Clean-Up of The Hard Drive, Take #1
Title: Duct-Tape Fixable
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam & Jack
Summary: Patch the pieces back together: lines of fragmented code, shards of alien technology, and the heart wanting only to belong.
Author's Note: This was an idea that I never managed to follow through on, one of the ones that hit me out of nowhere and then left just as quickly. Therefore I only have the last three chapters of a story I know very little about, and it's getting posted in it's half-baked glory: 3,315 words that go nowhere except to an ending
The storm raged on outside, thunder muffled by the walls of the church where she sat, soaked and soaking the cushioned pew. The creeping cold that had set into her bones was gradually fading away, leaving only a faint numbness and the soft warmth of the church itself. Hands clasped, chin propped on her hands, eyes staring blankly at the simple altar, she listened to the growling winds and heavy rain.
“Troubles?”
A dark-haired man sat down beside her, face open and gentle, hinting at knowledge and compassion. She laughed, the sound soft and bitter.
“You have no idea. I’m lost, my car’s halfway down the mountainside, I’m running from my fears and friends, my very existence might end the world, I don’t know where I’m going, the man I lo- I care for more than I should has no idea I’m fleeing, and I’m tired.” Her voice cracked on the last words, fading into the quiet of the ambient light. She ran a hand through her wet hair, the dark circles under her eyes a mute testimony to the long nights she had spent awake instead of sleeping.
“So tired…”
The murmur of voices rippled through the silence, washing over them like surf on a shore as teenagers began to set up instruments and mikes, oblivious to the stranger sitting in their church. Samantha breathed in the comforting scents of incense and fresh orchids, carefully placed beside the altar. Lightening flashed, illuminating the stained glass windows for a brief instant- and then all was dark again.
It was a while longer before he spoke.
“It’s much simpler to say that you have failed than to step back and believe it. When the moment comes, you will have to let the chance to save them slip past. Can you?”
She has no answer for him.
“There is no guarantee that it will get easier from here on out, or that there is peace ahead. But the best we can do is fight on, embracing our pain and hoping that it will mean something.” At his words, she followed his glance to the cross hanging behind the altar.
Yes, someone else had known suffering and agony too.
“Here.” A set of car keys entered her vision and Sam blinked, staring at him. “You need a new ride.”
Was he-- offering her a car?
“I can’t-”
“You can.” He took her hand and pressed the keys into her palm, smiling. “The next time you’re in the neighborhood, swing by to pick up your car.” And, when she started to protest again: “A random act of kindness. Go.”
Something in his words ignited an unknown urgency within her; all thoughts of sleeping or dying were wiped away as a surge of adrenaline rose, sharpening her mind and focusing it on one person: Jack.
The change was visible: Sam’s eyes brightened; she sat up straighter; her entire body quivered with contained energy.
“I have to go.” Her words may have been soft, but they were intent. Alive. The man squeezed her hand with benevolent approval.
“Peace be with you, Daughter.”
And in a breath she rose and whirled out of the church, pushing the glass doors open as the choir began to sing behind her. He watched her go, then closed his eyes to listen while the song drifted out into the storm.
“So here I am again
Willing to be opened up and broken like a flower in the rain
Tell me what have I to do
To die and then be raised
To reach beyond the pain
Like a flower in the rain…”
-
Ice cold rain slid down the back of her neck, trickling along her spine in a steady stream that she ignored- or, rather, didn’t notice at all. Her fingers tightened of their own accord around the keys and the lights of a parked car flashed. Puddles splashed as she walked through them, as though drawn to the yellow gleam; water drenched her shoes and jeans.
The door opened once she pulled the handle and she slid in, leather trench coat dripping as she turned the keys. With a quiet purr it started, and she was closing the door when a low voltage buzz shocked her.
Great .
Her locator was active again.
One hand fished in a pocket and pulled a hypodermic needle as she rolled up her shirt sleeve with the other. Taking off the plastic cover with her teeth, Sam jabbed it into a vein and sighed with relief when the tingling sensation vanished. Out of danger, she put the car into drive and left the parking lot, headed for Washington.
As the storm danced violently around her, her mind rang with a single name.
