Sam lay on the bed; cozy in Jack's sleeping arms. It had been amazing, and they had made a mess. Most of the spices that Razi had brought had ended broken on the floor in the kitchen and most of the pillows lay on the floor of the bedroom. She was too nervous to sleep; what happens now? Was all she could think. Her usually quick mind that had come up with answers to innumerable other, much more complex, problems, but she was having trouble concentrating. He's lying behind me right now and we just… she was too happy to think.
Teal'c and Daniel had been beamed aboard Thor's ship seconds after Thor had left, to the slight annoyance of Mitchell and Vala. "Aren't you forgetting something!" Mitchell had yelled at the ceiling, addressing Thor. "We're part of SG1 now too!"
Despite his rather loud attempts to convince the alien that he and Vala deserved to come too they were both left in the briefing room with nothing to do. "Well, Mitchell; now you can catch up on those reports!" Landry joked, knowing full well that Mitchell was one of the most up to date officers when it came to paperwork; he had even brought his laptop along when SG1 and Landry had visited General O'Neill's cabin not long ago.
"So, now what do we do?" Vala asked him as they walked out of the briefing room towards Mitchell's office. The colonel shrugged.
"I have no idea."
To their credit, Daniel and Teal'c were making the case for Mitchell and Vala aboard Thor's ship. "C'mon Thor!" Daniel pleaded, "Mitchell's the CO now, he's not going to be very happy if we leave him sitting at the SGC."
"Unfortunately we are already out of range," Thor said, not sounding as though he found their distance 'unfortunate.'
"Where are we going?" Teal'c asked, turning to look at the navigational computer even though it was too complicated for anyone of SG1 except for Sam, and even she sometimes was confused by it.
"We are going to the planet on which General O'Neill and Colonel Carter have been stranded," Thor explained.
"How long will that take?" Daniel inquired.
"Several days."
"Great."
"Indeed."
Things had moved incredibly quickly for Sam and Jack. Wynard and his people had noticed their change toward each other almost immediately, most seemed to be happy for them. They had only lived among the people for a few weeks and they already felt as though they had been there for years.
Razi had stopped by only once more, Sam had made it clear that she was not welcome and Jack hadn't even come out of the bedroom. The coward. Sam had thought, though she had done the same when Hyamin had come to visit.
"Let's go for a walk," Jack suggested randomly one morning two days after 'they' had begun.
"Okay," Sam wasn't sure what he had in mind. Smiling she asked, "Where to?"
"Well, there's this huge forest right outside our back wall…" He smiled his lopsided smile, making Sam smile back.
They left the house, hand in hand, and walked through the village they had finally begun to call home. The village was very alive, even in the early hours of the morning; the sun was just rising above the tree line and illuminating the bright colors of the shop tents, while shading the trees into leafy silhouettes. The villagers greeted them with smiles and hellos, except for Razi, who made a beeline in the opposite direction when she saw them coming.
The forest was peaceful, the dew wet their feet through the sandals they wore, having adopted the village's traditional dress after a week or so; they had become closer to the villagers after they had worn the villager's clothes in a strange way that simple similarities draw people together. Ignoring the cold on their feet, they made their way into the forest at a leisurely pace, not really going in any particular direction. Suddenly, they happened upon the jumper.
"Wow, I forgot about this!" Sam said, pulling one of the branches away to look at the small ship.
"No way! Sam forgets about a techno-doohickey and I don't! You've really let yourself go," He smiled at her, joining her front of the jumper and pulling away another branch so he could see inside.
"There's my radio!" He exclaimed after his eyes had adjusted to looking into the darkness. "I've been wondering where that'd got too, yours is in that bin with the rest of our old stuff," he said 'old stuff' as though the things in the bin were part of another life altogether.
Replacing the branches on the window they moved around to the back of the jumper and pulled the branches away allowing the back hatch to open. Jack grabbed the radio and turned it on habitually. There was no static; he glanced at Sam, she was looking at the radio thoughtfully. Of course 'thoughtfully', Jack smiled to himself, when does Sam ever not think about things?
"Where's the static?" He asked her after a few seconds, hoping she had some sort of idea by then; instead she shrugged.
"I'm not sure… the only reason there wouldn't be static is if somebody were sending a signal to this radio, and… unless somebody in the village turned mine on…" She sank back into thought and he let her. It was unlikely that anybody was playing with her radio in the village. The villagers had been wary of their clothes and devices, pressuring them to change into the loose fashions they all sported; this had been fine by the pair of them, it was a tropical area and it was hot.
They walked back in silence, Sam trying to find a solution to the lack of static, and Jack letting her think; he was just enjoying walking hand in hand with her.
