Skeletal Remains, Part 4 (FINAL)
Title: Skeletal Remains (4 of 4)
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: JO/SC, JO/SC/DJ, JO/DJ, JO/CM, JS/RM/VMD implied
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A terrible, horrible stranded story.
Content/warnings: Character death. I can't emphasize this enough. I have been referring to this as the character death fic of doom.
Words: Full piece is 14,591. This section is 3,480.
Beta: Thanks to green_grrl for her help on this part.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Years. The Matrix is located here.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
"I want to have the baby under the sky," Sam said one morning as she lay on her side. The baby was restless, kicking against Jack's hand.
"Seriously?" mumbled Daniel from behind him. He felt Daniel shift up and peer over him at Sam. Sam was not usually the poetic sort. But Jack liked the idea.
"Yeah," she said. "We've got the whole place to ourselves. Why not? Besides, all the gross stuff can stay outside and we won't have to clean up in here."
Jack laughed. There was the practical woman he had married.
But he could tell that Daniel liked the idea, too.
For the first time in his life, Jack was glad that Sarah had insisted on natural childbirth with Charlie.
"What is the point of coming to the big, shiny, modern, civilian hospital if she's not gonna use the good drugs?" he had muttered to one of the nurses (far, far from where Sarah could hear him), who had given him a sympathetic smile before ruthlessly shoving him through the door of the delivery room.
But now, as Sam trembled and yelled, Jack at least knew what to expect. Jack was helping Sam stand and Daniel, with healthier knees and more technical training, was in the catcher's position.
"Come on, Sam. I can see the baby! Just one more"
Jack felt her shuddering with the effort, and then Daniel had a lap full of slimy, howling baby boy.
Jack washed the baby and wrapped him in a soft blanket then brought him to his mother. Sam and Daniel had dealt with the placenta, but Daniel was hovering, the little worry furrow between his eyebrows.
"Here's your Mommy," Jack murmured to the baby. He laid the little boy by his mother, who lifted the light shirt she was wearing to offer him her breast. He latched on immediately, and Jack saw some of Sam's nervousness ease.
"Jack," Daniel said.
He looked up.
"Do you hear something?"
Jack listened.
"Not exactly," he said slowly, rising to stand next to Daniel.
"What's that?" Daniel asked, pointing to a dark, moving line traveling at some speed across the gently rolling plain.
"I don't know, but I'm not waiting around to find out," Jack said, whirling to survey their hilltop. "Sam, we're getting out now."
Daniel was already moving. There was nothing vital out here in the open, Jack was glad to see. Daniel scooped the baby out of Sam's arms and handed him off to Jack, who hauled ass the hundred yards or so to the ramp of the tel'tak and kept right on running. He deposited his protesting bundle on his own little bed and brought the engines up, watching the line that seemed to be accelerating towards them.
Then it disappeared.
"Daniel!" he yelled, but he already heard him thundering up the ramp.
He spared a glance backward to see him carrying Sam, who slapped the controls to close the ship behind them even as she yelled, "Put me down, dammit!"
Jack had them in the air before the door closed.
The ground where they had been erupted. It was suddenly seething with masses of black insects. They didn't seem to be able to fly, so Jack hovered at about two hundred feet and brought up one of the few instruments the damaged ship still had that actually worked. He focused the camera on the creatures and started taking footage.
Daniel settled Sam and the baby on their bed, then joined Jack at the viewscreen.
"They have a marking. Look," Daniel said, zooming the camera in even closer. It looked to Jack like a knife, with a short blade and a ceremonial hilt.
"Mean anything to you?" Jack asked.
Daniel squinted at it.
"Reminds me of an ankh, a little bit. But no, not really. Sort of looks like a person dancing." Jack tipped his head to the side, looking at it again.
"Goa'uld, ya think?" Jack asked, though it seemed obvious to him it must be some new biological warfare. And yet. It didn't have the goa'uld flair for self-aggrandizement. With a weapon like this, nobody was left behind to fear and worship them.
"I hope not," Daniel said fervently. They were both thinking the same thing. This planet could have been Earth, America, even, with its megastores and high-rise apartment buildings and industrial farming and beautiful university campuses. Colorado Springs did not want to meet these bugs.
"Okay. So if not a goa'uld, then who?"
"Maybe something native?" Daniel suggested. They both stared in sickened fascination at the activity on the screen.
"So why did they suddenly show up?" Jack asked. "We've been here close to three years and never seen one. There must be thousands of them down there."
"The blood?" Daniel said. Which was, of course, the obvious answer.
"We gut fish all the time. They've never noticed that."
Daniel shrugged. "They don't eat fish."
"True enough," Jack agreed.
The swarming bugs were mesmerizing.
Then they started forming a tower.
"Jack!" Daniel said, voice climbing the register toward panic.
