SG Fic: Wings of the Apocalypse
Title: Wings of the Apocalypse
Rating: T
Spoilers: Absolutely ANYTHING is fair game. Literally.
Category: Apocafic. AU. Action/Adventure. Drama. SJ. Suspense.
Summary: “We have about seven months until the planet is wiped out, Carter,” he blurted out. “Seven months until every last one of us is gone. And that’s optimistic.”
Notes:
This fic has been in the workings for over three years. In that time, I’ve bounced ideas off various people, sent it for checks to even more people, and spammed countless LJ entries with moans and whines about it. As such, there are a lot of people who have been involved with this fic, and doubtlessly I’m going to forget to name some.
I do, however, owe a HUGE thank you to some people:
Denise (Skydiver119) for saving this fic. Literally. It would still be on my HD and unfinished if D didn’t step in, read it, and offer some brilliant suggestions!
Alliesings for beta’ing despite everything - she’s corrected many of my Australianisms and helped me polish this fic better than I could done it alone. Thank you, Allie, I owe you big time! *smooch*
Seldear for being a bouncing board and support and friend during late night chats of moans about exams and whines about family, and for inspiring me to write better with her awesome Atlantis [and Stargate!!] fic! And, of course, her help with actually figuring out how to finish the fic.
Ruralstar for her huge assistance in the first half of this fic, and her suggestions which made it that much better. Also, her contributions to plot and development were invaluable, as was her encouragement.
Evangeline for her brilliant ideas (again, sorry it didn’t all get used!) and willingness to beta.
Lisa Yaeger, because she reads everything and says “It’s awesome!” and that’s like totally good for my ego ;)
And Stars_like_dust because even though I doubt she’ll even REMEMBER (or read) this fic, the original ideas were bounced off her late one night, and since then this fic has morphed so completely it’s not even recognisable - but she let me accost her with fic ideas and spam and I love her for it!
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For Ev, because she said fic would help and it’s all I had.
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PART ONE
Richmond, Virginia
The chair was rough and rickety beneath her, on the verge of falling apart. Just like the rest of the stinking hole she was ‘living’ in. The cuffs around her wrists were threaded through a sturdy iron ring bolted to the table in front of her. The silver metal reflected watery sunlight filtering in through the dirty windows, and the light was warm as it played on her hands. It had been a long time since she’d seen the sun, much less felt it kissing her fingers. She flexed the digits, letting the weak light warm them.
Her gaze wandered across to the window, almost surprised at how blue the sky still was. Several white clouds wisped across it and disappeared, leaving her with only a small blue square of empty air. She’d thought that maybe after all this time the sky would be different somehow. Darker. Like her.
On the opposite side of the room, she heard the metal clanking of a key turning in the lock, and the rusted door swung open. Her eyebrows raised in surprise as she watched a familiar figure enter the room, and she regarded him disdainfully.
“You’ve had your hair cut,” he said, pulling out the chair on the opposite side of the table. He looked at it warily, and pushed it back in, opting instead to stand.
“I’ve heard it’s the new fashion,” she returned calmly, her eyes never straying from his form.
“How’ve you been, Major?”
A slight smile pulled at her lips and she shrugged. “Lose the title, Samuels. I’m out, remember?”
He regarded her thoughtfully, and a strange smile pulled his lips into a grimace. “You know, that’s almost exactly what O’Neill said to me nine years ago.”
She stared at him coldly. “What do you want?”
“We need your help.”
She laughed at that, and a flicker of fear crossed his face. He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected her to be ready for the padded rooms and white jackets. But she was. She had been for a long time, probably even longer than she had realised. “That’s rich, considering you’re the asshole who put me in here.”
“We screwed up, Major.”
“For fuck’s sake, Samuels, I’m not in the Air Force anymore, remember? Hell, I’m not even classed as a fucking free citizen.”
“I could have you gassed,” he said.
“You’ve tried that,” she retorted, her voice like acid.
She saw the veins in his temple flutter in time with each pulse of his heart, and she stared at them in fascination. A light sheen of sweat clung to his pink skin, and she grimaced in distaste.
“We made a mistake, Sam.”
She leant forwards in her chair, resting her warm palms against the rough grains of the table. “It took you this long to figure it out? And don’t call me Sam.”
“Then what do I call you?”
“I believe the number is 5041,” she said icily. “Don’t you know that, Samuels? We don’t have names in here. We’re just a bunch of fucking numbers.”
“We have seven months until the planet is wiped out, Carter,” he blurted out. “Seven months until every last one of us is gone. And that’s optimistic,” he added casually.
She gave a low whistle through her teeth, and leant back in her chair again, tensing as the weak wood groaned beneath her weight. “And what do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. “I’m kinda tied up at the moment.” The cuffs and chains on her wrists clinked as she raised her hands towards him almost mockingly.
“We leave in half an hour,” Samuels said, standing up and casting a quick glance out of the small window.
She wondered if he could see the treetops from his viewpoint.
---
I-95
The rubbery hum of tires slapping down on the blacktop rose defiantly above the quiet purr of the government issued Ford. The leather was soft against her spine, but in the sweltering heat it was sticking the rough prison garb to her back.
“Could we wind down a window?” she asked, breaking the silence in the car.
“No,” Samuels said curtly.
She held up her cuffed wrists, making the small chains rattle loudly. “It’s not like I’m gonna go anywhere.”
“We’re not opening the windows.”
The streetlights glistened off his forehead, and she watched as he lifted one jacket-clad arm and wiped at the sweat on his face. She pursed her lips and used her own sleeve to wipe her face, staring out the dark window to the world beyond. She peered up at the sky, twisting her head to see, but the bright lights blinded her and she couldn’t see the stars.
“What are you doing?” Samuels snapped.
“Looking,” she muttered, pulling her head back down and resting her forehead against the cool glass of the window. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger, Samuels?”
Samuels sat back in his seat, facing forward again as their driver negotiated the large car, deliberately ignoring her question. She sighed and let her head rest against the window again. “What happened?”
The car nosed over into the exit when he looked across at her again. “You’ll be told when we arrive.”
“Arrive where?”
“Colorado.”
Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head. Colorado. That meant one place.
---
Colorado Springs
The jangling of the phone was unnaturally loud as it intruded on her sleep. Her hands fumbled clumsily on her bedside table before locating the handset.
“Cassie, I swear to God you will learn how to read a watch,” Janet groaned into the phone.
“This isn’t Cassandra,” a smooth male voice responded.
“Oh.. God.. Sorry, I thought you were my daughter.”
“Sorry to have woken you, Doctor Fraiser, but we need your help.”
She frowned into the phone. “Who is this?”
“Sergeant Davis, Ma’am. Walter Davis.”
“Walter?” she repeated incredulously.
“Uh.. yeah. We need your help, Doctor Fraiser.”
“So you’ve said, Sergeant.” Janet sat up and swung her legs over the side, searching blindly in the dark with her feet for her slippers while her hands tried to locate the switch on her bedside lamp. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s been a breach.”
She felt the sticky layer of heat induced sweat turn to ice on her skin. “I knew it couldn’t last,” she muttered, slipping her feet into her slippers and standing up. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“No, I’ll meet you at your house in five minutes.” The phone went dead in her hands, and she stared at it for several seconds. Despite the heat, she felt cold inside.
---
Washington DC
Maybourne hated these places. The chemical smell of disinfectant soured the air and the sterile whiteness made him feel unclean. He was unclean, he supposed, but hopefully his actions in the next few days would balance out his karma and he wouldn’t return to this life as a bug.
A bitter smile pulled at his lips as he navigated his way through the endless hallways. Jack O’Neill would have liked that: Maybourne returning as a cockroach. O’Neill would simply crush him beneath his military issued boot.
Still, maybe he’d come back as a dog now, or something. Hopefully.
---
Colorado Springs
“Where are we going?” Janet asked, rolling her shoulders to try and dislodge the sweat-soaked shirt sticking to her back. It was hot, she decided, disgustingly and unnaturally hot for this area of the USA.
“Nuclear Facility,” Davis grunted, his boots crushing gravel and growth in an unsteady pace in front of her. “They don’t want anyone to know we’ve brought you in.”
She remained quiet, staring at the gate technician’s back. Walter Davis, their tech-head and resident nerd, was playing hero?
“I know what you’re thinking, Ma’am,” he commented, stopping to face her. His flashlight glinted off the gravel, and moonlight turned his crew-cut into a silver fuzz.
“What am I thinking?” she asked him.
“That things must be pretty bad if a gate geek who couldn’t pass his physical is leading a discharged military doctor across a mountain in the middle of the night.”
“Either that or the gate geek has some pretty strange ideas,” she returned. His eyes widened, and he stuttered a few times before falling silent. “Well, are they?” she asked.
“NO!” he snapped explosively. Then, “No, Ma’am. This definitely isn’t my idea of fun.”
A small smile tugged at her mouth, but it didn’t surface. “I was talking about the emergency. It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said simply, and continued walking. She followed in silence, watching the narrow beam of light bounce through the darkness.
Things had to be bad if Walter Davis was playing hero, she mused darkly.
---
Washington DC
The hypodermic syringe was a warm and comforting weight in his pocket. He let his fingers roll over the smooth plastic several times, watching the guards patrol the room’s single door.
He smiled in amusement, the emotion flickering briefly across his shadowed features. Two men on guard for one man locked in a padded room, Maybourne mused dryly. Impressive. Then again, he would never have suspected any less from the man locked behind the doors.
He just hoped the rumours weren’t true.
---
Nuclear Facility, Colorado
“This is ridiculous, Sergeant!” Fraiser snapped, stomping across the dark room in frustration. “Would you just tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I can’t,” he mumbled apologetically, staring down at his hands. Pale, soft skin. Indoor hands with calluses on the fingertips from too much typing on a computer keyboard. His hands weren’t made for all this outdoorsy, cloak and dagger planet saving crap.
“Why not?” Fraiser demanded, pinning him against the wall with her eyes. Fraiser would have made a great General; everyone had said so. Until Bauer.
“I’m under orders,” he explained. She, of all people, should understand that.
“Whose orders?” The woman never gave up, did she?
“Mine.”
Walter’s body almost sagged in relief as the force of her personality was deflected away from him and directed towards the doorway where several figures were now standing.
“Yours?” Fraiser spat, and Walter cringed. Fraiser hated Samuels, he remembered a few seconds too late.
“Yes,” Samuels nodded. “We don’t have much time, Doctor Fraiser, and I’m only going to explain the situation once.”
“Then damn well hurry up and explain it, Samuels, I’m losing what little patience I had to begin with.” The figure who’d spoke was female, but it wasn’t Fraiser.
Walter felt his mouth drop open again as a tall, thin woman clad in bright orange prison garb stepped into the room, her hands bound in front of her by a pair of metal handcuffs. Despite the shaved head and lines around her eyes, he would have recognised Samantha Carter anywhere.
“Sam!” Fraiser gasped; the word was a strangled sound deep in her throat.
“Janet,” Carter greeted coolly. Her eyes flicked over Walter as she nodded a quick greeting to him, and then she turned back to Samuels. “Would you take these off now, Samuels? My wrists are getting chafed.”
“But…” Fraiser whispered, and Walter understood how she felt. “I was there, I saw you…”
“You saw me die?” Carter asked hollowly. “Wrong, Janet. I’m not dead.”
“Yes, we’re well aware of that. Now, if you ladies don’t mind, we do have a very big problem on our hands,” Samuels interrupted. “And I’m not untying Carter until I’ve explained the situation and you understand what’s happening.”
“Hurry up then, Samuels,” Carter snapped, crossing the room and seating herself.
Walter stared at Samuels, frowning in thought. What the hell was going on? And how many more secrets did Samuels have?
---
PART TWO
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Washington DC
The phone was ringing. Cassandra closed her eyes and burrowed deeper under her covers.
The phone was ringing.
“Go away!” she muttered, pulling the covers over her head and turning over so that her back was facing the phone.
The phone was still ringing.
A muffled thump banged against the wall, followed by Bek’s sleep-muffled voice. “Answer your damn phone, Cass!”
“Maaargghh!” Cass groaned, rolling over in a tangle of sheets to find the offending appliance. “Yeah?” she grunted into the receiver.
“Cass! Why didn’t you answer your phone?” her Mom’s voice demanded.
“Mom! It’s 6am!” she moaned, flopping onto her back.
“I know, Cass, and I’m sorry.”
A door slammed somewhere in the apartment, and she heard Bek rattling mugs in the kitchen. Damn, now there wasn’t going to be any going back to bed. “What’s up?” she asked, staring at the ceiling. It needed another coat of paint, she mused.
“I need you to fly home straight away, Cass.”
