Counterbalance
By
Sally Reeve
"Fall back!" Sam threw herself behind the meagre cover of a tree as a staff blast shattered the ground in front of her. "Colonel! Fall back!"
But he wasn't moving. Stubbornly he stood his ground about ten feet ahead of her, sniping at the approaching Jaffa, buying time for her and the ragged group of refugees they were shepherding towards the stargate. "Carter, go!" he yelled, without looking back.
Damn him! She glanced quickly over her shoulder at Daniel who was crouched near the open gate, dodging staff fire as he dragged the terrified people up the three stone steps and into the gate. Teal'c was next to her, laying down covering fire as the refugees struggled through bombardment and terror towards safety.
They didn't have long. Overhead she heard the whine of a death glider. "Take cover!" she barked, just before the ground exploded all around them as the glider made its first pass. The terrified people would have scattered had it not been for Teal'c's booming commands. Her heart leapt with pride. She loved this team!
Crouching low, Sam glanced at O'Neill, still providing the last line of defence and trying to keep the approaching army at bay. She knew he'd be little more effective than Canute. Sam toggled her radio. "Colonel, you have to fall back!"
The rattle of his P-90 discharging was her only answer at first, and then her radio crackled. "Get to the gate, Carter."
"Negative," she told him, letting loose a volley herself. "We'll fall back together."
Speaking through gritted teeth, he barked, "I give the goddamn orders, Carter!"
Alarm bells started to blare as Sam peered round the tree again, getting a good look at him. Shit! Her hand flew to her radio. "Sir, you're injured." His leg was bloody and twisted. It looked like he'd taken a direct hit. He wasn't falling back, because he couldn't. "Teal'c, are you copying?"
His answer was instant. "I am."
"Cover me, I'm going to retrieve Colonel O'Neill--"
"Negative!" Another rattle of gunfire followed, longer this time. It fell silent only for a moment. Long enough for her to hear his garbled message. "No time. Carter, nine o'clock! Nine o'cl--"
She span to her left. They'd been outflanked! An entire contingent of Jaffa bore down on them. O'Neill was already firing with abandon into their ranks. But there were too many, and they were too fast. Behind her, Sam heard the fresh screams of terror from the fleeing women and children. She was the only thing standing between them and the advancing Jaffa. Yet even knowing that, she'd already taken two steps towards the Colonel when she saw him go down. He fell in slow-motion, the staff blast hitting him square in the chest in an explosion of blood and fire. The force threw him backward, arms wide, until he hit the ground with a skull-crunching thud.
"NO!"
The word ripped from her throat even as she turned on the Jaffa, bullets spewing from her weapon.
And then everything rushed back into motion. Everything except him. He lay still and bleeding as the Jaffa advanced over him, paying him no more attention than the rest of the decaying forest floor.
Sick horror paralysed her for an instant, before training took over and her mind closed down all but the essentials. She knew only two things; she was in command, and she had to get these people to safety. "Teal'c, fall back with me. Daniel, we're making a run for the gate. Cover us."
And then she was moving, her weapon raking the enemy with gunfire as she yelled and cursed at the terrified refugees, urging them onward to safety. Through the fog of as yet unfelt grief, she saw Teal'c move steadily at her side as they made their final retreat to the stargate. Moments, hours or maybe days later - she couldn't tell - they stood on the stone steps as the last of the women threw themselves to safety.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel looking frantically around. "Where's Jack?"
"He took a hit," she heard herself say. She sounded too calm.
"What?" Daniel's outrage mirrored her own, and she envied him the luxury of expressing it. "Where is he? We can't just leave him here!"
"He's behind enemy lines," she replied, although her heart quailed at the words. "We've got no choice."
"No one gets left behind!"
"Daniel--"
"Major Carter is correct, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c interrupted. "We must leave now, or perish." He fired again at the swarming army. "But we will return for him."
"Yes!" Sam replied ferociously. "We'll be back." And with a heart too cold to break, she followed Daniel and Teal'c into the wormhole and let it shred her to pieces.
***
Jack stared at his reflection in the mirror, still trying to reconcile the adolescent body to the man inside. He barely remembered looking like this - too thin, too tall. Too young. It had been bad enough the first time around, but to have to suffer it again was almost intolerable. Even after two years, he sometimes passed his own reflection in a shop window and wondered who the kid was staring back at him through old eyes.
He'd thought it would get easier. He'd expected to get used to his new-found youth, make new friends, have a second chance at life. But it hadn't turned out that way, and he suspected now that his enthusiasm for this second life had mostly been born out of compassion for the friends he'd left behind. If they'd known how bad it would be, would they have left him to his fate? Probably not.
His friends... He still thought of them, every day. Daniel, Teal'c, Hammond, Fraiser. Carter. He thought of his family, his parents who he'd never see again. Even his neighbours. Everyone he'd ever known, gone. Out of his life. He'd never been so alone, or so lonely.
Not that he hadn't tried. It wasn't that he was unpopular at High School. It's just that he had nothing in common with the kids there, and had grown increasingly irritated by their adolescent worries. But he knew it wasn't fair to judge them. At their age, he'd been equally shallow and naive. Yet that didn't mean he wanted to deal with their second-hand teenage angst. He had enough problems of his own.
For a short time, he'd struck up a kind of friendship with Angela Agostino, the history teacher. She had a sense of humour similar to his own, and a world-view that challenged his thirty years of Air Force thinking. They'd talked after class, for a long time, one Friday. And then he'd gone seeking her out, desperate for company and adult conversation, the following week. They'd talked again, for longer. And it had been fun, going great, until... Until he'd forgotten he was sixteen and suggested they went out for a drink. Stupid! Angela had frozen, clearly fearing she'd crossed some sort of line. Who knew? Perhaps she'd even found herself attracted to him, despite his teenage body? Whatever. She'd avoided him ever since, and he'd done his best to avoid her too. It was just easier that way.
And so he'd kept his head down, done the work, and spent his evenings in front of the TV with the stash of beers he managed to buy from the liquor store around the corner where they never carded you. It was lonely. And he wondered if it would always be lonely. After all, he was a man out of time, with more in common with his contemporaries' parents than the MTV generation.
"Get a grip, O'Neill," he muttered at his morose reflection. "You're as bad as the kiddies."
With a sigh, he turned away and headed towards the door of his small apartment.
Things could only get better... Couldn't they?
***
General Hammond stood in the gate room, back straight, head high. Heart breaking. In front of him the event horizon shimmered as the first of the mournful party returned home. One look at Carter's grief-stricken face told him all he needed to know, as behind her Teal'c and Daniel emerged, bearing a stretcher between them. The body-bag was zipped closed; the starkest image of military loss.
At his side, Doctor Johnston sucked in a sharp breath. "Damn it."
Straightening his shoulders, Hammond came to stand at the food of the ramp as Major Carter slowed and stopped in front of him. Her face was chiselled into hard angles of grief. "Sir," she began stiffly, "I regret to report that Colonel--" Her voice quavered as she wrestled her emotions into submission, "Colonel O'Neill has been killed in action."
Jaw tight, he nodded at her words, his gaze drifting to the body lying lifeless on the stretcher. Medics were taking the burden from the hands of Teal'c and Daniel, who stepped wearily yet reluctantly aside. Daniel pressed his fingers over his eyes as Teal'c clasped him firmly on the shoulder. Their loss permeated the whole room, was shared by the entire base. "We've lost a fine man," Hammond said thickly. Then nodding at SG-1 he said, "Get some rest. Debrief oh-nine-hundred."
"Yes Sir," Carter rasped, nodding her team towards the doors. She'd taken command reluctantly, but taken command she had. Through his grief Hammond was proud of her, and knew that Jack would have been too.
***
Staying in the Springs, Jack reflected from time to time, had probably been a bad idea. He should have moved away, across the country. California, perhaps. Or up north. Somewhere anonymous, where memories didn't haunt him like ghosts from a past life. And where he didn't feel like a ghost himself, reduced simply to watching the life that had once been his.
And watch it he did. From time to time. Even though he shouldn't, for so many reasons. But there were times when he did anyway.
Like now.
He was sitting in the park opposite Carter's house, because on Saturdays she sometimes jogged through the park. And she never paid any attention to the kids hanging out there, throwing a ball around, skating... He sat on a bench with a good view of her house, hiding behind his sunglasses and a copy of the Nation Enquirer. It made for ironic reading for someone who had, when it came down to it, not only been abducted by aliens but cloned by them too; the woman with the three-headed dog had nothing on him.
The late-afternoon was warm, spring bleeding slowly into summer, and he felt good. There were definite advantages to his new body - supple knees being top of the list. And he felt a buzz of energy that he'd forgotten from his own youth. Or was it the youth of his memories? Or his real-self's memories? He shook his head and stopped thinking about it. He'd decided long ago that *he* was Jack O'Neill, and nothing anyone could say to him would convince him that he was a pirated copy. I think, therefore I am. Right?
He stretched out, enjoying the sunshine and the proximity to his old life. Although it was looking like Carter wasn't going to show. If she jogged, it was usually in the early afternoon. And the mellow sunshine was stretching the shadows longer as the park began to empty. He was disappointed, but not surprised. For all he knew she was off-world, battling to save the planet from some new threat that he would know nothing about until it landed on the White House. Or perhaps she was just working, buried in her lab beneath the mountain, exchanging charged yet guarded smiles with the other, older, luckier, Jack O'Neill.
That thought was the most disturbing of all. And it brought a bitter sting of jealousy. Over the past two years he had learned some sympathy for the android Jack O'Neill they'd encountered on P3X-989. Now he knew what it felt like to have your entire life ripped away from you. But at least that guy had still had his team with him; and at least he'd found a way to get out there again and make a difference.
*He* hadn't been stuck in a kid's body, in High School Hell, unable to even buy a--
A car pulled up outside Carter's house. Not her car. But it was definitely a military car, an official car. Slowly Jack got to his feet and moved towards the edge of the park, one eye on the National Enquirer and the other on the car. For the longest time is just sat there, unmoving outside her house.
A shiver ran down Jack's back. Something was wrong.
At last a door opened, and to his relief he saw Carter step out. His insides did the inevitable painful back-flip at the sight of her familiar face, but the emotion was soon replaced by a sharp beat of unease as he took in her grim expression and her Dress Blues. From the opposite side of the car someone else emerged. Jack smiled when he recognised Daniel, but his friend's sombre black suit and tie killed the smile on his lips. Carter in her dress uniform, Daniel in black. It meant one thing; someone had died.
"Damn," he growled to himself, turning away and wishing he hadn't seen them. Someone died. Who? Teal'c? Hammond? Fraiser? Jacob? Who...?
Sneaking another look, he saw Daniel walking Carter to her door. They paused on the threshold and hugged. For a long time. And when they pulled apart, Carter was wiping tears from her eyes. And so was Daniel.
Jack felt sick. Instinctively, his feet started moving towards them. He had to know. He had to find out who-- And then Daniel, walking back towards the car, turned his eyes on him. He'd been seen! Jack froze( but Daniel's glance washed over him like water. He hadn't recognised him; the skinny teenager in the park wasn't part of his life. His focus was inward, towards the grief that Jack could see on his face. See, but not share.
It wasn't his grief. Or his life. He had no business being there.
Growling a curse, Jack turned his back and headed across the grass to where he'd left his mountain bike in the back of his truck. A hard ride through Bear Creek Park would ease the frustration, but it would do nothing to fill the empty hole that grew bigger and bigger with each day that passed. The people he cared about most in the world were out there, living, fighting and now dying. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help them. He couldn't even mourn their passing.
How the hell was he expected to live like this? A ghost in his own life.
***
Like the summer, grief moved slow and sluggish through the heat. Days seemed endlessly, suffocatingly long, nights were hot, sleepless and lonely. Each morning, Sam awoke with the early sunshine, her heart as grey and lifeless as the day before.
Each morning, she made herself get up. Made herself shower, dress and get to work. Each day, she made herself carry on, take command, fight the fight. And each day she counted her regrets.
She'd known for a long time that life was short, that it could be snatched away too soon. On reflection, her mother's death should have taught her something. Or Daniel's 'death'. You wait and you wait to tell people how you feel, you wait for the perfect moment... And then they're gone. No second chances, they're just gone. And it's over.
A sigh leaked out, the soft sound reminding her that she had work to do. Turning back to her PC, she nudged the mouse and brought the machine back to life; she must have been drifting for over five minutes for the screen-saver to come on!
"Get a grip, Carter," she ordered herself quietly. Rolling her shoulders, she refocused on the screen. The memo she was writing was boring, regarding SOPs, and she was suddenly confronted by a vivid mental picture of the Colonel complaining about frontline teams having to bother with 'anal desk-jockey crap'. She smiled slightly, but the knot in her chest was so painful the smile turned into a grimace.
Three months... She felt like she'd been grieving forever. But she refused to forget him, to 'move on' as people liked to helpfully suggest. As *he* would have suggested, had he been there. 'Not your fault Carter. Move on.'
"Easy for you to say," she muttered, focusing once more on the memo. She knew she couldn't move on, and her only hope was to stay afloat long enough for life to tow her along until she could start swimming again.
She'd typed a whole sentence when the base alarms started blaring and her phone simultaneously shrilled at her. She snatched it up, "Carter."
"Major," Hammond said clearly, calmly. "Get your team up to the briefing room. We have a visitor."
Thank God for adrenaline, Sam thought as she raced from her office. It was the only thing that made her feel even half alive.
***
"Hey! O'Neill!" Riley Jones, one of the kids Jack passed the time with at school, grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him to a stop. He pointed. "Check it out!"
Crouching black and shiny by the curb sat a car. Smoked windows, engine purring, it stank of officialdom, and Jack felt a sharp pulse of unease. NID? God knew, they'd like to get hold of his genetically modified ass. "How long's it been there?"
"Dunno," Riley sniffed. "Hey, maybe they've come for Granger?"
Jack smiled slightly. Max Granger was the Principle, rumoured to be an alcoholic, wife-beater, drug addict, curb-crawler, Satan worshiper...whatever. To Jack, he looked like a bored guy just short of forty, who chose the wrong job at the career fair. "Maybe," was all he said, but he edged towards the steps nonetheless It might be worth skipping out of class, just to make sure. There was no way he was becoming an NID lab-rat.
"I, uh, left something in my locker," Jack muttered, turning and heading back to the school building. Too late.
"Jack O'Neill?"
The voice behind him was clipped and military. Grimacing, Jack turned and looked up at the man who had stepped out of the car. He wasn't in uniform, but he had Air Force branded into every feature. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Riley edge backwards, confused and not a little scared. Jack clenched his jaw angrily. What the hell were they playing at, showing up at a school like this? "Who are you?"
"Hunter."
Huh. "By name or nature?"
The man stared at him for a moment, nonplussed, and then said, "Uncle George said to remind you that it's Kaitlin's 12th birthday today. We can give you a ride to the party."
Jack stared, blinked, and said, "Oh." He couldn't quite believe what he'd heard. The message was a failsafe, something he and Hammond had cooked up just before he'd been exiled to High School, in case he was 'needed'. As if. Neither of them had ever expected to use it. "Twelfth birthday, huh?" he said, scratching his head and stalling for time.
At his side, Riley was glancing suspiciously between Jack and the man-in-black. "Hey man," he said, nervously tugging on Jack's sleeve, "you know this guy?"
Calmly, Jack removed the hand. "Yeah. He's a friend of my...Dad's."
"Thought your Dad died?"
Damn, Riley was too on the ball. "He did." Glancing over at Hunter, Jack gave him a subtle nod and the man withdrew to the car. "Look," he said to Riley, "I gotta go. My Uncle George is, you know, kinda weird. I gotta go to his kid's party. Cover for me this afternoon? Tell Agostino I went home sick, huh?"
Riley was dubious, but Jack didn't have time to expand the lie. And chances were, if he was being called back to into service then he wouldn't be returning to High School any time soon. With a reassuring pat on the shoulder he left Riley Jones standing and staring as he crossed the small lawn and climbed into the back seat of the dark car.
He settled in comfortably as the car purred into motion. Now this was more like it! "Home Jeeves!"
Hunter didn't crack a smile as he glanced at Jack in the rear-view mirror. "I'm afraid not. General Hammond wants to see you at the SGC immediately."
Jack just shrugged and turned to stare out of the window at the passing city streets, trying not to hope for too much. But he couldn't quell the bubbles of excitement that frothed inside like champagne. He was going back to the SGC!
He was going home.
