Author's notes: So sorry for the slight delay with this chapter! The last days have just been incredibly busy…

But thank you all for the wonderful reviews for the last chapter, and of course for reading and following! Special thanks again to Dafidowndilly for beta-ing.

Beyond Reason

Chapter Thirty-Six – Repairing

"So?" Sam asked. "Um… did you understand that?"

Just in time she managed to bite back the habitual 'sir' that threatened to escape at the end of her question. This turned out to be way harder than she initially thought. It also didn't help her case that the Colonel was sitting opposite of her while she was briefing him, looking distinctly to be in CO-mode which reminded her of so many briefings they had had at the SGC or on off-world missions that she had already messed up several times. She fell back into the deeply engrained patterns that had developed between them in hundreds of briefings and would only notice her slipup when he shot her a disapproving glance every now and then. He listened closely and silently to her explanations much as he had done in uncountable briefings but he was strangely insistent now that she was not to use his military address. Sam had actually never given it much thought until now, the Colonel had just always been 'sir'. She couldn't allow herself to let him be anything more than 'sir'. Even in her thoughts she had only rarely referred to him as 'Jack', therefore it was exceedingly hard to switch gears now. But since last night he simply refused to let her call him 'sir' even when right now Sam would have loved to return to the familiarity of military address. They had shifted from an uncomfortable distance between them to practically scowling at each other from all the pent-up anger to an almost intimate closeness in a matter of days and it left Sam slightly confused. Previously the Colonel had ignored her for months and she would have given her left arm to change it back but since yesterday all had changed again and Sam was having trouble keeping up. As of yesterday he was back to paying attention to her, even more so than before. He kept shooting glances at her or staring at her for elongated periods of time until she would become so flustered that she'd choke on their last field coffee or stumble over her own feet like some teenager. He would accidentally touch her, creating small seemingly innocent points of contact when handing her something or adjusting the weapon's holster on her hip for her. He had never done anything like this before. Before he would have just told her to fix it herself or go get things herself because he didn't want to chance accidentally touching her but right now they were almost as bad as teenagers. They were using whatever excuse they could find to be in the other's presence or to touch each other. Actually it was worse than Sam could remember it ever having been in her teenage years. By now she was almost constantly blushing from Jack's intense gaze and her reactions only seemed to encourage him to do it more often. It would really have done Sam's nerves some good to return to the military address to give her a break until she could get those rampant thoughts back under control, but of course he would have none of that.

Sam stared at the Colonel sitting cross-legged across from her, his gaze for once intensely focused on the maintenance panel she had opened to one of the energy controlling devices they were sitting in front of. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, accentuating his muscles and Sam had to actively remind herself that it wouldn't help them right now if she were to start drooling over her Commanding Officer – even if strictly speaking he wasn't her CO anymore.

"So do I get this right?" he finally answered. "White crystals are the energy and we need them to light up? Oh, and red ones are warnings of some sort so them flashing is bad?"

Sam gaped at him, speechless. She had just broken down the complex crystal wiring of the energy controlling devices for him in – she chanced a quick glance at her wristwatch – one and a half hours and this was all he had kept in mind? Granted, she had been surprised by his unusually patient listening but if she had even suspected he wasn't keeping up, she would have interrupted way before. Now she would have to start from the beginning once more…

Again Sam caught herself contemplating why he even wanted to help in the first place when she could clearly see that he wanted to be anywhere but here. But this morning when they had woken up, completely entangled with each other and their blankets, he had announced that he wanted to help her with the energy controlling devices. To say Sam had been astonished would be kind of an understatement. Normally the Colonel wouldn't even look twice at such devices, much less offer any help with them. Sam had wracked her brain for an explanation but the only ones she could come up with were that he was either using it as an excuse to spend more time with her or he was running out of patience with her lack of progress – and neither of these options were really sitting well with her.

Sighing exasperated, Sam tried her best to not lose patience with him. He was making an effort after all. "Yes, the white crystals are the ones transferring the energy from one device to the other. The red crystals are a backup system. In case of energy overflow they will redirect the energy flow. It's normal that they will flash to a certain amount because there's a lot of energy involved and the devices need only a specific amount of energy depending on the task they are performing. But if the red crystals light up in connection with these orange ones here, then we have a problem. The orange ones are the emergency backup and they only activate when the energy will become too much for the devices to redirect and handle. If they ever light up then we're close to an energy overload and should probably leave the base immediately," Sam explained anew.

