The Phantom Device (Cam/Vala SG-1 fic, Finale)
Title: The Phantom Device
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Generally up to AoT or Continuum
Pairings: Cam/Vala, Sam/Jack, Daniel/Sha're
Genre: General....episodic stuff, with a mild side of ship.
Summary: When SG-1 travels to a remote planet to negotiate a deal for the planet's specific technological wonder, the Phantom Device, which allows its user to experience anything they desire, they soon find themselves caught in the middle of a power struggle.
Disclaimer: Naturally, I don't actually own anything. At all. It's really quite sad.
AN: The finale and wrap up. There is in fact a sequel brewing. How long it will be, however, is anyone's guess at this point.
He very nearly vomited his mediocre lunch all over the pristine white floor as he stumbled and crashed to the ground. Somewhere through the nauseating spinning in his head, he heard similar crashes and pained groans. A feminine voice spoke something profane, but it was impossible to say who.
He blinked, and looked up at the overly large room. Where...
Jackson spoke up nearby. “Oh, God...”
Cameron very nearly lost said lunch once more. It wasn't real. It had all been a simulation. The device. They'd been hooked into the device. But why?
Small hands touched his cheeks, and blue eyes met his. “Cam?”
“...Ser..ache?”
She smiled. “Friend. Come with?”
She offered her shoulder, and he struggled up to a standing position, as the rest of the team collected themselves from what clearly were similar expressions. Sam held an empty expression that, for all of a moment, was terrifying, before her face cleared and she stood. Vala's eyes glittered, and she hung back behind the hulking, silent form of Teal'c. Cam suppressed the strange, lingering feeling that he should walk over and offer her some sort of comfort. Jackson, who might have normally been the one to offer that comfort, sat on the nearest ledge, and stared down at the floor.
He shook his head, forcibly shoving the images-the children-down. They needed to collect themselves. They needed to figure out just what the hell just happened. “Serache...what's going on? Do you know who put us here?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I...came with Cassian. Saved Cam and friends?”
He nodded toward the controls. “You got us out?”
She nodded, and smiled. “Easy.”
He summoned a matching smile, and squeezed her shoulder. “You saved us.”
“They put you here to make sure you didn't interfere.” Cam looked up as one with the rest of SG-1 as Cassian rounded the corner, covered in dust, dirt, and what appeared to be splattered blood. “I suspected they might. Serache is still the best hand at those controls alive. She wanted to come with and make sure you were alright. But now you have to go.”
Jackson spoke up then, though there was a subtle quaver in his voice. “Go where?”
“Wherever your home is. The Council is gone.” He nodded toward Cam. “The negotiations you were here for are done. Perhaps Xyndonia will still be interested in diplomatic relations with the Tau'ri when all has settled, but for now...it is best you return home.”
“So...you killed them? Councilor Solyin?” Jackson stood, straightening his posture.
“Councilor Solyin was the one to order you placed in here. She personally ordered the safeties dampened to ensure you would not be able to disengage yourself until she decided you were no longer threats.”
Vala clapped a hand over her mouth and swayed in place, as she fought to keep down whatever it was she last ate.
“Come. This place is still chaotic. You will need to return...and seek medical assistance.” Cassian frowned as he turned to leave. “The worst part of your readjustment is yet to come.”
The information didn't really process. Nothing did. Even as he followed after Cassian, all of the twists and turns blurred together. Every step seemed less relevant, less real. He struggled to maintain lucidity, to maintain a grip on reality, and not on the glorified, psychedelic daydream.
The halls seemed darker, less pristine than he remembered them earlier that day. In most places, the walls were cracked, damaged, or dirtied by whatever he coup consisted of, but it was more than simply that. The damage seemed an aside to the dimness. If he could focus properly, he might have guessed there was once a back-light to the halls which shut off some point during-or perhaps after the struggle.
As it was, it took all of his determination to continue onward, following Cassian and Serache's lead. Dimly, he recognized the presence of the rest of SG-1, following alongside or after him, those he could see seemed to be in similar states of disorientation or grim focus.
The winding halls of the council building passed more quickly than he remembered. Cassian spoke much along the way to the Stargate, of his peoples' new plans, but Cameron could pay them little mind. His head pounded more painfully with every step he took. To his fortune, they were soon at the Gate, and the familiar sound of the activating gate summoned enough clarity to input the IDC on his wristlet.
