Title: Distant Storms
Rating: M
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Warnings: Romance-novel sex. Hot but not x-rated. Mild language.
Summary: This was originally written for the "Apocalypse Kree!" LiveJournal fic-a-thon. (and is now about 6 months late. Whoops.) The prompt pretty much sums it up. ("Sam/Jack. Earthquake, volcano, flood, hurricane, tsunami, or other natural disaster - and working together to survive it. Must include scruffy !unshaven! Jack.") I should admit, however, I'm cheating a bit on the apocalypse theme. It's there, but I'm just not capable of writing a blatantly unhappy "ending of doom." Sorry if this disappoints anyone!
A/N: Some of you have seen this previewed on my LiveJournal account. It will be posted and completed here in its entirety.
Chapter One
Thunder rolled ominously across the wide expanse of grassy marshland which stretched across the alien horizon. From her perch on the impressively tall cliff overlooking a huge, roiling ocean, Sam could see massive thunderheads all but obliterating the distant sky in every direction. Her observations, combined with the preliminary data from her meteorological sensors all pointed to one conclusion.
She was standing directly in the path of an oncoming hurricane.
Heaving a sigh, she ran a hand through her hair. The mission to this lonely, windswept planet had been put together hastily after Tok'ra intelligence began reporting unusual weather anomalies on several planets in this system. Apparently, entire worlds had been rendered uninhabitable as a result of something… unnatural. It had been suggested that one of the countless minor Goa'uld tyrants was attempting to seize power through use of weather-affecting technology, though – since no populated planets had yet been struck – it was hypothesized that the plan was still in a testing phase. Having witnessed the power of the Touchstone on Madrona, Sam could well believe that such a strategy was feasible. Weather technology and terraforming had gone hand-in-hand to create life on that particular planet. She supposed it would be entirely possible to link them in the reverse order, especially if one had no moral compunction about inflicting death and destruction.
Once again gazing at the tempest on the horizon, Sam felt a twinge of fear skitter across the edges of her brain. It was a four-hour hike back to the stargate. Getting back before the storm hit would be possible, but just barely. Picking up her radio, Sam composed her thoughts before speaking. It felt odd to be offworld with anyone other than SG-1, but it couldn't be helped.
SG-1 was officially off-duty this week.
SG-1 had other things to do.
A wave of the uncomfortable bitterness swept over her at the thought of her teammates' absence. She shouldn't be angry at the way this trip had turned out, but she was. She'd been angry when she'd stepped through the gate, and angry when she'd insisted upon trekking across the alien landscape by herself. Unfortunately, her attempts to avoid the storm brewing inside herself had done nothing but place her directly in the path of another, less metaphorical tempest.
SG-7's scientific expertise had been needed on this mission, but Sam's knowledge of weather-affecting technology was unrivaled. She, unlike her teammates, had not elected to spend her off-duty time attending to personal matters.
She wasn't really sure she had personal matters to attend to anymore.
At any rate, she was the only member of SG-1 to accompany the scientific team. SG-5, a marine combat unit, had also been sent to provide security – though it currently appeared that the danger facing them was far beyond even the Marines' ability to counter.
Taking a deep breath, she supposed it was time to brief the others on her discoveries. "Major Harper?" Her voice was amazingly composed, given the information she now possessed.
"Go ahead, Major Carter." The radio crackled across the vast distance separating her from the rest of her colleagues.
Pushing aside thoughts of how isolated she was, Sam focused on the situation at hand. "The storm is less than fifty miles off the coast, and it's a monster." She sighed, turning from the edge of the cliff. "I'm heading back now."
There was an edge of annoyance in Harper's voice when he replied. "I suppose now wouldn't be the best time to reiterate how stupid it was for you to go on a four-hour hike across alien wilderness by yourself?"
Sam squelched a bubble of her own irritation. "Definitely not the best time," she snapped. Damn it, she got enough crap from her actual CO for being overly-enthusiastic in the name of science. She hardly needed to take it from someone of her own rank. "You should start rounding up SG-7 and get them ready to head back through the gate. I'm going to arrive with Goliath on my heels, so you'll probably want to have them out of harm's way before I get there."
She could hear the impatience in Harper's reply. "Yes, Major, I'm on it."
Sam sighed. In the rush to get the team assembled, no one had thought to clarify which major would be superior on this mission. She supposed she could demand Harper's date of commission and settle the issue once and for all, but it hardly seemed worth generating friction over. In any event, she wasn't anywhere near the rest of the team, so Harper was definitely in charge of leading the retreat.
As another distant peal of thunder swept over the grassy terrain, Sam picked up her pack and began walking swiftly in the direction of the stargate.
Harper might be leading the retreat, but she was certainly in charge of bringing up its rear.
Tapping his fingers impatiently on the cool surface of a computer bank in the SGC's control room, Jack O'Neill glanced irritably at his watch.
As was always the case in times of crisis, the room fairly crackled with tension. Harper of SG-5 had reported nearly five hours ago that the storm was bearing down on their location, and that he'd be sending SG-7 back through the gate momentarily. When questioned about why SG-5 would be remaining behind, the man had coolly informed Hammond that they needed to wait for Major Carter to return from a lengthy surveillance hike.