The Colonel nodded and briefly, Sam considered going through what all the other crystals were supposed to do once more but maybe that would only serve to confuse him. Maybe it was enough for him to know the essentials and she could work on the rest?

"Anything else I need to keep an eye on?" he asked.

Sam thought it over for a moment and then pointed to the blue crystals. "The blue ones are… sort of maintenance crystals. If they light up then something is going wrong within the device."

He nodded again. Sam knew that none of the devices in either of these rooms had the blue crystals activated. It had been one of the first things she had checked after all but she figured it wouldn't hurt him to know. Maybe something had changed since the last time she had looked? Or maybe the Colonel would find something she had missed? Slim possibility, but still a possibility.

He uncrossed his arms and leaned back on his hands. "So whadda ya need me to do?" he inquired.

Sam sloppily motioned around the room. "Um… why don't you just look around, get an overview of what's here and see if there's anything that stands out to you?"

With another curt nod he heaved himself to his feet and began wandering around the room, gazing curiously at the machines. Sam followed him with her eyes for a moment, observing him as he ran his eyes over everything. She knew what he would see because she had already spent over a week holed up in the vast space down here. The energy controlling devices were distributed in five different rooms but the rooms were open on all sides due to all the cables connecting the different devices. The room in the middle was dominated by the main energy producing device, a closet-like device towering over all other devices that constantly gave off a low, almost inaudible humming. In front of this large device stood a smaller control device that filtered all commands coming from the control room above and distributed the signals to the respective devices. All other devices around those two center pieces were back-up systems, maintenance systems and storage systems that controlled and optimized the flow of energy. Sam had wondered why there were so many devices but considering the vast amount of energy needed for a base this large, she figured that they were the bare minimum. In case one or even two devices were to fail, the remaining devices needed to be able to cope with the high amount of energy.

First thing when she started working on the energy control, Sam had checked all backup systems. She didn't want to chance bringing the energy back online only to have the generators overload and explode because the redirecting systems weren't working. Sam had also thoroughly checked each and every crystal as well as all the connecting cables and had stumbled over nothing out of order. Everything seemed to function just as it was supposed to do. If she didn't know it any better, she would have guessed the Ancients had just left and merely shut things down. Nothing seemed damaged or broken. The reason why the highly developed race had abandoned this outstanding base had certainly not been the energy supply failing.

Sighing, Sam turned back to her laptop to work on her own tasks. She thanked all the heavens that Jack had thought to bring her laptop along. While she was missing quite a few of her measuring tools, at least he had been thoughtful enough to bring her laptop with which she could compare the data she could pick up and calculate any possible outcomes.

By now Sam really was at her wit's end. She had exhausted all the possible issues and no idea anymore where the fault with the machines could lie. From what she could tell, the machines simply refused to work and for no apparent reason. They were all in perfect shape considering their age and the amount of time they'd lain in a dormant state.

But without an obvious malfunction of any kind to repair, Sam slowly began to fear she had met her match in those machines. Maybe this really was too advanced for her to do anything about it.

"Um, Carter…?" the Colonel's wary voice suddenly cut into her thoughts.

Sam looked up, her gaze purposefully searching the room until she made out his large frame standing in front of the energy producing device. He stood half-turned to the machine, his gaze glued to something she couldn't see but guessed to be one of the open maintenance panels. She had dismantled them all over the devices in her attempt to find the malfunction.

"Yes, sir?" she answered routinely and for once he didn't comment on her slip.

"Ah… something started flashing here," he reported instead.

Instantly Sam was alerted. Roughly grabbing her laptop, she rushed over to where he stood. He was right, she realized the moment she halted next to him. Within the energy producing device the crystals had started lighting up and dimming in certain regular time intervals. Stunned, Sam watched the show for a moment. It was like looking at Christmas tree lights. Wordlessly Sam began to track the changes on her laptop. She was reading faint increases in the energy flow. Where the device had lain dormant earlier, it was now responding to something; activated but not really working yet, as if it was waiting for the order to start.

"Sir, what did you do?" she inquired.

He held up his hands in defense. "Nothing, Carter! I was just walking by! I swear!"

