"What the hell is going on?" Vala yelled as she and the rest of SG1 approached the 'gate. Jack just shook his head and motioned her through the 'gate, she jogged through without hesitation.
"Where's Sam?" Daniel asked, refusing to pass through the event horizon. Instead he stood to the side, behind Jack, and waited for an answer. He didn't fail to notice the clouded look that crossed Jack's face.
"She was the first to go," he said, only loud enough for both he and Teal'c to hear. Mitchell ran up behind them shortly.
"Where's Sam?" He asked, looking around for the other colonel of SG1. "Shouldn't we get out of this... place?"
The remaining members of the original SG1 exchanged a glance; Jack looked around the complex for remaining scientists to avoid answering, so Daniel told Mitchell what had happened. Behind them, the last of the scientists ran through holding laptops and sheets of notepaper.
"We should probably go," Mitchell said to the three remaining men. He looked at the walls; they were fast approaching the 'gate, looking for something, or somebody, to eat up. Exchanging glances, they all moved closer to the event horizon. Daniel and Teal'c looked at Jack one last time; he was running back towards the control chair. They followed Mitchell through the 'gate.
The 'gate room was in chaos. Terrified linguist and scientists were pacing and mumbling to each other, a few nursed small wounds from flying computers. Felger stood at the back of the room looking disappointed that he'd missed out on the mayhem. Doctors immediately ran up to them, removing their weapons and checking them over for injuries; nobody was hurt too badly.
"Where's General O'Neill?" Landry asked, approaching them as they walked off the ramp, the 'gate shutting down behind them. Daniel and Teal'c exchanged silent looks of understanding while Mitchell spun around to see for himself.
"He's not with us?" Mitchell asked. "He was right behind us…" He looked at Daniel and Teal'c for an explanation but didn't get one; he still wasn't fluent in their secret language of looks and postures. "Jackson?"
"He stayed to try and use the control chair to get back the people who were… taken by the walls," Daniel explained. Landry gave him a look that told him that the excuse wasn't good enough.
"So now we've lost Colonel Carter, the jumper with the time travel device on board, and General O'Neill?" He looked from Daniel to Teal'c and back. "Who else are we missing?"
"Nobody, sir," Walter's voice came from the control room. "All other members of the expedition team are present and accounted for."
At least, thought the General.
As soon as the 'gate closed the walls jumped back to their original positions. Jack had almost made it to the chair before his arm had been caught by the wall as he passed through the doorway; he had been struggling against the pull when the wall stopped sucking him in. Losing his balance at the abrupt release, Jack fell over, barely missing the chair with his head.
He looked around and was surprised to see that everything was back to normal, of course all the computers and papers were on the floor at all angles, and then there was Sam. She was unconscious on the floor beside the console where she had been working.
Jack jogged over to her; she was breathing shallowly, but her heartbeat was barely there when he pressed his fingers to her neck. "Sam?" He asked at a whisper. "Sam!" He asked again, louder. He was getting no response, then he lost the pulse altogether. "SAM?" He held his hand above her mouth, but the breath had left her. Panicking, he began CPR.
"One, two, three, four, five," Jack breathed into her lungs. On any other occasion, being this close to Sam would have been awkward, but he wasn't thinking about anything other than reviving her. "Sam," he said as he began pushing on her chest again, "you're not allowed to die… that's an order."
It seemed to work, Sam began to come around again; her eyes fluttered and she spluttered a bit before passing out again. "SAM!" She was awake then. She grabbed onto his arm and looked around wildly from her position flat on the floor. "Sam?" His voice was calmer, making her calmer as well.
"Sir, what…?" She stammered. "What happened?"
"The walls ate you," he said, smiling with relief.
"What?" She hurt all over. Her chest hurt where the General had been pressing on it, her lungs ached and her head was spinning. The last thing she could remember was looking down at the console and realizing that she hadn't stopped whatever Felger had started, instead she had just turned the alarm, or rather the countdown, off. She had called out to let Jack know when she felt something cold grabbing her and surrounding her. After that it was all dark and airless, her lungs had burned and she had felt like she was going to be violently ill before she passed out.
Jack didn't explain more, instead he took off his jacket and rolled it up, lifting her head, he stuck it underneath. Sam returned the hand that had been holding Jack's forearm to her side, worry and confusion muddling her features.
"Sir, what…?" She asked again but she was shushed immediately. Jack began checking her over for injuries and found none, relieved he sat down next to her, sighing as his knees stretched out properly. I'm too old to squat down like that for so long. He thought, decidedly not thinking about why he had been squatting over his former 2IC.