***
From his office General Hammond looked out at the briefing room where a very subdued SG-1 sat waiting. Daniel frowned at a point somewhere above the middle of the table, brows drawn down and eyes turned inwards. Teal'c, as usual, sat still and stoic. But the very stiffness of his posture told Hammond that he was as uneasy as Major Carter. Her military veneer had already been bent to breaking point by the loss of O'Neill, her CO, friend and who knew what else. He'd deliberately turned a blind eye to the obvious affection between the two officers, but he could guess enough to know how painful this new twist in the tale was for Carter. Sitting stiffly in her chair, glancing with something approaching dread towards the door, she was a woman on the edge. And he didn't blame her. He felt slightly sick himself.
The sharp rap on the door was punctual and forced him to take his eyes from SG-1. "Come in."
The door opened and Lieutenant Hunter stepped inside. "Sir, he's here."
Hammond rose and nodded. "That's all Lieutenant. Thank you."
As the man turned to leave the room, Hammond's eyes moved to the figure who stepped aside to let him pass. Tall, slender, and disturbingly young, but with a bearing unmistakably - and painfully, under the circumstances - familiar. Dark eyes met his, at once excited and curious, hiding a surprising bite of anger beneath the surface. "George," came the greeting in a voice that teetered on the edge of familiarity. "You never call. You never write."
Hammond smiled, but it was a bitter feeling. "Come in...son. Take a seat."
O'Neill moved into the room and someone closed the door behind him. But he didn't sit, instead he was drawn inevitably to the window onto the briefing room. He stared through the mirror-glass at his former friends. Longing flashed across his youthful face, before an older intelligence stamped it out and he turned and slumped laconically into the offered chair. "So," he smiled. "What's up? You know, I'm missing my history final to be here. This better be good."
"I don't know if good is the right word," Hammond replied carefully. "But it is important. We need you. Or, more accurately, the Asgard need you."
A sneer twitched at the boy's lips. No, not a boy, Hammond corrected himself. He was older, almost a man - somewhere painfully between child and adult. But the attitude belied the youthful appearance. "And I should give a rat's ass because..."
"They need our help."
"Again, I should give a rat's ass because..."
He frowned. "Jack--"
"Hey!" O'Neill interrupted hotly. "They did this to me! Why the hell should I care if they're in trouble?"
Getting to his feet, Hammond turned to the window and sighed. He hadn't considered this. "Lokki has been punished," he reminded him. "And without Thor, you would have died two years ago."
"Oh, I'm *eternally* grateful."
His sarcasm grated, and Hammond turned back towards him angrily. "You should be," he snapped. "You should be damn grateful to be alive!"
The boy - Jack - blinked, taken aback. And then he was suddenly deadly serious, exhibiting the razor-sharp focus that had driven him up the ranks to Colonel. "What happened?" Typical O'Neill - push you to the limit, then cut straight to the point.
Hammond swallowed his irritation. "Apparently, the time dilation device that SG-1 activated on Halla, the former Asgard homeworld, is malfunctioning. Time is speeding up and unless it can be repaired, time will accelerate to the point where the replicators evolve enough to escape the planet --"
"And they don't know how to fix it?"
"They do," Hammond nodded. "But they need you to do it."
Jack winced. Then shrugged. "Why me? Sounds like a job for Carter."
"Because," Hammond explained as he sat down, "you're the only one who can enter the remote diagnostic facility they've created within the bubble of distorted time."
The blink of confusion was all Jack O'Neill. "Okaaaaaay. Why?"
"A security measure. To prevent tampering, the Asgard configured it so that only you could enter the diagnostic chamber. It's DNA encoded."
It took a moment for the fact to be absorbed, and then came the obvious question. "What about the other me? Why can't he do it?"
Nodding, Hammond smoothed his hands on the desk and fixed a steady look on the young man sitting before him. "Son," he said carefully, "you should know that Colonel Jack O'Neill was killed in action almost four months ago."
The boy didn't respond immediately, but his gaze turned back to his former friends as though the last piece of a puzzle was falling into place. All he said was, "And I though he was the lucky one."
"They're waiting for you," Hammond told him, standing again and gathering his files for the briefing. He held his breath, waiting for the answer...
After a thoughtful moment, Jack turned away from the window. Deadpan. "I'll need a smaller uniform."
***
Sam felt queasy. Her chest was constricting with a sour mixture of dread, anticipation and a longing so profound it hurt. Fourteen weeks ago she'd seen his flag-draped coffin carried to the cemetery, she'd fought off tears during the General's eulogy, and broken down completely at the wake. Fourteen weeks and three days ago.
And now, within the next few minutes, he was going to walk back into her life. Only it wasn't him. Not really. And yet it was. Her soul, grated to pieces by grief, didn't know how to handle this unnatural twist. The only thing she had to cling to was the fact that the duplicate O'Neill wouldn't look like the man she'd known. Thank god for small mercies. She couldn't have born to see him alive and well, and yet not the man she'd known. Not for the first time recently, her thoughts dwelled on her own double, living her life in a shattered world. She'd gained a new insight into the woman's pain on seeing her dead husband alive again. Her courage, she decided, had been admirable. She hoped she could function as well when--
The door opened.
Her stomach lurched into her toes as she involuntarily shot to her feet, standing to an unwarranted attention as Hammond entered the room. He waved her down and, feeling slightly foolish, she sat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone else enter the room, but she couldn't look at him. Not yet. Just a few more moments...
"Take a seat," Hammond said, and she knew he wasn't talking to her.
A chair scraped back and Daniel cleared his throat. "So," he said uneasily, "this is odd."
"It is indeed," Teal'c echoed.
"Nice to see you too." Oh *God* the voice. It was deeper than she remembered, less of a child, and closer to *his* voice. But it wasn't him. It wasn't him! She felt sick.
"You've, ah..." Daniel was struggling. "Grown."
The room went silent for a beat, and Sam forced herself to look up.
"Thanks," came the dry reply, from a face that was all too recognisable. Daniel was right. He had grown, matured - he was no longer a child. Yet not quite an adult. But he was definitely Jack O'Neill.
Her heart leaped with an unexpected joy at seeing him again. Oh God, she'd missed him! But disgust at her betrayal quickly squashed the unworthy emotion. It's wasn't him. The Jack O'Neill she knew lay dead and buried under six feet of earth. He was gone, and the adolescent sitting before her was nothing more than a cheap copy. She had to remember that. She owed that much to the Colonel, at the very least. He was irreplaceable.
"You'll be pleased to know that he's agreed to assist the Asgard with their problem," Hammond told them. And it was only when the General started talking that Sam realised she hadn't said a word of greeting. "Major Carter, as soon as you've briefed your team, the Asgard will transport you to their ship and you can get underway."
"Yes, sir," she replied. But still she couldn't look *him* in the eye, although she could feel his gaze on her from time to time. She wondered what he saw.
Hammond cleared his throat and turned to the young O'Neill. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again and frowned. Tapping his fingers together, he said, "I don't know what we should call you, son."
Irritation flashed across the young man's face. "Oh, I don't know, how about...my *name*?"
The General's frown deepened. "That feels a little uncomfortable."
"Yeah? Try it from this end."
"You are not the O'Neill we knew," Teal'c said, cutting straight to the point. "However, Colonel O'Neill was not the only man to bear that name." He glanced over at Sam, catching her eye. "We will adjust."
She gave a slight nod, acknowledging the reproof in her friend's eye. "Teal'c's right," she said to Hammond. "We'll get used to it."
O'Neill shifted, his gaze brushing across hers before she could look away. "Thank you," he said. And this time it was spoken quietly, without sarcasm. She found herself caught by his eyes. Dark. Familiar. And with a life-time behind them. She shivered, the half-smile she'd offered him wilting under the heat of his gaze. It's not him. It's not *him*.
"Very well, Jack," Hammond nodded, rising to his feet. "I'll give you a couple of hours to get orientated before we contact the Asgard. Obviously, you'll be a civilian on this mission--"
"Obviously." The word dripped sarcasm.
Hammond ignored it. "And so Major Carter will be in command." His attention turned to her. "Once you reach Halla, the decision whether or not to proceed with the mission will be yours, Major. You know what's at stake."
"Yes sir," she nodded. "I understand."
"Okay people. Dismissed." He turned to leave, and then stopped. "Ah, Doctor Jackson? Perhaps you could take Jack down to get kitted up?"
O'Neill grunted. "I know the way,"
"But you don't have one of these," Daniel pointed out, waving his access card.
He frowned, an achingly familiar expression. "No. Guess not."
Sam's stomach clenched queasily.
"Come on." Daniel stood up, flinging her a look. "I'll fill you in on what's been happening since you...left."
O'Neill shrugged as he too rose to his feet. He *was* taller, Sam realised. Fully grown, if more slender than the man she'd known. "Lead the way," he said to Daniel. But his eyes fell on her again and a tentative smile tugged at his lips, piercing her aching heart. She couldn't respond, and after a moment he looked down at his fingers, tapping awkwardly on the table-top, and turned away.
His disappointment was palpable, and Sam felt a wave of guilt on top of everything else. But she couldn't help it. She couldn't give him what he wanted, she couldn't see him as the man he thought he was. And she knew she never could.
***
He'd dreamed about this exact moment.
Some nights, he'd wake in the silent darkness of his bedroom and for an instant he'd think he was on-base. He could almost smell the tang of metal and concrete in the air, the slight residue of ozone the gate left behind. He'd longed to return to his real place in the world, yearned to be back under the mountain, among his friends, doing something that mattered. Saving the world. Any world.
And here he was, with Daniel at his side, striding the SGC corridors on his way to do just that. Save a world. Who knew, maybe even a galaxy? But as with most dreams, when it became reality it brought with it a thousand unanticipated problems. And going back was never easy. Even when you wanted it more than anything else in your life.
"I, ah, hope you didn't feel awkward back there," Daniel was saying as he punched the button for the elevator. "With the name thing. It's just--" He paused, sighed, and glanced down the empty corridor before he said in a quiet voice, "General Hammond did tell you what happened, right?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah, he told me. I'm sorry, I guess." Now *that* was strange. Offering someone condolences for his own death...
"It's still very raw," Daniel admitted quietly. "We're all still grieving."
*But I'm right here!* The words itched to be spoken, but Jack bit down hard on the impulse. What had been obvious from the moment he'd seen the wary welcome in Hammond's eyes was that, to these people, he was not Jack O'Neill. Whatever he might think about himself, whatever he might feel for his friends, to them he was a stranger. Worse than that, a stranger bearing the face of the man they'd only just buried.
It sucked.
The elevator opened and an airman passed by without a hint of recognition. Jack found himself relieved. Blank looks were better than the flinch of pain he'd seen in the eyes of his former team. "How did it happen?" he asked as they stepped inside. He figured he should at least know the details of his own death, as bizarre as that sounded.
Daniel grimaced, pulling off his glasses. "Staff blast to the chest. We were evacuating P4R-529. Jack was holding the line of retreat when we were out-flanked. They got him point-blank."
"Ouch."
"Yeah."
"Good way to go though," he mused. "Fast. Better than rusting away in some old-folks home while--" Daniel cleared his throat, flinging him a strained look. "What?"
"Nothing," he mumbled, turning away. "It's just... You're a lot like him."
"Yeah," Jack sighed, leaning back against the elevator wall. "I get that a lot."
***
Sam sat alone in the women's locker room, fully dressed, waiting for her courage to return. In less than half an hour she had to be ready to leave, and she still hadn't briefed him on the mission.
Damn. She still couldn't bring herself to think of him as Jack O'Neill, despite Teah'c's silent reproof. How could she? She felt like a kid who's Dad just went out and bought a new puppy after the dog died. You can't just replace people! It's not right. It's not natural. Of course, the man's very existence was unnatural. Which was the root of the problem. No one should have to live with a flesh and blood ghost. What the hell did that do to the grieving process?
A knock on the door startled her, and she got hurriedly to her feet. The last thing she wanted was to be discovered - again - in tears in the locker room. God knew, she'd fed the grapevine enough gossip in the last few weeks. Grabbing up her jacket she pulled open the door, expecting to see either Daniel or Teal'c checking up on her.
She stopped dead when she saw O'Neill. O'Neill in BDUs. Her heart thudded; he looked so much like *him*.
"Hey," he said awkwardly. Then, he waved something in front of her, "They gave me one of these, and Daniel said you were here."
She stared dumbly at the access card he was holding, fighting for her equilibrium.
"Briefing?" he added. "The Asgard? Little skinny grey guys with--"
"Yes," she blurted, lurching past him and into motion. He had to hurry to catch up, falling in easily at her side as she strode towards the gate room. "Actually, there's not much more to add," she said, letting the words tumble out unchecked. "The Asgard established a remote diagnostic facility within the time-bubble surrounding the planet Halla. If you like, it's a bubble of normal time within the field radius of the time-dilation device, to allow someone to re-enter the orbit of the planet and repair the time-dilation device should it fail."
"Which it has."
She nodded. "Time is speeding up again, and if it's not fixed soon the replicators will be able to leave the planet and--"
"Got it," he replied, his voice as commanding as she remembered, despite its youthful cadence. "And I do what?"
She shrugged. "That, I don't know. Thor said he'd explain it to you when we arrived."
"Explain it to *me*?" he muttered. "Hope you'll be interpreting, Carter. I still don't speak technobabble, despite two extra years of High School."
Against her will, a bubble of humour floated to the surface. "No, sir," she murmured. No, sir? The words tolled in her head and stopped her dead. Sir? How could she make that mistake? He wasn't 'sir'. He wasn't *him*.
But O'Neill didn't seem to notice, walking ahead and only stopping when he realised she wasn't at his side. "Carter?"
Her name on his lips, such a longed for sound, almost undid her. She grimaced through the suffocating burst of pain. "Nothing."
"You okay?"
She just nodded, unable and unwilling to say more. "You should go to the armoury, get a weapon."
"Yeah," he agreed, still eyeing her warily. For a moment she thought he was going to say something and she quailed at the thought. But at the last moment he must have had a change of heart, because he stuffed his hands into his pockets and glanced down the empty corridor. "It's still where it used to be, huh?"
She had to close her eyes against the image before her; a young, healthy, vital Jack O'Neill, hands in pockets, the spitting image of the man she'd lost. Close enough to touch. It made her want to weep at the cruelty of the world. But all she did was open her eyes again and force a queasy smile, "Yeah, level twenty-seven. See you in the gate room in ten."
Walking past him, she left him staring after her as she all but fled from his presence. How she was going to survive the long mission ahead with her sanity intact, she had no idea.
***
Two years away hadn't dimmed Jack's memories of Asgard transport technology. It was as disorientating as ever. One minute he was standing in the gate room, trying not to stare at Carter, and the next - bam! - he was in the dimly lit interior of an Asgard ship, staring at someone who could only be, "Thor! Buddy!"
The alien inclined his head gracefully. "Colonel O'Neill, it is a pleasure to see you again. I was sorry to hear of your death."
Jack blinked. He would *never* get used to this. "Uh, yeah. Me too."
"I'm sure we don't have much time, Thor," Carter said briskly, her eyes never once straying too close to Jack. It was as if she were afraid of him. "We should get underway and get this over with as quickly as possible."
"What's the rush Major?" Jack asked, unable to keep the edge from his voice.
"The mission is time-critical," she snapped. But he knew her well enough to understand. It wasn't the mission that was bothering her, it was him. She wanted him out of her life as soon as possible. And that hurt. A lot. It undermined a thousand fond memories of her, a thousand dreams of an impossible future. He scowled down at his new boots, hoping the rejection didn't show on his face.
"Major Carter is correct," Thor said, his sing-song voice lilting through the tension. "And we are already en route to Halla. But time is indeed short. If you will follow me, Colonel O'Neill, I will explain what you must do upon our arrival."
Jack had just taken a step to follow when Carter spoke again. "Actually, Thor, it's not appropriate for you to address him as Colonel O'Neill. Colonel O'Neill is dead. And I'm in command of this mission."
Thor's surprise was evident. But all he said was, "As you wish."
Jack just felt cold. Colonel O'Neill is dead? Where the hell did that leave him?
"You can call him O'Neill," Daniel suggested, ever the diplomat. "Or Jack. Or Jack O'N--"
"Call me Dorothy, for all I care," Jack muttered icily, making Carter flinch. "Like the Major says, let's just get this thing over with."
Thor said no more, although Jack could have sworn he looked bemused by the exchange. But it was hard to tell on that face. Nonetheless, he turned and left the room. Jack glanced over at Carter to see if she would follow. With an awkwardly self-conscious look she went after Thor, leaving Jack to trail behind. But before he could take two steps Teal'c's hand touched his arm and stopped him.
"This is difficult," he said quietly. "Do not blame her."
Jack said nothing, pulling his arm away and leaving the room in silence. It *was* difficult. More difficult than he'd ever dreamed. More difficult than Teal'c or the rest of his team could possibly imagine; to them he was still a ghost, an unwanted stranger in his own life.
How the hell was he supposed to live like that?