They made their way slowly back to their house. Sam didn't say much, but Jack stopped to talk to villagers along the way. The top gossip was that a certain couple would be wed soon and everybody wanted to hear Jack and Sam's take; Jack innocently said that he hadn't heard anything about any weddings. Smiling to himself and pulling Sam closer by way of their conjoined hands, they made the rest of the way back to their house.
Back at their house, Sam immediately searched the bin full of their old things for her radio. Puzzled when she didn't find it on, she turned it on. No static on that one either. "Jack, this is really weird! This shouldn't be happening!"
"Could it just be this planet or something?"
"No, because then the radios would've done this when we were inside the outpost."
"Oh… Well, maybe the outpost was protected or something…?"
"I'm going to try to boost our signal…" Sam trailed off and started taking the radios apart. Jack kissed her on the top of her head and wandered off into their house to make something to eat, as he usually did when Sam started playing with her 'toys.'
Daniel was bored out of his mind; Thor had nothing entertaining on his ship. Teal'c was in a state of kel-no-reem and Daniel didn't want to bother him. He'd tried to kel-no-reem himself in the early hours of their trip but he hadn't been able to concentrate. Jack and Sam had been gone for almost three months and now they were getting them back! Plus, Thor had mentioned that he had already been trying to get in contact with the pair of missing Air Force officers, though he hadn't said anything about why, though Daniel had tried to get it out of him. Finally, he had resorted to walking around the ship again and again and again, wishing the Asgard had libraries aboard their ships and playing with his radio.
"Got it!" Sam yelled, running into the kitchen, surprising Jack.
"What?" His mouth was full and he was halfway between sitting and standing, having begun to rise when he heard her yell.
"The signal, somebody's hailing us!" She was ecstatic.
"What?"
"On the radio, Jack!" She was so excited she leaned forward and pecked him on his lips, even though his mouth was full of his snack
"Oh, good," he said, not really thinking about it and swallowing his bite. "Wait, what?"
"Somebody is within range of our radios and they're trying to contact us!" Sam was practically dancing. She loved the life they were living together on this planet in the quaint little village, but she missed her friends and family and the SGC and the things Jack called her 'toys.' Jack seemed to be displaying the same emotions, happy at the prospect of going home, but sad at the same time; he'd miss the village and the freedom they had there. And 'them.'
"Hello?" Sam said into the radio. "Can anybody hear me?" She waited, getting the same lack of static, then she would've sworn she almost heard a voice before static crackled over the line. "Hello! This is Lt. Colonel Sam Carter! Can anybody hear me?"
"Sam?" The signal was extremely weak and the voice was barely audible but Jack recognized it anyway.
Grabbing the radio from Sam he jammed the button down, "Daniel!"
"Jack?"
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"How've you been?"
"Good, are you guys all right?"
"We're fine!"
"What?"
"We're fine!"
"I'll see if I can boost the signal any better…" Sam said, taking the radio from him and twisting wires around and connecting it to the antenna of the other radio as well.
"Hello? Hello? Jack, Sam?" Daniel's voice was worried. "Aw, crap. Thor! I had them but now they're gone… Hello!"
"Thor?"
"Hello?"
"We're still here Daniel!"
"Good."
"Where are you?"
"On Thor's ship."
"I got that."
"Oh, we're coming to get you!"
"When will you be here?"
"I don't know… Thor…" his voice faded when he turned to talk to Thor. "Less than a day."
"Good!"
"Are you still at that outpost? What happened, did everything turn out okay?"
"We left the outpost after it finished going crazy on us but it collapsed and the stargate is gone. We flew the jumper halfway around the planet and found a village where we've been living."
"Sorry, Jack I didn't catch half of that. These radios aren't working very well."
"Well they're only meant for a distance of a few miles! I'd say they're doing okay," Sam commented grumpily.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Can you repeat that?"
"No, we'll talk when you get here, okay?"
"Sorry, I can't hear you at all anymore; we'll be there soon anyway. Talk to you then."
"Okay," he and Sam exchanged a smile. The radio buzzed static and Jack clicked it off.
"Jack…" Sam asked, standing closer to him than usual.
"Hmm?"
"What are we going to do?"
"I do believe we have a wedding to attend tonight," he smiled, pulling her into a hug.
"No, I mean… after we get back to Earth. To the SGC and the Pentagon and regulations…"
"I hadn't thought about it. Technically I'm not your CO anymore…"
"Yeah, but I'm still in your direct chain of command."
"True, but that's not as bad as being your CO; rules can be bent a little here and there, Sam."
"Like you need to tell me that," she reciprocated his hug and it quickly turned into more.
Sorry, updates are going to be short and more spaced out now that classes have started... I hope you're all liking it, I'm still open to suggestions if you have any ideas for where the story should go :)