"Impenetrable" by tjh102
Title: Impenetrable
Author: tjh102
Rating/Warning: PG rating but deals with sensitive issues (specifically cancer)
Spoilers: "Singularity", "The Tok'ra", "Threads" and Season 9/10 characters
Recipient: Mandy90SG1 Mandy90SG1
Request details: No requests
‘Is there a history of cancer in your family, Colonel Carter?’
Sam felt the bile rise in the back of her throat as she remembered the doctor’s words. There was an aftershock of anger and repulsion, a strong sense of indignation at the fact that she hadn’t known; did that idiot not READ the medical records?
But it hadn’t been with indignation that she had replied; it had been with the anaesthetising qualities of shock and horror as the gravity of the situation settled on her heart and mind.
‘No… I mean, yes, there has. My dad had… he nearly… it was lymphoma,’ she had told the doctor, her eyes flitting blindly round the room as she racked her mind for possibilities. ‘But it’s not… They told me that it wasn’t hereditary.’
Normally the sympathetic glance would have driven her mad; she hated being treated as if she were fragile, but she barely noticed the medic’s gaze in her self-absorbed state. Sympathy was welcome from those she knew well because she’d earned their respect and they’d earned hers; she knew it wasn’t just looking down on the poor woman. She kept everything so guarded, such a close secret, had worked so hard for so many years to earn that respect, that the secrecy and self-restraint had seeped into her very being, even keeping her emotions in check to the point that it was a struggle to accept comfort.
There had been a time when she had thought that those barriers were gone, that she had finally broken through them and had become “normal”, that she had almost earned the right to show those feelings. But give her a crisis and she snapped straight back into military mode. It was a practical necessity. She couldn’t afford sympathy and hugs when she had something to deal with or a problem to solve.
‘It is widely acknowledged that there is a genetic aspect to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,’ Doctor Lam continued. ‘Lymphoma may not be hereditary as a rule, but it is caused by a genetic defect and is thought to be triggered by certain conditions or changes in conditions.’
‘Gate travel,’ Sam had stated simply.
Lam cocked her head. ‘It’s a possibility, but unlikely. After ten years of gate travel, it would be unlikely to be the wormhole itself triggering the effect. We would have picked it up a long time ago.’
Sam had blinked and looked up into the woman’s eyes. ‘Long time… you mean…?’
‘No, God, no!’ Lam had gasped, horrified that she had given that impression. ‘I mean the opposite. Had it been gate travel, it would be unlikely that it had only been triggered recently. And given the regular physicals you have, we’ve been able to pick it up very early on. A course of chemotherapy will reduce the size of the cancer enough to operate. It should also prevent it from returning.’
Should. Why was it that such a tiny word could change the meaning so much? Should. It wasn’t “will”, it wasn’t “can”, it was “should”. An element of doubt.
An element of doubt that had prevailed, as things turned out.
********************
Sam rested her elbows on the roof of her car, now dusty from neglect, and ran her hands through her hair. It was still fine from partial loss but the sharp stubble of regeneration and growth in the thinned out regions of her scalp was evident, like the prickly rebirth of her anxieties when the doctor had told her that…
She wasn’t going to think about that now. It was time to live in the present, not to reminisce on times gone by or contemplate the elusive possibilities of the future.
Sliding into the vehicle, Sam turned on the ignition before slumping back against the seat. She had no idea why she was doing this to herself, why she was so determined to outrun the harsh reality of her situation. One day it was bound to approach, to constrict and bind her with its inevitability. But for now she was happy to ride into oblivion, to drive wherever impulse, or perhaps fate, took her.
********************
‘You told Daniel and Teal’c yet?’
Sam remembered explaining to Cameron Mitchell why she wouldn’t be going off-world for a while. They had both been sitting on a table, swinging their legs like awkward teenagers in some twisted parody of innocence.
‘No,’ she had replied simply, her eyes fixed on a point six feet in front of her. She hadn’t been able to look at him, nor had she been able to convince him, even attempt to convince him, that she was coping. But somehow talking to Cam was easier than talking to her other team-mates.
Mitchell exuded the same aura of discomfort as she felt within. There was no sympathy, no hug. There was no mindless, monotonous discussion infused with forced and artificial feelings.
‘Right,’ he had said. A small pause and then, ‘So…’
The attempt to skirt around the issue was almost tangible and his lack of knowledge of how - what was acceptable in the situation - even more so.
