Sam's apartment - Boulder, Colorado - Wee small hours of the night

[cameronmitchell]

It'd been almost a week since Cameron had been staying with Sam and he was starting to get used to waking up in what was for the moment his bedroom. The shadows playing across the ceiling had familiar shapes now and he stared up at them, letting his mind go blank as he struggled for his breath

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[carter_i_am]

Sam, of course, had fallen asleep in the lab in the middle of working on an experiment, and had her head pillowed on her arms as she slept, lights on and blazing, pencil in hand.

At least she hadn't fallen asleep on the microscope. Again.

[cameronmitchell]

He glanced over at her, considering pretending he didn't know what she meant, but then decided against it. He reached out with his free hand, tugging at the edge of her pants.

"I don't know which part is worse," he admitted. "The dreams or waking up and knowing they're true."

[carter_i_am]

She reached to give his hand a squeeze. "I can't even imagine what you're going through, and anyone who tells you they can--well, they're probably lying."

[cameronmitchell]

He swallowed and squeezed her hand back. "I'd rather no one has to," he replied.

[carter_i_am]

Who the hell was she to talk about communication on any subject? "At some point, I'll probably need you to explain exactly what happened, so we can warn the SGC here. But you can write that, or record it, and it doesn't have to be right this minute."

[cameronmitchell]

He sighed and leaned his head back against the couch, his hand coming to rest on her feet. "What do you need to know?" he asked. Not that he wanted to talk, but it was buzzing in his head anyway and maybe... He didn't know how to finish that thought.

[carter_i_am]

"How'd it start?" For once, she thanked her memory, since it meant she wouldn't have to take notes. "Go slow, and stop when you need to."

[cameronmitchell]

"May 28, 2009," he said, the date engraved in his mind. "Just finished my second year at the academy and I was still in Colorado Springs as I had training during the first part of Summer. It was all over the news, these... ships showed up all across the world. Guess they were trying to impress. They gave an ultimatum; we convert to Origin or they'd wipe us out." He grimaced. "They gave us week to come up with a reply. We said no... they decided to persuade us."

[carter_i_am]

"What means did they use? Did they start right with the plague, or did they use a different method to warm you up?" God, she hated asking these questions, but they'd need to know.

[cameronmitchell]

"No, the plague was..." He grimaced, held in the words as they were too harsh. "They invaded. Last of the news I ever saw was the ships moving down on cities. Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Dehli, Moskou, Tokyo,... Big cities. They must have destroyed the satellites and stuff because we lost television and the all sort of radio frequencies were getting jammed."

"We were isolated for a while. The superintendent had the senior cadets and some of the teachers take the planes of the academy up to the airbase. They never made if back so I'm assuming they got destroyed. After a few days we started receiving refugees. Both coming from the coat and the Lakes."

[carter_i_am]

Sam reached over and squeezed Cameron's leg. He wasn't alone now, and she wanted him to remember that when he could. "Did you worry about spies at all? How many refugees? How were they fed?"

[cameronmitchell]

"I don't know how many. Couple of hundreds maybe? We got orders to enforce the police in Colorado Springs, keep an eye on them. We detained them for a while, but those priors didn't much care for spies and that. We heard stories that the troops were always accompanied by one of them. They just repeated the offer in the cities they reached. You either converted or you got wiped out," he continued, not just having to finish this.

"When the electricity grid went down, the superintendent decided to evacuate us. He told the mayor to give up the city when the troops reached it. I think... I think he was hoping it wouldn't last. That we'd get reinforcements and we'd take the city back from them."

[carter_i_am]

"But none came?" She asked, as gently as she could.

[cameronmitchell]

"No," he struggled with the word for a moment, watching her feet instead of her. "We resisted, kept trying to fight them whenever we could. Didn't seem to make much of a difference and there were always more of them than there were of us. Some people really converted to Origin and... We kept losing and then one day, they just... left. They took their followers with them and they left."

[carter_i_am]

"And then?" She didn't want to push, but she needed to know almost as much as he needed to talk about it. "What kind of weapons did they have? What did they use to fight you?"

[cameronmitchell]

"And then they infected anyone left with that virus," he replied, his voice strangely void of emotion.