The Patience of Kings - Epilogue
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Previously: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8
The Patience of Kings - Epilogue
Samantha Carter's house, Colorado Springs, December 2005
Cameron's eyes opened blearily and he blinked in the unfamiliar light. Groaning slightly, he looked down at the plaid blanket covering his chest and legs as he lay on a couch. Sam's couch. Oh, right. She made him spend the night after he drove her home. He looked to the side after stretching a little and froze as he saw Sam sitting on her coffee table in her dressing gown. She looked at him sadly as she leant her forearms on her knees and clasped her hands in front of her.
"Mornin', Sam." he murmured as he sagged slightly on the couch then swung his legs out to sit up and scrub at his face.
"Cameron, I was up most of the night." she muttered and he looked up in a bit of a worry.
"Sam, I didn't mean for you to-" he stopped when Sam reached over and put her fingers over his lips.
"Let me finish." She brought her hand back to her lap. "I was up because I realised something after you'd gone to sleep." He looked at her in confusion. "Twelve years ago, Cameron. You came to see me. You came to Washington just before you went home because you wanted to talk to me. It was about this, wasn't it?" she asked. Cam watched her eyes as her brows tightened and he nodded slowly. "Oh, Cameron!" she cried. "How can you not have hated me?" He shook his head and reached for her hands. "You came to me at the worst time in your life, and I slapped you across the face because you told me a truth I didn't want to hear!" She pulled a hand from his grasp and raised it to run her fingers across his cheek.
"You didn't know." he breathed and she shook her head.
"I could see you weren't yourself. I could see it in your eyes and I still let Jonas work me over." She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw tight. "You know what he said? Well, not what he said, what he implied." She ran her hand through her hair and looked into his eyes. "He made me think you'd done something to get yourself put up for review and reassignment." She laughed bitterly. "He twisted everything, he pulled it all out of context and had me doubting you. You! He had me doubting my dearest friend and I didn't speak to you again for nearly four years, Cameron." She covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes welled up in sudden tears. "And the worst thing, Cam..." She closed her eyes for several moments until she set her jaw. When she opened her eyes again they had turned stony. "What I can't forgive..." She shook her head. "If he weren't dead already, Cameron, I'd kill him myself. I swear I would." She reached out and touched his cheek once more. "He made me doubt you when you needed me the most."
"Sam..." He reached up and took her hand in his. "Don't blame yourself. Hell, it was my fault anyway." Her eyes widened as she looked at him. "I lost it when I saw him. When I saw him with you." She shook her head. "I just needed to get out."
"Cameron, no. You can't say that. You weren't in a good place." She got up and spun around to sit next to him on the couch. "And I should never have doubted you." She looked down at her hands in her lap. "I shouldn't have doubted you." Cameron took her hands in his. "After I split with Jonas, and it was because he was everything you said he was and more, believe me... I hated what I did, I hated..." She closed her eyes and Cam put an arm around her shoulder. "Why the Hell are you comforting me when I should be comforting you?"
"Sam, the fact you didn't push me away yesterday when you heard... that was all I needed." he breathed and she shook her head as she laid it on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Cameron. I'm so sorry." she whispered as he laid his cheek against the top of her head. They sat in silence on her couch for several minutes before Cameron broke the stillness.
"You know... I'm glad you slapped me that day." he said softly. Sam raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him in surprise. "Well, usually, you lead with a right cross." he explained as he held up a hand to touch his nose. She blinked several times before covering her mouth as she began laughing.
Cameron Mitchell's house, Colorado Springs, Christmas Eve 2009
Sam smiled broadly as the door opened to reveal Cameron's happy grin. He bid her enter and when the door closed she pressed herself against him and kissed him hard. He certainly made no protest, hooking an arm around her shoulder while his other hand moved through her sandy brown hair. She wrapped her hands around his waist and spread her fingers wide against his back, he backed up slowly and she broke the kiss to take a deep breath and look into his blue eyes as she moved forward while still in his arms. Glancing over his shoulder she could see his kitchen through a door and figured he was guiding them there by memory, confirmed when his lips found hers again while his steps never faltered. He flicked at her lower lip with his tongue and she let him inside, deepening the kiss herself, tasting him and... frowning slightly... wine sauce? She pulled back and turned her head, noticing he was actually holding a wooden spoon in his hand over her shoulder. She grinned and buried her face in his neck, finding his pulse point and taking a quick bite. He chuckled and she felt the vibrations through her chest pressed tightly against his. They came to a stop as his back met the counter of the island in his kitchen.