She had an innate awareness of how those other team-mates she had been with for so long would react. Daniel, in his desperation, would smother her with affection and sympathy; affection that would force her to accept the situation. Something she didn’t feel ready for quite yet. Teal’c? He, as ever, would be stoic and strong, almost the opposite of the archaeologist. The Jaffa would not say anything or smother Sam, but the inevitable look of pity in his eyes… No. It was easier to talk to Mitchell.
‘There’ll be an operation,’ she had told him blankly, trying to devoid her voice of emotion. It was hard enough without tears invading the discussion. ‘And chemo.’
Sam grimaced. She couldn’t see, or rather she wasn’t looking, but she knew the expression that Mitchell was wearing - it was the same expression she had worn upon finding out that her father had lymphoma.
‘You sure you wanna do this, Sam?’ he had asked her.
She had laughed derisively in response. ‘What sort of choice do I have?’
‘Vala.’
But Sam hadn’t wanted to resort to alien technology to solve the ‘problem’. She knew how difficult it could be to operate the healing device, and its effects had never been truly documented. It wasn’t that she distrusted Vala, it was just that there were other options that could be explored before using military and governmental property for personal gain, not to mention having to explain her plight to a woman she barely knew. She would rather go gracefully and with her dignity in tact than have to do that. After all, it was her decision to make.
********************
The blonde drove down the highway, trying to keep her visibility tear free but struggling. There was no particular goal, not that she was aware of, but as a light drizzle started to cast a mist over the chilled earth, it dawned on Sam where she was headed.
********************
Intravenous chemotherapy was recommended to Sam at first, in order to reduce the size of the cancerous tissue before operating. The treatment had appeared to be successful, the malign tissue had been removed in surgery and the medics had predicted a swift and healthy recovery for the young Colonel.
Sam had never directly told her team-mates of her illness, but knew from the pitying glances and the over-eagerness of Daniel and Teal’c (or had that been the other way round? After all, they had changed so much over the past ten years) to make her comfortable that they were more than aware of her predicament. She was hardly surprised, given the incessant nausea and the tufts of hair that came out when she absent-mindedly tugged at it or ran her fingers through whilst pondering that elusive scientific solution.
Only a few months after the operation, Sam had contracted some sort of fever. Working at the SGC made it hard to pop to the local surgery, as there was no way to explain possible contagions one might have come into contact with. She had Lam visit her, being unfit to drive herself to the SGC.
The diagnosis has been worryingly swift; it hadn’t taken the eagle-eyed doctor long to find the swollen lymph nodes. Fever was a common symptom of lymphoma and one way in which many cases were diagnosed, she had explained. The cancer was back.
That element of doubt conveyed by ‘should’. A possibility, a loophole for fate to wheedle its way in and wreak havoc once more in Sam’s rebuilt life.
********************
She slammed the car door shut as a peal of thunder rocked the heavens. But it didn’t deter her. Walking along the grass verge as the downpour began, she wrapped her jacket tightly around her body and bit her lip.
Twenty-five years. That’s how long it had been since Sam had visited this spot. Longer, perhaps, marginally. She had never purposefully visited, but she had purposefully avoided. The pain of a lost parent was one she preferred to forget.
It had been here, 25 years ago, that her mother had been involved in a fatal car accident. Never in all those years had Sam come here. Perhaps those had been the beginnings of the emotional barriers that she had built up, those days as a young girl when she had locked herself away and pushed herself from her father, unwilling to accept her mother’s death as an accident, preferring to assign blame.
She didn’t know what had brought her here. Could it be that she subconsciously expected guidance from her dead mother? Or was it something deeper? Her own mortality being pushed and teased by the illness making her seek out answers, come to terms with things she hadn’t previously. Or was it simply a place to think?
Whichever one, Sam lifted herself onto a railing, the ice-cold water soaking through to her skin as she stared numbly across the busy road, her tear ducts suffering a paradoxical drought in the downpour.
********************
That morning, Sam had arrived home to find her door slightly ajar. She had walked cautiously around the back of the house, cursing the fact that she hadn’t got her sidearm with her, and let herself in through the back door.
Alarmed, she had let out a squeak of surprise at the figure sat on the tile top breakfast bar, throwing and catching a small plastic jar in one hand as she twirled a dark, thick pigtail with the other and swung her legs lazily.
‘Vala!’
