Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 1

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Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, Atlantis or Universe, I am only playing in the world.

A/N: Sequel to 'The Ninth Chevron'

Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 1

Encountering a sleeping behemoth so close by, Sam and Cam adjust to their new dynamic and SG-1 brave the tide of discovery to find a way to help those stranded on Destiny, while forces rise to battle the Tau'ri.

With Selenis as a new home and the secrets of the Gatebuilders so close by, enemies appear which threaten the safety of everything they hold dear. Sam and Cameron must use their new found understanding of each other to keep them one step ahead of those who attack from the shadows.

RAF Middle Wallop, Hampshire, August 18th, 1940

Cameron sat out in the summer sun, gazing out over the ranks of Supermarine Spitfire Mk. Is belonging to No. 609 Squadron RAF, and the kids of whom he was in charge. They were playing cricket on the grass, a game even more laid back than baseball. Cam had to appreciate a sport which resolutely stopped play for lunch and tea. Cam trained them and led them in the skies against the Nazis as Flight Lieutenant Daniel Carter, a 'Canadian' volunteer. Officially, Americans were not allowed to take part in the hostilities breaking out in Europe. The Neutrality Acts saw to that. That didn't mean much to Cam. He only knew that Ba'al was dead. He'd killed the Goa'uld himself, shot him in the head in the cargo hold of the Achilles as he stepped through the Stargate being transported across the North Atlantic to America. Cam had then dumped his corpse into the ocean. The snake hadn't even had time to lose the smug grin after stepping through the event horizon before seeing Cam pointing a machine gun at his face and ending him. Cam only knew Ba'al was dead. And so was Sam. His Sam was dead. He'd saved the world and his Sam was dead. He'd saved the galaxy and his Sam was dead. Sam was dead.

The klaxon wailed out over the field and he sprang to his feet, running towards his Spitfire as mechanics and ground staff poured around it and over it, preparing it for flight. Cam was already dead. He knew that. It only mattered how and when it happened now. If he had any say, it would happen in a way that would make Sam proud. He knew how she'd feel about him just giving up, so he was going to go down swinging.

"Flight Lieutenant Carter!" He turned his head at the call and saw one of his wingmen running up. He couldn't suppress the smile at the way the Brits said 'lieutenant'.

"What is it, Hodgkins?" he asked the youngster, barely trained, and now about to fly off to face German Messerschmitt Bf109s over the Channel.

"Squadron Leader Morley wants to see you, sir." He pointed off towards one of the other flights where his squadron C.O. was standing talking to some of his flight leaders. Graham Morley was the man who knew the most about Cam, or 'Daniel Carter' as he went by. He knew he was American, and older than the thirty-eight he claimed to be, though Cam doubted the young man in his late twenties suspected the grey hair at Cam's temples was the only indication he was physically fifty-one years old. He also knew that Cam's flight experience was something he couldn't begin to fathom, and he respected that, using it to create tactics and strategies that would keep their casualties as low as possible. He'd seen first hand Cameron's skill behind the stick. When Morley asked how he managed to be so accurate with his wing-mounted Browning 303s, Cam had simply told him that he could hit something moving at three hundred miles an hour in his sleep. It was moving in slow motion to him unless it was going over six hundred miles an hour. Cam knew that would probably confuse the man, nothing yet available to the air forces of Europe could fly that quickly, but that's what his reflexes and reaction times were based on. And anyway, it wouldn't be long before such aircraft were available, both the Brits and the Germans were working on jets.

"Right. You make sure the flight is ready to go, Hodgkins." He patted the Flight Officer on the shoulder and jogged over to his younger friend. He watched as the other flight leaders around the man broke off to rejoin their own flights. Cam didn't usually have to speak to Morley before a sortie. The man trusted his judgement and skills implicitly. He brought his flight back alive, and made sure Germans didn't. Cam had, after all, taught him a lot about being a fighter jock, USAF style. "You rang, Graham?" He threw Morley a quick salute which was returned nonchalantly.

"I did, Old Man." Morley grinned and clapped a hand over Cam's shoulder. "Just called you over to tell you to go ahead with what we discussed. I'm tired of going back to Fighter Command with new tactics and being politely ignored." Cam nodded and smiled. "Good hunting, Daniel." Cam shook the man's hand and turned back to head to his plane. He'd never have guessed he'd one day be flying Spitfires in anger. They had nothing on the birds he'd flown in the past, or future as the case may be, but there was something about them. They were iconic after all. Sure, the Hawker Hurricane was the workhorse, the real hammer of the RAF's fight against the Luftwaffe, but it was the Spitfire that would become its symbol. He walked over to the huddled group of pilots waiting for his return.

