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Thirty-four minutes.
That was how long it took them to fly to McMurdo station, after Sam had taken one look at the desolate, icy expanse surrounding the crevasse and declared it endless.
Three days— longer?— she had spent metaphorically and at one point literally beating her head against the DHD, trying to make it work so that she and the colonel wouldn’t end up freezing to death millions of miles from home.
And the whole time home had been just a short helicopter ride away.
She should have guessed the shaking meant they were trying to connect to a second Stargate on Earth. How could she have missed that?
It's a good thing Daniel was able to put it together, otherwise I would've gotten the colonel and I both killed.
She knew it was part of his job as team leader to keep up morale even in the direst of circumstances, and normally it worked. But every time he said we'll find a way out of here, you'll make it work, I have faith in you, it just underscored how much of a failure she was, and how much she didn't deserve his faith.
Not your fault, he'd said, after she'd finally run out of ideas to fix the DHD— which of course had never actually been broken in the first place.
How was it not her fault? If even once she had thought of dialing literally any other address, they would have been home in minutes.
So much for proving I deserve to be on this team.
Her injuries were less severe than the colonel's, so the moment she was allowed to leave her bed in the infirmary she joined Daniel and Teal'c sitting vigil next to his, waiting for him to regain consciousness.
"They gave him some pretty strong painkillers," Daniel was saying as she pulled up a chair. "The break was pretty severe, but the doc said that the splint was good enough to keep him from needing major surgery."
Sam chuckled weakly. At least I'm not a complete failure.
"Hey." Daniel rubbed her shoulder. "He's gonna be okay, Sam. You did good."
"I could've done better. I should've done better. We were on Earth the entire time, Daniel. If I'd just…"
"You kept the both of you alive long enough for us to figure it out and rescue you," Daniel pointed out. He moved his arm across to her other shoulder and pulled her into a hug. "Finding you wouldn't have done much good if you were both dead by the time we got there."
"You don't understand—" Sam fought to keep the tremble out of her voice. "I'm the one who's supposed to figure these things out. I'm only a member of this team because I'm supposed to know how the 'gate works. The colonel was depending on me to get us home, and I let him down."
"That is incorrect, Captain Carter." Teal'c's soothing baritone sounded as steady as Sam wished she was. "May I point out that you were suffering from the combined effects of severe hypothermia and a mild concussion, both of which would have had a negative impact on your mental faculties."
"He's got a point there," Daniel added. "I got medical treatment right away and was toasty warm the whole time, and it still took me several days to figure it out."
"But—"
A weak cough diverted Sam's attention to the bed, where the colonel was slowly blinking his eyes open as he turned his head towards them. "Captain…"
"I'm here, sir." She squeezed his hand, leaning closer to him. "We're all here."
"Listen… to them. No reason to think Earth had two 'gates."
"He's been in and out," Daniel explained in response to Sam's confused look. "General Hammond managed to fill him in on what happened before he passed out again."
Sam shook her head. "I still should've thought of trying a different address. I was just so fixated on dialing home that—"
"Sam." The colonel tightened his grip on her hand. "You kept me alive, and you kept me going. I couldn't have asked for more."
Her vision blurred. "Colonel…"
"It'll be an honor… to continue serving with you, Captain."
Daniel squeezed her shoulder as he hugged her a little closer. "I'll second that."
"Indeed." Teal'c nodded.
Sam smiled through her tears. "With you too, sir— with all of you."
The colonel faintly returned her smile, the warmth in his eyes restoring her spirit as much as his words.
She wondered if he remembered mistaking her for Sara towards the end, delirious and half-dead from the cold. At the time, playing along had seemed like the only thing she could do; after all, it wasn't like she could give him something new to live for, now that he had no one to come home to. No one to motivate him to get through this.
But she'd gotten that wrong too— he might have lost his family, but Sam was only just now realizing that didn't mean he was alone. He had her, and Daniel, and Teal'c.
As long as they were a team, none of them would ever have no one to live for.