The woman sprung down lightly from the surface and tipped her head to one side with a shrewd look. ‘Do you want to talk?’ She had asked in her distinctive tone.
Sam hadn’t been able to do much other than gape. ‘Talk?! You break into my house and you want to TALK?!’
‘I was looking for painkillers. I had a headache,’ Vala had stated simply. ‘I found these.’
The jar in the offered hand showed Sam that Vala had discovered her chemo tablets.
‘You told them that it had been cured.’
Sam had sighed and sank onto a stool, placing her head in her hands. She found it so much easier to deal with these things herself, not involving extra parties. The last thing she wanted was the happy-go-lucky Vala in her home giving her a pep talk.
She had felt the pierce of the woman’s gaze as she sat down in the second stool. ‘I can heal you, you know.’
‘I…But… Well, what are you doing in my home?’ Sam had protested, avoiding the subject.
Vala had readily explained her presence in the house, that she had been worried about the Colonel and, upon Mitchell’s suggestion of a Tau’ri tradition, she had baked cookies to bring to Sam. He had also given her a ride over, his own house being nearby. Despite her pounding headache, she had been insistent on coming over to give moral support to a team-mate.
This last part, naturally, had been accompanied by the sparkling, over-enthusiastic smile of a woman desperate to fit in. But the smile rapidly disappeared.
‘You weren’t home, so I thought I’d look for some painkillers,’ she had continued. ‘These Tau’ri names confuse me. Amoxi-this and peni-that… I looked this label up on the… what do you call that thing. Ah-ha! The INTERNET!’ The former host looked momentarily pleased with herself. ‘But they said it’s used to cure cancer.’
Sam had nodded silently. There was nothing she wanted to say, nothing she could say. She barely knew this woman. The blonde shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked up at Vala.
‘I can fix it,’ she had repeated.
Sam shook her head sadly. ‘No.’
********************
Maybe it had been the cookies that had driven her to this point. It was a smell that she associated with her mother, specifically her mother’s death.
“You’ll catch your death out here,” came a voice from behind. “At least that’s what my mom used to say to me.”
Sam looked round as she was joined by a young redheaded woman. The newcomer put an arm round her comfortingly and Sam couldn’t help a wry smile as she marked the role reversal that had obviously taken place at some point in the last ten years.
“I thought I’d find you here. When that… Vala? When Vala said you’d left, it just…” Cassie shrugged. “I knew I’d find you here.”
There was an uncomfortable silence between the two of them as the thunder rolled and rain descended, masking any tears that were being shed.
“Ten years ago, Sam,” she muttered quietly. “Ten years ago you and Daniel had that argument in the hall. I can’t believe we’re about to have the same fight. You’re just too stubborn for your own damn good.”
Sam shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Call it a family trait.”
“Is that what this is about?” Cassie asked shrewdly.
She watched as the older woman’s shoulders slumped. Cassie had broken through that military barrier that her friend so often used as an excuse, as a way of avoiding the pain that she obviously felt.
“Sorta.”
“You don’t have to be detached,” the redhead comforted. “You’re not military, that’s your job.” She smiled a watery smile, knowing that her words echoed those spoken by a young captain many moons ago.
Sam got to her feet and ran a hand through rain soaked hair, a tuft coming out in the process. She held it out to Cassie, who was fiercely brushing tears away from her face.
“You can’t cheat death, Cass,” she told the girl, her voice cracked and hoarse.. “Dad tried. It caught up. Everyone dies, there are hundreds of times that I’ve nearly gone, that we’ve escaped due to allies, skill or pure dumb luck. Even now… they operated, removed the cancer, I was supposed to be cured.” She bit her lip and looked to the heavens, blinking away the tears that threatened. “It caught up with me, Cass. It came back. Maybe it’s just my time.”
Cassie folded her arms stubbornly. “It’s not your time. Not yet. Death does catch up, eventually. But as you say… hundreds of times, Sam.”
“That was out there. This is…”
“No different,” Cassie insisted.
“Just let fate take its course,” Sam sighed, beginning to get irritated. “Why can’t you just leave me be. I’m not upset, I’m relieved. I lost my mom, my dad, my best friend…”
“AND I LOST MY ENTIRE PLANET!” Cassie yelled back. She closed her eyes and relented slightly. “I lost my family too, Sam, twice over.” Looking at the ground, she continued. “You didn’t let fate take its course with me, you did everything you could to save me. You may feel ready to go, but I’m not ready to lose you.”