Cassian helped Sam step through the Gate, and when Cameron nearly stumbled and crashed through the Gate face first, firm hands gripped his shoulders, steadying his balance, and helped him through the Gate in a fashion that would not likely end up a catastrophe. He'd had enough of those today.
He managed a half-formed sigh of relief at the sight of the Gateroom, before the relentless darkness tugging at the corners of his vision swept out to overtake him. Before the cascade of color and pain washed through his mind, there was, at least, a brief moment of satisfaction that he was not the first to go down.
The nightmarish twists and swirls of color-brief glimmers of the non-reality device thrust upon him-and the parade of unpleasant sensations swarming his consciousness stretched on for a time indeterminable before finally slipping away to peaceful darkness.
The sensation of a dull knife beating against the inside of his skull greeted him first, and then his vision bothered to clear enough to make out Stargate Command's infirmary. The unfortunate familiar sensation informed him the dreams' fading had most to do with Dr. Lam's medication. When he blinked away lingering bleariness and glanced around, he spotted the others still unconscious on nearby beds.
“Feeling better?”
He winced at the sound, and turned his head as best as he could manage toward the approaching doctor. “Define 'better'.”
She offered a soft, sympathetic smile. “Consciousness is a point. You've been out three days.”
He groaned and couldn't quite shake the hoarseness from his voice. “Not so sure about that, Doctor.”
She nodded, adding something clear to his IV. “According to the Xyndonian scientist, you should be through the worst of it now.” She frowned, digging her hands into her oversized pockets. “Was touch and go there for awhile.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and part of him was surprised he saw nothing. “The device?”
“Destroyed.” Her frown deepened. “It would have been useful to have something to wean you of its effects. As it is, if your friend hadn't gotten you out when she did...”
“Serache?”
The doctor nodded, and gestured toward a chair near to his bed, in a direction he hadn't before turned to investigate. Upon the chair sat the sleeping form of the red haired scientist. Someone had tossed a lab coat over her after she'd fallen asleep, and one hand gripped its collar loosely.
“She stayed after Doctor Cassian left to attend to his own world's affairs. She helped us out of quite a few tight spots, regarding unexpected complications. She only fell asleep a few hours ago.”
He nodded, frowning, and Doctor Lam offered a parting smile of support, before moving to attent to Jackson, who just then began to rouse.
Before the collapse was a haze of pain, but he could just remember a glimpse of blue eyes before collapsing. She'd come with through the Gate to help him, and stayed as long as it took to make certain things went smoothly. She'd stayed, even through she had no true attachment nor obligation to any of them.
He summoned a small smile, and turned to watch her sleeping form. “Great friend, Serache.”
As if she recognized her name being called, she stirred slightly, and wide blue eyes blinked at him over the lab coat. It was beginning to hurt to breathe, and he wondered when that medicine the doctor administered would kick into effect, but he warmed his smile regardless.
Serache stretched, and cast her gaze around the room, as if uncertain exactly where she was.
“You'll be home soon, Serache.”
Dark blue eyes blinked at him once more. “Ser...ache?”
He bit his cheek at the blankness her voice held, and that dim sparkle of eagerness which bordered on desperation in her eyes. “Serache.” She frowned at his response, puzzling over the word a few moments, before blinking at the area again, and fixing him with a curious gaze. He nodded slightly, and struggled to maintain his smile. “Yeah. Serache.” The smile strengthened as he continued. “She's...a great friend.”
Serache smiled sleepily, and settled back into the chair, muttering a pleasant sounding reply. Cam frowned, and turned his gaze back to the ceiling.
A whole week passed before the doctor let them out of the infirmary-and she'd tried to get out sooner, the doctor was surprisingly vigilant-and then she wouldn't even let them off base until they took a whole slew of meaningless sessions with their base psychologist. At least they hadn't insisted on using that horrible contraption this time.
All the same, she was glad when General Landry finally demanded his team be placed back on active duty, and said they needn't bother with the sessions any longer. It was all nonsense, anyway. She'd looked it up before.
That girl from the Xyndon world went home shortly after it was determined they were no more capable of helping her than her own people. Mitchell'd been given special dispensation to escort her back when she left, and now he spent much of his off-world leisure time visiting her. They hadn't been on the planet long enough for even Mitchell to have developed any lasting sentimental bond with a woman who forgot him every single day, so he had to be using the trips as a way of avoiding thinking about whatever he saw. How he hoped to distance himself from the event by going back to the planet it happened on was anyone's guess, but Mitchell was not always the most reasonable of people. Especially not when he was truly upset about something.