"What are you making me?" she asked softly, looking at the pan simmering away on the hob and taking in the sight of the oven beyond it with a couple of roasting dishes inside.
"Hmm, rack of lamb with a red wine sauce, roasted baby potatoes with rosemary and thyme, steamed green beans, carrots and broccoli." he listed while counting off on his fingers. Sam's mouth was watering already and she pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "It'll be done in twenty. How about you go pour yourself a glass of wine and I'll call you when it's ready." She smiled and nodded, kissing him tenderly and moving into the dining room where she found a bottle of red wine, decanted and breathing on the table. Before she poured herself a glass she remembered she still had her coat on and shrugged it off.
"Can I just leave my coat in the living room, sweetie?" she asked, moving towards the doors opposite from the kitchen. He called back an assent and she stepped in, tossing her jacket over the back of a recliner. She glanced over the room as she let her fingers run over the back of the chair. She'd been to Cam's place many times over the last four and a half years, he'd always been a little messy. He kept his games consoles spread out on a low table next to the wall under the big screen, flat panel television and there was always a large pile of games or DVDs lying around it too. He was such a guy, at least in this room. This was in complete contrast with his sparklingly clean kitchen. Even with several pans and roasts going everything seemed to be under his control in there, while the living room looked very lived in. She smiled in recollection of all the movie nights they'd spent here, team nights and now the private ones they'd started for just the two of them. She walked over to his media shelf and ran a finger over the spines of his movie and TV show collection. She had impossible memories of watching a lot of these during their time on Odyssey, something she was slowly learning to come to terms with, the scientist in her would still rebel against the notion unless she somehow figured out how it had all happened, she shook her head. There were many newer titles, released since that time which she still had to watch. She was looking forward to it. She chuckled to herself, remembering how she had usually tried to avoid the movie nights when they'd first started them. Eventually she got used to them, then started looking forward to them. Now she was even enjoying some girls' movie nights with Vala, Carolyn and Cassie, when she was visiting from Nevada. She smiled.
She turned her head and walked over to his book shelf, running her hands over his collection of science fiction novels and other books. She laughed when she spotted Daniel's books high up on the top shelf and took one of them down to see the archaeologist's goofy picture on the back sleeve. She reached up again to put it back, but spotted something behind the books at the back of the shelf. Pulling some more books down revealed a small bundle of envelopes. Oh, she shouldn't. She really, really shouldn't. She bit her lower lip and picked up the bundle to see who the letters were from. She frowned when she saw that they weren't letters to Cameron at all. She leafed through the unsealed envelopes to note all of them had her name on them, with her various addresses from down the march of time scrawled on them in Cam's bold hand. She glanced up and looked towards the kitchen for a moment before turning to sit in the chair by the computer desk. She spread the envelopes out a bit and picked one up at random.
Her address in D.C. was scrawled across the envelope and she turned it over to see Cam's contact information from Kadena. This letter must be over fifteen years old. She laid it back down and got up to fish in her coat for her glasses, putting them on she walked back and sat down again. Taking up the letter once more, she lifted the fold and slipped several sheets of letter paper out to see Cam's handwriting filling up a side of each sheet. It started off in a standard way, though when she thought back to this time in their relationship it was when they hadn't been speaking to each other. She closed her eyes and sighed, she really didn't want to remember it, not her time with Jonas Hanson. However, his letter didn't seem to make a mention of it, he just wrote about the happenings on base, about the new friends he'd made and about the sights he'd already visited on Okinawa. How he wanted to take her to see all the temples, gusuku fortresses and the lion statues called 'shiisaa' which seemed to be everywhere, she smiled slightly with a glance to the kitchen again, thinking she would like to travel with him more. He mentioned how he had started learning Japanese and was learning how Okinawan culture was very distinct from mainland Japan.