"Squadron Leader wants us to use the new formation today, lads, the new tactics too. Just like we practiced, understood?" Cam waited until all of them had rattled off a 'yes, sir' before resuming. "Today's going to be a 'mare, boys, I want all of you sharp. Watch your wingman's six, got it? All of you will return today." He gave them each stern looks filled with warning. "Saddle up, folks!" he dismissed them in his usual manner. None of them asked him how he knew today was going to be awful, they knew better, Flight Lieutenant Daniel Carter just knew these things.

He reached his plane and climbed up towards the cockpit, staring out into the clear blue Hampshire sky. Today was going to be a tough day alright. More men would die today, on both sides, than on any other during this air campaign. August the 18th would later come to be known as 'The Hardest Day'. He didn't care if it was his last, he was just going to make sure his boys made it home

Stargate Command, October 2005

Sam stepped out of Landry's office to find a familiar face waiting for her. Cameron was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He grinned at her with a twinkle in his eye before straightening up from the wall and walking towards her.

"Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, did you think you could get onto this base without me finding out about it?" His embrace was warm and she was glad it kept him from seeing her eyes as she struggled to contain the sudden rush of emotion seeing him alive and well had brought up in her. She clutched at the back of his BDUs and held on tightly.

"It's really good to see you again Cam. You had me worried, you know?" At her words he sighed and let his chin rest on her shoulder for a moment. Cam had nearly died on P8X-412 after SG-1 encountered a Prior visiting the planet spreading the word of Origin with a little smattering of plague for seasoning.

"Well, I don't mind telling you I was a little worried there myself." he said softly. Sam knew Cameron wouldn't let her go until she pulled away. It was his way of allowing her to regain her composure. If she was forced to admit it to herself she held on for a little longer than was necessary. The corridor was empty for some unspeakable reason and she hadn't seen Cameron since before she'd left for Area 51. It wasn't long after that, that she heard he'd been assigned the lead of SG-1. It had been a bit surprising and a part of herself had instantly regretted her leaving the SGC. A part of herself she tried desperately to silence and keep at bay, that nineteen-year-old cadet crushing on her dashing senior. However, she found herself reading all of their mission reports as soon as they crossed her desk, even though she would have already learned everything that had happened on their travels, through alternate sources, before the file arrived. When she'd received that phone call from General Landry telling her that the team was stuck on a planet under quarantine, she'd had to force herself not to head straight for Cheyenne Mountain, instead mobilising the biological and medical research teams under her command. In the end it had made no difference what she had done, it was the Prior who had cured him. The next day she'd called Jack with her intention to return to SG-1, telling him she'd realised she just couldn't sit on the sidelines. She told herself that was her reason, that she couldn't watch her friends be in danger without being there herself, she told herself that was it, but she had a feeling it wasn't. Jack asked for a bit of time to arrange things, to find a replacement for her and she'd agreed, but the present situation had forced their hands. And now, she had no intention of returning to Nevada except to pack her things.

"You still owe me breakfast, by the way. From when I was on Prometheus just after you arrived at the SGC." She pulled away as he chuckled and smiled at her sheepishly. Then fell into step beside her as she led the way back to the elevator and her temporary quarters on base, so she could change out of her dress blues. "I won't accept food from the commissary either." She looked at him pointedly.

"I know, I know. I will honour that. After we get back from the mission." He smiled that devastating smile of his and she was that nineteen-year-old cadet on her first day at the Academy all over again. He'd been all mock-glares that morning, but something about his features told her he would have a killer smile. She'd been right. He'd spent the next two years keeping her sane, during her gruelling first year, he'd been her rock, then making sure she didn't burn out from the accelerated pace she was taking through the Academy. He'd pull her out of the labs she'd ensconced herself in, or the library where she was looking up some finer point of military history, and sometimes had forced her to eat and get some sleep. She'd thought at the time he was doing it because he'd been ordered to by the Superintendent, that he'd been assigned as some sort of baby-sitter for the Air Force's prized future asset. She'd thought that until she'd seen the look in his eye in '92 when she'd told him she was taking a posting at the Pentagon. When she saw that look of disappointment, she'd realised one of his driving ambitions was to see her become an astronaut, as much as becoming one himself, and he'd thought her taking that job meant she was throwing it away for a research position. She'd wanted so badly to tell him what she was really going to be working on. They reached the elevator and she punched in the number for sublevel 25 and smiled when he looked at her.

