He was running out.. Running out of energy. Running out of time. Dying. It was something Jack – this Jack – had thought about. He was a robot, a machine, a copy of the original. One that was meant to last for an eternity, but one that was dying before the eyes of the person he was meant to out-live.
Jack had seen his comrade, Daniel, his robotic friend, die a horrific death. He had heard the silent goodbye through the internal radio in his chest, a goodbye echoed only moments ago from Teal’c, his other friend. Goodbyes that were repeated, only a spilt second too late for the other to hear. He knew the original Teal’c was all right, his Teal’c had told him so, just before he’d died. It wasn’t meant to happen this way. *They* were the ones who were supposed to live.
Asides from Jack, the only one of his family left was Sam. His Sam, his Captain Carter, although he had been proud to hear the original was now a Major. Good for her, its what his Captain deserved. If only she were human.
‘Jack?’ The voice, coming from within him, was weak, and one he was intimately familiar with.
‘ Sam?’ He answered in kind, keeping the communication silent, private. Knowing it was goodbye between two ‘people’ who were more than friends, two lovers never to see each other again. Jack’s hand went to the place his heart should have been, where instead a battery lay. A battery that was dying, and soon to be lifeless. ‘You okay?’
There was a moment of silence, and he feared he was too late. But then he heard it, weak and full of static. Static that brought fourth pain, if robots could feel such a thing. ‘I’m here, Jack.. But I’m dying.. I’m dying..’
‘ It’s okay, Sam,’ he comforted her without a sound, though he was sure she would be able to imagine the pain in his voice, as he was certain it was evident in his eyes. ‘It’s okay, baby. It’s gonna be okay.’
‘Liar,’ was the reply he heard after a second’s deliberation. ‘ You.. were.. never.. good.. at lying.. Jack.’
‘It will be okay, Sam.. I’m dying, too.’
‘Do robots go to heaven?’ Sam’s voice sounded sad in his head, bitter and defeated. He didn’t know how to answer, so he chose not to. Chose to wait for her to say something else, to say the words that would bring their relationship, and his life, to an end. ‘I didn’t.. think so,’ she responded weakly after a time. ‘ Jack?’
‘Yes?’ Robots could cry. It didn’t do them any good, but they could cry. Harlan had made them tear ducts that oozed what were as close to real tears as they could be without fear of rusting the person crying. Robots could cry. It did no good, but Jack felt like crying.
‘I’m scared,’ she admitted in a whisper, her own despair adding to his own, increasing his human longing to be with her, by her side. ‘ I’m scared, Jack.’
Closing his eyes, Jack waved away the ever-present fussing of Darian, the young man he’d befriended. Nothing he could do could help, nothing he could say would make the pain go away. Nothing. ‘I know, Sam,’ he finally replied to her, sensing her need to hear him again. ‘I am, too.’
‘Oh.’ Again, there was a long pause. The liquid fuel he needed to live was slowly draining away, forming a puddle of inhuman blood around his body.
He closed his eyes, willing her to speak again. He would have made the first move, but he didn’t know what to say. For a year after they were left to live with Harlan by the original SG-1, they had abided by the military regulations that had defined everything they knew of their existence prior to being ‘copied’. After that year, they had begun to see one another in a new light. Daniel had given them both a piece of his mind, telling them they were together and had a chance they should take. Daniel had none. His wife, his love, had been taken from him, and because he was nothing more than a replica of himself, he had no right in looking for her. The revelation had done them both so good. It had been the one and only thing that made them grateful for being copies: there was nothing to keep them apart.
From then on, they had been an item. A couple. It hadn’t changed much. When they were with their friends or Harlan, they called each other ‘Captain or ‘Carter’ and ‘Sir’ or ‘Colonel’. In their silent conversations, and when they were alone in person, they would call each other ‘Sam’ and ‘Jack’ or some other term of endearment. They were allowed to be together now. Their original counterparts couldn’t be and had to live with that knowledge; they could be, and here they were dying.
‘ They don’t know, do they?’ Sam asked suddenly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out whom she was referring to.
Shaking his head mentally, Jack felt relief flood him at hearing her again. ‘No.. I thought it was best.. not to tell them..’
‘Not to rub their noses in it, you mean?’ There was a note of amusement in the way she spoke and for that, he was grateful. His Sam, the one who made adjusting to life as a shadow of his former self bearable. ‘You’re a.. softie at heart, Jack O’Neill. No matter what.. anyone says. You are..’
‘Only you.. could get away.. with that..’ Their ‘voices’ were getting weaker, faltering. The sensible thing to do would be to stop talking to each other, to conserve as much energy as they could. Not something either one of them felt able to do, not something they saw much point in doing. They were dying regardless of how much energy they stored. The only thing that made it endurable was hearing her voice in his head, as soft and as real as if she were lying only a few feet away, whispering to him across the room. ‘He.. loves.. her, though. I see it.. in his.. my.. eyes.’
‘They’re.. us,’ she reminded him faintly. ‘They had.. feelings.. before we did.’
‘They did..’ he agreed, taking little pleasure from the fact. What good were feelings if you couldn’t act on them? He felt something akin to hope, though. At least part of what he shared with his Sam would live on after they did, even if it was in someone else. ‘Sam?’
‘Yes?’ It was getting harder for her, he knew. He realised with sickly dread that she was nearer death that he was. She would go first, leaving him.. alone.
‘I love you.’ It was the first time he’d said it. She had spoken the words before, months before, having let go of all the false memories tying her to life on Earth. He hadn’t.. hadn’t been able to let go.. Until he’d seen himself, and Major Carter. Until he’d realised he might not be the Jack O’ Neill of Earth that he’d once believed himself to be, but he had a life of his own. He had a life, a life with his Sam, a life he knew that the other Jack O’Neill didn’t have but one he wanted.
Her voice, the next time he heard it, was thick and heavy, with weariness and with emotion. ‘I love you, too, Jack. Always.. Always..’
She was gone. He could feel her absence, sense the lack of her due to the dead-end connection. Sam was gone.
Jack was barely conscious as he heard the high-pitched screech of the transportation rings. He found it hard to concentrate on his conversation with his other self but knew he had to try. He could see the pain in the other Jack’s eyes, and knew he had been there when Sam had died. He decided not to make any reference to the closeness of his relationship with her. Why torment someone with something he couldn’t have when that person was, in most ways, himself?
His last thought before he died was not of his lost friends, nor of his lost love. It wasn’t even a last-second pondering of what would become of him once his body stopped functioning like the machine it was. His last thought was a prayer, for the real Jack O’Neill and his Major Carter. A prayer that one day they would find what he had shared with his Captain, his Sam. A prayer that although their bodies would one day give up the battle - like his own – a prayer that the love they shared, the love he had known, would go on forever.
~*~
The End.
Story Notes: AUTHOR'S NOTES: I loved this episode as it stood. It was really great and MS did a brilliant job as a director. But I had a flash of inspiration of how it could be a little bit shippier and this is what it resulted in. Hasn’t been properly beta-ed (unless my sister and mum being nosy and reading over my shoulder counts) so any and all mistakes are my own.
DEDICATION: LM, for everything.
DEDICATION: LM, for everything.
End Notes: I couldn't resist putting in some fluff. With the day I've had, I kinda needed the dose myself. Let me know what you think if it's nice mailto:Joey@Ram32.freeserve.co.uk if it's not nice, wait and send it at the weekened when I'll have ice cream to console myself with.
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 ]