Things to Talk About
Loud voices crashed into him like violent waves against a cliff. He blinked up into the yelling faces around him and wondered who they were and why they were shouting at him. But, he didn't have the strength to ask.
"Come on, Jack, talk to us! Where's Sam?"
"Colonel O'Neill! Report!"
"O'Neill! You must wake up and tell us of Major Carter."
"Colonel, can you tell me where you're hurt? Do you know where you are?"
Their words and questions meant nothing to him. He only wished they'd shut up and let him figure out who he was and what he was doing flat on his back with a giant, stone ring looming over him along with umpteen people--some of them armed with guns--yelling in his face.
He gave a small shake to his head, but it didn't clear his thoughts or silence their voices. If anything, the people around him seemed to take his movement as encouragement and redoubled their efforts. Their urgency only served to confuse him more.
"We have to know, Colonel. Where is Major Carter?"
"Where is she, Jack...is she all right?"
It was the pronoun that finally got through to him...she. Names and titles meant nothing, but he had a vivid image of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, smiling She. He gave a growl and swung himself up past their startled faces to sit. He had to think. There was something important about Her...something.
He was vaguely aware of a woman's voice saying, "Let's give him some room," and people backing off a short distance.
A man's voice, loud and authoritative, ordered, "Stand down and clear the room." The men with guns turned and left. A door clanged shut behind them. There were others though who remained: the short, bald man giving the orders; another bald man, this one large and dark with a golden emblem and a ferocious scowl; a tall, lanky man with a bad haircut and a concerned look; the woman poking and prodding him while ordering others to give him room; and, beyond them, two men in white jackets hovering with a stretcher.
In the echo of the clanging door, he recognized he knew this place and these people. But he didn't have time to waste a thought on them. Because there was something urgent, desperately urgent, he needed to remember about Her. And he couldn't think, couldn't force it into his awareness.
"Colonel?" the woman before him said, and he understood she was talking to him. Colonel. That's what She had called him, too. Whoever She was.
"Yes?" he said. His mouth and throat were so dry it came out almost a croak.
"Do you know what happened? Can you tell us where Sam is?"
It was too difficult to force words out of his parched throat and not worth the effort. He didn't know where Sam was or who he was...and he didn't care. The important thing was to remember where She was...where had he lost Her and how could he find Her again?
"That's all right, Sir. We'll get you to the infirmary and get you taken care of," the woman assured him. However, the look she threw at the short, bald man was not a look of someone who found things 'all right'.
"Can't," he croaked out, "got to find Her."
The tall, lanky man was suddenly, eagerly back in his face. "You remember what happened to her, Jack?" he asked.
He shook his head, "No...but got to find Her." He tried to get up but couldn't. He looked dumbly down at his legs which refused to support him and then at the dark arms of the big man keeping him from falling on his face.
"Easy, Colonel," the woman told him. "You're injured. We're going to take care of you." Injured. He didn't have time to be injured; didn't have time to be taken care of. But, apparently, that didn't matter because the next thing he knew he was waking up in an infirmary bed. Wires ran from under his hospital gown to machines beside the bed, tubes ran from hanging solution bags over his head into his arms and, worse, into his nose and down his throat. He fought the desire to gag. The noise brought a nurse to his side.
"I'll get Dr. Frasier," she told him and left him at the mercy of all the wires, tubes, and machines. He looked at them in confusion. Where was he and why was he hooked up like this? Dr. Frasier turned out to be a familiar face. He squinted at her a moment and then remembered her from before. Before when he had had something he had to do...something to do with...he shook his head in frustration. It wasn't a good idea. The tube pulled against the side of his nose, and its movement made him want to gag again.
"Oh good, Colonel. I'm glad to see you awake," the doctor said. Noticing his discomfort with the nasal tube she added, "I'm sorry about that, but we need to leave it in until we are sure you're up to stay. You were in such bad shape we had to get some nutrition into you." He understood her words, but they didn't make any sense to him. "You've been out almost two days, Sir," she continued. His lack of response must have finally gotten through to her because her explanation didn't continue. Instead, she started up again with her poking and prodding and questions. "Tell me what you remember, Colonel."
He licked his lips, and the nurse held a cup out for him. He meant to reach for it, but his arms wouldn't cooperate. Instead, he had to allow her to hold the straw to his lips. The water was lukewarm and tasted like the plastic cup holding it. He sucked it down thankfully anyway. When he was finished, the doctor was still looking to him for an answer, and, with a sigh, he gave it to her. "Not much. I remember being on my back in that room with you all yelling at me. Trying to get up and waking up here instead."
