Cam stood in amidst the rubble during the scorching Dakaran midday heat, casually holding his P-90 across his chest as he slipped his sunglasses on. The Colonel, his nose white due to being coated in zinc oxide, took a moment to savour the feeling of the minimal breeze against his bare forearms, his jacket neatly squared away in his tent. Taking a deep breath, he surveyed his surroundings, a wide valley before him dotted with smaller heaps of the rubble that he was standing on. In the middle of the valley floor he could see Daniel, still with his green jacket on, kneeling in the dust as he brushed at a part of the ruins while Teal'c stood over the Archaeologist, occasionally lifting huge pieces of the ruins while Vala looked none too pleased at the heat and the time it had already taken to look for the Ark as she perched on some ruins near to the men.

On making eye contact with Teal'c, Cam tipped his hat at him slightly and the Jaffa nodded in reply, before Cam moved off the ridge that he had been standing on to do his morning perimeter survey. He called into his radio which was attached to his combat vest which he grudgingly wore over his t-shirt,

"Carter, report."

He almost leapt out of his skin when from behind him Sam remarked, "You know... I don't call you 'Mitchell'."

He spun around to face his co-command, who had also forgone her BDU jacket but wasn't wearing sunglasses. "Well, just being professional."

Sam raised an eyebrow in disbelief, her voice teasing. "So I'm not professional? Or I'm not as professional as Colonel Pant Loser?"

"Funny."

"Thought so. Anyway, what do you want?"

He shrugged, pushing up his sunglasses. "Just thought you could use some company while Jackson's doing the Raiders thing."

She exhaled, looking briefly weary as she thought of how stressed out her fiancé had been earlier that morning. "That man... I swear, I don't get that snippy and territorial when my field of expertise is called upon during a mission."

He chuckled as they then walked together along the ridge, both keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary as they kept their P-90s close to their chests. "Well, the only reason he didn't snap at you outright is 'cos he values his manhood." He adjusted his hat . "Anyway, I don't mind not having to do the heavy work for once. I feel for T."

She smirked. "What about Vala?"

He rolled his head to the side to look at her scathingly through his sunglasses. "Actually, I feel for Jackson. Vala gets bored easily." He grumpily took his sunglasses off so that they were hanging around his neck, and then he remarked, "Hey... we've been here for three days now..." He grimaced as he stuck his nose inside his t-shirt as Sam looked a cross between amused and irritated. "... we're getting a little smelly because the nearest lake is contaminated..."

"What's your point?"

"You'd think Adria's cronies would have dropped in by now and given us a chance to split some wigs. Maybe we're looking in the wrong place."

She cocked her head briefly with a sigh. "Maybe the Ark doesn't exist."

He looked at her in surprise. "You don't believe Jackson?"

She shrugged, looking wistful as they negotiated a treacherously rocky path. "I don't know any more... but I guess it's easy for morale to flounder in this situation."

He patted her on the shoulder consolingly, and she said with regard to the Ori forces, the Astrophysicist looking hopeful, "Maybe they don't know we're here."

He chuckled derisively. "No... I get the feeling that they're waiting."

She shook her head, smiling slightly at his enthusiasm for the action aspect of their jobs. "That isn't their style. Anyway you're just itchy to use the Anti-Prior device in the field."

"Well, aren't you, Samantha?"

"Not itchy, Cameron."

He smiled briefly and then asked, inclining his head in the vague direction of the rest of their team, "Wanna head back, soon-or-whenever-to-be Colonel Jackson?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"You know... the Ancients know..." Vala raised a finger and waved it as she stared intensely at Daniel's back as she paced the dusty ground behind him as Teal'c looked on, an eyebrow raised. "... they know that if we find this, it could change things and save them as well... why doesn't Morgan Le Fay come down here and help us?"

Daniel, his teeth clenched in frustration at the so-far fruitless quest and his nerves frayed from Vala's noisy boredom, snapped as he shifted a stone slab with a grunt, "Because she may have been descended or punished by the Others for helping us on Atlantis..."

She threw her hands down in frustration. "What about... Oma Desala? She helped you before. Why doesn't she help you now?"

Daniel grimaced angrily. "Because. If she does, she'll no doubt suffer Morgan's fate... whatever that is. I don't like this any more than you do, but we have an opportunity to change things and we should use it. Now less yap-yap and more helping out."

She rolled her eyes and asked heatedly, "What if the Ark isn't here?!" She groaned and sank to her knees next to him as she looked at him entreatingly. "Daniel, come on, wherever it is, it'll still be here after the end of the week. I want to get married to someone that I actually want to marry this time."

He shook his head as he looked at her, his anger fading, leaving sadness on his face, "Don't you think that I want the same thing? If I hadn't had these visions, we'd all be home and getting ready for the big wedding. I didn't want to drag you guys out like this... but now that we're here, we have to find this before the Ori army does. This is way bigger than our weddings. It's a matter of life and death, freedom and slavery for millions if not billions of people across the Milky Way and the Ori galaxy. It's only a matter of time before they launch an all-out attack on Earth like they did in the alternate universe that Sam was stranded in. And who knows what would happen if they got into the Pegasus galaxy?"

She nodded, forlorn as she considered implications that she had already known, and she said, looking disappointed, "I was just hoping that you could have dragged us out here some other time."

He smiled briefly as he gazed at her, his tone softening. "Me too." He patted her on the shoulder. "Come on, the boredom won't be so bad if you help out."

Teal'c remarked with a slight smirk as they both looked up at him and then at each other, "You should attempt to remain standing from dawn until dusk. You would rather be in your present state of clamorous boredom."