***
They were meant to be resting, but Daniel couldn't help notice that he - the young Jack O'Neill - wasn't even trying to sleep. Instead, he sat on the floor next to one of the long windows, watching the galaxy streak past, one knee pulled up to his chest. The old Jack would never - could never! - have sat like that. But despite the youthful features, Daniel could still see a lifetime's experience etched into the young face. And despite the complexity of his own emotions - the grief at losing a friend and the unease he felt around the replica O'Neill - he found that sympathy was still the strongest emotion of all. He'd recognised the flinch, deep in O'Neill's eyes, when Sam had told Thor that the Colonel was dead. He'd seen that same sense of inadequacy in Jack a hundred times before, when he thought no one was looking.
Sitting up and rubbing a hand over his face, Daniel got to his feet and stepped over the sleeping bodies of Sam and Teal'c. Jack didn't shift as he approached, but Daniel knew he was aware of his presence as he sat down opposite him. "Nice view," he observed quietly.
Jack nodded slightly. "Looks better from up here than down there."
"You missed this."
Jack's gaze flicked to his face. "What do you think?"
"It wasn't a question."
Silence stretched across the room as Jack's young face, half-shadowed in the dim light, gazed pensively out of the window. "I used to look up," he said at last. "And wonder where you all were. What you were doing."
"Must have been hard," Daniel realised, swallowing a twinge of guilt. He'd never thought about this other Jack O'Neill. Not once.
"You have no idea," came the clipped response. "Last October? My Dad turned eighty. Couldn't even send him a card."
Daniel winced. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Jack sighed, looking back out the window. "Me too." Then he pulled something out of his pocket and threw it over at Daniel. It was a small leather wallet, and when he opened it he saw that it contained a handful of photos. "He gave them to me," Jack explained. "It's all I had left of my life." His head dipped slightly, gaze turning inward as he quietly said, "I guess it's still all I've got left."
Daniel said nothing, flicking slowly through the pitiful collection: two of Charlie, one of Jack, Sara and Charlie, an elderly couple, who had to be Jack's parents, and one of SG-1. "I'm sorry."
"You said that."
"You have to understand it from our point of view," he tried. "To us--"
"I know," Jack snapped. "He's dead. Carter said."
For a moment Daniel was silent, looking down at the team photo in the leather wallet. They were all smiling, even Jack. It was a good picture. A happy picture. Then, behind it, he saw the edge of another photo peeking out and started to pull at it. Too late, Jack made a grab for the wallet. But Daniel already had the picture in his hands; a snap-shot of Sam, all smiles. Jack's jaw clenched and he turned sharply to stare out the window, a flush of embarrassment darkening his face.
Daniel stared awkwardly at the picture, understanding more than Jack realised about his friend's unconsummated feelings for Sam. "This is why it's so hard for her," he said softly. "She took his - your - death very badly."
"Really?" Jack's voice cracked on the edge of a whisper. He almost sounded hopeful, as if Sam's grief proved something to him. Maybe he really didn't know how she'd felt.
But Daniel did. He remembered finding her out on his balcony, alone on the freezing night of the wake, sobbing her heart out. So angry she could barely speak. "She had a lot of regrets."
"Yeah," Jack sighed. "We all have those."
"Do you regret this?" Daniel asked. "Coming back?"
O'Neill's gaze shifted up to his face, as agate-hard as he remembered. "I regret waking up every morning and not recognising my own face in the mirror. I regret seeing that look in--" He shook his head, running a hand through his hair - thick, dark and without a trace of grey. "I regret that I'm *dead*."
With that he stood up, a fluid motion that spoke of youth and strength, and stalked away. Daniel watched him go, full of sympathy and confusion. Had his eyes been closed, he wouldn't have known he wasn't talking to his old friend. And yet Sam was right - Jack O'Neill was dead. And he deserved to be mourned. So how the hell was he supposed to relate to this kid with his friend's memories? Perhaps even with his friend's soul?
He pulled off his glasses and rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn't even sure there was an answer.
***
Restless, Sam lay staring at the ceiling. The soft murmurs of a muted conversation had fallen silent long ago, and nothing but the quiet hum of the ship and the deep breathing of her sleeping team filled the air.
She glanced at her watch. Two-thirty, Colorado time. Normally she could sleep anywhere. Even on floors as cold and hard as this one. That was something that nine years at the SGC had taught her. But not tonight. Her head and heart were too full of ghosts to let her sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his face. Not the kid on board with them, but the *real* Colonel O'Neill. The one she missed with every beat of her heart.
There were plenty of things she regretted. Some of them, she could barely bring herself to remember. But amongst the biggest was that she'd seen his dead face back on P4R-529. Every time she thought about him she remembered those dead, blank eyes, bereft of humour and warmth. So cold. There was a bitter irony to it, she thought, as she stared up at the dark ceiling. How many nights had she laid awake trying not to think about the way those eyes had smiled so warmly at her? She'd tried so hard to banish those thoughts, and now all she could remember was his cold stare of death. Bitter, bitter irony.
Feeling the familiar lump constricting her throat, Sam sat up. No point in dwelling. Not here, not on a mission. Carefully, she crawled out of her sleeping-bag and padded in her socks towards the control room where the Asgard monitored their journey. They, it seemed, didn't need to sleep. And she could use some company and a distraction, however alien.
But her escape was partially blocked by the sleeping form of the young Jack O'Neill. For some reason he was sleeping as far from the rest of them as was possible in the little room given over to them by the Asgard. She slowed as she approached, her eyes dipping inevitably to his face, cushioned against one arm where he slept wrapped in his military issue sleeping-bag. He looked even younger asleep, but she could still trace the features of the man in the face of the boy. It made her shiver. It was so wrong to see that face, when *he* was dead and buried in the Colorado dirt.
Stepping over the long legs that blocked her escape, Sam left her sleeping team. In the control room she found only Thor. At least she assumed it was Thor. He looked up when she stepped inside, wide eyes blinking. "You are not resting, Major Carter?"
She grimaced. "Couldn't sleep. A lot on my mind."
"You are worried that this mission is dangerous for your team?"
"A little," she shrugged, content with the half-truth.
Thor left the control panel and walked towards her. "May I ask you a question, Major Carter?"
"Of course."
"Why does O'Neill no longer command your team?"
Sam stared. Wasn't it obvious? "Ah...well, because he died."
"Yet his clone lives, and appears to be in good health."
She felt her hackles rise. How dare he... "Human's don't work like that," she explained, as politely as possible. "To us, that boy isn't Colonel O'Neill."
Thor's head tipped to one side. "To you, am I not Thor?"
"Of course you are," she replied. Then grimaced slightly. "It's just different."
"This body," Thor continued, "is not the one broken by Anubis. And yet I am still myself."
"But there was never two of you," Sam countered. "The kid in there - he hasn't been at the SGC for two years. He's different. He's not Jack O'Neill."
"For crying out loud, Carter," a sleepy voice said from behind her, "you running some kind of campaign here?"
She stiffened and turned. "I thought you were asleep."
"Yeah," he nodded, "I guess you did." Their eyes met for a moment, and what she saw in his face confused her. Anger, yes, but beneath it something that almost looked like sympathy. Maybe she'd seen too much, because he abruptly turned away and said, "Thor, how long till we get there?"
The Asgard returned to his console before answering. "Nearly three hours, by your counting."
"Good," he said, walking past Sam. "You can go over how I repair that device one more time." He threw her a flat stare. "If that's okay with the Major?"
Swallowing hard, his anger surprisingly hurtful, she nodded. "Of course."
He didn't respond, just turned back to the console and began talking to Thor. Retreating from the room, Sam made her way back to her piece of floor. In the semidarkness it was only when she sat down on her sleeping-bag that she noticed that it felt thicker than before. She understood instantly and her heart skittered. He'd given her his sleeping-bag, just like he'd always done when switching watch off-world. Sometimes a little extra heat or padding made all the difference.
The gesture yanked at her heart, throwing out a hundred fond memories that filled her eyes with tears. She missed him so much. Her fingers closed around his sleeping-bag as she pulled it over her knees and buried her face in the warm fabric. The scent hit her like an avalanche. It was him. It was *him*!
She couldn't stop the tears from falling.
It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
***
Everyone was sleeping when Jack returned to their makeshift camp. Even Carter. Although he noted, with a sinking heart, that his sleeping-bag had been left folded carefully to one side. She didn't even want that much of him. He had to admire her loyalty, even if it was as frustrating and hurtful as hell. He'd thought about her so often over the past two years, watched her, longed for her, imagined meeting her again. Why couldn't she see who he was? She was smart. Why couldn't she *get* it?
With a frustrated sigh he began stowing his kit. They were half an hour out from their destination and he needed time to prepare. The thought of returning to the planet unnerved him; he still occasionally had nightmares about those little techno-bugs. But it wasn't like he had a choice in the matter, and it wasn't like he'd have made a different decision even if he had been able to choose. The replicators had to be stopped, end of story.
Sitting down on the hard floor he pulled on his boots and began lacing. They were new and needed to be broken in. He hated new boots. But of course his old boots were long gone. Along with his old life. He sighed and paused, glancing over the sleeping room to where Carter lay. She hadn't changed much in the two years he'd been away, although he'd never before seen her this introverted and tense. Daniel had said she'd taken 'his' death badly, but she seemed to be taking his living worse. If only she could see what this was - another chance, for both of them. Angry, he returned to tying his laces, staring at his smooth, young hands.
Too young.
Stopping again, he ran a hand over his face. He barely needed to shave yet, all smooth skin, narrow features, long and lanky limbs. He was a kid, barely more than a boy.
He looked again at Carter, a strong, beautiful, graceful woman. Definitely a woman.
His heart sank. Was it really a surprise that she couldn't see past the body he'd been forced into? He looked like a child to her. How could she ever love him like this?
Love...
He'd gotten used to the idea, and the word, during his two year exile. Perhaps away from the SGC, and all its rules and regulations, he'd allowed himself a little more emotional honesty than usual. Or perhaps, having lost her for good, he'd finally allowed himself to accept what he had felt for so long. He'd loved her. He still did. But sitting there in the starlit darkness, watching her sleeping, he realised that her love had died with the man who'd stolen his boots and his life. She could never love the boy that he appeared to be, even if the man inside was the same.
He was as far from her now as he'd ever been, but time not regulations separated them now. The words he'd overheard rang again in his head. The kid in there...He's different. He's not Jack O'Neill. He had no place in her life. She didn't want him, none of them did. And once this mission was over he'd be thrown back into exile.
His peers and contemporaries raced ahead of him towards the end of their lives, while he was left behind and forgotten. They were forever beyond his reach - as dead to him as he was to them.
He was a dead man walking. And his friends had already buried him.
***
Looking back, Teal'c felt he should have known that something was wrong. O'Neill had been as a brother to him, and although he'd looked more like a son in his current incarnation, his mind had been the same as ever. Both had been warriors, both needed the battle, and both understood the pain of rejection by those whom they loved.
He should have noticed. But he hadn't...
"You'll have to be careful in there," Carter had told O'Neill, her voice as flat as Teal'c had ever heard it. "You must keep this in contact with your skin at all times ." She'd held out a small metallic device. "It confirms your DNA to the Asgard computer."
O'Neill had taken the small disk from her hand, moving gingerly as if avoiding the risk of even the slightest brush of his fingers against hers. "I need this to get in?"
"No," she'd replied. "To get out. That's the failsafe. Anyone can get in, but unless they have your DNA the time dilation device within the room triggers, and they'd be dead within minutes."
He'd looked at her carefully for a moment, turning the disk over in his fingers. "Minutes?"
"To us. Of course, to them it would be a lifetime."
He'd frowned. "A life time - wouldn't that give them time to figure out how to escape?"
"It would," Thor had interrupted. "To prevent this, the intruder is automatically trapped in a stasis filed until they die. You must be careful O'Neill. You must not trip the time dilation device."
"Yeah, wouldn't want to do that," he'd said with a smile, tossing the small device in the air and snatching it back like a coin. He slapped it on his upper arm and turned his attention to Daniel. "So," he'd said, watching him with an odd intensity. It had seemed as if he might say more, but in the end he'd simply smiled and said, "Thanks. For earlier."
Discomfited, Daniel had scratched his head and ducked the thanks. "Anytime. You know." Then he'd frowned and said no more, although in his memory Teal'c recognised the unease in his friend's face. He'd shared it.
Jack had turned to him then, but said nothing, simply fixing him with a serious look that had seemed out of place in his youthful face. Then he'd nodded, as if something profound had been exchanged, before glancing warily towards Carter.
She'd been ice cool. "I'll talk you through the procedure," she'd told him, keeping her gaze fixed on the Asgard schematics displayed nearby. "It shouldn't take more than half an hour."
"Right," Jack had said. And then awkwardly, after a pause, "Carter?"
She'd half glanced at him. On edge. "Yes?"
He'd hesitated, staring at her. "You're doing a good job. With SG-1. I'm-- He'd have been proud of you."
Eyes wide, she'd returned his stare. "Thank you," she'd stammered at last, before looking back sharply at the schematics again. "We should get this thing done."
He'd just nodded, staring at her back for a moment that stretched well beyond propriety before he'd quietly said, "Yeah, it's time."
And, looking back, Teal'c should have known at that moment what he was planning. He should have known.
But he hadn't.
***
"Okay, that's it," Carter's voice fizzed into his ear-piece. "Now replace the red one and we're done."
Jack's fingers moved faultlessly to obey, a unique combination of youth and experience. And he felt a nervous flood of relief as the hum of the device began again. It was working. He'd done it. It was almost time.
"Thank you, O'Neill," came Thor's soothing voice. "The device is functioning normally. The replicators are still contained. Once again, we owe you a debt of gratitude."
Jack crawled out from beneath the cramped console, without a trace of stiffness in legs or back. Whoever had said 'youth is wasted on the young' hadn't been wrong. But at the same time, he hadn't been faced with the price Jack had been forced to pay. This phoney-youth was a curse. His body might be young, but his soul was old and craved the company of its own kind. His exile was excruciating.
He looked around the small alien room, a bubble of normalcy amid the replicator hell he and his team had frozen in time. Frozen, ironically, much as he had been, trapped in a time that wasn't his.
"Jack?" It was Daniel. "We're going to, ah...'beam you up' now."
He smiled at the wince in his friend's voice and glanced up at the small monitor in the corner of the room. "Stand by," he said, turning slightly so that his right arm was hidden from view. His fingers ran along his unnaturally smooth, youthful skin until they found the Asgard device beneath the sleeve of his tee-shirt. Slowly, he sat down on the floor, positioning himself carefully.
It was a risk. A huge roll of the dice. If it paid off, he might get his life back. If it didn't, he'd die here. But it would be painless. Like falling sleep. And for them, outside, it would just take moments. It would be over and they'd be free of the pain he was causing. *She* would be free to mourn the man who'd died a hero. He could still hear her voice, tense with grief: Colonel O'Neill is dead. He wouldn't make her cry in the darkness again, or look at him as if he were haunting her.
His fingers touched the edge of the device, cool metal warmed by his skin. It was now or never - a chance to regain the life stolen from him, or to end it here. But better that than going back to nothing, back to sitting, staring at the stars, knowing what was out there and not being able to do a damn thing to help, back to trying to plot a meaningful course through life after all that he'd seen and all that he knew.
He wouldn't go back to that life. He'd rather die.
Colonel O'Neill is dead.
"Jack?" Daniel again, anxious.
"Just a minute." He eyed the floor, calculating the angle, the distance. How he'd fall.
"O'Neill?" Teal'c, edgy.
Colonel O'Neill is dead.
His fingernail edged beneath the device and he felt it start to peel from his skin. "Sir?" it was Carter. "You can't take that off. If you--" It was off, falling from limp fingers as his mind clogged to a halt. The tinkling sound of metal hitting metal was the last thing he heard as the world rushed to black, but in his head he could still hear her voice, full of unshed tears and anger...
Colonel O'Neill is dead.
And as consciousness fled, he thought she might be right.
***
He was falling.
Images of death slammed into her vision - an explosion of blood and fire. A shout. Cold dead eyes.
He was falling.
Cold, dead eyes staring at nothing.
"What's he doing?" Daniel grabbed the monitor with two hands. "Jack? What are--"
Thor looked up, shocked. "He has removed the DNA uplink!"
Teal'c surged forward, angry. "He would rather die than return home! I should have seen this! We must stop him. Thor--"
"Beam him out!" Daniel was yelling. "Beam him out!"
He was still falling, toppling sideways towards the floor.
"The time dilation trap has been triggered," Thor said quietly. "O'Neill is in a stasis field, and time within the chamber is accelerating."
"So beam him out of there!"
Thor touched something on his console. "Without the DNA uplink, I cannot operate the transporter. That is part of the failsafe."
