A/N: Thanks again for the reviews. They're all much appreciated.


Chapter 14 – There Be Dragons Here

After they had gotten their feelings for each other out in the open, Jack and Sam were more relaxed around each other, laughed more readily at simple things and caught each other staring at one another more often. Jack also thought, although he might be imagining it, but he'd swear he wasn't, that Sam seemed to walk just a little closer to him now, and sit a little closer when they had their meals. They decided to take up the routine of dealing with their food situation in the morning – Jack fishing in the lake and Sam foraging for berries and some edible roots similar to potatoes that they had found along the edges of the woods. Then once each of them had enough food collected for the day, they would head over to the crater and continue to dig.

It was the day after their kiss and Sam was digging while Jack had not yet returned from fishing. She heard some screeching above her and looked up. About 100 feet above the woods to her left was an interesting sight. There was what was obviously a young dragon, it's flight an ungraceful, butterfly-like pattern showing that it was apparently just learning to fly. Sam smiled at the view, how many people could say they saw a dragon learning to fly? Higher above and circling the young creature was a larger dragon, Sam supposed it must have been a parent, watching the progress.

Sam sat back and watched the spectacle for several minutes, enthralled by the grace of the parent. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of motion. Another dragon was flying quickly toward the little one. No sooner did Sam notice the intruder when she saw the parent swoop down at it. The intruder got close enough to the young dragon to startle it from its work and it started to fall as its parent slammed into the attacker. There was loud screeching and snarling as the two adults fought each other in the air above the woods. Sam lost sight of the youngster as she watched the fight get nasty. The adults would fly at each other, snap their teeth, slash at each other with clawed front feet and then fly away. The battle continued as they drifted away to the south. After a short while, Sam saw both adults plummet to the ground below them, far to her south and did not see either of them rise up again.


It was some time later when Jack came through the woods holding his catch of fish and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight before him. Sam was kneeling before a small dragon, holding out what appeared to be a power bar. It was sniffing at the offered food, but wouldn't take it, instead, it just kept snorting at her. Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing, Sam had a smile on her face and looked like she was just trying to make friends with a cute, fluffy puppy, not a mythical monster. OK, well, it was kind of cute, being as small as it was, but it would grow up and the one he had seen the other day was no where near cute and fluffy.

He quietly walked up to Sam's side, hoping not to disturb the creature and possibly scare it into barbecuing Sam, if it even did breath fire. "Carter?"

She turned to face him and just raised one eyebrow at him.

"Sam? Whatcha doin?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Uh, it looks suspiciously like you're trying to feed a fire-breathing menace of the sky."

Sam chuckled at his description. "I'm just trying to make friends with this little guy. I think his mom just got killed or seriously injured."

"His mom?"

She quickly explained what had happened and started eying the fish he still held in his hands. "Oh no, Sam, these are ours."

She looked up at him with her big blue eyes in a practiced expression that always made him cave in to whatever her request was. "I'll trade you my last power bar for one of those."

"Oh, for crying out loud Sam! You can't keep him. As soon as we get the gate unburied, he'll be on his own again."

"Yes, but we'll have been able to observe a developing dragon in the mean time. No one on Earth has ever studied one before. Just think of what we might learn from it."

"I'm not going to win, am I?"

"No, Jack, you're not." She gave him her most dazzling smile, for which he was no match.

"Here, and keep the power bar for later." He handed her one of the fish and watched while she coaxed her new friend into taking it.