Jack.
xXx
As suddenly as the deluge of sky-water had come, one might have expected it to finish and move on in a matter of minutes.
The weather system hovering over Washington had been there for three solid hours and didn’t look like it was leaving any time soon.
Jack listened to the rain drumming furiously on the roof and was very glad that he was inside, out of the cold. News reporters on the TV chattered away about the small flood making its way through Washington, immersing the lower lying homes in three inches of water. (He was unashamedly glad his house was on a hill.) Forecasters and meteorological experts were having a field day alternately trying to explain where the nor’easter had come from, and desperately attempting to say when it would go away.
A hunch was telling Jack that it was going to hang around for a while longer.
The radio on the couch next to him clicked.
“General, Colonel C- hostile is approaching. We’re in position.”
He picked it up
“Acknowledged. Keep on alert, folks, but do not engage. I repeat, do not engage until necessary. And that, for those of you with trigger happy fingers, means until I call for back-up or she tries to kill me. I don’t want to have to bring a body back. Radio silence until further notice.”
Turning it off, Jack rose from the couch and moved towards the front door. He had been in too many bad spots and impossible situations to let nerves get to him at a moment like this, but that didn’t lighten the lead knot in his stomach.
All he could do now was hope it didn’t come to the gun that was burning steel-cold against his back.
He opened the door.
She stood just in front of the porch, oblivious to the rain pounding down on her shoulders. (Funny how he had never realized just how slender those shoulders were.) Her hair stuck out to the sides in spikes, defying gravity and weather; her hands were tucked into the trench coat (did she have a weapon?). And her eyes-
Her eyes were ice silver.
In that moment, immobile in the downpour, she was a creature beyond mortal imagination, a power beyond confinement- a force of Nature to be reckoned with.
They looked at each other without much surprise, as though they had already accepted the coincidence of meeting and moved on.
“Carter.” Jack said, leaning against the doorway in his T-shirt and sweats. “What brings you to my door?”
She tilted her head to the side a fraction of a degree; a faint movement, to be sure, but one he knew very, very well. It was what she did when confronted with a new, unexpected, and intriguing dilemma.
A chill ran down his spine as Carter’s silver eyes changed minutely, her expression turning slightly contemptuous, slightly amused, a touch resigned and understanding. As if she knew about the gun, the security team. About his fear, his tension.
In that instant, he knew she could kill them with less than a thought. But Carter/It only blinked-
Blue eyes looked back at him.
“Sir.” There was almost a question mark on the end of that word.
“Yes, Carter, it’s me. Care to come in out of the rain?” He kept his tone neutral, his expression open and familiar. A few seconds passed as a confused hesitation played out on her face; and then she took a step forward, up onto the porch. He moved to the side to let her in, deliberately not glancing out to where the security team was stationed as he closed the door.
Water from her sopping wet clothing dripped onto the floor as she swept the interior with her gaze; he didn’t offer to hang up her coat but walked instead to the kitchen, grabbing the pot of boiling water and a mug.
“Tea?”
“Mm.”
Taking that for a ‘yes’, Jack picked out a chamomile/green tea blend and let it sit for the time being.
“So, Carter, since you’re not in the habit of dropping by without warning, might I ask why you’re here?” She had sat down at the two-person table, legs crossed as she watched the weather outside.
“I- I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.” Her reply was a whisper, barely audible above the noise of the storm.
“How’d you get here?”
“A- a car, I think.” One hand fiddled with a pocket and he fought down the urge to tense; then she pulled out a set of keys. Sam looked at them without comprehension, visibly torn. “A car.”
Jack picked up the mug and walked over to the table, offering it to her. She didn’t take it, waiting until he shrugged and put it down on the table to touch it. Then she sipped at it distractedly, barely wincing with the hot liquid spilled down her throat.
There was something wrong. Well, other than the obvious ‘being possessed by alien life form/program’ and hypothermia; the disjointed flickering of personality to personality, the edge of sliver that was still rimming her irises, the sense of urgency that was almost palpable-
One or the other was trying to say something, or remember it. And Jack understood that both of them had equal chances of killing him, but that same nagging feeling that had told him not to have the Daedalus beam Sam into confinement was now telling him he had to push the limits.