Sam gnawed on her lip in thought. Could it be? Had he activated the device by simply walking past it? Sam felt stupid all of a sudden. It kinda made sense. Everything within this base needed the Ancient gene to start up, so why not those devices as well? Sam had just assumed he had gotten them running from the control room when he had tried to activate the energy supply but what if the warning they'd received then hadn't been because of a malfunction but because of another safety program he would have needed to deactivate? Some kind of security check he had to pass or a safety measure he had to disable in order for the devices to reactivate and pick up their original jobs? It actually made sense. It would ensure that in case of an overthrow or invasion, nobody could get these controlling devices running aside from the intended personnel, as perfectly seen by Sam's own thwarted attempts. This was probably also the reason the Ancients hadn't bothered to destroy their base when they had abandoned it; nobody but them could use it anyways.

Again, Sam shot the Colonel a curious gaze. If she had been in charge of the base, she would have put the energy supply, the essential life supporting system of the base, under the highest security measures, meaning she would have severely restricted access, only allowing those of the highest ranks entrance. So how come the Colonel could just access anything and everything here after hundreds of years without any problem?

"So, what's it doin', Carter?" the Colonel asked into her considerations.

"It activated," she explained. "I'm guessing it is on stand-by."

The Colonel sighed relieved. "Does this mean we have energy?"

"No," she replied. "It would need some kind of activation order for that."

"Okay… so do I just think of activating it?" he inquired, hesitantly reaching out a hand towards the device.

Sam shrugged unknowing. Not having that much experience with Ancient technology activation by thought, she had no idea what she should tell him. "Try it," she finally advised.

He looked at her skeptically. "Do you think this is a good idea?"

"Sir, I have thoroughly checked all the devices, machines and backup systems. Everything is functioning perfectly. If you get it running then nothing bad can happen to us."

"Fine," he said, even though he still sounded a bit insecure. Nevertheless he concentrated and tried it. Sam observed the crystals raptly. For a moment they all lit up brightly and the readings on her laptop almost exploded from the raw energy surging through the systems but then everything fell inactive again, all crystals powering down.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud!" the Colonel cursed angrily.

Sam gnawed on her lip in deep thought, her thoughts racing. What had just happened? The device had activated due to the Colonel's presence but it had refused his order to start up? Was it here that his ability to access the systems ended? Or had he simply not used the right command? But if that was the case, then how were they supposed to know the right command?

Sam put her laptop away and carefully began to examine the device once more. The moment she stuck her hands into the maintenance panel and touched a few of the crystals however, something like an electric current shot through her body. Sam jerked instinctively in surprise but quickly realized she wasn't harmed.

"Sam!" the Colonel called out surprised but she failed to react to him, she was too taken by what was happening to her. Amazed beyond words the astrophysicist realized that she was kind of… feeling the inner workings of the device! Sam had no idea how this was even possible but she suspected it had something to do with her psychic abilities that granted her access to the systems by somehow connecting her with the advanced alien technology. However it was working though, it allowed Sam to feel some kind of barrier, a barricade that hindered them from getting the systems up and running. The barrier almost felt physically real. Sam's hands grabbed at air where she suspected the energy barrier to be but a strange mental echo of the barrier made her feel it. It wasn't like a force-field that you could physically touch, more like a firewall, invisible to the eye but still there. Sam placed her hands back in against the crystals in an effort to strengthen her connection with the barrier she felt and then tried pushing against it with her mind, but either it was her inexperience with her powers or her lack of the Ancient gene but the barrier wasn't budging.

"Sir!" she said, excited that she had finally found what she deemed to be the fault she had been searching for for days. "There's some kind of barrier here we need to circumvent! Can you try and order it to deactivate?"

She felt him step closer. "Carter, there's no way I'm going to order this thing to do anything as long as you have your hands stuck in it," he grumbled.

She shook her head. "There's no other way," she countered. "I need the connection so I can feel if what we're doing is successful!"

He still sounded less than pleased when he asked: "There's really no other–?"

She interrupted him before he could finish the sentence. "No sir, there isn't!"