She frowned. “Mom?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone, sweetie, but-” a squeal from the kitchen cut Janet’s voice off, and Cass flew upright in bed.
“Bek?” she called.
“Cass! You have got to see this!”
“Just a minute!” she yelled back, rolling her eyes. “Mom, you still there?”
“Yes, I am. Cass, listen to me, I need you to get home as quickly as possible, okay?”
“Why?” she whispered, suddenly cold in the summer heat.
“There’s been a safety breach, honey, and you could be in danger.”
“How?” Cass demanded. Her mouth was cotton dry, and she swallowed roughly to try and dislodge the lump suddenly constricting her throat.
“An experimental project working on some specimens brought back by SG-1 a few years ago went wrong. Some specimens got out, and they’re lethal, Cass. They multiply faster than you can imagine, and they swarm. There are only a few out there at the moment, but they’re spreading.”
“Fuck,” Cassie whispered.
“Cassandra!” Janet snapped.
“Sorry!” she apologised absently. “I’ll… I’ll get Bek and book our flights straight away.”
“Good. Keep your cell phone on, Cass, and call if you have any problems.”
“Okay,” Cass nodded, juggling the phone as she tried to pull her night shirt off and dress herself.
“Cass?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Don’t go near anyone who’s been stung, okay?”
“Okay,” Cass whispered. The carpet beneath her feet was light, almost cream coloured. Her Mom had been wearing a cream dress when she’d died, the same colour as the carron fields behind their house.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too,” she whispered. The handset slipped neatly onto its cradle when she hung up, and her room was too quiet.
Bek was in the kitchen. “Morning,” Cassandra said.
“Have you seen this?” Bek demanded, turning to face Cassie. “This is… Cass… this is unbelievable!” She motioned toward the TV screen.
Cass stared at it blankly; a female reporter was speaking into a microphone, but Cassie ignored her. “We have to get out of here, Bek. Something bad is happening.”
“No shit,” Bek agreed vehemently, her green eyes wide. “Cass, these things… they’re amazing!”
Cassie looked at the TV screen. “My Mom says we have to get out of here. She wants us to fly to Colorado Springs. We’re in danger. In very bad danger,” she whispered.
Danger. So much danger. Everyone was dying. Mom! Where was her Mom? The sun was shining and the grass was growing, but everyone was dying and her mom was wearing a cotton dress and there was blood on her hands and-
“Cass! Are you okay?”
Cassandra blinked, and she was in their kitchen, her sweaty feet sticking to the cold linoleum floor and her hands wrapped around the back of a kitchen chair. “I’m fine,” she whispered, closing her eyes and shaking her head slightly. “Bek, we have to get out of here. Now. Pack your things; I’m booking us two flights to the Springs.”
“No, I’m going home, Cass, to New York.”
“Bek, you have to trust me on this. My Mom is one of the only people who can help us,” Cass urged.
“What do you mean?” Bek frowned.
“My Mom… she… she knows things,” she said lamely, clenching her fingers around the smooth wood in frustration.
Bek clambered to her feet, staring at Cass. “This isn’t funny, Cass.”
“I’m serious, Bek! You have to trust me.”
“I can’t, I have to go to my family. If these bugs… if this is really as bad as they’re making it out to be on TV, I have to go home to my family. Besides, the Springs is where the bugs are going. You’ll be safer in New York.”
Cass shook her head. “You’re wrong. You’re not going to be safe anywhere,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to the Springs,” Bek said firmly.
“I’ll get yours booked for New York.”
Bek nodded. “Thanks, Cass.”
---
Washington DC
He was getting hungry, and when Maybourne got hungry, he got cranky. Very cranky. It didn’t help that his legs were beginning to cramp. He checked his wristwatch in a barely controlled gesture of frustration, touching the buttons to light up the small screen. 6:21am.
Good, only a few more minutes. He eased his right hand into his pocket and fingered the syringe again. Almost time.
The cupboard door squeaked as he pushed it open. No one was around. He stepped out quickly and shut the door behind him with a soft click, and then strode up the hall to the men’s room.
He was washing his hands when the door swung open and one of the new guards walked in wearing a worried grimace on his face.
“Good morning.” Maybourne smiled broadly.
The guard glanced at him. “Where have you been all night, buddy?” he questioned, crossing the room. “Haven’t you seen the news? This sure as hell ain’t a good morning!” he declared.
Maybourne’s answer was to plunge the hypodermic needle deep into the man’s neck. The man struggled briefly as Maybourne emptied the contents of the syringe into his neck, and then slumped silently to the ground, unconscious after a few seconds.
Other than the sleeves and trousers being too long the uniform wasn’t a bad fit, Maybourne thought as he admired his reflection in the mirror. He tucked in the shirt and holstered the handgun before leaving the men’s room and sauntered up the hallway.
“You’re early,” a guard remarked as he turned the corner and they came into view.
“It’s chaos out there,” he announced loudly. “I figured I’d make sure I got in here on time.”
“What do you mean ‘chaos’?” the other guard questioned.
“Haven’t you heard?” Maybourne stared at them, feigning disbelief. “There are mutant bugs out there, and they’re attacking everything in their path. At least a hundred of them. They’re because of all that secret military testing they do out at Groom Lake; the fall out mutated them and turned them into killers. Just like Godzilla,” he added for effect.
They stared at him doubtfully. “Mutant bugs?”
“Yeah. They sting you with their stingers.” He nodded enthusiastically.
“Right. Good one. Very very funny.”
“You don’t believe me? Go to the staffroom and see for yourself. They’re on almost every channel. Big news at the moment.”
Their raised eyebrows were in danger of hitting the ceiling as they gazed down at him, and he shrugged carelessly. “Fine, don’t believe me. You’ll see for yourselves, there are mutant bugs on the loose. TV is only up the hall.”
One of the guard’s glanced at his wrist. “It’s 6:31,” he commented.
“Bert’ll be late, with the traffic out there,” Maybourne announced. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. You go have a look, I’ll be fine until then.”
With a final disbelieving glance, they passed Maybourne the keys and disappeared up the hall.
“Idiots,” Maybourne muttered as he watched them disappear.
---
Washington DC
“Come on, Cass!” Bek yelled, her voice floating in through the open window. “Cass, we have to get out of here!” So, so urgent. Bek hadn’t seen the end of a world before, she didn’t realise it didn’t come quickly.
“I’m coming,” she called back, pulling back and shutting the window firmly. She pulled the curtains shut, casting the room into darkness before she snagged her knapsack from where it was lying on a couch.
The photo frame was silver, and she stopped by the bookcase to look at it. Her Mom, Sam and herself.
She picked it up; the pewter was heavy and cold in her hands as she walked out the door and locked it behind her.
---
Nuclear Facility
“Damn it, Cass, answer!” Janet muttered, pacing anxiously across the floor.
Sam watched her agitated movements, discreetly studying the woman who used to be her best friend. Janet hadn’t aged much in the last three years. Not like Sam. There were no bags under here eyes or scars on her hands.
“Where is she?” Sam asked, breaking the silence as she studied her own hands.
“DC,” Janet answered, glancing wearily at Sam.
Sam could still read Janet; she could still tell Janet was going to launch into something serious. Sam was right.
“Sam, I didn’t know. I promise you, I didn’t know. If I’d known-”
“If you’d known, what?” Sam asked tiredly. “You’d have what?”
She heard footsteps behind her, and turned to face Samuels. “Harlowe just arrived,” Samuels announced. “He’s brought some samples, work and the equipment you’ll need, Doctor Fraiser. He’s also got a specimen.”
Sam watched with veiled interest as Janet turned on Samuels. “We can’t just whip up a miracle cure in time to fix your mistake, Samuels! Coming up with a vaccine for a retro virus in only a few days… it’s almost impossible!”
“Harlowe has been working on this since the incident with the Jaffa,” Samuels interrupted. “He knows these bugs almost better than anyone.”
“Teal’c,” Sam snapped, “his name is Teal’c.”
“If he’s been working on this for years and he hasn’t gotten anywhere, what makes you so sure we can create a vaccine in a few weeks?” Janet almost yelled, her frustration increasingly obvious.
“They’ve been performing genetic experiments with these bugs, Fraiser. Harlowe only had one of the originals to work on, not one of the newer mutations. The new virus acts slightly slower; the vaccines he has have no effect at all.”
“There’s not enough time,” Janet whispered.
For the first time since they’d announced her death sentence, Samantha Carter felt fear.
The cold silence in the room was broken almost gently. “It’s not as bad as you think, Janet,” a familiar voice tried to comfort. “Samuels hasn’t told you everything yet, has he?” There was almost an accusation in the tone.
Sam watched Timothy Harlowe silently. He’d betrayed them all by keeping the specimens and his research into the retro virus. It was through him that the NID managed to get hold of them and create this outbreak. It was his fucking fault that after all they’d been through, all they’d done, they were in danger of wiping themselves out with their own stupidity.
“Told me what?” Janet demanded. “Samuels?”
Samuels sighed in annoyance. “Maybourne is-”
“Maybourne?” Sam interrupted incredulously. “We’re dealing with Maybourne as well?” She stood up abruptly, anger heating her limbs and sending a tingling surge of feeling through her limbs. She felt her blood rushing through her veins, heard the rhythmic beat of her heart, the stuffy air pressing on her face, the itch of the hair growing back on her scalp. “This has gone far enough! I don’t trust you, Samuels, or Harlowe for that matter, and I definitely don’t trust Maybourne!”
“Sit down and shut up!” Samuels barked. The quiet click almost deafened her in the small room, and everything else faded away again. She stared at the blunt muzzle of the hand gun trained on her. “You are here, Carter, because of your experience with these bugs. I don’t need you, and I’m not putting up with any crap. You are a convicted criminal under my authority. Do I make myself clear?”
Sam sat back down silently, staring at his gun.
She was dead; she couldn’t feel again, she just was. They owned her life, her thoughts… her breaths. She was nothing except dead, and even that release was withheld from her.
Who the fuck had she pissed off this much?
“Maybourne is getting us antibodies,” Samuels continued smoothly, holstering his weapon. “He’ll check in as soon as he’s got them.”
“Where is he getting the antibodies from?” Janet interjected sharply. “There only person who I’m aware of being exposed to the retro virus is Teal’c, and he’s-”
“They’ve got him,” Sam said dully.
“What?” Janet turned to her. “Teal’c is somewhere on another planet, Sam. I saw him go through the gate, right after I-” Janet stopped, the sentence hanging.
“Right after you watched me die?” Sam asked darkly. “Janet, they kept me imprisoned for three years without you knowing, or anyone else for that matter. It would be much easier for them to do the same with Teal’c.”
“But how did they get him?” Janet demanded.
“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged, glaring up at Samuels. “These fucking bastards have screwed everything up.”
“You’re incorrect, Sam,” Harlowe broke in. “They’re not-”
The chirping of Janet’s cell phone interrupted them, and conversation ceased as the doctor answered it. “Cass? Oh, thank God!” she breathed into the phone. “What? Where are you? No, stay there… hold on…” Janet speared Samuels with a glance. “Where exactly is Maybourne?” she asked suspiciously.
“DC,” Samuels answered reluctantly.
“You get hold of him now, Samuels, and tell him he’s bringing my daughter back with him.”
“What?” Samuels gaped.
“You heard me. My daughter is flying here with Maybourne.”
“We can’t-”
“Your fucking organization is costing the lives of hundreds of people, Samuels, and you’ve destroyed the lives of countless already. You will bring my daughter home.”
Samuels licked his lips nervously, watching Janet cautiously. “Tell her… tell her if she can get to the Academy Airstrip by 0800hours their time, Maybourne will meet her outside the Western Perimeter. Oh, and Fraiser? Tell her not, under any circumstance, to let herself get caught. Understand?”
Janet nodded silently and spoke urgently in the phone.
Sam watched Samuels stalking out of the small room, and wondered how Cass and Teal’c would react to seeing her alive, and whether they thought she was guilty.
---
PART THREE
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---
Washington DC
They had almost gotten away with it. So. Fucking. Close. And then his cell phone had rung. Loudly. In the middle of the reception. And of course one of the guards whom he’d fed the ‘mutant bugs from hell’ crap to (despite that fact that most of it was, in actuality, true) just had to be standing there.
“Hey!” the guard had yelled.
“Run!” Maybourne had ordered, reaching for his hand gun.
“Where to?” was grunted in return as they broke out of the building and into the hot sunlight.
“My truck! There!” He pointed with the gun.
“Fuck you… Maybourne… that’s my truck!” O’Neill wheezed
“Was!” Maybourne panted gleefully. “You’re dead, remember?”
“Apparently not!” O’Neill muttered as they clambered into his truck.
