A/N: Ok I know it's been a long time between posts, but how's this for an explanation: when I last posted, I was in London. Two days later I took the train to Paris, three days after that I flew the 20,000km (12,000ish miles) back to Australia, spent three days in Sydney before flying to Melbourne for two days, and then driving 500 miles in one day to Canberra. I ain't had much time for posting in all that time!
I'm still not through the worst of it – am currently looking for somewhere to live. It's so tiring going and looking at places and meeting prospective housemates/flatmates. It's crazy.
But enough of all that! I'm so glad I got the chance to get this chapter out and I hope you like it! Thanks for all the reviews, I hope you keep with it and I hope that others reading can take the time to give me some feedback… please?
Chapter 2 – On shaky ground
Jonas and Sam were bouncing happily along the rough path that still existed through the rainforest near the stargate. Teal'c had a more purposefully-minded gait as his well honed instincts worked overtime to ensure their safety.
Stacey was looking even more tense than Teal'c. Being her first off-world mission, the training within her had gone into overdrive and she was in a state of high alert. She could see Jonas glance back at her and smile once in a while, but smiling back was beyond her. The paralyzing tension meant that although she was very switched on in her duties, her normal personality had all-but diappeared. She didn't react as Jack spoke to her; she'd perceived him next to her. What he said, however, did manage to shake her out of this hyper-vigilancy.
"Y'know, Captain," Jack said amicably, as if they were merely taking a stroll in the proverbial park. "I know we're on a different planet and all that, but I think it's ok to relax." He smiled at the puzzled look on her face. "Look around you!" He exclaimed. "Trees! It's always trees! No matter how far we go we always find 'em, so really no need to act like you've just entered the twilight zone…"
Sam and Jonas had slowed down to listen to the familiar rant out the flora of every planet they visit. "Don't worry about him," Sam rolled her eyes, winking at Jonas as she spoke to the new team member. "He's got a worrying infatuation with foliage."
"Colonel O'Neill's right though," Jonas added. "Sure, we've gotta stay alert – but that doesn't mean we can't have a conversation."
"Besides," Jack piped up, not realizing that Stacey's eyes and attention were locked on Jonas, "We've got Teal'c – he's almost beyond alert." He nodded to the Jaffa, who had stopped walking but was still surveying their surroundings intensely.
Stacey didn't really hear what Jack said though, and was now smiling warmly at Jonas as she moved forward to walk next to him as they all moved forward again. "So, alert but not alarmed, eh?" She was grinning impishly, but realized that no-one understood her reference.
"Sorry – Australian joke," she explained. "The government's anti-terrorist campaign consisted in part of a national mail-out of fridge magnets with tips and useful phone numbers to call in case of any suspicious activity. The heading for this magnet – and the government's slogan – is 'be alert, but not alarmed'…"
"A fridge magnet!" Jack's voice piped up from behind, sounding mildly amused.
"Yeah I know," Stacey chuckled. "Some protection, eh? A bloody cushion would be more use – you could at least smother someone with it…" She rolled her eyes ironically and Jack realized with delight how much he was going to appreciate the Aussie sense of humour.
"Carter it's starting to get dark out and my ass has gone numb!" Jack's voice bellowed into the alien building he, Teal'c and Stacey were patrolling.
They'd been there nearly seven hours and, as far as he could tell, had found nothing earth-shatteringly interesting. Sure, every now and then he heard small exclamations from inside the building – ranging from grunts of exasperation to the more pleasant 'oohs' and 'aahs' of delight – but then Jonas was known for getting excited about pretty much everything and Sam's passion for all things weird and obscure was ever so slightly above the average.
"We're almost done sir!" Sam's voice echoed out to Jack's ears.
"Well, get a leg on!" He hollered back, standing up to stretch his legs and hopefully reinvigorate the blood flow to his rear end.
"How is Colonel Carter expected to acquire an extra limb?" Teal'c seemed genuinely perplexed – he had stopped pacing and was now standing still with an expression of alarmed curiosity.
Nevertheless, Jack hesitated before answering – he was starting to suspect that the Jaffa had recently taken to asking these kinds of questions just to see the reactions of others. During this moment of reflection, Jack heard Stacey explode with laughter, doubling over as her mouth widened into a huge grin. Whether Teal'c was doing it on purpose or not, he sure got a fantastic reaction.