Sam woke up a few hours later, sitting bolt upright and regretting it immediately. Lying back down slowly she smiled at the worried look Jack was giving her. "Good to see you're awake," he said. He came over and sat down next to her, folding his legs underneath him in a very un-General-like manner.
"What happened… exactly?" She asked, looking around. Jack had moved her closer to the 'gate, as far as possible from any of the walls.
"I'm not sure, when we dialed the 'gate the walls attacked us."
"How do we know it was the 'gate that triggered the reaction?"
"Because," he explain, a smug look settling onto his face to be explaining something to her, "when I started dialing back right after you went to sleep and the walls started eating things again, only a lot faster. It's a good thing I moved as close to the 'gate as I did or you'd have been eaten up again."
"Oh."
"Yeah, looks like we're stuck here till you can shut it off," Sam closed her eyes for a second, that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. She tried to take deep breaths and think about it but her ribs hurt from the General's zealous CPR.
"Do we have any aspirin?" She finally asked, opening her eyes again. Jack turned around and disappeared into the jumper, reemerging a moment later with the first aid kit. He pulled out the pills and handed her a bottle of water.
After the headache passed Sam was up and about, looking at the console and trying to figure out what had happened. As usual, Jack just watched. He was very wary of the walls, staying as far away from them as he could, and watching Sam carefully whenever she went near them.
Finally, Sam had something to report. She went in the jumper and found Jack lying on one of the benches tossing a roll of gauze he'd found in the first aide kit towards the ceiling. "Ach," he said as she entered, throwing off his groove and causing the gauze to land on the other side of the time device. "Carter?" He asked her, looking up intently.
"Okay, so far as I can tell it was Felger that set this whole thing off…"
"I'm going to shoot him."
"… whether he meant to or not. It looks like he set the entire outpost on alert. I turned the alarms off but the rest of the program was still running. When I was trying to access the databanks earlier, the base saw it as a threat because it was already on alert. I guess the Ancients that left this outpost were really paranoid about their research being seen by unfit eyes."
"So, can you fix it?" Sam wouldn't make eye contact, never a good sign. "Colonel?"
"No, sir. You can try the control chair but I'm not sure that will work either. The systems are all so old and have been dormant for so long that they're not working right. There's nothing I can do because if I tried to pry off the paneling and fix the wires the walls would go crazy again," she shifted a little before looking the General in the eyes. "I'm sorry, sir, but we might be here for awhile."
"I'm going to shoot Felger," he told her again as he walked over to the chair, it was the one part of the complex that could be touched without making the walls hungry.
Half an hour later Jack was tired of sitting in the chair and getting nowhere. Sam was sitting on the step leading up to the platform the chair was on, waiting to hear about his progress, or lack thereof. He hopped out of the chair and sat down next to her with a groan. "Nothing?" She asked.
"Nope," he shook his head. "I can't access the program, I don't know why." He shrugged. Sam sighed, looking over at the jumper that had become their home. They had used the blankets in the emergency pack on board to make pillows, effectively turning the benches into uncomfortable beds. They used the time device as a table, it was safely offline. The thing that worried Sam was their food supply. They had plenty of ration bars but they would run out eventually, and she wasn't sure she could stand the taste of another one; they were running very low on water too. "Hey, Sam?" He asked after a few minutes had passed in silence.
"Yes, sir?"
"Can we use the time device to get out of here?" She shrugged; he watched as her mind went from idly worrying about their problems to actively solving them.
"I'm not sure…" Sam responded, getting up and walking towards the jumper. He could hear her shifting the food off the time device and moving other things around.
Sam came out of the jumper a few hours later carrying a pair of ration bars and looking miserable. "No luck?" He asked as she approached, she shook her head in reply, handing him one of the bars.
"I don't have the right tools here to get the time device to hook back into the jumper properly. We could just semi plug it in, but we wouldn't be able to control when we went."
"Anytime is better than here... now, whatever."
"I almost agree, sir, but we wouldn't be able to get back either," she pointed out. Always a step ahead of me. He smirked. She unwrapped the bar with a sick look on her face that would've made Jack laugh if he hadn't felt the same way about the bar he was about to eat.
They'd been stuck in the outpost for a week when they finally came to a decision, they had to try anything. They had about two more days' worth of water left and enough of the bars left for three. Unfortunately they were both fresh out of ideas.
Dialing the 'gate and driving the jumper through at top speed wouldn't work, the tail end would get stuck in the walls. They'd spent most of the last few days exploring the outpost, it had a similar layout to Atlantis, only smaller; they'd looked for anything that would afford them an escape but nothing had caught their attention.