He hit the ground with a thud, face down. Sam felt sick. She couldn't see this again! She couldn't watch him die again. Yet she couldn't turn away. She couldn't move. Horror paralysed every muscle as the nightmare unfolded around her. Again. How could he do this to her again?
"Beam me in!" Daniel was saying. "Do it.. I can--"
"You too would be caught in the trap," Thor countered. "It would serve no-- Wait."
Everyone stopped.
"What?" Sam was surprised to hear her own voice. She barely felt as though she was in the room. "What is it?"
Thor's eyes were fixed on the alien script before him. "The DNA uplink has been reactivated."
She edged closer to the screen on legs stiff with tension. He still lay motionless on the floor. "How?"
"He must have rolled onto it when he fell!" Daniel guessed.
Sam's eyes burned dry, her voice a rasp. "Get him out of there."
Even before she'd finished speaking, Thor had moved. And in a flash of white light, O'Neill lay on the floor in front of them. Daniel dropped to the floor, crouching next to the still body, his fingers searching for a pulse. "He's alive."
Relief hit her like a sucker-punch, leaving her giddy. And guilty. And angry as hell. She'd seen him die, twice. And return from the dead, twice. Her mind was reeling from the impossible tensions, shuddering on the point of flying apart.
Gently, Daniel rolled him onto his back. And Sam heard him gasp before she saw Jack's face. "Uh-oh," Daniel murmured, rising slowly to his feet and stepping back.
He was old.
Her mind reeled. Just a few minutes in the accelerated time must have aged him beyond recognition, his youth traded for old age. What a bitter irony! She moved reluctantly to peer around Daniel, steeling herself for the worst. She thought she was prepared for anything.
She was wrong.
Her hand flew to her mouth to stop the involuntary gasp. Blood rushed from her head, her vision tunnelling as she found herself staring into a face from the grave. It was Colonel O'Neill. Exactly. As she'd known him that first day at the SGC - dark hair with a scattering of grey, his face lived-in yet vital. A man in the prime of his life. It was at once a dream and a nightmare made flesh. It was him. It was him exactly.
But it still wasn't *him*.
The irreconcilable conflict gouged chunks out of her rational mind, leaving her shaking and battered. And as she stared in horrified delight at the face she'd so longed to see, his eyes flickered open, full of life and hope. Semi-focused, he smiled cautiously at her. "Carter...?"
And her heart shattered.
Glutinous tears choked her, blinded her, and all she could do was run. It was too much. It was impossible.
***
Jack lay flat on his back, hands pressed over his face. The clang of Sam's fleeing footsteps still echoed in the silent room, tolling like defeat. Daniel shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat.
The slight noise broke the spell.
"Crap," Jack said, the word muffled beneath his fingers. "I'm old, right?"
"You are not," Teal'c replied, in a voice Daniel had long ago come to recognise as 'pissed'. "But your actions were reckless. You are lucky to be alive."
Jack's hands fell from his face, but he still made no move to get up. "Am I?"
"Ah, lucky?" Daniel jumped in. "I'd say you were. If you hadn't accidentally fallen onto the DNA uplink--"
"It wasn't an accident!" Jack groused, jumping to his feet. He winced slightly as he landed and glanced down at his right knee with a smile. "Huh. Knees."
Daniel was momentarily nonplussed by the nonsequiter. He decided to ignore it. "You mean...? You did that on purpose?"
Jack didn't seem to think the question warranted a reply. "Have you got a mirror?"
"Uh...no."
He turned to Teal'c. "T? Mirror?"
Teal'c's expression didn't alter. "You appear to be about forty years old, O'Neill. Much as you were when I first knew you."
"Yes!" He grinned. Then suddenly frowned, his eyes shifting sharply to the door through which Sam had fled. "Then what...?"
Daniel shook his head at the man's lack of perception. "You don't get it?"
"Get what?"
"You! You look--" He sighed, struggling himself with the shock of seeing the man he'd buried no more than four months earlier standing before him. "You look more like him now."
The frown deepened into a scowl. "I *am* him. That's the point!"
Daniel shook his head, reluctantly speaking the truth. "You're not him. *That's* the point."
Jack just glared, the kind of glare that would have shrivelled a parade-ground of new recruits. Daniel was unflinching. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah," Jack muttered, stalking away. "Sure you are."
And he was. Truly. But it didn't change the fact that Colonel O'Neill was dead and buried, and that the man wearing his face could never replace him. Not for anyone. And especially, he suspected, not for Sam.
***
The bright flash of Asgard light momentarily blinded everyone in the control room. And when his eyes had blinked away the red afterglow, Hammond found himself staring in shock at the gate room.
"Son of a bitch," Siler murmured at his side. Hammond flicked him a glance and he winced. "Sorry, sir."
But the General couldn't disagree with the sentiment. For standing there on the ramp, as if he'd never been gone, was Jack O'Neill. Not the kid, not the rangy adolescent, but the man with whom he'd served for over six years. Looking not a day under forty. Maybe older.
He grabbed the mic. "SG-1 to the briefing room immediately. Colonel-- Jack, to the infirmary. Now."
In the gate room below, Carter looked up and nodded. And without a backward glance she headed for the doors, barely pausing to hand her weapons over to the airman on duty. Daniel trailed unhappily after her, while Teal'c paused for a moment, turning back to O'Neill. He said something that Hammond didn't catch, before he too followed the Major out of the room. O'Neill was left alone on the ramp, like a living, breathing ghost.
"There are some things," Hammond said to himself, "that I'll never get used to."
"Yes, sir," Siler agreed politely, staring out at the man they'd both seen buried. "I'll get working on that faulty MALP, sir."
Hammond smiled slightly and nodded. "Good idea, Sergeant."
As he turned to leave, O'Neill started walking down the ramp. His swagger was so familiar it was painful. But not half as painful as the headache he was envisioning ahead of him. How the hell were they going to deal with this carbon-copy of the man who the world believed to be dead? Who was, in fact, dead?
He ran a hand over his head as he walked towards the briefing room. Just another day at the office...
***
Jack stared into the mirror, savouring his reflection. The gamble with the time dilation device had paid off, big time. He was himself again. Maybe five years short of where he'd started, but old enough to be taken seriously. Old enough to reclaim his life.
He ran his hand through his hair, salted slightly with grey, and turned away. On the bed was a new set of BDUs, sized to fit his adult body. And he couldn't help but smile. It was good to be back. He felt good. Strong. Powerful. All he had to do now was convince the rest of the world that he really was Jack O'Neill and that he deserved the chance live his own life again.
If he could just get Carter on board he knew that the others would follow. But, of course, Carter would be the most difficult of all to convince. She had so much more invested in the dead guy. The thought unsettled him and he shook his head to clear it. Time enough to worry about that later.
He pulled on his pants and was just reaching for his shirt when an unfamiliar voice behind him said, "You can leave that off, I'll need to listen to your chest."
"My lucky day," he grumbled, turning around to see some unknown kid-doctor pulling the curtain from around his bed.
She just smiled. "Take a seat, Jack."
Jack? Hmmm... Of course, it didn't actually *say* Colonel on his uniform anymore, but that was just a technicality. "Where's Fraiser?" he asked as the Doctor shone a penlight into his eye. "She usually does this."
There was a shift of unease through the room. The Doc - Johnston? - glanced uncomfortably at one of the nurses as she lowered the penlight and straightened up. "Janet Fraiser?" she asked, picking up his notes and scribbling on them.
Tension trickled coldly down his spine. "There's another Fraiser?"
Johnston ignored the comment, clasping her clipboard to her chest. She was twenty-five, if she was a day. "I'm sorry, Jack. Janet Fraiser was killed."
BAM! It hit him like a gunshot.
"Killed...?" The word leaked out as he looked over at the nurse. Her dour expression confirmed that this wasn't a horrible joke. Killed? "When?"
The doctor cleared her throat, "Almost two years ago."
Two *years* ago? She'd been dead all that time and they hadn't told him. They hadn't told him! "I didn't know." His voice was quiet, his anger under control as he stared down at his fingers. They were slowly curling into fists. Janet Fraiser had been dead for two years. Two years! And he'd never shed a goddamn tear for her. He surged to his feet, darkly pleased to see the doctor flinch backwards. It had been a while since he'd managed to have that effect on anyone - one of the many advantages of his restored adult body.
"Jack, where are you going?"
"To see Hammond."
"I haven't finished--"
"You've finished!"
The doctor blanched and retreated, much to Jack's disgust. Fraiser would have stood her ground. With a shake of his head he grabbed his shirt and stalked towards the door.
"Jack, you--"
He wheeled on the woman, finger levelled and pointing. "And that's Colonel to you, Captain."
The woman made no answer, simply blinked uneasily as Jack spun on his heel and slammed out of the infirmary.
Walking the corridors of the SGC was a different experience now. Gone were the blank, indifferent stares, replaced instead by shocked gasps, disbelief and on occasion even fear. He ignored them all, bent only on demanding an explanation from Hammond.
The General's office was empty, so he evaded the flustered Lieutenant who served as Hammond's PA and stormed towards the briefing room. Without pausing to knock, he thumped open the door and bulldozed his way inside. He was met by the silence of a severed conversation, all eyes wide and fixed on him.
"What in heaven's name--" Hammond started, half rising to his feet.
"Fraiser's dead!" Jack blurted, anger and sorrow crackling on each word. "Why the hell didn't someone tell me?"
No one answered.
"She was my friend!"
"Jack, calm down." Daniel rose slowly to his feet. "You know why we didn't tell you. You didn't want to keep in touch. You thought it would be weird."
Jack wheeled on him. "Weird? I'll tell you what's weird! Knowing that one of my friends has been dead for two years and no one - no one! - thought I'd care!"
"Enough!" Hammond snapped. "Jack, I'm sorry. God knows, we all miss Doctor Friaser, but I will *not* have this briefing interrupted like this. Report back to the infirmary immediately."
"You can't treat me like I don't matter," Jack warned them hotly, his gaze fixing on Carter. She hadn't looked at him once since he'd entered the room. "You can't pretend I'm not who I am!"
Hammond moved to stand before him. "No one said you didn't matter, son."
Lifting his eyes to the General's he saw a flash of friendship there, but he wasn't going to budge an inch. "I deserved to know."
Hammond nodded. "Perhaps."
Without another word, he turned and left the room. He'd make them understand, whatever it took. He'd make them understand that *he* was Jack O'Neill and that he deserved to live the life he'd been born to.
Failure simply wasn't an option.
***
Daniel found Sam buried in her work, burrowing into paperwork like a mole on a mission to forget. She didn't stir as he strolled into the room, and it was only when he cleared his throat that she looked up with a startled look of surprise.
"Daniel. Hi. Sorry, I didn't see you."
He nodded towards the papers tottering in a pile on her desk. "Busy?"
"Yeah. Well, just trying to get a handle on things. Who'd have thought we'd create so much paperwork, huh? So much for the paperless office! Although, let's face it, that's an oxymoron if ever--"
"Sam?"
She blinked as she halted, and he could see a wary sheen to her eyes. With a flicker of a grimace she looked down at the paper before her, hands falling still in her lap. "I don't want to talk about it, Daniel."
Pulling out a chair he sat down. "I know."
"I mean, it's not like there's anything to say, is it?"
"Guess not."
She looked up, daring him to contradict her. "Colonel O'Neill is dead. And that...that person is-- He's--"
"He's here," Daniel said softly. Sam winced, her eyes dark and full of pain in the dimly lit office. "However we feel about it, he's here. And he has some right to--"
"No!" she snapped, angrily pushing her chair back from the desk. She ran a vexed hand through her hair as she stood, fixing Daniel with an anguished look he'd only rarely seen on her face. "Don't tell me he has a right to the Colonel's life. He's not a replacement."
He nodded silently, his mind slipping back to the sunny morning not four months earlier. It had been hot. Summer sunshine had hammered onto his black suit, sweat mingling with the tears on his face as the coffin had been slowly lowered into the ground. Sam had stood to attention with the other officers, her back rigid, her dry eyes staring ahead. She'd seemed so in control, the model of Air Force professionalism. But he knew what lay beneath, and he saw that same raw pain in her face now. Unhealed. "No one can replace Jack," Daniel agreed softly.. "I don't know what he is, Sam. But the fact is, he's here and we have to deal with him."
But she shook her head, almost beseeching. "Why? I don't want to deal with him. He hasn't been here for two years, and I'm still-- It feels like we've only just lost the Colonel, and I can't--" Her voice cracked, and she hurriedly turned her back on him. "Damn it."
Getting to his feet, he moved around the desk towards her. "I know," he said quietly. "I know how you feel. Seeing him... It's like... I don't know, like a betrayal or something."
She nodded fiercely, her back still turned. "Yes, that's exactly what it is. And I won't do it. I won't betray him."
"No one's asking you to, Sam."
She turned then, her wide eyes dark with pain. "I know," she whispered, the tears that had flowed so freely the night of Jack's wake standing in her eyes. Tears and something else; it almost looked like guilt. She shook her head, words forced out on a dry sob, "I know." And then her tears fell again, and she leaned into his willing embrace.
"Shhhh," he soothed her, holding her close. "It's okay." But even though his lips spoke the words, his heart knew them to be a platitude. It wasn't okay. Jack was gone. Forever.
And that would never be okay.
***
It was late in the evening by the time General Hammond reached the infirmary. He was tired and he should have been at his daughter's for dinner two hours ago. She'd sighed with familiar resignation when he'd called her, and made him promise to take the girls out for an ice-cream at the weekend to make up for disappointing them. Not for the first time he regretted the toll his work had taken on his children. And now his grandchildren.
He sighed, slowing as he reached the door, taking a moment to compose his thoughts before the coming confrontation. For confrontation it would be. His briefing with SG-1 had told him the bones of the issue; Jack had risked his life in order to retrieve his lost years. And Hammond knew the man well enough to guess his purpose. Jack O'Neill had never been the sort to sit by and watch. If he wasn't at the centre of any commotion, he was the cause. And, no doubt seeing an opportunity to get back into the action, he'd seized it with his usual single-minded disregard for protocol.
Hammond had no doubt that Jack wanted back into the SGC, perhaps he expected to be given command of SG-1. But things weren't that simple. They were far from simple.
Bracing himself, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. If he'd been expecting a riot, he was disappointed. Doctor Johnston sat in her office, her blond hair visible through the window, while the night nurse manned the duty station, straightening as the General entered. "Good evening, sir."
Hammond nodded. "Allsop." He glanced towards a curtained-off bed. "Jack O'Neill?"
"Yes, sir. He's...unhappy. But otherwise in good health, sir."
Unhappy? He admired the man's circumspection. "Thank you, son. Why don't--"
The curtains swished open and Hammond found himself staring at a very irritated Jack O'Neill perched on the side of the bed. "About time!" O'Neill groused, before adding a reluctant. "Sir."
Hammond straightened his shoulders. "How are you feeling, Jack?"
"Fine. Bored. *Really* bored."
"Doctor Johnson says you passed the medical--"
"Did I mention I was bored?"
Hammond flashed him a stern look and he abated. Slightly. But the room fizzed with tension, the nurse eyeing them with a disconcerting mixture of alarm and interest. No doubt this would make fine food for the base gossips. Hammond paused for a moment, considering. And then he made a decision. "I've got a fine single malt at home, Jack. How about we share it?"
Jack's anger melted into surprise. And then into a wry smile. "That's the best offer I've had in over two years, sir."
"George," the General reminded him carefully. Jack was a civilian now, a fact Hammond was determined to reinforce.
But O'Neill seemed equally determined to ignore the gentle hint. He jumped up from the bed, snatching up his jacket and heading for the door. "Lead the way. *Sir*."
Hammond sighed; the man could be as stubborn as a cornered Tok'ra. But, he reflected grimly as he headed for the door, he'd yet to meet the man who could outgun George Hammond of Texas.
It promised to be a long night indeed.
***
It was a warm evening, and Hammond had taken the whiskey and a couple of glasses out onto the porch. He'd poured them both a sizeable drink and then settled back in silence to watch the clouds scoot across the dark sky. They drank in silence, each aware of the conversation that was brewing between them and neither in a hurry to begin it.
Especially not Jack. The moment was one to savour in itself; the simple pleasure of sitting with an old friend enjoying the mellow buzz of a drink easing the kinks from body and mind. He felt tension he hadn't realised he was carrying seep from his shoulders, his thoughts unwinding as he breathed the evening air and sighed. "Nice."
Hammond shifted slightly in his chair. "You can't beat whiskey for putting things into perspective."
"Yeah," Jack agreed, swirling the drink around the bottom of his glass. "Although... Spending two years of your adult life as a kid? The puts a lot of things into perspective."
"I imagine it does."
