CHATPER SIX

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"So what do we do while we're waiting?" Jack asked.

"Can we get back to base yet?" Sam asked. "I really want to look at this thing in my lab, its been bugging me since I got back to Earth. I have to finish it…"

"Carter," Jack said in a warning voice.

"What?" she asked.

"Don't blabber," he said. "I know you do that when you're nervous. It's annoying."

"Sorry, sir," Sam said. "So Luke, what will happen to Shanoll now?"

"I don't know," Luke shrugged, then turned back to the microwave, which he had been attempting to use for the past half hour. "What exactly does this thing do?"

"It's a microwave," Jack said.

"Microwaves are much, much smaller than this," Luke said, confused.

"Not the waves, it uses microwaves to cook food and stuff," Jack replied.

"Stuff?" Sam repeated. "What kind of stuff do you cook in your microwave?"

"You don't wanna know," Jack said.

Luke wandered out of the living room again, towards the bedrooms. Jack was going to protest, but he decided he'd rather Luke be wandering around in his bedroom and be alone with Sam. He shifted position on the couch again. Sam moved too, further away from him. He sighed.

"Carter, I thought I lost you before," he said quietly.

"You never answered my question," she replied.

"Do I have to?" Jack asked.

"That's the rules of the game," Sam said, looking up and meeting his gaze.

The look in his eyes reflected what she felt for him. There were so many words that could describe it, yet she couldn't find one. Actually, she could find one, and only one word. Love. Forbidden Love, against the rules of the Airforce. He moved forwards.

"Do you really wanna know?" he asked.

Sam started to get worried. Maybe she didn't want to know so badly. But she did. The way he had looked at her after Daniel had asked him the question. She had this gut feeling that it would be something that she liked. She nodded slowly.

"Yes, sir," she said. "I wanna know."

He didn't say anything. Instead he leaned even closer. She could feel his breath on her face, so close. His eyes were locked on her eyes, hers on his. She knew what was coming. She had known what is was the whole time, she didn't have to ask. But she'd needed confirmation. She'd never expected him to do it again.

Suddenly their faces came so close to each other Sam was afraid to breathe. She felt the soft touch of his lips against hers and suddenly she felt as if a whole world of worries had just disappeared. Suddenly she didn't care about the Goa'uld or regulations, she didn't care that Luke could walk back into the room at any given moment and catch them. Who cared? Who cared about anything? Jack leaned in closer and put his arms around her, kissing her more.

Just then the door flew open and Daniel walked in. Sam sprung away from Jack, falling off the couch and landing on the floor. Jack jumped back to his side of the couch. But Daniel didn't budge, he didn't even smile or apologise for interrupting. Instead he stood, staring at them, an evil grin on his face.

"Daniel?" Jack asked.

"Jack, how nice to see you," he said, his voice clearly a Goa'uld's.

"Go away," Jack said. "Go away."

He stepped protectively in front of Sam. She didn't like it when he overprotective of her. She wanted to be independent. But right at that moment she knew he had good reason.

"She can't remember!" Daniel/Shanoll said.

"She doesn't remember! So leave her alone and go away," Jack said.

"She will," Daniel/Shanoll said. "I must destroy the memory."

"Why? What's so bad that Jollinar did to you that she hasn't done to every other man in the galaxy?" Jack asked sarcastically.

"I must hide it from Martouf," Daniel/Shanoll snapped.

"Martouf is dead," Sam said quietly.

Suddenly Daniel/Shanoll moved forwards, pushing Jack out of the way, he landed against the kitchen bench and fell to the ground.

"Sir!" Sam shouted.

"He can't help you now," Daniel/Shanoll sneered.

He moved towards her, holding out a hand device.

"Where'd you get that?" Sam asked.

"In your office," Daniel/Shanoll said, moving closer and holding out the device. "Now you will surrender and die."

"What's the real reason you're doing this? You know I can't remember complete memories without a memory machine thing, and we don't use those often enough for that," Sam protested. "Why're you doing this?"

"Because if Apophis claims you as his wife and infests you, then you will remember," Daniel/Shanoll said. "At least the Goa'uld will dig up the memory."

"As long as I'm on Earth he can't touch me," Sam said.

Daniel/Shanoll held out the hand device. It glowed orange and Sam flew against the wall on the other side of the room.

"Sam," Jack choked, but she couldn't answer him, she couldn't breath properly.

Daniel/Shanoll held out the hand device to Jack and threw him into the bricks that made up his kitchen bench, making a big hole. Sam grunted something and tried to move towards him, but there was blood running down her forehead and her head hurt. Just then Daniel/Shanoll decided to throw her against the wall again, this time against the corner.

"Stop," said a new voice from the hallway.

Daniel/Shanoll turned towards the new voice, holding out his hand device again. But Luke was quicker, he shot him with a zat gun and then ran to the telephone. That was the last thing Sam saw before collapsing into the realm of unconsciousness.

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The next thing Jack knew he was waking up in the SGC infirmary, staring at a grey roof. Janet was leaning over him.

"He's awake," she called out. "Hey Colonel, welcome back to planet Earth."

"I was on planet Earth," he said.

Suddenly the memory of what had happened sprung to his mind. He sat up abruptly and Janet lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Slow down, Colonel," she said. "You were hurt badly."

