Sam and Jack were the first ship that I ever had. I was probably ten or eleven when I started watching Stargate SG-1 with my dad (it was season 7, I believe). I watched one episode with Sam and Jack and immediately decided that they were meant to be together. Every now and then, I'll get back into Stargate and I'm reminded why I loved Sam and Jack together so much.

It's been a good seven years since I've written anything for Stargate. The show has been over for years now, but I've recently found myself re-watching all of my favorite episodes and have decided to take another try at writing some SG-1 fic. I have plenty of ideas, but this first one is one that has been done many times before: an AU where Sam never joined the Air Force. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. The story title comes from the song "Dry the River" by New Ceremony. The chapter title comes from the song "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers.

one.

Well, Dr. Samantha Carter thought from where she was pinned to the wall in the Gate Room. This was so not how I imagined my day going.

Studying the orb had seemed simple enough. Sam had heard that Colonel O'Neill had to practically drag Dr. Jackson away from the device earlier that morning, so she got the impression that the neat looking orb was fairly important. She had no problem studying the device (and that incredibly power source that was tucked inside) that SG-1 brought back from P5C-353 for hours on end. Since SG-1 was gearing up to go on another mission, Sam knew that her study would be uninterrupted.

Sam should have known that it wasn't going to be that easy. She had only been at the SGC for six months, but she knew that things didn't stay quiet for very long.

Predictably, it all went to hell in a hand basket when the internal temperature of the device increased by fifty degrees in mere seconds. When the radiation the orb was emitting jumped to over four hundred percent, Sam had had enough. She hit the alarm on the wall, and Daniel Jackson had come running in (probably on his way to sneak one last look at the thousands of pages of alien text writing on the device before SG-1's next mission).

Shouted, tense words were exchanged between the two scientists that knew of each other but hadn't really officially met yet. Once Sam gave Daniel a rundown of what was happening, they had collectively decided that the orb had to go back to 353. Daniel ran ahead to alert the Gate Room, and Sam had grabbed heat-resistant cloth and shouted at Lieutenant Simmons to help her carry it. There was no time to find anyone else to do it, and it was clear that they needed to get rid of the orb, and fast.

Alarms were still blaring as Sam sprinted down the hall, quite possibly faster than she had ever run before. Simmons easily kept pace besides her, seemingly unbothered by the fact that the orb was now so hot, they could both feel the heat through the heat-resistant cloth they were using.

For Sam, that just meant that they had to get to the Gate Room faster. She had pushed her legs harder, keeping her grip tight on the dangerous looking spears protruding from the orb, despite the fact that her hands were now uncomfortably hot. They skidded into the Gate Room and moved towards the open wormhole. The SFs took up defensive positions around Sam and Simmons as they approached the Stargate, and SG-1 and General Hammond watched from the control room.

Sam had only been vaguely aware of those details as she stood in front of the event horizon—the first time she had ever done so. She only had one full second to gape at the puddle of blue water before the shriek of the alarms penetrated through her amazed stupor, and she and Simmons took a step towards the active Stargate.

That was as far as they got before the spear on the bottom shot out from the orb, sinking into the concrete floor of the Gate Room. Sam and Simmons dropped their cloths and jumped back from the orb as another spear shot out, this one up towards the upper left-hand corner above the control room.

Simmons had dove clear, and an SF was reaching for Sam, trying to pull her out of the way—

But it was too late.

The final spear burst from the orb and caught Sam's left shoulder, lifting her with it before it embedded itself neatly in the concrete wall to the left of the Stargate.

For a moment, Sam truly had no idea what had happened. The Stargate was still active, the alarms were still ringing, and Sam was pretty sure that someone was screaming.

It took another second for Sam to realize that that person was her.

Things had come into sharp focus then, and Sam heard Harriman call for a medical team as SG-1 and General Hammond raced into the Gate Room and stopped in front of her. They all stared with varying looks of horror and concern on their faces, and Sam was suddenly aware that this was the first time she would be meeting SG-1 face-to-face.

"Teal'c!" The hard voice of Colonel Jack O'Neill seemed overly loud now that the alarms had been shut off and the Stargate disengaged. Sam's screams had subsided to whimpers, but she still kicked her feet and gripped the spear sticking out of her shoulder. "Get your staff weapon!"

"What…" Sam gasped and swallowed hard, forcing the sobs back enough so she could actually speak. Was this real life right now? What the hell was happening? "What are you going to do?"

In between pulses of pain, Sam's mind raced with what the colonel could plan on doing with Teal's staff weapon. Sam went through the stats she knew about the alien weapon, how it was made and just how much power it was capable of, and she knew what the colonel had planned on doing just as he opened his mouth and ordered Teal'c to fire.

"No!" Sam yelled. Her mouth clamped shut, teeth gritting in pain when Jack swung his face towards her, his eyes somewhere between blank and the kind of concern one has for someone that they don't really know.

"No offense, Doctor." The situation that they were in was miles past serious, and yet he somehow managed to get a measure of disdain in her title. "But I don't think you're qualified to assess the threat of this alien object, and what it could mean for you and the rest of the base."

