. Then he chuckled softly. "Oh, Sam. Willing to give everything, but not to take."

Sam frowned in the dark. Jack bent back over the bed, drew a finger across her cheek, and that one, simple contact was all Sam needed to rethink everything. She clutched at his hand, shaking, drew it further in so she could lay her face in his palm. He smelled like metal, like machines and sweat. She turned her mouth into his palm, breathed his name against his skin.

When she tugged at him, he came unresisting, his arm snaking under her neck, their bodies fitting together on the narrow ship's bunk, the air just barely circulating, and Sam's last thought was making a mental note to check that out in the morning.

When she woke up, she lay still for a few minutes, listening to Jack breathe, the expelled air warming a small spot on her back through her shirt. She turned over, watched his chest rise and fall, her eyes having adjusted to the emergency lights to where she could almost distinguish his features.

"You're not fooling me, you know," she said softly. Jack's breathing didn't change.

She waited a minute. "Really not."

This time, the corner of his mouth twitched.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Not long enough." He groaned, scrunching up his face and rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. Sam noticed his other hand had mysteriously migrated behind her neck.

She didn't mention it, but Jack seemed to know what she was thinking anyway, and he rubbed his fingers through her hair.

"Are you done freaking out yet?

Sam started to defend herself, thought, and shut her mouth, considering the question.

"Yeah," she finally said.

Jack gave her a half-smile. "Good."

Sam grimaced. "Why--"

He sighed. "I don't know."

Sam hesitated. "I'm sorry."

Jack laughed. Sam glowered, and suddenly, without any warning, her eyes filled with tears. She tried to hold them back.

"Oh, for--what is it now?"

"Daniel--," she took a shuddering breath. "I was so sure--and the others--and then you--," she tried to laugh, but sobbed, and she couldn't hold it back any longer.

And without another word Jack pulled her so that their bodies were pressed together, and let her cry until her sobs quieted and her fingers, which had been gripping his shirt, relaxed.

They left their quarters shortly after that, and stopped by the bulkhead Jack had been working on before he'd found Sam sleeping amidst disassembled panels.

Sam stuck her head in, reconnected two wires, and the hallway was suddenly filled with light. She rooted around a little more and tightened a few connections, and then crawled back out.

"That should do it, sir."

He was grinning at her. "Why do I even bother?"

She narrowed her eyes, but before she could react, he put one hand against her face and slid his thumb along her cheek. "You had a smudge there."

"I'm sure I did," she replied. They stood in the hallway, Jack's hand just barely touching her, and Sam, for once, couldn't think of anything else she ought to be doing.

Finally, however, Jack tugged at her arm. "We'll figure the rest out later. Come on."

As they approached the bridge, they heard Cam's voice as it echoed off the walls toward them.

"What I don't understand is how everyone could be dead, and yet we can get'er flying again."

Jack's fingers tightened around hers just before they stepped through the doorway. She took a breath and felt Teal'c and Cam's eyes swing toward her. She felt as if they were burning a hole where her hand met Jack's, but she didn't give in to the temptation to look down. "The inertial compensators were damaged slightly. It was enough to...keep everyone together."

Cam winced.

"But not to keep them alive," she finished quietly.

"But we've fixed that, right?" Cam asked.

Sam hesitated. "If we take off smoothly enough, we'll barely even know we're moving."

"But..." Cam prompted.

Sam conceded the point. "There's a slight chance--very slight--that the compensators will fail."

Jack said, "But they won't." He sounded like he was announcing the color of the sky, or the rising of the sun.

Cam just rolled his eyes. "Of course not."

"I have faith in your abilities, Samantha," Teal'c said.

Cam raised his eyebrows. "Samantha?"

"Not like there's any point to rank, right, Mitchell?" Jack said.

Cam looked pointedly at them. "I suppose not."

Sam tried valiantly not to blush. Cam and Teal'c gave each other a smug look and then Cam grinned at her while Teal'c looked knowingly at her. Sam knew if she were to turn to Jack she'd see his smirk.

She cleared her throat. "Aren't we supposed to be fixing a ship?"

Teal'c appeared smug. "We have completed the tasks you assigned us, Samantha."

Now it was Sam's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Already?"

Cam grinned even more broadly. "Ran the diagnostics this morning. Everything checks out--or well, it did after the lights came back on."

Jack, when Sam shot him a look, appeared completely innocent. Teal'c and Cameron didn't look fooled, though.

"I'd still like to take another day to check out all the systems again, see if there's anything I missed," Sam said.

Cameron nodded. "We still have a few days before we're supposed to be done."

"So we'll check things out, take off tomorrow, and still get back a little early," Jack said. "Excell--"

An alarm sounded. The four of them turned toward the console making the sound, and Sam, who was standing closest, reached over to shut it off.

"What was that?" Cameron asked.

Jack looked grim. "I had Sam set up an alarm to notify us if anyone came through the 'gate."

Sam looked at Cam and Teal'c unhappily. "I think we just ran out of time."

"It could be Vala," Cam said. Judging from the others' expressions, they didn't believe it was Vala returning triumphant any more than Sam did.

"Yes, but she might not be alone," Jack said pointedly.

"Okay, so staying inside the ship is stupid," Cam said, "but we can't just leave her here."

Sam shook her head. Now wasn't the time to start leaving people behind. She looked at Teal'c, who regarded her steadfastly and nodded.

"I do not believe we should abandon anyone, O'Neill."

Cam, Teal'c, and Sam faced Jack, who glared and said, "Fine! Plan B, anyone?"

Note: Just one more chapter until the end!