Contact Part 3

Friends in our darkest hours
Full Episode can be found here

Samantha wakes up inside teh Olim subbasement to freezing temperatures and a broken femur. She's badly injured and knows she's not going to be able to walk out of there. Mustering her strengths, she's able to pull herself out of a pile of rubble despite the extreme pain. She gets a few feet away by crawling, but the pain is too intense. Samantha falls to the floor now emotional, realizing that she's going to die because she was so stubborn she didn't listen to her team

In a final plea, she begs God for help, and to her shock, an Ascended Rodney McKay arrives to comfort her.

Frozen Wasteland
John steps back onto Magna Secundus wearing the Alcaeus Armor, it does a bioscan of him and while he can use it, he isn't advanced enough to utilise the more advanced functions of the armor which he doesn't know well enough. The onboard AI begins to give him a crash course in the armors functionality, but he quickly runs into Shade and is forced to engage them

Using the Armor's built in weapons systems, John is able to hold off limited numbers of Shade at once, but given teh devestation of the planet's surface, he's having trouble finding Samantha. When a "Class 2" Shade creature begins to stalk him though, he's forced to make a run for it to a downed Olim ship the armor points out to him. With power in the suit beginning to fade, John is faced with desperation as he finally finds a stronger weapon to fight off the Shade, but it only holds it off for a few moments.

Alcaeus Armor
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The Alcaeus armor is introduced as having a limited onboard Ai, as well as a mental interface that is more intuative than even Atlantis's. John can use the Armor, but only at around half of it's potential. It gives him increased strength, vision, EVA, as well as a limited onboard sensor system.

Primal Decision Making
Meanwhile on Atlantis, Alicia is shocked by what John is doing, she quickly gets angered and argues with the Olim leadership along with Larrin. Aulus pleads innocencse, but Alicia doesn't care and proposes to go with a Jumper to rescue both John and Samantha. When Menalus mockingly explains to Aulus that Alicia is going because she's John's mate, Alicia snaps and backhands him without a care. Menalus is stunned from the hit, and while Aulus is a little surprised, Larrin is proud of Alicia.

She goes to the Jumper intent on going on her own, but the team quickly joins in with her and they all propose to go after John and Samantha.

Keeping warm with snark
In the sub-basement, Samantha quickly goes from shocked that Rodney's there, to annoyed that he 'can't' help her with more than encouragement and guidance. Quickly they begin to bicker, with Rodney letting her know that he's been tied down to Atlantis ever since he stopped the Wraith Plasma Cannons in the last battle of Pegasus. The bickering continues even as Sam regains enough strenght from the aggravation to crawl her way out of the sub-basement. The conversation goes from simple bickering, to Samantha finally getting to the point where she wants to give up and wants Rodney's help in ascending so she doesn't die. Rodney's willing, but at the same time he knows she can survive this.

Eventually, Rodney does indeed give her more than an encouraging word. He uses his ascended powers to warm her body enough for her to survive getting found by the rescue teams. but in so doing, the "others" quickly come and drag Rodney back to their realm of existance. Samantha realizes that she's buried her personal life and feelings so far down, that she's become fixated on what she had, not what she has. With newfound strength, Samantha crawls her way out of the Olim HQ and collapses outside in the snow.

Rescue Pains
John has sucessfully evaded the Class 2 Shade creature following him, but he's still nowhere near fidning Samantha, he's able to have the suit begin to scan for her subcutaneous transmitter, and while searching, is forced to activated the stui's cloaking ability. It's too advanced for his physiology though and it activates more neurons that he's biologically capable of having on at one moment. He's able to evade a few more Class 2 Shade as a reusult, but the pain is intense. He finally manages to get a lock onto Samantha's Sub-C transmitter and he races to her side.

Alicia and team have managed to get into the fray and quickly they destroy a pair of Class 2 Shade with drones from teh Jumper. John quickly gets a message to them with teh last of the suit's power and finds Samantha delerious and semi-conscious in the snow. She mutters the letter J a few times, but John doesn't care. He quickly wraps his jacket around her and notices that she's badly injured.

Alicia is able to land the Jumper nearby, and the team barges out to give suppressive fire. Drake has managed to kill one Shade with an AT-4, and as John climbs aboard with Samantha, As he does, Drake uses a Javelin Launcher to take out another Shade, now happy for a little revenge. It's cut short when Ronon grabs him by the collar and tosses him into the Jumper.

Redemption's Price
Getting back to Atlantis, Carson and Reyna are horrified by how badly injured Samantha is, Daniel quickly comes and has to be held back by John as Samantha is wheeled away to be treated. Daniel looks at John strangely since John seems oddly calm. Quickly they decide that Samantha would want them to push forward, and negotiations with the Olim continue.

John has a private discussion with Aulus, and he soon realizes that Aulus had been expecting a Shade attack on the planet. The timing was unfortunate, but Magna Secundus was actually bait in order for an Olim Task force to strike from space. The fate of this task force and reasons behind the attack remain unknown as John tells Aulus that if his people aren't off Atlantis by noon the next day, all hopes for peace are gone, not to mention if Samantha dies from her wounds. Aulus is surprisngly agreeable and the Olim leave for another of their planets, but not before offering some medical aid to the wounded on Atlantis including Samantha.