Right there, pinned to the wall by said alien device, Sam rolled her eyes. Her whole was aching and going numb all at the same time from the way she was just hanging there, and sweat had gathered on her forehead, making her hair stick to her face. Sam knew that she didn't look that great, and she knew that she had just shown some pretty astounding attitude to the base's second in command, but she just couldn't bring herself to care.

It might have been the pain making her delirious, but she could have sworn that she saw something like surprised admiration flicker through Jack's gaze. It was gone as quickly as she thought she had seen it, and then Sam remembered that this man had ordered Teal'c to fire a staff weapon at something that was connected to her body.

She fought another wave of pain and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. The only time she could ever remember feeling this much pain was when had broken her left hand at the age of fifteen while ice skating—and even that was nowhere near as horrible as this.

"Jack," Daniel began, in his "Jack-you're-a-dumbass" voice (he used it at least twice a day). "I think she knows what she's talking about. She's one of the experts on the Stargate."

"Forgive me, Daniel, but that doesn't look like a Stargate," Jack retorted as he waved a hand at the orb. "I'm pretty sure no one is the expert on that thing."

"Well—"

"Boys!" The exclamation left Sam's mouth with surprising force, given the way she had been crying just minutes ago. Daniel and Jack stopped their legendary banter and both turned to look at her. Sam would have laughed at the matching looks of confusion on their faces if the situation had been so serious.

She had to get her explanation out, and it took more effort than she cared to admit. "The energy…" Sam managed. "From the staff weapon. It could transfer through the orb." To me. But Sam didn't say that last part, and she didn't need to. The unsaid words hung in the air between them, but it didn't matter, since Dr. Janet Frasier came tearing into the Gate Room, running remarkably fast for someone in heels.

As Janet clucked over her and inspected her wound, Sam saw Jack nod once at Teal'c. He disengaged his staff weapon and returned it to a rest position next to his side, though he did not step away from the alien orb. Sam's focused was jerked back to Janet when the doctor prodded the tender skin around where the spear had punctured her shoulder, and she hissed between her teeth.

"Oh, Sam." The doctor's voice was deceptively light as she helped two SFs get Sam situated on the stand they had found for her to sit on while she was pinned to the wall. "How did you manage to get yourself mixed up in this?"

Sam was feeling something else now, besides the pain in her shoulder. Her body felt too hot, her skin too clammy, and it was getting hard to focus. She pushed past that, unwilling to think about what would happen to her if she couldn't get it together.

She forced a smile for Janet's benefit. "Not really sure, Jan," Sam managed. "Ask me later."

Going from friend mode to Doctor Mode was something that Janet had mastered early on in her career. She explained to everyone in the room that there was little to no trauma around Sam's wound, and that she now had a fever. Simmons added that the device had leveled off at one hundred thirty degrees. Janet hooked Sam up to an IV, pumping her full of antibiotics and fluids as they settled in for the long haul.

Decisions were made quickly, then. Siler got a blow torch, Simmons and several other scientists went back to the lab to see what they could get from the preliminary research on the device, and Sam just stayed… pinned to the wall while SG-1 and General Hammond discussed what their next steps would be.

Eventually, General Hammond disappeared up into the control room and then up the stairs into the briefing room—he was probably headed to his office, so that he could alert the higher ups on why the SGC was under lockdown once again. Before he left, he cast a concerned, almost fatherly look Sam's way, but Sam knew that the general would never call her father to let him know that she had somehow gotten herself into a life or death situation, no matter how long they had known each other (besides, Jacob Carter would never believe George, and that was a whole can of worms that Sam just wasn't willing to open).

Major Charlie Kawalsky went to the lab to oversee the work the scientists were doing, even though he insisted that he wasn't going to be much help. Jack and Teal'c took up positions on either side of the orb, with Teal'c still holding his staff weapon. Sam eyed it warily, wondering just what would have happened if she had let him shot the orb. She was kind of glad that she didn't have to find out.

Daniel approached her, offering a kind—if a little tense—smile. Sam somehow managed one in return, and he stepped up onto the stool they had set up next to her stand. "Hey." His voice was gentle, comforting, and it was easy to see why he was the great communicator of SG-1. "I'm Daniel."

"I know," Sam muttered. She stretched her legs out, hoping to relieve some of the ache she felt, but even that small movement required too much effort. "I'm Sam."

"You worked at Area 51 before they sent you here, right, Sam? You're the one who helped us figure out how the Stargate worked three years ago." Daniel continued. It was obvious that he was trying to distract her, and Sam appreciated the effort, although it wasn't working. She tensed and felt her stomach clench painfully at mention of Area 51. She was sure that her reaction had more to do with whatever infection was invading her body instead of the mention of her previous place of employment, but it was hard to differentiate the two, especially in her current state.

Daniel seemed to sense that she hit her wall, because he grimaced apologetically and patted her uninjured side. "We'll figure this out, Sam," he assured her. "You'll be okay."

Sam tried not to doubt that they would. They were SG-1, after all. They always figured it out in the end.

She just wished it wasn't her ass on the line.

Sam lasted for exactly an hour before she demanded that someone bring her laptop to her.

Jack had been taking regular reports from Daniel, who had disappeared back into the lab to try and translate the writings on the device. Thus far, every single thing the tiny writings said were supremely unhelpful.

Sam was seriously beginning to hate how wordy aliens seemed to be. Why couldn't the device just say, "Here, this is what it does, this is how you turn it on, and this is how you turn it off." Would that be too much to ask?