"I see it," Jack replied tightly, already pulling the tel'tak out of its hover higher into the sky. "Crap, crap, crap," he muttered under his breath. Was this the end of their safe sojourn on this dead, deserted planet?
He took the ship into orbit where they stayed for two days. When he finally decided to land, he chose an entirely different hemisphere.
The baby lay sleeping on their pallet. Jack was propped up over him, watching the little fist curled around his pinky finger. Sam was lying on the other side of their new addition, smiling at them tiredly but happily. Daniel was sitting cross-legged behind her, smiling, too. They were SG-1, Jack thought. A little life threatening peril just came with the territory. Nothing to distract them from something as wonderful as their new baby.
Their baby, Jack was certain. The boy's crystal blue eyes were not the deep slate gray that darkened to brown. And his white blond hair might one day change, but still. Jack was sure.
"So what are you going to name him?" Daniel asked.
Sam looked to Jack. So he smiled and tugged on the little fist and said, "Carter Jackson O'Neill."
Daniel snorted. Sam grinned.
"I like it," she protested, slapping her hand half-heartedly at Daniel's knee. He caught it and kissed her fingers, but he was eyeing Jack dubiously.
"Hey," Jack said, "There was a lot of genetic material around that night, is all I'm saying." He leaned over and kissed Carter's smooth forehead.
"He's ours," Sam said, pressing back against Daniel's knees.
Daniel looked worried. But Jack wasn't.
Days came and went. The baby grew. Sam got back on her feet and went into full nesting mode, turning their little home upside down with baby furnishings and new comforts for all of them. For weeks after their encounter with the bugs, they were reluctant to spend any more time outside the ship than was absolutely necessary.
But they still had to scavenge for supplies and Daniel still needed source material for his language study. Eventually, the initial shock of seeing the bugs in action wore off, and they began to venture farther afield again.
Today, Jack was out alone. He was experiencing his own unique nesting instincts, and they told him that Daniel was going to succeed and they were going to find the Stargate, maybe sooner rather than later, and the Carter-Jackson-O'Neills needed to be ready to walk out into a universe that might be radically changed from the one they left behind three years ago.
For one thing, they weren't going to be dialing straight home. Not without IDC codes. It was going to take some time and careful reconnaissance to make all the connections that would get them back to Earth.
And that meant they were going to need funds.
Which is what had Jack scouting all new towns like a looter, picking up portable valuables wherever he found them.
And once he started looking, they were easy to find. He came back from almost every expedition to anywhere with a pocket full of gold and large gemstones.
But he never stole a ring off a boney finger and he always thanked the dead on his way out.
Carter was toddling under the massive trees of a huge, silent rainforest. There few humming insects. A few birds, mournfully singing. Some splashing, chirping amphibians in the pools made by the rivulets running down the stony side of the steep hill. And then there was Carter, of course. He was toddling early, and was every bit his Abba's son, chattering away constantly. Daniel insisted he had heard three languages at least.
"He says 'ba' in English," Daniel stated. Jack rolled his eyes. Right now, under the trees, there was Carter, chasing his 'ba!'.
"And 'ma' in Spanish," Daniel went on.
"'Ma' is me!" Sam declared in outrage. "He points and says 'Ma!' to get my attention!"
"No," Daniel disagreed. "He points and says 'ma' in Spanish, for 'mas.' You're 'Mama.' He says your name all the time, too," he finished up placatingly.
Sam did not look completely mollified.
"And of course, he says 'fron’..." Daniel said, eyeing Jack suspiciously. Jack just gently tossed the ba to Carter, who squealed with laughter as it bounced softly off his fron.
Anyway, the wet forest was full of soft sounds and Carter, shrieking and running. But the area was smoothly flagged and hardly showed any weathering, so Jack just enjoyed the scenery. They didn't let Carter out enough. They still worried about the hidden dangers of the planet. Not to mention that he had to be stopped from playing with the bones.
They were on the grounds of what was clearly a large university. Over the last eighteen months, Daniel had gotten enough handle on the written language to figure some things out, and there had been a professor here who was pictured in a journal wearing an amulet around his neck that looked awfully like an Eye of Ra. Daniel had them tracking this place down the very next day, and a week later, here they were.
Daniel came pelting down the stairs, Sam hard on his heels, yelling at him to "Wait, dammit!"
"Jack!" he yelled.
Jack was on his feet instinctively, but Sam's gusty laughter as she chased their lover was enough to tell him there was nothing to be worried about.
Carter squealed again and went lumbering full tilt toward his Abba. Daniel scooped him up and swung him over his head.
Sam stood panting at Jack's side.
"I take it you found something?" he said casually. Her grin had enough wattage to power a small town.