"I'll hold you to that. Somewhere nice in town. Where they serve some real coffee." She nearly laughed at his sly look. "What?"

"Sam, you realise I won't give up until you rejoin SG-1, right?" He'd turned to face her and was leaning in a little closely. She kept smiling at him, but she was in danger of blushing at his proximity. She cursed that seventeen year crush, some vestiges of which she obviously still harboured. "I have no intention of letting you leave for Nevada except to pack your things." She turned her gaze from his as the doors opened at their destination and she gave a small sigh at the reprieve.

"I believe you, Cam, but I won't make it easy." she replied, already knowing her resistance was gone.

563 km north of Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, August 1st, 2008 (alternate timeline)

"Mayday! Mayday! This is Colonel Cameron Mitchell. Mayday! Mayday!" Cam called into the radio again for the umpteenth time that day. He was walking beside Sam through the stark, ethereal beauty of the Arctic Ocean ice pack. Frozen fields of jagged ice thrusting up out of the smooth, hard-packed snow. The wind shaping the upthrust ice into abstract sculptures of blinding white and light blue. Having returned from the Tok'ra homeworld by Stargate, they were surprised that instead of finding themselves at the SGC they came out into the frozen hold of a ship buried in ice with temperatures dropping precipitously. Immediate escape to the outside became of paramount importance, but the only method open to them, the concussive explosion of C4 opening a shaft to the surface, dislodged the ship from its icy prison and spurred its belated plunge into the depths of the sea. Climbing their way out after procuring some World War II era foul weather gear from a crate of emergency equipment, they found themselves under the darkness of a sunless sky with Daniel unable to walk, his foot having frozen in his boot after a quick submersion in the icy water. Quickly donning the impermeable leather jacket, trousers and boots lined with fur, Cameron and Sam set off in hopes of finding help, suspecting there was none to be had. The sun re-emerging from behind the Moon after the partial eclipse they arrived under, had revealed endless miles of ice ahead of the two Air Force officers.

It had been three hours since they'd left Daniel back where the Achilles had sunk, but he couldn't spare the archaeologist much thought. Sam wasn't doing well. Physically she was fine, but emotionally she was having a tough time. Intellectually she knew that the timeline was different, that what they had to do was find a way of reversing what Ba'al had done, but that still didn't change the fact that she'd just watched one of her best friends die, or that she'd left another to most likely die somewhere out in the middle of the Arctic Ocean icepack. Whenever he got a glimpse of her eyes they were haggard and desperate. She stumbled, slipping on some less-than-solid snowpack, and fell to one knee. Cam quickly went to her and pulled her up, but didn't let go, instead he forced her to look at him. The wind was blowing the fur lining of her hood across her cheek. Over the woollen mask pulled up over her nose, he could see her eyes glistening. He brought one of his hands up and cupped it against the side of her hood. "Listen to me, Sam. We'll get out of this, I promise. We'll find a way to beat Ba'al."

"How can you say that? We have no idea where we are, or where the nearest outpost of civilisation is, or even if we're going the right way." She was gripping the front of his foul weather jacket in her mitts and shaking him weakly. "As far as we know it could be just us on a dead planet, bombarded from orbit by the Goa'uld decades ago!" She'd moved up to thumping her fists against his chest. He let her. "We left Daniel to die. Jack's dead! How can you say we'll get out of this?" Her fists stopped and pressed against his chest and he bundled her into his arms for an embrace before pulling away and cupping both sides of her head so she couldn't look away from him.

"I can say that 'cause the one person I trust more than anyone in this universe is still alive. And I will do everything I can to make sure that person gets a chance to find a way to fix this." He was holding her a little tightly, but she was trying to look away from him and he wasn't about to let that happen. "I will fight 'til my dying breath, Sam, to give you that chance, but you can't give up! I trust you with my life. With my future. Can you trust me with yours?" He moved his hands down to her shoulders and she looked down, bowing her head, shaking slightly. She leaned forward so her head pressed against his chest, between her still clenched mitts. Finally, he heard a soft, strangled half-whisper.

"Yes." She looked up and her eyes were shimmering. He passed a mitt gently over them. She couldn't afford to tear up in this cold. She closed her eyes and leaned against him again, wrapping her arms around his waist. Holding her in his arms filled him with the need to protect her, to get her to where she needed to be. It had always been his mission, ever since he'd met her at the Academy. She was someone who could change the fate of the galaxy. And she'd have to, for them to get out of this one. He pulled back and lifted her chin with one hand so she could see his eyes.