Sam kept that opinion to herself, however.

"What could you possibly want with your laptop?" Jack demanded with an incredulous look.

His voice was sharp, barking, and his mouth was set in a grim, determined line as he kept track of Sam, Siler's progress with the blowtorch, and the alien orb all at once. Still, there was something in his amber colored eyes—something past the carefully blank wall—that made Sam wonder what kind of man Jack O'Neill really was.

In her current state, Sam had no problem dropping all professionalism and propriety. Janet had her doped up on all sorts of pain killers and antibiotics so Sam was sure that that contributed to her loopy-ness, as well, but the pain had faded to a dull ache that was more annoying than anything else long ago. Sam also knew, however, that her condition could deteriorate at any moment—all she had to do was look at the neon blue webbings that were creeping up and down her body. She needed to focus on helping them solve this problem while she still could.

It took effort to speak, and Sam's words came out slow and slightly slurred. She tripped over the larger words, and it was infuriating, to say the least. "I think I've proved… I'm helpful." She paused, swallowing past the persistent dryness in her throat and licked her lips. "I brought in the UV lights."

About ten minutes after everyone dispersed with their assigned jobs, Sam remembered the radiation the orb was emitting and suggested that UV lights be brought in. To the horror of everyone present, some kind of blue organism was spreading from the orb, through Sam and the rest of the spikes, and to the walls of the SGC. No one knew what it meant just yet, but there was no way that the spread of an alien organism could bode well.

Jack stared at Sam for a long, silent moment. Sam held his gaze, refusing to look away even as she swayed and relaxed further into the concrete wall behind her. She had to make herself useful somehow, even as she could feel the alien infection spreading through her body.

"Well," Jack finally relented. "I guess your brain working at half capacity is better than the rest of us at one hundred percent."

Sam managed a snort, even though it jerked her whole body and made pain pulse through her. "Who says… it's at half capacity?"

That got a half smile out of Jack that Sam was unafraid to admit (in the privacy of her own fever-ridden, drug-addled mind) was extremely attractive. Teal'c saw it, and arched a single eyebrow at the sight of that half smile. Jack snapped out of it, but not before a look of surprise passed over his face for half a second.

Then he was barking orders to the scientists—both military and civilian—that were running around the room, taking readings, and said they better make themselves useful and get Sam's laptop for her and a stand to put it on so she could reach it with her good hand comfortably.

Jack stepped back towards Teal'c, but Sam still heard him say, "If she figures this out while she pinned to the wall in the Gate Room, I'll never complain about sitting through a scientist's briefing again." There went Teal'c's eyebrow again, and Jack quickly amended, "Alright, I won't complain about one of Dr. Carter's briefings."

That made Sam smile dopily as she rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She had yet to give her first official briefing at the SGC, but she was suddenly looking forward to it.

Hours later, Sam's condition had deteriorated the point she could barely keep her eyes open.

Whatever virus-type thing had been released by the orb, it had infiltrated the SGC's computers and had effectively shut the whole base down (Trying to use a blowtorch to break through the spears to free Sam hadn't worked, either. Right before they had broken through completely, the spear had moved, shooting further into the concrete wall and Sam, by extension). The lockdown that Hammond had initiated nearly twenty-one hours before had resulted in an automatic countdown to the self destruct. They now had three hours to solve their problem, or it would be all over.

Janet had been down every hour, both to check on her condition and reassure her, as her friend, that they were going to figure this out. They had figured out that lowering the oxygen levels in the room would slow the organism down, which was about the only semi-good news Janet had been able to impart.

Kawalsky had placed himself in charge of the scientists, and he had already asked her three separate times how she managed to work with them on a daily basis. They didn't have too much to report that Sam didn't already know, and Kawalsky's frustration with their lack of progress was evident.

Daniel had been down almost every hour as well, to confer with Sam about the translation (while she had been coherent, anyway), and then just to see how she was doing. He assured her, each time, that they were going to "figure this whole thing out" and when this was all over and Sam was recovered, they would get coffee and talk about "all the scientific stuff that Jack will never let me talk about."

Teal'c had moved away from the orb, drifting across the Gate Room until he was standing in front of Sam. At first she thought it was because he was standing guard because of her, just in case anything happened with the alien organism that was clearly invading her body. After careful scrutiny of the back of his head, Sam realized that Teal'c was actually standing guard for her, and offering silent support that she appreciated more than words could say.

Jack, for his part, had split his time between the Gate Room and the briefing room with General Hammond. Every time he was in the Gate Room, he kept his eyes on her, watching her, studying her. Sam could almost feel his eyes on her, and it made her all the more determined to help them come up with a solution to this problem. Not only because it would save her life, but because it would prove Jack O'Neill wrong.

The more he watched her, the more that odd look she had seen in his eyes before intensified. Sam tapped away at her laptop, blinking against the fatigue and the fuzziness the pain killers were causing, and she tried her hardest to focus on the reports displayed on her screens. Not only was her life in danger, but other people had been infected with this virus, as well.

(Somehow, it made it easier for Sam to work when she thought about how the whole mountain was depending on them to figure this whole alien orb thing out. That pressure was a million times better than thinking about the fact that her life was at stake, pinned against the Gate Room wall.)