"That room, Sir?" she asked.
"Yeah, with the big donut and the bald men and the guys with guns--you were there. That's all I remember. Except..." he wrinkled his face in the effort to remember something but then shrugged. Whatever it was, it was gone.
"And you don't remember anything before that? About where you were? About...where Sam is?" the doctor asked. He had no answer for her even though he could see and hear how important it was to her.
"Sorry," he said, "don't even know who he is."
"Who he is," the doctor repeated and then with a sad shake of her head met his eyes. "Sam's a woman, Colonel. Major Samantha Carter."
He stared at her in surprise because now he remembered whatever he needed to remember involved a woman. "Blond?" he asked. "Blue-eyed?"
The doctor looked at him intently. "Yes," she answered.
"Something important I've got to remember about Her," he muttered, as much to himself as to her.
"Yes, Sir, there is. The two of you went missing on a mission over five weeks ago. You showed up out of the blue yesterday, but she didn't. We need to know where she is."
He nodded at her making the tape holding the tube in his nose pull at his cheek. That was it. That was what he had to remember. He'd promised Her--Sam, Major Carter, whoever She was--he'd come back for her. And then he'd forgotten who she was and where he'd left her or even why.
The doctor sighed and said, "From the condition you were in, Sir...we don't have much time. We have to find her soon, before it's too late." He avoided looking into her eyes and reading the fear there that it was already too late. The doctor didn't need to spell it out. Finding her depended solely on him remembering where he'd left her: if they'd known where to find her, they already would have.
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Sam drew in one ragged breath after the other. It was all she could do. She'd promised the colonel she'd hold on until he could get back with help, and she was doing the best she could. But, it wasn't good enough.
And where was he? Had he made it? Was she dragging out this agony in a hopeless attempt to keep a promise to a dead man? How long had he been gone? She'd passed out and come to so often her time sense was screwed to pieces. It felt like days, but surely it had only been a matter of hours. She simply couldn't have had days left in her when he'd gone away to find help. It didn't really matter, though. However long, he'd better hurry because, regardless of her promise, she couldn't hold on much longer.
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As far as their prime directive went, the mission was a bust. They'd come upon no new allies, found no new technologies, and made no new discoveries. But, in Colonel Jack O'Neill's book, it was an unqualified success: they were within sight of the Gate and all was well. They hadn't been shot, imprisoned, or tortured. No one had come down with some alien bug or even sprained an ankle. He was a happy camper.
He dawdled behind his team and enjoyed the scenery of p8A-511. The planet looked and even smelled like Minnesota in early summer. He could hardly remember the last time he'd taken leave AND actually gotten to spend it at home. The time here had been just what he needed, and he was in no hurry to get back to the Mountain to start the rounds of debriefings, medical exams, and paperwork. Ahead of him, he saw the Gate activate, but, even then, he wasn't in any hurry. He raised his hand in a go-ahead motion to the others. Teal'c and Daniel followed his order. Carter, like the good, little soldier she was, hung back and waited for him. The planet might be idyllic, and the mission might be finished, but no one wandered alone on an alien world without backup.
Those few minutes he delayed thinking of home were their undoing. Seconds after entering the Gate, Teal'c and Daniel passed through it into the GateRoom under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado like they had hundreds of times before. But, though the Gate registered incoming travelers and though it stayed open until the 38-minute automatic shutdown, the colonel and major never arrived. Hurried Gate diagnostics and a redial to p8A-511 yielded no answers. There was no clue to what had happened in the Gate computers or on the planet surface. They had disappeared without a trace.
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Once the room stopped spinning, his stomach also stopped threatening to heave up everything he'd eaten or even thought of eating in the past several hours. After that, the aches and pains screaming for attention throughout his body gave up and settled for just occasionally whimpering, and he was finally able to take in his surroundings. Not the SGC but some type of Goa'uld or Tok'ra vessel...the gold walls and doors were unmistakable. With a groan, he pulled himself up to a stand and found he was not alone.
Carter was dry heaving in the corner. He stumbled to her and patted her back sympathetically. If she wasn't feeling any better than he had been just seconds before, she deserved all the sympathy she could get. Even so, he waited impatiently for her to pull herself together and then demanded, "What just happened?"