Maybourne revved the engine and crunched the truck into gear, spinning the tires on the loose gravel scattered across the road. The chase was half-hearted though, and the guard only jogged after the truck to the entranceway, already holstering his weapon before Maybourne even left the car park.
O’Neill coughed loudly next to him, and Maybourne cast a concerned glance over the man now slumping in his seat with a slight sheen of sweat dotting his forehead.
“You okay, Jack?”
O’Neill opened one eye. “What the fuck is going on, Maybourne?” he demanded hoarsely.
“We hit a snag,” Maybourne admitted. “Here, take this.” He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and threw it to O’Neill. “Ring the number that called us and almost got us killed.”
“Who is it?” O’Neill demanded, fumbling with the small object.
“Samuels. He’s the only one with this number.”
O’Neill coughed. “Sparky?!”
“Yeah, I think that’s what you called him.”
O’Neill shut the phone with a snap. “I’m not calling anyone until you tell me exactly what is going on!”
Maybourne ground his teeth in frustration; O’Neill was just as ornery when he was ‘dead’ as when he was alive. Why couldn’t the man just do as he was told for a change? “You’re stubborn for a dead man, Jack.”
“You’ll be a dead man if you don’t answer my questions,” O’Neill threatened. But the words were hollow; O’Neill’s laboured breathing betrayed his inability to follow through.
“I’ve got the gun this time, Jack, so cut the bullshit,” Maybourne snapped, yanking on the wheel as a car swung into his lane. “Moron!” he yelled, banging on the horn. “This is ridiculous,” he added, concentrating on the traffic.
“What is going on?” O’Neill asked again, also watching the traffic.
“Panic,” Maybourne said simply. “They all think it’s the end of the world because a bug’s gotten out.”
Despite his apparent weakness, O’Neill’s gaze was anything but frail when Maybourne looked at him again. Maybourne sighed. “The NID screwed up, Jack, and we’ve got a problem. One that could destroy us this time.”
“So why break me out?” O’Neill asked suspiciously, but Maybourne was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“Because you’ve got the antibody, Jack. If we get you to Fraiser and Harlowe, chances are they can whip up a miracle cure a lot faster with your blood work.”
O’Neill’s eyes widened. “No,” he said flatly.
“Jack, these bugs will wipe us all out!” Maybourne snapped. “Everyone, Jack, including Fraiser, and Carter, and everyone else you ever cared about.”
“What?” O’Neill snapped, and Maybourne almost felt the energy that suddenly surged through O’Neill. “Who did you say?”
“Carter,” Maybourne repeated. And then, gently, “She’s alive, Jack, and I’m taking you to her. If you help us.”
The silence in the car was broken by the sound of the cell phone clicking open in O’Neill’s hands. “Prove it,” he whispered, but Maybourne knew he’d already won.
“You’ll have to ask Samuels. But I know he doesn’t like her, so he’s likely to have her locked up in a cell again,” Maybourne admitted.
O’Neill swore violently beneath his breath as Maybourne jerked the wheel again to avoid another near collision, dropping the phone at his feet.
“Call Samuels and let him know I have you,” Maybourne instructed as O’Neill struggled to retrieve the small object, “and find out what the fuck he was doing, trying to call me before I was ready!”
O’Neill nodded, and the synthesised tones of the cell phone stretched across the air between them.
---
Washington DC
“Cass, where exactly are we going?” Bek demanded, her hands white-knuckled as she braced herself on the dashboard.
“Shit!” Cass hissed, swerving and stepping heavily on the brake. The small Volvo squealed to a stop, and she peered through the windscreen with wide eyes. “We’ll never make it at this rate!” she cried, slapping her hands on the wheel in frustration.
“Cass?” Bek asked again.
“Academy Airstrip,” Cass answered, staring ahead and trying to find a gap in the traffic she could squeeze the Volvo into. “Mom said they’ll get us on a flight to the Springs if we meet them at the Western Perimeter.”
“Western Perimeter?” Bek repeated doubtfully, and Cass flushed slightly at the look.
“Yeah… It’s not entirely an authorised flight,” she admitted.
Bek’s eyebrows rose a few centimetres, but she didn’t comment on the fact. Instead, she looked past Cass and out of the window. “We are west of the airfield, Cass,” Bek remarked. “It’s across there; there’s a track that leads right up to the fence,” she added.
“Could we hike it in time?” Cass questioned doubtfully, glancing at her watch. “We have to be there by 8am.”
“There’s no way we’ll drive there in time,” Bek shrugged. “We might make it in twenty minutes, but that’s optimistic.”
“One chance to get out of here, Bek, that’s all we’ve got. And it’s either in this car, or on that plane,” Cass pointed out. “If we leave the car, someone will most likely steal it.”
Bek only hesitated for two seconds. “Okay, we go. Come on.”
They grabbed their knapsacks, locked the car and wove across the traffic laden road, leaving the small Volvo abandoned on the side. The grass was long and the sun hot on their backs. Cassie swallowed roughly; this wasn’t Hanka. Her Mom would save them. She had to save them.
---
Nuclear Facility
“Maybourne’s got him,” Samuels announced, snapping the phone shut with an audible click. “They’ll look out for Cassandra, Fraiser, but they won’t wait for her. Traffic’s bad, so she has a bit more time to get the perimeter,” he said blandly before leaving the room.
“I hate that asshole,” Janet spat viciously, raking her fingers through her hair.
“Stand in line.” The vicious mutter went almost unheard, but Janet tensed and turned to face Sam who was still sitting on a chair, watching her with an indifferent expression carefully masking her face.
“Sam,” Janet began.
“Not now, Janet,” Sam shook her head, the light catching the fine strands of hair on her scalp.
“No, I have to tell you,” Janet said firmly.
Sam’s shadowed blue eyes met her gaze steadily, and a wave of guilt turned her saliva to bile in her mouth. “I… I knew you didn’t do it,” Janet whispered.
Did you do it, Sam?
How could you even ask me that?
Sam nodded silently, but she didn’t respond.
“Sam?”
“It’s over, Janet. Whether I did it or not, it doesn’t matter. They still died, all of them.” The words were as empty as Sam’s gaze, and Janet shivered.
“I knew… I knew how much you cared abo-”
“No,” Sam snapped viciously. “No, Janet.”
Janet nodded, twisting her fingers awkwardly in the cotton of her shirt.
“You should go,” Sam said softly, “Maybourne will be here soon with Teal’c, and you and Harlowe need to be ready.”
Janet nodded again, and flicked her gaze over Sam once more. There was a small glimmer of understanding in Sam’s eyes. A slight smile touched the corners of Janet’s lips; it tasted bittersweet.
---
Washington DC
“Bek, if we make it through this, make me exercise more often,” Cass puffed, groaning as they staggered over several roots.
Bek only nodded, using the back of her already damp hand to try and wipe the moisture off her forehead. Her slick skin just spread the sweat and stuck her long strands of hair to her face. “There!” she gasped, pointing as they broke through the tree line and stumbled into the sunlight. 300m further, the sun glinted off a tall, sturdy metal fence lined with barbed wire. “What now?”
“Can you see anyone?” Cass asked, shielding her eyes and squinting along the fence line.
Bek copied her movements, sunspots dancing across her vision in the sudden brightness of the open sunshine. “No,” she murmured, swallowing. Her mouth was dry and she was hot.
But Cass wouldn’t give up; Bek had never known Cass to just give in. “Come on,” Cass whispered, a fresh burst of energy gripping her as she took hold of Bek’s slippery hand and pulled her forward.
“What are you doing?” Bek demanded, staggering across the open field behind Cassandra. “Cass!”
“There’s still a chance, Bek,” Cass muttered, her breathing already loud and laboured again. “If we see them at the plane already… Come on…”
“You’re insane!” Bek hissed, running after Cassandra anyway. That’s always the way it was, she mused silently - Cass led and Bek followed, despite the age differences.
“There!” The satisfaction and relief weren’t even disguised on Cass’ voice as she pointed. A vehicle bounced into a view; a dark green truck careening crazily through the long grass as it raced towards them alongside the fence. “Come on, Bek, it’s them!”
Bek didn’t even bother trying to ask how Cass knew it was them from this distance away, she just followed.
---
Washington DC
“My truck!” Jack complained, wincing as the vehicle bounced over ruts and potholes hidden by the long grass.
“We’ll get you another one, Jack,” Maybourne promised carelessly, fighting with the wheel to keep the truck from crashing into the fence they were precariously close to. The side window scraped along the metal and cracked off, and Jack cursed violently.
“Relax, Jack!” Maybourne told him.
“Relax, Jack,” Jack huffed, grunting as his head connected with the window next to him again. “Maybourne, are you trying to kill me?”
“Of course not,” Maybourne scoffed.
“There! Maybourne, slow down!” he yelled, pointing. “Damn it, Maybourne, slow down or you’ll hit her!”
“Relax!” Maybourne retorted again, but he cut the engine abruptly and the truck shuddered to a halt, pitching Jack forward again.
“Remind me never to drive with you again, Maybourne!” he muttered, fumbling with his seat belt. By the time he unbuckled himself and clambered out of the truck, there were two girls watching them, one staring in open disbelief. A smile broke out onto his face, and as the strength returned to his jellied limbs he stepped forwards, holding his arms out wide. “Cass!”
“Jack!” she shouted, and she was twelve again, launching herself at him and hugging him close. Hot and sticky and solid in his arms, she clung to him, her fingers digging into him as she pressed herself against him. “Jack!” she murmured again, her body shuddering against his.
“Shhh…” he crooned, stroking her hair and rocking her slightly. “I’m here, Cass, I’m right here.”
“I thought.. the bomb… Sam… Oh… Jack,” she stuttered incoherently, her fingers digging in deeper and creating a dull ache of pain in his tender flesh. But he didn’t mind; it reminded him that he was real and that she was real and that this was real.
“As touching as this is, folks, we really don’t have time.” Maybourne’s voice intruded harshly on their reunion.
Cassie pulled back, but they didn’t let go of each other.
“What are you doing, Maybourne?” Jack asked warily as Maybourne produced a set of wire cutters.
“I’m a convicted felon, Jack, there’s no way they’ll just let me take a plane,” he pointed out bluntly.
“What?” The young girl who Jack had completely forgotten about stepped into the middle of the conversation with the politeness of a dog biting an ankle. “A criminal?” she demanded. “Cass, who are these people?”
“This is Jack,” Cassie announced firmly. Jack recognised the rebellious tone creeping into her voice. He remembered that tone well, and how it had driven both Fraiser and Carter insane.
“And him?” The girl pointed at Maybourne with a long, well manicured fingernail.
“That’s Maybourne,” Jack answered smoothly as Maybourne shot the girl a disdainful glance before turning back to the fence with his wire cutters. “And you are?”
“Bek,” both girls stated together.
“She’s my best friend, Jack,” Cass added, “and I’m not leaving here behind.” The defiance surprised him.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he pointed out.
“Jack,” Maybourne hissed through clenched teeth, “this was not a part of the deal!”
“It is now!” Jack grinned. “You done yet?”
“Almost,” Maybourne grunted. “Samuels is going to kill me,” he added wearily.
“Screw Samuels,” Jack said darkly.
“I’d rather not,” Maybourne replied snidely. The piece of fencing clattered as it fell to the ground. “We’re through.”
“Lead on McDuff,” Jack held and arm out, “this isn’t my plan, remember, so you lead.”
“What is the plan?” Bek asked once they had clambered through the fence and started jogging across the empty expanse of grassy fields towards the hangers in the distance.
“We get a plane and fly to Colorado,” Maybourne answered.
“Easy,” Bek commented, puffing slightly.
Sweat was rolling down Jack’s forehead and each breath of the muggy air stuck to the lining of his lungs.
“Jack?” Cassie gasped next to him.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, ignoring the cramping of his legs and abdominal muscles. “Haven’t… been… running for… a while,” he managed. Yeah, and being locked up didn’t help matters either.
“Move it, Jack!” Maybourne ordered sharply.
Jack ground his teeth in silence, trying to keep up. His heart thundered in his ears, and an inky blackness was framing the edges of his visions with curling tendrils slowly seeping away his sight.
Someone grabbed his arm; Maybourne. “Come on, Jack,” he groaned, tugging Jack’s strangely heavy arm over his shoulders and wrapping his arm around Jack’s waist. “Don’t you dare get the wrong idea,” he added.
“And here I thought… it was a… fantasy,” Jack retorted, trying to breathe.
The hangers were closer, he realised with relief. Much closer.
“Jack?” Maybourne asked, slowing the pace slightly.
“Yeah?”
“You can fly a plane right?”
“Of course I can fly a plane,” Jack snapped snidely, trying to catch his breath. “Air force, remember?”
“Good, because I can’t.”