As the letter progressed it began to get a lot more personal, he wrote about his hopes and dreams and eventually moved on to his feelings for her. Sam's eyes widened slightly as he began recounting times they'd been together and how he'd felt during them and she lifted a hand to cover her mouth as he eventually admitted he loved her. The letter didn't get much beyond that and Sam wondered why. She picked up another of the envelopes and pulled the letter out, reading more of his travels, this time in mainland Japan and some visits he'd made in Korea when his patrols had him forward deployed to air bases on the peninsula for a few weeks at a time. She kept reading and again the letter progressed to recollection of his memories of her and of his feelings for her and again stopped not long after an admission that he had been in love with her since the Academy. Her fingers were shaking slightly as she picked up another letter and skipped forward to the last page to again find a similar confession which led to the letter trailing off unfinished. She closed her eyes and held the letter to her chest as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Sam? Are you okay, baby?" his soft voice startled her and she looked up from the chair to see him walking towards her and taking in the sight of the letters spread out on his computer table. She closed her eyes and waited for his anger to find voice at her invasion of his privacy. As the protracted silence continued she eventually spoke up herself.
"I'm sorry, Cameron, I was snooping and I just couldn't stop myself-" she began in apology only to be surprised when his fingertips gently brushed against her cheek, forcing her to open her eyes and look up at him.
"I suppose now you can see what I meant that time when I said my letters always went too far." he said with a faintly embarrassed smile. She looked down at the sheet in her hand and nodded when she remembered their reconciliation before she travelled to join the SGC and the few days they'd spent together getting reacquainted. Her brows tightened when she realised she still lived in that same house he'd helped her find. She looked up at him and held up the letter to him.
"Why did you never mail them?" she asked softly. "We weren't in the same chain-of-command, we could have been together. We could have..." she trailed off at the sad look in his eyes and she realised how unlikely that would have been at the time, even after their reconciliation he was still assigned to a base on the other side of the world from her. She looked down and saw her fingers were still trembling slightly. "I wish we had been braver, Cameron." He knelt down in front of her and slipped the papers from her grasp and laid them back on the table. He took her fingers in his and kissed them gently.
"So do I." he breathed softly as she lifted one of her hands to stroke at his cheek, then leaned forward to kiss him. She pulled back to pierce him with a serious look, a fiery gaze filled with command.
"From now on, no more regrets, no more hesitation. Understood?" she ordered and he smiled gently with a nod.
"Yes, ma'am." His smile had her mesmerised for several moments until he reached up and took her glasses off and laid them down on the desk. He stood up and took her hand in his. "Come, let me feed you." She grinned and followed behind him eagerly. "Tomorrow is a special day."
USS Odyssey, above P3X-474, May 2007 + 8,097 days relative
Sam watched Daniel from the door of the Asgard Database room, how he poured over the runes and other alien texts as they floated and scrolled in the semi-darkness. She nearly turned back, but she had to tell someone, she had to or her heart would crush itself inside her chest with the guilt.
"Hey." she said softly, hesitantly.
"Hey." he replied without turning around, he wouldn't turn from his work just to greet one of them. She stepped inside and rubbed one of her sleeves with a hand before crossing her arms together as she reached the control podium.
"Why do you do it? Knowing everything you learn is going to die with you?" she asked him. A question she'd been wrestling with for over two decades. Wrestling with it because it was a loaded question. She wasn't talking just about the knowledge he'd learned from the database, or the knowledge she'd learned from the Core. She was talking about the knowledge they'd lived through. Knowing the love he and Vala shared, the love she and Cam shared. She'd found her complement that first day at the Academy, but she'd only accepted that's what he was after being stuck on this ship. And she'd been working so hard all this time at something that would erase it. Daniel turned to her with a slight smile, he paused a moment before walking towards her as he spoke.