The Eye of Ra prof connected them to some guy with a drawing of a gate. That lead them to yet another researcher with a zat and a symbiote in a canopic jar. They were following clues for months. But it was better than Daniel's old map-the-crops idea for a way to spend their free time, so Jack paid attention and learned what he could about the language and the leads.
Now they were visiting a smallish college that was supposedly some sort of archaeology mecca on this planet. Daniel and Sam were scouring the library for anything that could give them more about where to find the Gate. Daniel was certain there was one, now, and that it was being researched, but they had yet to find any books about it specifically, just oblique references to the work in writings about other things.
The afternoon was sunny with big puffy white clouds floating in the perfectly clear, amazingly blue sky. He had been chasing a shrieking Carter through the tall grass for nearly an hour as they waited for Daniel and Sam to explore this new library. Now Carter was napping next to him, completely exhausted, sometimes muttering and sighing in his sleep. A nap seemed like a good idea to Jack, too. He was just resettling his cap to cover his face when the radio clicked over.
"Jack!" murmured Daniel in his ear. Jack was on his feet and scooping Carter up in his arms on that one word. That was Daniel's I'm-not-panicking voice, and that was zat fire in the background. "Jack, I've got a little problem here. You need to get Carter and get airborne now." More zat fire.
"Already on it. What's going on, Daniel?" His heart was pounding as the ramp closed behind him. He deposited Carter in his bed, hurtled the play yard wall and landed in the command chair, rushing to get the ship off the ground.
"Daniel! Do you see them?!" Sam was panicking, and Jack had forgotten just how unpleasant the adrenaline rush could be. In the background, before the radio clicked off again, he heard Daniel's voice, far away, yelling "Sam!! They're everywhere!"
"The bugs found us," Daniel said, panting now. "The zat works on them..." Daniel suddenly shrieked and Jack heard a loud thud. When he came back, his voice was strained, and he was talking louder and faster, no longer even trying to hide the fear. "...but there's a lot of them, Jack. We're not going to be able to hold them..." Another yelp, and more thumping. "Jack! Sam just went down! I can't see her!! Sam!" The radio went dead.
"Where are you, Daniel?" Jack demanded, trying to keep calm, but his hands were shaking. It had been a long time. The tel'tak was swooping down on the big library building already.
"By a window on the fifth floor, west side. You'll be able to spot us because I just threw a table through." Yelps, gasps and one scream punctuated Daniel's reply. Oh, God. Jack knew what Daniel was going to do.
"I'm on my way, Daniel. Just keep shootin' 'em!" Jack begged. He maneuvered around to the west side of the building.
"I've got something you need, Jack. I'm..." Then he gave a horrifying scream and the radio cut out.
There was Daniel's window. But it was too late. Daniel had already jumped. His body was crumpled on the pavement. Bugs were already swarming down the side of the building after him. All Jack could do was bring the big ship over him protectively and ring him up.
Bugs materialized with him, of course. Jack had a split second to decide how to deal with the situation. Daniel had just jumped from a fifth story window. Even if he was still breathing, his injuries were going to be massive and extensive. And Jack could already see bone where the huge insects had eaten through Daniel's boot and flesh. Jack didn't hesitate. He fired twice. All the bugs were dead.
He ran back to the pel'tak, keying the radio as he went.
"Carter. Report."
He was lifting the vessel so that he could see into the broken window. He flooded the library with the exterior lights of the tel'tak.
There was a seething heap of bugs on the floor. He stared long enough to be certain he was seeing bloody bone protruding from the pile before he backed out and took himself into orbit.
He propped Daniel against the tree, and laid Sam by his side. It was peaceful there on the hill, as Jack arranged Daniel's body next to her. Carter stood obediently on the ramp, waiting. The little boy was solemn and uncharacteristically quiet. Jack finally went over to pick him up. He wasn't light anymore, but Jack was used to him, and he was an easy weight on his hip.
He slithered down to stand by Daniel's body. He reached out and touched his father's face. Then he took Jack's hand and led him back, which was good, because Jack couldn't see anymore for the tears.
Of course, what Daniel had saved from the library when he jumped was a book.
An armful of them actually. They had scattered on the pavement around his broken body, the bugs ignoring them in favor of flesh.
They were dense books with few illustrations.
Daniel had saved them, so they must be important.
So Jack set to work on them, spending his days with Carter, keeping them in food, and whenever Carter lay down for a nap or went to bed at night, Jack opened the books and started reading.
Carter was three and a half (and reading, proof perfect of who is father was) when they figured it out together.
The kawoosh bloomed out and Carter jumped. His eyes were very wide.
"Don't be afraid," Jack said.
The little boy grinned at him.
"You told me a zillion times!" he said. "It's going to be all cold and hard to breathe, then in about half a minute we'll be on the other side."
Jack held his hand a little tighter. He adjusted his heavy pack. Checked Carter's little one.