“Cassie…”
The girl tightened her arms around her waist and looked into Sam’s eyes, the look of desperation and panic the same as that of ten years ago.
“You promised you'd never leave me alone.”
********************
Sam noticed that Vala had been skulking around somewhat, seemingly avoiding attention since she had healed the Colonel. It was almost as if she had done her bit to help and was now keeping low. But Sam knew better. She recalled Vala’s ‘house call’, how desperate the woman had been to fit into the ‘team’.
So it was, early on a bright June morning, that Sam sought out the former host in her base quarters. Unlike the last house call, Sam decided to knock on the door, and was greeted by the usual enthused grin, which quickly dissipated into a nervous smile.
“Colonel Carter,” she acknowledged. “How are you feeling?”
Sam nodded awkwardly, smiling and looking past Vala, into her quarters. “Yeah, good. Thanks.” She shrugged and looked around her.
“Oh, sorry. This is where I’m supposed to ask you in, right?” Vala asked rhetorically, jumping back to allow Sam access to the room. She eyed Sam’s parcel suspiciously. “What’s that?”
The blonde smiled and perched on the edge of the desk. “Remember that tradition Mitchell taught you about making people feel better?” she asked. “Well, we also have one to say thank you.”
She pushed the long, thin parcel into Vala’s grasp. She watched as the brunette cautiously opened the package and peered in confusion at the various fine cane like objects that seemed to slot together and the fine wires that accompanied it. “I presume they aren’t bedroom toys,” she quipped in her confusion.
Sam bit her lip in amusement as a third figure, a figure in a general’s uniform, leaned against the doorframe.
“No, Vala,” Jack drawled lazily. “That rod would be for another tradition we have round here. A team tradition.”
“Oh, yes,” Sam grinned. “You’re not an official member of SG1 until you’ve partaken.”
“Team? Tradition?” Vala was looking quickly between Sam, who was now looking at the floor, biting her lip to prevent a fit of the giggles, and the man in the doorway. “What tradition’s this?” she asked excitedly, approaching Jack.
O’Neill swung an arm around the woman’s shoulder and walked her out of the room, leaving Sam behind, grinning manically.
“Fishing.”
Author: tjh102
Rating/Warning: PG rating but deals with sensitive issues (specifically cancer)
Spoilers: "Singularity", "The Tok'ra", "Threads" and Season 9/10 characters
Recipient: Mandy90SG1 Mandy90SG1
Request details: No requests
‘Is there a history of cancer in your family, Colonel Carter?’
Sam felt the bile rise in the back of her throat as she remembered the doctor’s words. There was an aftershock of anger and repulsion, a strong sense of indignation at the fact that she hadn’t known; did that idiot not READ the medical records?
But it hadn’t been with indignation that she had replied; it had been with the anaesthetising qualities of shock and horror as the gravity of the situation settled on her heart and mind.
‘No… I mean, yes, there has. My dad had… he nearly… it was lymphoma,’ she had told the doctor, her eyes flitting blindly round the room as she racked her mind for possibilities. ‘But it’s not… They told me that it wasn’t hereditary.’
Normally the sympathetic glance would have driven her mad; she hated being treated as if she were fragile, but she barely noticed the medic’s gaze in her self-absorbed state. Sympathy was welcome from those she knew well because she’d earned their respect and they’d earned hers; she knew it wasn’t just looking down on the poor woman. She kept everything so guarded, such a close secret, had worked so hard for so many years to earn that respect, that the secrecy and self-restraint had seeped into her very being, even keeping her emotions in check to the point that it was a struggle to accept comfort.
There had been a time when she had thought that those barriers were gone, that she had finally broken through them and had become “normal”, that she had almost earned the right to show those feelings. But give her a crisis and she snapped straight back into military mode. It was a practical necessity. She couldn’t afford sympathy and hugs when she had something to deal with or a problem to solve.
‘It is widely acknowledged that there is a genetic aspect to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,’ Doctor Lam continued. ‘Lymphoma may not be hereditary as a rule, but it is caused by a genetic defect and is thought to be triggered by certain conditions or changes in conditions.’
‘Gate travel,’ Sam had stated simply.
Lam cocked her head. ‘It’s a possibility, but unlikely. After ten years of gate travel, it would be unlikely to be the wormhole itself triggering the effect. We would have picked it up a long time ago.’