---
PART FOUR
---
---
Nuclear Facility
Walter found Doctor Fraiser in a small room that she and Doctor Harlowe had set up as a laboratory. The petite woman was fiddling with some instruments, apparently unaware of his presence in the doorway.
“Um, Doctor Fraiser, excuse me, Ma’am.”
“Sergeant.” She smiled briefly at him in greeting before she turned back to her workspace again. “What can I do for you?”
“I just thought I’d let you know that Maybourne called in a while ago, Ma’am. Cassandra is safe, and so is her friend.”
The tension seemed to drain from her body, and she smiled radiantly at him. “Thank you,” she breathed as though it was his work that had saved her daughter.
“That’s okay, Ma’am,” he smiled shyly.
“Was there anything else?” she enquired politely, her eyebrows arching delicately.
“Uh… no, Ma’am,” he shook his head before shuffling quickly out of the room, and crashed straight into Major Carter. “Oh! Sorry, Ma’am,” he mumbled, stepping away from her hurriedly.
“It’s okay, Sergeant,” she offered him a slight smile, her skin glowing palely in the dimly lit hallway.
“Are you looking for something?” he asked curiously.
“Yeah,” she muttered, “a way out.”
He stared at her blankly. “Out?”
“I’m not running away, Sergeant, I just want to go outside for a while. Fresh air. Taste freedom, you know?”
No, he didn’t know, but then he hadn’t spent the last three years locked in isolation with only other prisoners and guards for company. “Um…”
“For crying out loud, Walter, I’m not running off!” she snapped as she pushed past him angrily.
“Wait!” he called, his voice bouncing loudly up the hall. She turned silently and faced him, her eyes even bigger than usual without the thick halo of hair to soften her face. “It’s this way, Major.”
She grinned at him, her teeth gleaming white. “My name is Sam,” she said casually.
He smiled in return, and led her to freedom.
----
“Maybourne!” Jack yelled, levelling out the aircraft.
“Coming,” the ex-Colonel yelled back, appearing in the co-pilot’s seat several seconds later. “What?”
“It’s on autopilot,” Jack announced. “You take over.”
Maybourne’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I need a break, Maybourne. Just don’t touch anything, and yell if ANYTHING changes.”
“Jack!” Maybourne argued, slightly panicked by the sound of his voice.
“Either we land the plane now, or you give me twenty minutes,” Jack said icily. He just needed to close his eyes, just for a few minutes.
Maybourne nodded stiffly. “Okay. But you’ll be there, right?”
“Yes.” Jack rose to his feet and moved away, stopping to call back, “Don’t break it!”
Cass and Bek were each sprawled against a crate, watching him silently as he moved towards them. He smiled affectionately as Cassie’s large, concerned eyes speared him. “Are you really okay, Jack?”
“I’m fine, Cass,” he lied, and groaned as he lowered his aching body to the ground next to her.
“You don’t look fine,” Bek said bluntly. He studied her for a second; hair shoulder length hair was tangled and wild, and there was dirt streaked across her face. Despite her grubbiness, he imagined that normally she was almost anal about her appearance. She raised her eyebrows defiantly, as though daring him to comment about her state of disarray.
He grinned. “You’ve always known how to pick them, Cass,” he told her.
Cassie glared at him. “Don’t you dare start!” she warned.
He held his hands up innocently, closing his eyes as he leant back against the crate. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Where the fuck have you been, Jack O’Neill?” she snapped suddenly.
He choked, his eyes flying open as he glanced at her sharply. “You watch that language, Cassandra Fraiser!” he warned.
“You just disappeared!” she accused, ignoring his warning, and he felt a stab of guilt prick at him. The next question was so quiet he barely even heard it. “Were you even there when the bomb went off?”
Yes. He had been there. But Carter had called him, to warn him about something. He remembered stepping outside and the air had been cold. His car keys were warm from resting in his pocket and the ground had rumbled and suddenly there had been pain and noise and heat and nothing all at once. “I was there,” he said quietly.
“They said you died,” she told him evenly.
“I know.”
“Where were you, Jack?” she demanded, angry.
“Come here,” he said. She came, curling up against him as though she was eleven again and crying because Carter was a Goa’uld. “I was in hospital for a long, long time,” he said gently. “I should have died,” he added.
She stiffened in his arms, and pulled away, her eyes wide as realisation dawned. “You had a symbiote,” she whispered.
The flinch was instinctive.
“God... Jack…” she whispered, hugging him tightly.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re safe now.”
“Yes, very safe,” she agreed, relaxing against him.
He looked up; Bek was watching them silently, openly curious but sensitive enough not to ask questions. He wondered how she’d react when she found out the truth, and allowed himself a small smile. Doubtlessly it would be an interesting reaction, if her appearance was anything to go by.
---
Nuclear Facility
“It’s hot,” Sam commented languidly, staring up at the clear blue sky peeking down at her from between the leafy green tree tops.
“Yeah,” Walter Davis agreed from a few feet away. “Too hot,” he added.
“No,” Sam disagreed. “It’s good.” Her skin was sticky with sweat; the slightest hint of a breeze kissed her pale flesh coolly and brought a light tickle of the pine to her nose. She wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean again, to feel the salty liquid brush against her heated skin like iced silk.
She sighed.
“It’s not usually this hot here.” Davis broke the silence between them.
“You come here often?” she asked curiously.
“Yeah. I was transferred here about six weeks after Doctor Fraiser was discharged.”
Sam rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on her hands, watching Davis where he was perched on a rock. “Janet was discharged?” she asked in surprise.
“Yeah. She had a run-in with General Bauer; he got command again after Hammond died.”
She flinched visibly.
“I’m sorry,” he apologised gently.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, rolling onto her back again and staring up at the sky once more. “Can I ask you something?”
“Okay,” he agreed cautiously.
“Did everyone really think I’d done it?” she whispered, hoping her voice wouldn’t break. “Did everyone really think that I was capable of setting that bomb and killing them?”
He didn’t answer her, and Sam closed her eyes in defeat. Even if they did stop the bugs, she gained nothing. They had effectively robbed her of everything; even taken the faith and trust others had placed in her and turned it to nothing but betrayal.
“At first, no,” Walter said at last. “But then they brought forward the evidence… it really looked like you did it,” he admitted.
She nodded silently; there was no use blaming him. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“It was hard to know what to believe,” he continued. “I knew you, I worked with you almost every day, and I knew how you felt about the Colonel. I honestly couldn’t understand why you would have done it, and that made me wonder whether, despite the evidence, you hadn’t.”
“Was I that transparent?” she asked bitterly.
“About what?” he asked.
“About how I felt about the Colonel.” It didn’t seem to wrong to say it out loud, now that he was dead and she was technically dead too. No regulations or repercussions or reputations to worry about anymore.
“Like I said, Major, I knew you.”
She looked at him again, twisting her neck so that the dry blades of grass grazed her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said at last.
“For what?”
“For not knowing you like that.”
---
Nuclear facility
During the course of his life, Maybourne had seen many things both good and bad. He had never, however, seen a dead man return, and neither had he seen the reactions of those that cared about him when they realised he was alive.
Like now.
Fraiser was staring, her daughter forgotten as her mouth dropped open and she struggled to form coherent syllables.
“Miss me?” O’Neill asked chirpily, but Maybourne wasn’t stupid; he could see the surprise and slight disbelief as he watched the strength of Fraiser’s reaction.
“Colonel O’Neill!” Fraiser managed to gasp out, her face pale and shocked but a broad smile revealing her straight white teeth. “Jack.” The gentleness on her voice shocked Maybourne, and if he didn’t know any better he would have thought there was something between them.
“C’mere,” O’Neill said gruffly, and a second later they were hugging one another fiercely. When they pulled back, Fraiser’s eyes were wet and O’Neill looked distinctly uncomfortable with his arms, as though he was unsure what to do with them. Eventually, he just pushed his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat roughly. “So, nice place you got here, Samuels,” he remarked.
“We try,” Samuels returned coolly. “Well, we’re wasting time standing here, people.”
“Where’s Carter?” O’Neill demanded, ignoring Samuels. “Maybourne, you said Carter was here.”
Maybourne glanced across at Samuels, who shrugged in return.
“Maybourne?” O’Neill was getting angry; that was bad.
“She was here, Jack,” Fraiser interjected, looking uncomfortable.
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” O’Neill snapped.
“She disappeared a few hours ago,” Samuels interjected. “Along with Water Davis.”
O’Neill’s eyebrows rose. “Walter Davis?”
“Yes, that’s who I said,” Samuels snapped.
“We need Davis,” Maybourne muttered.
“I know!” Samuels agreed vehemently, turning to face Maybourne. “I told you getting her was a bad idea. We don’t need her, Maybourne, and-”
“I wouldn’t go there.” O’Neill’s voice was quiet, but it held the sting of a rattle snake. “I would so not go there.”
The silence was tense and awkward, stretching until Maybourne waited for something to snap. Nothing did snap, however, because there was movement behind them, and Maybourne turned around to see one sweaty Walter Davis entering the room.
“Davis!” O’Neill barked.
Davis’ face paled and his jaw dropped open as he gaped at O’Neill.
“S… Sir?” he questioned.
“Where’s Carter?”
“Outside… She wanted some fresh air,” he explained brokenly, still staring at O’Neill.
“O’Neill!” Samuels called as the man in question simply pushed past Davis and strode into the hall.
“Fuck you, Samuels!” The words floated back loudly into the room, and Maybourne shrugged again as Samuels glanced at him accusingly.
Cassandra Fraiser spoke first, her voice almost childlike with disbelief as she whispered, “Sam’s alive?”
---
Nuclear Facility
He hadn’t allowed himself to hope that it may be true. Hadn’t even let himself consider the possibility that she was alive, much less that he’d see her again.
Carter was executed yesterday, O’Neill.
What?
Didn’t you know? She was the one who planted the bomb. She killed Hammond and Jackson. And you.
Carter was executed yesterday. He could still hear the words, feel the way his blood turned cold, and the world had narrowed down to a tiny little hospital room with squealing machines and coolly efficient nurses who never spoke to him.
He found her almost immediately after entering the sparse bushland, lying on her stomach with her face pressed close to the ground, palms spread as though she was trying to absorb the earth into her body.
Dry leaves and twigs had given his position away, so she knew he was there, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the first words, to break the first silence between them.
“Did you have a good flight, Cass?” she asked softly.
He frowned in confused amusement. “Not a bad flight, no,” he told her.
He had never seen Carter move so fast; she was up on her feet and facing him before he had even finished the sentence, crouched in a fighter’s position. He saw the blood leaving her face, turning it to ice as she seemed to drink him in with her eyes.
“Hi,” he muttered, suddenly awkward again.
“You… I…” She couldn’t complete the sentence. For the first time ever, Sam Carter couldn’t string together a coherent sentence. He should have felt quite proud of himself for being the one to accomplish that feat, but instead he felt guilt. Guilt that he was capable of putting such an expression of terror on her face.
“Yes, me Jack, you Sam,” he said, trying and failing miserably to mimic Tarzan. And what had possessed him to say that anyway? Idiot, Jack.
She surprised him though. “That was lame, sir, even for you.”
“Yes, I know,” he agreed morosely. “Being dead for a few years does that to a person.”
Well, if the first comment didn’t do it, the second one definitely did. He watched her turn into wood before his eyes, her jaw stiffening and her eyes dropping invisible barriers that were more effective than her gun at keeping him away.
“I… Carter…”
“I… I thought you were dead,” she said stiffly.
“Yeah, apparently you all thought that,” he agreed. “I thought you were dead too.”
“But you’re not,” she said.
“No, I’m not. And neither are you.”
A small smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “No, I’m not.”
“Now that we’ve established that-”
“How?” she asked, and suddenly it was his turn to hide behind those barriers they had perfected. “Colonel?”
He licked his lips; the air was too hot and it was closing in on him and he couldn’t get away and-
“Oh God.”
Carter had always been too smart for her own good, hadn’t she?
“They blended you with a symbiote.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t deny it.
He watched her silently, seeing the way the thoughts were spinning furiously behind her large blue eyes, the way her pale brow crinkled in thought as she ran ideas through her mind and discarded them.
She reached a conclusion, and when she met his gaze again, her eyes were disbelieving. “Sir,” she started, and then stopped herself. “Colonel-”
“Jack,” he interrupted, wasting just a few more minutes before they had to go into it.
“Jack,” she said, trying the word. It rolled over her tongue smoothly, and in spite of the situation, he smiled at her. “Jack.”
“Sam,” he smiled at her.
She smiled back, but it faded quickly. “They’re here, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
“Fuck, they really did screw up,” she breathed.
“Oh yeah,” he agreed.
----
On to Parts 5-6
Rating: T
Spoilers: Absolutely ANYTHING is fair game. Literally.
