A/N: Thanks again for the reviews - you guys are great.
Chapter 17 – Stranded?
"Sam? Everything's going to be ok. We'll still get home, it'll just take a little longer than we were hoping, that's all." Jack continued to sit next to Sam, rubbing her back softly, trying to talk to her, but was getting no response. He was becoming very concerned.
"Sam, come on. You've been working pretty hard here for the last several days and now you're exhibiting signs of shock. Let's get back to the cave, I'll build a nice big fire, make you some lunch and we can figure out our next move." He stood up and held his hand out to her to help her stand.
After a couple of moments, one of Sam's hands unwrapped itself from her legs and slowly reached out to his. As she rose, she avoided looking at either the gate or Jack. They walked slowly back to the cave, Sam still holding tightly onto Jack's hand. Once back in the cave, Jack made Sam sit down on her sleeping bag and wrapped his around her. He then proceeded to build up a fire and make some lunch, watching her closely while trying not to look like he was watching her. He knew she wouldn't be eating much but wanted to make sure there was warm food available to her throughout the afternoon, so he put all of the fish he had caught that morning along with all of the potato things Sam had gathered into a pan with a lot of water and made a sort of soup out of it.
They stayed in the cave the whole afternoon. Jack talked about anything he could think of from Hockey, to Chicago's chances at the World Series that year to Cassie's latest subjects in school. Every once in a while he'd also manage to coax her into eating a bit more of the soup. She hadn't eaten much, but at least she ate some. He kept talking in the hopes of at least distracting Sam a little from thinking too much and dwelling on dark subjects. She, for the most part, kept silent and stared into the fire, nodding once in a while.
He tried talking about base gossip. Once he had become base commander and got Walter to loosen up around him when no one else was around, Jack found out that the Sergeant managed to hear about all of the gossip about everyone and everything. Jack avoided things he had heard about Sam, like the current betting pool about when her black widow curse would kick in on Pete. They had had to restart that one 3 times already, no one thinking he would live this long. He talked about Siler's crush on Janet and then Dr. Brightman as the reason he always found himself in the infirmary. There were rumors about Teal'c and one of the Lieutenants on level 24, Jack had tried to find out about that one by following Teal'c around for several days, but the big man was just too good at losing him. There were rumors about Daniel and one of the 4 armed, green wookie men from P67-5309. At this Sam looked up sharply at Jack with a look of confusion on her face, wookie men?. "Oh so you are paying attention. I was afraid maybe you'd finally perfected the art of tuning me out completely." He smirked as he said it trying to cheer her up a little.
"It's a little hard to tune out someone who's been talking non-stop for 4 hours now, Jack."
"Well, you gave me no choice, I had nothing better to do... Wanna play chess?"
She raised an eyebrow at this. "You brought a chess set?"
"Well, no, but, we could get some rocks, and..." Her eyebrow went up further. "Checkers? All we'd need would be 2 different colors of pebbles..."
They tried checkers. Jack gathered a bunch of pebbles and drew a board in the dirt floor. He lost to Sam 4 times in a row before she'd finally convinced him she had had enough. She still wasn't talking much and was distant, despite being able to beat him so easily at the game, so he offered to draw a monopoly board in the dirt. He did get a small smile out of her for that one. She passed on it saying she just wanted to get some sleep.
Up until now, they had always set up their sleeping bags on opposite sides of the fire. Tonight as Jack spread out his bag, Sam came over and spread hers next to his. When he did his best Teal'c impression by raising his one eyebrow at her, she shrugged and said, "Do you mind? I just want to stay close tonight."
"No, not at all, go ahead." He got into his bag and watched her crawl into hers. She turned her back towards him, facing the fire, but was still very close. He watched her for a while, knowing she hadn't fallen asleep yet, knowing how her brain was working on overtime trying to figure out a way home, knowing that she was probably still blaming herself for their current status.
After a long time, he heard her sigh and softly whisper, "We're stuck here, aren't we?"
"No, Sam, you know we're not. They'll come get us."
"They'll think we're dead. They've probably decided that the bomb destroyed the gate and us with it. They won't spend the time or expense sending the Prometheus out here just to retrieve our remains."
"Sam, you know Teal'c and Daniel won't stop trying to get here until they either get here or see us return home."
"Their hands will be tied, the Air Force won't give them the resources to bring our remains home either."
"Teal'c left the SGC when Hathor had us, he would choose rescuing us over following SGC orders any day. Daniel would do the same. Besides, your Dad won't stop looking for you either. Me, yeah, he'd probably ignore, but you..."
"When was the last time we heard from the Tokra? Do you think my Dad even knows I'm missing? And even if he did, the Tokra have been less than hospitable to anything related to Earth since the troubles at the alpha site. There's only so much he would be able to do."
"OK. Thor! You know he'll come here looking for our help sooner or later. The little guy can't get enough of me."
He moved closer to her and put his arm around her. "The point is, Sam, we will get out of here. It might take some time, but, you are too important to too many people, and too many aliens, for them not to come looking for you. And, even if they do believe we're dead, you are too loved for them to leave your remains on another planet, far from home."
She seemed to find some comfort with his arm around her and relaxed a little at his words. They stayed silent for the rest of the night, eventually falling asleep.
