New Fic: Mimesis (Sam/Jack)
Title: Mimesis
Author: Annerb
Summary: Jack tries to help Carter deal with her time spent with Fifth and the Replicators. ‘New Order/Gemini’ AU.
Rating/Warnings: Older teens for language, violent imagery, adult themes (sex, suicide, torture).
Categorization: AU, angst, drama, Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: Stargate isn’t mine; just playing for fun.
A/N: Thanks to Aurora and Trout for the betas.
:: Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three ::
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~Albert Einstein
Mimesis
Jack steps into the quiet of his house with a sigh of relief.
Less than two months as a general and he already misses shooting things way more than he ever thought he would. Or maybe it’s just the option he’d like, because there are plenty of people around him every day that he’d like to at least be able to threaten with a weapon. He just gets the sense that sort of thing is frowned upon. Stupid stars.
Tugging at his collar, Jack loosens his tie. He wonders if he could get away with at least zatting one of the blowhards flitting through his office these days if he claimed to have seen their eyes glow. That probably wouldn’t get him fired.
He’s halfway to his bedroom when the doorbell rings. He swears, resigning himself to another few minutes in his stuffy dress blues. At least they should make short work of getting rid of any door-to-door salesmen. One of the few perks of being The Man-the sheer intimidation factor.
Not a zat, sure. But good enough.
He pulls the door open. It isn’t a salesman.
“Carter,” he says.
She smiles, tugging slightly at the hem of the sweater she’s wearing. There’s a skirt down there somewhere too, but he isn’t looking. “Hi, sir.”
Jack braces an arm on the doorjamb, wondering what in the world she’s doing here.
His surprise and general lack of welcome must show, because her smile falters a bit. “Do you have a minute?” she asks.
His first instinct is to tell her he’s off the clock and send her on her way, because he’s barely seen her outside a briefing room in weeks. He can’t imagine what could be important enough to bring her here. Then again, this is Carter, and it’s not like her to show up without a really good reason.
“Sure,” he finally decides, stepping back to let her pass. “Come on in.”
She walks in, not pausing on the foyer, but heading straight for the family room like she’s done this a zillion times before.
Weird.
Jack closes the door and follows after her. “I thought you were heading off on leave?” Leave she’d actually asked for, for once, miracle of all miracles. Just another part of the new leaf she seems to have turned over since the Anubis and Fifth debacles.
He tells himself yet again that this is a good thing.
“Yeah,” Carter says, looking around the family room, her fingers running along the back of a chair. “I’m all set to go. There’s just a couple of loose ends to tie up first.”
Jack’s eyebrows lift. Loose ends?
She walks up to his fireplace, studying the pictures there.
He waits for her to say something, to get to the point of this visit, but long moments pass in silence. “Uh, Carter?” he says in case she’s somehow forgotten that she’s the one who barged in on what should be his beer and relaxing time.
She doesn’t turn, hands tightening on the edge of mantle, knuckles pressing white.
Now she’s just freaking him the hell out. “Everything okay?” he asks.
“Fifth tortured me,” she says, her voice flat like she’s talking about the weather.
“What?” It’s been three weeks since they finally rescued Carter from her time with Fifth, but this is the first he’s heard of torture. Her reports only talk of captivity, of being trapped. Never anything about torture.
She rubs at the back of her neck. “I always knew he’d be hurt, angry with me, but this was…” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head as if clearing it of a memory. She clears her throat. “When he got tired of trying to break me with pain, he slipped into my mind, whispering lies. He tried to change me into what he wanted. An object for him to possess without a mind of her own.”
Her voice is hoarse, lined with pain, but distorted with something else just underneath that sets Jack’s teeth on edge. He thinks it must be the knowledge that she’d been undergoing all of that for weeks while they unsuccessfully tried to find her.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asks, wondering if this is what has been keeping her in her lab, making her put off missions with SG-1. All the time she spent off base. And here he’d just thought she’d finally gotten herself a life.
She shrugs, a sad, hopeless little gesture.
