Fic: Mimesis (2/3)
Mimesis :: Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three ::
Jack jerks awake with a curse, his arm sweeping out in front of him as if reaching for something. His eyes skim across the room, taking in the familiar contours of his bedroom, his heart pounding away in his chest.
As usual, the dream begins to fade quickly, leaving only flashes, each one more insane than the last. He still obeys the inane urge to pinch himself, wincing at the pain. It was a nightmare. A really, really fucked up nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless.
Everything is okay, he reminds himself. Carter is safe and probably in her lab and none of it ever happened.
It’s ridiculous. They would know if Carter had been replaced by an evil twin. They would know. How the hell does his subconscious even come up with shit like this?
Unless…
He sits up.
“Damn.”
Scrambling, he manages to make it to the Mountain in under a half-hour, snatching the sign-in sheet from the entrance guards on his way in. He skims it as he ducks into the elevator, glancing at his watch. He slams into the locker room to find SG-3 just gearing up for a mission.
“Sir,” Reynolds says, pushing to his feet with alarm.
“Change of plans,” Jack says. “I need you to go to the armory and get the Replicator pulse weapon. Then take a security detail down to Carter’s lab and take her into custody. If for any reason she resists, hit her with the pulse.”
Reynolds eyes are wide. “Sir?”
“Do it now, Colonel.”
Reynolds doesn’t ask again, gesturing for his team to follow him out into the hall.
Jack hands him a radio. “I’m on two. Let me know what happens.”
Reynolds nods, taking the radio and following after his team.
Jack heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the halls on level 28, people flatten against the walls as he comes. Jogging into the control room, Walter nearly falls out of his seat when Jack demands, “Status, Sergeant?”
People don’t work in the control room without having steady nerves and quick reflexes though, so Walter recovers almost instantaneously. “SG-6 and 11 are off-world, no scheduled contact for the next three hours.”
“Anything from NORAD?”
“No, sir.”
Jack’s radio crackles.
“General O’Neill?” Reynolds’ voice asks.
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, Colonel Carter… Hell, it wasn’t Colonel Carter. I hit her with the pulse and she just…came apart.”
Jack feels his gut clench. “Walter, we are code 9.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, hands flying across the controls.
All around them people push into motion, blast walls sliding into place, red lights flashing.
Daniel jogs up the steps and into the chaos. “Jack, what the hell is going on?”
Jack ignores him. “Walter, I need to know if there are any ships in orbit.”
“No, sir. There haven’t been any reports of--.”
“Check again,” Jack insists.
Walter nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Jack?” Daniel tries again.
Jack darts a glance at him with a sigh. “Short version? We didn’t bring back Carter. We brought back a Replicator.”
Daniel pales alarmingly. “What?”
“Sir,” Walter interrupts. “We have a contact in orbit.”
Jack steps up behind him, glancing at the screen. “Lifesigns?”
“One.”
“Signal the Prometheus. Charge their pulse, extract the one lifesign, and then blast the hell out of the ship.”
Daniel looks confused as hell, and Jack doesn’t really blame him. “How did you know?” he asks.
Jack shakes his head. There is no way to explain any of this. He’d dreamt it?
“Jack,” Daniel says, grabbing his arm.
“Not now, Daniel,” he snaps, staring so closely at the radar readout that he feels like his eyes are going to pop out of his head. Come on, come on.
There’s a flash, and Walter presses one hand up to his ear. “The Prometheus has Colonel Carter, sir. The ship has been neutralized.”
Jack breathes out.
“That was…easy,” Daniel observes.
It was. Way too easy.
Jack feels a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, metal on his tongue. No. It can’t be.
He turns.
A tech in a chair spins around to face him, only it’s not a tech. It’s Carter. She’s wearing jeans and boots and a worn flannel shirt, but it’s her. “Sir.”
“Carter,” he says, stepping towards her.
“I don’t know what she wants from you,” she says, her eyes darting past him.
He turns, staring into the face of the Replicator.
Those cold, cold eyes.
* * *
“Jack, hurry up! The food’s getting cold!”
Jack pulls a sweatshirt on over his head. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he calls down the stairs, carefully picking his way across the landing and the obstacle course of discarded belongings currently marring the floor. Old camping equipment and sports gear mostly. They really need to deal with all this crap. Sell it, store it, whatever! He’ll have to get--.
“Jack!”
“Yeah!” he says, jogging down the stairs. In his haste, he nearly trips over the lazy dog spread out over the fourth step. Jack catches himself on the banister, his shoulder catching the row of photos on the wall as he steps down hard, an unpleasant twinge surging up his knee.
“Dammit, Maya!” he grouses.
The dog, lazy as she is, barely lifts her head to give Jack a baleful look.
He sighs. “You’re right. Clearly I should have been looking where I was going.”
Maya gives his shoe a half-hearted lick. Damn lazy dog.
Testing his knee with a cautious bend or two, Jack reaches down to pick up the picture he knocked off the wall in his less than graceful maneuver. He stops midway, sitting down on the step as his hand closes over the frame.
It’s a photo of a happy, smiling family of three, bounding dog by their side.
Sara hates dogs, Jack thinks absently.
“I’m the one who would have to take care of it when you’re gone, Jack.”
Maya whines softly in her throat, nudging Jack with her nose. He absently scratches her behind the ears.
Pushing back to his feet, he hangs the photo in the empty spot, trying to shake the unsettling feeling that something isn’t right.
“She thinks you’ll believe it if you want it badly enough.”
Jack freezes. He knows that voice, despite being distorted with horror and resignation. He knows that voice as well as he knows it doesn’t belong here. Can’t exist. The photos on the wall seem to waver in front of him.
He closes his eyes.
“Jack?” Sara’s voice calls up the stairs. He can hear the gurgle of the coffee pot, the smell of pancakes.
If you want it badly enough…
God, he does. He wants this. He feels the pull of the fantasy, the life that could have been his. He can practically taste it.
His hand tightens on the banister, fighting the drag of downward momentum. He forces himself to turn away from it, and Carter is sitting on a step above him, her knees tucked up into her chest, one hand pressed down into Maya’s fur. She has a long braid over one shoulder and smells like hay and sunshine and something else he can’t quite place.
He swallows hard, trying to find his voice. “Is that-Is that why you’re wearing that?” he asks. “Is that part of what you want?”
Her eyes lift to his face and she still looks like she’s doing everything she can not to crumple inward. The hopelessness in her eyes is like a shot to his gut.
She shakes her head. “He gave me what I thought I wanted.” Her fingers pluck at the flannel shirt. “But I didn’t. Don’t. I don’t and she knows it.”
“She,” Jack repeats, glancing back down the stairs.
Carter’s eyes widen. “She’s…smarter.”
Like he needs the reminder that he’s being manipulated by evil with Carter’s IQ.
“Dad?” another voice calls, the timber of the voice marking the speaker as a young man. A child all grown up. The pain flaring in Jack’s gut nearly tears him in two.
He blindly turns, stumbling down a few steps.
Carter pushes to her feet, stepping in front of him, her arm blocking his way down the stairs.
“Carter, move,” he says, his voice cracking. He has to go downstairs. He has to see.
“It isn’t real,” she says, eyes bright with tears. Tears for who? What the hell does she know?
There’s a moment where he almost has it in him to shove her out of the way, push her down those damn stairs if it means getting to that voice.
She touches his arm. “God, I wish it was. I wish this could be yours, but it’s not.”
But it is his. Right there, just at the bottom of the stairs. All he has to do is walk down. Because would it really be so bad? To exist inside the fantasy? Maybe just for a little while?
Carter looks back at him with such painful understanding, like she knows exactly what he’s struggling with. Because she does, he realizes. She’s been living this for weeks. Weeks and weeks with no one coming. No one even looking.
He pushes forward again, and she drops her arm, stepping out of his way.
“I’m sorry,” she says, the words so heavy with guilt as to be nearly unrecognizable. “I’m so sorry she’s doing this.”
