When summer began, Sam and Jack turned their attention to preparing for another winter. Sam had used a generator to provide heat for the colder months, but the lack of gasoline reserves would be a real problem if they tried to rely on it for another winter.
"Actually, I may have an idea about getting us some steady power," Sam said. "I think if we can pipe some water from the lake, we might be able to rig together a waterwheel as a source for the generator. That way, we wouldn't have to depend on gas for it."
"But what about winter?" Jack said. "Won't it freeze over?"
"I thought of that, too. But I think we can create a running water source if we tap into the stream," she said. "We may have to use gas during the harshest part of winter, but I think it the moving water will keep us in good shape for most of the year," she said.
"Let's do it," said Jack. "There's no more snow, and I'm getting tired of warm beer."
She grinned at him and starting sketching out plans.
The first part of the plan involved planking out a wheel. Sam and Jack fell into a steady rhythm – Jack cut and sawed planks, and Sam put together the structure. They were two weeks into construction when Jack heard Carter yelp.
"Carter?" he said. "You okay?" He went to the four-foot structure where Sam was sucking on her index finger.
"Yesh, I jush accshudentally drot thish peesh and ott my fee-ah inshtead," she mumbled around her finger.
"Let me see." He pulled her finger out of her mouth and examined it. "Seems okay," he said, "but it may bruise." He turned her hand in his, tracing either side of the slightly damp finger. "Can you bend it?" he asked. Wincing slightly she managed to touch her fingertip almost to her palm.
Jack gently massaged her finger up and down its length. "I think it's okay," she said. Her voice was breathy, and Jack lowered her hand down to her side before releasing it.
"Why don't I help you with that plank?" He picked up the board and held it up against the frame of the wheel. When she ducked under his arm to nail it into place, he was suddenly aware of just how close she was to him.
He leaned close, wondering if his breath tickled the side of her neck. "There," he said. "Better?"
She swayed back against him. "Better," she said. When her shoulders pressed against his chest, he tilted his head slightly and nuzzled her neck with his nose.
Sam jumped, almost clocking him in the nose with the back of her head, and broke away. "I'm getting some water," she said. "Want some?" Her tone was too bright for the casual air she affected.
"Yeah, water," he muttered. He let out a quick breath of frustration between his teeth but decided to play things casual. "Wait. Does this involve a jug full of it in any way, shape or form?" he called to her retreating back.
She kept going, but he saw her shaking her head. Smiling, he walked back over to his saw and picked up where he left off.
With the wheel finished, their next task was tapping into the nearby stream to provide a steady water flow. The plan was to lay pipe from the stream to the paddlewheel works, forcing constant flow via the piping. To do so, Sam and Jack were digging a trench for where the new pipe needed to be laid over to the paddlewheel.
The work was hot and thankless; flies buzzed around them as sweat and grime collected on their skin. Jack took stock of where they were. "Carter," he said. "Are we getting this right? Looks a little crooked to me."
Sam peeked out of the ditch. Her cheeks were pink from being in the sun too much. "It's fine, Jack," she said. "We traced it with the string, remember?" She leaned against her shovel handle and wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt across her cheekbone.
"I know," he said. "But I really think it looks crooked."
"Considering we have it three-quarters done," she said, "don't you think it's a little too late to worry about that?"
"I just want this done right." Jack climbed out of his trench and began scrutinizing the line they had staked off.
She rolled her eyes at him and began digging again.
"Yeah, see here?" he continued. "I think right here is where you messed up."
"Where I… what did I do again?" She jammed her shovel into the dirt harder than necessary.
"If you fill in what you're doing now, we can move this a few inches and - hey!" Jack almost toppled over when a clod of soft dirt exploded against his temple.
"Oh, that's it," he said. "It's on." He grabbed a handful of dirt and clenched it into a ball, ducking when Carter lobbed another handful of dirt at him. He nailed her in the shoulder, and apparently giving up on long-range weapons, she charged him.
Hooking an arm around his bicep, she smeared mud down his neck. He felt the cool plop as it landed inside his shirt and down his back. He retaliated by streaked earth on her face and pretended to edge it near her mouth.
"Oh no, you don't," she said, and before Jack could escape, she had capped his nose with a handful of dirt.
"Time for you to clean up, dontcha think?" he said. He grabbed Sam and flung her over his shoulder. Before she could kick her way down, Jack made his way to the shore of the lake, waded out a few feet and tossed her in with a loud splash.
Jack, still standing in the water, laughed as she sputtered her way back up, yelling all of the ways she was trained to injure him. Pretty soon Jack was ducking her shoes as she chucked them to shore.
