Sam hadn't been far from the embarkation room all day. True, she had plenty of things in her lab that she could be working on, and there were several experiments that were time sensitive that needed to be taken care of, but instead she found herself running an absolutely unnecessary analysis on the computer systems in the control room.

Not that she was worried, she kept telling herself, she just needed to do these computer checks and had been putting them off for too long. Yeah, right. Hammond seemed to understand, though, and he didn't say anything when he saw that she was running a check of the same system she'd just finished.

When SG-1 had been gone an hour or so with no emergency activation of the gate, Sam started to relax a little. Not a lot – she wouldn't relax completely until they were home – but if nothing bad happened in the first hour, then at least it meant that the weather conditions weren't a factor in anything bad, which might have cut the mission short. Of course, there were always other factors, but Sam wasn't going to allow herself to dwell on them, knowing that if she did, she'd end up driving herself mad in record time.

When lunch time came around, she was going to work through it – she was actually involved with a tricky diagnostic – but Janet Fraiser came by and bullied her into going to the commissary and grabbing a bite to eat with her, telling her that if she didn't, she'd tell Jack that she didn't – which they both knew would cause him to get a mournful, worried expression on his face and make Sam feel guilty.

Janet watched her friend carefully as they ate, watching for signs that she was taxing herself by worrying too much, but she seemed to be doing okay. Well aware of the scrutiny, Sam decided to turn the tables a bit, and distract Janet.

"So is Cassie getting excited?"

Janet scowled; this wasn't what she wanted to discuss. Not over lunch, and not over dinner. She and her daughter had different ideas about who should be taking her to the Formal – and Cassie didn't seem to care what her mother thought, lately. Something Janet had known was going to come, eventually, but had hoped it wouldn't come until she was over 30.

"It's all she's talking about," she said, ignoring Sam's amused smile at her annoyance. "Ian this and Ian that, and I hope my dress doesn't make my butt look big…"

"He's a good kid, Janet."

"She's too good for him."

Of course, Janet didn't think much of any of the guys Cassie had ever dated – and there hadn't been many, thanks to Jack, who hadn't thought much of any of them either.

"She doesn't seem to think so."

"She's too young to think past how good looking he is."

"He's a sweetheart."

"He's a teenaged male."

Sam smiled.

"Meaning…?"

She scowled again, and brandished her spoon at Sam.

"Meaning he's all hormones and testosterone."

Sam's smile broadened.

"I hate to tell you this, Janet, but I do feel the need to point out that Cassie is far more infatuated with Ian than he is with her. You remember what he said-"

"He's just playing hard to get."

The conversation had gone completely downhill from there. Janet was in protective mother mode, and there wasn't anything Sam could say about Ian that would make the doctor feel better about the dance the next evening. Not that she didn't try.

When they'd finished eating, Sam went back to the control room to finish her diagnostics, and Janet went back to the infirmary, still moody.

OOOOOOOOO

The alarms went off about 3 PM, and Sam's head popped up from the keyboard she had been calibrating, immediately. She looked at the gate, which was dialing in, and then at the Sergeant sitting at the console next to her.

He looked over, knowing what she was going to ask before she could, and nodded.

"It's SG-1's code."

Sam stood up and joined the group of Marines that were heading for the gate room – just in case they were needed to repel an invader, and heard Hammond coming over and asking who it was and ordering the iris opened when he found out.

She made it into the embarkation room at the same time the gate flared to life, and she held her breath, her fingers crossed without even realizing it. A moment later, Ian emerged, with Jack (the dog) right at his side. Both of them were walking fine – although they looked like they'd been rolling in the mud, and who knew what else – and Ian looked tired, although when he saw her standing there at the bottom of the ramp, he managed a smile that reached his dark eyes and lit his dirty face.

Before she could say anything, Daniel and Teal'c both emerged and a moment later Jack and Jaffer came through, all of them looking just as dirty and bedraggled as Ian and Jack had – except Daniel, who didn't look quite so bad. He looked smeared, while the others just looked… drenched.

Jaffer trotted cheerfully over to Sam, who bent to greet him, but frowned and tried to find a place where he wasn't mucky to touch him. The black hide was coated with drying mud and goop, and he stunk.

"What have you guys been doing?" She asked, looking at Jack as he came down the ramp. He looked slightly annoyed, and a little tired, too. Daniel didn't look tired, and Teal'c never looked tired, and it would take more than whatever they'd been doing to wear out either of the dogs, so Sam was curious if Jack and Ian had managed to get themselves into some kind of trouble.

"Romping through a swamp looking for Daniel," Jack told her, resisting the urge to hug her tight and ease the worried look out of her eyes – although he could see she didn't look nearly as worried as she had when he'd emerged from the gate.

"I wasn't lost," Daniel objected.

That explained why they looked dirtier than he did, Sam decided. And why Jack looked annoyed. And why all of them smelled so awful.

"How did it go, Colonel?" Hammond asked, coming over to them. He'd caught the end of the conversation, so he didn't have to ask why they were so dirty, and Sam could see him wrinkling his nose at the smell in the room, but what he really wanted to know about was how the Cadet had done on his first mission.

"We found a little house-"

"We don't know that it's a house," Daniel interrupted. "It probably isn't, since we only found one."

"-with some writing on it that Daniel copied down so he could try to translate it," Jack finished. "We'll probably need to go back tomorrow and finish checking it out…" From his expression, he wasn't looking forward to that.

"No injuries?" Hammond asked, looking at the group. They all looked fairly hale.

"Ian was hit with a branch and managed to get cut," Jack said. "But aside from that, nope."

Hammond looked at Ian, but the cadet obviously hadn't taken a debilitating injury, so he wasn't as worried as he might have been.

"Get cleaned up, and then go to the infirmary and get checked out," Hammond ordered. He looked down at Jack and Jaffer – who were actually dripping water and who knew what onto the floor. "All of you. We'll debrief when you're ready." Meaning he wasn't sure how long it would take them to clean up – and get the dogs cleaned up, and was telling them to take their time.

"Yes, Sir."

Hammond left, and Jack turned to Sam.

"Walk with us?"

She smiled and shook her head. Now that she knew they were safe and sound, she could wait until they were clean and less stinky.

"I'll meet you in the infirmary."