Sam had blinked and looked up into the woman’s eyes. ‘Long time… you mean…?’
‘No, God, no!’ Lam had gasped, horrified that she had given that impression. ‘I mean the opposite. Had it been gate travel, it would be unlikely that it had only been triggered recently. And given the regular physicals you have, we’ve been able to pick it up very early on. A course of chemotherapy will reduce the size of the cancer enough to operate. It should also prevent it from returning.’
Should. Why was it that such a tiny word could change the meaning so much? Should. It wasn’t “will”, it wasn’t “can”, it was “should”. An element of doubt.
An element of doubt that had prevailed, as things turned out.
********************
Sam rested her elbows on the roof of her car, now dusty from neglect, and ran her hands through her hair. It was still fine from partial loss but the sharp stubble of regeneration and growth in the thinned out regions of her scalp was evident, like the prickly rebirth of her anxieties when the doctor had told her that…
She wasn’t going to think about that now. It was time to live in the present, not to reminisce on times gone by or contemplate the elusive possibilities of the future.
Sliding into the vehicle, Sam turned on the ignition before slumping back against the seat. She had no idea why she was doing this to herself, why she was so determined to outrun the harsh reality of her situation. One day it was bound to approach, to constrict and bind her with its inevitability. But for now she was happy to ride into oblivion, to drive wherever impulse, or perhaps fate, took her.
********************
‘You told Daniel and Teal’c yet?’
Sam remembered explaining to Cameron Mitchell why she wouldn’t be going off-world for a while. They had both been sitting on a table, swinging their legs like awkward teenagers in some twisted parody of innocence.
‘No,’ she had replied simply, her eyes fixed on a point six feet in front of her. She hadn’t been able to look at him, nor had she been able to convince him, even attempt to convince him, that she was coping. But somehow talking to Cam was easier than talking to her other team-mates.
Mitchell exuded the same aura of discomfort as she felt within. There was no sympathy, no hug. There was no mindless, monotonous discussion infused with forced and artificial feelings.
‘Right,’ he had said. A small pause and then, ‘So…’
The attempt to skirt around the issue was almost tangible and his lack of knowledge of how - what was acceptable in the situation - even more so.
She had an innate awareness of how those other team-mates she had been with for so long would react. Daniel, in his desperation, would smother her with affection and sympathy; affection that would force her to accept the situation. Something she didn’t feel ready for quite yet. Teal’c? He, as ever, would be stoic and strong, almost the opposite of the archaeologist. The Jaffa would not say anything or smother Sam, but the inevitable look of pity in his eyes… No. It was easier to talk to Mitchell.
‘There’ll be an operation,’ she had told him blankly, trying to devoid her voice of emotion. It was hard enough without tears invading the discussion. ‘And chemo.’
Sam grimaced. She couldn’t see, or rather she wasn’t looking, but she knew the expression that Mitchell was wearing - it was the same expression she had worn upon finding out that her father had lymphoma.
‘You sure you wanna do this, Sam?’ he had asked her.
She had laughed derisively in response. ‘What sort of choice do I have?’
‘Vala.’
But Sam hadn’t wanted to resort to alien technology to solve the ‘problem’. She knew how difficult it could be to operate the healing device, and its effects had never been truly documented. It wasn’t that she distrusted Vala, it was just that there were other options that could be explored before using military and governmental property for personal gain, not to mention having to explain her plight to a woman she barely knew. She would rather go gracefully and with her dignity in tact than have to do that. After all, it was her decision to make.
********************
The blonde drove down the highway, trying to keep her visibility tear free but struggling. There was no particular goal, not that she was aware of, but as a light drizzle started to cast a mist over the chilled earth, it dawned on Sam where she was headed.
********************
Intravenous chemotherapy was recommended to Sam at first, in order to reduce the size of the cancerous tissue before operating. The treatment had appeared to be successful, the malign tissue had been removed in surgery and the medics had predicted a swift and healthy recovery for the young Colonel.
Sam had never directly told her team-mates of her illness, but knew from the pitying glances and the over-eagerness of Daniel and Teal’c (or had that been the other way round? After all, they had changed so much over the past ten years) to make her comfortable that they were more than aware of her predicament. She was hardly surprised, given the incessant nausea and the tufts of hair that came out when she absent-mindedly tugged at it or ran her fingers through whilst pondering that elusive scientific solution.