“What happened, Carter?”
The familiar lines appeared on her forehead as she frowned, trying to think back, fingers twisting the mug around until she stiffened. Her shocked, terrified, reconciled eyes met his.
“I’m going to be killed.”
Jack shoved his instinctive response down and waited a heartbeat to ask the next question.
“By who?”
Sam’s shoulders lifted and fell, her hands still wrapped around the mug.
“You.”
---
Her simple reply stunned him, throwing him off balance unlike nothing else she could have come up with.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a threat. An unknown entity. A wild card.” Under her voice crept a rough tremor, like a Goa’uld’s “double voice”. “The Ancient device, the program, Daniel’s interpretation. There’s nothing else you or I would do. But Jack-”
His name on her tongue sounded strange, distorted, desperate. A plea.
“I don’t want to be terminated.”
Lightening severed the sky into a thousand pieces outside the window, and Jack thought vaguely that it couldn’t be a coincidence. Sam’s hands had released the tea and reached towards him now, stopping before they actually made contact with his skin.
“I wasn’t made to destroy. AERIS was made to help, to heal. Program went wrong.“ Her voice was cracking, shifting between ‘Sam’ and ‘Other’ between words.
“Jack- I want to live.”
“How can I help you, Sam? What can I do?” Anger pushed aside Fear to ease up next to Concern; anger that this thing, while apparently sentient, was not only taking over his Carter but expecting him to do the impossible. She had already been deemed a threat; he had only been the bait in the trap.
And now she/it was asking him to get her out of it.
She hesitated, considering, thinking. He could almost see the gears flying into overdrive in her mind. Then dawned realization, consciousness, focus; blue/silver enveloped his world as she gravitated towards him, only inches apart in their half-sitting, half-standing poses like statues.
“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim.”
Jack only had enough time to recognize the form of ‘modern’ Ancient (Latin) before she whispered again.
“I’m sorry.”
And then her hands gently grabbed his, lifting one and pressing it against her sternum, his fingers touching the base of her throat.
Glass and wood shattered as the security team busted in, guns pointing at the hostile… but already her eyes had rolled up, her hands had let go, and she had crumpled to the linoleum like a discarded doll.
xXx
Things had taken a lot of explaining and paperwork from there on out; he wasn’t particularly fond of paperwork, but doing enough to get Landry to let him into the base had been worth it.
“Stats one-eighty over ninety…”
“Hypodermic needle… scalpel!”
“…she’s holding steady, doctor.”
A gray ceiling swam into focus as she blinked, dry eyes aching as light filtered in.
“Hello, sunshine. Ready for another great day of living?”
“Uhhh…” She rubbed the back of her hand against her forehead, ignoring the numerous IV lines and drips stuck into her arm. “Jack?”
“No, Carter, it’s the Easter Bunny. How ya feeling?”
“Horrible.”
“Wonderful.” He must have moved to sit on the edge of the bed, because she could see him now. There were well-worn worry-lines etched into his face, although no one else might have noticed. “You had us worried.” The ‘us’ meaning ‘me’, of course.
“Sorry to inconvenience you-” She jerked, sitting up abruptly. Orange spots danced merrily against her eyelids as his firm hands held her steady. “Ooooh…”
“You’re in a hospital bed for a reason, Colonel.”
“I thought you said you’d never call me that again after you retired.” She groaned, massaging her temples.
“When you get possessed by an Ancient weather program-this ‘Aeris’ thing- and go half-mad, not to mention apparently vanish off the face of the Earth for three days, I think I get to pull rank.”
“Ancient weather- is it okay?” Blinking against the light, she looked up at Jack with an effort. “It didn’t want to end, Jack. I felt it- I was it- and all it wanted to do was help.”
He applied for a leave of absence from Washington- well, not so much "applied" as "walked out with a suitcase and told his secretary he wasn’t going to be back for a while".
She stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. There, ringing her irises, was a thin line of silver.
It lived within her still, ghosting around the edges of Samantha Carter, waiting not for a chance to strike but for enough time to learn, to grow and adapt.
To be fixed.