Eventually, when the exhaustion overtook her and Sam passed out, Jack was the one who climbed up onto the step stool and pulled the laptop away from her. She jerked awake when it was pulled away from her fingers, and she reached for it again with a weak noise of protest in the back of her throat.

Jack stopped her, his grip gentle but sure as he caught her hand in his and lowered it. "You need to rest," he said.

Sam shook her head, and grimaced at the fresh wave of pain that rolled over. Passing out was the worst thing that could have happened, since now the pain had returned full force. "Work," she gasped out.

Shaking his head firmly, Jack squeezed her hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, behind the pain and the fuzziness from the drugs, Sam realized that for someone so hard—a soldier that had probably seen and done too much—Jack O'Neill had surprisingly gentle hands.

An hour and a half before the self destruct was set to go off, Daniel came running into the Gate Room, claiming that the device was actually trying to communicate with them.

After forcing her eyes open, Sam stared at the symbol on her own laptop screen (those blue little bastards had invaded her laptop through the power cord), and grunted in agreement with Daniel's assessment. The virus was actually an organism, they were trying to communicate. Daniel and Sam came to the same conclusion at the same exact time.

Daniel's eyes widened as he stared at Sam, at the spear protruding from her shoulder. Sam lifted her good arm and weakly pointed to herself. "Me?" she whispered, and Daniel nodded his head.

Jack looked between Sam and Daniel, his arms crossed against his chest, his brow furrowed. "What?" he asked.

"It makes perfect sense!" Daniel exclaimed. "Of course, this is what they were trying to do!"

"What?" Jack repeated, but it was like Daniel hadn't heard him.

"How else would they have done it? This was the most obvious way for them, probably."

"Daniel! You have two seconds to tell me what you and Carter figured out, or I swear I'll—"

Jack stopped yelling at Daniel abruptly when Sam's feeble laughter turned into violent coughs. Daniel's brow furrowed in concern and he stepped closer to Sam, reaching out to touch her knee.

"You heard what Janet said earlier, Jack," Daniel explained. "There's no trauma around the wound. Sam getting caught by the spear wasn't an accident. They wanted to use her to communicate."

That made Sam sigh. Great, she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. How supremely fitting for the turn of events her life had taken in the last six months. Still, there wasn't much she could do about it now, and she knew what was coming next. From the grim look on Daniel's face, she knew that he had the same train of thought.

"I don't exactly see a whole of communication going on right now, Daniel," Jack said as he gestured between Sam and the orb. "Just a lot of… unnecessary ridiculousness."

Sam let out another laugh/cough. Of course Jack had managed to sum up this whole experience with two rather silly—but completely accurate—words. She didn't know the man at all (nothing past what she had read in mission reports), but she had learned enough in the last twenty-two plus hours to know that Jack O'Neill picked up on a lot more than he let on.

"Besides, what are we supposed to do?" Jack continued. "Use the computers to try and talk to it?"

Daniel watched Sam, trying to gauge her reaction as he spoke. She kept her gaze steady as she stared back at him. "No. I think we use Sam."

Jack's amber colored eyes swiveled back towards Sam. There was a storm brewing in there now, a hardness that was a little frightening to see. When he spoke, though, his voice was deceptively calm. "And how, exactly, are we supposed to do that?"

Sam's voice was barely above a whisper, but Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c were standing close enough that they heard her. "Give it… energy. Let it grow." She looked over at Teal'c and was surprised to see the respect in his eyes. "…Staff weapon," she whispered.

Teal'c inclined his head once and went to retrieve his weapon while Daniel rushed off to inform General Hammond of their new, crazy plan. Jack, meanwhile, was staring at her with an eyebrow arched in a fairly good impression of Teal'c. There was levity in his voice that was a direct contrast to his eyes, and the concern that was now showing.

"I thought you said that the staff weapon was a bad idea," Jack said casually. It was obvious now that he was trying to distract her, and it made the corners of Sam's mouth tilt up in a small, barely there smile.

"You may have… been right," Sam whispered, and then winced. She was positive that the colonel was a lot smarter than he pretended to be, but that didn't mean she wanted to admit to being wrong.

Jack grinned triumphantly at her then, as if he knew exactly what she had been thinking. Sam tried to convince herself that her heart skipped a beat just because she knew the base was now only an hour away from exploding, and not because Jack O'Neill had the sexiest grin she had ever seen.

Jack had no idea where this scientist had come from.

Despite what everyone thought, he actually did keep track of the important memos. As the second at the base, he did need to know who was being employed where and what all of the major projects for. The name Carter rang a bell, but there wasn't whole much more than that little bit of name recognition.

Then she had come running into the Gate Room that morning, long blonde hair flying behind her with an alien device that was acting up in her arms. He'd seen scientists do some damn stupid things (Daniel Jackson was on his team, after all), but this had to take the cake.

Mmmm, cake. He made a mental note, for when this was all over: get cake.

Jack wished he could say that he had been surprised when the spears started shooting out of the orb, but it was really just par for the course. Of course the alien technology was hostile, and of course they couldn't just open the Stargate and throw the damn thing back through. What he hadn't expected was for the newest scientist of the SGC to get caught—literally—in the middle of this whole situation.