"Missed me," he said. The water felt great after the hours working in the hot sun, so Jack stripped off his own shoes and his filthy shirt and waded deeper.
"If I wanted to hit you, you'd be unconscious." Sam splashed him, starting a water war that ended when Sam came back up from a dunking and flipped on her back to float. Jack watched before starting an easy breaststroke towards the middle of the lake.
He stopped swimming near the center, treading water easily. The sun was high over the trees, and geese honked in the distant rushes. The land and its inhabitants carried on their normal activities, completely oblivious to the problems of the human race.
Jack supposed this fact should make him pity their fates, but for the first time in almost a year, he felt peace.
"Penny?" said Sam as she swam up behind him.
Sam, he thought. When had she become equal parts Carter andSam?
"I was just thinking about how much I love this place. How if the world as we knew it had to end, that I'm glad this is where I landed." Twisting around to face her, he decided his time was now. "And how none of it means a damn without you here with me."
Sam's mouth dropped open in surprise. Jack swam slowly closer, giving her plenty of time to back off. When she didn't break away, he pulled her into an embrace and brought his lips to hers.
Kissing Carter was a smolder of warmth against the chill on their lips from the lake. Their bodies moved together, kicking steadily underneath the water. Jack started out gentle, but Sam wasn't as patient, and he found himself forgetting to tread. Not breaking the embrace, he began drawing Carter back towards the shore. Once they could reach bottom, he let Sam set the pace. She kissed her way up his neck slowly, and Jack shivered.
"Are you okay with this?" he asked.
"What do you think, Jack?" she countered, bringing her lips up under his ear.
He brought his hand to her face, traced his finger over her features so gently. "I want you to be sure," he said.
She moved away towards the shore but pulled Jack with her. He looked down at their joined hands with joy and slight bewilderment at his sudden turn of fortune. "Jack," she said. He brought his gaze level with hers as they reached the water's edge. "Take me inside."
Making love to Samantha Carter was like a benediction for Jack. He memorized every plane of her body, slid his hands down every curve of her back. He loved her without hesitation and showed a natural confidence in knowledge of her body.
She hesitated only slightly, right before he entered her. He paused, giving her one more chance to let things stay as they were. She took a deep breath and nodded, and he watched her blue eyes go wide as he moved inside her. They both released a rushed breath, and if Jack clasped Sam's hand a bit tighter, it was only expected. They found a like rhythm, and finally, finally, let themselves go.
That was how Jack O'Neill turned his heart completely over to Samantha Carter eleven months after the world ended.
The waterwheel worked. The first thing Jack did was crank on the air conditioner. He stood a full ten minutes underneath a vent with a huge smile on his face. Carter was plopped on the couch, checking to see if she could pick anything up on the TV. He smiled at her intensity and was just about to slide her over on the couch when he heard music coming from the television.
Adagio For Strings filled the room. Stunned, Jack stared at the screen. The display was red with white font: "WE WILL NOT FADE AWAY." Underneath was a list of places and names.
Every three seconds, the screen changed and more names appeared. Occasionally, a new state title would break up the list and more names and states would appear. Arkansas. California. Kansas.
Vala Maldoran. Teal'c. Patrick Siler.
Jack did sit down, then, his legs collapsing out from under him. Sam let out a short hiccupping, hitched breath, and Jack when reached for her, she was blinking back tears.
Survivors.
"Cam should be listed there, Jack," she said. "It's my fault. It's myfault."
Jack wasn't sure what to make her words, but held her tight, the music playing under her sounds of tears while she cried away the last eleven months.
The stars were bright when he heard her join him outside. She approached the blanket he had spread out underneath his telescope. The scope was set low to the ground, and he was adjusting a setting when she slipped up behind him on the blanket and snuggled in.
"Anything interesting up there?"
"You'd be amazed if I told you," he said, waggling an eyebrow before putting his eye back to the scope.
"Hmm," she said, laying back and crossing her arms behind her head.
"Just as I suspected," he said. "Green cheese."
When she didn't respond he stretched out beside her. "Are you ready to talk about it yet?" he asked, tucking strands of her hair back behind her ear. He liked touching her, and she made happy sounds, so he continued run his fingers through her hair.
"Did you have a telescope as a kid?" Jack noted the topic change, but years spent waiting to be with her had made him a patient man.
"No," he said. "I was more the BB gun sort." He eased an arm under her and she cuddled in against him, with her arm roped around his midsection.
"I did," she said.
"I'm shocked," he teased. "I never pictured you as the science type." She stuck her tongue out at him, and he reached over and nuzzled her cheek.
"So, ever lie down under the stars like this?" he said. "Maybe with, I don't know, a BB gun kinda guy?" This time, she swatted his chest.