“Perfer et obdura.” Be patient and tough.
Hot dogs and steaks had been purchased and were sitting in the fridge; the grill was cleaned and ready for action.
SG-1 and GT-1 relaxed in the empty cafeteria, laughing and wide awake when everyone else in the mountain was sleeping. Waving her beer in a dismissive gesture remarkably like O’Neill’s, she looked at Sheppard.
“Do you have an identical twin?”
John looked startled.
“Yeah… how’d you know?”
“Why isn’t he at Atlantis too?” By this point everyone was staring at them.
“He doesn’t have the gene- don’t ask me how that works.”
“Well, you see, it’s an interesting combination of-”
“Rodney, spare us the lecture, will ya? I’m on vacation.”
“If you go up to visit him, I’ve got a car that you can use.”
Sheppard smiled at her words.
“Gave you his baby, did he? Must’ve really liked you.”
Carter shrugged off the accusations of her teammates and rolled her eyes, taking another swig of beer. Whether or not the tests said John’s brother had the gene, the fact that Aeris had responded to him was good enough for her. One had to consider that they had barely begun to scratch the surface…
All that he needed now was the woman who had turned his world- and multiple others, along with a few galaxies and several solar systems- upside down from day one.
Their wine glasses clinked softly together.
“How about a toast?” She sat in her wheelchair, wicked grin softened by the candlelight. (Yes, as surprising as it was, Jack O’Neill could be a romantic.)
“A toast?”
“To those who come, and those who go, but most of all, to those who stay.”
“Very… deep.” Jack commented, taking a sip of his drink. She laughed softly.
“Do you remember?”
“I remember a lot of things, Carter. Pick one.” Noticing that she was looking at her hand, he set his glass down and held it gently in his own.
“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim.” The Latin words flowed easily off her tongue, a gift from Aeris. He paused for a moment, reliving that horrible moment when he realized that she was saying goodbye, and then nodded slowly.
“I do.”
“ ‘Some day this pain will be useful to you.’ ” She whispered, still staring at their linked hands.
After a moment, he spoke.
“Your pain, Sam, will never be useful to me. And don’t say that I don’t know that. I do.” When she looked up and met his gaze, her odd, beautiful, dearly loved eyes were filled with tears.
“I hope so. Knowing that I- we- were out of control, that only someone with the Ancient gene could stop us, I realized I was going to die. And I was scared, Jack. Scared, because I thought that you were going to be left behind, alone again. By yourself, because I had loved you and had to leave you.”
He reached up and drew her head down onto his shoulder, holding her as she wept with the anxiety and fear that had driven her through those three days.
“But I’m not alone, am I?”
“No. You’re mine, and you’re going to stay that way.” She said firmly, and he smirked when he heard the upbeat note in her voice. He knew how to push all of her buttons- most of the time, anyway. Then he had an unsettling and very strange thought that no one else on Earth had ever had or was likely to ever think.
“Do I have to split you with Aeris or something? Because body time shares are going to be kind of hard to explain-”
“Aeris isn’t going to need control of my body like the Tok’ra or the Goa’uld. She’ll “sleep” unless I need her.”
“ ‘She’?”
“Well, ‘it’ was just plain awkward and ‘he’ didn’t sound right.”
“I want to be the only male in your life, Carter, body-sharing Ancient weather program or not.”
“Don’t worry, Jack, you are.”
“Good.”
The screen door slid open and she walked out on her own power, perhaps a bit shaky and unsteady, but sure and confident and tall.
He looked up, saw her grin, and waved her over.
“Care to do the honors?”
She accepted, but put her hand over his as she flipped the first burger onto a bun, slapping on a slice of cheese with the ease of practice.
“Taught you well, I have.” Jack said approvingly, and she flashed him a smile. Soon the rest of the meal was ready, and Sam went back into the house to tell their guests that the food was ready. The party spilled out onto the lawn, chatter and cheers weaving a music that sounded better to their ears than any orchestral piece ever could.
“Wasn’t it supposed to rain?” The question floated through the crowd, and he glanced at his wife. She gave him an innocent look, betrayed only by the gleam of silver in her gaze.