Category: Apocafic. AU. Action/Adventure. Drama. SJ. Suspense.
Summary: “We have about seven months until the planet is wiped out, Carter,” he blurted out. “Seven months until every last one of us is gone. And that’s optimistic.”
Notes:
This fic has been in the workings for over three years. In that time, I’ve bounced ideas off various people, sent it for checks to even more people, and spammed countless LJ entries with moans and whines about it. As such, there are a lot of people who have been involved with this fic, and doubtlessly I’m going to forget to name some.
I do, however, owe a HUGE thank you to some people:
Denise (Skydiver119) for saving this fic. Literally. It would still be on my HD and unfinished if D didn’t step in, read it, and offer some brilliant suggestions!
Alliesings for beta’ing despite everything - she’s corrected many of my Australianisms and helped me polish this fic better than I could done it alone. Thank you, Allie, I owe you big time! *smooch*
Seldear for being a bouncing board and support and friend during late night chats of moans about exams and whines about family, and for inspiring me to write better with her awesome Atlantis [and Stargate!!] fic! And, of course, her help with actually figuring out how to finish the fic.
Ruralstar for her huge assistance in the first half of this fic, and her suggestions which made it that much better. Also, her contributions to plot and development were invaluable, as was her encouragement.
Evangeline for her brilliant ideas (again, sorry it didn’t all get used!) and willingness to beta.
Lisa Yaeger, because she reads everything and says “It’s awesome!” and that’s like totally good for my ego ;)
And Stars_like_dust because even though I doubt she’ll even REMEMBER (or read) this fic, the original ideas were bounced off her late one night, and since then this fic has morphed so completely it’s not even recognisable - but she let me accost her with fic ideas and spam and I love her for it!
+
For Ev, because she said fic would help and it’s all I had.
+
PART ONE
Richmond, Virginia
The chair was rough and rickety beneath her, on the verge of falling apart. Just like the rest of the stinking hole she was ‘living’ in. The cuffs around her wrists were threaded through a sturdy iron ring bolted to the table in front of her. The silver metal reflected watery sunlight filtering in through the dirty windows, and the light was warm as it played on her hands. It had been a long time since she’d seen the sun, much less felt it kissing her fingers. She flexed the digits, letting the weak light warm them.
Her gaze wandered across to the window, almost surprised at how blue the sky still was. Several white clouds wisped across it and disappeared, leaving her with only a small blue square of empty air. She’d thought that maybe after all this time the sky would be different somehow. Darker. Like her.
On the opposite side of the room, she heard the metal clanking of a key turning in the lock, and the rusted door swung open. Her eyebrows raised in surprise as she watched a familiar figure enter the room, and she regarded him disdainfully.
“You’ve had your hair cut,” he said, pulling out the chair on the opposite side of the table. He looked at it warily, and pushed it back in, opting instead to stand.
“I’ve heard it’s the new fashion,” she returned calmly, her eyes never straying from his form.
“How’ve you been, Major?”
A slight smile pulled at her lips and she shrugged. “Lose the title, Samuels. I’m out, remember?”
He regarded her thoughtfully, and a strange smile pulled his lips into a grimace. “You know, that’s almost exactly what O’Neill said to me nine years ago.”
She stared at him coldly. “What do you want?”
“We need your help.”
She laughed at that, and a flicker of fear crossed his face. He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected her to be ready for the padded rooms and white jackets. But she was. She had been for a long time, probably even longer than she had realised. “That’s rich, considering you’re the asshole who put me in here.”
“We screwed up, Major.”
“For fuck’s sake, Samuels, I’m not in the Air Force anymore, remember? Hell, I’m not even classed as a fucking free citizen.”
“I could have you gassed,” he said.
“You’ve tried that,” she retorted, her voice like acid.
She saw the veins in his temple flutter in time with each pulse of his heart, and she stared at them in fascination. A light sheen of sweat clung to his pink skin, and she grimaced in distaste.
“We made a mistake, Sam.”
She leant forwards in her chair, resting her warm palms against the rough grains of the table. “It took you this long to figure it out? And don’t call me Sam.”
“Then what do I call you?”
“I believe the number is 5041,” she said icily. “Don’t you know that, Samuels? We don’t have names in here. We’re just a bunch of fucking numbers.”
“We have seven months until the planet is wiped out, Carter,” he blurted out. “Seven months until every last one of us is gone. And that’s optimistic,” he added casually.
She gave a low whistle through her teeth, and leant back in her chair again, tensing as the weak wood groaned beneath her weight. “And what do you expect me to do about it?” she demanded. “I’m kinda tied up at the moment.” The cuffs and chains on her wrists clinked as she raised her hands towards him almost mockingly.
“We leave in half an hour,” Samuels said, standing up and casting a quick glance out of the small window.
She wondered if he could see the treetops from his viewpoint.
---
I-95
The rubbery hum of tires slapping down on the blacktop rose defiantly above the quiet purr of the government issued Ford. The leather was soft against her spine, but in the sweltering heat it was sticking the rough prison garb to her back.
“Could we wind down a window?” she asked, breaking the silence in the car.
“No,” Samuels said curtly.
She held up her cuffed wrists, making the small chains rattle loudly. “It’s not like I’m gonna go anywhere.”
“We’re not opening the windows.”
The streetlights glistened off his forehead, and she watched as he lifted one jacket-clad arm and wiped at the sweat on his face. She pursed her lips and used her own sleeve to wipe her face, staring out the dark window to the world beyond. She peered up at the sky, twisting her head to see, but the bright lights blinded her and she couldn’t see the stars.
“What are you doing?” Samuels snapped.
“Looking,” she muttered, pulling her head back down and resting her forehead against the cool glass of the window. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger, Samuels?”
Samuels sat back in his seat, facing forward again as their driver negotiated the large car, deliberately ignoring her question. She sighed and let her head rest against the window again. “What happened?”
The car nosed over into the exit when he looked across at her again. “You’ll be told when we arrive.”
“Arrive where?”
“Colorado.”
Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head. Colorado. That meant one place.
---
Colorado Springs
The jangling of the phone was unnaturally loud as it intruded on her sleep. Her hands fumbled clumsily on her bedside table before locating the handset.
“Cassie, I swear to God you will learn how to read a watch,” Janet groaned into the phone.
“This isn’t Cassandra,” a smooth male voice responded.
“Oh.. God.. Sorry, I thought you were my daughter.”
“Sorry to have woken you, Doctor Fraiser, but we need your help.”
She frowned into the phone. “Who is this?”
“Sergeant Davis, Ma’am. Walter Davis.”
“Walter?” she repeated incredulously.
“Uh.. yeah. We need your help, Doctor Fraiser.”
“So you’ve said, Sergeant.” Janet sat up and swung her legs over the side, searching blindly in the dark with her feet for her slippers while her hands tried to locate the switch on her bedside lamp. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s been a breach.”
She felt the sticky layer of heat induced sweat turn to ice on her skin. “I knew it couldn’t last,” she muttered, slipping her feet into her slippers and standing up. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“No, I’ll meet you at your house in five minutes.” The phone went dead in her hands, and she stared at it for several seconds. Despite the heat, she felt cold inside.
---
Washington DC
Maybourne hated these places. The chemical smell of disinfectant soured the air and the sterile whiteness made him feel unclean. He was unclean, he supposed, but hopefully his actions in the next few days would balance out his karma and he wouldn’t return to this life as a bug.
A bitter smile pulled at his lips as he navigated his way through the endless hallways. Jack O’Neill would have liked that: Maybourne returning as a cockroach. O’Neill would simply crush him beneath his military issued boot.
Still, maybe he’d come back as a dog now, or something. Hopefully.
---
Colorado Springs
“Where are we going?” Janet asked, rolling her shoulders to try and dislodge the sweat-soaked shirt sticking to her back. It was hot, she decided, disgustingly and unnaturally hot for this area of the USA.
“Nuclear Facility,” Davis grunted, his boots crushing gravel and growth in an unsteady pace in front of her. “They don’t want anyone to know we’ve brought you in.”
She remained quiet, staring at the gate technician’s back. Walter Davis, their tech-head and resident nerd, was playing hero?
“I know what you’re thinking, Ma’am,” he commented, stopping to face her. His flashlight glinted off the gravel, and moonlight turned his crew-cut into a silver fuzz.
“What am I thinking?” she asked him.
“That things must be pretty bad if a gate geek who couldn’t pass his physical is leading a discharged military doctor across a mountain in the middle of the night.”
“Either that or the gate geek has some pretty strange ideas,” she returned. His eyes widened, and he stuttered a few times before falling silent. “Well, are they?” she asked.
“NO!” he snapped explosively. Then, “No, Ma’am. This definitely isn’t my idea of fun.”
A small smile tugged at her mouth, but it didn’t surface. “I was talking about the emergency. It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said simply, and continued walking. She followed in silence, watching the narrow beam of light bounce through the darkness.
Things had to be bad if Walter Davis was playing hero, she mused darkly.
---
Washington DC
The hypodermic syringe was a warm and comforting weight in his pocket. He let his fingers roll over the smooth plastic several times, watching the guards patrol the room’s single door.
He smiled in amusement, the emotion flickering briefly across his shadowed features. Two men on guard for one man locked in a padded room, Maybourne mused dryly. Impressive. Then again, he would never have suspected any less from the man locked behind the doors.
He just hoped the rumours weren’t true.
---
Nuclear Facility, Colorado
“This is ridiculous, Sergeant!” Fraiser snapped, stomping across the dark room in frustration. “Would you just tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I can’t,” he mumbled apologetically, staring down at his hands. Pale, soft skin. Indoor hands with calluses on the fingertips from too much typing on a computer keyboard. His hands weren’t made for all this outdoorsy, cloak and dagger planet saving crap.
“Why not?” Fraiser demanded, pinning him against the wall with her eyes. Fraiser would have made a great General; everyone had said so. Until Bauer.
“I’m under orders,” he explained. She, of all people, should understand that.
“Whose orders?” The woman never gave up, did she?
“Mine.”
Walter’s body almost sagged in relief as the force of her personality was deflected away from him and directed towards the doorway where several figures were now standing.
“Yours?” Fraiser spat, and Walter cringed. Fraiser hated Samuels, he remembered a few seconds too late.
“Yes,” Samuels nodded. “We don’t have much time, Doctor Fraiser, and I’m only going to explain the situation once.”
“Then damn well hurry up and explain it, Samuels, I’m losing what little patience I had to begin with.” The figure who’d spoke was female, but it wasn’t Fraiser.
Walter felt his mouth drop open again as a tall, thin woman clad in bright orange prison garb stepped into the room, her hands bound in front of her by a pair of metal handcuffs. Despite the shaved head and lines around her eyes, he would have recognised Samantha Carter anywhere.
“Sam!” Fraiser gasped; the word was a strangled sound deep in her throat.
“Janet,” Carter greeted coolly. Her eyes flicked over Walter as she nodded a quick greeting to him, and then she turned back to Samuels. “Would you take these off now, Samuels? My wrists are getting chafed.”
“But…” Fraiser whispered, and Walter understood how she felt. “I was there, I saw you…”
“You saw me die?” Carter asked hollowly. “Wrong, Janet. I’m not dead.”
“Yes, we’re well aware of that. Now, if you ladies don’t mind, we do have a very big problem on our hands,” Samuels interrupted. “And I’m not untying Carter until I’ve explained the situation and you understand what’s happening.”
“Hurry up then, Samuels,” Carter snapped, crossing the room and seating herself.
Walter stared at Samuels, frowning in thought. What the hell was going on? And how many more secrets did Samuels have?
---
PART TWO
---
---
Washington DC
The phone was ringing. Cassandra closed her eyes and burrowed deeper under her covers.
The phone was ringing.
“Go away!” she muttered, pulling the covers over her head and turning over so that her back was facing the phone.
The phone was still ringing.
A muffled thump banged against the wall, followed by Bek’s sleep-muffled voice. “Answer your damn phone, Cass!”
“Maaargghh!” Cass groaned, rolling over in a tangle of sheets to find the offending appliance. “Yeah?” she grunted into the receiver.
“Cass! Why didn’t you answer your phone?” her Mom’s voice demanded.
“Mom! It’s 6am!” she moaned, flopping onto her back.
“I know, Cass, and I’m sorry.”
A door slammed somewhere in the apartment, and she heard Bek rattling mugs in the kitchen. Damn, now there wasn’t going to be any going back to bed. “What’s up?” she asked, staring at the ceiling. It needed another coat of paint, she mused.
“I need you to fly home straight away, Cass.”
She frowned. “Mom?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone, sweetie, but-” a squeal from the kitchen cut Janet’s voice off, and Cass flew upright in bed.
“Bek?” she called.