"Can't we just fly the jumper through the ceiling or something?" Jack asked, half joking, half wanting to know if it would really work.
A week ago, Sam wouldn't even have considered the option, but after a week on ration bars and stale-tasting water she was ready to try anything. They began searching the outpost again, this time looking for skylights that the jumper could get to without touching the walls.
After hours of searching they had their first lucky moment. Jack had found a large chamber with a humongous glass dome over the top. He'd been lucky that he'd been able to get to it too; he'd touched the panel by the door to open it up without thinking. After he was inside he realized what could've happened and decided not to tell Sam that the door had been closed.
They packed up quickly, and were both in the jumper only ten minutes after discovering the room. Jack went painstakingly slow, making sure not to touch the walls. They both got nervous as they got closer.
Finally, the jumper emerged into the open hall. They looked at each other before Jack began their ascent.
They began slowly, then faster as they approached the glass dome. Looking closely, Sam could see patterns, stained glass. Thank God for the decorative flair. She though.
The entire complex seemed to sense that they were about to escape, like it wanted to respond but couldn't yet. They both held their breath and Jack accelerated suddenly.
The glass shattered and they soared upward.
Below them the outpost rumbled, visibly shaking. The glass fell inwards and then shot out again, accelerated by the outward explosion of the walls. They could see more windows break down the length of the complex, suddenly the walls receded. The rapidity of all this was too much for the old structure, it fell in on itself; crashing and leaving a pile of rubble and a dust cloud behind.
They looked through the front window, surprised, to say the least.
The entire outpost had been eliminated in a cloud of dust because of its own walls. Jack couldn't help but smile, glad to be out of the stuffy old-smelling corridors. He looked over at Sam, hoping to receive a smile in return, but, instead, was greeted by a crease in her forehead.
"The 'gates gone," she said simply. She was right. They were now trapped on a planet without an accessible stargate.
They circled the planet numerous times, looking for civilization, another stargate, anything. On what they had decided to be their final try they found a small town in a tropical zone.
The village seemed to be a few hundred years behind Earth's technological level. The houses were all raised off the ground, presumable to avoid flooding in the wet season, and were built against trees. Surrounding the houses, and under some of them, were what appeared to be stalls such as the ones you would find in a fair or marketplace. The place was bustling, full of life.
As they moved away from the village, going to park and investigate, a noise came from the back section of the jumper. Exchanging a worried glance, Sam rushed to the back to see what was wrong. "Sir!" She called up, "you should probably land the jumper!"
"What?"
"The work that I did trying to get the time device to work is shorting out, it's threatening to overload the system and bring to whole jumper down. We need to cut power!"
Jack landed the jumper in the forest directly below them, they were a few miles from the village and the forest was thick enough so that the jumper would probably go unnoticed. Just to be safe, they tore down branches hid it anyways.
Hunters carried their game into the village from the forest, bringing it to their wives to cook and prepare. Women were all over the village, washing, mending, sitting in circles and talking; men sat with them and talked with them, some even helped with the chores. The village appeared to be peaceful; the only weapons in sight were knives of varying sizes, and bow and arrows for hunting. Deciding to take their chances, they walked into the village.
All of the villagers stopped what they were doing when Sam and Jack walked, unceremoniously, from the surrounding forest. Children fled to their parent's sides, a teenage boy ran off into the city and brought back a group of older men, all talking fast.
"Hi!" Jack said cheerily, addressing the man who seemed to lead the group that had approached. The man looked them both over warily. They'd left their weapons in the jumper, taking only the knives, which had been hidden away.
The leader was shorter than either of them, but taller than most of the gathering crowd. Like the others, he had darkish skin and closely cropped hair, looking around; they realized that nobody's hair fell below their shoulders. The leader had small, dark eyes, and a large nose with a leathery, wrinkled face. He was wearing loose cloth pants that fell around open sandals; his shirt was loose too but ornately decorated, more so than any of the others. He also wore a band around his head that was bright purple, contrasting his silvery hair.
"Hi," Jack said again, not so self-assured this time. Finally, the man spoke.
"Greetings," his voice was solemn and low pitched, reminding them of Teal'c. "I am called Wynand."
"Hello," Sam said, hoping she wasn't breaking any customs, however she was less likely to say something offensive. "My name is Colonel Sam Carter."
"I'm General Jack O'Neill," Jack supplied. Wynand nodded his head in greeting to both of them.
"Where do you come from?" He asked. So much for diplomacy, Sam thought, this guy gets right to the point.
"Really far away," Jack explained.