Too late, he saw her mind had been busy at work while her body had been otherwise occupied. He could see from the look in her eyes she had an answer for him that was going to involve way more physics and theory than his high school science courses had prepared him to take in or his present physical state could handle.
She cleared her throat and jumped right in before he could stop her. "I can't say for sure, but it appears someone actually intercepted us while we were dematerialized in the wormhole and redirected our particles here for reintegration. It's not supposed to be possible...the Tok'ra have theorized--"
He managed to cut her off with a groan and then threw up his hands to ward off any further technobabble, "Let me get this straight--someone snatched us right out of the wormhole and brought us here?" he asked.
"It seems so, Sir," she answered, for his sake, stifling whatever else she might have added.
"Someone snaky," he said with a pointed look around.
"At a guess," she agreed.
"Well, I don't like it," the spoiled child inside him said as though he expected her to do something about it.
"No, Sir," ignoring his whining tone, she readily agreed with him, "I don't either. You know what this means?"
He threw her a calculating look. Was that a trick question designed to get him to allow her to go off speaking in dynamic equations and theoretical laws of quantum mechanics? Or did she really have something to say he might want, or in the circumstances need, to hear?
Whether he wanted to hear or not, he did anyway because she went right ahead without waiting for his answer. He wished she wouldn't have. "No one is safe if the Goa'uld have access to the technology to do this, Colonel. It will bring Gate exploration to a stand still. We've got to find it and destroy it."
"Of course, we do, Major," he said with an aggrieved sigh. "As soon as we get out of this room."
He was confidant they would get out of the room. It was just a matter of time. Whoever their host was, they'd know soon enough. There wasn't a Goa'uld alive who could resist gloating over his victims.
O'Neill passed the time waiting for their captor or his goons to show up by thinking of ways to not set Carter off on long, complicated discourses of the science behind their capture. He really didn't want to know. Too bad Daniel hadn't gotten caught up with them. Not that Daniel actually listened either--he was just better at catching the little signals that meant it was time to nod and mumble appreciative noises to make her think he actually was interested in theoretical physics. At least, that's what O'Neill assumed.
Their host did eventually make himself known. That's when things went bad. Bile rose in O'Neill's throat as soon as he heard the Goa'uld's voice, his palms turned instantly damp, and his heart skipped a beat before taking off racing. Baal.
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She'd read the report. And knowing the colonel's tendency to give a downplayed version of events, she'd known it had been even worse than the report indicated. Because Janet had refused to allow his teammates to sit with him, she hadn't heard him reliving the horror of his treatment at Baal's hand as he had gone through the withdrawal symptoms from the sarcophagus, but, by the very fact they'd been denied access, she'd known it had been bad. She hadn't been privy to his psych evals but because of the time it had taken for him to be released to active duty, she'd understood he'd suffered badly during his time in Baal's fortress in more ways than one. But, she'd been content not to pry, not to dig deeper when he turned away their concern with a flippant remark and a quick change of topic.
She hadn't wanted to know the price he'd paid because she hadn't been willing to let him die. Hadn't wanted to know what he had suffered because she begged him to take a symbiote and wouldn't take 'over my dead body' for an answer. But, now she did know, at least, in part. The first knife had struck her right shoulder, the second her gut, and the third was rushing toward her even now...and she still didn't know what he wanted from her. Perhaps nothing more than to watch her die and then torture the colonel with the details.
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Days later and several trips too many into Baal's torture chamber she said, "There is no going home from here, Sir." Her voice was harsh with the reality of her words. Just an hour or so before, she'd been firmly holding onto the hope they'd get out and destroy Baal's new toy. Then the guards had come to pull her from the cell. By the time she returned, that was all changed. He didn't want to know what that monster had done to wipe away her optimism and hope so brutally. Not that it mattered. It would be his turn next: he'd know what had happened to her soon enough.
He shook his head at her statement. He hadn't given into Daniel's words of doom and gloom when he'd been a guest of Baal before, and he wasn't going to listen to hers now. "Of course, there is," he countered. "There's always a way home...every time we've thought there hasn't been--every time," he emphasized, waving a finger in her face, "one's shown up...our buddy Thor will be along in his chariot, or your dad and his pet snakes will pull up in an Al'kesh...or Teal'c and Daniel will come through--just you wait."
She shook her head and said dully, "I don't think so, Sir."
"That's the trouble with you. You never look at the bright side."
