I am floating, endlessly floating. I don't know where I am, only that she is here with me. She is always here. Her hand is in mine and she is calling me Jack. We sit closely together, laughing about this and that and I can feel her hand playing in my hair. She whispers softly against my neck, and there is a smile on my lips. How long we are like this, I cannot tell. I simply am, content and peaceful, until one time she pulls away. Her face is sad as she pushes back from me. My hands are empty once more. Her words reach me as if from a great distance, "It's time to wake up, Jack." She is drifting further and further away, taking with her all peacefulness. I struggle to follow her, my mouth wordlessly screaming, but she continues to fade. My legs will not move and agonizing pain begins to crawl down my back. My head throbs and I swear I can feel the warm stickiness of blood in my eyes. I watch her as long as I can, before she is taken from me by harsh light and cold hands.
Awareness comes to me in flashes. A penlight shines in my eyes and I hear snatches of voices. There are disembodied words. I hear such things as "temporary paralysis," "brain damage," and "coma." My throat burns and I am aware that my breathing is not my own. The mechanical rise and fall of my chest is disconcerting and I fight it, desperate to call out her name, to ask why she has abandoned me. The voices become sharp and hands are pressing me down. Soon everything begins to soften and my body lies numb. I am left in the darkness with nothing but echoing pain and pressing loneliness to keep me company.
When next my eyes open I can see Daniel sitting by the edge of my bed. He looks worn and old, but his eyes are bright as he notices me. "Jack," he gasps, his hand grabbing mine. "How do you feel?"
He seems breathless and fearful as he waits for me to answer. It is only in this moment that I sense that my throat is now free and my breath is my own. "Daniel," I croak, barely more than a rasp, but apparently, it is enough because Daniel's eyes shine wet with tears, clearly relieved. "Jack, thank god," he quietly whispers before other hands press into my body and I can no longer see him.
Sometimes I am able to fade back out, but she is never there. My only companion is aching pain. Whenever they come, asking their questions, my only reply is for them to stop the pain. The unfamiliar faces cringe with pity before they fill my veins with sweet oblivion. No matter how much they give me, though, I can't find my way back.
One day there is a new face, one who refuses to honor my requests. She is a small woman with sharp eyes and hair in a careful bun. I ask for more drugs but she shakes her head and looks at me piercingly. "Sorry, Colonel, but it's time to wake up." If I squint my eyes, I can almost believe that she is Janet. I look away in disgust and refuse to cooperate in any way. I just want the pain to stop.
Whoever this new woman is, she must have never heard of the Hippocratic oath. I am left shivering and sweating with fire burning down my spine. I beg for more relief, but none comes. Sometimes there are cool hands on my forehead and I think I may have heard Daniel's voice, but none of it matters. I will do anything to find the floating darkness once more. Finally, I am sure I will die from the agony and I am glad, glad that there will be an end. I scream out her name, pleading her to come back to me, and finally black oblivion comes.
I can hear a steady beep and soft voices in the distance. There is still pain, but my head is clearer. Cracking open my eyes, I see a gray ceiling extending above me. I breathe deeply and stretch my mind, trying to separate the real from the imagined. I can't remember why I am here. Not-Janet approaches my bed carefully; I only remember that the agony was her fault. I follow her with my eyes as she punches buttons on a machine by my head and writes notes on a clipboard. Eventually, she meets my eyes with a serious, penetrating gaze. She puts a soft hand on my shoulder and carefully says, "Welcome back to the world of the living, sir." Suddenly, I can't be angry with her anymore and I close my eyes once more, submitting to the pull of sleep.
My first night of natural sleep is permeated with sharp images that I can't quite place. My nose is filled with the scent of scorched earth and screams echo in my ears. I can see the glowing face of a wormhole. I wake breathless.