He crosses over to stand behind her. “Carter?” he asks, touching her shoulder.
She turns abruptly, stepping up against him, her face covered by her hands.
Jack freezes a moment in surprise and then tentatively puts his arms around her, one hand rubbing her back. “You got away from him, Carter,” he says. “You made it out.” With very little help from them incidentally.
She nods against his neck, her hands sliding around his back, fingers digging in. “He underestimated me,” she breathes.
Jack frowns, something just the tiniest bit off in her voice.
She pulls back, looking up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. Hell. A crying Carter is something he really sucks at dealing with.
“Hey,” he says, hand moving to cup the back of her neck. “You’re okay.”
She smiles, just the tiniest bit, and the next thing he knows, she’s reaching for his face and moving her lips way too close to his.
“Whoa,” he objects, pulling back. “What’re you doing?”
She doesn’t seem put off, her fingers curling in his lapels. “I would have thought that was obvious,” she says, leaning in to kiss him again.
Jack grabs her shoulders, holding her away. “Look. Obviously you’re upset right now, not thinking clearly…but this isn’t--.”
There’s a flash of something in her eyes, there for only an instant, but almost…vicious?
“Maybe you’re the one not thinking clearly, Jack,” she says, hand trailing down his chest, and now he knows something is wrong.
“Okay,” he says, feeling the hair rising on the back of his neck. “Why don’t we just go back to the base and get you--.”
She moves like quicksilver, twisting his hand up and around in one smooth motion, one way too quick and strong to be countered. Pain radiates down his arm, her violent grip forcing him to his knees. She doesn’t even look winded, or like she’s exerted herself at all, her fingers like steel bars around his wrist.
He looks up at her in surprise, and her lips quirk, her painfully familiar face devoid of any humanity. It’s chilling as hell, and something he’s only seen a handful of times before-when she was possessed by the entity, by Jolinar.
“What are you?” he asks.
She leans in, her face pressed up close to his. “Took you long enough,” she taunts.
Her fingers dance across his forehead before pressing sharply down, agonizing pain dissolving into darkness.
* * *
With a loud groan, Jack wakes in a small silver cube of a room. He squeezes his eyes shut against the glittering light, the pain streaking through his brain. God. He’d really hoped never to experience this again. He can feel the rippled pattern of blocks under his back and swears under his breath. Fucking Replicators. Just when he thought he’d seen the last of those bastards.
Gingerly opening his eyes, he takes quick stock of his body, eyes darting around the room. Other than a headache the size of Chulak, he seems uninjured. The room, on the other hand, is not at all what he expects. Hard metal, yes, but not as nearly as impersonal. It’s set up sort of like a weird museum, various mechanical objects carefully displayed on raised tables. A motorcycle. A naquadah reactor. A model rocket.
The Replicator weapon.
Jack shoves to his feet, not bothering to question what the hell the thing is doing here in the first place. All he knows is that if he’s dealing with Replicators, he sure as hell wants that thing in his hands.
He’s just reaching for it when she shows up.
She appears from the wall itself, melting into place molecule by molecule, and if he’d had any last lingering doubts as to just what she is, they’re long gone now.
The Replicator’s eyes dart to the weapon, her frozen face releasing into a disturbingly human smile. “Do you truly believe that can harm me?”
He doesn’t hesitate, grabbing it and firing. The pulse passes through her as if nothing.
She calmly crosses the room, taking the weapon from him and gently placing it back on the pedestal like a priceless piece of art. “I’ve been at the SGC for three weeks, General, spending all my time studying your little machine. Do you really think I didn’t find a way to make myself immune?”
Jack’s mind is spinning with all of the implications-weapon won’t work, she’s been at the SGC, where the hell is Carter?
“I don’t believe you,” he says, stepping warily back from her. “We would have known. Medical tests alone--.”
“Yes,” she says, lips pressing together in prim disapproval. “I must admit I was a little disappointed just how easy it was. You rely too much on machines.” She advances on him, her fingers skimming his cheek, digging in under his jaw when he tries to jerk back away. “And the rest?” She shakes her head. “Human brains are so…malleable. Especially when I’m showing them exactly what they want to see.”