"Are you travelers of the Lost Village?" Wynand asked, failing to mask the excitement in his voice.
"Yes, I think so," Sam said, saying the last part of her sentence more to Jack than to Wynand. With her reply came cheers from the crowd.
"We had not thought anybody had survived, it has been so long!" Wynand said, he looked like he was about to hug them.
The days soon turned into weeks, and neither Sam nor Jack felt any need to leave the village. The villagers had accepted them open heartedly as travelers from across the ocean, showing pity when the pair of them told of the outpost's destruction. "We are sorry that you have lost your home," Wynand said sympathetically. "We hope that you will stay in our village with us?"
Sam and Jack had accepted the offer, not knowing what else to do. They had nowhere to go; the 'gate was buried and they had no way of repairing the jumper. The best that they could do was get comfortable and hope against hope that they would be rescued, not that they minded living with Wynand's people. The village was very tolerant of their lack of knowledge of their customs, finding it entertaining to instruct them as though they were children.
After three weeks had passed, Wynand surprised them with a house of their own. He explained that the woman who had lived there had died in her old age weeks before they had arrived, almost as though it was meant to be. The entire village showed up, bringing housewarming gifts and food to stock the pantry. Sam and Jack were overwhelmed, but definetly relieved to be moving out of Wynand's house, he was a kindly host but his wife, Ashaya, seemed to be the head of the local gossip circle and since their arrival it had focused on them.
That night the shock of recent events finally settled in; it wasn't enough that they'd spent the past few weeks lost and alone, but now to be taken in so warmly by strangers was something else still. The house was beautiful but small. Twelve steps led from the ground to the level of the house on stilts. The door opened up on a sitting room complete with couches chairs for sitting and talking. A fireplace was on the wall that the sitting room shared with the kitchen, half of the fireplace was in the sitting room, the other in the kitchen for cooking on. The kitchen contained a table with three chairs around it, as well as an assortment of cooking supplies genuine to the area. The house was completed by a bathroom and a single bedroom with a huge bed loaded down with pillows and blankets. It was the softest thing either had ever sat on. In one corner of the bedroom was part of the trunk of the tree that supported the house, its branched stretching out to support the thatched ceiling.
Knowing that the evening would turn out to be awkward enough, Sam started making dinner over the small fire they had going; it was much too hot to be cooking by fire, but they didn't really have a choice.
About a half an hour later they were sitting at the small table eating the local version of a chicken and vegetables. It wasn't half bad, but the house was very hot from the fire. "So…" Jack started after he'd finished.
"So," Sam responded.
"What happens now?" Sam shrugged in response. Again, they were alone on this strange planet.
A few hours later the house was completely dark and the pair of them were still sitting on the couch, talking quietly about recent events, and the village customs. One of these customs was saving all the candles for the winter months, meaning there was nothing they could do about the dark.
"So, um…" Sam started awkwardly, "I'll take the couch."
"No, I will," Jack retorted, as expected.
"Are you sure, sir? I don't have any problems with…"
"No, Carter," he cut her off. "Bring me out a couple of pillows and I'll be just fine."
"Yes, sir," she did as she was told
By the end of the next week they were more comfortable with their situation, or at least as comfortable as they could be. Jack made friends with the hunters, eventually going along with them to bring back food, which Sam would cook. While Jack was off hunting Sam would stay around the village and talk with the women, who often dropped by their house in large groups bearing gifts to make their 'house into a home' as they put it.
"Sam, I'm back!" Jack said, coming through their door carrying three large chicken-like animals. They were birds with long, bright orange, scaly legs, a short orange beak, and bright green plumage covering everywhere else. Jack had become quite proficient with the bow and arrows he'd been given.
"Hi, sir," Sam said, laughing at a joke one of the women in the house had told, behind her a small group of women laughed along.
"Ladies," Jack greeted the rest of the house. Jack went into the kitchen and put the bird on the counter, Sam joined him a few seconds later. The women called their goodbyes from the doorway, Sam and Jack waved and began preparing the birds. It was a disgusting process, but if they didn't do it and get the birds cooked they'd start to smell.
"How was hunting?" She asked, making a pile of bright green feathers next to her.
"Oh, fine, Wynand got a big cow-like thing. It moved really slowly, but when we got close to help him chop it up to carry it home…" he smiled to himself, "it had fangs," Sam chuckled, trying to imagine a cow with fangs. "Anyways, he gave me a cut of it; we can have it for dinner."
"Alright, sir," Sam agreed, he pulled a moist-looking slab of meat out of the bag he had brought with him. It looked like a normal enough portion of beef, it was pinkish brown and wrapped in a few leaves. Sam took the meat, leaving the bird sit while she pulled the leaves away and began slicing the meat.
