Season 6 Episode 15 – Paradise lost

Episode Summary: Maybourne conspires to trick SG-1 into letting him travel to live out the rest of his days in a legendary off-world paradise, but ends up trapping himself and Jack in a nightmarish deserted place, with no way home. The SGC try to find Jack with no luck, while Jack and Maybourne become progressively more paranoid and out of control due to a poisonous plant. After nearly a month, Teal'c finds Sam crying in the women's locker room. Finally, Sam figures out they were sent to the planet's moon and the Tok'ra pick them up.

Jack stepped through the gate alone, to the very welcome sight of his team and General Hammond.

"Welcome home, Colonel." Hammond said, smiling.

"It is so good to be home, sir." He met the eyes of each of his teammates briefly in turn, glad to see they were all in one piece after his month-long absence.

"Where's Colonel Maybourne?" Hammond asked.

"He's … not coming back." Jack hedged. "I'll explain later."

"Perhaps you'd like to take a shower first." The general suggested, as Jack walked down the ramp and their expressions morphed from smiles to grimaces.

He stopped beside Carter, his gaze flitting between her and Hammond. "Bad?" He asked them both.

"Indeed." Teal'c said from behind him, making him spin around to give Teal'c the eyebrow.

"Shower, Colonel. Consider that an order." Hammond said.

One long shower, and an even longer debriefing later, he drove home – to find Carter's car in his driveway. He parked up and got out, giving it a long look. She wasn't in the car or outside his house, which suggested she was in his house. Odd.

He opened his front door, and heard a muttered curse. "Carter?"

"Sir! I'm sorry, I thought you'd be a couple more hours." She said, emerging from his kitchen.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

She shifted from foot to foot apprehensively. "Well, uh, I was … you see, while you were gone … someone had to take care of your house. And since Teal'c and Jonas can't leave the base without an escort …"

"I'm back now." He pointed out.

"Yes sir. But the thing is, I was here last night, doing some cleaning, and I didn't … finish. So it was left in a mess, and I didn't want you to come home to find that, so I thought I'd just clear up now, before you got home."

He raised his eyebrows and walked round her into his kitchen.

Wow.

"I don't understand, was there some kind of toxic spill in here?" He asked, taking in the general chaos.

Sam followed him in. "I promise I'll clean it all up sir. It's just everything happened so quickly, with us figuring out where you were, and the Tok'ra ship was already in the area, and all they had to do was take you from the moon to the planet …"

"Carter." He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "It's ok, I'm not mad. I'm just … surprised you'd go to this much trouble when I wasn't even here to use the kitchen."

She looked away, embarrassed. "I needed the distraction." She admitted quietly.

He just looked at her, and eventually she met his eyes.

"I don't do well with sitting on my hands." She said. "When you were stranded on Edora, I had a project, I had to invent a whole new brand of technology to rescue you. This time … we didn't have any clue where you were. Studying the doorway was a dead end, there were no human life signs on the planet anywhere, and I didn't have anything to do but think. I was going nuts."

"So you decided to deep clean every square inch of my kitchen."

"Pretty much."

He chuckled. "It's not like you didn't know for sure I was coming back." He pointed out.

Sam started to say something but cut herself off sharply, looking away again.

"What?" He prompted.

"That doesn't mean I wasn't worried." She said. "It doesn't mean I didn't …" She cut herself off again with a shake of her head.

He put his hands on her shoulders, making her look at him. There was pain in her eyes. "C'mere." He said.

She took a step towards him and he wrapped his arms around her. She didn't cry, but she felt so incredibly tense in his arms.

"I haven't said thank you yet." He realised as he held her. "Thank you."

"For what?" She asked, her voice muffled in his chest.

"Figuring out where I was and sending the cavalry."

"Always." She said softly. He placed a chaste kiss in her hair and closed his eyes, enjoying the moment.

She pulled back sooner than he liked, and avoided his eye, looking around them. "I'll finish cleaning up." She said, getting back to work.

He picked up a bucket and worked beside her, and after some time the silent companionship seemed to ease some of the tension in her spine, and she relaxed back into the friendly, funny Carter he knew. She'd be ok. And so would they.