Chapter 29: Hawaiian Dream

The room was dark when Sam got back to it. Her spirits were low and she felt just as confused as when she was with Jack, perhaps even more so, and even though she had searched the entire ship she was unable to find him.

Flicking the light on, she looked around slowly, walking inside almost cautiously.

"Colonel?" she called out, looking around. She closed the door behind her and looked around again.

"Jack?" When there was no reply, she sighed and threw her wig off, before kicking off her shoes and flopping onto the couch.

"Trust you to stuff things up," she mumbled, her eyes slowly closing.

~~~

BANG.

"Oh, for crying out loud…" Sam gradually opened her eyes and awoke to find she was on the couch. Slowly and as quietly as possible, Sam rolled over in the sofa to see Jack with his back facing her, and it looked as if he were packing.

Last day of the trip, Sam, remember? Don't jump to conclusions, he isn't even living with you.

Jack turned and stiffened; Sam quickly shut her eyes, but it was already too late.

"Carter, you're awake." His voice was emotionless and Sam swallowed.

From Sam to Carter, bad sign.

Oh, he always calls you Carter, you nincompoop.

The tone of voice? HA, explain that.

"Barely." He turned back around again and she quickly sat up, running her hand through her hair as she racked her brain for something to say.

"What time is it?" she finally asked.

"Eight. You should get ready, everyone's meeting in the dining room at half past." Sam stood up and silently walked over to stand beside him with her suitcase on the bed. He glanced at her.

"What did Simon want to talk to you about last night?"

"Oh, that. Nothing, he just wanted to tell me something."

"What?" She looked up at him to see him glaring down at her, almost angrily, and she turned back to her suitcase again.

Fine, if that's the way you want to act…

"That's none of your business." She snapped her suitcase shut with a snap and went into the bathroom with it, and as the door closed Jack shut his eyes and swore inwardly.

I heard suicide doesn't hurt… well, not that much, anyway.

~~~

"You've all been great on this trip, each and every one of you, and I wish you all the best for the future." Rob, the leader of the green group who had just been talking, sat down, and the leader of the blue group, Susan, stood up instead.

"Okay, now I know you're all excited about getting off this ship and exploring the Hawaiian shore, but I'm afraid it's not going to be that easy." There were nervous glances and even a couple of groans, and Susan grinned.

"Hey, you all should have expected something like this! For your final challenge, you're all going to go rafting." There was a mixed reaction from the crowd; some people started cheering, obviously having gone rafting before, while others groaned, moaned and yelled. Jack and Sam shifted uncomfortably, knowing that no matter what this challenge involved they would be forced to go together.

"Okay, everyone, leave your bags here and follow me upstairs onto deck," Susan called, before jogging out of the dining room through the double doors. Jack was about to make a quip to Sam when he realized she was already gone, and he sighed, dejected, before making his way off up to deck after her.

~~~

"In the distance, I am sure you are able to see several landmasses. You will be dropped off on the shore of the nearest one, the island of Nihau, and will then be split up into eight groups by Mike, yellow group leader. Is that understood?" There were nods all round and Susan herself nodded, before talking again.

"Before you board the rowboats that will take you down to Nihau, however, I have to make a few things about this clear to you, and have to tell you exactly what you're going to do. It is, in fact, a little more complicated than you all just going rafting. You're actually going to be making the rafts." This time round everybody groaned. To this, Susan merely waved her hand and rolled her eyes.

"You'll end up liking it, trust me. You will be making the rafts on Nihau and will be riding them along down the coast to a red flag, which Mike will point out to you later on. The first group to build their raft and get to the red flag will get a prize…" There was a sudden wave of excited murmurs before Susan continued on.

"However, not one of your team members can touch the water at any stage during the race, otherwise you will be disqualified, so I suggest that you put most of your time into building the raft and you'll be fine." She smiled at them all before letting Rob take over again.

"Okay, everybody, if you could just make a line over here and wait to be taken down to Nihau…" Sam immediately walked over there and Jack lost sight of her in the crowd that formed. When he finally managed to get in line, he saw her several spots ahead of him, and obviously couldn't care less on whether he was with her or not. His shoulders slumped and he stared out across the water, miserable.

Sam, on the meantime, was feeling pretty depressed herself. She glanced over her shoulder behind her to see Jack standing in line, looking at something or someone that wasn't her. She turned back around again, starting to feel a little sick.

It wasn't that she didn't care about whether he was with her-she cared very much so-it was actually the fact that she was a little afraid. Okay, scrap a little afraid, she was downright petrified. It wasn't as if she didn't love him (no, very much so!) it was just… just…

She was afraid. That was natural, right?

Right?!!

She chanced another look at Jack again to see her staring straight back at her, and she quickly turned back around again, swallowing.

He loves you, what's there to be afraid of?

He doesn't love me, that's the point!

He said it!

He didn't mean it.

Sam suddenly realized she had been biting her nails and cursed herself silently. She had sworn in High School that she would never do that again.

Damn men.