"Is there a bright side, Colonel?"
"Well, for starters, you could have been stuck here all alone instead of with a charming, handsome man like myself."
"Right," she snorted and with an effort forced a small smile. He was gratified and relieved to see it. He couldn't let her give up. She'd been right: they had to stop Baal from holding every matter-stream in the StarGate system captive. And he couldn't do it alone. He wouldn't know the technology that had nabbed them unless Baal had conveniently labeled it with a Post-It note--not even then unless he'd labeled it in English. He needed her, and he needed her full of ideas not despair.
"I'll tell you something, Carter," he said, recklessly, "IF I ever decide to believe there really isn't a way home...you and I--well, we'll have a lot to talk about." He grinned into her face until he saw the meaning of his words sink in. Then he winked and turned back to kicking the door and wondering if she was right and there really wasn't a way out this time.
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Dr. MacKenzie was an irritating man, O'Neill decided within two minutes of being introduced to him. Too patronizing, too quick at making assumptions, and too intent on ferreting information out of other people's skulls. But under the circumstances, he didn't see any choice but to let the man have a go at digging out whatever he could in the hopes it could be used to find her--the woman he had somehow managed to lose. He was highly skeptical about the whole proceedings, but with the help of some mind-numbing medication he passed quickly into a hypnotic state.
"Tell me what you see, Colonel."
"Nothing. It's too dark. I can't see anything."
"Where are you?"
"I'm not sure. A room maybe. Or a cave. Or...or a ship. A ship. A spaceship."
"And it's dark because?"
"Because Carter shorted out the power system."
"Why?"
"Why? Because that's what she had to do to disable their sensors."
"You're hiding then?"
"Hiding. Yes. I'm not going to let that snakehead have the satisfaction of torturing me again...and I won't let him do that to her either."
"Do what, Colonel?"
"Torture her, kill her, drag her back from the dead, and then do it all over again."
"I see," the doctor said, trying to keep his voice calm and steady and not quite succeeding. He and the colonel had spent way too many agonizing hours tap dancing around the damage Baal had inflicted on O'Neill's already hammered psyche the last time he'd had him in his clutches. He swallowed down a groan and asked, "It's Baal you're hiding from, then? You're on a ship controlled by Baal?"
"Yes," O'Neill answered.
"How did you get there?"
"He yanked us right out of the wormhole...he had a machine...an Ancient machine. Carter blew it to pieces, then she blew the lights and sensors, and now we're hiding."
"You're not hiding anymore, Colonel. You're back at the SGC."
"I'm home."
"Yes, you are, but where is Major Carter?"
"I...I...I left her behind. She was hurt...too hurt, couldn't keep going. Had to come and get Frasier to help her. Only..."
"Only what, Colonel?"
"I don't know..."
"Let's go back then. Major Carter is hurt?"
"Yes, ribs...chest...I don't know. Hurts her to move and breathe, but her ribs don't feel broken. Coughing up blood, passing in and out of consciousness. Can't keep dragging her along...it'll kill her...got to leave you, Carter, but I'll be back. I'm coming back! Promise me you'll hold on until I get back, promise me, Major!"
"Where, Colonel? Where are you going back to get the Major?"
"I don't know! I don't know!"
"Stay with me, Colonel," MacKenzie ordered him, but he'd pulled out of his trance and was glaring angrily at the doctor.
"This isn't doing us any good!" he snarled in frustration.
"We know more now than we did before," the doctor told him. "We'll take a break and--"
"And what?" Jack demanded. "What we know is it's too late...she died waiting for me to bring help days ago!"
"We can't know that!" Dr. MacKenzie answered him. "People can survive some internal injuries...and we can't rule out that she was discovered by Baal and..."
"Yes, you can rule that out, because I would never have left her where he could find her...I'd have zatted her into oblivion before I'd let him get his hands on her again! And failing that, I'd have killed her myself and made sure he couldn't get near her until it was far too late for that sarcophagus to work!"
MacKenzie blanched in the face of his vehemence. "You remember then?" he asked quietly.
Jack slumped into his chair. "I remember Baal, and Carter, and everything...I remember it all, but it's no good. Because I don't KNOW where I left her. I just knew I had to get help and fast. There wasn't time to think...there was just...running." He didn't need to look at the doctor to know the enormity of that confession. He was a field officer. He'd survived years of black ops and SG1. It took a lot to wipe out all that training and leave only one long, flat out, terror-blinded, panicked run.