When next Daniel comes to sit by my bed I find it within me to ask what has happened. His face is haggard; all boyishness has left the features I once knew so well. "It all went to hell, Jack," he says, his voice breaking. "You've been out for six months. They said you would probably never wake up again and even if you did…" Unwillingly, my mind begins to ask the questions I have been avoiding. Why is Daniel the only familiar face I have seen? Where are Teal'c and Hammond? Where is Sam? I can't give voice to the words, but Daniel knows my thoughts. Words fail him and he moves to leave the room, promising to let me read all the reports. As he exits the room, I notice for the first time that he walks with a heavy limp and a cane. At the ankle of his pants, I see the glimmer of light reflecting off of his metal limb. I can't help but wonder how much has been lost while I slept.
Not-Janet with the sharp eyes does not approve of my reading material. She hovers nearby, convinced that my health is too fragile to know what has befallen my world. The report is written by Teal'c. There are no others by the members of SG-1 to accompany it. Why is easily apparent. In Teal'c's rigid, stately prose, it is revealed that I took a hit to the head and spine from an aggressive race SG-1 ran into on PY6-978. My unconscious body was pulled through the Stargate by the infatigable Jaffa. Teal'c had also helped Daniel through, who had lost his lower left leg in the attack. And Sam…dear god, Sam. She never made it off that planet. She had guarded their escape and fallen to enemy fire. Teal'c, as strong as he is, could not carry them all. I wonder how he has handled this fact.
There is one additional sheet of paper in the back of the file. It is signed by a General whose name I am unfamiliar with; dated two months after the attack on PY6-978. It officially closes the career of Major Samantha Carter, declaring her MIA. They never found her body. I have no tears, only a heavy fatigue. I fall asleep, clutching the paper to my chest.
A young man starts coming to see me once a day. He lifts and moves my legs and asks be to wiggle my toes. I ignore him, looking off to the side, counting the cracks in the concrete walls. Not-Janet comes back with harsh words, but I ignore her too. Daniel is the only one I will speak to, and only because I feel he has already lost too much. He does not ask annoying questions like the rigid man with a moustache who came by for a while when I first woke up. Daniel understands me; he understands our loss.
One day I ask about Teal'c and he tells me that he returned to Chulak to lead the Jaffa rebellion three months after. Neither of us ever needed to say after what. Hammond had been reassigned and I had been given up as a lost cause. Once Teal'c knew Daniel would survive, he had disappeared back to where he had come from. He probably believed he had failed the Tau'ri cause, or maybe he just couldn't handle being here anymore. I can't blame him.
I do wonder where that left Daniel. He had been alone for months, forsaken by his team, left to deal with his new life and disabilities on his own. I wonder if the young man that came to bug me everyday used to work on Daniel too. We never speak of his leg, just as we never speak of my back and the sad, pale, atrophied legs that are hidden beneath the hospital blankets.
I eventually bully Daniel into giving me a mirror. I am shocked by the gray, thin face that stares back at me. The only color found is in the nasty scar that stretches from my nose across my eye and up to my hairline. I gently run a finger down the puckered skin and Daniel tells me that I had been lucky not to lose my eye. Our eyes meet over the mirror and we both smile humorlessly at the absurdity of his statement. Luck was something neither of us would believe in again.
Daniel and I are silently playing gin when I finally ask him what the hell he is still doing here. I know without asking that he has stayed this long tied to a vague hope that I might survive. But now I am awake, I will survive. But Daniel seems to die a little bit more each day I see him. He needs to leave these gray halls and the ghosts that haunt them. Of all of us, he is the only one left with a chance to really live. I am the last thing tying him here and I can't help but know that it would be better for him if I had died. "I'll never be the same again, Daniel. You need to leave while you still can." He doesn't acknowledge my words, but I know he has heard them.
After that day, Daniel begins to come see me less and less and somewhere in the distant reaches of my now-dead heart, I am glad. I am glad that one of us may come out of this whole. I begin to feel complacent, my life falling into a pattern of sorts. People continue to come see me, to ask me do things, but I am silent, actionless. I think of the past, try to crawl back into the bright moments from my life. Unfortunately, the past is not quite done with me. I am not left alone to slip into oblivion.