He laughed, and put a new batch of burgers on the grill.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam & Jack
Summary: Patch the pieces back together: lines of fragmented code, shards of alien technology, and the heart wanting only to belong.
Author's Note: This was an idea that I never managed to follow through on, one of the ones that hit me out of nowhere and then left just as quickly. Therefore I only have the last three chapters of a story I know very little about, and it's getting posted in it's half-baked glory: 3,315 words that go nowhere except to an ending
The storm raged on outside, thunder muffled by the walls of the church where she sat, soaked and soaking the cushioned pew. The creeping cold that had set into her bones was gradually fading away, leaving only a faint numbness and the soft warmth of the church itself. Hands clasped, chin propped on her hands, eyes staring blankly at the simple altar, she listened to the growling winds and heavy rain.
“Troubles?”
A dark-haired man sat down beside her, face open and gentle, hinting at knowledge and compassion. She laughed, the sound soft and bitter.
“You have no idea. I’m lost, my car’s halfway down the mountainside, I’m running from my fears and friends, my very existence might end the world, I don’t know where I’m going, the man I lo- I care for more than I should has no idea I’m fleeing, and I’m tired.” Her voice cracked on the last words, fading into the quiet of the ambient light. She ran a hand through her wet hair, the dark circles under her eyes a mute testimony to the long nights she had spent awake instead of sleeping.
“So tired…”
The murmur of voices rippled through the silence, washing over them like surf on a shore as teenagers began to set up instruments and mikes, oblivious to the stranger sitting in their church. Samantha breathed in the comforting scents of incense and fresh orchids, carefully placed beside the altar. Lightening flashed, illuminating the stained glass windows for a brief instant- and then all was dark again.
It was a while longer before he spoke.
“It’s much simpler to say that you have failed than to step back and believe it. When the moment comes, you will have to let the chance to save them slip past. Can you?”
She has no answer for him.
“There is no guarantee that it will get easier from here on out, or that there is peace ahead. But the best we can do is fight on, embracing our pain and hoping that it will mean something.” At his words, she followed his glance to the cross hanging behind the altar.
Yes, someone else had known suffering and agony too.
“Here.” A set of car keys entered her vision and Sam blinked, staring at him. “You need a new ride.”
Was he-- offering her a car?
“I can’t-”
“You can.” He took her hand and pressed the keys into her palm, smiling. “The next time you’re in the neighborhood, swing by to pick up your car.” And, when she started to protest again: “A random act of kindness. Go.”
Something in his words ignited an unknown urgency within her; all thoughts of sleeping or dying were wiped away as a surge of adrenaline rose, sharpening her mind and focusing it on one person: Jack.
The change was visible: Sam’s eyes brightened; she sat up straighter; her entire body quivered with contained energy.
“I have to go.” Her words may have been soft, but they were intent. Alive. The man squeezed her hand with benevolent approval.
“Peace be with you, Daughter.”
And in a breath she rose and whirled out of the church, pushing the glass doors open as the choir began to sing behind her. He watched her go, then closed his eyes to listen while the song drifted out into the storm.
“So here I am again
Willing to be opened up and broken like a flower in the rain
Tell me what have I to do
To die and then be raised
To reach beyond the pain
Like a flower in the rain…”
-
Ice cold rain slid down the back of her neck, trickling along her spine in a steady stream that she ignored- or, rather, didn’t notice at all. Her fingers tightened of their own accord around the keys and the lights of a parked car flashed. Puddles splashed as she walked through them, as though drawn to the yellow gleam; water drenched her shoes and jeans.
The door opened once she pulled the handle and she slid in, leather trench coat dripping as she turned the keys. With a quiet purr it started, and she was closing the door when a low voltage buzz shocked her.
Great .
Her locator was active again.
One hand fished in a pocket and pulled a hypodermic needle as she rolled up her shirt sleeve with the other. Taking off the plastic cover with her teeth, Sam jabbed it into a vein and sighed with relief when the tingling sensation vanished. Out of danger, she put the car into drive and left the parking lot, headed for Washington.
As the storm danced violently around her, her mind rang with a single name.