He began to soberly retell what he now did remember, "After we'd escaped and blown the machine, there was nowhere to go. The place was crawling with Jaffa, we hadn't been able to find out where the ship was, but it was a safe bet we weren't in friendly territory. We had to get off that ship. Baal had...well, we'd been his guests a little too long already. I guess we were both suffering from sarcophagus sickness by then. We'd hung around until we had a shot at taking out the machine, but..." He shuddered. They both would rather have died than stay and continue in the endless cycle of torment in which they'd been trapped. He'd meant what he'd said earlier: he'd have killed her himself rather than let her fall into Baal's hands again.
"He'd had Carter in his torture chamber right before she made her move. I don't know what he'd done to her. She'd figured out a way to short circuit the sarcophagus so she could sneak out of it and find me. But she had to pop it before it got too far into its cycle, so it hadn't done her much good at all--she was in bad shape. She'd held on to get the job done, but...she was fading fast after it was over. I used the rings to get us off the ship...had no idea where they'd take us. Anywhere but there. We ended up in some sort of storage room just like you'd expect on a Goa'uld mothership. I couldn't find a Gate or cargo ship, so we took an escape pod...but there's no way to know where you're going in one of those tin cans. We crashed into a planet. By some miracle, the air was breathable...I tried to bring her with me but couldn't.
"I had to leave her behind," he said. He wanted, needed, to believe he'd had no choice, but the guilt lay heavily on his soul. "I promised her I'd bring help and...I left her behind." He jumped to his feet and began to pace, the exhaustion and injuries that had left him passed out for almost two days forgotten in his agitation. "I don't even know how far I'd gone before I ran into the Gate...it looked like any other Gate on any number of worlds. I don't even know what the symbol of origin looked like...I just started punching in any I didn't recognize until it worked. I have no idea how to get back to her."
"There might be more you'll remember under hypnosis, Colonel. We'll try again...for now get a bit of rest."
Rest. He was exhausted from enduring Baal's idea of a good time again and again, exhausted from watching Carter subjected to it over and over again as well, exhausted from fighting the effects of sarcophagus withdrawal, and exhausted from living with the knowledge he'd left her behind. But, he'd have the rest of his life to rest, because his resignation was being handed to Hammond as soon as he could focus his thoughts long enough to write it. For now he had a duty to fulfill, and that didn't include resting. He'd failed Carter, the least he could do was find her body and bring it back for the hero's burial she deserved.
"Now," he insisted. "We do it now." The determination in his voice persuaded the doctor. They settled back in for another session, and once again he felt himself slipping into a trance.
"Don't worry yet about the symbols, Colonel," MacKenzie instructed him from miles away. "Let them come to you. Tell me how you were able to let the SGC know it was you coming through?"
"Morse code...password for Hammond. Something we put in place a long time ago."
"What if the General wasn't in the mountain?"
"Then it's over...splat, I'm a bug on the windshield."
"Indeed," the doctor said, unintentionally sounding very Teal'c-like. "So tell me about the planet you're on..."
"Trees...the ever-present trees. Rocks...good cover-but no need, there's no one here...hasn't been anyone here for a long time from the looks of it. It's warm...not hot. Midafternoon maybe. There's a river...muddy brown, not much bigger than an irrigation ditch."
"You're following the river?"
"Yes."
"And it's leading you where?"
"To a path...all overgrown. No one's been this way for years...it ends at the Gate. I can get home...bring help for Carter-it's not too late!"
"How long ago did you leave her?"
"An hour, maybe a little less."
"You see the Gate symbols?"
"Yes."
"Draw them for me," the doctor said quietly, his voice carefully devoid of excitement or urgency.
"All right," the colonel said. He took the pen and paper and quickly sketched out the symbols. Dr. MacKenzie looked hopefully up at the observation window and nodded. They were finally getting somewhere.
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Sometime along the way, her vision started to grow dim and the pain lifted enough for her to wonder if this was it. If, at the end, her oxygen-starved mind would simply fade away, and she'd find death was nothing more than drifting off to sleep. She didn't think that sounded so bad after the painful ends she'd faced at Baal's hand, and that, in itself, frightened her.
She'd never seen herself as a quitter, and she'd promised the colonel she'd hang on. It would be the ultimate betrayal of both of them, if she just let her life ebb away without a fight. As much as she could, she had to hold out against the ever-stronger allure of the lethargy and peace calling to her, but she was afraid it was a fight she couldn't win. She'd lost it time and again in Baal's torture chamber, and maybe it had been futile to ever think she could have won it here. Still, she'd promised and she'd hold on a while longer.