They stepped through the event horizon together.
Epilogue
Cam was never quite sure how he fell into bed with General Jack O'Neill.
Don't ask, don't tell was history, by that time, of course. And O'Neill had just blasted the Ori off the face of the universe with Merlin's weapon. SG-1 - himself, Sheppard, McKay, and Mal Doran - sat around O'Neill's living room a couple of weeks later getting drunker than skunks, telling war stories to Carter until he had to be tucked into bed. The other three slipped out early, and O'Neill settled into a sort of hazy, drunken misery. Cam knew that look, and he hated to abandon the man who had saved the Earth so many times people had lost count. So he stayed.
"They're fucking, you know," O'Neill said, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling.
"No, sir, I know no such thing," Cam stated crisply. And he didn't know. He had plausible deniability in spades. Partially because he'd told Sheppard that if he ever got real proof, there was gonna be Hell to pay.
"It's not so bad," O'Neill said wistfully.
And suddenly Cam understood everything.
That night he slept in O'Neill's bed.
"Don't let them bury me in that," O'Neill said one night, eying his Class A's where he had left them draped haphazardly over the armchair in the corner before Cam had fucked him into the carpet.
"Do you mind if I ask why not?" replied Cam.
"I retired a couple of times. They always called me up again. I figure, when I'm dead, I'm retired. Retirement's for fishing clothes."
"You hate fishing," Cam said.
"No, I don't hate it. I miss it."
O'Neill pushed himself up from the floor and wandered into the bathroom to clean up.
"Nobody gets me around here anymore," Cam heard him muttering to himself.
Sam, Jackson, and the Jaffa grinned down from the picture frame on the dresser. Cam snorted.
Nobody gets him, his Aunt Fanny. Sure, O’Neill had been plenty surprised to see “Hank!” - with stars on his shoulders - when he stepped back through to Earth with his kid. But of course with SG-1 gone for six years, they had had to be replaced. The SGC had recruited Sheppard for his ATA gene, McKay for his physics genius, Vala for her galactic contacts, and Cam, Cam had stepped in to lead after Col. Reynolds had died protecting Sheppard and the Chair in Antarctica. The turnover in personnel at the SGC was ridiculously high for a deep-space radar telemetry facility.
But Sgts. Siler and Harriman were always happy to lunch with O’Neill, and he popped round to visit with General Hammond, Ret., often enough. Besides, Cam got O’Neill plenty. Cam’d never be original SG-1, but he understood.
The inscription on the stele read, "Hallowed are the Ori. Witness the fate of those who do not accept the word of Origin." Over which had been scrawled, in a horrid, and apparently very permanent, green paint, "Dead are the Ori."
They finally ran into the wrong unbeliever, Cam thought to himself. They should have checked in with the goa'uld before trying to muscle in on Jack O'Neill's galaxy.
The tel'tak was right were O'Neill had left it. The small party moved swiftly, opening the ramp with the remote, which still worked, and moving themselves and their burden aboard as quickly as possible.
Everything was freakishly quiet.
The navigation computer came online, and McKay was able to find what they were looking for right away.
They were there together under the trunk of a massive tree. Daniel's skeleton had long ago fallen into an undisturbed heap next to Sam's, a few tattered shreds of uniform still there.
Carter stood at the base of the ramp, tears dripping from his nose and tracking down his cheeks. SG-1, pall bearers yet again, brought the casket down the ramp. They set it by the skeletal remains at the base of the tree.
"He should be with them," Carter said suddenly. His voice in the silent place was a shock. "He shouldn’t be in that box."
Cam looked at Sheppard, who grimaced and shrugged. They worked the lid off the coffin and then the two of them lifted O'Neill's body out.
The four of them took the casket away. Then on a sudden impulse Cam said to Sheppard, "Help me," and they moved Jack so that he sat propped against the tree between his two lovers.
Mal Doran and McKay were standing by Carter now. As Cam turned, the boy's face crumpled, and he turned away to walk quickly back into the ship. SG-1 followed, leaving the dead in peace.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author's notes:
Writing this, I figured the timeline would have started soon after the time loop. SG-1 would have fallen off the map. Hammond would have been forced to reconstitute the team. Sheppard would have been recruited for his ATA gene. Vala would have been brought in as a consultant after Nyan took over leadership of SG-11. They would have brought Rodney into the program to replace Sam. Mitchell would have gotten the leadership spot after Reynolds bought it in Antartica protecting Sheppard from supersoldiers. Jack would have been gone about six years. Sheppard would have dealt with Anubis, and Jack would walk back into an SGC desperately trying to track down Merlin and his weapon to fight the Ori, who returned after Anubis' tipped them off to the Ancients' new hiding place. Once Jack got personally involved with that mission, the Ori wouldn’t stand a chance.