“Cass! You have got to see this!”
“Just a minute!” she yelled back, rolling her eyes. “Mom, you still there?”
“Yes, I am. Cass, listen to me, I need you to get home as quickly as possible, okay?”
“Why?” she whispered, suddenly cold in the summer heat.
“There’s been a safety breach, honey, and you could be in danger.”
“How?” Cass demanded. Her mouth was cotton dry, and she swallowed roughly to try and dislodge the lump suddenly constricting her throat.
“An experimental project working on some specimens brought back by SG-1 a few years ago went wrong. Some specimens got out, and they’re lethal, Cass. They multiply faster than you can imagine, and they swarm. There are only a few out there at the moment, but they’re spreading.”
“Fuck,” Cassie whispered.
“Cassandra!” Janet snapped.
“Sorry!” she apologised absently. “I’ll… I’ll get Bek and book our flights straight away.”
“Good. Keep your cell phone on, Cass, and call if you have any problems.”
“Okay,” Cass nodded, juggling the phone as she tried to pull her night shirt off and dress herself.
“Cass?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Don’t go near anyone who’s been stung, okay?”
“Okay,” Cass whispered. The carpet beneath her feet was light, almost cream coloured. Her Mom had been wearing a cream dress when she’d died, the same colour as the carron fields behind their house.
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too,” she whispered. The handset slipped neatly onto its cradle when she hung up, and her room was too quiet.
Bek was in the kitchen. “Morning,” Cassandra said.
“Have you seen this?” Bek demanded, turning to face Cassie. “This is… Cass… this is unbelievable!” She motioned toward the TV screen.
Cass stared at it blankly; a female reporter was speaking into a microphone, but Cassie ignored her. “We have to get out of here, Bek. Something bad is happening.”
“No shit,” Bek agreed vehemently, her green eyes wide. “Cass, these things… they’re amazing!”
Cassie looked at the TV screen. “My Mom says we have to get out of here. She wants us to fly to Colorado Springs. We’re in danger. In very bad danger,” she whispered.
Danger. So much danger. Everyone was dying. Mom! Where was her Mom? The sun was shining and the grass was growing, but everyone was dying and her mom was wearing a cotton dress and there was blood on her hands and-
“Cass! Are you okay?”
Cassandra blinked, and she was in their kitchen, her sweaty feet sticking to the cold linoleum floor and her hands wrapped around the back of a kitchen chair. “I’m fine,” she whispered, closing her eyes and shaking her head slightly. “Bek, we have to get out of here. Now. Pack your things; I’m booking us two flights to the Springs.”
“No, I’m going home, Cass, to New York.”
“Bek, you have to trust me on this. My Mom is one of the only people who can help us,” Cass urged.
“What do you mean?” Bek frowned.
“My Mom… she… she knows things,” she said lamely, clenching her fingers around the smooth wood in frustration.
Bek clambered to her feet, staring at Cass. “This isn’t funny, Cass.”
“I’m serious, Bek! You have to trust me.”
“I can’t, I have to go to my family. If these bugs… if this is really as bad as they’re making it out to be on TV, I have to go home to my family. Besides, the Springs is where the bugs are going. You’ll be safer in New York.”
Cass shook her head. “You’re wrong. You’re not going to be safe anywhere,” she whispered.
“I’m not going to the Springs,” Bek said firmly.
“I’ll get yours booked for New York.”
Bek nodded. “Thanks, Cass.”
---
Washington DC
He was getting hungry, and when Maybourne got hungry, he got cranky. Very cranky. It didn’t help that his legs were beginning to cramp. He checked his wristwatch in a barely controlled gesture of frustration, touching the buttons to light up the small screen. 6:21am.
Good, only a few more minutes. He eased his right hand into his pocket and fingered the syringe again. Almost time.
The cupboard door squeaked as he pushed it open. No one was around. He stepped out quickly and shut the door behind him with a soft click, and then strode up the hall to the men’s room.
He was washing his hands when the door swung open and one of the new guards walked in wearing a worried grimace on his face.
“Good morning.” Maybourne smiled broadly.
The guard glanced at him. “Where have you been all night, buddy?” he questioned, crossing the room. “Haven’t you seen the news? This sure as hell ain’t a good morning!” he declared.
Maybourne’s answer was to plunge the hypodermic needle deep into the man’s neck. The man struggled briefly as Maybourne emptied the contents of the syringe into his neck, and then slumped silently to the ground, unconscious after a few seconds.
Other than the sleeves and trousers being too long the uniform wasn’t a bad fit, Maybourne thought as he admired his reflection in the mirror. He tucked in the shirt and holstered the handgun before leaving the men’s room and sauntered up the hallway.
“You’re early,” a guard remarked as he turned the corner and they came into view.
“It’s chaos out there,” he announced loudly. “I figured I’d make sure I got in here on time.”
“What do you mean ‘chaos’?” the other guard questioned.
“Haven’t you heard?” Maybourne stared at them, feigning disbelief. “There are mutant bugs out there, and they’re attacking everything in their path. At least a hundred of them. They’re because of all that secret military testing they do out at Groom Lake; the fall out mutated them and turned them into killers. Just like Godzilla,” he added for effect.
They stared at him doubtfully. “Mutant bugs?”
“Yeah. They sting you with their stingers.” He nodded enthusiastically.
“Right. Good one. Very very funny.”
“You don’t believe me? Go to the staffroom and see for yourself. They’re on almost every channel. Big news at the moment.”
Their raised eyebrows were in danger of hitting the ceiling as they gazed down at him, and he shrugged carelessly. “Fine, don’t believe me. You’ll see for yourselves, there are mutant bugs on the loose. TV is only up the hall.”
One of the guard’s glanced at his wrist. “It’s 6:31,” he commented.
“Bert’ll be late, with the traffic out there,” Maybourne announced. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. You go have a look, I’ll be fine until then.”
With a final disbelieving glance, they passed Maybourne the keys and disappeared up the hall.
“Idiots,” Maybourne muttered as he watched them disappear.
---
Washington DC
“Come on, Cass!” Bek yelled, her voice floating in through the open window. “Cass, we have to get out of here!” So, so urgent. Bek hadn’t seen the end of a world before, she didn’t realise it didn’t come quickly.
“I’m coming,” she called back, pulling back and shutting the window firmly. She pulled the curtains shut, casting the room into darkness before she snagged her knapsack from where it was lying on a couch.
The photo frame was silver, and she stopped by the bookcase to look at it. Her Mom, Sam and herself.
She picked it up; the pewter was heavy and cold in her hands as she walked out the door and locked it behind her.
---
Nuclear Facility
“Damn it, Cass, answer!” Janet muttered, pacing anxiously across the floor.
Sam watched her agitated movements, discreetly studying the woman who used to be her best friend. Janet hadn’t aged much in the last three years. Not like Sam. There were no bags under here eyes or scars on her hands.
“Where is she?” Sam asked, breaking the silence as she studied her own hands.
“DC,” Janet answered, glancing wearily at Sam.
Sam could still read Janet; she could still tell Janet was going to launch into something serious. Sam was right.
“Sam, I didn’t know. I promise you, I didn’t know. If I’d known-”
“If you’d known, what?” Sam asked tiredly. “You’d have what?”
She heard footsteps behind her, and turned to face Samuels. “Harlowe just arrived,” Samuels announced. “He’s brought some samples, work and the equipment you’ll need, Doctor Fraiser. He’s also got a specimen.”
Sam watched with veiled interest as Janet turned on Samuels. “We can’t just whip up a miracle cure in time to fix your mistake, Samuels! Coming up with a vaccine for a retro virus in only a few days… it’s almost impossible!”
“Harlowe has been working on this since the incident with the Jaffa,” Samuels interrupted. “He knows these bugs almost better than anyone.”
“Teal’c,” Sam snapped, “his name is Teal’c.”
“If he’s been working on this for years and he hasn’t gotten anywhere, what makes you so sure we can create a vaccine in a few weeks?” Janet almost yelled, her frustration increasingly obvious.
“They’ve been performing genetic experiments with these bugs, Fraiser. Harlowe only had one of the originals to work on, not one of the newer mutations. The new virus acts slightly slower; the vaccines he has have no effect at all.”
“There’s not enough time,” Janet whispered.
For the first time since they’d announced her death sentence, Samantha Carter felt fear.
The cold silence in the room was broken almost gently. “It’s not as bad as you think, Janet,” a familiar voice tried to comfort. “Samuels hasn’t told you everything yet, has he?” There was almost an accusation in the tone.
Sam watched Timothy Harlowe silently. He’d betrayed them all by keeping the specimens and his research into the retro virus. It was through him that the NID managed to get hold of them and create this outbreak. It was his fucking fault that after all they’d been through, all they’d done, they were in danger of wiping themselves out with their own stupidity.
“Told me what?” Janet demanded. “Samuels?”
Samuels sighed in annoyance. “Maybourne is-”
“Maybourne?” Sam interrupted incredulously. “We’re dealing with Maybourne as well?” She stood up abruptly, anger heating her limbs and sending a tingling surge of feeling through her limbs. She felt her blood rushing through her veins, heard the rhythmic beat of her heart, the stuffy air pressing on her face, the itch of the hair growing back on her scalp. “This has gone far enough! I don’t trust you, Samuels, or Harlowe for that matter, and I definitely don’t trust Maybourne!”
“Sit down and shut up!” Samuels barked. The quiet click almost deafened her in the small room, and everything else faded away again. She stared at the blunt muzzle of the hand gun trained on her. “You are here, Carter, because of your experience with these bugs. I don’t need you, and I’m not putting up with any crap. You are a convicted criminal under my authority. Do I make myself clear?”
Sam sat back down silently, staring at his gun.
She was dead; she couldn’t feel again, she just was. They owned her life, her thoughts… her breaths. She was nothing except dead, and even that release was withheld from her.
Who the fuck had she pissed off this much?
“Maybourne is getting us antibodies,” Samuels continued smoothly, holstering his weapon. “He’ll check in as soon as he’s got them.”
“Where is he getting the antibodies from?” Janet interjected sharply. “There only person who I’m aware of being exposed to the retro virus is Teal’c, and he’s-”
“They’ve got him,” Sam said dully.
“What?” Janet turned to her. “Teal’c is somewhere on another planet, Sam. I saw him go through the gate, right after I-” Janet stopped, the sentence hanging.
“Right after you watched me die?” Sam asked darkly. “Janet, they kept me imprisoned for three years without you knowing, or anyone else for that matter. It would be much easier for them to do the same with Teal’c.”
“But how did they get him?” Janet demanded.
“I don’t know,” Sam shrugged, glaring up at Samuels. “These fucking bastards have screwed everything up.”
“You’re incorrect, Sam,” Harlowe broke in. “They’re not-”
The chirping of Janet’s cell phone interrupted them, and conversation ceased as the doctor answered it. “Cass? Oh, thank God!” she breathed into the phone. “What? Where are you? No, stay there… hold on…” Janet speared Samuels with a glance. “Where exactly is Maybourne?” she asked suspiciously.
“DC,” Samuels answered reluctantly.
“You get hold of him now, Samuels, and tell him he’s bringing my daughter back with him.”
“What?” Samuels gaped.
“You heard me. My daughter is flying here with Maybourne.”
“We can’t-”
“Your fucking organization is costing the lives of hundreds of people, Samuels, and you’ve destroyed the lives of countless already. You will bring my daughter home.”
Samuels licked his lips nervously, watching Janet cautiously. “Tell her… tell her if she can get to the Academy Airstrip by 0800hours their time, Maybourne will meet her outside the Western Perimeter. Oh, and Fraiser? Tell her not, under any circumstance, to let herself get caught. Understand?”
Janet nodded silently and spoke urgently in the phone.
Sam watched Samuels stalking out of the small room, and wondered how Cass and Teal’c would react to seeing her alive, and whether they thought she was guilty.
---
PART THREE
---
---
Washington DC
They had almost gotten away with it. So. Fucking. Close. And then his cell phone had rung. Loudly. In the middle of the reception. And of course one of the guards whom he’d fed the ‘mutant bugs from hell’ crap to (despite that fact that most of it was, in actuality, true) just had to be standing there.
“Hey!” the guard had yelled.
“Run!” Maybourne had ordered, reaching for his hand gun.
“Where to?” was grunted in return as they broke out of the building and into the hot sunlight.
“My truck! There!” He pointed with the gun.
“Fuck you… Maybourne… that’s my truck!” O’Neill wheezed
“Was!” Maybourne panted gleefully. “You’re dead, remember?”
“Apparently not!” O’Neill muttered as they clambered into his truck.
Maybourne revved the engine and crunched the truck into gear, spinning the tires on the loose gravel scattered across the road. The chase was half-hearted though, and the guard only jogged after the truck to the entranceway, already holstering his weapon before Maybourne even left the car park.