He descends the stairs, one painful step at a time. In the hall below, he pauses.
It nearly kills him, nearly rips him clean in half, but somehow he turns away from the kitchen, pulls open the front door, and walks out.
* * *
“But, Jack--.”
Jack shakes his head. “No way, Daniel. That gate is staying buried.”
Daniel sighs, tugging at the shoulder of his robe. “But the cartouche temple--.”
Jack cuts across him. “Don’t you think the Abydonians’ safety is more important than your curiosity?”
Sha’re touches Daniel’s arm. “Perhaps O’Neill speaks wisdom, husband.”
Daniel seems to deflate a little, his attention easily stolen away by his wife.
Jack knows that won’t work forever, but for now, he’ll take it. He settles back against the low bench, enjoying the heat of the fire pushing back at the cool night air filling the temple. He glances at the empty platform that had once held a Stargate, now covered in baskets and hyperactive kids.
He smiles to himself, glancing across the fire just in time to catch one of the women watching him. She has dark, glossy hair and a narrow chin, and just for a second as the fire catches her features, he has the insane thought that she looks just like Mary Steenburgen. She drops her eyes from his, the resemblance fading, but the obvious invitation thinly veiled with modesty is still there.
Jack’s brow furrows.
“O’Neill should not always be alone,” Skaara remarks, sitting down next to Jack.
“Mind your own damn business, kid,” Jack mock complains. “Or I’ll have to start quizzing you about that young lady I saw you carrying water for yesterday.”
Skaara’s face tinges slightly red, even as his chest puffs up with manly importance only a kid his age could ever pull off.
“She’s pretty,” Jack concedes.
“Clearly your eyes are failing you,” Skaara says, his attention caught by movement in the crowd. “She is beautiful.”
Oh, man. The kid’s got it bad.
Skaara darts a glance at Jack, his cheeks staining an even deeper red. He shoves a flask at Jack.
“What’s this?” Jack asks, prying open the lid and taking a sniff.
“It is Drathan’s latest batch.”
Jack takes a tiny sip, wincing as it burns down his throat. “Damn,” he says, his eyes watering. “That’ll make you go blind.”
Skaara nods in agreement, taking a deep swig himself. “It is good, no?”
“No,” Jack says, laughing. “It’s terrible.”
The woman from across the fire appears at Jack’s side, handing him a bowl of water. Her fingers brush his, so casually as to be almost accidental. Almost. “Water?” she asks.
Next to him, Skaara lurches suddenly to one side, stumbling into the woman’s arm, spilling the water to the floor.
“Whoa,” Jack says, grabbing the boy’s shoulder, holding him upright. “Someone’s had enough.”
Skaara mumbles something unintelligible.
Jack smiles apologetically at the woman. “Sorry.”
She smiles shyly, ducking her face to the ground as she moves back away.
Skaara watches her leave, and when he looks up at Jack, there is nothing of inebriety on his face. “You must fight her, O’Neill.”
“What?” Jack asks.
“She draws her web tighter and tighter around you.”
Jack picks up the flask, shaking it to gauge how much liquid is left in it. “Are you sure that moonshine isn’t rotting your brain?”
Skaara gives him a patient look, all previous ease and geniality gone. “O’Neill. Abydos is no more.”
Jack’s hand tightens around the flask.
“And me with it. This you know.” He carefully removes the flask from Jack’s fingers. “Do you not remember?”
“Yeah,” Jack says, digging his fingers into his eyes as the memories flood back in, each and every heinous detail. Somehow it’s like having to watch it happen for the first time all over again. He peers up at Skaara, shoving aside the burning in his chest. “But then how are you here?”
“She cannot understand me,” he says, throwing a dark look at the woman still watching them closely from across the fire, her brow furrowed. “What I am now, she cannot comprehend or perceive.”
“What you are now,” Jack echoes.
Skaara smiles.
Right. The wonders of being ascended. “Come to bust me out?” Jack asks.
“You know I cannot.”
“So just came for a chat then,” Jack says, sitting back down and eying the flask. Going blind drunk is sounding more palatable by the moment. “That’s nice of you.”
Skaara squats down next to him. “I came because you are my friend, and I do not wish to see you lost forever in this place.”
Jack regards him, taking in the coiled hair, the calm eyes that had once been eager and innocent. “And how do I know you aren’t part of this entire thing?” he asks, gesturing around at the room. “Another lie?”
Skaara smiles. “You already know what is real and what is not, O’Neill. You must simply learn to trust in that.”
Because he’s doing such a great job so far. “How can I trust anything in here?”
Skaara reaches out, his hand touching Jack’s chest, palm pressing in. For a moment Jack thinks he can feel the weight of it, that touch, like something almost…concrete seeping into his flesh.
”You will find faith,” Skaara says.
Jack’s about to tell the kid that faith isn’t exactly his strong point, when Skaara’s eyes are caught by something over Jack’s shoulder. There’s a flash of surprise quickly transformed into the calm confidence that the damned Ancients no doubt spend all their time sitting around practicing.
Jack follows his eye line, tracking over to a robed figure across the room. It’s a woman standing by a column, her face nearly obscured by a hood covering her hair, all but the barest glimmer of gold.
Carter.
Jack stands, her eyes finding his.
“O’Neill?” Skaara asks, tugging Jack’s sleeve.
Jack pulls his eyes away from Carter, looking back down at the kid. He’s once again jovial, eyes wide with innocence and a bit too much alcohol. Untouched. Unknowing. Looking closely Jack can see the edges now, the flatness to him like he’s just a projection, or a ghost raised from a distant memory.
Jack looks back up at Carter, reading the sympathy there in her eyes before she turns and slowly heads towards the temple exit.
“Is something wrong?” Skaara asks.
Jack turns back to him, forcing a smile on his face. He consciously does not look at the woman sitting across the fire. “Everything’s fine,” he lies. “I’m just going to hit the head before that moonshine of yours does me in.”
Skaara laughs, the warm, artificial sound turning to acid in Jack’s stomach.
He turns and walks outside.
Carter is waiting not too far away, staring out over the night-shrouded desert, the moons hanging heavy and bright in the sky. Her arms are wrapped tight around her as if she’s trying to fight off a chill.
“So this is new,” he says mildly, stepping up next to her.
Carter shakes her head. “Only the scenery, not the game,” she says, voice thin with exhaustion.
“Is that what this is? A game?”
She huffs, her chin dropping towards her chest. “A Petri dish.”
“I always did hate science,” Jack quips.
She turns to look at him, her eyes searching his face. He isn’t sure what she’s looking for so he just stares back.
“Why am I here?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
She holds out her hands in the moonlight, inspecting them closely, and her eyes are somehow more focused than they’ve been since he first saw her in that metal cell. “The house you shared with Sara, Abydos. I don’t belong in these scenarios.”
She does kinda ruin the illusion, now that she mentions it. Like the final bit of proof that things aren’t right.
“So why am I here? Why would she want me here?” She gives him a critical look. “Assuming you are you.”
He shrugs. “Last time I checked.”
She turns all the way around then, looking at him straight on. “Are you bringing me here?”
“Can I do that?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “But I am here somehow.”
“So you’re…experiencing all of this too,” he says.
She has the grace to look a little embarrassed, but doesn’t look away. “Yes. I don’t know how. It’s like…watching from afar. And then sometimes something happens and suddenly I’m in the middle of it.”
He huffs, trying to make light of her getting a free pass to his subconscious desires. “Guess she got tired of digging through your brain.”
“I guess,” Carter says, still looking vaguely unnerved. “It’s almost as if she’s forgotten I’m--.” She stops mid-word, looking up at him with eyes bright with realization.
“What?” he asks, knowing that look well. It usually shows up right before she pulls his ass out of the fire.
She stares at him a moment, like she’s mastering some instinctual reaction, biting down on her lip. “I can’t tell you,” she says, apparently as nonplussed by that as he is.