"It's just an expression!" Stacey gasped, finally composing herself. She looked quickly at Jack: "I can't believe you know it too sir. It just means that the Colonel wants Colonel Carter to hurry up." She added, quickly, looking back at Teal'c.
Teal'c reflected upon this information for a moment before speaking. "I see." He said soberly. "The notion that Colonel Carter should acquire an extra leg would infer that with said limb, she would progress at a greater speed."
Now it was Jack's turn to be genuinely amused. "You make it sound like she's actually going to come scurrying outta there with the said extra leg," he said with a wink, catching Stacey's eye as she was again overcome with laughter. "In order to find out, however," he began to say, before raising the volume of his voice so Sam could her, "WE NEED TO WAIT FOR CARTER AND JONAS TO ACTUALLY COME OUT HERE!"
His cheeky words were met with predictable contempt from both parties inside the structure, however they words were drowned out by a much more alarming sound – a sound accompanied by a general shaking of the ground all around them.
Sam felt her head slowly clear as she returned to consciousness from the fog of noise and confusion that had submerged her into oblivion. She had no idea how or even what it was that had happened. One minute, she and Jonas had been working furiously – so they could get out of there before Jack positively self-combusted – and the next, just as they were shouting that they were on their way out, all hell had broken loose.
As she lay there with her eyes closed it occurred to her that perhaps all the shouting had enfeebled the structure, causing a collapse. But then, she had felt a strange shaking of the earth at the same time. Strange, because none of the telemetry readings from the MALP had indicated seismic activity. Still, anything was possible.
Sam had kept her eyes closed as she could sense a layer of fine – or maybe even thick – dust covering her and she didn't much like the idea of spending the next three days trying to wash stuff out of her eyes. As she became more alert, however, she slowly sat up and prepared to try and open her eyes, head bowed down to avoid any particles entering.
"S-sam?" she heard Jonas wheeze nearby, coughing with all the dust.
"Yeah." She rasped back, shocked by the hoarseness of her voice. "Careful before you open your..."
"Ahhh!" Jonas hadn't waited to hear Sam's warning and has opened his eyes, inviting a dustmite's paradise to request entry through his eyelids.
"-eyes." Sam sighed, completing her sentence. She had now managed to open hers, and was cautiously looking around the room. It was nothing like what they had come to all those hours beforehand. At the beginning of their day, the walls had been made of a smooth stone – much like sandstone – of a light blond colour. Embedded in the walls had been numerous ports of technology that appeared to be akin in technology to computers in the late 1980s on Earth. Interspersed with this dated technology had been crystal sections and finally what appeared to be a main console in the centre of the back wall that was clearly of goa'uld origin.
Sam and Jonas had passed their time cataloguing and exploring the various aspects of the room and building. Jonas had taken numerous pictures of the structure before moving to decipher the language, which was indeed a dialect or hybrid-dialect of a goa'uld language. Sam had explored with fascination the complicated duality of the goa'uld-native technology that covered the room. She hadn't even began exploring the content of the data nor the true purpose of the room before the collapse; so interesting was the way in which the native civilization had managed to set up a permanent interface with vastly superior goa'uld technology.
Now, however, the room looked nothing like it had before. It wasn't just a case of damage incurred by whatever had happened, whether it be earthquake or otheriwise. As Sam looked around she realized that something much more sophisticated had happened. All the native consoles that had lined the now fractured walls seemed to have receded and spontaneously covered themselves with a protective shield. The goa'uld technology, however, remained unchanged. The consoles hadn't moved even where the wall apparently supporting them had collapsed. They remained in place.
"Wow, how the hell do they do that?" Jonas had spotted the main goa'uld console – that appeared to be floating mid-air – and was looking at it in complete puzzlement.
Before Sam could shrug her shoulders and express her similar bewilderment, a loud pounding sound sounded behind her and she realized that the entrance to their location had been blocked off by the collapse. The others were obviously trying to get in touch with them. She looked quickly to her radio, assuming that it wasn't working, and was astounded to find that in fact it should be functioning properly.
She quickly raised it to her mouth, rolling her eyes inwardly. "Colonel O'Neill? This is Colonel Carter, d'you read?" The pounding that had been causing a worrying cascade of dust from the fractured walls suddenly stopped as Jack obviously realized that in fact man had conquered the art of remote communications.
"Carter!" His voice barked loudly out of the radio, causing Sam to abruptly pull it away from her face. "Are you alright? Are you both alright?"