It's been five days since I last saw Daniel when the dreams come back. I relive the ambush on that planet every night for a week. I feel the pain searing into my back, the crushing blow to my head. The dream always ends with darkness, my ears full of her death scream. One night, after the darkness, I see the glowing surface of the Stargate. I can feel strong arms pulling my inert body and blood trailing down my face. Weakly, as if my body is made of the heaviest stone, I turn my head away from the blue light to see the battlefield that has stolen my life from me. I can see her, for the first time since I woke so many weeks before. She stands on the distant side, her arms reaching out towards me. Then she points and following her arm, I can see vague dark forms dragging another between them. There is a flash of golden hair. Before I start awake, I feel her breath against my face and her voice harsh in my ear. "Jack."
The young man, who I have named Bart, tries to hide his surprise when for the first time I comply with his requests. I still refuse to talk to Mustache Man, but when Bart comes in, I do everything he asks. For the first time I am disgusted with the limp, pale forms that are now my legs. I listen carefully as he explains how all my muscles have atrophied while I was in a coma. I had also fractured a vertebrae in my spine, but have been lucky enough to keep spinal function. I do not correct his use of the term `lucky,' but rather nod my head and ask what my prognosis is. He smiles at me, but does not bullshit me. A lot of work and some luck and I may be able to walk again.
He begins to come twice a day at my request and I do the exercises alone on Sundays. Soon I am taking my first steps, leaning heavily against cold bars. The pain in my back is agonizing, but now I find strength in this pain, it keeps me moving ever forward. Time is something I am far too aware of. Everyday I choke down the food brought to me and work endlessly through the pain. Bart begins to watch me with concerned eyes, but I am not stupid, I cannot afford to push my body too far.
The day finally comes when I find myself free of the cloistered walls of the hospital. Not-Janet has come to see me off. She watches me with penetrating eyes and I think she is the only one who really knows what is going on with me. I wave at her as my taxi pulls away and in the distance, I can see her wave back.
My first day back, I have an appointment with the new General. He is everything I imagined he would be. He regards me with a strange mingling of awe and suspicion as he carefully avoids looking at my scar. I say all the right words and do all the predictable things for a week before I ask permission to visit Teal'c on Chulak. It is the least they can do for a `hero' like me.
I pause once at the threshold of the Stargate to look back at the control room. I nod solemnly at Walter and Siler, the only familiar faces left. I think they somehow know that this is goodbye and they both stand and salute. I silently say farewell to my life that was, before readjusting my pack full of stolen information and `borrowed' equipment and step through the gate.
I do not linger on Chulak. I don't even seek out Teal'c. I know he will follow me to the ends of the Universe, but I leave him without even saying goodbye. He deserves a chance to find his own peace. Pulling out my list of pilfered gate addresses and recent intelligence reports, I dial my true destination. It takes a week of laying low to find my quarry. Another two days pass before I manage to get him alone.
He is startled by my appearance. I hand him the crumpled paper I have carried with me for months and his face pales as he reads it. I let him mourn the loss of his daughter and lead him back to my camp in the woods. He is angry that he has never been told, the Tok'ra deeming his long-term undercover mission too important to be interrupted. Later, when we are sitting silently around a small fire, I confess to him about my dreams. "I'm probably crazy, wishing for what can never be, but I can't let go, Jacob, I can't let go, not while there is the smallest chance."
He nods solemnly at me and I can see that he can't let go either. He takes long moments to watch me, and I feel that he can see into every dark corner of my soul. He is not surprised that I have come to this, that I would go to such lengths on a mere whisper of hope. After a short internal conversation, he abandons his mission and leads me to his ship. I feel a perverse pleasure in stealing from the Tok'ra. It is almost enough to bring a smile to my face. My back still aches, but I refuse to let Jacob heal it. Somehow, I think he understands my need for the pain.