"I know you guys all think I'm crazy, but…the truth is, if I stop, I'll go crazy." He picked up one of the Asgard stones from the podium and held it in his hand, glancing down at it. "Besides, you haven't given up." She turned away for a moment.
"Yes, I have." she breathed. She turned to face him and saw the sadness in his eyes as he watched her. He sighed and glanced down at the control pedestal and laid the stone back on its surface.
"Sam, you don't want to be talking to me about-" he began only to stop at her vehement head shake. She lifted a hand to her furrowed brow and brushed her fingers against the skin. "Why don't you want-"
"Twenty years today." she whispered hoarsely. Emotion had loaded her voice so much she could barely breathe. "Two decades I've kept him waiting." She swallowed at the lump in her throat as she looked up for a moment. "Twenty years since I went to his quarters and found him standing in the wreckage of his life, holding on to the tattered remains of his pride..." She held a hand up to her mouth. "And he managed somehow... to gather up that pride and... tell me... and I ran." Daniel stood at her side with a hand on her arm. "I ran from him, but he waited. He waited so patiently for me to go back to him when I was ready. And I did, in time. I... accepted him for what he's always been to me deep down." She looked up into her friend's eyes. "He's my heart." she managed to choke out with a shuddering breath before she had to look away. "It was for him, Daniel, only him. I've been working all this time, just for him." Daniel frowned at her slightly. "I'm sorry, Daniel, I'm so sorry." He shook his head and brought her into his arms.
"Sam, what are you talking about?" he asked softly.
"He's been so patient, Daniel, he's the only one I've been working to save, but I can't anymore. I can't do it. Twenty years and I can't do it." She screwed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. "I destroyed him the day I switched on this field, Daniel. I locked away the greater part of his soul where he can't reach it, and for two years he drove himself to despair thinking I didn't... wouldn't... couldn't love him as he loved me." She looked up again at the archaeologist who watched her with eyes reflecting her own anguish. "And I ran!" she cried out in hatred of herself. "He told me he loved me and instead of telling him I felt the same, I ran!" She struggled out of Daniel's embrace and walked to the wall to slump down to the floor. "And I did feel the same, Daniel." she said as she looked up at him with watery eyes. She looked away for a long moment as he slowly got down on one knee in front of her, he grunted at the pain in his joints, but reached out to lift her head.
"Sam, he doesn't doubt your love." he whispered and she shook her head. She knew that. That's not why she felt so guilty.
"I don't deserve his love, his patience." she admitted. "Twenty years today, for twenty years Cameron has been my rock. He set his mind and heart and soul and since that day he's just strived to better himself and he's flourished." She looked up at Daniel and she couldn't suppress the pride as she spoke. "He's learned so much. He knows far more about the Asgard power core than I do now, he knows more about the hardware of the Asgard systems and he's learned so much from you as well." She blinked rapidly. "Because he's been waiting for me. He's been waiting for me to set him free again." She looked up and Daniel ran his hand across her cheek and over her hair. "But I can't. I don't know how." She grimaced as the pain in her heart grew acute. "And a part of me doesn't want to, because in here I have him and out there I won't." Daniel's hand dropped down from her hair to hang at his side. She shook her head ruefully and stood up, determined to get away, but the archaeologist was faster. He took a hold of her shoulders and held her against the wall.
"You don't mean that, Sam. I know you don't." he said softly and she shook her head. "We all believe in you. Cameron most of all." She looked at him as if he'd struck her. "You don't want to tell him you can't do it, I understand. So I will. I'll tell him for you." She grimaced, but nodded and he let her go.
An hour later she heard him entering their quarters as she looked out the viewport. These had been just 'his' quarters twenty years ago. It had been 'theirs' for most of the years since. And she didn't deserve that. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see the look in his eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself and waited in silence. She flinched when she felt his fingers coming into contact with her shoulder. She was surprised though, by the softness of his touch. His hand moved down her back and around her waist and his other hand touched her opposite shoulder, only for it to drift forward across her chest to pull her back against him. She began to cry immediately when his lips touched the skin of her neck, as gentle as a feather and so much warmer. He didn't say anything. She wept and clutched at his arm over her heart with her hands and he said nothing. She turned and buried her face in his neck and he said nothing. She drowned in his love and he said nothing.