"Carter," he spat out.

"She's fine," Janet said. "She hasn't woken up yet, but she's stable."

"How long have we been out?" Jack asked.

"Just over a day," Janet said. "Sam was critically injured, but we stabilised her. You weren't critical, but you were bad enough."

"I gotta see Sam," Jack said, flinging his legs out of the bed.

Janet raised her eyebrows when he referred to her as 'Sam' instead of 'Carter'. But she decided to ignore it. Maybe it was better for him to see her, and he wasn't in a bad condition anymore. She watched him walk quickly out of the room and towards the other beds.

He found Sam lying on one of the beds, tubes sticking out all over the place. She had a long scar on her forehead and there was bad cuts and bruises all over her. He guessed that he looked just as good as she did. He leaned over her bed and touched her face with his hand.

"Sam?" he whispered softly.

There was no reply.

He hadn't really been expecting one. But it would've been nice to have received some sort of acknowledgment. He sat down on the chair and took her hand between his own two hands. He brush a string of her hair away from her face and smiled at her.

"Remember," he whispered. "I told you I wasn't going to loose you again."

He sat there for about ten minutes in silence. Then he stood up and walked out of the room slowly.

"Sir," a meek voice came from the bed.

"Carter?" he asked, turning around and running back to her bedside. "Good morning."

"What happened?" she asked.

"Later," he said. "Just rest now OK? I'm going to get Dr Frasier."

"I'm here," Janet said, walking in. "Morning Sam. Sir you'd better leave now, General Hammond wants to see you."

"Yes, sir!" he replied, saluting her.

Janet shot him a dirty look as he walked happily out of the infirmary. Sam smiled as well. Janet walked over to her bed.

"You feeling better?" she asked.

"Not really," Sam grunted. "Water?"

"Sure," Janet said. "And after that you're going to have to give me all the juicy details."

"What details?" Sam asked.

"Hey, when someone is infested with a Goa'uld the host sees and remembers the things as well…you know that right?" Janet said.

"Daniel," Sam stated, then she suddenly remembered what Daniel had seen before attacking them. "Uh oh, Janet what has he told you?"

"That's a secret," Janet said. "But I would like to know the details, it sounds interesting!"

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Three days later Jack walked into the debriefing, he was late, but he'd beaten the General. He noted that there was only two empty seats left at the table. One next to Sam, which was his, and of course the General's chair. Daniel had a mark in the back of his neck, which Jack gathered was the scar the Goa'uld had left after entering him. Sam still looked black and blue and had stitches in the wound on her head. Teal'c looked normal. SG-13, who were sitting opposite SG-1, seemed shaky. But Jack gathered that anyone who'd been infested by a Goa'uld wouldn't be feeling that good.

Tok'ra Jack, they were infested by Tok'ra, Jack reminded himself.

"Good evening," he said loudly. "It's nice to see everyone looking so new and shiny!"

"Shiny?" Teal'c repeated.

"It's an expression," Jack said, sitting down in his seat. "So where's Hammond?"

"He got a call," Daniel said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Does it show?"

"Oh yeah," Jack replied, then he held his arms out wide. "This big!"

Sam smiled. "Isn't that the size of the fish in the lake you go to?"

"No, this is bigger," he said, smiling.

"Uh, Jack…" Daniel started.

"We need to talk space-monkey," he said. "But not right now!"

"We, ah, need to talk?" Daniel asked, confused. "About what?"

Sam looked at him. "I know you remember, Janet told me."

"Janet knows?" Jack asked.

"Knows what?" Hammond asked, walking into the room.

"Nothing, sir," Jack replied, standing up and saluting him.

"At ease," Hammond said. "Well the main reason that I called this debriefing is to ask if you're all OK and ready to go back to duty?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

Hammond frowned. "SG-1, I need to talk to you about something else afterwards."

Jack gulped. Actually he gulped so loud he was afraid everyone else in the room had heard it. But as they continued talking Jack gathered that they hadn't. He sighed. He wasn't in the mood for a debriefing. Or work. Actually he felt like fishing. But he hated going fishing by himself, it was so boring. And Teal'c wasn't much fun. Daniel would talk about his boring science.

Then there was Sam. Sam would talk about her boring science too. But her boring science was more interesting than Daniel's boring science. So maybe it wasn't the science that was interesting, but he enjoyed Sam's company. Sometimes Teal'c really got on his nerves.

"SG-13 you are dismissed," he caught Hammond say eventually.

Jack watched Major Ingles and his team walk out of the room. Hammond smiled at the remainders in the room.

"SG-1, you have not had a proper holiday for a long, long time," Hammond started.

"Oh oh," Jack said.

"Yes Colonel O'Neill, uh oh," Hammond said. "Everytime I send you on holidays you get recalled. So I'm sending you all to my cousins in Australia to stay with for a week. That's not long, just one week. But for that one week you will not be able to be recalled urgently to the SGC. My cousins own a farm down there and I've already talked to them. You're allowed to go."

He threw four plane tickets across the table. "Plane flights are fully paid. I want you to have fun. You leave tomorrow after noon!"

THE END

There will be a sequel. I can't give you a name yet, but just look for the one about them having a holiday in Australia. It won't be Action/Adventure, it'll be more humour/general/romance type of thing! Hope you enjoyed!