We travel from planet to planet, narrowly avoiding capture and destruction a couple of times. We find PY6-978 only to discover it is uninhabited. One day, we stand together on the earth that has drunk the blood of my team and taken so much from all of us. It is just like in my dreams except that it now stands empty and silent, footprints and blast marks washed away. We do not linger long, but simply pause in reverent stillness, not wishing to disturb any sleeping phantoms.
One of my stolen intelligence reports reveals that the SGC knew the location of the homeworld of the hostiles on PY6-978, but it was deemed too much of a risk to ever travel there. They had locked the address out and scrubbed out any mention of a rescue attempt. We stare at the sheet for long moments together, letting this information sink in. They had not only known where to look, but they seemed to think there might have been reason to try in the first place. Bile burns in my throat at this ultimate betrayal. For the first time, I wonder if Teal'c or Hammond had left willingly. I know I am teetering on the edge of conspiracy mania, but this far from everything that had once been my life, I no longer know what to think. My only comfort is knowing that Daniel escaped, that he left behind this life before he could be broken by it.
Sometimes I think I have always been heading this direction. Everything that I have ever done, everything that has happened to me…it all seems to lead to this place, this existence. I live in endless purgatory, chasing a phantom that won't let me rest. At times, I feel bad for dragging Jacob into this, but part of me knows that it is right. I think he is the only one who can really understand. I guess Selmak is the one I should feel sorry for, but she was willing to throw in with me the second I showed up. In her hundreds and hundreds of years, I imagine her darkness must almost eclipse ours. And so we continue to wander, the oddest three companions you have ever seen, betrayed by our people, broken by tragedy and tethered by the agony of just not knowing.
At night, I dream in shadows. I long for a flash of blue or gold, but they never come. We continue to search, paying for information anyway we can. I cheat and I steal, no longer caring. Jacob eventually makes the greatest sacrifice. He finds a Tok'ra agent who agrees to give us her last known location if Selmak promises to return to the Council. I can see in Jacob's face the moment Selmak breaks, knowing the Tok'ra had willingly kept this from us. We don't know what awaits them with the other Tok'ra, but we do not hesitate. Jacob leaves me his ship and as he moves to step through the wormhole home, he turns back to me. "Finish this, Jack," and he knows I will.
Time passes with no regard for me. I simply follow the trail in front of me, doing whatever it takes to obtain the next step. I listen with half an ear to tales of human slave trade, prisons and narrow escapes. I refuse to connect any of it to her. It is all a blur of distant cities and unfamiliar faces, until one day I stand on a clapboard sidewalk in a bustling town. I barely notice the absurdity of a horse trotting past me on this backwards little planet in the middle of nowhere. I am too entranced, staring at a thin figure emerging from a two-storied building across the street. I am unaware of my feet covering the distance between us.
We stare at each other for long moments. She reaches out one pale hand and gently traces the scar across my face. Even as she touches me, I have a hard time believing she is here. I am frozen until she whispers my name, "Jack." With that one word, everything breaks inside me and I pull her against my chest. "I know this little tropical planet…" I mumble into her ear. I feel her lips curve into a smile against my neck.
She only asks me once about Teal'c and Daniel and we never speak of Earth. I don't ask her about what she endured; we just absently trace the scars on each other's skin. We sit in the soft sand together, watching the rolling waves. She holds my hand and calls me Jack. I tell stupid jokes to make her laugh and she brushes the sand out of my hair. And so we live, only for each other. I have a hard time telling what is a dream anymore, but I can't bring myself to care. The only truth I know is that she is here with me, always. The way it is meant to be.
Story Notes: Author's Note: I was in a dark mood, what can I say. No fluff ahead!
Feedback: Yes, please.
Feedback: Yes, please.
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]