A lengthy, solo surveillance hike.
Looking down at his watch, Jack felt his blood pressure spike for the zillionth time in the last hour. Damn that woman. She should know better than to leave her team so far behind when danger was clearly looming on the horizon. What the hell had she been thinking?
And why the hell was she even on this mission? Last he knew, his entire damn team had been on vacation – himself included, he might add, at least until an urgent message from the SGC had yanked him back from Minnesota to await his second-in-command's arrival.
Suddenly, his fuming thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the gate activating. Without waiting for confirmation of the wormhole's source, Jack dashed down the steps from the control room and through the doorway of the gate room. As the marines readied weapons – standard procedure for an unscheduled activation – Jack stared at the familiar whoosh of the event horizon with laser-sharp intensity.
After a few long, tortuous seconds, the shimmering surface inside the gate rippled, spitting out four extremely sodden, stumbling marines. Faces still squinting against wind and water which no longer fell around them, the hardened soldiers looked, to a man, exhausted and weary.
Jack's heart thundered in his chest as he waited for another figure to step through the event horizon. However, before the surface blinked out of existence, he caught sight of Harper's face and knew no other SG personnel would be emerging from the gate.
Anger rose in his throat with a wave of hot bile. Without contemplating his actions, he jerked forward and grabbed the marine major by his vest. "You left her there?"
Harper seemed to expect the outburst and did nothing to defend himself. Still, his eyes flashed with fury when he replied. "We waited an hour and a half in that storm, Colonel. At the end, we were actually holding onto the gate to stay upright. We had no hope of radio contact because of the weather, and we were standing next to a giant superconductor – which, by the way, is fully twice the height of anything else in the immediate vicinity – in the middle of an electrical storm. When the MALP was thrown a good twenty feet as a result of a giant gust of wind, I made the call. Standing there waiting for her wasn't going to bring her in any sooner, but was pretty damn likely to get us killed."
Jack was not appeased. "Why the hell did you let her go off by herself in the first place?"
Harper glared back. "Why did I let her go?" He snorted. "I'm afraid I had little say in the matter." Looking at the older man, he didn't mince words as he continued. "Hell, you outrank her and she barely listens to you. There was no way she was taking orders from me."
Releasing his clenched fists from the major's vest, Jack jerked away from the man and ran a hand through his hair in a gesture of sheer frustration. What the hell was going on? Carter might be a little headstrong at times, but he was sure she'd be on her very best behavior around another SG team. Most of her willingness to selectively listen to his orders stemmed from familiarity – she knew she could get away with damn near anything around him, and often took advantage of that fact when she felt strongly about something. However, it was very hard to imagine her acting that recklessly around anyone else. He could understand if she'd wandered away in a cloud of scientific distraction, but if Harper really had tried to stop her, he had no idea why she'd blatantly disobey him.
It wasn't like Sam to be so irrational.
"Major?" Hammond's brisk voice broke into the heated conversation.
Snapping to attention, Harper looked at the General and issued his stark report. "Sir, in spite of not knowing Major Carter's whereabouts, we could no longer maintain our position." His voice was steady, but his eyes were downcast. He was, after all, a marine. Leaving a teammate behind was all but sacrilegious.
Hammond nodded, clearly not pleased with the report. Still, when he spoke, there was no recrimination in his voice. "If she's able, she'll make it back."
Jack's voice cracked like a whip. "I'm going after her."
The general turned his steely attention to the other man, clearly prepared for a fight. "If Major Harper feels the situation on P6X-164 is unmanageable, I'm inclined to believe him. I'm not about to send another one of my officers into that storm."
Jack didn't budge an inch. "With all due respect, sir, that's my second-in-command out there. If she's in trouble, someone ought to be helping." His eyes blazed with fury. "And since no one else is volunteering, I'll be happy to go by myself."
Sensing the titanic force of will behind his officer's words, Hammond felt his resolve weaken. After all, the man was trained in black-ops tactics and was fully capable of assessing the gravity of a given situation. "I'll allow this on one condition," he said firmly. Seeing a glimmer of hope in the other man's eyes, Hammond finished his thought in a no-nonsense manner. "If conditions on that planet are beyond what humans are capable of withstanding, you are to turn around and march right back here." His eyes sharpened. "I know what Major Carter means to SG-1 – hell, to the SGC in general – but I won't let you kill yourself on a futile mission to rescue her." Seeing the pain on Jack's face, he softened his tone somewhat. "For all we know, she's holed up in a cave somewhere. You can't assume the worst."
Jack stared grimly ahead. "Sir, I'd like to gear up and be out of here as soon as possible."
Hammond nodded. "Agreed."
As the colonel swiftly turned and marched out of the room, Harper stood on the embarkation platform, dripping and slack-jawed. "General," he said in disbelief, "there's not a chance in hell that he's going to find her."
Hammond turned to the young marine with a wry gleam in his eye. "If anyone is going to find her, it's going to be O'Neill." A faint smile danced across his features. "And if past experience is any indication, he won't need a chance in hell to be successful."