As her knees gave way he picked her up and carried her to their bed, laying her down gently and sitting at the edge of it as he looked down at her. She began crying again when she saw his eyes. When he touched her cheek with his fingers to wipe away her tears they were just replaced by more. When he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers she sobbed and reached up to cup the back of his head tightly. He kissed her deeply, using the gentleness and intensity of his kisses to draw her love for him to the surface and lay it alongside his love for her. So she could see them together. So she could know, in the deepest recesses of her soul, that they were the same thing. A single thing, in two parts. And with his kisses he told her what they both knew mere words could never convey. That he would wait. He would wait patiently. He would wait forever. He would wait for her. Not because she could set him free, but because she already had.
Abandoned airfield near Colorado Springs, September 2010
Sam was shoved unceremoniously from behind as she walked barefoot out of the grandly-named-for-a-rusting-shack Terminal. She used that as cover to reach into the pocket dimension and slip out a combat knife which she used to start cutting the plastic tie around her wrists. In the distance she could hear weapons fire and explosions coming from the main buildings. She also heard Cam talking quietly into his radio.
"I have a twenty on Carter. Awaiting take-down order." She then heard him grumble angrily when she made a hand signal down by her waist after she paused momentarily from cutting through her bindings. She knew he wouldn't like it, but she wanted Tergali alive.
"You know, Tergali," she began jovially, "you made a few mistakes tonight. Want to know what they were?" The mercenary just grunted as he walked towards the runway. "Your first mistake was trashing Colonel Mitchell's Mustang. He loved that car." Tergali sent her a glare over his shoulder. "He might not have hurt you too badly if you'd left it at that, but you see, Cameron is my fiancé," she paused wondering if Tergali knew any French, "it means we're engaged to be married, and you had to go and cut me." She pushed her left arm and its bandage forward in the grip of one of her captors and smiled when she heard Cam growling.
"The things I do for you, Sam." he breathed.
"That was your second mistake, but don't worry, he's not going to kill you." she said with an evil grin.
"Be quiet, Doctor. Your fiancé will never reach us in time." Tergali muttered, clearly upset about what was happening in the distance.
"Your third mistake was not binding my hands behind my back," Sam carried on as if Tergali hadn't spoken, "but that's just a general thing and, to be honest, wouldn't have made much of a difference. Everybody makes that mistake so you shouldn't feel too badly about it. Your fourth mistake was a real doozy though. You shouldn't have left me alone in a cell without any monitoring or recording equipment." She shook her head when Tergali whirled about. She could tell Tanis, who had been walking off to the side of the man on her left, had stopped in her tracks as she spoke and had fallen back several paces from the main group. Tergali flicked his glance from Sam to Reynard, surely wondering what her comment meant. Sam smiled when she saw the Tel'tak decloaking behind the mercenary in the near distance, it's side door wide open. "I can't let you leave, Tergali."
She let the plastic tie she'd sliced through fall to the ground and the mercenary's eyes opened wide in alarm. She raised both elbows in a move neither of her keepers expected her to be able to make and clocked them both on the chin, causing them to stumble back. She then reached for her wrist, slipping the combat knife back inside the strip of light as it formed, then producing an FIM-92F Stinger from out of nowhere which she raised to her shoulder as she crouched down onto one knee. She heard a loud crack and blood sprayed out from Tergali's left thigh as he was reaching for his belt, he collapsed to the side in pain as she sighted down the end of the missile-launcher and fired at the cargo ship's entryway off in the distance. She heard Reynard firing her zats, presumably at Tergali's men, as she let the spent launcher drop from her hands and reached for her wrist again while she stood up. She pulled her hand away from the friendship bracelets and along with it came the pistol grip of an M870 combat shotgun, which she let swing down into her cupped palm as she looked down at Tergali and pulled back the pump-action slide.