He moves out of her reach. “Where is Carter?”
The flash of viciousness is back in her steely gaze. “Oh, now you want to know where she is. Six weeks she’s been on this ship, and now you’re worried for her?” Her eyes are hard, reproachful. “She doesn’t need your concern.”
Jack tries to shake the inanity of this machine lecturing him on responsibility, ignoring the way the taunt lodges under his skin. “Where the hell is she?”
The Replicator paces away, reaching out to one of the little critters climbing across the wall. It hops up onto her hand like an eager pet.
“He couldn’t break her,” she says, clearly not interested in answering his actual question. “He couldn’t make her bend to his will, so he made me.” With a flick of her wrist, the creature climbing her arm is sucked slowly down into her skin, small waves rolling up her arm as it sinks below the surface. She holds her hand up, examining it closely as she bends it back and forth. “He gave me this body, thinking to make me weaker. Controllable.” Her hand twists into a fist. “But he only made me stronger.”
With horrific clarity, Jack can imagine how it must have all gone down. Fifth in his clumsy confusion creating something he could never hope to control. Sam Carter with no moral compass or inhibitions.
“He underestimated you,” Jack surmises, remembering her words from his house.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes bright, triumphant. “He did.”
And there is that past tense again. Jack doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he hasn’t seen anything of Fifth up here. “What did you do to him?”
Her hand drops, her back straightening. “I set myself free,” she says, eyes hard and mercenary, and he can’t believe he ever could have mistaken this thing for Carter for even a moment. “And now I will do the same for her.”
Jack really doesn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
She crosses back over the space, her hand trailing along his shoulders as she passes behind him. “She is more brilliant than you could ever comprehend,” she says, voice like an insidious whisper. “You hold her back.”
Jack frowns. “I want to see her.”
He expects a fight, more overblown posturing, but she simply nods. “Of course,” she says, pointing to a small gap that has appeared in one of the glittering walls. “She’s through there.”
Jack takes one hesitant step towards the opening, not sure what her game is.
She smiles, something polite and plastic that goes nowhere near her eyes. “You can have some time to talk to her. I’m not without compassion, after all.”
Jack seriously doubts her compassion, but can’t pass up the chance to set eyes on Carter-the real Carter-even if it is a trap.
He ducks cautiously into the room, his eyes sweeping the cold, hard space-little more than a metal box-finally settling on a form seated against the back wall.
“Carter.”
She glances up at him, but just as quickly away, her knees pulling up into her chest. Her hair is unkempt, the grown out length of it tucked haphazardly behind her ears, revealing skin so pale as to almost appear bruised against the faded blue of her BDUs.
He warily approaches her, not liking the way her eyes are darting around the room as if attempting to look anywhere but at him. She’s started mumbling something under her breath.
He crouches down in front of her, gingerly touching her knee.
Her eyes snap up to his face. “What?” she demands, voice sharp with impatience.
This is pretty much the last reaction he expects. “Carter? You okay?”
“Sure. Of course.” Her lips stretch into an empty smile. “Peachy, even.” She wheezes slightly as if she’s made a joke.
Jack just stares back at her with growing uncertainty.
Carter’s sick amusement rapidly fades as he silently watches her, leaving her looking irritated with his confusion. “Can we just move this along?” she asks, hand flipping impatiently.
He’s going to get whiplash at this rate. “Carter. I don’t know--.”
She pokes him in the chest. “You’re supposed to say you’re here to rescue me,” she informs him.
He blinks. “I am?” He’s fairly certain he’s as trapped here as she is. She’s the one with all the good ideas, not him.
She nods. “Yes. We must stick to script after all,” she says, bitterness lining her words. She turns her head to the side, apparently back to pretending he isn’t here.
“Carter,” he says, beginning to lose his patience. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t,” she says, still not looking at him. “You aren’t real.”