For my loyal rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
Author: muck-a-luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: JO/SC, JO/SC/DJ, JO/DJ, JO/CM, JS/RM/VMD implied
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A terrible, horrible stranded story.
Content/warnings: Character death. I can't emphasize this enough. I have been referring to this as the character death fic of doom.
Words: Full piece is 14,591. This section is 3,480.
Beta: Thanks to green_grrl for her help on this part.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only. muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Years. The Matrix is located here.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
"I want to have the baby under the sky," Sam said one morning as she lay on her side. The baby was restless, kicking against Jack's hand.
"Seriously?" mumbled Daniel from behind him. He felt Daniel shift up and peer over him at Sam. Sam was not usually the poetic sort. But Jack liked the idea.
"Yeah," she said. "We've got the whole place to ourselves. Why not? Besides, all the gross stuff can stay outside and we won't have to clean up in here."
Jack laughed. There was the practical woman he had married.
But he could tell that Daniel liked the idea, too.
For the first time in his life, Jack was glad that Sarah had insisted on natural childbirth with Charlie.
"What is the point of coming to the big, shiny, modern, civilian hospital if she's not gonna use the good drugs?" he had muttered to one of the nurses (far, far from where Sarah could hear him), who had given him a sympathetic smile before ruthlessly shoving him through the door of the delivery room.
But now, as Sam trembled and yelled, Jack at least knew what to expect. Jack was helping Sam stand and Daniel, with healthier knees and more technical training, was in the catcher's position.
"Come on, Sam. I can see the baby! Just one more"
Jack felt her shuddering with the effort, and then Daniel had a lap full of slimy, howling baby boy.
Jack washed the baby and wrapped him in a soft blanket then brought him to his mother. Sam and Daniel had dealt with the placenta, but Daniel was hovering, the little worry furrow between his eyebrows.
"Here's your Mommy," Jack murmured to the baby. He laid the little boy by his mother, who lifted the light shirt she was wearing to offer him her breast. He latched on immediately, and Jack saw some of Sam's nervousness ease.
"Jack," Daniel said.
He looked up.
"Do you hear something?"
Jack listened.
"Not exactly," he said slowly, rising to stand next to Daniel.
"What's that?" Daniel asked, pointing to a dark, moving line traveling at some speed across the gently rolling plain.
"I don't know, but I'm not waiting around to find out," Jack said, whirling to survey their hilltop. "Sam, we're getting out now."
Daniel was already moving. There was nothing vital out here in the open, Jack was glad to see. Daniel scooped the baby out of Sam's arms and handed him off to Jack, who hauled ass the hundred yards or so to the ramp of the tel'tak and kept right on running. He deposited his protesting bundle on his own little bed and brought the engines up, watching the line that seemed to be accelerating towards them.
Then it disappeared.
"Daniel!" he yelled, but he already heard him thundering up the ramp.
He spared a glance backward to see him carrying Sam, who slapped the controls to close the ship behind them even as she yelled, "Put me down, dammit!"
Jack had them in the air before the door closed.
The ground where they had been erupted. It was suddenly seething with masses of black insects. They didn't seem to be able to fly, so Jack hovered at about two hundred feet and brought up one of the few instruments the damaged ship still had that actually worked. He focused the camera on the creatures and started taking footage.
Daniel settled Sam and the baby on their bed, then joined Jack at the viewscreen.
"They have a marking. Look," Daniel said, zooming the camera in even closer. It looked to Jack like a knife, with a short blade and a ceremonial hilt.
"Mean anything to you?" Jack asked.
Daniel squinted at it.
"Reminds me of an ankh, a little bit. But no, not really. Sort of looks like a person dancing." Jack tipped his head to the side, looking at it again.
"Goa'uld, ya think?" Jack asked, though it seemed obvious to him it must be some new biological warfare. And yet. It didn't have the goa'uld flair for self-aggrandizement. With a weapon like this, nobody was left behind to fear and worship them.
"I hope not," Daniel said fervently. They were both thinking the same thing. This planet could have been Earth, America, even, with its megastores and high-rise apartment buildings and industrial farming and beautiful university campuses. Colorado Springs did not want to meet these bugs.
"Okay. So if not a goa'uld, then who?"
"Maybe something native?" Daniel suggested. They both stared in sickened fascination at the activity on the screen.
"So why did they suddenly show up?" Jack asked. "We've been here close to three years and never seen one. There must be thousands of them down there."
"The blood?" Daniel said. Which was, of course, the obvious answer.
"We gut fish all the time. They've never noticed that."
Daniel shrugged. "They don't eat fish."
"True enough," Jack agreed.
The swarming bugs were mesmerizing.
Then they started forming a tower.
"Jack!" Daniel said, voice climbing the register toward panic.