~~~

"You guys will all be one group… not you, I want to put you over there. Don't give me that look! Hey… hey! What did I just say? You… you go over there with them." Sam obediently walked over to the group he had indicated and watched, being as inconspicuous as possible of course, as he wandered over to Jack.

"And you can… go over there with that group." Sam's heart plummeted as Jack was redirected to another group, and their eyes met briefly as he turned to walk away. She was still staring at him when she heard a voice.

"Hey, you, could you come over here and maybe *help*?" Sam, thinking that this was directed to somebody else, didn't listen, and didn't pay any attention to anything other than Jack until she felt something hard hit her back.

"Oww!" She turned around, annoyed, to find about a dozen people standing behind her with their hands on their hips, watching her. Looking down, she saw a small coconut on the ground.

"And all we had to do to get your attention was throw something at you! Come over here and help us get some of that wood over there-we need as many hands as we can. I want to win this thing and get my hands on that prize."

"What if it's something crappy like another challenge or something?" she asked, walking along with him down towards the pile of wood near Mike. There was a silence and she glanced up at him.

"Well?"

"I still want to win. Watch ou…" It was too late. Sam suddenly collided with someone and fell to the ground with a loud 'oomf'-looking up blearily, she just managed to make out Jack standing beside the woman who Sam had walked into, his eyes wide.

"Get up!" the man, who had walked on without her, shouted, and Sam grumbled something under her breath before pushing herself up.

"Gee, I'm sorry…" the woman began, but Sam quickly shook her head.

"No, that's okay… really, I'm fine."

"You, er… you have some sand in your hair, Carter," Jack mumbled, clearing his throat.

"Oh, thank you, Sir. Uhm, I should go…" She gave them both a curt smile before rushing off. The woman looked from Sam to Jack and to Sam again, both of her eyebrows raised.

"You're partner?" she questioned, and Jack sighed, nodding.

"You could say that."

"Who's that guy you were talking to? You weren't giving away secrets about how we're going to build this raft, were you?"

"No, and I wouldn't have told them even if I did know. What exactly are we doing, may I ask? I mean, by the looks of it you're just throwing pieces of wood around and tying them together in the hope that they'll magically make a raft out of themselves." Sam tilted her head and narrowed her eyes in utter befuddlement as she looked down at the group haphazardly throwing pieces of rope around, before shaking her head sadly.

"There are at the very least twenty people here! Are you meaning to say that out of all of you, not one of you have a proper plan?"

"Do you?" the guy retorted, pausing to look up at her. "I mean, I hear you constantly whining about how crap this raft is but I don't see you helping us make it better. Actually, I don't see you doing anything." Sam knelt down beside him and took some rope, starting to tie something up just for the sake of it.

"All I'm saying is that we should have some sort of plan otherwise we're just going to come dead last!"

"We're tying up pieces of wood, that's the plan!" he spat, and there was a silence, as if this settled it all.

It wasn't as if Jack was having much luck with his group either. They seemed to have the same plan-tie up some pieces of wood as quickly as possible and just make sure to save some wood for oars.

"Does that even constitute as a plan?" he asked as he watched the others feverishly binding and fastening things together, some that didn't even need binding or fastening.

"It does now!" someone called out, and Jack sighed deeply.

"We're just going to sink. You know that's what's going to happen, don't you?"

"Shut up and help," Laura (who Jack had played monopoly with at the beginning of the trip) said through gritted teeth, and Jack shrugged and sat down beside her, taking some cord into his hands.

"Alright, whatever. Just don't blame me when your ass hits the bottom of the ocean." She glared at him.

"If my ass is going to hit the bottom of the ocean, yours is going straight down with mine."