Hours later, after watching her—and with some initial, gentle scolding from Daniel for his earlier attitude—Jack had found his opinion of the blonde physicist beginning to change. It hadn't been something he expected, given that once Jack O'Neill made up his mind, it generally stayed that way.

But this was the SGC, and the SGC had been challenging his perception of the way things were for nearly three years now.

Even after being pinned to the wall, Sam still insisted on working through the pain, to the point that she passed out. In fact, she had come up with more ideas and more solutions than any of the other scientists. That alone was enough to garner his respect. What really cinched it for Jack, however, was the calm way she told the rest of his team and General Hammond to let the organism grow so that they could communicate with it.

There was a healthy dose of fear and apprehension in Sam's eyes, which made complete sense. In fact, Jack would be worried if Sam wasn't terrified. Still, she slowly and surely whispered her instructions to Daniel and Teal'c. Daniel squeezed her good arm before he hurried off to direct the scientists, and then Teal'c bowed his head respectfully and went to retrieve his staff weapon.

While Sam spoke quietly with General Hammond, Jack took the opportunity to study Sam without interruption. There was a quiet strength in her, something very resilient that Jack was slightly annoyed to find intriguing and… attractive. Which was completely inappropriate and out of place, given the fact that she was pinned to the wall by an alien device.

Well that was a problem for another time, Jack decided. He waited until General Hammond patted her knee and then moved away before he decided to check in with her to see how she was doing. Jack walked quickly, not wanting to give himself a chance to change his mind.

Jack approached Sam as everyone bustled around them, following her barely-coherent instructions. Janet had pinned up her hair hours ago, but damp wisps of blonde hair had escaped from the twist, sticking to her forehead. Jack resisted the strange urge to brush those strands away and climbed up on the step stool they had placed next to the ladder they had her resting on.

"Hey," he murmured, his voice gentle. She forced her eyes open and looked down at him, the blue orbs hazy with fatigue and pain—and a little bit of surprise. This was the nicest he had been to her in hours, after all. "You sure you want to do this?"

She made a noise in the back of her throat, licked her lips, and swallowed. "Only way," she managed. It was annoying, in a way. If it had been anyone else stuck to the wall like this, Sam would have gotten the opportunity to study the orb much closer, and she was positive that she could have figured this out faster if she wasn't suffering from a wound and whatever weird infection this was. There was no use dwelling, she knew objectively. Still.

"You could die." Jack wasn't going to sugar coat it for her. There was no point, and it would be a disservice to her not to be completely upfront.

Sam's good shoulder lifted ever so slightly in a shrug. She knew what was happening as well as anyone else. She would die anyway if that self destruct went off, and then the rest of the planet would be screwed when the virus or organisms—whatever they were—fed off of the energy from the blast. No one could risk that, and Sam, being the one pinned to the wall, understood that better than anyone.

Jack had worked at the SGC for almost three years. He knew what bravery looked like, he knew what courage was. He saw it in his own teammates every time they stepped through the Stargate. He had seen it on countless planets, in far reaches of the galaxy when people had stood what for what they believed in and helped SG-1 make a difference.

Now, standing in front of this scientist, Jack saw that courage shining back at him. He was sure that Sam Carter didn't even realize how brave she was being and in that moment, something heavy in his chest gave way just a little.

Staring into her eyes, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around hers. Her hand was limp, her skin clammy, but she still managed to curl her fingers around his and she held on. Jack brushed his thumb on the back of her hand, stroking soothingly.

"It's going to be okay," Jack said before he could really think about the words leaving his mouth.

Sam blinked slowly, and then she shook her head slightly. That small movement alone seemed to be too much for her, and she grimaced and slumped back into the concrete wall behind her. "How… do you know?"

Jack O'Neill wasn't one to make promises that he couldn't keep. Whenever he spoke—when it wasn't some lame joke, that is—he always knew that he could back up what he was saying, one hundred percent. There was no way that he could assure Dr. Samantha Carter that she would come out of this situation alive, especially given the fact that the self destruct was due to go off in exactly twenty minutes.

Still, staring into those blue orbs of hers, Jack somehow knew that they'd get out of this one. "Because I do," he said, and he squeezed her hand.

It took some effort, but Sam managed to squeeze his hand in return. Too tired to speak, she just returned his steady gaze, taking comfort that he was standing with her.

She believed him.

It got a little hazy after that.

Sam knew when the organism began to feed off of the extra oxygen in the room, since she suddenly lost the ability to speak properly. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she forced herself to do so, even though the world swam in front of her. They were now down to five minutes on the self destruct countdown, and every second counted.

Teal'c took up his position by the alien orb, his staff weapon at the ready. He looked at Sam, nodded once, and then fired.

The pain was worse than being stabbed through the shoulder with an alien orb-spear thingy like a shish kebab.

A sound of absolute pain tore from Sam's throat, but she managed to nod her head through it all, directing Teal'c to shoot off another blast at the orb. The pain was there again, but worse this time, and Sam was vaguely aware of the tears streaming down her face. No longer needing a cue, Teal'c fired the staff weapon again.

Then, mercifully, Sam blacked out.

When Sam woke up, she was in the infirmary.