Jack.
xXx
As suddenly as the deluge of sky-water had come, one might have expected it to finish and move on in a matter of minutes.
The weather system hovering over Washington had been there for three solid hours and didn’t look like it was leaving any time soon.
Jack listened to the rain drumming furiously on the roof and was very glad that he was inside, out of the cold. News reporters on the TV chattered away about the small flood making its way through Washington, immersing the lower lying homes in three inches of water. (He was unashamedly glad his house was on a hill.) Forecasters and meteorological experts were having a field day alternately trying to explain where the nor’easter had come from, and desperately attempting to say when it would go away.
A hunch was telling Jack that it was going to hang around for a while longer.
The radio on the couch next to him clicked.
“General, Colonel C- hostile is approaching. We’re in position.”
He picked it up
“Acknowledged. Keep on alert, folks, but do not engage. I repeat, do not engage until necessary. And that, for those of you with trigger happy fingers, means until I call for back-up or she tries to kill me. I don’t want to have to bring a body back. Radio silence until further notice.”
Turning it off, Jack rose from the couch and moved towards the front door. He had been in too many bad spots and impossible situations to let nerves get to him at a moment like this, but that didn’t lighten the lead knot in his stomach.
All he could do now was hope it didn’t come to the gun that was burning steel-cold against his back.
He opened the door.
She stood just in front of the porch, oblivious to the rain pounding down on her shoulders. (Funny how he had never realized just how slender those shoulders were.) Her hair stuck out to the sides in spikes, defying gravity and weather; her hands were tucked into the trench coat (did she have a weapon?). And her eyes-
Her eyes were ice silver.
In that moment, immobile in the downpour, she was a creature beyond mortal imagination, a power beyond confinement- a force of Nature to be reckoned with.
They looked at each other without much surprise, as though they had already accepted the coincidence of meeting and moved on.
“Carter.” Jack said, leaning against the doorway in his T-shirt and sweats. “What brings you to my door?”
She tilted her head to the side a fraction of a degree; a faint movement, to be sure, but one he knew very, very well. It was what she did when confronted with a new, unexpected, and intriguing dilemma.
A chill ran down his spine as Carter’s silver eyes changed minutely, her expression turning slightly contemptuous, slightly amused, a touch resigned and understanding. As if she knew about the gun, the security team. About his fear, his tension.
In that instant, he knew she could kill them with less than a thought. But Carter/It only blinked-
Blue eyes looked back at him.
“Sir.” There was almost a question mark on the end of that word.
“Yes, Carter, it’s me. Care to come in out of the rain?” He kept his tone neutral, his expression open and familiar. A few seconds passed as a confused hesitation played out on her face; and then she took a step forward, up onto the porch. He moved to the side to let her in, deliberately not glancing out to where the security team was stationed as he closed the door.
Water from her sopping wet clothing dripped onto the floor as she swept the interior with her gaze; he didn’t offer to hang up her coat but walked instead to the kitchen, grabbing the pot of boiling water and a mug.
“Tea?”
“Mm.”
Taking that for a ‘yes’, Jack picked out a chamomile/green tea blend and let it sit for the time being.
“So, Carter, since you’re not in the habit of dropping by without warning, might I ask why you’re here?” She had sat down at the two-person table, legs crossed as she watched the weather outside.
“I- I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.” Her reply was a whisper, barely audible above the noise of the storm.
“How’d you get here?”
“A- a car, I think.” One hand fiddled with a pocket and he fought down the urge to tense; then she pulled out a set of keys. Sam looked at them without comprehension, visibly torn. “A car.”
Jack picked up the mug and walked over to the table, offering it to her. She didn’t take it, waiting until he shrugged and put it down on the table to touch it. Then she sipped at it distractedly, barely wincing with the hot liquid spilled down her throat.
There was something wrong. Well, other than the obvious ‘being possessed by alien life form/program’ and hypothermia; the disjointed flickering of personality to personality, the edge of sliver that was still rimming her irises, the sense of urgency that was almost palpable-
One or the other was trying to say something, or remember it. And Jack understood that both of them had equal chances of killing him, but that same nagging feeling that had told him not to have the Daedalus beam Sam into confinement was now telling him he had to push the limits.