Anyway, it probably worked as well as Daniel holing up in his office and ignoring her, or Sam throwing herself completely into her labwork. According to the doctors, the addictive effects left behind by the device had passed-none of them suffered ill effects by not going back to it. None of them needed to go.
But really. How did you ever get over glimpsing a moment of everything you wanted in life, only to realize it could never happen? Ever.
None of it could. At least not for her, and if she knew her friends as well as she thought she did, it as little different for them. You never really got over that, did you? You just found a way to cope with it, and continue on. This one seemed like a lot to cope with, but she would manage.
Compared to Qetesh and birthing the Ori messiah, this was...a drop in the lake.
She glanced up from her locker, which she hadn't really been seeing for the past several minutes. Somewhere along the way the rest of SG-1 filed out of the room, no longer obligated to spend time with each other, the mission and debriefing complete. They were all still healing. Even Muscles was, in his stoic way.
Well. All of SG-1 slipped out while she wasn't looking except Mitchell. He stood only a few lockers away, fiddling with something she couldn't see. He had that blank look she'd come to associate with thinking about that scientist girl.
He must have bought the woman another gift. Sometimes she worried he might have been fixating on her, so caught up in his escapism that he actually thought with enough effort, he might become an exception to her morning bouts of amnesia.
She was allowed to worry. Until things settled, no one was going to call her on it. No one was paying enough attention to bother her.
Mitchell slammed the locker shut abruptly, and the noise caused her to startle out of her thoughts. Her movement, minute as it was, caught his attention, and curious blue eyes turned toward her.
For an irrational moment, the unguarded, curious expression trapped her, and dragged her mind back to the vision the device provided her. Blue eyes, warm smiles, ridiculous, honeyed words, and that giddy spinning sensation so completely foreign to her.
She blinked, and stuffed her jacket into the locker. She tossed him a brief smile, and spun out of the room. Despite her initial haste, she slowed, and waited a few moments in the hallway, watching the doorway. He did not emerge from the doorway.
She bit her lip, and started off toward Daniel's office. They would all deal with it eventually.
They had to.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Generally up to AoT or Continuum
Pairings: Cam/Vala, Sam/Jack, Daniel/Sha're
Genre: General....episodic stuff, with a mild side of ship.
Summary: When SG-1 travels to a remote planet to negotiate a deal for the planet's specific technological wonder, the Phantom Device, which allows its user to experience anything they desire, they soon find themselves caught in the middle of a power struggle.
Disclaimer: Naturally, I don't actually own anything. At all. It's really quite sad.
AN: The finale and wrap up. There is in fact a sequel brewing. How long it will be, however, is anyone's guess at this point.
He very nearly vomited his mediocre lunch all over the pristine white floor as he stumbled and crashed to the ground. Somewhere through the nauseating spinning in his head, he heard similar crashes and pained groans. A feminine voice spoke something profane, but it was impossible to say who.
He blinked, and looked up at the overly large room. Where...
Jackson spoke up nearby. “Oh, God...”
Cameron very nearly lost said lunch once more. It wasn't real. It had all been a simulation. The device. They'd been hooked into the device. But why?
Small hands touched his cheeks, and blue eyes met his. “Cam?”
“...Ser..ache?”
She smiled. “Friend. Come with?”
She offered her shoulder, and he struggled up to a standing position, as the rest of the team collected themselves from what clearly were similar expressions. Sam held an empty expression that, for all of a moment, was terrifying, before her face cleared and she stood. Vala's eyes glittered, and she hung back behind the hulking, silent form of Teal'c. Cam suppressed the strange, lingering feeling that he should walk over and offer her some sort of comfort. Jackson, who might have normally been the one to offer that comfort, sat on the nearest ledge, and stared down at the floor.
He shook his head, forcibly shoving the images-the children-down. They needed to collect themselves. They needed to figure out just what the hell just happened. “Serache...what's going on? Do you know who put us here?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I...came with Cassian. Saved Cam and friends?”
He nodded toward the controls. “You got us out?”
She nodded, and smiled. “Easy.”
He summoned a matching smile, and squeezed her shoulder. “You saved us.”