"I see it," Jack replied tightly, already pulling the tel'tak out of its hover higher into the sky. "Crap, crap, crap," he muttered under his breath. Was this the end of their safe sojourn on this dead, deserted planet?
He took the ship into orbit where they stayed for two days. When he finally decided to land, he chose an entirely different hemisphere.
The baby lay sleeping on their pallet. Jack was propped up over him, watching the little fist curled around his pinky finger. Sam was lying on the other side of their new addition, smiling at them tiredly but happily. Daniel was sitting cross-legged behind her, smiling, too. They were SG-1, Jack thought. A little life threatening peril just came with the territory. Nothing to distract them from something as wonderful as their new baby.
Their baby, Jack was certain. The boy's crystal blue eyes were not the deep slate gray that darkened to brown. And his white blond hair might one day change, but still. Jack was sure.
"So what are you going to name him?" Daniel asked.
Sam looked to Jack. So he smiled and tugged on the little fist and said, "Carter Jackson O'Neill."
Daniel snorted. Sam grinned.
"I like it," she protested, slapping her hand half-heartedly at Daniel's knee. He caught it and kissed her fingers, but he was eyeing Jack dubiously.
"Hey," Jack said, "There was a lot of genetic material around that night, is all I'm saying." He leaned over and kissed Carter's smooth forehead.
"He's ours," Sam said, pressing back against Daniel's knees.
Daniel looked worried. But Jack wasn't.
Days came and went. The baby grew. Sam got back on her feet and went into full nesting mode, turning their little home upside down with baby furnishings and new comforts for all of them. For weeks after their encounter with the bugs, they were reluctant to spend any more time outside the ship than was absolutely necessary.
But they still had to scavenge for supplies and Daniel still needed source material for his language study. Eventually, the initial shock of seeing the bugs in action wore off, and they began to venture farther afield again.
Today, Jack was out alone. He was experiencing his own unique nesting instincts, and they told him that Daniel was going to succeed and they were going to find the Stargate, maybe sooner rather than later, and the Carter-Jackson-O'Neills needed to be ready to walk out into a universe that might be radically changed from the one they left behind three years ago.
For one thing, they weren't going to be dialing straight home. Not without IDC codes. It was going to take some time and careful reconnaissance to make all the connections that would get them back to Earth.
And that meant they were going to need funds.
Which is what had Jack scouting all new towns like a looter, picking up portable valuables wherever he found them.
And once he started looking, they were easy to find. He came back from almost every expedition to anywhere with a pocket full of gold and large gemstones.
But he never stole a ring off a boney finger and he always thanked the dead on his way out.
Carter was toddling under the massive trees of a huge, silent rainforest. There few humming insects. A few birds, mournfully singing. Some splashing, chirping amphibians in the pools made by the rivulets running down the stony side of the steep hill. And then there was Carter, of course. He was toddling early, and was every bit his Abba's son, chattering away constantly. Daniel insisted he had heard three languages at least.
"He says 'ba' in English," Daniel stated. Jack rolled his eyes. Right now, under the trees, there was Carter, chasing his 'ba!'.
"And 'ma' in Spanish," Daniel went on.
"'Ma' is me!" Sam declared in outrage. "He points and says 'Ma!' to get my attention!"
"No," Daniel disagreed. "He points and says 'ma' in Spanish, for 'mas.' You're 'Mama.' He says your name all the time, too," he finished up placatingly.
Sam did not look completely mollified.
"And of course, he says 'fron’..." Daniel said, eyeing Jack suspiciously. Jack just gently tossed the ba to Carter, who squealed with laughter as it bounced softly off his fron.
Anyway, the wet forest was full of soft sounds and Carter, shrieking and running. But the area was smoothly flagged and hardly showed any weathering, so Jack just enjoyed the scenery. They didn't let Carter out enough. They still worried about the hidden dangers of the planet. Not to mention that he had to be stopped from playing with the bones.
They were on the grounds of what was clearly a large university. Over the last eighteen months, Daniel had gotten enough handle on the written language to figure some things out, and there had been a professor here who was pictured in a journal wearing an amulet around his neck that looked awfully like an Eye of Ra. Daniel had them tracking this place down the very next day, and a week later, here they were.
Daniel came pelting down the stairs, Sam hard on his heels, yelling at him to "Wait, dammit!"
"Jack!" he yelled.
Jack was on his feet instinctively, but Sam's gusty laughter as she chased their lover was enough to tell him there was nothing to be worried about.
Carter squealed again and went lumbering full tilt toward his Abba. Daniel scooped him up and swung him over his head.
Sam stood panting at Jack's side.
"I take it you found something?" he said casually. Her grin had enough wattage to power a small town.