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He was weaker than he'd realized. The trip through the StarGate left him sweating and trembling. He understood now why he'd had to fight so hard to get to come along.
"You ok, Jack?" Daniel asked, supporting him with an outstretched hand. Jack shook the hand off, nodded, and strode off in the direction of the little brook winding off in the distance. This wasn't the time for weakness--he'd collapse later. The trip upstream took far longer than the hour he'd guessed it to be. But, then he'd been running and desperate. Now they were methodical and thorough. He hadn't left her out in the open, and it would be too easy to walk right pass the sheltered spot he'd half-dragged, half-carried her to--wherever it was. He cursed the mush Baal's sarcophagus had made of his mind and went on with the search.
Long after he'd begun to fear they'd overshot the mark, they found the escape pod. He'd known it was too late to save her from the time his memory returned, but until that very instant, a part of him had held on to a desperate hope that somehow she'd manage to cling to life. Looking down at the dried blood splattered about the pod's interior, he understood it was over. She was dead. Had probably been dead before he ever reached the Gate in the first place...maybe even before he'd pulled her out of the pod almost three days before. No, that wasn't true. She'd promised him she'd hold on. She'd been alive when he left her. Alive but dying. It had already been too late for the help he might have brought back then, and it was much too late for the help he was bringing now.
Teal'c put his tracking skills to work, and it was only a matter of minutes until O'Neill recognized the rocks he'd laid her behind. He found it was beyond his strength to make those last few feet, to round that last rock and see her dead body lying there. Daniel sensed his trepidation and came to a stop beside him. Together they watched as Teal'c, Frasier, and the rest of the rescue team went ahead. O'Neill looked at Daniel helplessly and shook his head. Suddenly, he wanted to be anywhere but here. Even Baal's ship would do.
He'd always known the day would come when he'd bury one of them, and they'd stay dead. When the Nox, the Ancients, the Asgard, and all the other varied ways with which they'd cheated death would run out and life really would be over. When no sarcophagus, no healing device, no advanced Asgard technology, no anything would be in the right place at the right time. He'd thought it was coming last year with Daniel dying inch by inch in the infirmary. But it hadn't--Daniel had found a way around the whole dying thing. But...still, he'd known there'd come a time when there was no way around it-and that time was upon him now. Bile rose in his throat, and he was trembling so hard Daniel had to help support him.
He'd buried more than enough fellow soldiers in his years in the Force. It had never been easy. And, it had been a long time since he'd been able to fool himself into believing burying a member of SG1 would be on the par of other funerals he'd attended, that a coffin carrying one of his teammates would weigh no more than others he'd carried through the years, that the emotions of one of their deaths wouldn't equal the pain he'd felt burying his own son.
And to bury Carter. Knowing he'd left her to die alone. There wouldn't be a thing Baal or anyone else would be able to hurt him with after this...he wasn't even sure putting a bullet through his head would be enough to stop this pain. His luck he'd wake up on the other side with the knowledge he'd left her to die alone still intact and untouched by the destruction in the bullet's wake. Baal's ultimate victory.
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We're too late, Janet thought when she caught sight of the still form of her best friend lying stiff and motionless in the soft ground at the base of a large rock. Still, she reached out a trembling hand to check for a pulse. It wasn't hope that made her do it, just an automatic response on her part. In fact, she was so certain she wouldn't find a pulse and so totally, unprofessionally shaken it was a wonder she recognized the thin, thready feeling beneath her fingers for what it was. She almost passed it off as just her own desperate desires, but the pulse her imagination would have dredged up would never have been this weak, this close to nonexistent.
Her shaky, indrawn breath of hope mingled with doubt brought the medical team to their knees around the two of them and suddenly, she wasn't at a dead friend's side but a medical emergency. Years of training took over, and it would be hours later before she'd shut the door to her office and cry hot tears against the cold, hard metal top of her military-issue desk.
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Daniel realized the frenzy of activity beyond them could have only one explanation. "She's alive, Jack!" he said. Jack gazed at him uncomprehendingly, and Daniel pulled him along behind him until they could see Sam's still body in the midst of the hurried efforts of the med team. "She's alive," Daniel repeated, hardly believing it himself.
