A/N: This is unbetaed, so feel free to point out any mistakes so i can fix them. But tell me what i did right too, please!
Unfortunately for Jack, scanning frequencies for a response from the nanites was not a complex task. Which meant that after about ten minutes it had become very repetitive and he was, well—bored. So for the past two hours he had been scanning the frequencies rather mindlessly while the rest of his attention focused on her sleeping form. The stress of the nanites on her body, in combination with her other injuries, left her looking incredibly vulnerable. She was curled up rather tightly on her side with her hands near her face. Her good arm was shielding her broken one from harm even in her sleep, hiding most of it from view. What he could see of it was swollen and purple. It matched the bruise on her face from the backhand she had received days earlier. He guessed her body's immune system was too busy fighting the nanites to repair the damage.

The pain she was in, even in her sleep, showed itself in the furrowing of her brow. She shifted sometimes as if trying to find a more comfortable position on such an inhospitable surface. At that moment, he wanted more than anything to pull her into his arms and somehow make it all better.

Beeping from the computer in front of him brought his full attention back to the job at hand. Success! With more than a little regret at disturbing what little peace she had found in slumber, he shook her shoulder gently to wake her.

"Carter? Time to get up."

She opened her eyes hesitantly and stared up at him with momentary confusion. Then she blinked a couple of times, fighting her way back to reality before giving him her good hand to help pull her up and to her feet. The change in position was too abrupt and she swayed momentarily, almost toppling over. The Colonel had been ready though and caught her, pulling her to him until she was steady. She let herself bask for just a moment in the warmth and safety of his arms before pulling back. At his questioning look, she nodded that she was ok.

"I found the frequency you need to work with" he said as he led her to the terminal. He kept one hand on the small of her back in a gesture of support. Usually she would have been offended that he didn't think she could do it herself, but not today. She felt truly awful, from head to toe, and it took almost everything she had to walk the few steps to the terminal. He wasn't unaware of how much effort every movement was requiring, and pulled another crate over next to the one she was now sitting on.

Knowing he might be taking his life in his hands by asking her to—God forbid—depend on someone, he positioned himself behind her to help support her. She didn't have time to protest before a fit of coughing wracked her body, doubling her forward. He held her from behind as well as he could, and rubbed his hand in circles on her back as she coughed. The fit ended in a sound that was more of a moan than anything else, and he helped her sit back up.

"Relax," he instructed her. "I've got you." She nodded again allowed him to support most of her weight in a sitting position while she dedicated what energy she had to navigating the computer system with her right arm.

"You found the frequency?" she questioned, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," he confirmed, pointing to certain readings on the screen. And not for the first time, he thanked Olorun for providing a computer terminal that used English instead of Goa'uld. The time that would have been wasted in translation would have made what was already a difficult task damn near impossible. If it wasn't already!

She worked in silence, drawing energy from his support to keep her going. Testing variables and exchanging information with the nanites within her. The programming was complex and she tried her best to understand what she was seeing as she navigated the code. Looking for loopholes, back-doors, or land marks that she could influence.

And the Colonel watched, and held her, knowing this wasn't going to be easy.

It took four hours of playing around with the code, bouncing signals back and forth, before Sam felt she was making any headway. The Colonel spent the time as best he could. With one ear on constant alert for the return of guards or their god, he did what he could to pass the time and keep her spirits up. He gave her an update on the teammates she hadn't seen in hours, sugar coating it just a tad.

"Dad is doing fine with Selmak's help," he assured her. "Both of course send their best." She smiled a bit at that, which had been his intention.

When he ran out of updates and was again bored with the silence, he told jokes. Bad jokes.

"Why did Senator Kinsey cross the road?" She didn't even dignify that one with an attempt at an answer, but he told her anyway. "Because he was chicken."

It wasn't actually funny, but the fact that he had resorted to such humor was. Very funny in fact. Or maybe the nanites were somehow affecting her sanity, because she burst out in a fit of laughter.

"I knew you thought I was funny," he gloated in jest, which only made her laugh harder. Fighting the giggles that had consumed her she turned to him, muffling her laughter against his neck. He desperately fought the shivers the sensation caused while she recovered.

She kept her head turned to him for a moment so he met her eyes with his own. "I have a joke too," she whispered. "I swear it's worse."

"I doubt it could be worse than that one," he challenged with a smile.

"Want to bet?" she said with a playfully competitive look in her eyes he hadn't seen in a while.

"Sure," he said. "If my joke is worse, then I get to take you and Paige to the cabin on our next downtime." He watched for her reaction as he spoke, but she gave nothing away.

"Fine," she conceded. "But if my joke is worse, you tell me exactly what you and Teal'c got up to when we were caught in that time loop."

He paused, considering. "It's a deal." He was willing to tell her just about anything at this point to keep her spirits up.

"It's a science joke," she warned him, and he made a face. "I said it was worse!" she protested quietly. The effort it required for her to speak was evident but he let her. They both needed the banter, drew strength and hope from it, and it had been too long.

"So," she began, "there are two hydrogen atoms walking down the street."

"That's something I'd like to see," he commented. She rolled her eyes and continued.

"The first atom turns to the second and says, 'Hey! I think I lost an electron!' The second atom then asks, 'Are you sure?' And the first one says, 'Yeah, I'm positive.'"

He groaned at her pun, unsure though if it was worse than his own. "That was definitely bad," he admitted, "but I still think mine is worse."

"Nope," she whispered. "Mine was."

"How about it's a tie then?" he proposed.

Sam thought for a moment before nodding. "Does that mean we both win, or neither of us do?" Her question was a loaded one, but not one he had time to answer before an explosion of some sort rocked the ship, and the lights flickered.

"What the…?" the Colonel asked as he steadied them on the crates. Sam didn't have any answers for him, so she just shook her head. "Guess it's time to get back to work then," he said with reluctance as they turned their attention back to the computer terminal.

"I've almost got it," she whispered with as much determination could. He just nodded, listening to clanking sound of Jaffa rushing past the door. Words were too muffled by the door to be understood, but that was assuming Jack could have understood them anyway. He had not yet learned more than a few words of Goa'uld, and at this rate he was never going to.

"Take your time," he said nonchalantly as the noises in the hall became punctuated with the sound of staff weapon blasts. Luckily, the same noises that were making his heart race in anticipation of a fight-or-flight situation were doing the same to her, and the adrenaline helped her work faster. It would be rather ironic, Jack thought, if they got this close just to get caught in the crossfire of a mutiny or something.

"I think I've got the right signal to shut the nanites down," she said, mostly to herself. "I just need to get it to transmit throughout the ship."

"I thought this computer was independent of the ship's other systems?" the Colonel asked her.

"Mostly," she confirmed, and he left it at that. Hopefully, "mostly" would be good enough for her to work with.

Her right hand moved rapidly across the controls, until two things happened simultaneously. The first was her triumphantly muttering "got it" as she finished initializing the transmission before again doubling over in a fit of coughs.

The second was the Colonel knocking them both to the floor to hide behind the 'workbench' as the door to the cargo bay was breached by explosives. He hoped they had hidden quickly enough to avoid detection, but his hopes were in vain as Carter could do nothing to muffle her coughs.

A/N: Please read and review! I'm already working on the next part but my muse is slackng on the job so I would love to hear some suggestions about what should happen next. Even if i don't use them, they certainly get me thinking!