Title: A Little Strength Left

Author: Kellifer

Email: (same for MSN addy)

Category: Action / Angst / Team dynamic

Rating: Chapter 1 - G (Later chapters to be advised)

Summary: Failing to dial Earth while away, Sam and Daniel are stranded off world. Three years later they are able to make it home to a devastated world. Is the Stargate the key to preventing a catastrophe from ever happening?

Disclaimer: DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created or entertainment No monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

She had been walking through a field, her hand trailing along the hip-high wheat stalks. It would have been a lovely place if not for the coppery tang of blood in the air. The wheat hid most of the bodies which was a small mercy, but every now and again she would have to step over someone be it enemy or friend.

They hadn't won. They'd retreated.

Now they were back to retrieve those they'd had to leave behind.

She looked to her right and saw someone barrelling through the field, their passage marked by the soft whisper of bending stalks. The young woman was in fatigues with a P90 clasped to her chest, yet her tears took years from her face. Sam wondered why she couldn't hear the wailing of the woman and realized it was because the blood was just too loud.

It roared in her ears, blocking everything else out.

She felt callused fingers entwine with her own and a familiar smell that finally snapped everything back into focus. Marlboros and gun oil. He'd told her he'd quit smoking. She was glad he hadn't, just for that day.

"Who is that?" She asked, inclining her face towards the wailing girl.

"Sergeant Aimes. She's the only survivor of SG17." Jack replied.

"Huh." Sam knew the noncommittal sound would appear callous, but she didn't have any emotion left. She wondered if she'd used it all up for good. Watching good men and women be shot in the back as they fled had managed to leave her with a smoking crater where her soul should have been.

"Daniel?" He'd been a limp body in Teal'c's arms as they had ploughed through the Stargate but she hadn't gotten up the nerve to ask after him since he'd been whisked away to the infirmary. Sam felt the hand in her own tighten and realized she hadn't even looked Jack's way yet. Lifting her head to meet the brown eyes trained on her seemed too hard right at that moment.

"He's a tough kid. He's survived worse." The voice was tight and Sam knew it meant that Jack didn't one hundred percent believe what he was saying. She appreciated the sentiment but hated being protected. "I asked because I want to know, not because I want to be comforted." Her voice was harder than she'd intended. She couldn't seem to look away from Aimes, who now stood a few feet away from them, her head thrown back, keening to the sky. No one tried to stop her. No one had the heart to.

"Sam?" His voice was hollow and sounded far away.

XxxxxxxxX

Sam awoke with a start, adrenaline dumping through her body. Reaching out blindly for her bedside table with one hand, she managed to smack something soft and yielding instead.

"Ow!" She heard a voice protest in the darkness. Her senses were dulled in sleep and it took her a moment to recognize the voice. "Daniel?" The wheat field had been six months ago but forever existed in her nightmares. She automatically reached out to her other side, searching for the comforting bulk of Jack, only to remember when her hand fell on bare ground that both he and Teal'c were back on Earth and she was on P4S-987 with Daniel and SG13. They were sleeping outside because it was a mild night and it almost felt unnatural not to be sandwiched between both Daniel and Jack. She got cold most nights despite the sleeping bag and the two men gave off an inexplicable amount of heat when they slept.

There was the rustle of a sleeping bag and then Sam saw the outline of Daniel rising onto one arm to regard her. "I know I'm hard to wake up sometimes, but I don't like this new 'smacking me in the face' idea." Daniel sounded more surprised than hurt but Sam grimaced.

"Sorry, I was reaching for my light."

"You missed." Daniel yawned mightily and rolled over so she could only see his back. "I can feel you looking at me." He grumbled after a few minutes, rolling back toward her again.

"Sorry." Sam tried closing her eyes but something was nagging at her. Cracking open one eye, she could see Daniel had sat up, still cocooned in his sleeping bag.

The temperature had dropped sharply during the night and it looked like Daniel had zipped himself into his sleeping bag up to the neck. "Something's bothering you right? Neither of us are getting any sleep until you tell me." He poked one hand out, hooked the zipper and freed himself. He then reached toward the end of his bedroll and there was the clinking of two metal cups. Sam smiled in the moonlight. It seemed to not matter what time Daniel woke up, his first thought was always the pursuit of coffee.

Sam looked sideways and could see the vague shape of a man in the tree line. It was too dark to make out which member of SG13 it was, but it was definitely not Dixon. It was one of the two slighter men. It didn't matter however, she'd asked for SG13 because they were a good group and although Colonel Dixon's humour was sometimes a little hard to take, he was probably the only man whose military instincts she trusted as much as Jack's.

Daniel uncurled his lanky frame until he was standing, having liberated his stash of coffee from his pack. He headed towards the fire and coaxed it back from the brink of mere embers to provide boiling water. A few minutes later Sam was sitting cross-legged, facing Daniel and with a steaming cup clasped in both hands.

"This is going to sound insane." Sam sighed. Her absolute certainty that something was amiss was fading now that she was fully awake. It was possible the residue of her nightmare was affecting her waking thoughts. Daniel watched her patiently, urging her to continue with his silence.

"I'm a scientist. I don't trust gut instinct."

"And yet..."

"And yet, I think I'm going to move our 12 hour check in up a few hours."

Daniel snapped open the leather band that hid his watch face and squinted at it in the firelight. "It's about two in the afternoon there. I don't remember anyone being due back. I'd say it's pretty safe to do."

Sam felt a wash of affection flow through her at his words, watching as he swallowed his coffee like it was a cold drink and he'd been in the desert for months. He hadn't bothered asking her why she wanted to dial home. He simply trusted she had reason and that was enough. Sam stepped out of her sleeping bag and rubbed her hand through Daniel's hair.

Ten minutes later, having dialled Earth three times without being able to get a lock, the uneasiness she'd been trying to rationalize away had well and truly returned. Colonel Dixon was standing beside her, both hands resting on top of his P90, which was clipped to his vest. "Busy signal?" he asked, his voice low. He didn't sound worried, but then Sam imagined that Dixon would have the same easy tone talking over a coffee with a friend or through a firefight.

Daniel was punching in the coordinates on the DHD again, his brow furrowed. "I'm trying the Alpha site." The Stargate's inner circle spun but failed to issue the reassuring ker-chunck of the seventh chevron locking into place. Daniel looked back at Sam, concern plain on his features even in the half-light of dawn. "Beta?" Sam nodded and Daniel started dialling again.

Again, nothing.

"I've had this nightmare." Dixon grumbled.

Sam didn't have to ask him to explain. Every person who stepped through the Stargate had the same kind of fears. Being stranded offworld was one of the biggies.

There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the Stargate which made the situation infinitely worse. Daniel increased the worry for their homeworld by managing to get a lock on a gate address he could remember to an unoccupied world.

Daniel walked back to where Sam and Colonel Dixon were standing, hands in his pockets. "We can try again in a few hours." He said.

Sam had heard somewhere that the definition of insanity was trying the same action over and over again, expecting a different result. Sam looked at the men gathered, the same expression on each face.

" Of course we will." Sam agreed.