The Tel'tak exploded in a huge fireball, lighting up the night sky as a rush of superheated air blew past them. Sam narrowed her eyes against the flash and the blast wave and walked slowly towards the mercenary when it was past. He was crying out in pain and clutching at his thigh and Sam kicked his gun away with a flick of her left foot through the slit of her gown. She tapped the barrel of her shotgun against Tergali's cheek. He instantly froze and looked up fearfully as she backed up a step. Sam watched him quietly for several moments as she felt Cam approaching from the side of the runway opposite the Terminal. He had his HK G36K propped up against the shoulder of his dress blues and picked his way through the debris lit up by the glow of the burning carcass of Tergali's ship while slowly unbuttoning his jacket.
Sam looked over at Reynard and flicked her head towards Tergali, indicating she should tie him up. The woman looked slightly shaken, but recovered quickly and produced more plastic ties from a pocket in her trousers, which she used to bind Tergali's men and the mercenary himself. She then started wrapping up his leg wound with a long roll of bandage Sam tossed her way. Tergali didn't seem to know what to look at, the woman he'd thought worked for him, but was now trussing him up like a prize steer, or the woman he was so sure had been his prisoner, but was now watching him like a blue-clad angel of death, bearing weapons she pulled out of thin air, or the stalking predator with a chest full of ribbons and medals he'd been so sure was dead, but was now glaring at him as if he was one sudden movement away from tearing his throat open with his bare hands.
"All these mistakes of yours, Tergali," Sam tilted her head as Cam came to stand next to her, "they all hang off one larger mistake, your zeroth mistake, if you will." She glanced at Cam as he touched the small of her back protectively and kissed her on the temple. He handed her his gun, and looped her rings on their chain over his head and re-clasped it around her neck. He then shrugged off his jacket and gently draped it over her shoulders before taking his weapon back. Sam tossed her hair into place with a flick of her hand and kissed him softly before she returned her gaze to the Lucian Alliance man. "You picked the wrong couple to mess with."
Stargate Command, September 2010
Jack stared down at the report in his hands as he leaned back in the chair next to General Landry's at the head of the briefing room table. His eyebrows would move up his forehead from time to time or draw down in a slight frown, and his lips would quirk in any one of a thousand different expressions. He blinked slightly as he looked up and Cam shifted slightly under his gaze.
"It was just supposed to be a party, Mitchell. What the Hell?" Jack grumbled tossing the report on the table. "Eat. Drink. Dance. Kiss the girl, no offense." he said, looking at Sam, she rolled her eyes. "Instead, Carter gets kidnapped by the Lucian Alliance, is thirty seconds from being whisked off-world where she was going to be brainwashed and put to work against us, and to top it all off, damned Borin' is in on this." He paused for a moment. "I'm trying not to mention the whole Tanis Reynard thing either."
"To be fair, sir, the eating, drinking, dancing and kissing the girl parts of the evening were going really well." Cam offered and Vala laughed out loud before clamping a hand over her mouth at General Landry's glare.
"Also, I really wasn't thirty seconds away from being taken off-world, sir." Sam pointed out. Jack just grunted. "And it was my idea to stay and gather intel."
"Yeah, remind me to have some serious words with you about that later on, Carter." Jack muttered darkly. She frowned at him.
"Look at it this way, Jack." Daniel began with a slight frown. "We rolled up a Lucian Alliance operation on Earth, gathered valuable insight into the euphemisms used by Masim and Borren during their meetings, not to mention intel on their actual goals. And," he held a finger up, "we have a direct link between the Aschen and the Indesta." Jack glared at the linguist.
"Oh, you're just loving that, aren't you, Daniel?" he groused as Daniel tilted his head from side to side with a shrug.
"We took the Lucian Alliance mercenaries completely unaware, O'Neill," Teal'c intoned from his seat next to Cam, "we captured many of them including their leader, at the cost of only minor casualties to our teams." He ended his recitation by glancing at Jack with a raised eyebrow.
"And Sam's fabulous dress." Vala added as she sat in between Jack and Daniel with her elbow propped on the table and her chin cupped in her hand.
"And my Mustang." Cam muttered dejectedly as he rested his still-aching forehead on an arm. Sam rubbed his back gently. Jack grumbled and groused as he leaned back in his chair.