She looks ready to deal with his argument, his order to tell him just what the hell is going on in that genius brain of hers, but for some reason he can’t explain, he doesn’t. Maybe because despite everything, she’s the only thing he does trust in this whole twisted place. It’s the stupidest thing he could possibly do.
“Okay,” he says.
She stares back at him, surprised at his easy acquiescence, and without thinking he reaches out to touch her, his fingers settling against her cheek, gauging the details.
Her skin feels warm, solid. Right. Try as he can, he can’t find any edges.
“Sir?” she asks, her voice betraying a slight tremor.
He smiles, suddenly self-conscious, and pulls his hand away. “Just checking,” he says with a shrug.
Her hand catches his, fingers squeezing tight for a moment, staring down at the point of contact as if searching for whatever it is he’d been checking for. He wonders what she feels in that touch, whether she believes it.
“I have to go, sir,” she says, pulling away. He thinks that might be suspicion in her eyes. It doesn’t bother him. He thinks maybe if it hadn’t been there he’d have something to worry about.
He nods. “You go do your thing, Carter.” And he’ll do his best to deal with her evil twin for as long as he can.
She hesitates.
“Go,” he says, because if he gives it too much thought he’ll remember where he is and what he’s dealing with and how much harder that all is when he’s alone.
With a quick turn and flash of linen, she’s gone.
He’s left by himself in the cold night air, the spill of sound and light from the temple drifting out around him like a temptation. What if you had stayed behind with Daniel that first time?
He turns and walks out into the desert.
* * *
A sharp elbow digs into Jack’s ribs. “Hey, no dozing!”
Jack opens his eyes, blinking against the bright lights all around him, the avalanche of noise caused by thousands of bodies crammed into an enclosed space.
“Kawalsky?” Jack asks, looking at the man seated next to him.
Kawalsky shakes his head. “Who else?” He gives Jack a critical look. “Only you would nearly kill yourself getting tickets to the Stanley Cup, and then three days before the game nearly actually get yourself killed in a car accident.”
Jack lifts a hand to his head, the pounding ache there. “It was just a fender bender.”
Kawalsky scoffs. “Yeah, right. What is this, concussion number fifty?”
Jack grimaces and pushes himself back up in his seat. “At least half of those were directly your fault, Kawalsky.”
He laughs. “If you can remember that, you can’t be too bad off. Now where the hell is our popcorn?”
“About to be dumped over your ungrateful head, Charlie,” Sam says, appearing on Jack’s other side loaded down with quality snacks.
“Wonderful,” Kawalsky says, rubbing his hands together. “I was wasting away here.”
Sam shakes her head in fond exasperation, passing the food off to Jack to pass down.
She drops into her seat, handing the last box to Jack. “And for you, Jack, the item with the least amount of nutritional value on the entire menu.” She hands him a carton of chips smothered with glistening plastic cheese and jalapeños. “One time only deal. Back to real people food tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, waving her off.
She touches his arm. “I mean it.”
Jack eyes her, feeling another throb of pain in his head as he pops one of the jalapeños into his mouth with an indecent amount of relish.
She rolls her eyes, breathing, “Men,” under her breath with exasperation.
Her hand leaves his arm, and Jack scratches absently at the place she’d touched him.
Down on the ice, someone scores, the crowd rushing to their feet. Sam’s elbow careens into his shoulder as she goes with it, yelling at the top of her lungs. Jack nearly loses his hold on his nachos. He swears under his breath, the curse dying on his tongue as something in the crowd catches his attention.
Just a food vendor, he tells himself as he watches a woman moving against the grain of action. Furtive, like she doesn’t want to be seen.
“Did you see that?” Kawalsky crows, his fist pumping in the air. “That was an amazing shot!”
Sam shouts something back, meeting Kawalsky’s high-five over Jack’s head.
“Jack?” Sam asks, sitting back down next to him. She touches his arm, the light glinting off a thin metal band on her finger. “What’s wrong?”
He turns to her and smiles. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You sure?” she asks, her thumb tracing his eyebrow, a casual gesture like she does it all the time. Her eyes are warm with affection, but there’s just the tiniest glimmer of something else hiding right underneath.
He leans into her, his hand cradling her cheek, concentrating on the feel of her skin under his fingers. “I’m fine.”
“Geez, guys,” Kawalsky complains. “Give it a break.”
Sam pulls a face at Kawalsky over Jack’s shoulder, and then leans in closer to kiss him. She’s maybe an inch or two away from him when he stops her, his hand slipping around the back of her neck, fingers digging in.
“Nice try,” he says.
“What?” she asks, eyes wide with confusion. Close, but not quite right.
“Well done over all,” he says, his head canting towards the rink. “Only… Carter can’t stand hockey.”
For a moment, he thinks she’s going to try to hold on to the innocent act, but then the gentle smile disappears, the sound of the crowd around them cutting out as if someone’s hit the mute button.
“That can change,” she says, her tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip. “If you want it to.”
He can’t believe how much he wants to tighten his hands around her neck in that moment, to eradicate this thing that has no right to wear Carter’s face.
“Can it?” he asks, forcing his voice to stay calm, even. He needs to figure out what the hell her game is, not fly off the handle.
She leans in closer, her fingers slipping into his hair. “You can have anything you want.”
“And what exactly do you think I want?” he asks, ignoring the feel of her pressing against him, the way her touch makes his skin crawl.
Her eyes light up with almost manic intensity. “We can make of this galaxy what we want, help make it better. There’s nothing to stand in our way. Nothing.”
The level of megalomania the Replicator is demonstrating is chilling, but he still doesn’t get where he fits into all of this. “Are you saying you need my help to do that?”
Her lips press together in an arrogant, patient smile that Carter would never be capable of making. “Not need. Just want.”
He glances around at the setup again, her hand tight around his arm. “What’s the matter? Lonely up here in your ship all by yourself?”
Her eyes harden, but she continues on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know how much it bothers you-the lack of control. Knowing you don’t have the final say in what happens on Earth. That a bunch of bureaucrats with no idea of what’s out here get to make the decisions. I can change that. I can help you.”
“You think you know me that well, do you?”
She smiles. “You forget. I’m Sam Carter.” Her finger trails along the collar of his shirt. “Only better.”
He seriously doubts that. “Carter would never play games like this,” he says, jabbing a finger at Kawalsky next to him, still watching the ice like he isn’t long dead and buried.
“Maybe you don’t know her quite as well as you think. She’s capable of more than you could ever comprehend.”
“Like killing Fifth?” he lobs out, testing the waters.
Her expression falters, her eyes blinking mechanically like she’s processing foreign data.
“Carter had compassion for him.”
The Replicator sneers at him. “Either of you would have done the same in my place. You both had a hand in making him what he was.”
He doesn’t need the reminder. He thinks a lot of that must account for the woman sitting in front of him right now too-how someone who is fundamentally supposed to be Carter could come out so wrong, so distorted.
Jack shakes his head. “Don’t try to pretend you did it to make the galaxy a better place. You did it out of revenge. Anger. And maybe now you’re regretting it.”
Her hand is trembling, just the tiniest bit. “I did it to escape.”
“Are you sure?” he pushes. “Because I think Fifth changed you more than you think.” He leans in closer. “Made you in his own image.”
Jack watches the play of furious emotions over her face, waiting for it to explode over him, but instead she simply blinks once, the sounds of the game and crowd rising back around them. She sits back in her seat.
“Just watch the game, Jack,” she says, voice soft and pleasant again, and still indefinably wrong. He wonders if whatever this may have started as, if now it is a challenge she simply can’t back down on-Carter’s work ethic twisted into something sick.
“No,” he says, getting to his feet. “I’m not playing.”
She stretches a hand out across the aisle, blocking his escape. “But you paid so much for the tickets. It would be a shame to waste them.” She looks up at him, both challenge and persuasion in the glance. “Right, Charlie?”
“Yeah, Jack. What gives?” Kawalsky asks.