“They put you here to make sure you didn't interfere.” Cam looked up as one with the rest of SG-1 as Cassian rounded the corner, covered in dust, dirt, and what appeared to be splattered blood. “I suspected they might. Serache is still the best hand at those controls alive. She wanted to come with and make sure you were alright. But now you have to go.”
Jackson spoke up then, though there was a subtle quaver in his voice. “Go where?”
“Wherever your home is. The Council is gone.” He nodded toward Cam. “The negotiations you were here for are done. Perhaps Xyndonia will still be interested in diplomatic relations with the Tau'ri when all has settled, but for now...it is best you return home.”
“So...you killed them? Councilor Solyin?” Jackson stood, straightening his posture.
“Councilor Solyin was the one to order you placed in here. She personally ordered the safeties dampened to ensure you would not be able to disengage yourself until she decided you were no longer threats.”
Vala clapped a hand over her mouth and swayed in place, as she fought to keep down whatever it was she last ate.
“Come. This place is still chaotic. You will need to return...and seek medical assistance.” Cassian frowned as he turned to leave. “The worst part of your readjustment is yet to come.”
The information didn't really process. Nothing did. Even as he followed after Cassian, all of the twists and turns blurred together. Every step seemed less relevant, less real. He struggled to maintain lucidity, to maintain a grip on reality, and not on the glorified, psychedelic daydream.
The halls seemed darker, less pristine than he remembered them earlier that day. In most places, the walls were cracked, damaged, or dirtied by whatever he coup consisted of, but it was more than simply that. The damage seemed an aside to the dimness. If he could focus properly, he might have guessed there was once a back-light to the halls which shut off some point during-or perhaps after the struggle.
As it was, it took all of his determination to continue onward, following Cassian and Serache's lead. Dimly, he recognized the presence of the rest of SG-1, following alongside or after him, those he could see seemed to be in similar states of disorientation or grim focus.
The winding halls of the council building passed more quickly than he remembered. Cassian spoke much along the way to the Stargate, of his peoples' new plans, but Cameron could pay them little mind. His head pounded more painfully with every step he took. To his fortune, they were soon at the Gate, and the familiar sound of the activating gate summoned enough clarity to input the IDC on his wristlet.
Cassian helped Sam step through the Gate, and when Cameron nearly stumbled and crashed through the Gate face first, firm hands gripped his shoulders, steadying his balance, and helped him through the Gate in a fashion that would not likely end up a catastrophe. He'd had enough of those today.
He managed a half-formed sigh of relief at the sight of the Gateroom, before the relentless darkness tugging at the corners of his vision swept out to overtake him. Before the cascade of color and pain washed through his mind, there was, at least, a brief moment of satisfaction that he was not the first to go down.
The nightmarish twists and swirls of color-brief glimmers of the non-reality device thrust upon him-and the parade of unpleasant sensations swarming his consciousness stretched on for a time indeterminable before finally slipping away to peaceful darkness.
The sensation of a dull knife beating against the inside of his skull greeted him first, and then his vision bothered to clear enough to make out Stargate Command's infirmary. The unfortunate familiar sensation informed him the dreams' fading had most to do with Dr. Lam's medication. When he blinked away lingering bleariness and glanced around, he spotted the others still unconscious on nearby beds.
“Feeling better?”
He winced at the sound, and turned his head as best as he could manage toward the approaching doctor. “Define 'better'.”
She offered a soft, sympathetic smile. “Consciousness is a point. You've been out three days.”
He groaned and couldn't quite shake the hoarseness from his voice. “Not so sure about that, Doctor.”
She nodded, adding something clear to his IV. “According to the Xyndonian scientist, you should be through the worst of it now.” She frowned, digging her hands into her oversized pockets. “Was touch and go there for awhile.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and part of him was surprised he saw nothing. “The device?”
“Destroyed.” Her frown deepened. “It would have been useful to have something to wean you of its effects. As it is, if your friend hadn't gotten you out when she did...”
“Serache?”
The doctor nodded, and gestured toward a chair near to his bed, in a direction he hadn't before turned to investigate. Upon the chair sat the sleeping form of the red haired scientist. Someone had tossed a lab coat over her after she'd fallen asleep, and one hand gripped its collar loosely.
“She stayed after Doctor Cassian left to attend to his own world's affairs. She helped us out of quite a few tight spots, regarding unexpected complications. She only fell asleep a few hours ago.”
He nodded, frowning, and Doctor Lam offered a parting smile of support, before moving to attent to Jackson, who just then began to rouse.