"Yes sir, we're fine." Sam said rather distractedly, already trying to plan her escape. "Did you forget about the existence of radios?" She asked quite impishly, but issuing a warning to him at the same time. His unabashed concern for her safety merely demonstrated why they would not be able to serve on the same team in the future. "You could have cause another collapse with all that pounding." She felt him go silent on the other end of the line and felt bad for admonishing him. "D'you have any idea what happened?" She decided to move on.
There was another short pause. "Ummm… earthquake?" Jack suggested timidly, as if Sam's lack of perceptiveness was a concern.
"Hmm…" Sam was thinking out loud. "Yeah I guess…" she said slowly, "there's still something odd though."
"Carter, who cares!" Jack's voice seemed to be verging on a squeal as it came through the radio. "Let's just get you outta there before it happens again!"
Sam stifled a tickle in her throat before responding and looked over to Jonas, who was grinning somewhat infuriatingly, obviously finding the exchange quite amusing. At the same time, however, his eyes kept flicking up to the corner of the room behind Sam, and she soon saw why. During the collapse, part of the ceiling had given way leaving a small patch of sunlight to freely filter through into the room. The final, orange rays of the setting sun illuminated a patch of wall next to the opening and both Sam and Jonas simultaneously rose to their feet to approach.
"I think we can do that, sir," Sam said, squinting upwards. "Standby."
"I'll lift you up and then you and the other Colonel can help me from the other end." Jonas said, nodding to the ceiling.
"Ok, Sam said, putting her radio back into her vest and preparing herself for the climb. "But pass me our equipment first – otherwise this whole trip will have been a waste. You documented pretty much everything you needed, right?"
"Yep." Jonas grunted as he helped Sam by lifting her legs as she deftly climbed up to the hole in the corner of the ceiling.
As Sam steadied herself on top of the building she felt the tickle in her throat return and launched into a coughing attack that last almost 20 seconds. If nothing else, the sound alerted the others as to her position and as soon as she had regained her breath, she saw Stacey, Teal'c and Jack moving quickly around the building and climbing it themselves to help.
Stacey had moved upwards first and reached Sam quickly. "You ok?" She said, concern in her eyes.
"Fine." Sam nodded, her eyes watering slightly. "Sir, stay where you are." She raised her voice to speak to Jack, who was on the point of climbing up himself. "There's not a lot of room up here and I'm not sure of the structure's integrity. We can manage."
Jack didn't seem to appreciate the suggestion, but remained where he was, not wavering his regard from the two women perched up above him.
Within minutes, Jonas had passed their equipment out through the opening and, with the help of Sam and Stacey, had successfully hoisted himself onto the roof and slid down the wall to the ground with the others. Sam and Stacey joined him seconds later and they all stood around, dustier and more weary than they had expected to be at the end of the day.
Jack looked at the bedraggled state of his coworkers and made a snap decision. "Ok troops – back to the gate."
"What? Why?" Sam, Jonas, and Stacey all protested to this decision vociferously.
"Because you look like you're survivors from a building collapse and I want the Doc to check you both out!" He fired back at them. "This isn't negotiable – it's an order."
Grumbling slightly, the three would-be dissidents nodded in concession and turned to pack their things before taking to the path leading back to the stargate. Jonas and Stacey set out first, walking side by side. Jack and Sam followed behind them and Teal'c patrolled all four of those with him from behind.
Every now and then Jonas would cough from the dust inhalation causing Stacey to place a hand on his arm in concern. He merely glanced at her and smiled reassuringly each time. "Nothing a good shower won't fix." He'd say hoarsely.
Jack noticed this and realized that Sam was also coughing a fair amount. He didn't make anything of it though – knowing how Sam prided herself in her good health and capability to recover from even the most dire injuries. In any case, the Doc would spot anything that was wrong with them instantly. He was sure Jonas was right.
General Hammond had interrupted a particularly unappetizing snack – brought to him from the Mess hall – to race into the control room as soon as the all-too familiar sirens had sounded.
"Receiving an IDC sir." The relief technician announced mechanically. "It's SG1."
"Open the iris." General Hammond said with surprise before precipitating down into the gateroom.
He arrived just as all five members of the temporarily expanded team stepped out of the wormhole and onto the ramp. He was shocked by the appearance of Sam and Jonas, and didn't hesitate before instructing an airman to call the Doctor to the room.