Jack leaned forward in his chair, elbows on knees, staring out into the darkness. "You know I want back in, don't you?" Hammond didn't answer, but out of the corner of his eye he could see him nod. "It's my life, George," he added softly. "You can't keep it from me."
The noisy silence of a summer night filled the air between them: insects chirping, the distant thud of a car door slamming, and the barely audible thudding base from a neighbours yard filling the silent spaces in-between. The moment stretched until Hammond sighed and said, "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Well, for a start, Colonel Jack O'Neill is dead."
Jack looked at him sideways. "I'm not dead."
"Jack, I gave the eulogy at his funeral. He died. He died bravely, and he deserves to be mourned and remembered."
Of course he was right. Logically, Jack understood that. But he couldn't *feel* it. "So remember him. Just let *me* get on with my life."
"How? How do you expect to do that, Jack? As far as the world knows, you're dead. Hell, I can even show you the death certificate if you want! You have no ID, no driver's licence, no social--"
"I've been dead for the last two years!" he snapped, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He threw it to Hammond. "Driver's licence, social security number. Blockbuster's card. The Air Force took care of it."
The General opened the wallet, flicking through. He pulled out his driving license and read, "Jack O'Neil."
"With one L."
He smiled at that. "Date of birth, April seventh, eighty-eight? You haven't aged well."
"My point," Jack groused as he snatched back the wallet, "is that the Air Force took care of it once. They can do it again."
Hammond took a sip from his glass, savouring the taste before he nodded. "Perhaps they can. But it's not just the paper work. It's the people Jack. I know it's hard, but you can't just expect us to carry on as if nothing's happened."
"I don't," he protested, "but... George, can't you tell it's me? I'm me! I know the other guy died, but look, I'm right here! I'm still here!" He got to his feet, pacing, trying to articulate his frustration. Never his strong suite. "Isn't that a good thing? I mean, I don't get how that isn't a good thing. I'm back!"
"No," Hammond sighed, putting his drink down. "You're not back. You're different. You're a different Jack O'Neill."
The mellowing effect of the whiskey was beginning to leach away in the face of his rising anger. "I'm. Still. Me," he said slowly, trying to keep himself in check. But it was hard. Everything was on the line here - his future. His life. If Hammond wouldn't let him back into the SGC he might as well have died in the time dilation device. "Listen," he said, perching on the edge of his chair, speaking fast and quiet, "I still know everything the other guy knew. Thor still trusts me - I just saved his ass again! I'm fit. Fitter than I was! I'm the best damn field officer you have, and you know it!"
Hammond nodded, the resolve in his eyes wavering slightly. "You'd have to consider other people's feelings."
"Sure, whatever," Jack agreed. Anything just to get back there where he belonged.
"Some people will be uncomfortable having you around. Especially at first."
True enough. He'd already seen that. "They'll get used to it." He gave a sour laugh. "I'm not the first person to come back from the dead!"
Hammond acknowledged the point with a slight inclination of his head. But what he said was, "And you can't expect to be reassigned to SG-1."
Jack stared. Something beneath him felt like is was subsiding. Not on SG-1? "Excuse me?"
"I won't ask it of them, Jack," Hammond warned him, blue eyes like granite. "They just lost their CO, I won't ask them to accept you as his replacement."
He was on his feet in an instant, control well and truly slipping. "But I *am* him! Why can't you--"
"I won't move on his," Hammond interrupted, standing with a speed that belied his age and girth. "If you come back to the SGC, it's not as part of SG-1."
Jack opened his mouth, then closed it, finding he had nothing to say. It was damn unfair. It was illogical. It was crazy. But what choice did he have? He glared, slumping back into his chair, tacitly admitting defeat. "Then what?" The words sounded like a snarl and Hammond's eyes narrowed in irritation. Jack knew he could only push him so far, and perhaps not as far as he used to.
"Major Dawson, SG-4, just got posted to the Pentagon. I'm considering new COs."
"SG-4? Tatchet, Webb, and Suri?"
Hammond nodded. "They're a good team."
"They're not Carter, Daniel and Teal'c."
"No. They're not."
Jack sighed, picking up his glass and knocking back the content in one go. "I guess I don't have a choice."
"Not if you want to come back to the SGC. But I'm sure the Air Force would give you pretty much any assignment you--"
"Like I said," Jack cut in, "I have no choice."
Hammond reached for the bottle and refilled Jack's glass. "Give us some time, Jack," he suggested, topping up his own glass. "This is difficult."
Time? His life had stretched and concertinaed around him - time felt elastic, uncertain. After the curveball it had thrown him two years ago he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Even the people he'd once thought of as the only constants in his crazy life, even they were proving insubstantial and elusive. It left him feeling lonelier than before. "Do you think," he asked softly, eyes fixed on the drink in his glass glowing amber in the light from the house, "do you think they'll ever accept me back?"
Hammond didn't have to ask who. "If anyone can, they can. They just need time. It's only been four months."
He nodded, trying to understand. "Maybe once I'm back there...?"
"Maybe."
Daniel, he thought, was half-way there. But his mind had always been capable of wild leaps, from friend to enemy and back again in a heartbeat. And Teal'c... Teal'c was a pragmatist. He'd never let sentiment make an enemy out of a friend, or vice versa. But Carter? Their relationship had always been the most complex, the least understood and the most delicate. Fragile, almost. He was afraid it couldn't survive this, at least not in the way he hoped it would. Maybe she could accept him as a colleague, but he wanted so much more. The last two years had taught him that, if nothing else. He sighed, the drink swirling in the bottom of his glass mirroring the eddy of his thoughts.
"Don't rush her, son."
Jack froze. "Sir?"
"Of the three of them, she-- She'll find it hardest to adapt. Don't rush her. Give her some space."
He didn't look up, didn't dare. But he had to ask. Hammond knew her as well as anyone. "You think that she will? Eventually?"
Whether Hammond appreciated the multiple levels of meaning, Jack didn't know. Didn't want to know. But when the General spoke, it was sympathetically, "She's a remarkable woman, Jack. Her father's a Tok'ra, and she's taken that in her stride. I'm sure she'll try."
Jack nodded, glad that the night covered his unease at alluding to something so acutely private. And as he sat there, staring into his whisky and feeling intensely exposed under Hammond's keen gaze, a thought occurred to him. Actually it hit him like a train, shattering the foundations that had underpinned all his expectations, leaving him shocked and staring unseeing into the night.
SG-4?
Holy shit!
He wasn't her CO anymore.
***
Sam ached. She ached in places she'd never ached before, even the souls of her feet throbbed if she even thought about walking. Five days trekking across the bleakest, rockiest desert she'd ever encountered had left her exhausted and clumsy. Which was why she'd skidded while descending one of the steep scree-laden slopes, lost her balance and ended up in a heap at the bottom, only barely avoiding taking Daniel and Teal'c down with her.
It had been stupid, a stupid, clumsy mistake. One that had left her battered and bruised and laying on an infirmary bed, staring up at the grey ceiling. The rest of her team had long since dispersed in search of hot showers and food, for which she was grateful. It hadn't been one of her finest moments and the sooner it was forgotten the better. It was a good job the Colonel hadn't seen it, she thought with a painful smile. He'd have teased her for weeks. Months. Forever.
"Huh," she grunted to herself. Forever? What a lie that had turned out to be.
"Okay, Major Carter." Doctor Johnson interrupted her miserable pondering, coming into view with a smile that was entirely too bright.. "Here you go." She held out a small bottle of pills which Sam took reluctantly.
"More antibiotics? Do I really need them?"
The young doctor smiled. "It's just a precaution. The cut to your hand is pretty nasty, and I don't want to run the risk of infection."
Sam sighed, flexing her injured left hand. "How long until I'm back on duty?"
"Just a couple of days," Johnston assured her. "Come back in for a wound check on Thursday and I'll see how it's doing. Don't want you pulling your stitches again, Major."
Sitting up, Sam gave her a weary smile. "Actually, the way I feel, I think I'll sleep for a week."
Johnston smiled. "I can make those doctor's orders, if you like ma'am?"
"For once," Sam decided as she slid off the bed and stood up, "you don't need to. I'm going home. For a hot bath and a long, long sleep."
Johnston just smiled, nodding towards the bottle of pills. "Take two, four times a day. With food."
Pocketing the bottle, Sam returned the smile. "Thanks Susan." Then she headed for the door, walking slowly on her bruised feet and trying to ignore the way her right knee protested with each step. But she knew she was limping. What a pathetic sight!
Mercifully, the corridor was empty as she trudged towards the elevators. She wouldn't even bother with a shower, just go right home in her field gear. Ahead of her and around a corner she heard a rumble of voices and straightened her shoulders. She had some pride left! Major Carter of SG1 would not be seen limping down the corridor like a rookie coming back from her first night run. But as the owners of the voices emerged into view she faltered, despite herself. Then cursed silently. It was SG4. Damn it!
They'd obviously just returned from a mission themselves, looking almost as grimy as she felt. Tatchet and Suri were up front, laughing about something, while Captain Webb walked behind in deep conversation with... With him. She still hadn't found a name she could use that didn't feel like a betrayal of her friend, and so he was simply *him*. At least in the privacy of her own head.
He hadn't noticed her, and she found herself watching him with the kind of grim fascination that made you prod at a wound until it hurt more than ever. He looked... Damn, but he looked good. She couldn't deny it. He looked stronger and fitter than the man she'd seen die, his hair was less grey and his stride didn't favour his left knee. But in every other way his was the face of her dreams. And her nightmares.
She couldn't help staring at him, even as she unconsciously edged towards the side of the corridor to avoid his attention. Speaking to him was a pain she really didn't have the stomach for today. But he was engrossed in the conversation with Webb, which she began to overhear as they drew near: the Stanley Cup. What else? A smile rose painfully to her lips and she looked away, grateful at least that she'd escaped his notice once--
"Sam!" Damn it, it was Tatchet. "You look like crap."
As soon as her name left Tatchet's lips, *his* head jerked up. Excitement and pleasure mingled in his eyes, until her studied indifference snuffed them both. She turned away and faced Tatchet with a fixed smile. She didn't want to see his disappointment. "Tat," she nodded, looking him up and down, "what happened to you?"
"The usual," he grinned. "Mud, rain, aliens. You?"
Her forced grin set like concrete. "I, ah-- Rough terrain."
Tatchet laughed out-loud. "What? Don't tell me you fell over!"
"Laugh it up," she muttered, although she couldn't help a spark of amusement. She and Henry Tatchet had been sparing since he'd first arrived on base eighteen months ago. Daniel thought he had a crush on her, but she'd never seen any evidence of it. And, really, she didn't want to.
"Oh, that's good," Tatchet grinned, heading off towards the infirmary. "That even beats the hang over thing."
"It was food poisoning!" she insisted for the hundredth time. Tatchet laughed, Sam shook her head and that was that.
Except it wasn't. Because she could still feel *his* eyes on her as she composed her features and started walking in the opposite direction. But she thought she'd escaped until he spoke, quiet yet commanding. "Carter?"
She stopped, considered ignoring him but in the end forced herself to turn back around. Webb had caught up with the rest of his team, leaving *him* alone in the corridor. "Sir?"
He was hesitant, as he had been since his official return to the SGC. He was walking on eggshells around her. Around all of them. "You okay?" he asked, glancing at her bandaged hand.
"Sure," she returned, hating him for caring. Hating herself for the little pulse of pleasure his concern had sent racing from the pit of her stomach into her throat.
"You're hurt," he muttered, his hand moving towards hers.
She flinched backward. "It's nothing. It was stupid."
"I doubt that."
He said it quietly, seriously and with such affection that her breath caught in her lungs. All she could hear was her heart thudding. All she could see were his eyes, warm and hungry. God, but she knew that quiet voice. He'd used it with her only rarely, but every occasion was etched vividly into her memory; always when they were alone, and always when he was talking to her as Jack and not O'Neill. It was a glimpse of the man behind the uniform, the man who cared for her more than the uniform allowed. Those moments had been precious and fleeting, like ice in the summer heat. And she'd never thought to hear that voice again, or to feel so absolutely central to another person's world. The pain of the memory was acute and brought tears to her eyes. But she couldn't look away.
"Carter?" He was closer, and she could feel his need like heat. It rippled across her skin, a hot breeze of desire. "You okay?"
Okay? Didn't he know he was tearing her apart? That she wanted him as much as she hated him? That she dreaded seeing him as much as she longed for every encounter? That she wished he'd never been created as often as she thanked God he was alive? Was she okay? She didn't know whether to laugh or scream!
"I know this is hard," he told her, still in that damn wonderful, agonising voice. "I just want you to know that I-- That if you ever--" He scrubbed a hand over his face, anxious. "Carter, I just hope we can--"
Whatever he hoped, she never found out. For at that moment, caught by his dark, intense gaze, her memory wrenched her savagely back into a different place and time. And suddenly all she could see were her CO's dark, dead, accusing eyes.
Traitor!
Cold air burst into her lungs, making her gasp as her conscience exploded into life; it's not him! What the hell are you doing? It's not *him*! Her betrayal, however momentary, sickened her and she stumbled backwards. His face was all concern and confusion. He was reaching for her, but she pulled away. She had to go. Now. Fast. Anywhere. She turned on her heel, choking out an apology as she started to walk away.
"Carter?"
She didn't turn.
"Carter!"
She wouldn't turn.
"Sam!"
She started running.
***
The hot water battered the grime from Jack's body, but did little to clear the muddied waters of his mind. He should have gone after her. The thought plagued him like a hungry mosquito, refusing to be silenced by either logic or the noise of the shower. He should have gone after her, stopped her and forced her to confront whatever the hell it was he'd seen in her eyes before she'd gotten scared and run. But confrontation had never been his style when it came to relationships. Oh no, much better to let things fester until the rot set in and everything fell apart. Hadn't that been exactly what had happened with Sara?
And hadn't that been the way he'd always handled the complicated, unspoken relationship with Carter? Otherwise he'd have dealt with this long ago - after the armbands incident on Apophis's ship. Or after their time as Jonas and Thera. Or even when she'd rescued him from Mayborn's hellish 'paradise' and greeted him with the longest, sweetest hug he could remember. Anytime, he could have gone after her and forced her to face what lay between them. But of course he hadn't, because that would have meant facing it himself. And that was something he'd never been able to do, until now.
He reached for the faucet and turned off the water, pushing his hands through his short hair to keep it from dripping into his face as he grabbed his towel. He scrubbed it over his head and pressed the fabric into his face. Two years, alone, did a lot for a man's perspective. He knew his own feelings now, all too well. But two years away from Carter had planted a hundred doubts about how she felt, especially under the current - unusual - circumstances.
Outside the showers the air was cool and he dried off hurriedly and got dressed. He was just pulling a tee-shirt over his head when Teal'c entered the room. Jack glanced over at him, noting his friend's dusty appearance. "Thought you got back a couple of hours ago?"
"I was more hungry than dirty," Teal'c explained, opening his locker.
Jack smiled at the comment. "Rough trip?"
"Only for Major Carter."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I heard." He sat to tie his laces. "She okay?"
"Her pride will take longer to recover than her physical injuries."
Jack nodded. Carter's pride, he'd often speculated, would be the death of her. Standing up he threw his shower kit back into his locker, his eyes fixing for a moment on the small picture of himself and Charlie that he'd taped to the inside of the door. It seemed a lifetime ago. "How about...generally?" he asked Teal'c vaguely, still staring at the picture. "How's she doing generally?"
He couldn't see, but he swore could hear Teal'c's eyebrow rise. "Do you refer to her grief over the death of Colonel O'Neill?"
Teal'c was the only one who didn't seem phased by the duality. To him Jack was still O'Neill, as was the man who had died in action. Jack admired him for that and was more grateful than he could express. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "That's what I mean."
"I believe she is still finding the situation problematic," Teal'c replied. "Your presence only confuses matters."
"Maybe I should go talk to her?" he suggested, floating the idea past his old friend. If Teal'c thought it was a good idea...
But all Teal'c said was, "Maybe."
"Huh," Jack grunted, closing his locker quietly and turning around. "Well, guess I'll get out of your hair." Teal'c just stared at him until Jack waved vaguely at his gleaming scalp. "Uh...so to speak."
"In many ways, O'Neill," Teal'c said as he turned and headed for the showers, "you have not changed."
Jack didn't reply, but as he made his way out of the locker room he was left wondering whether or not that was a compliment.
***
The bath had relaxed her and the pain-killers Johnston had prescribed were easing her towards a mellow evening. Fall had set in while she'd been off-world, the evening was already dark and she found herself enjoying the cocoon of warmth and comfort she'd created in her home.