Only a few months after the operation, Sam had contracted some sort of fever. Working at the SGC made it hard to pop to the local surgery, as there was no way to explain possible contagions one might have come into contact with. She had Lam visit her, being unfit to drive herself to the SGC.
The diagnosis has been worryingly swift; it hadn’t taken the eagle-eyed doctor long to find the swollen lymph nodes. Fever was a common symptom of lymphoma and one way in which many cases were diagnosed, she had explained. The cancer was back.
That element of doubt conveyed by ‘should’. A possibility, a loophole for fate to wheedle its way in and wreak havoc once more in Sam’s rebuilt life.
********************
She slammed the car door shut as a peal of thunder rocked the heavens. But it didn’t deter her. Walking along the grass verge as the downpour began, she wrapped her jacket tightly around her body and bit her lip.
Twenty-five years. That’s how long it had been since Sam had visited this spot. Longer, perhaps, marginally. She had never purposefully visited, but she had purposefully avoided. The pain of a lost parent was one she preferred to forget.
It had been here, 25 years ago, that her mother had been involved in a fatal car accident. Never in all those years had Sam come here. Perhaps those had been the beginnings of the emotional barriers that she had built up, those days as a young girl when she had locked herself away and pushed herself from her father, unwilling to accept her mother’s death as an accident, preferring to assign blame.
She didn’t know what had brought her here. Could it be that she subconsciously expected guidance from her dead mother? Or was it something deeper? Her own mortality being pushed and teased by the illness making her seek out answers, come to terms with things she hadn’t previously. Or was it simply a place to think?
Whichever one, Sam lifted herself onto a railing, the ice-cold water soaking through to her skin as she stared numbly across the busy road, her tear ducts suffering a paradoxical drought in the downpour.
********************
That morning, Sam had arrived home to find her door slightly ajar. She had walked cautiously around the back of the house, cursing the fact that she hadn’t got her sidearm with her, and let herself in through the back door.
Alarmed, she had let out a squeak of surprise at the figure sat on the tile top breakfast bar, throwing and catching a small plastic jar in one hand as she twirled a dark, thick pigtail with the other and swung her legs lazily.
‘Vala!’
The woman sprung down lightly from the surface and tipped her head to one side with a shrewd look. ‘Do you want to talk?’ She had asked in her distinctive tone.
Sam hadn’t been able to do much other than gape. ‘Talk?! You break into my house and you want to TALK?!’
‘I was looking for painkillers. I had a headache,’ Vala had stated simply. ‘I found these.’
The jar in the offered hand showed Sam that Vala had discovered her chemo tablets.
‘You told them that it had been cured.’
Sam had sighed and sank onto a stool, placing her head in her hands. She found it so much easier to deal with these things herself, not involving extra parties. The last thing she wanted was the happy-go-lucky Vala in her home giving her a pep talk.
She had felt the pierce of the woman’s gaze as she sat down in the second stool. ‘I can heal you, you know.’
‘I…But… Well, what are you doing in my home?’ Sam had protested, avoiding the subject.
Vala had readily explained her presence in the house, that she had been worried about the Colonel and, upon Mitchell’s suggestion of a Tau’ri tradition, she had baked cookies to bring to Sam. He had also given her a ride over, his own house being nearby. Despite her pounding headache, she had been insistent on coming over to give moral support to a team-mate.
This last part, naturally, had been accompanied by the sparkling, over-enthusiastic smile of a woman desperate to fit in. But the smile rapidly disappeared.
‘You weren’t home, so I thought I’d look for some painkillers,’ she had continued. ‘These Tau’ri names confuse me. Amoxi-this and peni-that… I looked this label up on the… what do you call that thing. Ah-ha! The INTERNET!’ The former host looked momentarily pleased with herself. ‘But they said it’s used to cure cancer.’
Sam had nodded silently. There was nothing she wanted to say, nothing she could say. She barely knew this woman. The blonde shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked up at Vala.
‘I can fix it,’ she had repeated.
Sam shook her head sadly. ‘No.’
********************
Maybe it had been the cookies that had driven her to this point. It was a smell that she associated with her mother, specifically her mother’s death.
“You’ll catch your death out here,” came a voice from behind. “At least that’s what my mom used to say to me.”
Sam looked round as she was joined by a young redheaded woman. The newcomer put an arm round her comfortingly and Sam couldn’t help a wry smile as she marked the role reversal that had obviously taken place at some point in the last ten years.