Janet was standing over her bed, clucking as she checked her vitals. She noticed that Sam was awake, and she shook her head, her red hair staying still in its perfect twist. Sam shifted in the bed, immediately noticing the slightly painful pull in her left shoulder, and then the general and annoying ache in her entire body. She grimaced and then tried her hardest to smooth her expression out, knowing that she'd be stuck in that hospital bed for at least ten more hours if Janet saw anything remotely resembling pain on her face.

Of course, Janet had seen her tense. "You're a scientist, Sam," Janet reminded her. "You're supposed to stay out of trouble, you know."

Janet knew that just about anything could happen at the SGC. She had been inducted as the base's CMO two months after the Stargate program had officially been up and running, and she had truly seen it all since then. Sure, things happened on base, but it was generally the scientists that were on off world teams that gave her the most trouble. The ones stationed on base typically did not end up in any situation that was too dangerous, minus the occasional base-wide lockdown.

"You're the one who told me about this job!" Sam protested. She was in pain, and god only knew how many different kinds of drugs Janet was currently pumping in her. It just gave her an extra excuse to whine all that she wanted, despite the fact that Sam Carter never really whined.

Besides, she had just survived her first encounter with a Dangerous Alien Device. Sam figured that gave her some sort of leeway.

Janet shrugged unapologetically and then peeled back the shoulder of Sam's unattractive hospital gown. At least this one wasn't backless, so there was something to be said for small miracles. Janet checked the stiff bandages covering the puncture wound in Sam's left shoulder, and then nodded in satisfaction.

"There really wasn't that much trauma from the entry wound," Janet told her. "It only required a few stitches, but unfortunately, it will leave a scar. It's alien technology, after all. God only knows what those spears were made of."

"Metals not yet discovered on Earth," Sam answered automatically. "We were able to break them down and we added two new elements to the Periodic Table."

Janet gave a smile at Sam's new discovery before she went back into Doctor Mode. "I want you in a sling for two weeks, though."

"What?" Sam was already a little peeved at the mention of a scar, even with the fact that it been created with some newly-discovered metals for Earth. Her voice rose with each word spoken, and she waved her good hand dramatically beside her. "What do you mean, I have to be in a sling? What good would that possibly do me?"

"It will help you heal," Janet said patiently.

"But in a sling?"

"There's really no use arguing with the good doctor, you know. She'll just win in the end."

Both Sam and Janet looked towards the entrance of the infirmary. SG-1 was standing there, and they were all watching Sam with indulgent smiles on their faces. Sam could physically feel her face turn red as she slumped down in the hospital bed, and then made a face as the movement pulled at her shoulder. Janet immediately bent over her, her hands moving to her shoulder, and Sam scowled. She slapped her friend's hands away and shifted over on the bed for good measure, just in case Janet got any ideas about checking her bandages again.

Jack frowned as he stepped into the infirmary. "How come you never let me do that, Doc?" he demanded. "You have no idea how many times I've wanted to."

Janet just stared calmly at the colonel. "Big needles, Colonel," she reminded him.

Jack sobered instantly and nodded. "Yes, ma'am." His three teammates were snickering behind him (well, Daniel and Kawalsky were; Teal'c had just arched an eyebrow), and Jack spared a glare over his shoulder for their trouble. It hardly quieted them, however, and Jack just shook his head and sighed dramatically.

The whole exchange made Sam smile, which seemed to be Jack's goal. Once he noticed her smiling, his own lips tilted up, and he shoved his hands into his pockets as he rocked back onto his heels.

"So," he said. "You saved the base."

Sam blinked at him. "What? No, I didn't. I just…" She flushed again. "You know. Hung out. On the wall."

Jesus, that was embarrassing. These men had risked their lives for the planet over and over, and she had somehow gotten herself pinned to the wall like a decoration in the Gate Room. That was so not how she wanted to leave her mark on the SGC (literally, in this most recent case).

"You still saved the base," Jack reiterated. His amber eyes were serious as he caught her gaze and held. Sam stared at him for a long moment before she nodded her head and looked away. She didn't quite believe him, but she supposed that she would just have to take his word for it.

Luckily, Daniel was there to distract her. He waved a file folder over his head before he perched himself on the foot of her bed, like he belonged there. "I have the report from this whole thing. I figured that you'd want to read it over—especially the part where the organism took over your body."

Suddenly eager, Sam took the report from Daniel and flipped it open. "Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed. With the pain from the staff weapons, she had blacked out, and thus had no idea what happened after that. Obviously, their crazy plan had worked, since there was no orb with spears puncturing Sam's shoulder, no neon blue organism infecting the SGC, and no self destruct that had gone off. Clearly, the organism had communicated with SG-1 and had left, leaving the SGC orb-free once again.

"I don't really remember anything," Sam mentioned off-handedly as she skimmed through the report and found the part she was looking for.

"Really?" Jack demanded as he came to stand next to her bed, on the side that her head was closest to. He snatched the report from her and set it aside, despite Sam's shout of protest. "Allow us to fill you in, then."

And from then on, Dr. Samantha Carter was friends with the men of SG-1.

two.

See, it happened like this:

Six months ago, Samantha Carter left her fiancé at the altar, got on a plane, and flew to Colorado.

Two days later, she started her new job at Stargate Command.