"General." Jack addressed a lazy salute to his superior. "We encountered a small instance of earthquake-induced building collapse. Apologies to the cleaners for all the dust…" he added with a sparkle to his eye as he noted the small film that was covering the area Sam and Jonas walked over.
"Colonel Carter, Jonas, are you both alright?" General Hammond looked at them with concern.
"Fine General." Jonas responded with a slight cough. "We just inhaled quite a bit of dust." He wiped a sweaty hand over his forehead, thus removing a thick layer of the said dust.
"The structure of interest collapsed, but not before we gathered most of the information and photographically catalogued everything of interest." Sam added, ignoring the persistent tickle in her throat. "So it wasn't at all a waste – I'm not even convinced we needed to come back, there was no harm done in the collapse."
"Nevertheless Colonel," General Hammond smiled at Sam's dogged determination to do the best work possible. "I think Jack had the right idea bringing you back safely – and you can analyse your finding from here."
"Yes sir." Both Sam and Jonas responded with about as much enthusiasm as a wet cloth.
At that moment Janet appeared at the door and, taking in the disheveled state of the two members of SG1 in question, ushered them instantly into the hallway towards the infirmary.
A couple of hours later Sam was sitting in her lab, intently studying the images before her on the computer screen. She sighed again with frustration. Janet, although unable to find anything wrong with either her or Jonas, had ordered that they remain on base overnight in case anything untoward should happen. Usually this wouldn't have bothered her. Indeed, until a couple of months ago it wouldn't have made any difference to her normal activities. Now, however, she had much better things to do off-base; and the persons he wished to do these things with walked through the door just as she slammed her hands on the bench in annoyance.
"Hey, I know computers are evil," Jack moved up behind her and draped his arms over her shoulders, resting his head on her shoulder so he was also looking at the computer. "But if you're going to take it out on the technology, you have to actually slap the computer, and not the desk next to it."
"I just wanna go home." Sam whined quietly, glad that he was there and relishing in the feel of her contact with him. "I mean, Jonas still kinda lives here so staying on base is ok for him – and anyway, Stacey's doting on him as if he were an invalid."
"Yeah, that might be the only problem with this whole Stacey as part of SG1 thing." Jack smiled. "Far be it from me to deny them the chance to start something though…" He grinned before planting a soft kiss on Sam's neck.
"But the point is that he's got no problem with being confined to the base. He's even already gone to bed!" Sam waved her arms around wildly, only to be completely contradicted by the image of Jonas marching purposefully through the door into her lab.
"Jonas!" Both Sam and Jack exclaimed with some surprise, moving instinctively away from each other to strike a more professional pose.
Jonas didn't seem to see them, however. Instead, he moved purposefully into the room and started manipulating some of the equipment lined up against the far wall.
"Jonas, what are you doing?" Sam had got up and was moving towards him. She placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled it away abruptly. The strangest sensation moved through her fingertips and up her arm – almost as if he was buzzing.
Jonas didn't answer, but kept doing what he was doing. Sam and Jack, with a considerable combined effort, pulled him away from the console. He struggled for a moment before collapsing to the ground, out cold.
Jack ran to the phone on the wall and called for medical assistance while Sam crouched over the unconscious man, shaking him slightly, trying to bring him back to the waking world. Before Janet or anyone else arrived, Jonas' eyes fluttered open and he sat up, looking wildly around him in confusion.
"What the hell happened?" he asked with a croaky voice before coughing heavily.
"You got a history of sleep-walking Jonas?" Jack asked quietly, crouching down next to him.
"Ah, sir?" Sam interrupted. In the moments they had been waiting she had cast her eye up to the machine Jonas had been working with in his catatonic state. "Look at this – he tried to override the security functions that close off the base in a lock-down situation. How did you even know how do to that?" She looked at Jonas, puzzled. There were very few people on the base who could do it – especially from the remote location of Sam's lab – and Jonas was not one of them.
To be continued…
A/N: WELL. I hope this has piqued your interest. As usual, it all seems really obvious to me what's happening (considering I came up with the plot) but I hope I'm writing this in such a way that you're interested, but you still haven't figured it all out.
Most of all, I hope you're interested. PLEASE review! I promise I'll try to update faster WHEN you do! Actually, I've written the next chap... but I REFUSE to post it until I've got some wonderful bits of feedback! So please?