Jack doesn’t turn back to look at his old friend-dead and gone and never coming back-feeling the rage beginning to get the best of him.
She shifts, her other arm lifting off her stomach to reveal an obvious swell there-a new detail. A new manipulation. “Sweetheart…,” she says.
Jack sees red. He grabs her arm, yanking her to her feet. “Stop this,” he hisses.
She looks up at him, eyes wide with faux sincerity. “Jack, you’re hurting me.”
He squeezes harder. “I didn’t think machines actually felt.”
Her eyes narrow, her expression faltering just before she plunges her fingers into his forehead.
* * *
They’re in his bedroom. The blinds are drawn tight against the outside world, helping them keep their secrets.
No one ever has to know.
“Sir,” she whispers, body pressed up against his, sleeve slipping off one shoulder to reveal smooth flesh. “Let me give you what you’ve always wanted.”
Her mouth presses to his neck, hot breath and slick tongue on his skin, only it isn’t tantalizing, not even a tiny bit seductive like it should be. It just makes his throat burn with bile.
He thinks she isn’t even trying to pretend anymore.
“This isn’t real,” he says.
“No, it isn’t,” she says, hands lifting to his chest. Her fingers deftly unbotton his shirt, sliding underneath the fabric, fingernails dragging across his skin. “So why not just give in? It’s your fantasy.”
“You’re right,” he admits, hands lifting to her waist. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”
He pushes her back towards the door, pinning her there with his body.
“I know,” she says.
He lowers his face to her neck, breathing her in. He wonders if he’s just imagining the metallic smell, the taste of iron on his tongue. “There’s just one problem,” he says against her throat.
She seems to melt into him, heat radiating off her skin, pulling him in. “I’ll fix it.”
That can change.
He trails his hands down her bare arms, a swath of goose bumps following in the wake of his touch. Reaching her wrists, he pulls her arms up and over her head, pinning her hands to the door.
Her body shifts under his, not fighting, but submitting, one leg hooking around his thigh, pulling him closer.
He trails a finger down her cheek, watching the way she leans into the touch. “You can’t fix it,” he says.
She gives him a lazy smile like she knows exactly who is in charge here. Who’s winning. Her tongue darts out, wetting her lower lip. “I think I already have.”
He lowers his face, his lips hovering just above hers. “You aren’t her. You’ll never be her.” He looks into those cold eyes and drives the stake home. “And I don’t want you.”
* * *
It’s pouring rain.
Under Jack’s feet the ground is thick with mud. It’s cold and dark, lighting breaking over the barren landscape like a childish tantrum. There’s a tall cliff rising steeply on one side of the valley, a cave clearly visible at the base, but he’s pretty sure that’s where he’s supposed to go and he’s not in a mood to play.
So instead he sits down in the mud, rain be damned. He feels the water seep into his clothes and doesn’t shiver because it isn’t real, and even fake pneumonia is still fake.
It isn’t long until he hears the squelch of footsteps behind him.
“Sir?” she asks.
He glances over his shoulder. “Hey, Carter.”
She looks around, body slouched low into her BDUs against the raging weather. “Where are we?”
He lifts his face to the rain, feels it trickle down into his collar. “I think I’m on a time out.”
Carter’s brow furrows in confusion, but she doesn’t bother asking, instead looking over her shoulder. “She’s here somewhere,” she says.
He shrugs. “Probably.” Or she’s off licking her wounds. He doesn’t particularly care at the moment. He’s taking this round off.
Carter is looking shifty, like she’s been dragged away from something important. “Sir--.”
“I brought you here again, didn’t I,” he guesses. “Sorry about that.”
She looks back over the horizon, and he wonders what she sees. “I have to go back.”
He feels a lurch in his stomach that he doesn’t want to admit is reluctance to be left alone with the Replicator again. Things just seem…clearer when Carter’s here.
“Just give it a minute, will ya?” he says, gesturing at the spot of muddy ground next to him. She probably needs rest more than anyone, he rationalizes.
She looks torn, glancing back over her shoulder again.
“Not scared of a little mud, are you, Carter?”
“Sir--.”
“Please.”
She closes her eyes, her body sagging slightly. “Okay,” she says, gingerly sitting down in the mud next to him.
He shifts, his shoulder touching hers, the barest of contact, but it’s enough. He breathes out.
He watches her sit there, her neck scrunched down into the collar of her jacket and knees hugged to her chest as if clinging to any small bit of protection she can. She looks exhausted.
He knows how that feels.
“Shouldn’t I be hungry?” he asks. It’s hard to tell how long he’s been in here, but it seems to him he should be hungry or thirsty or have to take a pee at the very least.
She shakes her head. “This isn’t real.”
“Yes, but I have a real body somewhere, don’t I?”
She nods. “In an alcove. It sustains my body.” She stares off into the darkness, her jaw tightening. “So she can keep me alive as long as she wants. Indefinitely.”
He can hear the unspoken implication-this will never end. It must feel as if an eternity has passed already.
“Three weeks,” he says.
“What?” she asks, face swiveling towards him.
He flicks a patch of mud off the toe of his boot. “That’s how long we thought she was you.”
Her hands tighten on her knees. “It feels like it’s been…longer than that.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Not your fault.” The words are automatic. Practiced.
Bullshit. “We left you here.”
She shakes her head. “How could you have known? She’s me.”
“No, she isn’t,” he says, something vehement building in his voice. “I should have noticed.”
She turns away, but not before he sees it-her disappointment. She thinks he should have too.
Took you long enough, the Replicator’s cruel voice echoes in his mind. But that’s not completely fair. He thinks he would have, if he’d had the chance. Hopes to God it’s true.
“We haven’t seen much of each other lately,” he explains. Not since the promotion. He’d been so proud, but he was pinning the wrong woman’s shoulders.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Busy, I suppose. We’d both just been promoted, after all.” Only that’s just a partial truth. Sure, she’d been living in her lab during the day, but the rest of the time… She’d seemed suddenly sucked into her social life, doing the one thing he’s always bugged her to do, and he’d stepped as far away from her as possible. Being supportive, he had told himself.
“Pete,” she says, easily cutting through all his bullshit. It’s easier to do that in here.
“Yeah,” he admits.
“He didn’t notice either, did he?” The man she was dating, sleeping with, practically living with hadn’t even noticed the change. “I guess that says something,” she says, her lips twisting.
“Give the guy a break, Carter,” he says, hating the self-censorship in her voice. “He isn’t trained for wacky.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get it. I’m not angry. I’m just…” Her eyes shift, focusing off into the distance. “Fifth tried to use him against me. Created this fantasy of retirement and living on a farm together.”
Jack remembers her outfit, the long hair, the smell of sunshine. He gave me what I thought I wanted.
Her eyes reconnect with Jack. “I didn’t buy it for a second. Wasn’t even remotely tempted.”
“Why not?”
She stares back at him, and he thinks she won’t answer, doesn’t honestly really expect her to, only then she blows out a breath. “Because that’s not what I want,” she says, like this is some revelation she’s recently had.
He wants to ask her what she does want, but he thinks she’s still convinced this is all fantasy, and that isn’t right, isn’t right to take something like that from her when she’s confused, adrift. It’s what makes them different from the Replicator.
But he plans on asking her someday. When this is over.
“Then she came,” Carter continues, a shudder working its way through her shoulder into his. “And it was so much harder.” She looks up at him, eyes searching and wary. “Because I want to believe.”
He touches her shin, squeezing the sopping fabric. “I’m not here to trick you, Carter.”
She licks her lips, breathing in deep. “Then let me go,” she says.
They stare at each other, a slew of unspoken things poised on Jack’s tongue. I thought I had. But he gets that this isn’t about them right now. This is about him dragging her into these scenarios, forcing her to be his anchor when the restless movement of her fingers tells him she really needs to be somewhere else. His trust in her is more important than his comfort. It always has been.
“Okay,” he says, pulling his hand back.
Rest time’s over.