"I'll get you off this ice, Sam. Stay with me until then." he pleaded. She nodded and he pulled on her elbow to get her moving again. An hour later the terrain looked identical as it had for the last several hours. Sam was starting to flag, but she was still moving. She'd started getting a bit lippy and sardonic which was a good sign as far as he was concerned. Finally she stopped and let her hands drop to her knees, bending over and huffing loudly. Cam grabbed her elbow again. "Sam, we've got to keep moving." He saw her eyes roll and she tilted her head.

"Why? If we're going to freeze to death, here's as good a spot as any, isn't it?" She flapped an arm to indicate their general vicinity. Cam could tell she just wanted to gripe a little so he played along. He favoured their immediate locale with some cursory scrutiny.

"Uh, I don't like this spot." He tilted his head and patted her arm lightly.

"Cam, come on." she whined. He liked the glint he saw in her eyes. "What is the point? There's no one around for hundreds of-" She stopped when she realised he wasn't looking at her, but over her shoulder and turned to see what had his attention. "What is that?" Cam grinned slightly behind his mask. It was their ticket off the ice. He motioned to her and they started jogging towards the two figures in the distance.

Apollo Crater, Luna, August 2010

Sam looked out the forward viewport of the jumper as Cam guided it over the smooth, dark basalt mare nestled inside the inner ring of Apollo Crater. They had set out from Selenis, tucked away inside Jarvis Crater on the eastern edge of the mare, and were flying to the high ridge at the western side of the inner ring. Carved into that ridge, about halfway up its face was a small hanger bay, which Selenis told them led to the archive storage facility for the base.

Ever since they'd arrived at the Alteran lunar facility one thing had been obvious. It wasn't finished. Construction was certainly complete, but the facility itself wasn't done. Most glaring was the Ancient database, which was woefully light on actual data. Selenis explained the reason for this was that the connection to the backup archive had been taken offline before the facility's automated construction had completed. As a result the base had been unable to retrieve anything from the archive, apart from that which had already been transferred from it manually by the engineers in charge of construction, namely engineering and medical information. The Alterans had in fact abandoned the facility before construction was completed, seemingly around the time Atlantis left Earth for the Pegasus galaxy.

As a result, Selenis was a facility with no history or knowledge of its purpose. The information in its banks was certainly amazing enough, but considering it didn't even include a Stargate address database or any information about nine symbol addresses it wasn't currently of use to them in their mission to aid those stranded on Destiny. It did have a list of Supergate addresses, presumably to allow for raw materials to be shipped to the facility during its construction. This list had proved helpful the previous month when they attempted to intercept the Lucian Alliance's incursion attempt on Destiny. Since then SG-1 had been back on Selenis for a little over three weeks. A small team of engineers and scientists had joined them, but Sam was still doing the bulk of the expert work, and it was decided that the time was right to ascertain the status of the archive outpost. In order to do that, she had commandeered Cam's piloting skills and a jumper with anything she could conceivably need to diagnose and perhaps effect repairs packed inside, and set off for the ancillary outpost west of Selenis. Of course, there was an ulterior motive for it just being the two of them in this jumper flying out over the desolate, stark beauty of the Lunar landscape. She reached across and lay a hand on the smooth material of Cam's Alteran designed integrity suit, he turned his head and smiled at her.

"Something on your mind, Dr. Carter?" His playful grin made her smile. She tilted her head and regarded him for several moments.

"Just that I think, I'd better watch my back at the next Academy reunion I go to." She kept a straight face when she said it, but the corners of her mouth were creeping up.

"I'll keep an eye on your six, Sam. Don't you worry." Cam chuckled lightly and his eyes sparkled. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm sure you will, and I'm sure you'll take full advantage of the view, but I think that may only contribute to my problem." She stood up and came to stand behind his seat, wrapping her arms around him and kissing the top of his head. "I'm fairly certain every woman from the Thirty is going to be sharpening her combat knives when she finds out who I'm going with."

"Oh? Who's the lucky guy? Or Gal? I'm an open minded sort, you know." he deadpanned and she pulled at his cheeks as he laughed. "Ow ow ow, okay! Okay! Sheesh. I'm sure Jackson's gonna have a lot of fun at- ow ow ow!" She resumed pinching his cheeks at his continued joke and tilted his face up to look into his eyes as she then soothed his aching flesh with her fingers. "Like I said, I'll watch your six, literally and figuratively." She smiled and returned to her seat. They were still an hour or so away from their destination, it was hard to judge distances on the Moon. The horizon was much closer than they were used to and it skewed their sense of perspective something fierce. To think she was flying over the Moon! She could see Cam watching her from the corner of her eye and she turned to him with a questioning look.

