Jack heard his name being called and despite knowing that it was name and vaguely recognising the voice, he felt as if it was all completely wrong. As the fog of unconsciousness lifted, pain surrounded him and he wished for the darkness again. He fought it, though, and forced his eyes to open and in spite of the new level of pain it brought, Jack knew that it was his duty to ignore it all. Teal’c nodded at his consciousness and moved on. Slowly, Jack allowed his eyes to follow the Jaffa as he approached Daniel and then Carpenter to awaken them. He instantly remembered everything that had occurred. The human form Replicators who had taken over an entire planet and the torture that they had inflicted on him. It was only an assumption, but Jack was sure that a similar experience was had by the other three. It felt as if the psychological torture was the Replicator’s way of causing physical pain and as such it was possibly the worst pain he had ever felt.
You don’t love me anymore. You love her more.
Jack shook his head with the echoes of his nightmare son and sat up straighter. “Carpenter?” He paused slightly. “You okay?”
She took longer to reply than normal, but eventually she replied, “Yes, sir.” He could hear a pain in her voice that he hoped was not mirrored in his own. As a commanding officer, Jack was not supposed to show such a weakness to his junior officer.
“Good. Head down to the engine room with Teal’c and try and get something working. We either need to destroy this planet or get a message to Thor.”
“Jack, we can’t just destroy the entire planet.” Jack looked at Daniel, questioning him with his eyes. “It may just give them more energy.”
“Daniel, the sooner we end this, one way or another, the sooner we get home. Or not.”
“We should still try and fix the time dilation device, or maybe even try and talk with the Replicators.”
You don’t love me anymore. You love her more.
Bang!
“Daniel, do they seem like they want to talk?” he shouted angrily. “I don’t know whether you had nice, pretty dreams filled with flowers, but I did not! Now, Carpenter and Teal’c get to the damn engine room and Daniel, shut up.”
“Colonel?”
Jack turned to Carpenter and questioned, “What?” She nodded her head toward the door and his eyes followed. The Replicator named Fifth was standing there and Jack immediately stood from the Captain’s chair and grabbed a weapon up off of the floor.
Fifth raised his hands up in an act he could only have learnt from the mind of an SG member. “Colonel, your weapons will not work on me.” Jack already knew this, but he refused to alter the sight of his gun. “I have come to invite you all to dinner. On First’s request.”
“And if we refuse?”
“The entire planet’s surface is made of our brethren, Colonel. You cannot escape in time and the others will simply come and take you.”
“Dinner, you say?”
SG – SG – SG
Sam was not sure that she had ever been as anxious as to have Jack home before. She was sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast bar with a cooling cup of coffee held in her hands. She had lost count of the number of cups that she had drunk in the past few hours, but she had not finished a cup. Every time that the coffee went cold, Sam simply made herself a fresh cup which she proceeded to sip at occasionally until it became too cold. At first she had sat at home, angrily awaiting Jack’s return because he had sent her back to Earth without her agreement. It had not even really been an order. Jack had simply pulled rank on her. Her anger had not dissipated, but Janet had telephoned her a few hours earlier to briefly explain what had happened to SG-1 on the Replicator planet. She was not breaching patient-doctor confidentiality, but she was informing her best friend to not unleash all of her anger. This only troubled Sam because Jack was mostly un-flappable. He had only been gone two days in total, but that included the travelling time and so could be a lot more than two days on the planet. In hindsight, Sam was glad that Jack was returning home during the day whilst Sasha was out with Daniella.
It was not long before Sam heard the key in the front door and Jack’s steps as he entered the house and came straight into the kitchen. He smiled at her as they saw each other and she indicated to him that there was still fresh coffee in the machine. After pouring himself a cup, Jack sat down opposite her and stared at his cup for a few moments before speaking, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For how I’ve been the past few weeks. For sending you back to Earth without hearing you out. It was wrong of me, but you need to understand why I did it.”
“Why did you do it, Jack?” It seemed a little bit unreal that he was opening up and apologising like he was without being prompted.
He looked up and met her eyes. “I’d already thought you to be dead once that day. I wasn’t willing to risk you in Replicator space.”
Nodding at him, Sam knew that he had allowed the lines to blur. “I understand, I just never thought that you’d use your rank like that.” She did understand his actions, but still found it unsettling that he had used their ranks to enforce an emotional decision. That was the very thing that they were each attempting to not allow happen.
“You weren’t supposed to be off-world. I’m glad you didn’t come with us.”
“Why? What happened to you?” She was still unaware as to what had occurred during the mission, only that they had all returned but Janet was worried about them. If Jack needed molly-coddling then something serious had transpired.
“They’re humans.” His voice was just a whisper and Sam was unsure if was due to the possibility of being overheard or because it caused him pain. She did not believe what he had stated, though, there was no way that the Replicators were human.
“They can’t be, Jack, they’re machines.”
“In human form, with skin and eyes and everything else to make them look human.”
“Whoa.” Part of her could not help but think that it must have been amazing to witness such an evolution.
“But inside they are still machines. With a simple touch of their hand, they’re inside your mind.” He tapped at his right temple. “They know everything. There’s no defence, no fighting, no resistance. Just pain as they learn everything about you, twisting memories and dreams into nightmares.” A wince crossed his face as if he could remember something and she reached over to cover his hand. Sharply, Jack withdrew his hand and then pushed his untouched cup of coffee away. “Is Daniella asleep upstairs?”
Sam shook her head. “She’s out with Sasha.”
“I might go wait in her room. I could do with reminding myself that there is some innocence in the world.”
“Yes, there is, Jack, and it’s what we fight for every day.” He barely acknowledged her as he left the room quietly. She was sure that she would learn more about SG-1’s ordeal over the coming days, but it did little to calm her fears. It seemed to simply be one thing after another with them.
Author's Notes: Please note, that is the 4th part - the 2nd and 3rd can only be found at elisemarie.co.uk and are heavy with angst. They don't need to be read to understand this part.
This is the immediate after effects of the Replicator torture.
End Notes: This episode just grew and grew! It really was not supposed to be this long. The next chapter has some Sam and Jack angst and is family orientated. There should be some good Sam/Jack-ness in there with a smidge of various friendships thrown in, too. I really enjoyed this chapter, but decided to post it as separate ones so that people could avoid the nightmares if they wanted to. I do apologise for Jack’s quite horrible one, but I enjoyed giving Nicola some back story (which can be seen in the third part)!
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 ]