It had been Janet's fault, really. The two of them had been friends since their undergrad, and had kept in touch over the years in between. Of course, Sam had insisted on Janet being her maid of honor, and Janet had accepted—despite her misgivings about the man that Sam had chosen to marry. She had performed all of her maid of honor duties, all the while telling Sam about the position in the physics department of the SGC that had opened.

Sam knew about the Stargate, and everything that had been done at the SGC since that very first mission. Katherine Langford had tapped Sam to help her figure out the Stargate while Sam had still been in grad school. All the way through getting her doctorate, Sam had studied the Stargate and the admittedly small bit of research that Katherine's team had gathered.

It wasn't until Daniel Jackson had signed on that they had really started to make some progress. At that point, Sam had never met the archeologist, but Katherine had, having been the one to recruit him. She traveled back and forth between Nevada and Colorado, acting as the go-between for the information Sam and Daniel were discovering.

Once Daniel had uncovered the address to Abydos, Sam had gotten to work creating a dialing program for that one address. A month later, it was all systems go. No matter how hard Sam campaigned, she wasn't allowed to go on the mission. When she found out that Daniel had been included, she had nearly blown a gasket.

The Air Force was still keeping her employed as a civilian scientist out of Area 51, however, and she was getting a pretty nice paycheck, so Sam supposed that she didn't have too much to complain about. She continued to work at Area 51 and eventually, the team sent through the Stargate that very first time returned (sans Daniel). Sam ate up the mission reports, and then the Stargate program faded into obscurity.

Almost a year after that, Sam got a phone call at six o'clock in the morning, demanding that she report to Groom Lake. She was told that the Stargate program was starting up again, and she had better come up with a dialing program that could work for places other than Abydos.

Sam had spluttered at the demand, and then she had gotten to work.

Many cups of coffee and sleepless nights later, Sam had it: a working dialing program. It spiraled from there. She did many things from Area 51: she designed the GDOs and shipped them off to the SGC; she helped design the iris that was in place to protect the base; and she studied every piece of alien technology that came out of that mountain. She'd stay up for hours reading every mission report she could get her hands on. Sam Carter wasn't afraid to admit that she was a complete geek for the SGC.

In the middle of all of that, Sam had started dating Captain Jonas Hanson. He had been stationed at Area 51, and he had asked her on a date a year after the Air Force started sending teams through the Stargate. A year after that, they had moved in together; six months later, Jonas had proposed. And then it had all gone to hell.

It was easy to remember what it had felt like, sitting on the plane in her wedding dress. Sam wasn't a terribly dramatic person, despite the evidence that pointed to the contrary as she stuffed her tulle skirt into the airline seat. The only seat available had been a first class one, so at least Sam only had to suffer her embarrassment in front of one person, with slightly more sitting space.

She knew everyone was staring at her, and she settled herself into her seat with as much dignity as possible. Sam had barely made the flight as it was, and there had certainly been no time to stop and change on her mad dash from the church.

It was only when they were taxiing down the runway that Sam realized some of the tulle from her voluminous skirt (seriously, who had talked her into this white, frothy monstrosity?) was spilling onto the seat of the poor older woman next to her. Sam gathered as much of it as she could and muttered an apology under her breath as she viciously shoved the tulle and satin in between the armrest and her seat.

"So, dear." The older woman smiled kindly at her. "Did you leave him, or did he leave you?"

Sam blushed and cleared her throat. She shifted in her seat and wished that this stupid wedding dress didn't have a corset with the most uncomfortable ribbing in the history of wedding dresses. "I, ah… I left him."

"Ah." The woman nodded in understanding, and there was no judgment in her eyes. Despite everything Sam had been through in the last twenty-four hours, she felt a little better. "I see. I figured that might be the case, since I doubt Colorado Springs is typically a honeymoon destination. Any particular reason you decided to go there?"

Maybe it was just the stress of the day, or maybe it was because Sam had completely upended her life and she just needed someone to talk to, no matter who that person was. Whatever the reason, Sam found herself spilling her soul to the kindly, older woman sitting next to her on that plane.

"For a new life," Sam whispered. She cleared her throat, swallowed, and blinked against the tears that had sprung to her eyes. "A new chance."

She brushed aside her hair, then—it had long since toppled out of the elaborate updo it had been pinned in for the ceremony. The movement caused the fabric of the off-the-shoulder dress to slip down on her right arm, revealing the four bruises on the upper part of Sam's arm. They were all in the perfect shape of someone's fingers.

To her credit, the woman didn't gasp, or cry out, or react in hysterics. Instead, she pressed her lips together and nodded her head towards the bruises, and Sam didn't bother to try and cover them up. Instead of feeling vulnerable, Sam felt strangely empowered, and she knew that no matter what happened after this, she had made the right choice.

"Is that why you left?" the woman asked.

"Among other reasons," Sam confirmed. "This…" She gestured to her arm. "It happened once. Last night, actually. And that was enough. I had enough. So I left."

Sam didn't even remember what she and Jonas had fought about. Even though it had happened less than twenty-four hours ago, it had seemed like it had been years since Jonas had grabbed her arm in a tight grip and wrenched her across the room, causing her to slam into the kitchen counter with breathtaking force. Sam had a bruise on her lower back, as well, and she had brushed off Jonas's apologies and any attempts to help.