O’Neill coughed loudly next to him, and Maybourne cast a concerned glance over the man now slumping in his seat with a slight sheen of sweat dotting his forehead.
“You okay, Jack?”
O’Neill opened one eye. “What the fuck is going on, Maybourne?” he demanded hoarsely.
“We hit a snag,” Maybourne admitted. “Here, take this.” He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and threw it to O’Neill. “Ring the number that called us and almost got us killed.”
“Who is it?” O’Neill demanded, fumbling with the small object.
“Samuels. He’s the only one with this number.”
O’Neill coughed. “Sparky?!”
“Yeah, I think that’s what you called him.”
O’Neill shut the phone with a snap. “I’m not calling anyone until you tell me exactly what is going on!”
Maybourne ground his teeth in frustration; O’Neill was just as ornery when he was ‘dead’ as when he was alive. Why couldn’t the man just do as he was told for a change? “You’re stubborn for a dead man, Jack.”
“You’ll be a dead man if you don’t answer my questions,” O’Neill threatened. But the words were hollow; O’Neill’s laboured breathing betrayed his inability to follow through.
“I’ve got the gun this time, Jack, so cut the bullshit,” Maybourne snapped, yanking on the wheel as a car swung into his lane. “Moron!” he yelled, banging on the horn. “This is ridiculous,” he added, concentrating on the traffic.
“What is going on?” O’Neill asked again, also watching the traffic.
“Panic,” Maybourne said simply. “They all think it’s the end of the world because a bug’s gotten out.”
Despite his apparent weakness, O’Neill’s gaze was anything but frail when Maybourne looked at him again. Maybourne sighed. “The NID screwed up, Jack, and we’ve got a problem. One that could destroy us this time.”
“So why break me out?” O’Neill asked suspiciously, but Maybourne was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“Because you’ve got the antibody, Jack. If we get you to Fraiser and Harlowe, chances are they can whip up a miracle cure a lot faster with your blood work.”
O’Neill’s eyes widened. “No,” he said flatly.
“Jack, these bugs will wipe us all out!” Maybourne snapped. “Everyone, Jack, including Fraiser, and Carter, and everyone else you ever cared about.”
“What?” O’Neill snapped, and Maybourne almost felt the energy that suddenly surged through O’Neill. “Who did you say?”
“Carter,” Maybourne repeated. And then, gently, “She’s alive, Jack, and I’m taking you to her. If you help us.”
The silence in the car was broken by the sound of the cell phone clicking open in O’Neill’s hands. “Prove it,” he whispered, but Maybourne knew he’d already won.
“You’ll have to ask Samuels. But I know he doesn’t like her, so he’s likely to have her locked up in a cell again,” Maybourne admitted.
O’Neill swore violently beneath his breath as Maybourne jerked the wheel again to avoid another near collision, dropping the phone at his feet.
“Call Samuels and let him know I have you,” Maybourne instructed as O’Neill struggled to retrieve the small object, “and find out what the fuck he was doing, trying to call me before I was ready!”
O’Neill nodded, and the synthesised tones of the cell phone stretched across the air between them.
---
Washington DC
“Cass, where exactly are we going?” Bek demanded, her hands white-knuckled as she braced herself on the dashboard.
“Shit!” Cass hissed, swerving and stepping heavily on the brake. The small Volvo squealed to a stop, and she peered through the windscreen with wide eyes. “We’ll never make it at this rate!” she cried, slapping her hands on the wheel in frustration.
“Cass?” Bek asked again.
“Academy Airstrip,” Cass answered, staring ahead and trying to find a gap in the traffic she could squeeze the Volvo into. “Mom said they’ll get us on a flight to the Springs if we meet them at the Western Perimeter.”
“Western Perimeter?” Bek repeated doubtfully, and Cass flushed slightly at the look.
“Yeah… It’s not entirely an authorised flight,” she admitted.
Bek’s eyebrows rose a few centimetres, but she didn’t comment on the fact. Instead, she looked past Cass and out of the window. “We are west of the airfield, Cass,” Bek remarked. “It’s across there; there’s a track that leads right up to the fence,” she added.
“Could we hike it in time?” Cass questioned doubtfully, glancing at her watch. “We have to be there by 8am.”
“There’s no way we’ll drive there in time,” Bek shrugged. “We might make it in twenty minutes, but that’s optimistic.”
“One chance to get out of here, Bek, that’s all we’ve got. And it’s either in this car, or on that plane,” Cass pointed out. “If we leave the car, someone will most likely steal it.”
Bek only hesitated for two seconds. “Okay, we go. Come on.”
They grabbed their knapsacks, locked the car and wove across the traffic laden road, leaving the small Volvo abandoned on the side. The grass was long and the sun hot on their backs. Cassie swallowed roughly; this wasn’t Hanka. Her Mom would save them. She had to save them.
---
Nuclear Facility
“Maybourne’s got him,” Samuels announced, snapping the phone shut with an audible click. “They’ll look out for Cassandra, Fraiser, but they won’t wait for her. Traffic’s bad, so she has a bit more time to get the perimeter,” he said blandly before leaving the room.
“I hate that asshole,” Janet spat viciously, raking her fingers through her hair.
“Stand in line.” The vicious mutter went almost unheard, but Janet tensed and turned to face Sam who was still sitting on a chair, watching her with an indifferent expression carefully masking her face.
“Sam,” Janet began.
“Not now, Janet,” Sam shook her head, the light catching the fine strands of hair on her scalp.
“No, I have to tell you,” Janet said firmly.
Sam’s shadowed blue eyes met her gaze steadily, and a wave of guilt turned her saliva to bile in her mouth. “I… I knew you didn’t do it,” Janet whispered.
Did you do it, Sam?
How could you even ask me that?
Sam nodded silently, but she didn’t respond.
“Sam?”
“It’s over, Janet. Whether I did it or not, it doesn’t matter. They still died, all of them.” The words were as empty as Sam’s gaze, and Janet shivered.
“I knew… I knew how much you cared abo-”
“No,” Sam snapped viciously. “No, Janet.”
Janet nodded, twisting her fingers awkwardly in the cotton of her shirt.
“You should go,” Sam said softly, “Maybourne will be here soon with Teal’c, and you and Harlowe need to be ready.”
Janet nodded again, and flicked her gaze over Sam once more. There was a small glimmer of understanding in Sam’s eyes. A slight smile touched the corners of Janet’s lips; it tasted bittersweet.
---
Washington DC
“Bek, if we make it through this, make me exercise more often,” Cass puffed, groaning as they staggered over several roots.
Bek only nodded, using the back of her already damp hand to try and wipe the moisture off her forehead. Her slick skin just spread the sweat and stuck her long strands of hair to her face. “There!” she gasped, pointing as they broke through the tree line and stumbled into the sunlight. 300m further, the sun glinted off a tall, sturdy metal fence lined with barbed wire. “What now?”
“Can you see anyone?” Cass asked, shielding her eyes and squinting along the fence line.
Bek copied her movements, sunspots dancing across her vision in the sudden brightness of the open sunshine. “No,” she murmured, swallowing. Her mouth was dry and she was hot.
But Cass wouldn’t give up; Bek had never known Cass to just give in. “Come on,” Cass whispered, a fresh burst of energy gripping her as she took hold of Bek’s slippery hand and pulled her forward.
“What are you doing?” Bek demanded, staggering across the open field behind Cassandra. “Cass!”
“There’s still a chance, Bek,” Cass muttered, her breathing already loud and laboured again. “If we see them at the plane already… Come on…”
“You’re insane!” Bek hissed, running after Cassandra anyway. That’s always the way it was, she mused silently - Cass led and Bek followed, despite the age differences.
“There!” The satisfaction and relief weren’t even disguised on Cass’ voice as she pointed. A vehicle bounced into a view; a dark green truck careening crazily through the long grass as it raced towards them alongside the fence. “Come on, Bek, it’s them!”
Bek didn’t even bother trying to ask how Cass knew it was them from this distance away, she just followed.
---
Washington DC
“My truck!” Jack complained, wincing as the vehicle bounced over ruts and potholes hidden by the long grass.
“We’ll get you another one, Jack,” Maybourne promised carelessly, fighting with the wheel to keep the truck from crashing into the fence they were precariously close to. The side window scraped along the metal and cracked off, and Jack cursed violently.
“Relax, Jack!” Maybourne told him.
“Relax, Jack,” Jack huffed, grunting as his head connected with the window next to him again. “Maybourne, are you trying to kill me?”
“Of course not,” Maybourne scoffed.
“There! Maybourne, slow down!” he yelled, pointing. “Damn it, Maybourne, slow down or you’ll hit her!”
“Relax!” Maybourne retorted again, but he cut the engine abruptly and the truck shuddered to a halt, pitching Jack forward again.
“Remind me never to drive with you again, Maybourne!” he muttered, fumbling with his seat belt. By the time he unbuckled himself and clambered out of the truck, there were two girls watching them, one staring in open disbelief. A smile broke out onto his face, and as the strength returned to his jellied limbs he stepped forwards, holding his arms out wide. “Cass!”
“Jack!” she shouted, and she was twelve again, launching herself at him and hugging him close. Hot and sticky and solid in his arms, she clung to him, her fingers digging into him as she pressed herself against him. “Jack!” she murmured again, her body shuddering against his.
“Shhh…” he crooned, stroking her hair and rocking her slightly. “I’m here, Cass, I’m right here.”
“I thought.. the bomb… Sam… Oh… Jack,” she stuttered incoherently, her fingers digging in deeper and creating a dull ache of pain in his tender flesh. But he didn’t mind; it reminded him that he was real and that she was real and that this was real.
“As touching as this is, folks, we really don’t have time.” Maybourne’s voice intruded harshly on their reunion.
Cassie pulled back, but they didn’t let go of each other.
“What are you doing, Maybourne?” Jack asked warily as Maybourne produced a set of wire cutters.
“I’m a convicted felon, Jack, there’s no way they’ll just let me take a plane,” he pointed out bluntly.
“What?” The young girl who Jack had completely forgotten about stepped into the middle of the conversation with the politeness of a dog biting an ankle. “A criminal?” she demanded. “Cass, who are these people?”
“This is Jack,” Cassie announced firmly. Jack recognised the rebellious tone creeping into her voice. He remembered that tone well, and how it had driven both Fraiser and Carter insane.
“And him?” The girl pointed at Maybourne with a long, well manicured fingernail.
“That’s Maybourne,” Jack answered smoothly as Maybourne shot the girl a disdainful glance before turning back to the fence with his wire cutters. “And you are?”
“Bek,” both girls stated together.
“She’s my best friend, Jack,” Cass added, “and I’m not leaving here behind.” The defiance surprised him.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he pointed out.
“Jack,” Maybourne hissed through clenched teeth, “this was not a part of the deal!”
“It is now!” Jack grinned. “You done yet?”
“Almost,” Maybourne grunted. “Samuels is going to kill me,” he added wearily.
“Screw Samuels,” Jack said darkly.
“I’d rather not,” Maybourne replied snidely. The piece of fencing clattered as it fell to the ground. “We’re through.”
“Lead on McDuff,” Jack held and arm out, “this isn’t my plan, remember, so you lead.”
“What is the plan?” Bek asked once they had clambered through the fence and started jogging across the empty expanse of grassy fields towards the hangers in the distance.
“We get a plane and fly to Colorado,” Maybourne answered.
“Easy,” Bek commented, puffing slightly.
Sweat was rolling down Jack’s forehead and each breath of the muggy air stuck to the lining of his lungs.
“Jack?” Cassie gasped next to him.
“I’m fine,” he rasped, ignoring the cramping of his legs and abdominal muscles. “Haven’t… been… running for… a while,” he managed. Yeah, and being locked up didn’t help matters either.
“Move it, Jack!” Maybourne ordered sharply.
Jack ground his teeth in silence, trying to keep up. His heart thundered in his ears, and an inky blackness was framing the edges of his visions with curling tendrils slowly seeping away his sight.
Someone grabbed his arm; Maybourne. “Come on, Jack,” he groaned, tugging Jack’s strangely heavy arm over his shoulders and wrapping his arm around Jack’s waist. “Don’t you dare get the wrong idea,” he added.
“And here I thought… it was a… fantasy,” Jack retorted, trying to breathe.
The hangers were closer, he realised with relief. Much closer.
“Jack?” Maybourne asked, slowing the pace slightly.
“Yeah?”
“You can fly a plane right?”
“Of course I can fly a plane,” Jack snapped snidely, trying to catch his breath. “Air force, remember?”
“Good, because I can’t.”