"Indeed, she is," Teal'c said, his voice sounding smug and content as he stepped over to stand beside them. "You were not too late, my friend." Jack shook his head in disbelief, but the med team went right on doing their job and somewhere along the way, it began to sink in that, yes, she was alive. He swayed weakly on his feet, and Janet, glancing up from her work, said, "Sit down, Colonel. We don't want to have to carry you both out of here!" He dumbly obeyed her order.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
She was 'resting quietly' according to the doc. Watching her, O'Neill thought the description was off on both counts. He knew from firsthand experience withdrawal from sarcophagus addiction was not a stroll in the park. But, even if he hadn't, he would have known from her tossing and turning and groans and cries. He clenched his teeth against the bitter anger welling up in him for her sake. It was anger directed as much at himself as at Baal.
Seeing her body shake from the need for the sarcophagus while her mind was trapped in endless nightmares of torture and death, he knew he should have killed Baal before escaping from his fortress all those months ago. He should have pinned him to the wall and plunged a dagger through his heart or poured acid down his throat or done any one of the myriad fun ways to murder Baal had taught him. Instead, he'd fled like a whipped dog and just been happy to find himself alive and free from the monster. Now, Carter was paying the price over and over again for his failure to act while he had had the chance.
This was his doing. He couldn't stand to sit by and watch it, but neither could he leave her to face it alone. So he sat quietly by her side and willed it to pass quickly though of all people he knew that was impossible. Finally, though, her thrashing stilled, and he knew the worst was over. What she'd endured alone on the planet, God only knew, but mercifully, she'd been out for the duration since they'd found her. Shock, loss of blood, severe dehydration, near-starvation, and surgical anesthetic and pain meds had seen to that. He allowed the good doctor to convince him to get some rest and cried with relief it was finally over when the door to his on-base quarters shut behind him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*~**~*~*~**~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*
She'd cried out in horror and dread when she woke up in the sarcophagus the first time. The second time she'd cursed loudly and angrily, and the third she'd fought wildly and violently against its confines. She'd wept in desperation and despair the fourth time, and after that, she'd lost track. The ceaseless waves of pain, death, and awakening ran together in a numbing circle without hope of relief.
The pain and the dying were difficult enough; waking to find out it was all just going to start over again was unbearable. And then waiting alone in their cell for him to be returned, pale and tormented...she'd come close to begging him to end it for her, but she couldn't add to his burden in that way. Besides, Baal was probably monitoring them and would have time to revive her. It would be just one more death they'd both be forced to live with again and again. So she had bitten her lips against the pleading words she wanted to say and instead had clung to him, drawing what strength she could from a man no more able to continue to endure than she was herself.
Until, it had come to her even through the sarcophagus-induced daze how to keep the sarcophagus from fully operating, and, finally, she had a way to stop the endless madness. And she had. She knew she had. She'd escaped the confines of the sarcophagus, found the colonel, and they'd gotten away. She remembered that...it had happened. So why was she so afraid to open her eyes and see where it was she'd awakened? It couldn't be the sarcophagus again, it couldn't. Please.
Slowly, full of fear and trepidation, she worked her eyes open. And found herself in the infirmary. It was such an unexpected thing that she lay blinking up at the ceiling for several moments listening to the beeps and hums of the monitors over her head and the IVAC machine at her side before she believed it. Not the sarcophagus. Home. Where the colonel had promised he'd get her. She cautiously moved her head to the side, afraid to find he wasn't there. Afraid that somehow she'd made it and he hadn't.
The space where he usually parked his chair beside the bed when one of them was injured was empty. She blinked at it as though if she could only get her eyes to focus clearly, he'd materialize with a cocky grin and the yoyo he played with whiling away the time waiting for a downed teammate to awaken. But, it didn't help. He wasn't there.
Janet filled the empty space, leaning over her with concern evident in her eyes.
"Sam," she said tentatively, "how are you?"
Sam swallowed before answering, "Ok...I think."
Janet smiled with relief and ordered a nearby nurse to notify General Hammond the major was awake. Then turning back to Sam, she said, "Good. You gave us quite a scare. I think you're past the worst of the withdrawal now, but don't be thinking you're climbing out of that bed anytime soon. It's going to take a while to get back your strength. You lost an incredible amount of blood and had emergency surgery to boot."