:: Part Three::
Jack jerks awake with a curse, his arm sweeping out in front of him as if reaching for something. His eyes skim across the room, taking in the familiar contours of his bedroom, his heart pounding away in his chest.
As usual, the dream begins to fade quickly, leaving only flashes, each one more insane than the last. He still obeys the inane urge to pinch himself, wincing at the pain. It was a nightmare. A really, really fucked up nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless.
Everything is okay, he reminds himself. Carter is safe and probably in her lab and none of it ever happened.
It’s ridiculous. They would know if Carter had been replaced by an evil twin. They would know. How the hell does his subconscious even come up with shit like this?
Unless…
He sits up.
“Damn.”
Scrambling, he manages to make it to the Mountain in under a half-hour, snatching the sign-in sheet from the entrance guards on his way in. He skims it as he ducks into the elevator, glancing at his watch. He slams into the locker room to find SG-3 just gearing up for a mission.
“Sir,” Reynolds says, pushing to his feet with alarm.
“Change of plans,” Jack says. “I need you to go to the armory and get the Replicator pulse weapon. Then take a security detail down to Carter’s lab and take her into custody. If for any reason she resists, hit her with the pulse.”
Reynolds eyes are wide. “Sir?”
“Do it now, Colonel.”
Reynolds doesn’t ask again, gesturing for his team to follow him out into the hall.
Jack hands him a radio. “I’m on two. Let me know what happens.”
Reynolds nods, taking the radio and following after his team.
Jack heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the halls on level 28, people flatten against the walls as he comes. Jogging into the control room, Walter nearly falls out of his seat when Jack demands, “Status, Sergeant?”
People don’t work in the control room without having steady nerves and quick reflexes though, so Walter recovers almost instantaneously. “SG-6 and 11 are off-world, no scheduled contact for the next three hours.”
“Anything from NORAD?”
“No, sir.”
Jack’s radio crackles.
“General O’Neill?” Reynolds’ voice asks.
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, Colonel Carter… Hell, it wasn’t Colonel Carter. I hit her with the pulse and she just…came apart.”
Jack feels his gut clench. “Walter, we are code 9.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, hands flying across the controls.
All around them people push into motion, blast walls sliding into place, red lights flashing.
Daniel jogs up the steps and into the chaos. “Jack, what the hell is going on?”
Jack ignores him. “Walter, I need to know if there are any ships in orbit.”
“No, sir. There haven’t been any reports of--.”
“Check again,” Jack insists.
Walter nods. “Yes, sir.”
“Jack?” Daniel tries again.
Jack darts a glance at him with a sigh. “Short version? We didn’t bring back Carter. We brought back a Replicator.”
Daniel pales alarmingly. “What?”
“Sir,” Walter interrupts. “We have a contact in orbit.”
Jack steps up behind him, glancing at the screen. “Lifesigns?”
“One.”
“Signal the Prometheus. Charge their pulse, extract the one lifesign, and then blast the hell out of the ship.”
Daniel looks confused as hell, and Jack doesn’t really blame him. “How did you know?” he asks.
Jack shakes his head. There is no way to explain any of this. He’d dreamt it?
“Jack,” Daniel says, grabbing his arm.
“Not now, Daniel,” he snaps, staring so closely at the radar readout that he feels like his eyes are going to pop out of his head. Come on, come on.
There’s a flash, and Walter presses one hand up to his ear. “The Prometheus has Colonel Carter, sir. The ship has been neutralized.”
Jack breathes out.
“That was…easy,” Daniel observes.
It was. Way too easy.
Jack feels a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, metal on his tongue. No. It can’t be.
He turns.
A tech in a chair spins around to face him, only it’s not a tech. It’s Carter. She’s wearing jeans and boots and a worn flannel shirt, but it’s her. “Sir.”
“Carter,” he says, stepping towards her.
“I don’t know what she wants from you,” she says, her eyes darting past him.
He turns, staring into the face of the Replicator.
Those cold, cold eyes.
* * *
“Jack, hurry up! The food’s getting cold!”
Jack pulls a sweatshirt on over his head. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he calls down the stairs, carefully picking his way across the landing and the obstacle course of discarded belongings currently marring the floor. Old camping equipment and sports gear mostly. They really need to deal with all this crap. Sell it, store it, whatever! He’ll have to get--.
“Jack!”
“Yeah!” he says, jogging down the stairs. In his haste, he nearly trips over the lazy dog spread out over the fourth step. Jack catches himself on the banister, his shoulder catching the row of photos on the wall as he steps down hard, an unpleasant twinge surging up his knee.
“Dammit, Maya!” he grouses.
The dog, lazy as she is, barely lifts her head to give Jack a baleful look.
He sighs. “You’re right. Clearly I should have been looking where I was going.”
Maya gives his shoe a half-hearted lick. Damn lazy dog.
Testing his knee with a cautious bend or two, Jack reaches down to pick up the picture he knocked off the wall in his less than graceful maneuver. He stops midway, sitting down on the step as his hand closes over the frame.
It’s a photo of a happy, smiling family of three, bounding dog by their side.
Sara hates dogs, Jack thinks absently.
“I’m the one who would have to take care of it when you’re gone, Jack.”
Maya whines softly in her throat, nudging Jack with her nose. He absently scratches her behind the ears.
Pushing back to his feet, he hangs the photo in the empty spot, trying to shake the unsettling feeling that something isn’t right.
“She thinks you’ll believe it if you want it badly enough.”
Jack freezes. He knows that voice, despite being distorted with horror and resignation. He knows that voice as well as he knows it doesn’t belong here. Can’t exist. The photos on the wall seem to waver in front of him.
He closes his eyes.
“Jack?” Sara’s voice calls up the stairs. He can hear the gurgle of the coffee pot, the smell of pancakes.
If you want it badly enough…
God, he does. He wants this. He feels the pull of the fantasy, the life that could have been his. He can practically taste it.
His hand tightens on the banister, fighting the drag of downward momentum. He forces himself to turn away from it, and Carter is sitting on a step above him, her knees tucked up into her chest, one hand pressed down into Maya’s fur. She has a long braid over one shoulder and smells like hay and sunshine and something else he can’t quite place.
He swallows hard, trying to find his voice. “Is that-Is that why you’re wearing that?” he asks. “Is that part of what you want?”
Her eyes lift to his face and she still looks like she’s doing everything she can not to crumple inward. The hopelessness in her eyes is like a shot to his gut.
She shakes her head. “He gave me what I thought I wanted.” Her fingers pluck at the flannel shirt. “But I didn’t. Don’t. I don’t and she knows it.”
“She,” Jack repeats, glancing back down the stairs.
Carter’s eyes widen. “She’s…smarter.”
Like he needs the reminder that he’s being manipulated by evil with Carter’s IQ.
“Dad?” another voice calls, the timber of the voice marking the speaker as a young man. A child all grown up. The pain flaring in Jack’s gut nearly tears him in two.
He blindly turns, stumbling down a few steps.
Carter pushes to her feet, stepping in front of him, her arm blocking his way down the stairs.
“Carter, move,” he says, his voice cracking. He has to go downstairs. He has to see.
“It isn’t real,” she says, eyes bright with tears. Tears for who? What the hell does she know?
There’s a moment where he almost has it in him to shove her out of the way, push her down those damn stairs if it means getting to that voice.
She touches his arm. “God, I wish it was. I wish this could be yours, but it’s not.”
But it is his. Right there, just at the bottom of the stairs. All he has to do is walk down. Because would it really be so bad? To exist inside the fantasy? Maybe just for a little while?
Carter looks back at him with such painful understanding, like she knows exactly what he’s struggling with. Because she does, he realizes. She’s been living this for weeks. Weeks and weeks with no one coming. No one even looking.
He pushes forward again, and she drops her arm, stepping out of his way.
“I’m sorry,” she says, the words so heavy with guilt as to be nearly unrecognizable. “I’m so sorry she’s doing this.”