Is that what this is all about? “I am real, Carter.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, her jaw clenching. “You’re never real,” she says, a slight waver in her voice.
That brings him to a stop. What does she mean, never?
“Carter,” he says, grabbing her shoulders, fingers digging in. “I’m really here. She…that whatever she is, she came to my house, stuck her hand in my head.” He scrunches up his forehead. That is really one of the things he’d love to never experience again. “I woke up here.”
She shakes her head, the belligerence replaced with bone deep exhaustion that hurts to see. Six weeks, he reminds himself. That’s how long she’s been here enduring this.
He takes her face carefully in both of his hands. “I swear to God, Carter. I’m really here.”
She meets his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “Just once, I’d like to be weak enough to believe that.”
“Come on, Carter. I really need you to snap out of it. You’re stronger than this.”
“Just once,” she whispers, her fingers curling in the lapels of his jacket. She pulls him down without warning, pressing her lips to his.
He jerks back, fighting to keep his balance. What the hell is up with Carters and kissing him today? “Carter-.”
“God, really?” she bursts out. “Are you going to throw the regulations at me?” She laughs hoarsely, shaking her head. “My subconscious is really sick.”
He has no idea what to say to that.
She drops back against the wall, regarding him soberly, some small thread of analytic Carter still in there. “Or do you think I’m just getting better at deluding myself? The hundredth time she tries to use you against me?”
She leans in, like she’s confessing something. “When you kiss me back…that’s when I know it’s not really you.”
Jack feels something break in him, the despair in her voice mingled so tightly with something like…longing. “Jesus, Carter, what the hell has she done to you?”
She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “Tiny little pieces,” she says. “So she can build me back up. Change me. But I won’t. I won’t let her.” Her fingers dig into her temples. “I won’t. Because none of this is real.”
Jack sighs, realizing convincing her of anything right now is a losing battle. “You’re right, Carter,” he says, patting her on the shoulder as she leans into him. “She isn’t going to win. We won’t let her.”
Her face turns to his neck. “God,” she mumbles, “you even smell like him.”
“Dammit, Carter,” he breathes, glancing around the room. He’s going to have a hard enough time figuring a way out of here without a delusional Carter on his hands saying things he really shouldn’t be hearing.
He feels the feather light touch of her fingers along the collar of his shirt, and when he pulls back to look at her, she’s regarding him with a furrowed brow. “Sir?” she asks, her voice shaking.
Before he can answer, there’s sound behind them, Sam’s face paling at something she sees over his shoulder.
“No,” she says, voice sharp as she shoves hard against Jack, knocking him sideways. She scrambles for the opposite corner of the room, wedging herself in as tight as she can.
“What the hell?” Jack mutters, regaining his balance and looking for whatever set Carter off.
Behind him, the Replicator stands in a newly appeared doorway, a few of her little friends swarming behind her. Jack pushes to his feet, stepping to stand between the Replicator and Carter. “What the hell have you done to her?”
The Replicator smiles. “I told you. I am improving her.” She steps past Jack, easily moving him out of her way. He tries to stop her, but her little pets circle him, forcing him back against the opposite wall with sharp little snaps of electricity.
“No, no, no, no,” Carter chants as the Replicator nears her, her hands firmly covering her ears.
The Replicator stands over her, hands on her hips. “Come now, Sam. Don’t make a scene.”
“Please don’t make me do this,” Carter pleads. “Please.”
The Replicator kneels next to Carter, her fingers caressing her cheek. “Shhh. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
Jack can feel it coming, opening his mouth to shout a warning, but the Replicator has already jammed her fingers into Carter’s forehead. He winces.
After only a few moments, the Replicator pulls her hand back and Carter’s eyes snap open, and here’s that competent, unflappable woman he knows so well. She pushes to her feet, standing tall and almost at attention.
The Replicator hands her a gun that seems to have magically appeared in her hand. “Now just as we practiced,” the Replicator whispers near Carter’s ear. “Just this one last thing and you will be free.”
Carter lifts the weapon, pointing it straight at Jack.