It had become a refuge over the past few months in a way it had never been before. She'd probably spent more time here in the six months since the Colonel's death than she had in the whole of the time she'd owned the place. Ironically, it was the one place that held few memories of him. He'd visited so rarely. And her former haven from her problems, the base, was now an echo-chamber of her past life. Raw and painful. Although the pain, if not decreasing, was dulling. She didn't cry anymore, she simply ached.
Curling up in the corner of the sofa, Sam sipped at the soup she'd made for herself. Well, heated for herself. Unusually for her the TV was on. She was too tired to read and her hand hurt too much to use a keyboard, so she couldn't catch up on any work even if she'd wanted to. Which she didn't. Her interest and ambition had been leaching away for the past six months. Even work reminded her of him, and so she'd pulled back from that too. Not that anyone other than herself would notice. Or so she hoped.
Isolation was the only thing that gave her any ease these days. Work, her friends, the job - none of them were what they had once been. The world around her was cast in shades of grey, a monotone life that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead. She wondered if this was how she'd felt after her mother's death, but she couldn't remember. And she didn't have the energy to try.
As the TV documentary burbled away, Sam's eyelids grew heavy. Finishing the soup, she slid down into the sofa and gave in to her aching body and aching heart. Sleep was always a wonderful anaesthetic, and she let it drag her down into darkness with gratitude.
***
Jack stood at the edge of the park, his haunt of just a couple of months earlier. It was dark and empty now, but he still had a good view of Carter's house. Just as he had every time he'd been there during his two-year exile. Her car was out front, the living-room lights were on. She was definitely home.
He'd parked his truck further down the road, using the time it took to walk to her house to reconsider his rash move. Give her time, Hammond had warned him weeks ago. But he had given her time, and nothing had changed. Maybe time wasn't the answer? He knew her, knew her capacity for repression and avoidance. It was almost as great as his own. It had taken losing everything for him to open his eyes about how he felt and what he wanted. He wondered what it would take for her?
Standing on the sidewalk opposite her house he filled his lungs with a cleansing breath. It was a risk, a huge risk. And he felt as confident as a tightrope walker wobbling on one leg over a bottomless chasm. He could lose everything. Or gain everything.
But risk, his mother had once scolded him, should have been his middle name.
With a determined stride he stepped off the sidewalk and headed for her front door. He hadn't been inside for years, not since she'd been hiding an alien in the basement. Too long he'd let their relationship languish in the corner of his mind reserved for issues too difficult to handle. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Raising his hand, he ignored the doorbell and knocked loudly on the door.
Thump, thump, thump.
There was no response at first, so he raised his hand and knocked again. Louder. At last a light came on in the hallway, and another over his head on the porch. He squinted in the bright light, and took a step backward so that she could see him through the peephole in her door.
There was a long pause, but he knew she'd seen him. "Carter," he called, stepping closer to the door, "open up. I want to talk to you." Another pause. "Come on. This won't go away, you know. And neither will I."
That seemed to do the trick and at last he heard the lock click. The door swung slightly open and there she was, looking tired and frazzled. "It's late."
"It's not even ten," he replied, moving closer despite the way she was blocking the doorway.
"You shouldn't be here. It's not approp--"
He edged closer. "Screw that." So help him, he'd wedge his foot in the door if she tried to slam it in his face. "Carter - you know we have to talk about this."
She shook her head. "There's nothing to talk about. *Sir*."
"Oh yes," he snapped, bracing an arm against the open door, "there is."
She glared at him and he glared right back. But he had years more experience and eventually she backed down, moving away from the door so fast he almost fell into her house. Touché!
He followed her silently down the hall and into her living room. The TV was on; it looked like the Discovery channel. Carter snatched up the remote and switched it off, facing him across the empty expanse of the room ringing with the sudden silence. She didn't offer him a seat, but he took one anyway. "So," he said, looking up at her and stretching out his legs. "Here we are."
"You've got five minutes," she told him icily, folding her arms across her chest.
He tried to meet her ice with warmth. "It doesn't have to be like this, you know. We could be friends."
"I have friends."
Okaaaaaaay... Talk. They needed to talk, so he seized on the first subject that came to mind. "I was wondering... What happened to the cabin?"
Her face paled and she blinked at him. When she spoke, her voice was bone-dry. "What?"
"The cabin. What happened to it? Did you sell it?"
Her pallor changed rapidly to a flush, and she scowled down at the carpet. "Of course not."
"So, he did leave it to you then?" She'd never mentioned it to him, and he'd wondered if perhaps his will had been changed. Obviously not.
"You know he did," she replied quietly. Then she looked up, suspicious and upset. "You want it back?"
He stared at her for a long moment, trying to gauge what she was feeling. Usually he could read her like a book - but not tonight. "Have you been there?" he asked. "Since...it happened?"
Her stare didn't waiver, but she did nod slightly. "Once."
"Beautiful, huh?"
Another nod. But he could see her lips compressing and her eyes widening; she was upset. "Is that why you're here?" she asked at last. "To demand it back?"
"I--"
"No," she said suddenly, shaking her head and turning away. "You can't. He left it to me. It's not yours to ask for."
Jack sat forward in his chair. "That's not why I'm here," he said quietly. "Keep it. I always knew you'd love it up there." He paused, struck by a sudden jealous thought. "Did you ever go? With him?"
Her head shook and he saw her hand move surreptitiously across her face. "Of course not." The words were edged with a bitterness that sounded like regret.
Hope stirred. If she had regrets...? He rose to his feet, awkwardly taking a step towards her. "Carter... I know you don't think I'm...me, but--"
"You're you," she replied, still with her back to him. "You're just not *him*."
"That's where you're wrong."
She shook her head. "No. You're a clone." She all but spat the last word. Clone.
"I don't feel like a clone," he countered, crossing the room and coming close enough to touch her. "I feel like me."
"But you're not."
He stared at her back, watched her shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths. He thought she might be crying, but couldn't see her face. He wanted to see her face, to have this conversation face to face. Reaching out, he touched her shoulder to try and turn her around.
She jumped out of her skin, whirling around and facing him with a fury he'd rarely seen. "Don't touch me! Don't you *dare* touch me!"
Recoiling, he stepped back, hands raised defensively. "Hey! Easy!"
"You have no right!" she spat.
"Okay! Just listen then, will you?"
She turned away again, shaking her head vehemently. "No. Why should I? You're not him."
"Carter..."
"You are not him!"
"Don't say that--"
"You're not *him*!"
He grabbed her shoulders, spinning her to face him. "Then who the hell am I?"
Anger arced between them, dangerous and painful. Slowly the outrage in her eyes filtered into his brain, and he let his hands fall away. But he was still too angry to be ashamed. She didn't step back, just glared at him as she sucked in a shuddering breath. "Tell me, Carter," he demanded hotly, his voice shaking with emotion. "If I'm not him, then who the hell am I?"
She turned away and pressed her hands over her eyes. "I don't know," she croaked. "I don't know who you are."
For a long time he just stared at her back, his anger melting in the heat of her despair. He had to fight the urge to reach for her again, but he knew that she was right. He had no right to touch her, he never had. Instead, he found himself talking quietly to her. "I remember everything." She didn't move, but he heard her suck in another shuddering breath.
"I remember Antarctica. That's when it happened. When it all started, for me."
Her shoulders were shaking and he realised she was crying. She so rarely cried. "And I remember staring at you through that goddamn force-shield on Apophis's ship," he said softly. "I remember having to lie about it after."
She shook her head, as if in denial of his words. But he carried on relentlessly. She had to know. He had to make her understand. "I remember Thera. I remember how she used to smile at me."
She turned then, her eyes wide and liquid, silently imploring him to stop. Her face was wet with tears, but dignified nonetheless.
He took another step closer, longing to touch her tear-streaked cheeks. To comfort her. "I remember your face when you pulled me and Mayborne off that rock--"
"Stop." Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I remember holding you when--"
"Please," she choked brokenly. "Please stop. Please go."
He shook his head. "Don't you see?" he pleaded. "It's me, Carter. I'm here. We can do this."
"No..."
"Give me a chance."
"You're not him."
"I'm still here--"
"Colonel, please..."
"--and I still love you."
Love you?
The world stopped.
She stared, mouth going slack as the heat rushed to his face. I still love you? Had he really said that? Out loud?
But she was nodding, staring at him with a disbelief that bordered on horror. "Now I know..." Her cracked voice fell heavy in the still air. "Now I know you're not him. He would never have said that."
He would never have said that.
Even as she spoke the words he knew that she was right. He would never have said that. He would never be standing in her house, *talking* about any of this. He'd have buried it deep, ignored it. Repressed it. And congratulated himself of being strong and professional and handling it. She was right. He wasn't the man he used to be. He'd changed. He was different.
Staring at her in shock, Jack accepted the truth for the first time since he'd woken up two years ago and found himself sixteen years old. He wasn't the same Jack O'Neill. He was someone different.
"I..." He stammered, the terrifying truth almost crushing him. "I... I'm sorry."
And with that he turned and left the room. Left her house, and started walking. Then running. Everything he'd convinced himself of for the past two years was crumbling around him: all the certainties, all the hopes. His very identity.
He wasn't Jack O'Neill.
He wasn't *him*.
So who the hell was he...?
***
The incessant trilling of his doorbell dragged Daniel reluctantly from sleep. Foggily, his hand groped through the darkness to hit the light on his clock and he peered myopically at the grey numbers - 1:56 it told him dismally.
The bell rang again, a constant demand that sounded like someone was leaning against it. Stumbling out of bed he grabbed his glasses and cursed as he poked himself in the ear in a groggy attempt to get them onto his nose. "All right!" he muttered into the darkness as he stumbled to the door, pulling a tee-shirt over his head as he went.
If the SGC hasn't been taken over by the Goa'uld, he thought sourly, there was going to be hell to pay! He flicked on the hall light, nearly blinding himself, and cautiously opened the door.
Squinting into the darkness outside he was astonished to see Jack O'Neill standing on his doorstep. His face was hidden in shadows, but he could just make out the glitter of his eyes and the hard line of his mouth. "Who am I?" he said softly.
Thrown off balance, Daniel stared, his mind waking up with the blast of cold air that hit him. "Uh, Jack O'Neill?"
There was a slight shake of the head that seemed to set his whole body swaying. "He's dead, isn't he? Jack O'Neill is dead." He laughed sourly. "Ding-dong, the witch is dead."
Daniel frowned, "Jack, are you drunk?"
"Hell, yeah," came the harsh reply. "I'm shit-faced. Hammered. Smashed. Blitzed."
Opening the door wider, Daniel sighed, "Come in."
Jack moved, a slight sway his only concession to his drunken state. But as he stepped into the light, Daniel could see his bloodshot, slightly unfocussed eyes and smell the whiskey on his breath. He looked around, taking in the house like he'd never been there before. "Nice place."
Daniel's momentary confusion gave way to understanding. "Oh. Yeah, right. I, uh, moved in about six months after you...were... After--"
"After the Asgard grew me in a test-tube?" Jack filled in, turning his drunken, miserable eyes on him.
"Right." Daniel winced at the darkness he saw in the man's face. He was hurting. A lot. It was a side of Jack he hadn't seen in a long, long time. What the hell had happened? "Come on," he said quietly, guiding him towards the living room. "You need coffee."
"What I need," Jack growled, as he slumped into a chair "is a life."
"And you're asking *me*?"
There was no response. Jack's head hit the back of the chair, his hands coming up to cover his face and he stayed there. Daniel watched for an anxious moment, then turned and headed into the kitchen. It had been a long time since he'd seen Jack like this. When he returned with two mugs of coffee Jack hadn't moved a muscle, and only stirred when Daniel took a seat opposite him. "Coffee," he said, pushing a mug across the low table towards him. "Make you feel better."
Slowly, the hands dropped from Jack's face. "Who am I Daniel?"
"I told you. You're Jack O'Neill."
But he shook his head. "No. I'm not. Carter's right. I'm not him."
Carter? Oh no. "What happened, Jack? Did she say something?"
"Only the truth," Jack mumbled, leaning forward and staring down at his hands. "I'm not him. I just think I am. I wasn't there... I wasn't-- I wasn't there when I married Sara. I never--" His voice cracked, his control slipping. "I've never held Charlie. Never even seen my son. I never--" Suddenly he was on his feet, swaying. The heel of one hand thudded against his own head, hard and angry. "It's all in here, but it's all lies! It's not my life. None of it. None of it!"
"Jack--"
"Is it?" he pressed, dark eyes burning.
Daniel flinched, all too aware of the coiled aggression inside his friend. His friend; the concept struck him sideways, as if he'd never really understood it until now. But like it or not, this man was his friend. "Jack, I don't have an answer," he said carefully. "But think about it... What makes any of us who we are? Just our memories. Right?"
"It's not enough," Jack spat.
"Not enough for who?"
Dark eyes skewered him. Angry, empty. Exposed. "For any of us."
"That's not true. Look, I admit, it was awkward at first. Difficult. But...we're okay aren't we? I mean, you and me...?"
His eyes narrowed. "I don't know. Are we?"
Daniel stood up slowly - a drunken Jack O'Neill was a dangerous beast. His habitual reserve looked damaged, cracked. Who knew what he might do if it gave way? Moving carefully around the sofa, he faced his friend. Not getting too near, just in case. "When I...ascended, you accepted that, Jack. You knew I wasn't dead, but you accepted it. And when I came back you accepted that too. You accepted *me*." He gave a little shrug. "I can do the same."
Blinking, Jack stared. Hope flickered across his face, a painfully insecure expression. "Really?"
"Come on," Daniel suggested, reaching out and laying a light hand on his arm, guiding him gently towards the sofa. "Get some sleep."
Jack shook his head. "No. No, I should go."
Firmly, Daniel pushed him down into the cushions. "Oh, I don't think that's a good idea."
He expected him to resist, but instead he slumped back and pressed his hands over his face again. He really had to be far gone; Jack could hold his drink better than anyone. Leaving him there, Daniel went in search of a blanket. By the time he returned Jack had keeled over sideways, his face pressed into a cushion, eyes closer. Snoring. Lifting his heavy legs up onto the sofa, Daniel draped a blanket over him and sighed guiltily. He'd spent so much time worrying about how he, Sam and Teal'c were dealing with the situation, he hadn't spared a thought for how Jack might be coping.
He'd fallen victim to the old O'Neill-bravado, the way of the warrior crap that Sam so despised and that he knew was bullshit. But he'd let himself believe it this time, let himself believe that Jack could cope with this insane, mind-bending scenario just fine. Because believing it made his own complicated, ambiguous feelings easier to handle. But standing there staring down at the comatose form of his long-time friend he knew that no one could go through what he'd been through without help.
And he was ashamed, of himself and his friends, that they'd failed to offer him the help he'd obviously needed. They'd failed him. Dreadfully.
And he swore that in the morning he was going to start putting it right.
***
Despite the overcast day Sam wore her sunglasses as she left the house and trudged down the driveway to her waiting car. Her eyes felt raw from too many tears and too little sleep, and she wanted to hide them and herself from the world.
Slinging her bag into the passenger seat, she slipped into the car and started the engine. It ignited with a familiar roar. The perfectly balanced engine usually gave her a moment of quiet pleasure, but not today. Today she could think of nothing but the soul-destroying argument of the night before. Her anger still simmered at his audacity, but it was tempered now by the memory of his parting look.
He would never have said that.
It was no lie, but it had hit him like a bullet. And she'd watched as something in his eyes had broken. It was painful to remember; she didn't want to know that she'd hurt him. She was hurting too much to be able to spare him any sympathy. And he'd brought it on himself, coming to see her like that. Saying the things he'd said.
I still love you.
The words, spoken in his strong, quiet voice leaped unbidden into her head. She shook them away, angry at the way her stomach fluttered in response. Angry at him for saying it - for feeling it. He had no right.
Pulling away from the curb, she started driving. But she'd barely travelled a block when she slowed to a halt in the quiet road. His truck was there, parked up at the side of the street. What the hell? She glanced around, but could see no sign of him. So she pulled over and climbed out of her car. A few autumn leaves had gathered beneath the wheels and the hood was cold. His truck had been there for a while, but where the hell was he? She did a slow 360, scoping out the area, but saw nothing.
Oddly anxious, she returned to her car. No doubt there was a perfectly rational explanation for his truck being parked in her street. She just had to find out what it was, and the best place to do that was on base. Putting her foot down, she sped out of her subdivision and headed for the freeway.
Traffic was light and she made good time to the base. As she slowed at the checkpoint and handed over her ID she asked, "Has Colonel O'Neill signed in today?"
The airman checked the list, then shook his head. "No Ma'am."
Well, it was early, she reasoned. And for all she knew he was scheduled a rest day.
By the time she reached the SGC it was almost eight and the cafeteria was busy. She did a quick reconnoitre, to see if he was at his usual table drinking coffee.... She paused in her thoughts. Since when had he had a usual table? And how did she know?