He descends the stairs, one painful step at a time. In the hall below, he pauses.
It nearly kills him, nearly rips him clean in half, but somehow he turns away from the kitchen, pulls open the front door, and walks out.
* * *
“But, Jack--.”
Jack shakes his head. “No way, Daniel. That gate is staying buried.”
Daniel sighs, tugging at the shoulder of his robe. “But the cartouche temple--.”
Jack cuts across him. “Don’t you think the Abydonians’ safety is more important than your curiosity?”
Sha’re touches Daniel’s arm. “Perhaps O’Neill speaks wisdom, husband.”
Daniel seems to deflate a little, his attention easily stolen away by his wife.
Jack knows that won’t work forever, but for now, he’ll take it. He settles back against the low bench, enjoying the heat of the fire pushing back at the cool night air filling the temple. He glances at the empty platform that had once held a Stargate, now covered in baskets and hyperactive kids.
He smiles to himself, glancing across the fire just in time to catch one of the women watching him. She has dark, glossy hair and a narrow chin, and just for a second as the fire catches her features, he has the insane thought that she looks just like Mary Steenburgen. She drops her eyes from his, the resemblance fading, but the obvious invitation thinly veiled with modesty is still there.
Jack’s brow furrows.
“O’Neill should not always be alone,” Skaara remarks, sitting down next to Jack.
“Mind your own damn business, kid,” Jack mock complains. “Or I’ll have to start quizzing you about that young lady I saw you carrying water for yesterday.”
Skaara’s face tinges slightly red, even as his chest puffs up with manly importance only a kid his age could ever pull off.
“She’s pretty,” Jack concedes.
“Clearly your eyes are failing you,” Skaara says, his attention caught by movement in the crowd. “She is beautiful.”
Oh, man. The kid’s got it bad.
Skaara darts a glance at Jack, his cheeks staining an even deeper red. He shoves a flask at Jack.
“What’s this?” Jack asks, prying open the lid and taking a sniff.
“It is Drathan’s latest batch.”
Jack takes a tiny sip, wincing as it burns down his throat. “Damn,” he says, his eyes watering. “That’ll make you go blind.”
Skaara nods in agreement, taking a deep swig himself. “It is good, no?”
“No,” Jack says, laughing. “It’s terrible.”
The woman from across the fire appears at Jack’s side, handing him a bowl of water. Her fingers brush his, so casually as to be almost accidental. Almost. “Water?” she asks.
Next to him, Skaara lurches suddenly to one side, stumbling into the woman’s arm, spilling the water to the floor.
“Whoa,” Jack says, grabbing the boy’s shoulder, holding him upright. “Someone’s had enough.”
Skaara mumbles something unintelligible.
Jack smiles apologetically at the woman. “Sorry.”
She smiles shyly, ducking her face to the ground as she moves back away.
Skaara watches her leave, and when he looks up at Jack, there is nothing of inebriety on his face. “You must fight her, O’Neill.”
“What?” Jack asks.
“She draws her web tighter and tighter around you.”
Jack picks up the flask, shaking it to gauge how much liquid is left in it. “Are you sure that moonshine isn’t rotting your brain?”
Skaara gives him a patient look, all previous ease and geniality gone. “O’Neill. Abydos is no more.”
Jack’s hand tightens around the flask.
“And me with it. This you know.” He carefully removes the flask from Jack’s fingers. “Do you not remember?”
“Yeah,” Jack says, digging his fingers into his eyes as the memories flood back in, each and every heinous detail. Somehow it’s like having to watch it happen for the first time all over again. He peers up at Skaara, shoving aside the burning in his chest. “But then how are you here?”
“She cannot understand me,” he says, throwing a dark look at the woman still watching them closely from across the fire, her brow furrowed. “What I am now, she cannot comprehend or perceive.”
“What you are now,” Jack echoes.
Skaara smiles.
Right. The wonders of being ascended. “Come to bust me out?” Jack asks.
“You know I cannot.”
“So just came for a chat then,” Jack says, sitting back down and eying the flask. Going blind drunk is sounding more palatable by the moment. “That’s nice of you.”
Skaara squats down next to him. “I came because you are my friend, and I do not wish to see you lost forever in this place.”
Jack regards him, taking in the coiled hair, the calm eyes that had once been eager and innocent. “And how do I know you aren’t part of this entire thing?” he asks, gesturing around at the room. “Another lie?”
Skaara smiles. “You already know what is real and what is not, O’Neill. You must simply learn to trust in that.”
Because he’s doing such a great job so far. “How can I trust anything in here?”
Skaara reaches out, his hand touching Jack’s chest, palm pressing in. For a moment Jack thinks he can feel the weight of it, that touch, like something almost…concrete seeping into his flesh.
”You will find faith,” Skaara says.
Jack’s about to tell the kid that faith isn’t exactly his strong point, when Skaara’s eyes are caught by something over Jack’s shoulder. There’s a flash of surprise quickly transformed into the calm confidence that the damned Ancients no doubt spend all their time sitting around practicing.
Jack follows his eye line, tracking over to a robed figure across the room. It’s a woman standing by a column, her face nearly obscured by a hood covering her hair, all but the barest glimmer of gold.
Carter.
Jack stands, her eyes finding his.
“O’Neill?” Skaara asks, tugging Jack’s sleeve.
Jack pulls his eyes away from Carter, looking back down at the kid. He’s once again jovial, eyes wide with innocence and a bit too much alcohol. Untouched. Unknowing. Looking closely Jack can see the edges now, the flatness to him like he’s just a projection, or a ghost raised from a distant memory.
Jack looks back up at Carter, reading the sympathy there in her eyes before she turns and slowly heads towards the temple exit.
“Is something wrong?” Skaara asks.
Jack turns back to him, forcing a smile on his face. He consciously does not look at the woman sitting across the fire. “Everything’s fine,” he lies. “I’m just going to hit the head before that moonshine of yours does me in.”
Skaara laughs, the warm, artificial sound turning to acid in Jack’s stomach.
He turns and walks outside.
Carter is waiting not too far away, staring out over the night-shrouded desert, the moons hanging heavy and bright in the sky. Her arms are wrapped tight around her as if she’s trying to fight off a chill.
“So this is new,” he says mildly, stepping up next to her.
Carter shakes her head. “Only the scenery, not the game,” she says, voice thin with exhaustion.
“Is that what this is? A game?”
She huffs, her chin dropping towards her chest. “A Petri dish.”
“I always did hate science,” Jack quips.
She turns to look at him, her eyes searching his face. He isn’t sure what she’s looking for so he just stares back.
“Why am I here?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
She holds out her hands in the moonlight, inspecting them closely, and her eyes are somehow more focused than they’ve been since he first saw her in that metal cell. “The house you shared with Sara, Abydos. I don’t belong in these scenarios.”
She does kinda ruin the illusion, now that she mentions it. Like the final bit of proof that things aren’t right.
“So why am I here? Why would she want me here?” She gives him a critical look. “Assuming you are you.”
He shrugs. “Last time I checked.”
She turns all the way around then, looking at him straight on. “Are you bringing me here?”
“Can I do that?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “But I am here somehow.”
“So you’re…experiencing all of this too,” he says.
She has the grace to look a little embarrassed, but doesn’t look away. “Yes. I don’t know how. It’s like…watching from afar. And then sometimes something happens and suddenly I’m in the middle of it.”
He huffs, trying to make light of her getting a free pass to his subconscious desires. “Guess she got tired of digging through your brain.”
“I guess,” Carter says, still looking vaguely unnerved. “It’s almost as if she’s forgotten I’m--.” She stops mid-word, looking up at him with eyes bright with realization.
“What?” he asks, knowing that look well. It usually shows up right before she pulls his ass out of the fire.
She stares at him a moment, like she’s mastering some instinctual reaction, biting down on her lip. “I can’t tell you,” she says, apparently as nonplussed by that as he is.