---
PART FOUR
---
---
Nuclear Facility
Walter found Doctor Fraiser in a small room that she and Doctor Harlowe had set up as a laboratory. The petite woman was fiddling with some instruments, apparently unaware of his presence in the doorway.
“Um, Doctor Fraiser, excuse me, Ma’am.”
“Sergeant.” She smiled briefly at him in greeting before she turned back to her workspace again. “What can I do for you?”
“I just thought I’d let you know that Maybourne called in a while ago, Ma’am. Cassandra is safe, and so is her friend.”
The tension seemed to drain from her body, and she smiled radiantly at him. “Thank you,” she breathed as though it was his work that had saved her daughter.
“That’s okay, Ma’am,” he smiled shyly.
“Was there anything else?” she enquired politely, her eyebrows arching delicately.
“Uh… no, Ma’am,” he shook his head before shuffling quickly out of the room, and crashed straight into Major Carter. “Oh! Sorry, Ma’am,” he mumbled, stepping away from her hurriedly.
“It’s okay, Sergeant,” she offered him a slight smile, her skin glowing palely in the dimly lit hallway.
“Are you looking for something?” he asked curiously.
“Yeah,” she muttered, “a way out.”
He stared at her blankly. “Out?”
“I’m not running away, Sergeant, I just want to go outside for a while. Fresh air. Taste freedom, you know?”
No, he didn’t know, but then he hadn’t spent the last three years locked in isolation with only other prisoners and guards for company. “Um…”
“For crying out loud, Walter, I’m not running off!” she snapped as she pushed past him angrily.
“Wait!” he called, his voice bouncing loudly up the hall. She turned silently and faced him, her eyes even bigger than usual without the thick halo of hair to soften her face. “It’s this way, Major.”
She grinned at him, her teeth gleaming white. “My name is Sam,” she said casually.
He smiled in return, and led her to freedom.
----
“Maybourne!” Jack yelled, levelling out the aircraft.
“Coming,” the ex-Colonel yelled back, appearing in the co-pilot’s seat several seconds later. “What?”
“It’s on autopilot,” Jack announced. “You take over.”
Maybourne’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I need a break, Maybourne. Just don’t touch anything, and yell if ANYTHING changes.”
“Jack!” Maybourne argued, slightly panicked by the sound of his voice.
“Either we land the plane now, or you give me twenty minutes,” Jack said icily. He just needed to close his eyes, just for a few minutes.
Maybourne nodded stiffly. “Okay. But you’ll be there, right?”
“Yes.” Jack rose to his feet and moved away, stopping to call back, “Don’t break it!”
Cass and Bek were each sprawled against a crate, watching him silently as he moved towards them. He smiled affectionately as Cassie’s large, concerned eyes speared him. “Are you really okay, Jack?”
“I’m fine, Cass,” he lied, and groaned as he lowered his aching body to the ground next to her.
“You don’t look fine,” Bek said bluntly. He studied her for a second; hair shoulder length hair was tangled and wild, and there was dirt streaked across her face. Despite her grubbiness, he imagined that normally she was almost anal about her appearance. She raised her eyebrows defiantly, as though daring him to comment about her state of disarray.
He grinned. “You’ve always known how to pick them, Cass,” he told her.
Cassie glared at him. “Don’t you dare start!” she warned.
He held his hands up innocently, closing his eyes as he leant back against the crate. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Where the fuck have you been, Jack O’Neill?” she snapped suddenly.
He choked, his eyes flying open as he glanced at her sharply. “You watch that language, Cassandra Fraiser!” he warned.
“You just disappeared!” she accused, ignoring his warning, and he felt a stab of guilt prick at him. The next question was so quiet he barely even heard it. “Were you even there when the bomb went off?”
Yes. He had been there. But Carter had called him, to warn him about something. He remembered stepping outside and the air had been cold. His car keys were warm from resting in his pocket and the ground had rumbled and suddenly there had been pain and noise and heat and nothing all at once. “I was there,” he said quietly.
“They said you died,” she told him evenly.
“I know.”
“Where were you, Jack?” she demanded, angry.
“Come here,” he said. She came, curling up against him as though she was eleven again and crying because Carter was a Goa’uld. “I was in hospital for a long, long time,” he said gently. “I should have died,” he added.
She stiffened in his arms, and pulled away, her eyes wide as realisation dawned. “You had a symbiote,” she whispered.
The flinch was instinctive.
“God... Jack…” she whispered, hugging him tightly.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re safe now.”
“Yes, very safe,” she agreed, relaxing against him.
He looked up; Bek was watching them silently, openly curious but sensitive enough not to ask questions. He wondered how she’d react when she found out the truth, and allowed himself a small smile. Doubtlessly it would be an interesting reaction, if her appearance was anything to go by.
---
Nuclear Facility
“It’s hot,” Sam commented languidly, staring up at the clear blue sky peeking down at her from between the leafy green tree tops.
“Yeah,” Walter Davis agreed from a few feet away. “Too hot,” he added.
“No,” Sam disagreed. “It’s good.” Her skin was sticky with sweat; the slightest hint of a breeze kissed her pale flesh coolly and brought a light tickle of the pine to her nose. She wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean again, to feel the salty liquid brush against her heated skin like iced silk.
She sighed.
“It’s not usually this hot here.” Davis broke the silence between them.
“You come here often?” she asked curiously.
“Yeah. I was transferred here about six weeks after Doctor Fraiser was discharged.”
Sam rolled over onto her side and propped her head up on her hands, watching Davis where he was perched on a rock. “Janet was discharged?” she asked in surprise.
“Yeah. She had a run-in with General Bauer; he got command again after Hammond died.”
She flinched visibly.
“I’m sorry,” he apologised gently.
“It’s okay,” she said softly, rolling onto her back again and staring up at the sky once more. “Can I ask you something?”
“Okay,” he agreed cautiously.
“Did everyone really think I’d done it?” she whispered, hoping her voice wouldn’t break. “Did everyone really think that I was capable of setting that bomb and killing them?”
He didn’t answer her, and Sam closed her eyes in defeat. Even if they did stop the bugs, she gained nothing. They had effectively robbed her of everything; even taken the faith and trust others had placed in her and turned it to nothing but betrayal.
“At first, no,” Walter said at last. “But then they brought forward the evidence… it really looked like you did it,” he admitted.
She nodded silently; there was no use blaming him. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“It was hard to know what to believe,” he continued. “I knew you, I worked with you almost every day, and I knew how you felt about the Colonel. I honestly couldn’t understand why you would have done it, and that made me wonder whether, despite the evidence, you hadn’t.”
“Was I that transparent?” she asked bitterly.
“About what?” he asked.
“About how I felt about the Colonel.” It didn’t seem to wrong to say it out loud, now that he was dead and she was technically dead too. No regulations or repercussions or reputations to worry about anymore.
“Like I said, Major, I knew you.”
She looked at him again, twisting her neck so that the dry blades of grass grazed her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said at last.
“For what?”
“For not knowing you like that.”
---
Nuclear facility
During the course of his life, Maybourne had seen many things both good and bad. He had never, however, seen a dead man return, and neither had he seen the reactions of those that cared about him when they realised he was alive.
Like now.
Fraiser was staring, her daughter forgotten as her mouth dropped open and she struggled to form coherent syllables.
“Miss me?” O’Neill asked chirpily, but Maybourne wasn’t stupid; he could see the surprise and slight disbelief as he watched the strength of Fraiser’s reaction.
“Colonel O’Neill!” Fraiser managed to gasp out, her face pale and shocked but a broad smile revealing her straight white teeth. “Jack.” The gentleness on her voice shocked Maybourne, and if he didn’t know any better he would have thought there was something between them.
“C’mere,” O’Neill said gruffly, and a second later they were hugging one another fiercely. When they pulled back, Fraiser’s eyes were wet and O’Neill looked distinctly uncomfortable with his arms, as though he was unsure what to do with them. Eventually, he just pushed his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat roughly. “So, nice place you got here, Samuels,” he remarked.
“We try,” Samuels returned coolly. “Well, we’re wasting time standing here, people.”
“Where’s Carter?” O’Neill demanded, ignoring Samuels. “Maybourne, you said Carter was here.”
Maybourne glanced across at Samuels, who shrugged in return.
“Maybourne?” O’Neill was getting angry; that was bad.
“She was here, Jack,” Fraiser interjected, looking uncomfortable.
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” O’Neill snapped.
“She disappeared a few hours ago,” Samuels interjected. “Along with Water Davis.”
O’Neill’s eyebrows rose. “Walter Davis?”
“Yes, that’s who I said,” Samuels snapped.
“We need Davis,” Maybourne muttered.
“I know!” Samuels agreed vehemently, turning to face Maybourne. “I told you getting her was a bad idea. We don’t need her, Maybourne, and-”
“I wouldn’t go there.” O’Neill’s voice was quiet, but it held the sting of a rattle snake. “I would so not go there.”
The silence was tense and awkward, stretching until Maybourne waited for something to snap. Nothing did snap, however, because there was movement behind them, and Maybourne turned around to see one sweaty Walter Davis entering the room.
“Davis!” O’Neill barked.
Davis’ face paled and his jaw dropped open as he gaped at O’Neill.
“S… Sir?” he questioned.
“Where’s Carter?”
“Outside… She wanted some fresh air,” he explained brokenly, still staring at O’Neill.
“O’Neill!” Samuels called as the man in question simply pushed past Davis and strode into the hall.
“Fuck you, Samuels!” The words floated back loudly into the room, and Maybourne shrugged again as Samuels glanced at him accusingly.
Cassandra Fraiser spoke first, her voice almost childlike with disbelief as she whispered, “Sam’s alive?”
---
Nuclear Facility
He hadn’t allowed himself to hope that it may be true. Hadn’t even let himself consider the possibility that she was alive, much less that he’d see her again.
Carter was executed yesterday, O’Neill.
What?
Didn’t you know? She was the one who planted the bomb. She killed Hammond and Jackson. And you.
Carter was executed yesterday. He could still hear the words, feel the way his blood turned cold, and the world had narrowed down to a tiny little hospital room with squealing machines and coolly efficient nurses who never spoke to him.
He found her almost immediately after entering the sparse bushland, lying on her stomach with her face pressed close to the ground, palms spread as though she was trying to absorb the earth into her body.
Dry leaves and twigs had given his position away, so she knew he was there, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the first words, to break the first silence between them.
“Did you have a good flight, Cass?” she asked softly.
He frowned in confused amusement. “Not a bad flight, no,” he told her.
He had never seen Carter move so fast; she was up on her feet and facing him before he had even finished the sentence, crouched in a fighter’s position. He saw the blood leaving her face, turning it to ice as she seemed to drink him in with her eyes.
“Hi,” he muttered, suddenly awkward again.
“You… I…” She couldn’t complete the sentence. For the first time ever, Sam Carter couldn’t string together a coherent sentence. He should have felt quite proud of himself for being the one to accomplish that feat, but instead he felt guilt. Guilt that he was capable of putting such an expression of terror on her face.
“Yes, me Jack, you Sam,” he said, trying and failing miserably to mimic Tarzan. And what had possessed him to say that anyway? Idiot, Jack.
She surprised him though. “That was lame, sir, even for you.”
“Yes, I know,” he agreed morosely. “Being dead for a few years does that to a person.”
Well, if the first comment didn’t do it, the second one definitely did. He watched her turn into wood before his eyes, her jaw stiffening and her eyes dropping invisible barriers that were more effective than her gun at keeping him away.
“I… Carter…”
“I… I thought you were dead,” she said stiffly.
“Yeah, apparently you all thought that,” he agreed. “I thought you were dead too.”
“But you’re not,” she said.
“No, I’m not. And neither are you.”
A small smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “No, I’m not.”
“Now that we’ve established that-”
“How?” she asked, and suddenly it was his turn to hide behind those barriers they had perfected. “Colonel?”
He licked his lips; the air was too hot and it was closing in on him and he couldn’t get away and-
“Oh God.”
Carter had always been too smart for her own good, hadn’t she?
“They blended you with a symbiote.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t deny it.
He watched her silently, seeing the way the thoughts were spinning furiously behind her large blue eyes, the way her pale brow crinkled in thought as she ran ideas through her mind and discarded them.
She reached a conclusion, and when she met his gaze again, her eyes were disbelieving. “Sir,” she started, and then stopped herself. “Colonel-”
“Jack,” he interrupted, wasting just a few more minutes before they had to go into it.
“Jack,” she said, trying the word. It rolled over her tongue smoothly, and in spite of the situation, he smiled at her. “Jack.”
“Sam,” he smiled at her.
She smiled back, but it faded quickly. “They’re here, aren’t they?”
He nodded.
“Fuck, they really did screw up,” she breathed.
“Oh yeah,” he agreed.
----
On to Parts 5-6