Sighing deeply, he came to stand right next to her and again he laid his hands against the device. Now Sam could feel the order he conveyed to the machine as a sudden spike of energy surging through the system and then she felt the barrier react to it. As if it was an access panel needing a certain code, it seemed to check Jack's command and then, as if he was off by a number or two, Jack's order was denied. Sam grumbled in frustration when the crystals fell inactive once again. It wasn't working like this. Either they were just not meant to access these devices or they were missing the needed code but either way they could try for months and would probably achieve nothing. Sam mulled it over for a moment. Maybe they could kind of work around or break through the security barrier to activate the machine? It was a decidedly makeshift way of handling things and Sam would have preferred any other way because she didn't want to accidentally break something important by circumventing the security measures but she felt they were running out of options. If they couldn't guess on the right, needed code then what was left for them than to try to blow up the whole security measure?

"Again, sir!" she all but ordered, quickly forming a plan in her head.

She didn't hear him answer anything but the tensing of his body told her he was readying himself for the task at hand. Again Sam felt his energy flow through the device and again the barrier reacted. The moment the barrier activated, Sam intervened. She tried to mirror the Colonel's move and send some energy of her own into the machine, intending to weaken or destroy the barrier so that his order would reach the anticipated destination.

To her immense surprise, Sam felt the barrier crumple immediately with almost no resistance and with an audible hum the device activated. All around Sam's hands, crystals were lighting up bright and energetically. Stunned, Sam watched the crystals do their work and by the rapidly increasing heat around her hands, Sam deduced the device was getting to its intended task without further delay. She should probably move but their sudden conquering of the machine had taken her by surprise enough for her to fail to react in time.

It was the Colonel who caught up with the happenings just in time. Roughly pulling her back, he brought them out of the device's range moments before Sam saw a sizzle of highly charged electricity erupt, letting sparks fly where only a fraction of a second before her hands had been. Still, the force of the eruption was enough to send them stumbling back from the machine, their legs tangling and then Sam felt them falling. The next thing Sam noticed was her head crashing into the Colonel's BDU jacket and absently she realized she needed to be thankful that he had forgone his tactical vest and his P90 this time, heeding her advice of how hindering they were when working on these alien devices, which made her way luckier than him, especially if the pained groan she could hear floating up from him was anything to go by.

They lay silently on the ground for a moment and Sam could hear one device after the other activate around them. Slight crackling sounds told her energy was racing through the crystals and the cables, and from each of the opened maintenance light flooded the rooms flashing in all imaginable colors, bathing them in a rainbow of colors.

Sam straightened up and then turned to look at the Colonel. "Sir, are you okay?" she asked worried.

He reached up and rubbed his temples, his eyes closed but his expression relaxed. "All fine, Carter," he said. "What the hell just happened?"

Sam felt a grin tuck at her lips. "I think the devices were built to activate only by the presence of two Ancients," she said. "They needed two somehow identical orders so they would start up. Probably a safety measure so the machines couldn't be started by anyone other than the Ancients themselves."

"Oh yes?" he replied. "So how come they're working now?"

"My psychic powers," Sam explained. "I don't have the Ancient gene but apparently I could copy your order similarly enough to fool the machine."

He nodded, still keeping his eyes closed. "Does this mean you can feel… all this as well?"

She looked at him, puzzled. "Feel what, sir?"

He motioned around blindly with one of his hands. "All this power…" he explained slowly. "Almost everything within the base is getting powered up. I can feel the energy flow everywhere!"

Sam tried to understand but she couldn't. Whatever it was he was feeling was beyond her as she didn't have the Ancient gene to experience it in the way he did.

"No sir, I don't feel it," she answered. "After all just because I managed to fool a machine, I haven't turned Ancient."

He sighed. "Too bad."

Then he opened his eyes and looked directly at her. Abruptly he sat up and all of a sudden Sam was face-to-face with him. He grinned at her excitedly. "The whole base is running and buzzing with energy," he told her. "It feels incredible."

Sam grinned back automatically. "That's good," she decided. "Guess that means we'll be staying here?"

"Sure will, Carter," he agreed. Then he reached out unexpectedly and grabbed her chin, drawing her back to him for a quick kiss that Sam was in no way prepared for. Before she could react though he had already pulled back, leaving her sitting in front of him with her heart racing and her mouth gaping in surprise.

"Good work," he praised before adding almost affronted: "But seriously! Stop with the 'sir'!"

A/N: So, We've finally gotten the issue of the energy out of the way. Again, getting creative here with the crystal coloring. I suspect the colors do have a certain meaning but I'm not familiar enough with the Ancient technology to tell which one. Let's just assume it works in that way for this base…