They had gone to bed separately, just as any future husband and wife were supposed to do the night before their wedding. Sam had woken the next morning in a stupor and had gotten ready in a trance. She had ignored the cajoling attempts of talking from her mother and Janet, and, five minutes before she was set to walk down the aisle, Sam finally came to her senses.

What the hell was she doing?

Leaving was the easiest decision she had ever made. Deciding to go to the SGC just made it all the simpler. She had left a note for Janet, describing her plan, but not the reason she had left, and then had hopped on the first available commercial flight. With her connections in the Air Force, Sam knew that Janet would probably reach Colorado Springs before she did.

The older woman had summoned a flight attendant and ordered champagne, and told her to keep it coming. When Sam had asked why she had chosen champagne, the older woman smiled.

"Because, dear. We're celebrating your new life."

By the time she had arrived in Colorado Springs and found Janet waiting for her at the airport, Sam was well and truly drunk. But she was happier than she had been in a long time.

three.

Jack stared at the opening of the lab.

This was probably a very bad idea.

Even as that thought flickered through his mind, Jack pushed past it and knocked once on the doorframe. Despite the hindrance of having only one available, working arm, the blonde physicist on the inside seemed wholly enthralled in her work.

Holding the two plates he had brought with him steady in one hand, Jack entered the lab and stood in front of her work bench, patiently waiting. The blonde scientist in question still had her face attached to her microscope, and bounced back and forth between that and her laptop. Every now and then she would swivel around and scribble something on the whiteboard behind her.

She did all of this without noticing Jack. He took a moment to be impressed by her superior multitasking skills before he cleared his throat. After all, enough was enough, and he had been waiting there for an awfully long time. While holding cake, no less. He thought that he had been exceedingly patient for a man that had been waiting to eat cake.

Sam jumped and looked at him with wide, blue eyes. "Oh! Colonel O'Neill!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry! What can I do for you?"

"It's about time," Jack muttered instead of returning her greeting. He pushed some papers aside and then set the plates of cake down on the work bench—one in front of her, and one in front of him.

Her eyes narrowed even as her cheeks began to turn red. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough. I've been waiting to eat this cake since that orb plucked you off the wall in the Gate Room." He pulled two forks from his pocket, pressed one into Sam's hand, and then dug into his own.

Sam stared at the fork in her good hand, then at the plate of cake, then at Jack, and then back to the fork. "Um… Colonel O'Neill?"

"Call me Jack."

"Jack."

"Yes?"

"What's the cake for?"

"To celebrate."

"Dare I ask what we're celebrating?"

Jack sighed and, using his fork, pointed to the sling her left arm was still resting in. She was day four into her two week sentence with the arm sling, and she was already plotting ways to throw it out. Every time she tried to take the sling off, however, Janet managed to somehow magically appear. It must have been her spidey Doctor Sense tingling, or something.

"We're celebrating the fact that you survived your first encounter with an alien device. That good enough for you?" Jack was smiling, but his eyes said something different, and it was startling easy for Sam to read it in that moment. Maybe it was just because he was letting her see it, but Sam could get the sense that he was very glad that she was okay. The concern was still there as he took in her sling and the uncomfortable way that Sam wore it, but the relief that she had survived the encounter with the orb was there.

Sam smiled and dipped her fork into the yummy looking chocolate cake. "Yes," she said. "That's good enough."

They ate in a comfortable silence, and Jack didn't even make fun of her when she fumbled the fork and nearly knocked her plate off the work bench. Really, the stupid sling was just too much, and Sam planned on ditching it at the first opportunity.

They were almost finished eating when Jack spoke again. "This actually gives me the perfect opportunity to tell you about rule number one for SG-1."

"Um… rule number one for SG-1?" Sam repeated. She pressed her index and middle fingers into the crumbs leftover from the cake on her plate and then licked them from her fingers. She missed the way that Jack gaped at her, but he had recovered by the time she looked back up. "Why would I have to know that?" While Sam dreamed of going through the Stargate, she had no desire to be part of a first contact field team. It wasn't something that she had ever considered, and she was in no way prepared to entertain that idea.

"Because," Jack said, as if that answered everything.

Sam studied him for a long moment, and she suddenly got it. For whatever reason, SG-1 had decided to take her under their wing. Daniel was now almost always in her lab, going over research with her and discussing alien devices—he talked about anything and everything, really. Kawalsky sometimes showed up with him, and he just asked questions about anything he could find in her lab. Teal'c would sometimes join her, sitting quietly with her. Jack would join them when there was at least one or members of his team in her lab. This was the first time had ever shown up by himself.

Sam didn't realize just how lonely her lab had been until SG-1 had started to fill it up. She appreciated their chatter and their disagreements about random and weird things. She liked having them around, she realized. They all seemed to understand that without her having to actually say it.

"Alright," Sam said as she nodded her head. "What's the first rule?"

Jack grinned at her. "Don't touch anything—especially the Dangerous Alien Device."

Sam rolled her eyes, but she didn't bother to argue. It wasn't like she would win, anyway.

Okay, I honestly don't know where this is going. I just sat down and started writing, and this is what came out. I had originally intended for this to be a one-shot, but that's obviously not going to happen. Questions about this alternate universe will get answered in later chapters. Thanks for reading!