“What happened, Carter?”
The familiar lines appeared on her forehead as she frowned, trying to think back, fingers twisting the mug around until she stiffened. Her shocked, terrified, reconciled eyes met his.
“I’m going to be killed.”
Jack shoved his instinctive response down and waited a heartbeat to ask the next question.
“By who?”
Sam’s shoulders lifted and fell, her hands still wrapped around the mug.
“You.”
---
Her simple reply stunned him, throwing him off balance unlike nothing else she could have come up with.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a threat. An unknown entity. A wild card.” Under her voice crept a rough tremor, like a Goa’uld’s “double voice”. “The Ancient device, the program, Daniel’s interpretation. There’s nothing else you or I would do. But Jack-”
His name on her tongue sounded strange, distorted, desperate. A plea.
“I don’t want to be terminated.”
Lightening severed the sky into a thousand pieces outside the window, and Jack thought vaguely that it couldn’t be a coincidence. Sam’s hands had released the tea and reached towards him now, stopping before they actually made contact with his skin.
“I wasn’t made to destroy. AERIS was made to help, to heal. Program went wrong.“ Her voice was cracking, shifting between ‘Sam’ and ‘Other’ between words.
“Jack- I want to live.”
“How can I help you, Sam? What can I do?” Anger pushed aside Fear to ease up next to Concern; anger that this thing, while apparently sentient, was not only taking over his Carter but expecting him to do the impossible. She had already been deemed a threat; he had only been the bait in the trap.
And now she/it was asking him to get her out of it.
She hesitated, considering, thinking. He could almost see the gears flying into overdrive in her mind. Then dawned realization, consciousness, focus; blue/silver enveloped his world as she gravitated towards him, only inches apart in their half-sitting, half-standing poses like statues.
“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim.”
Jack only had enough time to recognize the form of ‘modern’ Ancient (Latin) before she whispered again.
“I’m sorry.”
And then her hands gently grabbed his, lifting one and pressing it against her sternum, his fingers touching the base of her throat.
Glass and wood shattered as the security team busted in, guns pointing at the hostile… but already her eyes had rolled up, her hands had let go, and she had crumpled to the linoleum like a discarded doll.
xXx
Things had taken a lot of explaining and paperwork from there on out; he wasn’t particularly fond of paperwork, but doing enough to get Landry to let him into the base had been worth it.
“Stats one-eighty over ninety…”
“Hypodermic needle… scalpel!”
“…she’s holding steady, doctor.”
A gray ceiling swam into focus as she blinked, dry eyes aching as light filtered in.
“Hello, sunshine. Ready for another great day of living?”
“Uhhh…” She rubbed the back of her hand against her forehead, ignoring the numerous IV lines and drips stuck into her arm. “Jack?”
“No, Carter, it’s the Easter Bunny. How ya feeling?”
“Horrible.”
“Wonderful.” He must have moved to sit on the edge of the bed, because she could see him now. There were well-worn worry-lines etched into his face, although no one else might have noticed. “You had us worried.” The ‘us’ meaning ‘me’, of course.
“Sorry to inconvenience you-” She jerked, sitting up abruptly. Orange spots danced merrily against her eyelids as his firm hands held her steady. “Ooooh…”
“You’re in a hospital bed for a reason, Colonel.”
“I thought you said you’d never call me that again after you retired.” She groaned, massaging her temples.
“When you get possessed by an Ancient weather program-this ‘Aeris’ thing- and go half-mad, not to mention apparently vanish off the face of the Earth for three days, I think I get to pull rank.”
“Ancient weather- is it okay?” Blinking against the light, she looked up at Jack with an effort. “It didn’t want to end, Jack. I felt it- I was it- and all it wanted to do was help.”
He applied for a leave of absence from Washington- well, not so much "applied" as "walked out with a suitcase and told his secretary he wasn’t going to be back for a while".
She stood in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. There, ringing her irises, was a thin line of silver.
It lived within her still, ghosting around the edges of Samantha Carter, waiting not for a chance to strike but for enough time to learn, to grow and adapt.
To be fixed.
“Perfer et obdura.” Be patient and tough.