Disturbed by the thought she left the room and headed for her lab, by way of his office. It was locked and dark. So heading up to the control room she grabbed the day's duty roster off the wall and leafed through until she found his team. Her heart skidded slightly - SG4 were due off-world in an hour's time. He would never be this late. Damn it, what was going on?
"Something I can help you with, Major?" It was Sergeant Davis.
"Ah, no," she said, hurriedly replacing the duty list. "I was just seeing who's in today." And then, oh so casually, "Have you seen Colonel O'Neill this morning?"
Davis shook his head. "No, Ma'am. But General Hammond was looking for him earlier."
"Oh," she muttered, keeping her face neutral. Not knowing what she was feeling. "Okay, thanks Walter."
She left and ran down the stairs, increasingly uneasy and not certain why. Was that guilt she was feeling? His damn, broken eyes kept flashing into her head. He'd looked so...so devastated. But that wasn't her fault. Was it?
Instinctively, her feet took her down towards Daniel's office, but she wasn't half-way there when he came swiftly around the corner and almost ran into her. "Daniel!"
"Sam! I have to talk to you."
Their eyes met and understanding flashed between them. "Is it about the Colonel?"
He nodded, glancing down the empty corridor. "Let's go to my office."
But Sam couldn't wait. "I found his truck outside my house this morning," she said as they walked. "But he wasn't there. And he isn't here. Do you know where--"
"Yeah," Daniel murmured quietly, shepherding her into his office and closing the door. He turned to face her. "He's at my place."
An utterly unexpected wave of relief washed over her, trailing guilt behind it like flotsam. "Why?"
Daniel looked at her over the top of his glasses, then swiped them off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I was hoping you could tell me."
"Me?"
Flopping down into his chair, Daniel sighed. "He turned up late last night. Pretty smashed."
Drunk? Shit. "Oh God," she murmured, easing herself into a chair too. "Was he...okay?"
"Okay?" Daniel replied. "He was out of his head, Sam. He said you'd told him he wasn't Jack O'Neill."
There was enough accusation in Daniel's voice to make her wince. "I--"
"Did you?"
She scowled at the floor, too embarrassed to meet Daniel's demanding eyes. "Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"Okay," she snapped. "Yes. Yes, I told him that."
Daniel sighed and rubbed at his eyes again. He looked tired and unhappy. "Tell me what happened," he said after a moment. "I couldn't get much out of Jack last night, and he was still asleep when I left this morning."
Sam sighed, her anger at O'Neill now tempered with a growing sense of shame at her own callous behaviour. "He, um-- I was tired," she began. "You know, after the mission. I was asleep on the sofa when he came around."
"He came to your house?"
"Yeah."
"That's...unusual. Isn't it?"
She nodded. "Very."
"So...what did he want?"
She kept her eyes on her hands, knitting together into a steeple as her elbows rested on her knees. "He was trying to convince me that he was still-- That he was the same. That he still..."
*I still love you.*
She grimaced. "...that he cared for me."
She looked up into Daniel's sharp, intelligent eyes and saw worry there. "And you said..."
Her face flushed as the memory surfaced. It didn't seem as clever as it had the night before. It just seemed heartless. Even, cruel. "I told him that the real Jack O'Neill wouldn't have said so much."
Daniel shook his head, letting out a long sigh. "Sam..."
"He, uh," she said, her voice catching with emotions she refused to accept. "He'll be okay."
But Daniel shook his head, eyeing her carefully. "I don't know, Sam. You never knew Jack before, but there was something about him last night. It reminded me of how he was when I first knew him. Hopeless."
"Hopeless...?" She closed her eyes, swallowing the bile in her throat. She'd never imagined... Never considered...
"We've dropped the ball," Daniel said, his voice quietly angry. But she sensed his anger was as much inward as anything else. "We should have been there for him, but we were so wrapped up in our own grief we never stopped to think what this has been like for him."
She nodded, her throat tightening as she let herself imagine what it would be like to be told your entire life was a fiction. To be forced to give up the life you'd lived since birth, to have to find your own way, friendless, in a body not your own. To lose everyone you'd ever cared about - friends and family - and worse, to know that to them you didn't even exist. That they loved another in your place. To be utterly unloved and alone. The reality of what he must have suffered knocked the breath out of her lungs so that when she spoke it was in a hoarse whisper, "We've been so selfish."
Daniel nodded. "I know."
She got straight to her feet. "I'll tell Hammond he's sick. You go back home. Make sure he's okay. I'll get Teal'c and join you there."
Daniel didn't look convinced. "I'm not sure group therapy is really what he needs, Sam."
She paused, at a loss. "Then what?"
"He needs to know who he is. And to be accepted for who he is."
Sam swallowed, her gaze locked on Daniel's. "But... Who is he? He's not--"
"Jack?" Daniel sighed. "I know. And yet...he is."
Sam sank down into the chair again, head in hands. "It's so hard. I don't know what I feel."
There was a pause. And then he said, "Don't you? I know what I feel. I've been thinking about it all night." She couldn't see him when he spoke, but his words arrowed straight into her heart, as true as they were painful. "I'm glad he's here. I missed him in my life and I'm glad that he's back." Sam shook her head, trying to deny the truth. She couldn't be glad. She wasn't glad! It was wrong. So wrong... But Daniel carried on. "And I also feel as guilty as sin. I feel like the worst kind of traitor. Jack died! And we should remember him and mourn him. And I'm afraid that if I let this 'new' Jack into my life I'll forget the old one. And I can't let myself do that. I won't."
She looked up at last, her heart twisting like a rag in a storm. "So what can we do?"
"I don't know. Be honest? Try and see him for who he is, not who he was? I don't know, Sam. What else we can do?"
***
Hammond felt the start of the headache the moment the door opened. Doctor Jackson stepped into the room, brows knit in concern, closely followed by Major Carter. Equally perturbed.
He dropped the report he'd been reading onto his desk, looked between the two, and said, "What's happened?"
Daniel winced and Carter stepped forward. "Sir, it's Colonel O'Neill."
The headache tightened across his skull. "What about him?"
"He's disappeared."
He allowed himself a brief moment to process the fact before he demanded details. "What do you mean disappeared? From where? When? How?"
"He was at my place," Daniel offered, glancing at Carter as if to ask how much to reveal. *That* did not sit well with the general. "He'd-- He turned up last night, General. Drunk. And when I went home to check on him half an hour ago, he was gone."
"He'd left his truck outside my house last night, sir," Carter added, cheeks flushing guiltily. "Now it's gone."
"And he's not answering his cell or his home phone. And he's not here."
So far it didn't seem too out of the ordinary, Hammond thought. Aside from the bit about him leaving his truck outside her house - same team or not, there were issues there. But then Carter spoke again. "And he was due on duty over an hour ago, sir." She, he knew, understood the importance of that last statement.
Elbows on table, Hammond rested his head in his hands for a moment. "Are you telling me Colonel O'Neill is AWOL, Major?"
She stepped forward, urgent in her appeal. "Sir, it's not his fault."
"Care to explain that?"
Her eyes flickered to Doctor Jackson in a silent appeal, and he took over. "He's been having problems adapting," he explained. "But we didn't notice. None of us did. I think he's having some kind of identity crisis. General, he doesn't know who he is anymore."
Hammond's eyes moved from one earnest face to the other. "Do you know where he might have gone?"
They shook their heads. "But, sir," Carter said, "give us some time to find him before you declare him AWOL. He doesn't need that on his record. And this is really our fault. All of our faults."
He only had to consider their request for a moment. "You've got twenty-four hours," he told them. "After that, I'll have to call in the MPs."
"Understood, sir," Carter nodded, already heading for the door.
"Thank you," Daniel added. "I'm sure we'll sort this out."
Hammond gave him a curt nod. "I hope you do, son."
And as the door closed behind him, he felt his headache begin to ease. O'Neill disappeared? SG-1 off the track him down? Just another day at the office...
***
Her cell phone rang as she pulled into the apartment parking lot and she snatched it up off the passenger seat. "Carter."
"Sam, it's Daniel. I'm at the airport."
Switching off the engine she climbed out of her car as she was talking. "Any sign of him?"
"No. But I've got one of the check-in staff looking through flight manifests for me. So at least we'll know if he flew out of here." He paused. "I still think his cabin is the best bet."
Sam nodded. "Me too. But he could be driving up there."
"Yeah," Daniel agreed. "I know. I'm booked on a flight to Minneapolis this afternoon, unless things change."
"Okay," Sam agreed, glancing at the apartment numbers at the bottom of Jack's building. "I'll keep you posted."
"Anything at his apartment?"
She shook her head. "I'm not in yet. I'll let you know."
Stuffing her phone into her pocket, she glanced around the parking lot. His truck wasn't there, which meant he probably wasn't home. With a sigh she headed upstairs to his apartment on the second floor. Thankfully there was no one about, and it didn't take her long to pick the lock and let herself inside.
It was dark as she closed the door behind, and smelled faintly of bathroom cleaner and something indefinable that reminded her acutely of the Colonel - both of them. Her stomach fizzed nervously as she took a step into his apartment; anticipation, curiosity and a certain amount of dread dogging her footsteps.
The apartment itself was small. The front door opened into the living room, with a small kitchen area off to one side. Floor to ceiling windows filled one wall, long white blinds shutting out the sunlight. Off to her right a small corridor lead to what looked like the bathroom and a couple of bedrooms. And that was all. It was a far cry from his comfortable house she'd occasionally visited on the other side of town.
Moving to the windows she opened the blinds and let the cool fall sunlight spill into the room. The sofa, denim blue and modern, sat against one wall, facing a stack of bookshelves and a television. Had she not been so concerned and guilty she'd have smiled at the X-Box plugged into the TV. Instead she swallowed the guilty affection that rose in her throat and continued to sweep the room with her eyes. A jacket lay over the back of the sofa. It was black and leather, and she struggled to remember if he'd been wearing it the previous night. Guiltily she rifled through the pockets and pulled out a slip of paper; it looked like a bar tab paid for by MasterCard. Dated the previous day.
So he'd been home. "Jack?" she called out suddenly. Just in case. But there was no answer. Leaving the living room, she headed into what looked like his office. There was a desk, a computer and a stack of books and papers pushed to one side. Her eyes widened slightly when she realised that they were High School books - chemistry, physics, classical mythology? Picking up a folder, she saw it was stuffed with notes and class work. 'Excellent work', a teacher had written on one paper, next to a big red A. She closed her eyes, wondering how the hell he'd tolerated it. He'd earned the respect of not only his peers but some of the most important people in the country - hell, in the galaxy! - and here he was being graded by some kid-teacher with half his experience, ability and knowledge of the world. It was beyond humiliating.
She dropped the folder with a thud, sending a pile of papers fluttering to the floor. She felt cold with remorse. They never should have abandoned him to this. The fact that he'd gotten through it with his pride and integrity intact spoke volumes about his resilience; the fact that he'd had to spoke volumes about the carelessness of his friends.
He should have hated them all for this. Perhaps, she realised bleakly, he did. Now.
Leaving his study, she moved into his bedroom. Far smaller than the one she'd glimpsed in his house it contained little more than his bed and a small dresser. But her eye was caught by the photos arranged neatly on the windowsill; Charlie, Charlie and Sara, SG-1, and...
And her.
With icy fingers she picked up the frame and looked closer. The quality wasn't great - it looked like an enlargement of a smaller print - but she remembered the occasion. Jonas had taken the picture on one of his first trips through the gate. She'd been laughing at his tourist mentality, so he'd told her to pose in front of the ruined temple they'd been investigating. How the Colonel had gotten hold of it, she had no idea. But the fact that he had it sitting in his bedroom, next to the pictures of his wife and child, made her shiver. Despite the way she'd abandoned him, he'd still... She closed her eyes, willing the memory of his quiet words not to fill her mind. But they did anyway. I still love you. After everything, he'd still loved her. And she'd repaid that loyalty with cold, unfeeling rejection.
She'd never felt so ashamed of herself.
Slowly replacing the frame on the windowsill, she glanced across the bed. It was neat and unrumpled. Carefully, she pulled open the closet. Most of the clothes hanging in there were sized to fit a teenager, with just a few larger ones at one end. A duffel bag sat crumpled in the bottom of the closet, and Sam stared at it for a long time. Considering. If he'd gone away, to his cabin perhaps, he'd have taken clothes with him. But nothing seemed to be missing and there was no sign of any hasty packing.
Which suggested that he hadn't gone far. At least she hoped that's what it meant. A dark chill came over her when she considered the other option - it wouldn't have been the first time that he'd been driven to the edge by impossible loss. Swallowing her fear, Sam left the bedroom and crossed the living room towards the front door.
She already had her cell phone out and was halfway through Daniel's number when something on the coffee table caught her eye. The Yellow Pages, spread open. She stopped, looking down at the page; florists.
Florists?
And suddenly she knew exactly where he'd gone.
***
He knew he shouldn't have been driving. His head still throbbed and his entire body felt desiccated by the hangover that had plagued him since he'd struggled back to consciousness on Daniel's sofa. But there were a lot of things he shouldn't be doing. Living, it seemed, being top of the list.
As he reached the arched entrance he slowed and turned into the driveway, pulling into the parking lot with a mixture of dread and relief. But he didn't get out immediately, just leaned his head back and stared out over the trees and grass. It was late afternoon and the autumn sun was already grazing the horizon, sending out long shadows and turning the blue sky dark and beautiful.
He didn't have long before night fell, and this was something he wanted to do today. It was the only thing he could think of doing in his messed up, screwed up life. Reaching over, he picked up the flowers from the passenger seat, climbed out of his truck and started walking.
It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for, but until his eyes saw it for himself he wasn't sure he really believed it was true. But there it was, literally carved in stone.
Janet Anna Fraiser, 1966-2003.
Beloved Daughter, Mother and Colleague.
His throat clenched and his eyes blurred. "Hey Fraiser," he murmured, watching the multicoloured flowers of the well-tended grave blur in his watery vision. "Long time no see, huh?"
Kneeling carefully, he placed his own bouquet near the headstone, their subtle shades mingling with the kaleidoscope of petals on the ground. And for the first time since his son's death he let him self weep for all that he had lost. For everyone who had been stolen from him.
The dead and the living.
***
It was almost dusk by the time she found him, sitting alone on a bench not far from Janet's grave. His head was in his hands and he was totally motionless. In the failing light she saw the last of the sunshine warming his dark hair - darker than it had been before. Different. But she found she didn't care. It didn't matter that he was different; he still needed her and she...she still felt something. Something she was scared to admit.
She approached carefully, not wanting to surprise or embarrass him. But her heels clicked softly on the pathway and he must have heard the noise because he straightened up, wiping a hand over each eye. Her heart stuttered at the sight and she pressed her eyes shut, wishing she hadn't seen him so vulnerable. So scared.
His head turned then, and she realised she'd stopped walking. In the instant before he saw her she felt the insane desire to run away and prevent the impending meeting. But it was already too late. And so she held her ground, refusing to flinch as his dark eyes brushed over her and then startled in surprise.
He froze. And she knew she had to speak, she owed him that much. "We've been looking for you, sir." He said nothing, so she started walking again, moving closer to the bench. "You had us worried."
That seemed to break the spell because he snorted and turned away. "You got the MP's with you?"
"No," she told him, carefully sitting down on the other end of the bench. It was chilly and she pulled her jacket closer around her shoulders. "General Hammond gave us twenty-four hours to find you first."
He looked down at his hands. "Us?"
"Daniel was about to fly to Minneapolis before I figured out where you were."
"Minneapolis?"
"Your cabin."
He glanced at her sideways, frowning. "Your cabin."
She didn't respond to that, her eyes wandering out across the dusky cemetery towards Janet's grave. "I'm sorry we didn't tell you. You're right, we should have done."
"Doesn't matter," he mumbled, staring down at his hands again. He seemed so desolate.
"I think it does." She paused, trying to find the right words. Trying to understand her own, dappled feelings. "I-- I owe you an apology, Jack." Her use of his name drew his eyes back to her, and she turned on the bench until she was facing him. "What I said last night? I--"
He winced and turned away. Even in the failing light she could see him flush. "Don't. It was stupid. You were right."
"No," she responded quickly. "I wasn't. I wasn't thinking about how this must be for you. I was being selfish."
He was silent for a long time. She could only see him in profile, staring out at the sea of gravestones, his lips a hard line of restraint. When he spoke at last it was in a tone she'd never heard before; it was in a tone of desperate uncertainty. "I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go." He paused, his voice cracking. "I don't even know who I am."
He sounded so dazed, so lost, that Sam responded instinctively. She reached out and touched his arm. He stilled, as rigid as death beneath her fingers. "I know," she said softy. "I know who you are."
He swallowed hard before he whispered, "Who?"