Sam nodded her understanding. She desperately wanted to ask after the colonel, but the words stuck in her throat. She'd kept her promise. She had held on. He'd gone to find help, and he must have found it: she was here. But, then, where was he? She turned her head slowly to the other side, struggling against the nausea and weakness washing through her. Daniel and Teal'c grinned at her happily with the relief obvious in their faces. She held up her hand and Daniel gripped it reassuringly. Teal'c placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and she mutely blinked back tears.
"Hey," Janet told her softly, "you're ok. You're going to be fine...it's just going to take some time. I know what happened out there was hard...no one expects you to just jump back into things. You'll get there, I promise."
Sam nodded weakly, and Janet rewarded her with a smile and something even better, "I promised the colonel if he got some rest, I'd call him if you woke up...shall I?"
Relief coursing through her, she nodded again. He was alive then. Alive and home and back on his feet. Though it wasn't all she wanted, she couldn't ask for more.
"Maybe then he can quit haunting my infirmary!" Janet said, turning away to make the call.
"He's been a bit difficult," Daniel unnecessarily explained with a shrug.
"Surely not," she said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*~**~*~*~**~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*
He hadn't expected the awkwardness of the situation. He'd thought he'd saunter in, give her a casual grin, and it would be "Sir" and "Carter", and they'd muddle through the remaining nightmares of what they'd been through and, in due time, they'd walk through the Gate together like nothing had ever happened.
But things had happened. He'd left her behind just when she needed him the most. She'd never put the blame on him, but he knew where it belonged. He'd panicked and left her dying alone without provisions or protection on an alien planet. The fact she'd survived was almost beyond belief and no thanks to him.
It wasn't something he could just shake-off. Hammond had denied the resignation he'd composed sitting at her bedside after they'd brought her back all but dead. He appreciated the trust the general had in him, but he didn't share it. He had promised himself he'd never leave a man behind. Yet he had, and not just any man, but one of his own. Carter. And if he could leave her behind...he wasn't fit to command.
Fit to command. He shook his head and grimaced. Leaving her behind was only part of the problem. He'd warned Hammond years ago, he was afraid the day was coming when he'd be unable to trust his judgment as far as Samantha Carter was concerned. If that day came, he had promised the general he'd step down from commanding SG1 before he endangered the whole team with his lack of objectivity. More than once before, he'd been closer to that day than he wanted to admit, but always she'd held the line and given him time to find the strength to pull back to a safe distance or, at least, convince himself he had.
But, her line hadn't held under Baal's attack and whatever distance he'd managed to preserve before their capture, five weeks of imprisonment and torture had destroyed. If he ever decided they wouldn't make it home, they'd have a lot to talk about he'd told her, but in the end there hadn't been any words at all to say. They'd clung together for dear life and wished for death and now it was over. Their carefully, constructed barriers had crumbled under the extreme duress of the circumstances. Still, he'd convinced himself they'd hold well enough now that they were home. He had believed that right up until the moment he'd walked into the infirmary and looked into her eyes.
The strength and resolve he usually found there were missing, and he realized he was quite possibly a lost man. He'd never been strong enough to pull back on his own before, and he certainly wasn't now. And, if she wasn't capable of holding the line...they were in serious trouble.
An expectant hush surrounded them, waiting to be broken, but he was at a loss for words.
There hadn't been any when they were trapped in Baal's cell though he'd promised her there would be, and there weren't any now here in front of Daniel, Teal'c, the General, Janet, and half the nursing staff. He was forced to believe there wouldn't be any even if they were talking privately in his living room instead of the crowded infirmary. Because he could never express what he had felt while she had been in Baal's clutches or left behind, forgotten and alone, to die on an unknown planet. And, if there weren't enough words in all the world for that, how could there ever be enough to speak of what lay behind it?
"Hey, Carter," he finally said into the silence, "you're looking pretty good for a human dart board." Daniel rolled his eyes, the general stifled a snort, and Janet murmured a 'Colonel!". But, the awkwardness of the moment faded away.
"Thank you, Sir," she answered, "You, too."
He gave her an apologetic shrug and a small smile that was anything but cocky and didn't say enough, but it would have to do. Time might tell them what would come from all of this, but, too much hung in the balance for him to chance saying anything more. Later, when they both felt stronger and could see past this nightmare to clearly weigh the consequences and ramifications of all the things he couldn't say...maybe then, there'd be things to talk about. But for now, this was the best he could do, and he could see in her eyes and read in her tentative smile that she was willing to let it be enough. For now.
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