Before the collapse was a haze of pain, but he could just remember a glimpse of blue eyes before collapsing. She'd come with through the Gate to help him, and stayed as long as it took to make certain things went smoothly. She'd stayed, even through she had no true attachment nor obligation to any of them.
He summoned a small smile, and turned to watch her sleeping form. “Great friend, Serache.”
As if she recognized her name being called, she stirred slightly, and wide blue eyes blinked at him over the lab coat. It was beginning to hurt to breathe, and he wondered when that medicine the doctor administered would kick into effect, but he warmed his smile regardless.
Serache stretched, and cast her gaze around the room, as if uncertain exactly where she was.
“You'll be home soon, Serache.”
Dark blue eyes blinked at him once more. “Ser...ache?”
He bit his cheek at the blankness her voice held, and that dim sparkle of eagerness which bordered on desperation in her eyes. “Serache.” She frowned at his response, puzzling over the word a few moments, before blinking at the area again, and fixing him with a curious gaze. He nodded slightly, and struggled to maintain his smile. “Yeah. Serache.” The smile strengthened as he continued. “She's...a great friend.”
Serache smiled sleepily, and settled back into the chair, muttering a pleasant sounding reply. Cam frowned, and turned his gaze back to the ceiling.
A whole week passed before the doctor let them out of the infirmary-and she'd tried to get out sooner, the doctor was surprisingly vigilant-and then she wouldn't even let them off base until they took a whole slew of meaningless sessions with their base psychologist. At least they hadn't insisted on using that horrible contraption this time.
All the same, she was glad when General Landry finally demanded his team be placed back on active duty, and said they needn't bother with the sessions any longer. It was all nonsense, anyway. She'd looked it up before.
That girl from the Xyndon world went home shortly after it was determined they were no more capable of helping her than her own people. Mitchell'd been given special dispensation to escort her back when she left, and now he spent much of his off-world leisure time visiting her. They hadn't been on the planet long enough for even Mitchell to have developed any lasting sentimental bond with a woman who forgot him every single day, so he had to be using the trips as a way of avoiding thinking about whatever he saw. How he hoped to distance himself from the event by going back to the planet it happened on was anyone's guess, but Mitchell was not always the most reasonable of people. Especially not when he was truly upset about something.
Anyway, it probably worked as well as Daniel holing up in his office and ignoring her, or Sam throwing herself completely into her labwork. According to the doctors, the addictive effects left behind by the device had passed-none of them suffered ill effects by not going back to it. None of them needed to go.
But really. How did you ever get over glimpsing a moment of everything you wanted in life, only to realize it could never happen? Ever.
None of it could. At least not for her, and if she knew her friends as well as she thought she did, it as little different for them. You never really got over that, did you? You just found a way to cope with it, and continue on. This one seemed like a lot to cope with, but she would manage.
Compared to Qetesh and birthing the Ori messiah, this was...a drop in the lake.
She glanced up from her locker, which she hadn't really been seeing for the past several minutes. Somewhere along the way the rest of SG-1 filed out of the room, no longer obligated to spend time with each other, the mission and debriefing complete. They were all still healing. Even Muscles was, in his stoic way.
Well. All of SG-1 slipped out while she wasn't looking except Mitchell. He stood only a few lockers away, fiddling with something she couldn't see. He had that blank look she'd come to associate with thinking about that scientist girl.
He must have bought the woman another gift. Sometimes she worried he might have been fixating on her, so caught up in his escapism that he actually thought with enough effort, he might become an exception to her morning bouts of amnesia.
She was allowed to worry. Until things settled, no one was going to call her on it. No one was paying enough attention to bother her.
Mitchell slammed the locker shut abruptly, and the noise caused her to startle out of her thoughts. Her movement, minute as it was, caught his attention, and curious blue eyes turned toward her.
For an irrational moment, the unguarded, curious expression trapped her, and dragged her mind back to the vision the device provided her. Blue eyes, warm smiles, ridiculous, honeyed words, and that giddy spinning sensation so completely foreign to her.
She blinked, and stuffed her jacket into the locker. She tossed him a brief smile, and spun out of the room. Despite her initial haste, she slowed, and waited a few moments in the hallway, watching the doorway. He did not emerge from the doorway.
She bit her lip, and started off toward Daniel's office. They would all deal with it eventually.
They had to.