Once upon a time, Jack O'Neill had thought he could never sleep soundly on an Asgard spaceship, hurtling through space more than a galaxy away from Earth. But tonight...today?...he found himself drifting upward from the heavy ether of deepest slumber. No tension, no uncertainty, had hampered his rest. He felt like he was home. His friends slept around him. Safe. Thor had plotted a course for Earth.
The mass scale firing of the synthesized weapon had drawn heavily on *The Daniel Jackson's* resources. The hyperdrive had fallen offline, as had the beam technology. But Thor had assured them the hyperdrive engines would regain full power in a few short hours and whisk them back to Kansas. O'Neill didn't mind the delay. A little rest and quiet wasn't such a bad thing for any of them right now.
All was good.
Until he pulled far enough from sleep to bring him conscious of the sound that had awakened him.
Until he realized Carter was crying.
Sam Carter lay stretched on the makeshift cot in Thor's storage area, not five feet from him, turned his way, arm across her face. If he held his breath, he could hear her quiet sobs; he could see her shoulder shaking in the wavering half-light. The image felt surreal.
O'Neill felt sick. He told himself it was the aftereffects of the cryo.
Moving with calculated care, groggy and still oddly mistrusting of his legs, Jack O'Neill rose from his cot and crossed the few steps to his 2IC. She didn't seem to register his approach. Which was all wrong for Carter. He lowered himself to a metal storage trunk beside her.
"Carter?"
She jumped, arm moving to the defensive, terrified eyes processing his presence then scanning her surroundings like they had been sleeping in a combat zone.
O'Neill reached out a gentle hand to rest on her ribcage. "Hey..."
Her hand shook on its path to her forehead. Deep lines drew across her brow as she struggled with the immediate. "Thor's ship?" she asked. Breathless and hoarse.
The sound flashed him to a time not so long ago when he had asked if she wanted to get up, and the foundations of his world had shaken when she'd said 'no'.
"Yeah," he said, reassurance thick in his tone. "We're on our way home. We're okay."
Carter nodded and closed her eyes. He watched her catch an errant tear with the heel of her hand; watched her try not to cry in front of her CO. And the truth hit him like a fist in the gut.
"He tortured you," he said flatly.
Carter didn't reply, but her eyes flickered to his and then ducked away, and the electric fear was something he knew too well.
"Oh, Jesus." He moved a hand down her hip, her thigh, as though his touch could find her wounds. "You got any injuries we should be lookin' at?"
She shook her head. "No, sir. He didn't hurt me."
Jack turned and met Carter's gaze with narrowed eyes and an ache in his chest. "The hell he didn't."
They breathed together for a long moment. Then, she whispered, "It's just...he put all these images in my head, and...no matter what I do it's all still there and there's no way to..."
He nodded. "I know."
Carter's face crumpled, despite her fight. He ached for her. She rolled into the shelter of the crumpled mission jacket beneath her cheek and shaded her face with her arm. Her shoulder shook as she cried.
O'Neill didn't have a clue what to do. He never did when Carter was the one slipping and needing support. He only knew what his gut told him; he didn't know how the hell that related to what was allowed or what Carter wanted from him.
Another moment of her tears, and he didn't care what he was *supposed* to do. He reached up and nestled his fingers into her hair. She barely moved, but she didn't push him away.
A soft rustle of BDUs and a movement in the shadows beyond Carter's cot told him Daniel was awake. The other man staggered, sleep-drunk, toward Sam's cot, squinting without his glasses and looking like a bleary-eyed child. "What going on?" he asked, voice low and aimed toward Jack.
The harsh bitterness in Jack's own reply hit him in stark contrast to the continued gentleness of his fingers in Carter's hair. "The bastard tortured her."
Daniel's face paled, visible even in the thin alien light. Carter was Daniel's soft spot. Hell, she was all of theirs. "Oh, God, Jack. Oh, my God. Why didn't she--is she hurt?"
Jack shook his head. "He was inside her head." The words tasted foul in his mouth.
Daniel appeared equally stricken by their sound. He knelt beside Sam, her back to him. "Sam? Sam, I'm so sorry," Daniel smoothed a hand down her bare arm, her back. Carter tensed at the contact. "Sam, it's just me. It's me," Daniel said softly.
Jack's fingers continued their gentle massage, tangled in Carter's soft hair. She wouldn't lift her head or show her face, but she moved ever so slightly into his touch, and the small gesture hurt his stomach.
Carter caught a pained breath and Daniel pushed up onto her cot, stretching out his body, half-lying behind her, hand on her shoulder, mouth near her ear. Her skin was so white in the darkness. Jack rarely saw her with her skin free to breathe. Barbecues and holidays and moments snipped out of time. "You're safe now," Daniel was saying. "We're all here."
On cue, a fourth figure took form from the darkness at the foot of the cot. O'Neill met Teal'c's silent gaze for a long moment, absorbing the deep concern in the alien man's eyes. Teal'c took what he needed from Jack, acknowledged with a small nod. Then he lowered his massive frame with admirable grace to the foot of Carter's cot. "Major Carter," he whispered, his tone not asking a response. He touched a thick hand to her leg. Without ceremony, he laid his upper body upon the length of her leg, dark head resting just below her hip. He closed his eyes.
Carter's breathing quickened, and her hand moved out to find Jack's. She twined her long fingers through his. He squeezed back hard and tried to breathe. "It's all right," he whispered, as though the others were not there at all.
Samantha Carter tried to pull back to reality. She tried to summon the part of herself that wanted to sit up, push her friends gently away, and say she was fine, she didn't need to be coddled. She was an Air Force Major. She'd been through worse, they all had. She was good to go, and she didn't want to be treated otherwise just because she'd been caught in a vivid nightmare.
But she couldn't quite force those desires to the foreground. This constant felt too good. No longer was she wrapped in blackened images and fires and the steely-sweet smell of replicator blocks, but sheltered and cocooned in the textures and scents of her friends. Her family. She didn't want to let go. She wanted to keep hearing Jack's gentle breathing beside her, feel the calluses on his hands, feel Daniel's restless angst as he struggled to fix everything and didn't know how. She wanted to feel the stabilizing weight of Teal'c's stoic presence along her leg. They had come for her. Her friends. They had never considered leaving her behind. This was what Fifth did not have, what he wanted. What he would probably never know. Because of what they had done.
She wished the Colonel would never let go of her hand.
Daniel was whispering something near her ear, but the words themselves didn't matter. It only mattered that the unbearable images, circling clear as reality in her mind, faded a bit with each moment her friends surrounded her.
Here in the darkness, after all these years together...maybe it was okay--*because it did hurt so damn bad*--maybe it was okay...to let them be her friends. If only for a few minutes longer...
*****
Story Notes: **SPOILERS FOR "NEW ORDER"!!**
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
ARCHIVE: SJD yes. All others fine, just let me know, please.
CATEGORIES: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sam/Jack UST, Team friendship
SPOILERS: through "New Order II" A missing scene for "New Order".
Visit http://rowan_d.tripod.com/home.html to see the fabulous cover art by the talented and generous AnnaK
Endless thanks to my marvelous betas: Fulinn, Polly Lynn, Teddy E, and AnnaK
EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com
ARCHIVE: SJD yes. All others fine, just let me know, please.
CATEGORIES: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sam/Jack UST, Team friendship
SPOILERS: through "New Order II" A missing scene for "New Order".
Visit http://rowan_d.tripod.com/home.html to see the fabulous cover art by the talented and generous AnnaK
Endless thanks to my marvelous betas: Fulinn, Polly Lynn, Teddy E, and AnnaK
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 ]