The Eye of Ra prof connected them to some guy with a drawing of a gate. That lead them to yet another researcher with a zat and a symbiote in a canopic jar. They were following clues for months. But it was better than Daniel's old map-the-crops idea for a way to spend their free time, so Jack paid attention and learned what he could about the language and the leads.
Now they were visiting a smallish college that was supposedly some sort of archaeology mecca on this planet. Daniel and Sam were scouring the library for anything that could give them more about where to find the Gate. Daniel was certain there was one, now, and that it was being researched, but they had yet to find any books about it specifically, just oblique references to the work in writings about other things.
The afternoon was sunny with big puffy white clouds floating in the perfectly clear, amazingly blue sky. He had been chasing a shrieking Carter through the tall grass for nearly an hour as they waited for Daniel and Sam to explore this new library. Now Carter was napping next to him, completely exhausted, sometimes muttering and sighing in his sleep. A nap seemed like a good idea to Jack, too. He was just resettling his cap to cover his face when the radio clicked over.
"Jack!" murmured Daniel in his ear. Jack was on his feet and scooping Carter up in his arms on that one word. That was Daniel's I'm-not-panicking voice, and that was zat fire in the background. "Jack, I've got a little problem here. You need to get Carter and get airborne now." More zat fire.
"Already on it. What's going on, Daniel?" His heart was pounding as the ramp closed behind him. He deposited Carter in his bed, hurtled the play yard wall and landed in the command chair, rushing to get the ship off the ground.
"Daniel! Do you see them?!" Sam was panicking, and Jack had forgotten just how unpleasant the adrenaline rush could be. In the background, before the radio clicked off again, he heard Daniel's voice, far away, yelling "Sam!! They're everywhere!"
"The bugs found us," Daniel said, panting now. "The zat works on them..." Daniel suddenly shrieked and Jack heard a loud thud. When he came back, his voice was strained, and he was talking louder and faster, no longer even trying to hide the fear. "...but there's a lot of them, Jack. We're not going to be able to hold them..." Another yelp, and more thumping. "Jack! Sam just went down! I can't see her!! Sam!" The radio went dead.
"Where are you, Daniel?" Jack demanded, trying to keep calm, but his hands were shaking. It had been a long time. The tel'tak was swooping down on the big library building already.
"By a window on the fifth floor, west side. You'll be able to spot us because I just threw a table through." Yelps, gasps and one scream punctuated Daniel's reply. Oh, God. Jack knew what Daniel was going to do.
"I'm on my way, Daniel. Just keep shootin' 'em!" Jack begged. He maneuvered around to the west side of the building.
"I've got something you need, Jack. I'm..." Then he gave a horrifying scream and the radio cut out.
There was Daniel's window. But it was too late. Daniel had already jumped. His body was crumpled on the pavement. Bugs were already swarming down the side of the building after him. All Jack could do was bring the big ship over him protectively and ring him up.
Bugs materialized with him, of course. Jack had a split second to decide how to deal with the situation. Daniel had just jumped from a fifth story window. Even if he was still breathing, his injuries were going to be massive and extensive. And Jack could already see bone where the huge insects had eaten through Daniel's boot and flesh. Jack didn't hesitate. He fired twice. All the bugs were dead.
He ran back to the pel'tak, keying the radio as he went.
"Carter. Report."
He was lifting the vessel so that he could see into the broken window. He flooded the library with the exterior lights of the tel'tak.
There was a seething heap of bugs on the floor. He stared long enough to be certain he was seeing bloody bone protruding from the pile before he backed out and took himself into orbit.
He propped Daniel against the tree, and laid Sam by his side. It was peaceful there on the hill, as Jack arranged Daniel's body next to her. Carter stood obediently on the ramp, waiting. The little boy was solemn and uncharacteristically quiet. Jack finally went over to pick him up. He wasn't light anymore, but Jack was used to him, and he was an easy weight on his hip.
He slithered down to stand by Daniel's body. He reached out and touched his father's face. Then he took Jack's hand and led him back, which was good, because Jack couldn't see anymore for the tears.
Of course, what Daniel had saved from the library when he jumped was a book.
An armful of them actually. They had scattered on the pavement around his broken body, the bugs ignoring them in favor of flesh.
They were dense books with few illustrations.
Daniel had saved them, so they must be important.
So Jack set to work on them, spending his days with Carter, keeping them in food, and whenever Carter lay down for a nap or went to bed at night, Jack opened the books and started reading.
Carter was three and a half (and reading, proof perfect of who is father was) when they figured it out together.
The kawoosh bloomed out and Carter jumped. His eyes were very wide.
"Don't be afraid," Jack said.
The little boy grinned at him.
"You told me a zillion times!" he said. "It's going to be all cold and hard to breathe, then in about half a minute we'll be on the other side."
Jack held his hand a little tighter. He adjusted his heavy pack. Checked Carter's little one.
