A/N: Thanks once again for the reviews. I appreciate them. Stargate-fan: thanks for pointing out the typo, I've fixed it. Ilovesg1: I'm still trying to figure out where Rover fits in too. I like the thought of him being magical, I'll have to ponder that for a bit.
Chapter 18 – Moving On
Sam woke up early the next morning, feeling warmer than usual, with an unexpected weight across her waist. She then remembered falling asleep with Jack's arm around her and smiled at the fact that he was spooned up against her, his arm still around her. She lay there for a while enjoying the feeling, recalling drifting out of sleep a couple of times during the night, as she felt his hand brush her cheek or forehead. She would have liked to have stayed there longer, but she really needed to go outside. She carefully extricated herself from the still sleeping form next to her, surprised her movements hadn't awakened him. It then occurred to her, that with the mood she had been in the previous night, knowing Jack, he probably didn't sleep much, instead keeping an eye on her most of the night. Several stays in the infirmary flashed through Sam's mind as she remembered he would always be one of the constants in that type of situation. He would rarely leave her side unless ordered to do so by Janet or one of the other doctors.
As she looked down at his peaceful features, she resisted the urge to place a kiss on his cheek, knowing that with her luck, she would probably be caught. Then she thought better of it – so what if she was? She leaned over and lightly kissed his temple before standing. She headed to the entrance of their cave, missing the grin that crept up his face after she had turned her back. As she walked outside, a few small pebbles fell on her from the hillside above the entrance to the cave. Her soldier's instincts kicked in and she immediately looked up, grabbing her zat from its holster as she did so. "Oh, it's you."
She beamed up at Rover who was lying on a ledge above the cave entrance looking down at her, his eyes glittering in the pre-dawn light. "Is that where you've been sleeping?" As if in answer, the young dragon opened his mouth in a wide yawn and then turned to look into the distance.
Sam walked down the trail and took care of what she needed to. When she returned, Rover had left, so she went back into the cave to find Jack stoking the embers of the previous night's fire into a small blaze. "Good Morning, Jack."
"Hey, Sam, how are you feeling this morning?"
"I'm fine. How about yourself?"
"I'm good. You sure you're ok? Are you warm enough? Your temperature seemed a little low last night."
Sam smiled at his concern, now understanding his closeness last night. He'd been trying to keep her warm. "I really am fine, Jack. Still a bit depressed, sure, but, like you said, someone will find us. And besides, I don't think I could ask for better company while stuck here."
When Jack gave her a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin, she got a mischievous glint in her eye and said, "I'm speaking, of course, about Rover."
He gave her a mock look of hurt and laughed a little at her comment. "Good, I'm glad to hear that. Listen, I've been thinking. There were still some Ancient doohickeys in that building. Maybe something was shielded from the explosion enough to have avoided being destroyed, or maybe there's some in tact parts lying around the dirt out there. Maybe we should sift through some of that stuff and see if there's anything there you can do something with, maybe build a communications device or beacon or playstation or something?"
"Jack, I don't think..."
"Ah. Listen." He wanted to keep her mind occupied on something other than thoughts of being stranded with him, so he wanted to have her looking for something to work on. "Carter... Sam, I know you. If you were pushed, you'd be able to figure out how to build a naquada reactor out of a lump of naquada, some duct tape and a box of toothpicks. There might be something out there you can work with or study."
She chuckled at his thoughts of her apparent abilities. "Actually, I wanted to take a closer look at the gate. I don't understand how it could have been damaged like that. That explosion wasn't that bad. We've seen stargates withstand much worse than that."
Jack looked thoughtful for a minute. "Well, it could have been anything. This planet is so far away from other inhabited planets, yet had Ancients living on it. Maybe that means something. Maybe this gate was one of the oldest ones. Maybe it had been used a lot more than other gates and material fatigue over that time weakened it. Maybe it was rarely used until this place was discovered by those bad guys recently and the shock due to their use developed a stress fracture. Either of those weaknesses could have expanded into that crack during the explosion. Maybe one of the Ancient devices in that museum compounded some part of the explosion and had an enhanced effect on just the gate. But, yeah, if you could figure out what happened, that might help us know its limitations in the... What?"
Sam had been staring at him with her mouth slightly open. "Did you just use the terms 'material fatigue' and 'stress fracture' while discussing possible causes of a mechanical device failure?"
Jack just shrugged and gave her his patented O'Neill smirk and headed towards the entrance to the cave. "Maybe you're rubbing off on me. I'll be right back, just have to, you know." He pointed outside and left her standing there shaking her head.