"Ah, but yours will reach the bottom first," he stated, raising a finger all-knowingly, and ducked to narrowly miss being hit over the head by a piece of wood-thrown from her direction, of course.

~~~

"Oars!"

"You expect us to make oars? How?"

"Just tie some wood together, who cares?! Come on, that other team over there is almost done!" Sam glanced up at the pair who were arguing before looking over to where he was indicating.

Jack. Who else could fate possibly make it? I swear this is a movie.

Jack, incidentally, was having similar thoughts.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a car chase yet.

He suddenly looked around him, just to make sure.

Island, Jack.

I knew that.

"Come on, we're done!" someone shouted, and someone else pulled Jack up and they ran down towards the water along with the rest of the group. Someone in Sam's group also shouted that they were done, and Sam quickly followed the others down as they dragged the raft towards the water.

"That doesn't look safe," Sam shouted, unease in her voice, and Roland (the guy that had continued to pester her to do something before) rolled his eyes at her.

"Who the hell cares? It's not like we're going to be sailing this thing to Antarctica or anything!" Antarctica. Sam almost smiled at the memory before remembering the situation she currently had with her CO, and a frown settled over her face.

Hmm.

Jack hopped onto the raft and his eyes went wide as it tipped slightly, and there were squeals and shouts all round.

"It's uneven, we're all just going to fall into the water!"

"Well, obviously that means we have to balance this thing out! You three, go over there-and you two! Go sit there!"

"Damn, I got water splashed on me. Does that mean we're disqualified?" Everyone shushed her and there were hurried whispers to her direction, telling her not to say anything about it. Jack was handed an 'oar' (which constituted as two long pieces of wood tied together) and he, along with about ten other people, plunged the wood into the water and began to paddle for dear life.

Not too far away behind them was Sam's group, where there was so much madness and flapping about that at one stage Sam was certain she had three arms. Finally, they started moving forward and after a few desperate moments, they had caught up to Jack's group and were almost directly beside them.

"We can beat them!" Roland shouted, a gleeful, almost greedy, expression plastered over his face.

"All we have to do is just go a little faster and we can beat these people!" Both groups traveled over a particularly large wave and there were yells everywhere-Jack almost fell in, but had managed to grip onto the side of the raft and so was safe. Sam wiped some sweat off of her forehead and continued on rowing, occasionally glancing up-not just to see their progress but to look at Jack.

You're involved in a rowing race and all you do is look at Jack. Girl, you've got it bad.

Angrily, she sculled harder and faster, and didn't even wince when she felt water splash onto her. Over on the other raft, Jack watched her for a moment-watched her movements, her expression… her in general.

And he stopped thinking.

"Sam, we need to talk," he suddenly shouted, and Sam looked up at him, her eyes wide.

"Talk? I… now?!!"

"About what I said last night." She gazed down at her oar, swallowing.

She knew it. She knew it!

"You didn't mean it, right? It was just in the heat of the moment?"

"I meant every word. I… I… I meant every word." Sam looked up at him, her eyes even wider than before, and for a brief of moment their eyes locked and everything else around them was forgotten…

Before there was another wave and a series of shouts, and Sam felt an arm clamp around her neck and drag her into the water.

"Sam!" Jack shouted, his mind going blank as he dropped his oar and jumped into the water after her. Gasping for air, her head emerged from the water and Jack swam over before clamping his hands onto her shoulders and looking into her dazed eyes, trying to tell whether she was alright or not.

"Sam?" he questioned quietly. There was a pause as Sam tried to make sense of what was going on. Perhaps only a minute ago she was building a raft on the shore of one of the islands of Hawaii.

Now… now…

What was she doing?

For once in your life, Samantha Carter, stop thinking! He told you he meant it, he admitted it, he wants this to work, he doesn't care about the regul…

Ignoring both her thoughts and the groans coming from both groups as another raft overtook them, Sam grabbed hold of Jack and kissed him. Although at first startled, Jack started to kiss back, and his hands threw themselves around her waist and grabbed on tightly. There was a silence before someone wolf-whistled, and there were laughs and cheers all round.

"Oh my God, I am so sorry…" the person who had pulled Sam into the water began, having swum over to the pair, and Sam glared at him.

"Go away! We're having a moment here!"

"I just…"

"Shoo!" Jack shouted, and the guy grinned before going off. Where to Jack didn't know and didn't care, because Sam had proceeded to kiss him again-this time much more fiercely…

~~~

A/N: Last chapter following! *gasp* do they ever make it back to the compound or do they get struck by lightning and die?!! All will be revealed!