He’s staring back at a machine. In that moment, he has no doubt that she has it in her to kill him, this woman who only moments before was kissing him and crying on his shoulder.
But then her eyes flicker downward slightly, like she’s staring at his shoulders again and he finally gets it. His stars. He’d still been a colonel frozen in the ice when she was taken. Why would her subconscious change that detail?
She’s finally realizing he’s real.
“Please,” she whispers, horror in her eyes.
“Do it!”
Her other hand lifts to support the weapon, but Jack can see the way her arms are shaking, the white pressure of her knuckles as she fights the command. She stares back at him, every tiny thing she’s feeling flashing across her expressive face.
“Sir,” she says.
He lifts his hands out in front of him. “Carter,” he replies, knowing with every fiber of his being that she’s stronger than this.
She closes her eyes, and when they open again, there’s nothing but complete calm. The corner of her mouth lifts in the tiniest smile, and he knows she’s apologizing for something.
He smiles back because no matter what happens, this isn’t her fault and he knows that.
She doesn’t pull the trigger though, instead swinging the weapon wide, stepping across Jack and pointing it at the Replicator.
The Replicator just shakes her head with disappointment. “You can’t hurt me with that.”
“I know,” Carter says. Pulling her arm back in, she tucks the gun tight up under her own chin. “But I can hurt me.”
Jack takes a sharp step towards her. “Carter, no.”
The Replicator appears unimpressed with the threat. “Your death will accomplish nothing. You know I will simply kill him myself after you are gone.”
“Maybe,” Carter says, confidence building in her voice. “But he understands that I’d rather die myself than play your sick games, than spend another day in this hell.”
“If you wish to be free,” the Replicator says, “you know what you must do. The only thing holding you back is yourself.”
“Never going to happen,” Carter bites out.
There’s a flash of something like curiosity or surprise on the Replicator’s face, a ghost of long dead expectations. Her head tilts to the side. “I see I may have miscalculated. Variables will have to be adjusted, scenarios evaluated.”
There’s a shuffle of sound behind Jack, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes off Carter. He hears it first, the soft chimes leading the flash of white light and he lunges forward, wrapping himself around Carter.
He thinks he hears the retort of a gun, but they are already on the bridge of the Prometheus, whole and sound, Carter right there in front of him, solid in his arms. Thank God. Jack lets go of her and spins around to see Ronson in the command chair.
The ship shudders underneath them.
“Fire all weapons,” the colonel commands.
“Now that is what I call perfect timing,” Jack quips, moving to get out of the way as the ship engages the Replicator.
Ronson give him a distracted, fleeting grin. “My pleasure, Jack.” He glances towards the front of the ship, his smile fading.
Carter is still standing where she materialized, gun still in her hand, unaware or uncaring of what is going on around her. She’s staring at everyone around her as if she can’t quite trust her eyes.
“Carter,” Jack says, taking a step towards her as the ship continues to shudder underneath them.
Her eyes latch on to him, the gun lifting.
He lifts his hands. “Carter. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Her shoulders lift with the heaviness of her breathing. “You’ve said that before,” she counters, her voice wavering.
He glances at the gun in her hand, taking another few cautious steps towards her. “I don’t know what she did to you, Carter. What she tried to make you believe. But this is real.”
Her other hand lifts, supporting the gun, her back straightening. “Don’t.”
“You aren’t going to shoot me, Carter,” he says, waving away the guards moving towards them.
“No,” she admits. The gun drops slightly, but he can see it in her eyes, see what alternative she’s considering. “I’ve been saved before. Hundreds of times. And I always end up back there.” She folds the gun back up against her chest, not so much aiming it as cradling it. “Maybe I just want it to all be over.”
Jack feels his heart climbing up into his throat. They did not come all this way just for her to blow herself away the second they are back on friendly ground. “It is over, Carter. I promise.”
“I can’t believe you.” Her fingers tighten.
“Carter--.”
She’s enveloped in a flash of blue, the gun falling unused from her fingers as her body crumples to the floor.