She looks ready to deal with his argument, his order to tell him just what the hell is going on in that genius brain of hers, but for some reason he can’t explain, he doesn’t. Maybe because despite everything, she’s the only thing he does trust in this whole twisted place. It’s the stupidest thing he could possibly do.
“Okay,” he says.
She stares back at him, surprised at his easy acquiescence, and without thinking he reaches out to touch her, his fingers settling against her cheek, gauging the details.
Her skin feels warm, solid. Right. Try as he can, he can’t find any edges.
“Sir?” she asks, her voice betraying a slight tremor.
He smiles, suddenly self-conscious, and pulls his hand away. “Just checking,” he says with a shrug.
Her hand catches his, fingers squeezing tight for a moment, staring down at the point of contact as if searching for whatever it is he’d been checking for. He wonders what she feels in that touch, whether she believes it.
“I have to go, sir,” she says, pulling away. He thinks that might be suspicion in her eyes. It doesn’t bother him. He thinks maybe if it hadn’t been there he’d have something to worry about.
He nods. “You go do your thing, Carter.” And he’ll do his best to deal with her evil twin for as long as he can.
She hesitates.
“Go,” he says, because if he gives it too much thought he’ll remember where he is and what he’s dealing with and how much harder that all is when he’s alone.
With a quick turn and flash of linen, she’s gone.
He’s left by himself in the cold night air, the spill of sound and light from the temple drifting out around him like a temptation. What if you had stayed behind with Daniel that first time?
He turns and walks out into the desert.
* * *
A sharp elbow digs into Jack’s ribs. “Hey, no dozing!”
Jack opens his eyes, blinking against the bright lights all around him, the avalanche of noise caused by thousands of bodies crammed into an enclosed space.
“Kawalsky?” Jack asks, looking at the man seated next to him.
Kawalsky shakes his head. “Who else?” He gives Jack a critical look. “Only you would nearly kill yourself getting tickets to the Stanley Cup, and then three days before the game nearly actually get yourself killed in a car accident.”
Jack lifts a hand to his head, the pounding ache there. “It was just a fender bender.”
Kawalsky scoffs. “Yeah, right. What is this, concussion number fifty?”
Jack grimaces and pushes himself back up in his seat. “At least half of those were directly your fault, Kawalsky.”
He laughs. “If you can remember that, you can’t be too bad off. Now where the hell is our popcorn?”
“About to be dumped over your ungrateful head, Charlie,” Sam says, appearing on Jack’s other side loaded down with quality snacks.
“Wonderful,” Kawalsky says, rubbing his hands together. “I was wasting away here.”
Sam shakes her head in fond exasperation, passing the food off to Jack to pass down.
She drops into her seat, handing the last box to Jack. “And for you, Jack, the item with the least amount of nutritional value on the entire menu.” She hands him a carton of chips smothered with glistening plastic cheese and jalapeños. “One time only deal. Back to real people food tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, waving her off.
She touches his arm. “I mean it.”
Jack eyes her, feeling another throb of pain in his head as he pops one of the jalapeños into his mouth with an indecent amount of relish.
She rolls her eyes, breathing, “Men,” under her breath with exasperation.
Her hand leaves his arm, and Jack scratches absently at the place she’d touched him.
Down on the ice, someone scores, the crowd rushing to their feet. Sam’s elbow careens into his shoulder as she goes with it, yelling at the top of her lungs. Jack nearly loses his hold on his nachos. He swears under his breath, the curse dying on his tongue as something in the crowd catches his attention.
Just a food vendor, he tells himself as he watches a woman moving against the grain of action. Furtive, like she doesn’t want to be seen.
“Did you see that?” Kawalsky crows, his fist pumping in the air. “That was an amazing shot!”
Sam shouts something back, meeting Kawalsky’s high-five over Jack’s head.
“Jack?” Sam asks, sitting back down next to him. She touches his arm, the light glinting off a thin metal band on her finger. “What’s wrong?”
He turns to her and smiles. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You sure?” she asks, her thumb tracing his eyebrow, a casual gesture like she does it all the time. Her eyes are warm with affection, but there’s just the tiniest glimmer of something else hiding right underneath.
He leans into her, his hand cradling her cheek, concentrating on the feel of her skin under his fingers. “I’m fine.”
“Geez, guys,” Kawalsky complains. “Give it a break.”
Sam pulls a face at Kawalsky over Jack’s shoulder, and then leans in closer to kiss him. She’s maybe an inch or two away from him when he stops her, his hand slipping around the back of her neck, fingers digging in.
“Nice try,” he says.
“What?” she asks, eyes wide with confusion. Close, but not quite right.
“Well done over all,” he says, his head canting towards the rink. “Only… Carter can’t stand hockey.”
For a moment, he thinks she’s going to try to hold on to the innocent act, but then the gentle smile disappears, the sound of the crowd around them cutting out as if someone’s hit the mute button.
“That can change,” she says, her tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip. “If you want it to.”
He can’t believe how much he wants to tighten his hands around her neck in that moment, to eradicate this thing that has no right to wear Carter’s face.
“Can it?” he asks, forcing his voice to stay calm, even. He needs to figure out what the hell her game is, not fly off the handle.
She leans in closer, her fingers slipping into his hair. “You can have anything you want.”
“And what exactly do you think I want?” he asks, ignoring the feel of her pressing against him, the way her touch makes his skin crawl.
Her eyes light up with almost manic intensity. “We can make of this galaxy what we want, help make it better. There’s nothing to stand in our way. Nothing.”
The level of megalomania the Replicator is demonstrating is chilling, but he still doesn’t get where he fits into all of this. “Are you saying you need my help to do that?”
Her lips press together in an arrogant, patient smile that Carter would never be capable of making. “Not need. Just want.”
He glances around at the setup again, her hand tight around his arm. “What’s the matter? Lonely up here in your ship all by yourself?”
Her eyes harden, but she continues on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I know how much it bothers you-the lack of control. Knowing you don’t have the final say in what happens on Earth. That a bunch of bureaucrats with no idea of what’s out here get to make the decisions. I can change that. I can help you.”
“You think you know me that well, do you?”
She smiles. “You forget. I’m Sam Carter.” Her finger trails along the collar of his shirt. “Only better.”
He seriously doubts that. “Carter would never play games like this,” he says, jabbing a finger at Kawalsky next to him, still watching the ice like he isn’t long dead and buried.
“Maybe you don’t know her quite as well as you think. She’s capable of more than you could ever comprehend.”
“Like killing Fifth?” he lobs out, testing the waters.
Her expression falters, her eyes blinking mechanically like she’s processing foreign data.
“Carter had compassion for him.”
The Replicator sneers at him. “Either of you would have done the same in my place. You both had a hand in making him what he was.”
He doesn’t need the reminder. He thinks a lot of that must account for the woman sitting in front of him right now too-how someone who is fundamentally supposed to be Carter could come out so wrong, so distorted.
Jack shakes his head. “Don’t try to pretend you did it to make the galaxy a better place. You did it out of revenge. Anger. And maybe now you’re regretting it.”
Her hand is trembling, just the tiniest bit. “I did it to escape.”
“Are you sure?” he pushes. “Because I think Fifth changed you more than you think.” He leans in closer. “Made you in his own image.”
Jack watches the play of furious emotions over her face, waiting for it to explode over him, but instead she simply blinks once, the sounds of the game and crowd rising back around them. She sits back in her seat.
“Just watch the game, Jack,” she says, voice soft and pleasant again, and still indefinably wrong. He wonders if whatever this may have started as, if now it is a challenge she simply can’t back down on-Carter’s work ethic twisted into something sick.
“No,” he says, getting to his feet. “I’m not playing.”
She stretches a hand out across the aisle, blocking his escape. “But you paid so much for the tickets. It would be a shame to waste them.” She looks up at him, both challenge and persuasion in the glance. “Right, Charlie?”
“Yeah, Jack. What gives?” Kawalsky asks.