They stepped through the event horizon together.
Epilogue
Cam was never quite sure how he fell into bed with General Jack O'Neill.
Don't ask, don't tell was history, by that time, of course. And O'Neill had just blasted the Ori off the face of the universe with Merlin's weapon. SG-1 - himself, Sheppard, McKay, and Mal Doran - sat around O'Neill's living room a couple of weeks later getting drunker than skunks, telling war stories to Carter until he had to be tucked into bed. The other three slipped out early, and O'Neill settled into a sort of hazy, drunken misery. Cam knew that look, and he hated to abandon the man who had saved the Earth so many times people had lost count. So he stayed.
"They're fucking, you know," O'Neill said, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling.
"No, sir, I know no such thing," Cam stated crisply. And he didn't know. He had plausible deniability in spades. Partially because he'd told Sheppard that if he ever got real proof, there was gonna be Hell to pay.
"It's not so bad," O'Neill said wistfully.
And suddenly Cam understood everything.
That night he slept in O'Neill's bed.
"Don't let them bury me in that," O'Neill said one night, eying his Class A's where he had left them draped haphazardly over the armchair in the corner before Cam had fucked him into the carpet.
"Do you mind if I ask why not?" replied Cam.
"I retired a couple of times. They always called me up again. I figure, when I'm dead, I'm retired. Retirement's for fishing clothes."
"You hate fishing," Cam said.
"No, I don't hate it. I miss it."
O'Neill pushed himself up from the floor and wandered into the bathroom to clean up.
"Nobody gets me around here anymore," Cam heard him muttering to himself.
Sam, Jackson, and the Jaffa grinned down from the picture frame on the dresser. Cam snorted.
Nobody gets him, his Aunt Fanny. Sure, O’Neill had been plenty surprised to see “Hank!” - with stars on his shoulders - when he stepped back through to Earth with his kid. But of course with SG-1 gone for six years, they had had to be replaced. The SGC had recruited Sheppard for his ATA gene, McKay for his physics genius, Vala for her galactic contacts, and Cam, Cam had stepped in to lead after Col. Reynolds had died protecting Sheppard and the Chair in Antarctica. The turnover in personnel at the SGC was ridiculously high for a deep-space radar telemetry facility.
But Sgts. Siler and Harriman were always happy to lunch with O’Neill, and he popped round to visit with General Hammond, Ret., often enough. Besides, Cam got O’Neill plenty. Cam’d never be original SG-1, but he understood.
The inscription on the stele read, "Hallowed are the Ori. Witness the fate of those who do not accept the word of Origin." Over which had been scrawled, in a horrid, and apparently very permanent, green paint, "Dead are the Ori."
They finally ran into the wrong unbeliever, Cam thought to himself. They should have checked in with the goa'uld before trying to muscle in on Jack O'Neill's galaxy.
The tel'tak was right were O'Neill had left it. The small party moved swiftly, opening the ramp with the remote, which still worked, and moving themselves and their burden aboard as quickly as possible.
Everything was freakishly quiet.
The navigation computer came online, and McKay was able to find what they were looking for right away.
They were there together under the trunk of a massive tree. Daniel's skeleton had long ago fallen into an undisturbed heap next to Sam's, a few tattered shreds of uniform still there.
Carter stood at the base of the ramp, tears dripping from his nose and tracking down his cheeks. SG-1, pall bearers yet again, brought the casket down the ramp. They set it by the skeletal remains at the base of the tree.
"He should be with them," Carter said suddenly. His voice in the silent place was a shock. "He shouldn’t be in that box."
Cam looked at Sheppard, who grimaced and shrugged. They worked the lid off the coffin and then the two of them lifted O'Neill's body out.
The four of them took the casket away. Then on a sudden impulse Cam said to Sheppard, "Help me," and they moved Jack so that he sat propped against the tree between his two lovers.
Mal Doran and McKay were standing by Carter now. As Cam turned, the boy's face crumpled, and he turned away to walk quickly back into the ship. SG-1 followed, leaving the dead in peace.
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author's notes:
Writing this, I figured the timeline would have started soon after the time loop. SG-1 would have fallen off the map. Hammond would have been forced to reconstitute the team. Sheppard would have been recruited for his ATA gene. Vala would have been brought in as a consultant after Nyan took over leadership of SG-11. They would have brought Rodney into the program to replace Sam. Mitchell would have gotten the leadership spot after Reynolds bought it in Antartica protecting Sheppard from supersoldiers. Jack would have been gone about six years. Sheppard would have dealt with Anubis, and Jack would walk back into an SGC desperately trying to track down Merlin and his weapon to fight the Ori, who returned after Anubis' tipped them off to the Ancients' new hiding place. Once Jack got personally involved with that mission, the Ori wouldn’t stand a chance.
For my loyal rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.