Jack turns to see Teal’c holding a zat, his face deeply troubled, but determined. “She would have harmed herself,” he says, more incomprehension than an attempt at explanation.
Jack kneels down by Carter, sliding the gun away from her limp hand. “Yeah, Teal’c,” he says, brushing her hair back from her face. “I think she might have.”
Ronson finally gets the last shot in on the Replicator ship, the burst of light flashing into the room. The fight was brutal, but the Prometheus had caught the Replicator by surprise. Too wrapped up in her little scenarios, Jack thinks, to even notice the approach of their rescue. And now she and her ship are in pieces.
Tiny little pieces.
Jack’s hand tightens on Carter’s arm.
They’d gotten her back. But would they ever be able to convince her of that?
* * *
Daniel stands at the foot of the infirmary bed, watching Carter. She’s still unconscious, hands and feet bound as a precaution until they can get her back to the SGC. Like she hasn’t already been through enough captivity, Jack ruthlessly thinks.
“How could we not have known?” Daniel asks.
Three weeks her Replicator double had been living with them, and none of them noticed. What does that say about them?
“You never suspected?” Jack forces himself to ask.
Daniel glances at Teal’c. “No. I mean, we’ve barely been on any missions yet, but that was just because Sam seemed so obsessed with studying the Replicator weapon. I figured she was just compensating for her time with Fifth.”
Teal’c nods. “She was driven, focused. But it was not something new.” His jaw flexes, and Jack thinks he’s having just as hard of a time accepting this as the rest of them.
“There was…” Daniel says, trailing off hesitantly as if not sure he really wants to say it.
“What?” Jack prompts.
Daniel sighs. “Well, one time she sort of…snapped at me. But she apologized later, told me she’d been having a hard time at home and didn’t mean to take it out on me. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Carter is generally a nice person, but even she has her days.
“There’d just…” Daniel shakes his head.
“What?” Jack presses.
“There was just something about her eyes, you know?”
Jack shudders remembering the day she came to his house. Took you long enough.
“We have all been adjusting to changes,” Teal’c says.
Jack’s promotion, Carter’s new command of the team, the Antarctica outpost.
Looking at Daniel and Teal’c, Jack doesn’t think either of them take anymore comfort in that than he does.
* * *
They’ve had Carter in the infirmary under close observation for four days now, running each and every test the doctors could even think of. As much for her health as their own peace of mind. There is no way they are letting another Replicator waltz in here under their nose.
Never again.
“Hey, Carter.”
She looks up at him, eyes clear, but mouth tight. “Colonel.” She grimaces. “I mean, General.”
He waves away the mistake. “Takes a while getting used to. Believe me.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t stick, practically melting away before it even makes an appearance.
He steps a bit closer to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she says, her voice cautious.
“Yeah?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying not to look like he doesn’t believe her. “Everything…settling?”
She looks up at him, and try as he might, he just can’t read anything in the look she’s giving him. That is startling enough to put him on edge.
“Is it really necessary to keep me locked up in here?”
“We just need to make sure you aren’t going to…”
“Hurt myself?” she asks.
He winces.
“I was just…confused for a while,” she admits.
“That’s understandable,” he says.
She shifts in the bed, rolling her shoulder like everything around her isn’t quite a good fit. “I just need to see more than this room. Is there any chance I’ll be getting out of here soon?”
He smiles, jabbing a finger over his shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” she says.
Jack beats a retreat, stepping out into the hall where Janet is waiting for him.
“Well?” she asks.
Jack shakes his head. “Honestly? I have no idea.”
Janet sighs. “I know what you mean. I can’t decide if she’s just telling us what we want to hear, or if she’s really beginning to believe that she’s back.”
That’s the problem with someone like Carter, she’s smart enough to manipulate them. “So what next?”
“I’m not sure, sir. We can’t keep her locked up here forever, but I don’t think we can risk letting her be on her own just yet.”
“Yeah,” Jack says, thinking back over his conversations with Daniel and Teal’c. “What do you think about getting her out of here for a few days if we stay with her? Let her see that she’s not trapped? That the world really is out there?”