Jack doesn’t turn back to look at his old friend-dead and gone and never coming back-feeling the rage beginning to get the best of him.
She shifts, her other arm lifting off her stomach to reveal an obvious swell there-a new detail. A new manipulation. “Sweetheart…,” she says.
Jack sees red. He grabs her arm, yanking her to her feet. “Stop this,” he hisses.
She looks up at him, eyes wide with faux sincerity. “Jack, you’re hurting me.”
He squeezes harder. “I didn’t think machines actually felt.”
Her eyes narrow, her expression faltering just before she plunges her fingers into his forehead.
* * *
They’re in his bedroom. The blinds are drawn tight against the outside world, helping them keep their secrets.
No one ever has to know.
“Sir,” she whispers, body pressed up against his, sleeve slipping off one shoulder to reveal smooth flesh. “Let me give you what you’ve always wanted.”
Her mouth presses to his neck, hot breath and slick tongue on his skin, only it isn’t tantalizing, not even a tiny bit seductive like it should be. It just makes his throat burn with bile.
He thinks she isn’t even trying to pretend anymore.
“This isn’t real,” he says.
“No, it isn’t,” she says, hands lifting to his chest. Her fingers deftly unbotton his shirt, sliding underneath the fabric, fingernails dragging across his skin. “So why not just give in? It’s your fantasy.”
“You’re right,” he admits, hands lifting to her waist. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”
He pushes her back towards the door, pinning her there with his body.
“I know,” she says.
He lowers his face to her neck, breathing her in. He wonders if he’s just imagining the metallic smell, the taste of iron on his tongue. “There’s just one problem,” he says against her throat.
She seems to melt into him, heat radiating off her skin, pulling him in. “I’ll fix it.”
That can change.
He trails his hands down her bare arms, a swath of goose bumps following in the wake of his touch. Reaching her wrists, he pulls her arms up and over her head, pinning her hands to the door.
Her body shifts under his, not fighting, but submitting, one leg hooking around his thigh, pulling him closer.
He trails a finger down her cheek, watching the way she leans into the touch. “You can’t fix it,” he says.
She gives him a lazy smile like she knows exactly who is in charge here. Who’s winning. Her tongue darts out, wetting her lower lip. “I think I already have.”
He lowers his face, his lips hovering just above hers. “You aren’t her. You’ll never be her.” He looks into those cold eyes and drives the stake home. “And I don’t want you.”
* * *
It’s pouring rain.
Under Jack’s feet the ground is thick with mud. It’s cold and dark, lighting breaking over the barren landscape like a childish tantrum. There’s a tall cliff rising steeply on one side of the valley, a cave clearly visible at the base, but he’s pretty sure that’s where he’s supposed to go and he’s not in a mood to play.
So instead he sits down in the mud, rain be damned. He feels the water seep into his clothes and doesn’t shiver because it isn’t real, and even fake pneumonia is still fake.
It isn’t long until he hears the squelch of footsteps behind him.
“Sir?” she asks.
He glances over his shoulder. “Hey, Carter.”
She looks around, body slouched low into her BDUs against the raging weather. “Where are we?”
He lifts his face to the rain, feels it trickle down into his collar. “I think I’m on a time out.”
Carter’s brow furrows in confusion, but she doesn’t bother asking, instead looking over her shoulder. “She’s here somewhere,” she says.
He shrugs. “Probably.” Or she’s off licking her wounds. He doesn’t particularly care at the moment. He’s taking this round off.
Carter is looking shifty, like she’s been dragged away from something important. “Sir--.”
“I brought you here again, didn’t I,” he guesses. “Sorry about that.”
She looks back over the horizon, and he wonders what she sees. “I have to go back.”
He feels a lurch in his stomach that he doesn’t want to admit is reluctance to be left alone with the Replicator again. Things just seem…clearer when Carter’s here.
“Just give it a minute, will ya?” he says, gesturing at the spot of muddy ground next to him. She probably needs rest more than anyone, he rationalizes.
She looks torn, glancing back over her shoulder again.
“Not scared of a little mud, are you, Carter?”
“Sir--.”
“Please.”
She closes her eyes, her body sagging slightly. “Okay,” she says, gingerly sitting down in the mud next to him.
He shifts, his shoulder touching hers, the barest of contact, but it’s enough. He breathes out.
He watches her sit there, her neck scrunched down into the collar of her jacket and knees hugged to her chest as if clinging to any small bit of protection she can. She looks exhausted.
He knows how that feels.
“Shouldn’t I be hungry?” he asks. It’s hard to tell how long he’s been in here, but it seems to him he should be hungry or thirsty or have to take a pee at the very least.
She shakes her head. “This isn’t real.”
“Yes, but I have a real body somewhere, don’t I?”
She nods. “In an alcove. It sustains my body.” She stares off into the darkness, her jaw tightening. “So she can keep me alive as long as she wants. Indefinitely.”
He can hear the unspoken implication-this will never end. It must feel as if an eternity has passed already.
“Three weeks,” he says.
“What?” she asks, face swiveling towards him.
He flicks a patch of mud off the toe of his boot. “That’s how long we thought she was you.”
Her hands tighten on her knees. “It feels like it’s been…longer than that.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Not your fault.” The words are automatic. Practiced.
Bullshit. “We left you here.”
She shakes her head. “How could you have known? She’s me.”
“No, she isn’t,” he says, something vehement building in his voice. “I should have noticed.”
She turns away, but not before he sees it-her disappointment. She thinks he should have too.
Took you long enough, the Replicator’s cruel voice echoes in his mind. But that’s not completely fair. He thinks he would have, if he’d had the chance. Hopes to God it’s true.
“We haven’t seen much of each other lately,” he explains. Not since the promotion. He’d been so proud, but he was pinning the wrong woman’s shoulders.
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Busy, I suppose. We’d both just been promoted, after all.” Only that’s just a partial truth. Sure, she’d been living in her lab during the day, but the rest of the time… She’d seemed suddenly sucked into her social life, doing the one thing he’s always bugged her to do, and he’d stepped as far away from her as possible. Being supportive, he had told himself.
“Pete,” she says, easily cutting through all his bullshit. It’s easier to do that in here.
“Yeah,” he admits.
“He didn’t notice either, did he?” The man she was dating, sleeping with, practically living with hadn’t even noticed the change. “I guess that says something,” she says, her lips twisting.
“Give the guy a break, Carter,” he says, hating the self-censorship in her voice. “He isn’t trained for wacky.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t get it. I’m not angry. I’m just…” Her eyes shift, focusing off into the distance. “Fifth tried to use him against me. Created this fantasy of retirement and living on a farm together.”
Jack remembers her outfit, the long hair, the smell of sunshine. He gave me what I thought I wanted.
Her eyes reconnect with Jack. “I didn’t buy it for a second. Wasn’t even remotely tempted.”
“Why not?”
She stares back at him, and he thinks she won’t answer, doesn’t honestly really expect her to, only then she blows out a breath. “Because that’s not what I want,” she says, like this is some revelation she’s recently had.
He wants to ask her what she does want, but he thinks she’s still convinced this is all fantasy, and that isn’t right, isn’t right to take something like that from her when she’s confused, adrift. It’s what makes them different from the Replicator.
But he plans on asking her someday. When this is over.
“Then she came,” Carter continues, a shudder working its way through her shoulder into his. “And it was so much harder.” She looks up at him, eyes searching and wary. “Because I want to believe.”
He touches her shin, squeezing the sopping fabric. “I’m not here to trick you, Carter.”
She licks her lips, breathing in deep. “Then let me go,” she says.
They stare at each other, a slew of unspoken things poised on Jack’s tongue. I thought I had. But he gets that this isn’t about them right now. This is about him dragging her into these scenarios, forcing her to be his anchor when the restless movement of her fingers tells him she really needs to be somewhere else. His trust in her is more important than his comfort. It always has been.
“Okay,” he says, pulling his hand back.
Rest time’s over.
:: Part Three::