John has been up for more than a day straight now, and it's not until Alicia urges him to check up on Samantha that he takes a break and goes down to see what's going on. Instead of in the infirmary, he finds Reyna and Daniel in the stasis pod rooms. Sam has been put in stasis because he injuries were so grevious, she's even still wearing his jacket that he put on her to warm her up. Daniel is crying over his friend, and Reyna explains that if they take Samantha out without a proper treatment to her frostbite and internal bleeding, she won't last thirty minutes.

John has a moment alone with Daniel, where John explains that the Olim have offered their medical aid. Daniel quickly goes off to try and broker some kind of trade, while John remains standing in front of Samantha's stasis pod thinking to himself.

Unexpected Sorrow
John finishes up the last of the negotiations with the Olim, and it's not for several more hours that he finally goes to his quarters to sleep. When he gets inside, he's surprised to find Larrin there. They have a rather unemotional talk, and John gets ready to go to sleep. Larrin explains that she's confused over what to do, and that she doesn't want Samantha to go. John agrees, and then Larrin bluntly asks him if he wants to have sex. John doesn't answer, but he doesn't pull away when Larrin moves closer.

With the lights off, they start to take some solace in each other, but since John is so exhausted from battle and running around, he fall asleep before anything can happen. Larrin comes to her senses and tries to leave, but John wakes up and stops her. She's ashamed that she would take advantage of John's current vulnerability and even more, his kindness to be a friend to her. They end up not having sex, but they do spend the night together.

In the morning, John finds Larrin has left. He gets up to go about his day, but he makes a pitstop at Samantha's stasis pod. To his surprise, he finds Larrin sitting there watching as well. He sits down next to her, both bothered by Samantha's frozen visage. Larrin confesses that one of the tradition's of the Travelers is to confess a secret to a mortally wounded person in order to inspire them to keep fighting. Larrin also says that she hates that tradition, and because she doesn't think she could take losing someone she cared about, she's never truly loved anyone. She confesses this to Sam in an ironic plea for her to improve, and John joins in as well by confessint that he loved Elizabeth Weir and that he'll never forgive himself for not going back for her as he did Samantha.

I finally understand
Larrin eventually leaves, and Daniel comes by to see John on the floor still watching over Samantha. He pleads with John to get back some sense or normalcy, but John simply ignores him and the two men have a small chat about their mutual friendships with Samantha. Daniel admits to loving Samantha like a sister, and John tells Daniel about what she said to him during Daniel's absence during the Midway Disaster. Daniel is shocked that John is being so calm despite his emotions.

John ends the discussion by repeating the same words Samantha did to him about Danile, he cares too much about Samantha to let her go. He just can't lose her.

Inspired by pain
Carson Beckett labors tirelessly, going so far as to needing Reyna and Teyla to assist him in even sleeping properly as he searches for a way to save Samantha. It takes him three days, and aspects of every medical technology they have, but he finally comes up with a mixed treatment to save her. The Olim medication is key, and everyone is relieved to hear that Samahtha's chances are now good.

The action has inspired the rest of the city. The Marines now train with full vigor instead of just playing around, The Travelers are excited about potential trade with people descended from the Ancestors, even if it's not really them.

It's sevearl days before Samantha finally wakes up in the infirmary, she's still very weak and won't be able to walk for a few weeks, but as she regains consciousness, she sees John sitting by her side trying to solve a Suduko puzzle. She knows he's capable of solving it, which only adds to her intial thoughts that he's more worried about her than he's letting on. She makes her consciousness known by giving him the answer.

Daniel, Larrin, John and Carson all crowd around her to update her and give encouragement. Larrin announces that her culinary scientists have cracked the art of Jell-O and she'll be bringing some later. Daniel threatens to find the same handcuffs that Vala once used on him to keep Samantha on Atlantis from now on. Carson simply tells her to take it easy. John is mysteriously quiet, and despite some tention with Larrin, he's obviously caring towards Samantha as he holds her hand.

Do you love me?
.When Carson tells them all to leave as Samantha needs her rest, she asks for John to stay a minute. After her 'chat' with ascended Rodney, she's finally in a position where she can talk to John honestly and get teh answers she needs. Samantha is terrified that John may have done such a crazy and risky manuever simply out of an emotional need, she's terrified that John may actually love her. She asks him straight out, and John understand what her worry is.

John's considered the situation as well, and despite having recovered from his encounter with Ascended Rodney, he still questions himself sometimes. But he knows one thing for a fact, and he tells Samantha that no, he doesn't love her. With that he reassures Samantha that she's alive because she's cared for and neded on Atlantis, not becauee John loves her so much he's willing to sacrifice others for her.

She then quietly whispers that despite that, she thinks she can love John eventually, John doesn't reply right away as he walks away, but he turns around and respons that he too thinks he can. With that, Samantha knows she's been forgiven for the 'Mornin' Jack' incident and that if they're going to have a relationship, it's going to start from a good place, if they even have a relationship at all.