"Jack, they're right." Landry said simply with a lift of his eyebrows. O'Neill glared at him and leaned forward in his chair again.
"I'll get you a new Mustang, Mitchell, and a new dress for you, Carter." he tapped his fingers on the table and turned his chair as if to get up.
"Jack." Daniel called slowly and O'Neill turned his chair to face him.
"Daniel." he said equally slowly.
"We're right, Jack." the linguist said simply.
"Also, sir," Cam said, looking up with a raised finger, "Sam wants us to look at GTs." Daniel and Jack turned to glare at him while Sam slapped his back with her mouth slightly agape. "I'm just sayin'." he muttered in his defense.
"You can't possibly want to do this, Daniel." Jack cried after Vala had stopped her giggling and they returned to the main topic the General was so desperate to dance around.
"Not really, no, but we have to do it, Jack." Daniel replied.
"It's the only way, sir." Sam said as O'Neill turned pleading eyes her way. "Only the Merlin in the past knows where he put-"
"Or to whom he gave." Daniel interjected, to which Sam nodded.
"Or to whom he gave Muranis' part of the Clava Thessara Infinitas." she finished. "And only a Muranis that isn't cracking under the strain of existing in eleven dimensions can tell us how to find Kariala."
"This is crazy." Jack declared. "And not Crazy Awesome either, Mitchell." He pointed in warning at Cameron. "Flying your damaged F302 into the path of an Al'kesh's guns and pulling off a Kulbit to save the day at the last second... Crazy Awesome. Dropping out of hyperspace a hundred kilometers above the surface of the Earth in the hopes of averting a biological catastrophe..." he tilted his hand from side to side, "maybe Crazy Awesome. Going back in time fifteen hundred years to find a possibly half-crazy Ancient with a habit of pissing off ascended beings... not Crazy Awesome."
"General, we know Hypraxia can send us back from the past." Vala prompted. "We have examples of entries from Merlin's Library that speak of him using 'the Pillar of Heaven in the land of Hypraxia Korvalis' to travel back and forth through time."
"Not in so many words, but it's clear from context what's going on." Daniel elaborated then flinched when Vala gave him a smack. Jack took the opportunity to look at Sam pointedly.
"How can you of all people, agree with this?" he demanded and Cam felt her stiffen a little as she sat next to him with her hand still on his back. He frowned slightly. "What about mucking up the timestream and all that jazz?"
"Sir, I think Cameron and Daniel are right." she explained in a low voice. "I think we are the historical figures Merlin says we are. Anything we do in the past, as such, is already history." She shrugged and Cam sat up and took her hand under the table after she slipped it from behind him. Jack turned to Teal'c with a bright smile.
"Teal'c... big guy... good buddy..." Jack frowned when the only response he received from the Jaffa was an impassive stare. "I thought we were friends, man."
"We are indeed good friends, O'Neill." Teal'c said with a small bow and a slight smile on his lips. Jack growled and turned to Landry.
"Hank, you're with me on this, right? This is crazy, right?" he asked.
"It's the craziest thing I've ever heard of, Jack." Landry said and O'Neill motioned at the commander of the SGC in vindication. "But no matter how crazy and stupid it is, and it is both of those in spades, they're right." All the members of SG-1 leaned forward slightly and looked intently at Jack. He glared at all of them in turn and looked at Landry for several long seconds.
"Oh, for crying out loud! Fine! Bon voyage! Hasta luego! Have fun! Bring me a souvenir from the Dark Ages! Crazy-ass freaks." he ranted as he stood up with Cam quick to follow suit. "What the Hell am I gonna tell the IOA, huh? Answer me that! No! What the Hell am I gonna tell the President?" He walked over to the stairs leading down to the control room and leaned over the railing. "Walter! This place is full of crazy people!"
"Yes, sir." acknowledged the Chief Master Sergeant's voice. Cam couldn't really begrudge him that. He sat down and leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Man's got a point." he said as Sam raised a hand to caress his cheek.
On to the Gag Reel
To be continued in 'Queen and Soldier'