They continued working in silence for a few minutes before Jack turned around to face her. "Sam?" He asked quietly, she didn't turn around but her shoulders stiffened a little, she hadn't missed the personal tone of his voice.
"Yes, sir?" He sighed.
"When are you going to stop calling me sir?" She shrugged in response, finally turning around. She wiped her hands off and tossed him the towel when she'd finished with it.
"I don't know…"
"I just don't think its something we need to… I don't know, keep up," he shifted nervously. "We're stuck here, Sam, and…"
"I get it, sir," she said, looking sheepish at her slip. "Sorry."
Jack smiled. "You know," he started, turning back to the bird behind him, "Wynand thinks we're married."
"What?"
"Well, actually, he asked if we would like to be formally mated in their culture; assuming we were already mates in our own village."
"What did you say?"
"I said we weren't together like that," he responded without any signs of hesitation.
"Oh…" Sam said. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She knew that her feeling toward him hadn't changed since the zay'tarc incident oh so many years ago, but she would never admit it to Jack. If his feelings had changed she didn't want to face it, even though he'd hinted that he still felt something for her when her dad had died.
Jack had stopped his work on the second bird and was watching Sam without fully turning around. In fact, Wynard hadn't asked him if they'd like to be mated, he'd asked if either of them had had mates; he had said no, and asked why. Wynard had explained that it had been assumed that they were together when they came, but that he'd gotten many inquiries by various village members who had an interest.
They were quiet while they finished preparing the meat. The birds were set to stew in a large pot on the fire while they putted the fanged-cow meat in a pan and set it near the fire to slow cook for dinner. Since it was so hot in the house when the fire was going they decided to go and walk around the shops, bringing a few things to trade. The shops were run by the elderly and those who didn't have anybody to hunt for them. The villagers traded meat and other foodstuffs for artwork, spices, and anything else that the shopkeepers made or found.
To their surprise, Wynand hadn't been lying when he'd talked about the inquiries in their relationship. Walking out of the house they were immediately aware that Ashaya had gotten the word out as soon as she'd heard it. Eyes turned in their direction, mostly young men, Jack noted. A few drifted towards them as the walked down the steps.
"Okay, I'll get those spices that were so good sautéed with the vegetables last night if you find something to make the sitting room more interesting," she said, glancing up at her former CO. He was looking at the slowly approaching men, deciding how to react; Sam hadn't noticed them yet.
"Okay, I'll meet you back here later," he walked off in the direction of the shops that sold the artwork, deciding not to think about the men approaching Sam. I'll just see how she deals with them first, he decided, not really liking his idea.
As soon as he left Sam looked around at the approaching men, they had quickened their pace once they saw Jack leave, in her mind she begged him to come back. She decided to ignore them, walking in the direction of the spice shops.
"Hello," said a voice behind her as she trades some of the meat she'd brought with her for the spice she knew Jack liked. She turned around to see a man, about her age, and almost her height.
"Hi," she responded, wishing Jack was there.
"My name is Hyamin," he smiled.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Sam Carter."
"Why do you have two names?
"Why do you only have one?" Maybe if she was really annoying he'd go away and she could go find Jack.
"I asked first," Sam was somewhat taken aback at the response, I thought that was an Earth catchphrase…then she realized this was one of the hunters who had befriended Jack.
"My first name is what people call me, my second name is my family name," she explained.
"Why does Jack call you by your family name?"
"Because it's what he's always done…"
"Why?"
"Because we're in the military and that's what you do there."
"They allow women in the military in the Lost Village?"
"Yes, they did, why wouldn't they?"
"Women do the cooking and bear children, it is a man's place to protect what is his," Sam decided she didin't like Hyamin.
"Have a pleasant day, Hyamin," she told him, the traditional goodbye of the village. She jogged back to the house, avoiding the main aisles of shops and not making eye contact. Back at the house, Sam was disappointed to find that Jack had brought home a visitor, a woman.
"Hi, Sam. This is Razi," he smiled innocently, watching her face go into an emotional mask, hiding what? He wondered. Had he seen a flicker of jealousy or was that just wishful thinking?
"Good to meet you, Razi," Sam said, trying to be friendly.
"You as well," Razi was very pretty. She was short and slender with light brown eyes and her hair was short and curly. Sam was numb; she hadn't expected to be jealous of anybody, especially not on an expedition to study an Ancient outpost.
well, here it is, thank you for the reviews! i hope i can live up to your expectations, if not feel free to make suggestions!