"Something on your mind, Colonel Mitchell?" she recycled his earlier question.

"You want me to stop for fifteen minutes so you can put your boots down on the surface, don't you?" He smiled at her and she really shouldn't have been surprised. When they'd finally gotten together after he asked her out to dinner that day on the base they'd quickly developed a sort of unspoken rapport, as if they could read each other completely. Sam mused it must have had to do with knowing each other for over twenty years, over thirty if you counted that Memorial Day BBQ in McLean, over eighty counting the time aboard the Odyssey. Maybe her whole life if you wanted to count his alternate self's presence at her birth which still filled her with a little bit of awe. So his ability to read her like a book seemed natural if you simply considered that now they weren't denying their feelings for each other or the connection between them. They could have entire conversations using only body language and the knowledge they had of each other. That really annoyed Daniel.

"Yes I do, I've always wanted to set foot on Luna itself." She smiled as he keyed in his comm.

"Selenis, this is Mitchell, come in." He started looking for a smooth patch upon which to set the jumper down.

"Mitchell, this is Selenis, we read you." came Daniel's voice over the comm. "Anything wrong?"

"Nope, just Sam's got a hankerin' to leave a bootprint on the surface and I'll admit to wanting the same." He smiled at her and she got up to fetch their helmets as he came to hover over a spot and gently set the jumper down on the surface of the Moon. "We're setting down for a few here on the mare to take a quick stroll under the stars." Sam had slipped on her helmet already and was moving over to Cam with his.

"Copy that, Cam. You and Sam be sure to wrap up warm." Daniel's sign off was interrupted by Vala's indignant cry.

"And next time take us with you! Selfish jerks." Both Cam and Sam laughed at that. She pulled the comm from his ear and slipped the helmet over his head, twisting the collar with its comm and breathing equipment into the recessed fitting of the suit's shoulderguards.

"We will, I promise, Vala. Carter out." replied Sam, pressing the stud on her helmet over her ear. Cam checked the seals on her suit and turned around to let her check his before they positioned themselves around the rear hatch and depressurised the cabin. While they waited the few moments for the air supply to be evacuated from the rear of the jumper, Cam raised his arm and tapped a few commands into the display attached to his forearm, creating an open comm channel between just the two of them. She moved to stand by the hatch door and Cam pressed the control on the panel to lower it, she stepped out and hovered on the edge of the hatch ramp, looking down at the smooth, grey surface of Earth's Moon. She shook her head, realising how ridiculous her hesitation must be. She'd travelled to hundreds, thousands of different planets and moons around stars so far away they couldn't be seen in the sky. She'd been to different galaxies, plural. Why did stepping on the Moon of her homeworld give her pause?

"It's been your dream to do this since you were a little girl, hasn't it?" Cam's voice spoke into her ear over the comm and she turned around slowly to look at him as he stood behind her. The look in his eyes made tears well up in hers. The look of pride in them, knowing it was pride in her that he felt, knowing he could cut through all her hesitation and doubt and immediately realise what was in the deepest recesses of her heart. She nodded and reached out her hands to him which he took. "Do you have anything special you want to say?"

"When I was a girl I wanted so badly to be an astronaut, to walk on the Moon. I've been to other galaxies, Cam. We've been to other galaxies." She looked into his eyes, trying to let him know how deeply she felt for him.

"You got me into the 302 program, I joined the Stargate program for you. You took me to the stars, Sam." Cam's voice was husky with his own emotions and she could feel a tear roll down her cheek.

"And you brought me home, Cameron. You're the only person I could step out onto the Moon with now." She pulled him along as she backed off the ramp onto the fine, dusty surface. The construction of their Alteran suits allowed her to intertwine her fingers with his. His face took on a serious look for a moment, his eyes intense and dark. She rubbed her thumbs on the backs of his gloves, just watching him. He slipped his hands from hers and backed up a step or two, then held out his hand.

"Dr. Carter, may I have this dance?" She couldn't resist his eyes. She reached her hand out and lay her fingers in his palm.

"You may, Colonel Mitchell." She smiled and giggled when he pulled her in closely to him, she put her hand on his shoulder and he slipped his around her waist to hold her lower back.

They danced under the silent stars.

On to Chapter 2