Hot dogs and steaks had been purchased and were sitting in the fridge; the grill was cleaned and ready for action.
SG-1 and GT-1 relaxed in the empty cafeteria, laughing and wide awake when everyone else in the mountain was sleeping. Waving her beer in a dismissive gesture remarkably like O’Neill’s, she looked at Sheppard.
“Do you have an identical twin?”
John looked startled.
“Yeah… how’d you know?”
“Why isn’t he at Atlantis too?” By this point everyone was staring at them.
“He doesn’t have the gene- don’t ask me how that works.”
“Well, you see, it’s an interesting combination of-”
“Rodney, spare us the lecture, will ya? I’m on vacation.”
“If you go up to visit him, I’ve got a car that you can use.”
Sheppard smiled at her words.
“Gave you his baby, did he? Must’ve really liked you.”
Carter shrugged off the accusations of her teammates and rolled her eyes, taking another swig of beer. Whether or not the tests said John’s brother had the gene, the fact that Aeris had responded to him was good enough for her. One had to consider that they had barely begun to scratch the surface…
All that he needed now was the woman who had turned his world- and multiple others, along with a few galaxies and several solar systems- upside down from day one.
Their wine glasses clinked softly together.
“How about a toast?” She sat in her wheelchair, wicked grin softened by the candlelight. (Yes, as surprising as it was, Jack O’Neill could be a romantic.)
“A toast?”
“To those who come, and those who go, but most of all, to those who stay.”
“Very… deep.” Jack commented, taking a sip of his drink. She laughed softly.
“Do you remember?”
“I remember a lot of things, Carter. Pick one.” Noticing that she was looking at her hand, he set his glass down and held it gently in his own.
“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim.” The Latin words flowed easily off her tongue, a gift from Aeris. He paused for a moment, reliving that horrible moment when he realized that she was saying goodbye, and then nodded slowly.
“I do.”
“ ‘Some day this pain will be useful to you.’ ” She whispered, still staring at their linked hands.
After a moment, he spoke.
“Your pain, Sam, will never be useful to me. And don’t say that I don’t know that. I do.” When she looked up and met his gaze, her odd, beautiful, dearly loved eyes were filled with tears.
“I hope so. Knowing that I- we- were out of control, that only someone with the Ancient gene could stop us, I realized I was going to die. And I was scared, Jack. Scared, because I thought that you were going to be left behind, alone again. By yourself, because I had loved you and had to leave you.”
He reached up and drew her head down onto his shoulder, holding her as she wept with the anxiety and fear that had driven her through those three days.
“But I’m not alone, am I?”
“No. You’re mine, and you’re going to stay that way.” She said firmly, and he smirked when he heard the upbeat note in her voice. He knew how to push all of her buttons- most of the time, anyway. Then he had an unsettling and very strange thought that no one else on Earth had ever had or was likely to ever think.
“Do I have to split you with Aeris or something? Because body time shares are going to be kind of hard to explain-”
“Aeris isn’t going to need control of my body like the Tok’ra or the Goa’uld. She’ll “sleep” unless I need her.”
“ ‘She’?”
“Well, ‘it’ was just plain awkward and ‘he’ didn’t sound right.”
“I want to be the only male in your life, Carter, body-sharing Ancient weather program or not.”
“Don’t worry, Jack, you are.”
“Good.”
The screen door slid open and she walked out on her own power, perhaps a bit shaky and unsteady, but sure and confident and tall.
He looked up, saw her grin, and waved her over.
“Care to do the honors?”
She accepted, but put her hand over his as she flipped the first burger onto a bun, slapping on a slice of cheese with the ease of practice.
“Taught you well, I have.” Jack said approvingly, and she flashed him a smile. Soon the rest of the meal was ready, and Sam went back into the house to tell their guests that the food was ready. The party spilled out onto the lawn, chatter and cheers weaving a music that sounded better to their ears than any orchestral piece ever could.
“Wasn’t it supposed to rain?” The question floated through the crowd, and he glanced at his wife. She gave him an innocent look, betrayed only by the gleam of silver in her gaze.
He laughed, and put a new batch of burgers on the grill.