"You're Jack O'Neill."
His head shook, barely perceptibly. "He's dead."
"Yes," she agreed, moving closer to him on the bench. "He is. I saw him die. I saw him buried. He's dead." She squeezed his arm. "But he's also right here."
He shook his head again, more forcefully. "That's impossible. You know it is."
Emboldened by the near-darkness and the need to make right what she'd gotten so wrong, Sam let her hand drift along his sleeve until it closed firmly over his hand. "Come on," she said quietly. "I want to show you something."
She stood, still holding his hand, and he looked up at her with eyes dark and serious. "Carter? What--"
"Shh," she admonished softly. "Don't call me that. He always called me that. Call me Sam."
He blinked, obviously confused, but apparently willing to trust her. Although, God knew she didn't deserve such faith. "Sam," he said, rising to his feet but not letting go of her hand. "Okay." A hesitant smile touched her lips, feeling a connection and nervous about what it meant. But there was no turning back now as she led him further up the gently inclined path. They walked in silence, hands locked together, the living heart of the melancholy mood that suffused them both.
She knew the instant he understood where she was taking him, because he slowed and pulled her to a halt. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "I can't--"
"You have to," she replied, squeezing his hand. "We both have to."
He blinked and pulled his hand from hers. "No. It's too weird."
"I know," she agreed. "But isn't that the point? This is what we have to deal with if we ever want to move beyond this. It's the...the impossible duality we have to face."
His lips quirked slightly, the barest hint of a smile. "The impossible duality...?"
The familiar tease brought a heat to her cheeks and an uneasy flutter to her stomach. For better or for worse, the connection was still there. The attraction. "You know what I mean," she replied smilingly. "And you know we have to do this."
His humour faded and he studied her with a long, serious look. And then he nodded. "Yeah, I guess we do."
She didn't reach for his hand again and he didn't reach for hers. But they walked close together until they reached their destination; two graves, side-by-side. Father and son. For the longest time he just stood there staring at the headstone.
Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill, 1956-2005
He Forgot Himself For Those He Served, But We Remember
He didn't say anything, his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders hunched with an impossible tension. The man was staring at his own grave; God only knew what was going on inside his head. But outside, all was still. Until he shivered. And she knew she had to speak.
"The sun shone," Sam said quietly, her grief tasting fresh and bitter. "I thought he'd have liked that. He should have been buried in his shades."
"He should have," Jack agreed huskily. "He'd have thought that was pretty damn funny."
She smiled slightly, her mind drifting back to the dreadful day. To the regrets that had torn at her like wild dogs, ripping her up from the inside. "I wished that he'd known. I wished I'd told him how I--" She felt the tears prick her eyes and clamped her jaw shut against the wave of grief. He didn't need to see it. This wasn't about her, it was about him.
But Jack cleared his throat. "He, uh, he was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch," he said quietly. "He knew. He knew how you felt, he just thought you were crazy."
She turned and stared, brushing away an errant tear that had escaped and slid down the side of her face. "He knew?" The thought rose through her in champagne bubbles of relief. "Really?"
"Yeah," he nodded, although he wasn't looking at her. His attention was still fixed on the grave. "He knew. And he couldn't believe his luck." He glanced at her again, and she found herself clinging to his dark gaze. Desperate for more. Jack licked his lips slightly and swallowed. "He used to make up excuses to come talk to you in your lab. But he never let himself visit you more than three times a day. In case people got suspicious."
Sam couldn't help it, she barked a tearful laugh. "He didn't."
He nodded. "Sure. And off world, he used to make sure he got his bedroll down next to yours, on your right side. Because..." he was faltering slightly, "because you always sleep on your right and he wanted...he wanted to see your face while you were sleeping."
Her eyes grew wide at that revelation, a lance of pain arcing from her heart into her throat. "I didn't know that."
He coughed, glancing away. "Sounds kinda creepy, huh? But it wasn't. I swear. I-- He just... He just wanted to--"
"It's okay.' Her hand was on his arm again. "I understand. I did the same." She shook her head slightly. "Not exactly the same. But..." Closing her eyes she swallowed hard, wise or not the words were spilling out in a confession of the soul. "I kissed him once."
His voice sounded choked. "Kissed? I don't rememb--"
"He didn't know," she said, smiling in embarrassment. "He was in the infirmary. Doped up. It was after..." Her eyes rose to meet his, unsure. "After Ba'al."
He grimaced. "Oh."
"I'd been so scared. Sick with it. The thought of what he'd been through... And it was late. There was no one in the infirmary. And so I just... I couldn't help myself. I kissed him." She brushed his mouth with her fingertip, "There." His gasped softly in surprise and she quickly pulled her finger away. "I'm sorry."
"No," he said, catching hold of her arm. "Sam, I can't--" He sucked in a shaking breath, struggling for control. And then he looked at her, into her. Right into her heart. "Sam, if this is hopeless. If what you felt for him died with him then just tell me. I'll-- I swear, I'll never mention it again. But," he was breathing shallowly now, his eyes as black as the night and as bright as the stars. "But if there's a chance. Sometime. Anytime. If you think there's a chance that you could maybe feel-- If you could..." He was running out of words, his fingers tightening around her wrist. Then he closed his eyes abruptly, his hand still clutching her arm, "Sam, whoever I am - whatever I am - I remember. I remember it all. I *feel* it all. I feel everything."
"I know," she whispered back, seeing the truth in his face and accepting it in her heart for the first time. Accepting it, and accepting a truth of her own. A truth she'd refused to acknowledge, a truth that had turned her sick with guilt. But it was a truth nonetheless, and he deserved to hear it. "I don't think what I felt for him can ever die," she stammered. "What I felt for him or what I... what I still feel. For you. Jack."
He seemed incapable of speech. But his searching gaze hammered into her heart; disbelief laced with a filigree of delight.
Tears filled her eyes, half joy and half grief - guilt and pleasure mixing with an ecstatic pain. "I think he'd understand," she whispered, although it sounded more like a plea. "Do you think he'd understand?"
"Yes," he said fiercely. "God yes, Sam. If it made you happy. He would never--" He stopped, shaking his head slightly. Dropping the pretence. "*I* would never want to stop you doing anything that made you happy, Sam. Swear to God. Even if you wanted to...to walk down the aisle with General Hammond. Anything."
She laughed slightly and wiped at her eyes with the back of a hand. "This is so messed up."
"It is," he agreed, echoing her nervous laugh. "It's totally nuts."
She stared at him for a long time, his dark eyes beautiful and deep and full of her. "Would you...?" she asked hesitantly, stupidly conscious of her fluttering heart. Not even sure she still had the right to ask. "Would you hold me for a moment?"
At first he just stared at her, overwhelmed and with self-doubt shining bright in his eyes. But then he made a helpless sound in the back of his throat and pulled her roughly into his arms. He was warm and strong and comforting, and the sense of relief that washed over her made Sam dizzy. Burying her face against his shoulder she held him tightly, shivering with pleasure and pain at the feel of his fingers in her hair. Love and grief were intertwining in her heart, bringing forth something new, something stronger; a towering devotion that would endure the uncertainties of life as deftly as it now defied the certainties of death. And as they stood swaying gently in the darkness he whispered into her ear, "Forever, Sam. I'll hold you forever."
***
Epilogue
Jack couldn't stop smiling.
He knew he had to look like the world's biggest fool, but he couldn't stop the grin that spread over his face as the elevator doors pinged open in front of him. The airman who emerged appeared somewhat startled, but Jack just clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Beautiful morning, huh?"
The man stammered a nervous "Yes, sir," and beat a hasty retreat into the SGC. Jack barely noticed, leaning back against the wall of the empty elevator as the doors closed and it whisked him towards the surface. In his pocket his fingers curled over a folded post-it note and he pulled it out to read again.
Jack,
Meet me topside at 12.30? Bring lunch. :)
Sam
His mind was still reeling from everything that had happened the previous evening, and he very much felt as though he was finding his feet with Carter. No, not Carter, he reminded himself - Sam. She didn't want him to call her Carter. And he could do that. He could do anything to make this thing work.
He hadn't seen her since the night before, when she'd gone with him back to the base to face the concerned irritation of General Hammond. He'd done his best to explain himself and his actions without implicating Sam in the mess. And Hammond had seen fit to take his explanation at face value, even though Jack was pretty sure the general could read the crystal-clear message between the lines. But Hammond had agreed to let the matter drop if Jack agreed to spend the night in the infirmary and to have an informal chat with Mackenzie in the morning.
It had seemed like a fair deal.
But the upshot of it had been that he hadn't had a chance to say two words to Carter - Sam! - for well over twelve hours. Which was why, when he'd slumped behind his desk to get down to the ever-present paperwork, he'd been more than pleased to see the cheerful yellow square of paper stuck to the top of his in-tray.
He was still staring at it as the elevator started to slow, marvelling that such a few hours could transport him from the depths of misery to the heights of hope. Just when he'd convinced himself that he'd lost everything and everyone, she'd proven him wrong. And not just Sam. Daniel too, and Teal'c. They'd all come through for him in the end.
The elevator juddered to a halt and the doors opened. Jack pushed Sam's note back into his pocket and strode out, heading towards the little spot topside where he knew she'd be waiting.
The fall air was chill as he stepped outside and nodded to the guard on duty. But the sun shone brightly and the red mountain earth clashed brilliantly with the cloudless blue sky. He never got tired of that view or the fresh crispness of the air. He paused, eyes closed, and filled his lungs. Beautiful.
And as he slowly breathed out he looked around and saw her some feet away, perched on a rock staring out across the vista. She was beautiful; the sun burnished her hair golden and a smile lit her face, dazzling even the sunshine. His own smile was a poor reflection as he drew closer and softly said, "Hey, you."
She pulled her sunglasses from her face so he could see the smile in her eyes. "Hey."
He held up the bag he'd gotten from the cafeteria. "BLT or chicken salad?"
"BLT," she decided, moving over on her rocky seat to let him sit down. "Thanks."
He sat, acutely aware of the fact that they were practically hip-to-hip, and handed over her sandwich and a soda. "Diet," he noted, "for the flavour."
She chuckled slightly as she took the drink, and in that moment their eyes met. The look was bright and intense, full of hope and expectation. And it did things to Jack's insides that he hadn't experienced in years! He cleared his throat and looked away, all too aware of the airman standing guard at the entrance not twenty feet away. "So," he said, biting into his chicken sandwich to distract himself from her overwhelming closeness, "this is nice. Unusual, but nice."
He heard the pop and fizz of her soda can opening and glanced over as she took a long drink. And despite his best intentions, his eyes fixed on her long, extended neck and his mind couldn't help but wonder what that soft skin would feel like to--
"I wanted to talk to you."
Her words snapped him back and he returned to his sandwich with a Pavlovian flash of guilt. "Talk. Right. I can do that."
"Don't worry," she assured him brightly, "it's not a 'talk' talk. I just wanted to give you these." He looked up and saw her holding out a set of keys. He recognised them immediately, and her smile turned slightly awkward as she shrugged and said, "Your cabin."
He didn't reach for them, although he couldn't deny that he wanted to. They represented a huge part of his life. Or rather, the other guy's life. He still couldn't get that straight in his mind. Slowly he shook his head. "No, it's yours."
Sam frowned. "Jack. I know what I said the other day, but thinking about it now I realise that--"
"No," he interrupted, reaching out and gently closing her fingers around the old keys. "He wanted you to have it. He liked the idea of you going up there. He knew you'd love it."
She sighed and stared out across the valley. "It is beautiful. And so peaceful."
"Yeah," he agreed quietly, feeling the loss of his sanctuary deeply. But he was determined that it should be Sam's; that's how he'd have wanted it if he'd been the dead guy.
They sat in silence for a time, and it wasn't until Sam moved that he realised his hand had never left hers. So much for discretion! Awkwardly he pulled his fingers away, hoping the guard hadn't noticed. Sam, it seemed, was oblivious, because when he looked over at her she was deep in thought. It sent a wave of affection washing over him and he found himself grinning again. Damn it, even when he'd been cursed with a sixteen year old body he hadn't acted like such a teenager! This was going to play hell with his hard-assed colonel reputation.
Oblivious to his inner mutterings, Sam suddenly turned to face him with a tentative look in her eyes. "You have a long-weekend at the end of the month, right?"
He frowned, trying to remember. "Ah, yeah. I think so. Why?"
Shrugging slightly she got to her feet, toying with the keys in her hands. "I was just-- I don't know, I was just thinking that maybe...?"
She was looking at him now as though he was supposed to understand her meaning. Sadly, he was no more psychic than the next guy. "Maybe what?"
Her eyes rolled and she glanced down at her hands significantly. "You know, I was thinking that maybe we could-- If you wanted, we could-- I mean, it might be nice to..." In the face of his persistent blank stare, Sam sighed and stepped closer. She held up the keys to his cabin, so close they almost bumped his nose. When she spoke it was low and soft and did unspeakable things to his concentration. "I was thinking we could go together."
Jack wasn't sure which was wider, his grin or his eyes. "Carter," he whispered, "was that-- Is that an invitation?"
Her grin was self-conscious. And, damn, but it was sexy! "I guess so."
He'd lost the power of speech! But through the blood rushing in his ears he was dimly aware of some kind of noise escaping from the back of his throat. It was somewhere between a cough and a whimper.
Sam's eyes twinkled with suppressed laughter. "Was that a yes?"
"Yeah," he croaked, clearing his throat and forcing himself to remember the guard twenty feet behind them. "Actually," he amended, "it was a 'Hell yeah!'"
She grinned and whisked the keys away, slipping them into her pocket. "Great!" She looked at her watch and grimaced. "I have a meeting in ten. So I should..." She nodded back towards the entrance to the mountain.
He got to his feet, ridiculously nervous. And happy. And scared. From here on in it was all new ground. "I'll um, I guess I'll call you then? About the..." He gestured vaguely towards her pocket.
"Yeah, call me," she nodded quickly, making no move to leave and looking as happily uncomfortable as he felt. "That would be good."
The awkward silence that fell was something new between them; anxious, expectant, hopeful and fearful. Everything had changed, their entire relationship had shifted and from this point onwards they were laying a new path. A path she'd never travelled with the other Jack O'Neill; they were forging their relationship on their own terms. It was a heady feeling; like cresting the steepest rise on a roller-coaster and waiting for the weightless plunge. His heart was in his mouth as he looked at her, his eyes darting down to her smile and promising himself that one day he'd kiss those smiling lips. "Thank you," he said quietly, hoping she understood that his thanks were for more than the invitation.
She did. Silently she reached out and squeezed his hand. "It's going to be okay," she announced, speaking to the apprehension he knew they shared.
He turned his hand over, enclosing her fingers in his grasp. "I know. It's going to be great."
She nodded, her expressive eyes bright and smiling. Then, with a final squeeze of his hand, she slipped out of his grasp and turned back towards the base. He watched her until she reached the entrance and stopped, turning and raising her hand slightly as she smiled a goodbye before disappearing into the darkness of the mountain.
Jack didn't follow her, instead he turned back to the view and sat down again on the rock. He stayed there for a long time, gazing out across the mountain as the midday shadows began to lengthen. He knew he'd been right to refuse her offer of the cabin, and in a funny way it now seemed as if the place belonged to them both. Sam had the keys, a remembrance of a forever unconsummated love. He had a lifetime of memories, of summers and winters and walks in the fall. And together, he hoped, they'd make it something new, something uniquely their own. Perhaps that was why she'd suggested it as the place to begin forging their new relationship, because the overwhelming rightness of the notion just made him smile. It would be their cabin. Their life.
But the joy he felt wasn't unqualified. It was tempered by his absolute determination to make his relationship with Sam work. He owed it to her, and to the man who had died fighting for his people - the man who had been forever denied the joy of loving Sam Carter. Of really loving her, out in the open for all to see, through the rough times and the smooth. He owed it to him - to Jack O'Neill of SG-1 - to live a life worthy of the second chance fate had granted him like a miracle.
He raised his Coke can to the distant horizon. "This is for both of us, Jack," he said softly. "I won't screw it up."
And far away, like a ghost in his memory, he thought he heard a wry voice whisper, "I'll drink to that!"
~End~
Story Notes: Spoilers: Unnatural Selection (S6), Fragile Balance (S7), Heroes (S7)
Classification: S/J UST, romance, character death (kinda)
Notes: Many thanks to Erika and Sandra for their comments.
Email: sallyreeve@blueyonder.co.uk
Classification: S/J UST, romance, character death (kinda)
Notes: Many thanks to Erika and Sandra for their comments.
Email: sallyreeve@blueyonder.co.uk
End Notes: Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! :)
Email: sallyreeve@blueyonder.co.uk
Email: sallyreeve@blueyonder.co.uk
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 ]