Chapter 6: Six geese a-laying

"Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves."

Carol Lynn Pearson

"So, which quadrant are we searching tonight?" Colonel O'Neill looked at Sam expectantly. It had become the routine of the past three days since they'd settled in while Sam build the subspace communicator. They'd share the evening meal with Aurum and then return to their rooms before heading out for an extended session of local astronomy. In order to be able to communicate with Earth, aside from having the subspace communications device, Sam also needed a reference for their current location so she'd know which direction to send their message in. So far they hadn't found anything familiar, despite having the use of a powerful telescope they'd found in the warehouse a few days prior.

"Quadrant D Sir," she said, passing through the rear of the large hut and back out into the night. It was dark but with two full moons to guide their steps they walked easily to the nearby clearing where she'd set up the telescope. "You go first Sir," she made room for the Colonel to take his position in front of the telescope. He hadn't said as much but it was clear that Colonel O'Neill had experience with both telescopes and astronomical phenomena. He was both competent and informed and they'd each discovered in the other a fellow 'star' buff. That surprised Sam, that she could have something scientific in common with the Colonel.

"Quadrant D you say," O'Neill quipped, shifting to sit in front of the telescope and adjusting it to point in the right direction. He was focussed and applied an intensity to the task that captivated Sam. Being surrounded by the darkness and the total lack of any other living souls just increased the intimacy of their setting. More and more she found herself distracted by the Colonel, coming back to herself to realised she'd been staring at him for who knew how long. He never called her up on it and she could only conclude that he hadn't noticed.

After fifteen minutes the Colonel handed the telescope over to Sam to continue searching from where he'd left off. He settled on the ground beside her, hands resting casually on his raised knees. She loved his hands – they were so graceful and competent – and they made her feel that he'd be good at anything he turned his hand at. Oh God, that sounded so full of innuendo and even in her thoughts she couldn't risk that.

"Carter?" the Colonel raised a brow and she flushed, spinning to glue herself to the telescope so she wouldn't have to look at him. He'd well and truly caught her staring this time! She could almost feel his gaze boring into her back but she resolutely ignored it, determined not to break out into babbling apologies. He'd ignore her reaction, or write it off as her being distracted by their task.

After her own fifteen minute stint at the telescope she pushed away, frustrated. "This isn't working," she shook her head, feeling abruptly close to tears. That wasn't like her but after days of feeling all the pressure of their rescue on her shoulders, on top of being confronted with the hopelessness of her feelings for Colonel O'Neill, she was too close to needing an emotional release. "We might as well be searching the skies with the naked eye for all the chance we'll actually stumble across something recognisable."

O'Neill regarded her silently for a moment, the moons casting enough light that she could see his eyes narrow as he considered her. "How much sleep have you been getting Captain?" his tone was one she had to answer honestly to.

"A few hours a night Sir," she admitted.

"We're not on a schedule here Carter," he said seriously. "Yes, we need to make contact with the SGC, and yes, I want to go home as much as you do, but not if it means you run yourself into the ground to get there. Ease up at little, okay?"

"Okay, Sir," she said in a flat voice, looking away.

"Sam," he never called her by her first name, never spoke to her with that tone. It wasn't a command, and it wasn't Colonel to Captain. It was personal; one friend to another, and it had her locking her eyes to his before she'd thought about the wisdom of letting him see what was lurking in hers.

"We'll get home," he promised her. Something in his voice, in the way he looked at her, made tears rise in her eyes. When he reached out and brushed his fingers across her cheek her eyes closed involuntarily and those tears fell. It was he who wiped them away, he who smoothed her hair back behind her ears, and it felt so right that she let out a shuddering breath.

Her eyes snapped open when the feel of his hand on her face vanished. He'd taken a step back and was watching her, his expression unreadable. She watched him in return, too busy wondering what he was thinking for once to worry about what she was revealing.

"I ah – who's turn is it?" he broke the moment, his movements not as smooth as usual as he turned his back to her and settled in front of the telescope, giving the impression that all of his attention was on the slice of space above them.

Sam watched him for a few moments, sighing when she realised there would be nothing more. He'd offer no explanation and she couldn't ask for one. She'd have to add the strange moment they'd shared to the section of her mind she'd labelled Colonel Jack O'Neill. There were other moments there already, along with all the thoughts and feelings she had for him, all the things she wasn't allowed to think and feel. He fascinated her the more time she spent with him and she was beginning to fear that no man would ever captivate her as much as he did.

"What about this?" his voice drew her attention and she moved to look through the telescope at the constellation he'd found.

As she continued to look she realised that finally they had something – a recognisable collection of stars that would help her work out where Earth was. She was relieved but if she were honest also disappointed. Assuming the device worked and assuming the SGC could respond quickly, her interlude with Colonel O'Neill could soon draw to a close. She couldn't help but think it was her chance to understand him, that if they left too soon she'd miss out on vital information she needed to really know him, and herself as well.

"Yes, I know it," she sat back and smiled at him. "Well done Sir."

"Hey, it was a team effort," he smiled back. "So does this mean you can test your subspace doohickie tomorrow?"

"Yes Sir," she replied, trying not to be hurt that he didn't share her disappointment. Clearly the Colonel couldn't wait to leave. "The planet", she reminded herself silently, "not you."

As they walked back to the hut and disappeared into their adjacent rooms Sam worried that something had shifted between them, changed them for better or worse.