"As a matter of fact, Idid lie down in the grass." When he started to make a snide comment, she slapped her hand over his mouth. "I wouldn't," she said. "Anyway, I would hold really still and see if I could feel the world moving."
"Did it work?" Jack pulled a piece of grass from the back of her shirt.
"I thought it did. I thought there was no stronger force than the dizzy feeling of knowing I was spinning hundreds and thousands of miles per hour but wasn't flying out into space." She was watching the moonlight over the water. The surface sparkled with gentle ripples.
"Gravity," said Jack.
"God," she replied. "Gravity was just a concept in my science book then. To me, it was just an act of faith, letting myself feel the spin."
"Do you still… ya know…, do the God thing?" He had always assumed that Carter would be a believer in empirical data rather than faith.
"Do you?" she countered.
"Yes," he said. "If nothing else, because I needed something else to hate besides myself after Charlie." He played with the ends of her hair; it was longer now, just brushing her shoulders.
"I believe…" Sam took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "What I believe is that gravity is immutable, and you never really know when you'll be flung out into nothing."
Jack cupped her chin, tipping her face up. "What else happened that day, Sam? What happened to Mitchell?"
She told him.
Sam glanced down from the control room - Cam and Teal'c stood ready at the base of the ramp, and Daniel tried to corral Vala, who was flirting with Siler.
"Just a few more minutes, guys," Sam said through the mic.
"See?" Vala shook Daniel's hand from her arm. "We have a few more minutes." She made puppy-dog eyes at Siler while Daniel rolled his
Cam laughed loudly, while the edges of Teal'c's mouth curled in a positively blatant smirk.
Just then, all of the chevrons lit up simultaneously. Sam tried to close the iris with no effect. The guys down in the Gate Room pulled their weapons before Harriman could even call the alert. Siler scrambled for the manual iris control.
"What have we got, Colonel?" Landry appeared behind Sam.
"I don't know, sir, but I recommend we get the Gate Room cleared until we know what it is," she said. She continued to pull up monitor checks, but everything appeared normal. "And we should probably get that iris up, sir."
"Agreed," he said. "Siler, Mitchell. Get that iris closed. Everyone else, out of the room. I want two marines at the door. Shoot anything that steps foot through that gate."
Sam called down to Siler, "What's the holdup, Sergeant?"
"I can't make our panel respond," he said. "Can you override from up there?"
"Hey Jackson, how about a hand over here if you're not gonna leave." Sam glanced down into the gate room. Daniel was standing in the middle of the floor, staring blankly at the wall.
"Hey, Jackson." Cam snapped his fingers. "Got any ideas?"
"The power of the Ori will be felt far and wide, and the wicked shall be vanquished, as your leaders have already been."
Sam was watching Cam when Daniel spoke: she saw Cam's blue eyes flash wide in surprise and horror before her vision washed out as a bright flash of light pulsed. It cleared just in time to see Cameron Mitchell flying mid-air towards the ramp just as the gate kawooshed into life, its wake swallowing half of Cam's body.
"No!" Cam's legs made a dull thump on the metal ramp.
Daniel turned to face the Control Room. But he wasn't Daniel - he was a Prior ready to lead the wayward flock into destruction.
"Daniel," she whispered. "Don't do this, Daniel."
"Hallowed be the Ori," he said as the Gate Room began to fill with light once again, and Sam knew Daniel was gone. She slammed the blast shield down and ducked under the control table just before the world went black.
Jack didn't press her again until a few nights later. Curled up together in the dark bedroom, Jack said, "When I first met you, I saw what you had inside you. Wonder. Fire. More idealism than should be allowed for someone with that much experience."
"Jack, I don't know that person anymore," she finally said. "I don't know who she is."
"You don't have to be the same person," he said. "I'm in love with the person you are now." He liked the words on his lips. "I love you, Sam." He let the dark give him courage and continued. "All I'm asking is that you try not to carry the ocean in a paper cup."
Suddenly her mouth was on his, frantic and strong. "You're my gravity, Jack," She whispered in his ear as she moved above him, and there was no more talking that night.
Jack woke up the next morning at dawn to find their bed Carterless and the cabin eerily quiet. Jack slipped on a gray T-shirt and shorts and headed out to the porch.
He could just make out Sam's silhouette down at the foot of the dock. She stood stock-still, holding a carrot out to their elk. Bucko edged forward, and reaching its long neck out, it slowly, slowly, nipped the carrot from Sam's palm before bolting back to the woods.
A smile broke across her face, genuine and open. She tilted that smile up to the sun and fell back into the grass, her arms flung wide open.
And it was in this manner one year after the world ended that Jack O'Neill witnessed Samantha Carter begin to forgive herself.