“I thought I’d find you here. When that… Vala? When Vala said you’d left, it just…” Cassie shrugged. “I knew I’d find you here.”
There was an uncomfortable silence between the two of them as the thunder rolled and rain descended, masking any tears that were being shed.
“Ten years ago, Sam,” she muttered quietly. “Ten years ago you and Daniel had that argument in the hall. I can’t believe we’re about to have the same fight. You’re just too stubborn for your own damn good.”
Sam shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Call it a family trait.”
“Is that what this is about?” Cassie asked shrewdly.
She watched as the older woman’s shoulders slumped. Cassie had broken through that military barrier that her friend so often used as an excuse, as a way of avoiding the pain that she obviously felt.
“Sorta.”
“You don’t have to be detached,” the redhead comforted. “You’re not military, that’s your job.” She smiled a watery smile, knowing that her words echoed those spoken by a young captain many moons ago.
Sam got to her feet and ran a hand through rain soaked hair, a tuft coming out in the process. She held it out to Cassie, who was fiercely brushing tears away from her face.
“You can’t cheat death, Cass,” she told the girl, her voice cracked and hoarse.. “Dad tried. It caught up. Everyone dies, there are hundreds of times that I’ve nearly gone, that we’ve escaped due to allies, skill or pure dumb luck. Even now… they operated, removed the cancer, I was supposed to be cured.” She bit her lip and looked to the heavens, blinking away the tears that threatened. “It caught up with me, Cass. It came back. Maybe it’s just my time.”
Cassie folded her arms stubbornly. “It’s not your time. Not yet. Death does catch up, eventually. But as you say… hundreds of times, Sam.”
“That was out there. This is…”
“No different,” Cassie insisted.
“Just let fate take its course,” Sam sighed, beginning to get irritated. “Why can’t you just leave me be. I’m not upset, I’m relieved. I lost my mom, my dad, my best friend…”
“AND I LOST MY ENTIRE PLANET!” Cassie yelled back. She closed her eyes and relented slightly. “I lost my family too, Sam, twice over.” Looking at the ground, she continued. “You didn’t let fate take its course with me, you did everything you could to save me. You may feel ready to go, but I’m not ready to lose you.”
“Cassie…”
The girl tightened her arms around her waist and looked into Sam’s eyes, the look of desperation and panic the same as that of ten years ago.
“You promised you'd never leave me alone.”
********************
Sam noticed that Vala had been skulking around somewhat, seemingly avoiding attention since she had healed the Colonel. It was almost as if she had done her bit to help and was now keeping low. But Sam knew better. She recalled Vala’s ‘house call’, how desperate the woman had been to fit into the ‘team’.
So it was, early on a bright June morning, that Sam sought out the former host in her base quarters. Unlike the last house call, Sam decided to knock on the door, and was greeted by the usual enthused grin, which quickly dissipated into a nervous smile.
“Colonel Carter,” she acknowledged. “How are you feeling?”
Sam nodded awkwardly, smiling and looking past Vala, into her quarters. “Yeah, good. Thanks.” She shrugged and looked around her.
“Oh, sorry. This is where I’m supposed to ask you in, right?” Vala asked rhetorically, jumping back to allow Sam access to the room. She eyed Sam’s parcel suspiciously. “What’s that?”
The blonde smiled and perched on the edge of the desk. “Remember that tradition Mitchell taught you about making people feel better?” she asked. “Well, we also have one to say thank you.”
She pushed the long, thin parcel into Vala’s grasp. She watched as the brunette cautiously opened the package and peered in confusion at the various fine cane like objects that seemed to slot together and the fine wires that accompanied it. “I presume they aren’t bedroom toys,” she quipped in her confusion.
Sam bit her lip in amusement as a third figure, a figure in a general’s uniform, leaned against the doorframe.
“No, Vala,” Jack drawled lazily. “That rod would be for another tradition we have round here. A team tradition.”
“Oh, yes,” Sam grinned. “You’re not an official member of SG1 until you’ve partaken.”
“Team? Tradition?” Vala was looking quickly between Sam, who was now looking at the floor, biting her lip to prevent a fit of the giggles, and the man in the doorway. “What tradition’s this?” she asked excitedly, approaching Jack.
O’Neill swung an arm around the woman’s shoulder and walked her out of the room, leaving Sam behind, grinning manically.
“Fishing.”