Hard as it was to believe, Sam realised early the next morning as she prepared to test the subspace communicator she'd built from alien parts in a matter of days, that she was actually nervous.

Maybe everything didn't hinge on the result but it still felt like one of the most important moments of her career so far. Right up there with completing the dialling program for the Stargate and deciding to stay with Cassandra after the Colonel ordered her to abandon the young girl. Their lives weren't at risk, at least not in any physical sense, but she couldn't help but think that the life they both knew was under threat. If they couldn't communicate with the SGC then they couldn't request assistance and they'd truly be on their own. She'd have to confront a whole host of thoughts and feelings she felt ill prepared to address, something that needed to be avoided at all costs.

"How's it coming Carter?" Jack queried. He wasn't impatient, just bored in that way of his. In the early days of SG-1 Sam had sometimes wondered how he'd been able to undertake the black ops missions she knew in general terms he'd been involved in. Surely some would have included staking out high level targets, and yet he seemed to struggle to sit still for more than a few minutes. As she's gotten to know him better she'd come to appreciate that Colonel O'Neill was very much a man of action. If the action required of him was to remain silent and still then he'd do it, indefinitely. It just wasn't required on him now.

"Almost there Sir," she answered, rechecking the primary connections to the power unit she was using before getting to her feet. "I'm as ready as I'm going to be Colonel," she announced.

"Then fire it up Captain," he replied, waving a hand encouragingly. He was standing off to the side of the large room, behind the benches she'd been using as work tables. Giving him a confident smile that felt uncomfortable on her face she turned back to her controls.

"Here goes nothing," she murmured, switching the device to transmit. Everything worked as it should – she had a subspace connection of sorts, a channel to use. "So far so good Sir," she reported, moving to the second stage which was to target communications towards Earth. This was where it was going to get tricky since she couldn't exactly pinpoint their current location relative to Earth, even with the recognisable constellation they'd found the previous evening. It was a guess at best, but hopefully the most educated one they were capable of. Sending the message was an anticlimax – nothing happened but then, that wasn't a surprise. She hoped the technology at the SGC would enable them to pick up her signal much as they would a radio signal, but they had to be listening. Then they had to send something back that her device could receive. "This could take a while Sir," she admitted, giving him an apologetic glance.

"I'm not going anywhere," he reminded her that they both had nothing to do, other than find a way home.

Nodding, Sam returned her attention to the communication device. Over the following hours she made many adjustments, but when the sun was low in the sky had to concede defeat. "I'm sorry Sir," she told the Colonel. He'd hovered throughout the day, urging her to take breaks she grudgingly did, making them as short as possible before she returned to her machine.

"What are you sorry about Captain?" he asked, moving to sit down next to her.

"I don't think it's going to work," she admitted. It had been a long shot but deep inside she'd counted on being able to send a message. Defeat rose sharply and her shoulders slumped. "There are just too many variables and I don't have the means of working out which is at fault. We could be pointing in the wrong direction, the SGC might not be listening right now, their equipment might not be capable of picking up our message, or the signal just might not be strong enough to reach Earth from here. I'm sorry Sir," she said again, looking down at the ground.

"But we can keep that thing running right?" he asked.

She looked up, expecting to see disappointment or frustration on his face but finding instead the steady support she could too easily rely on. "As long as the power cell lasts, yes Sir," she confirmed.

"Okay, so we let it do its thing and go explore in the warehouse," he suggested.

"Aurum allowed us to look for the parts I needed Sir," Sam frowned. "I'm not sure he'd want us to explore just for the sake of it."

"Nonsense. I'm a 'child of the creator'," he air quoted with a smirk. "He'd have given me the keys to the place if I didn't already have them." He waved his hand like he's done to open the doors, reminding her that he at least had a claim to the contents of warehouse.

"I don't know Sir." Sam felt reluctance and wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want to raise her hopes again or for fear they'd find nothing and have to concede that they were stuck on Orentis forever.

"Come on Carter – live a little. You could consider this your replacement Christmas present," he suggested, "given we missed Christmas day back home." They'd missed it and hadn't done anything to even acknowledge it since they'd spent a fair portion of that first day trying to find a way out of the warehouse and then the rest talking with Aurum. Explaining something like Christmas wasn't something either she or the Colonel considered important.

"I could Sir," Sam agreed, "except I didn't exactly have any presents waiting for me."

"Doesn't matter. Some of those boxes are huge Carter," he told her, nudging her shoulder with his, "and you know what they say."

"What's that Sir?" Sam asked.

"Good things come in small packages," he said with a twinkle in his eyes, "but even better things come in big packages."

Sam laughed. "Then I guess we should go and see what's in ours then," she stood, brushing off her pants before, after a moment's hesitation, she offered him a hand getting up.

The Colonel took it, getting to his feet and squeezing her hand in another expression of support before he let go.

She really didn't think they'd find anything useful, not without days of searching through an alien catalogue that only made sense if there were detailed diagrams included. That's why she let out a gasp of surprise after only a few minutes at the console.

"What?" the Colonel was at her side instantly, looking at the screen with a puzzled frown. "What is it?"

"I think it's the bible for Stargate building Sir," she said, glancing up at him with a smile.

"We can finish the gate?" he asked, his brow raised.

"With this, I think so Sir," she replied, hope surging through her again.

"Sweet!"

Author's Note:

The prompt for day six was 'Treasure'. Thanks for reading!