Janet nods. “That might be a good idea, sir. Just keep a close eye on her. The tiniest thing could set off a psychological break.”
Fresh air and open space and nothing to remind her of metal and mind games. They can watch her, the three of them, and maybe, just maybe she’ll believe it eventually.
* * *
Jack breathes in the cool, fresh air coming off the water. There’s the slightest taste of fall in the air, driving away the humidity and mosquitoes, making the day damn near perfect. Helped, of course, by the fact that Carter is finally here.
She’s quiet in the chair next to him, ignoring the reel by her feet. She’s reminded him of Alice these last few days, like she’s just waiting to wake up from her twisted dream. She’s building to something, has been for a while now, but he just contents himself with sitting in the sun next to her.
After a while, she shifts, her eyes sweeping across the deck. “You still…,” she starts to say, her voice falling flat over the water. She shakes her head. “I didn’t think…”
“Carter?”
She reaches for his hand, her fingers griping tight around his. “You still want this.”
“What?”
Her foot brushes the reel on the dock. “You. Me. This place.”
They are wading into dangerous waters here, but he’s so happy to have her talking about anything at all that he doesn’t care. He squeezes her fingers, his voice quiet. “Did you think I’d stopped?”
She shrugs, a broken gesture that makes his chest ache. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I did.”
He shakes his head. “That’s just not ever gonna happen, Carter.”
She closes her eyes, a tear squeezing out. She bats at it, turning her face away. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he says, touching her face. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
She looks up at him. “More than you know,” she says.
She’s so close now, right there next to him and maybe seeing her here is doing strange things to him, but he just can’t help it. He kisses her. If this is what it takes to convince her…
For a moment she’s stiff against him, and he thinks he’s going to have to apologize for being such a fucking idiot, but then the tension leave her like a rubber band snapping, and she’s kissing him back.
He deliberately keeps the kiss soft and careful, letting them both settle into the sensation, the rightness of it.
“This is real, Sam,” he says, his fingers brushing her cheek.
She smiles, something sad and aching in the gesture. “I wish it was too,” she whispers, her forehead brushing his. “I really do.”
He closes his eyes. Just when he thought maybe there’d been some small progress.
He tries to pull away, but she’s grabbing his arm, her fingers digging in tight. “Where did Teal’c and Daniel go? You brought them too, didn’t you?”
“Of course. They’re just--.” He gestures back at the cabin.
“Just what?” she asks. “Getting groceries? Driving in separately?”
Jesus, she’s getting worse. Maybe they should get her back to the SGC. “Just calm down, Carter. It’s going to be okay.” He reaches for his phone. “I’m just gonna give Janet a call.”
“Jack,” she says, taking his face in her hands, her voice soft like he’s the one losing his mind. “Janet’s dead.”
Jack freezes.
“You know that. You know she’s dead.”
He thinks about it, getting ready to open his mouth and deny it, only…he does know that. But, no. He’d just talked to her, she’d been there when they brought Carter back. She’d been there.
Only Janet is dead. He remembers the funeral. Carter’s face as she read a list of names.
How can both be true?
“How did we get off her ship?” Carter asks.
Jack blinks, his brain trying to keep up. “What?”
“How did we get off the Replicator ship?”
“We got beamed off.” He remembers the tingle of the light, the way he grabbed for her.
“Are you sure?”
Of course he’s sure. Maybe there had also been a sharp retort, a tingle in his spine… The metallic taste of…gunpowder? No, that can’t be right. Cold metal on his skin?
Carter is relentless, not giving him an inch. “How did they beam us off? How did they even find us?”
It’s like grabbing on to smoke. The harder he digs for concrete details, the more it all slips away.
“Jack?” she presses. “How did we get off her ship?”
God, he has no idea.
“Why can’t I remember?” he asks.
Her eyes close, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Because we’re still on the ship, Jack. We’re still here.”
“We never left,” he says, and just like that it’s finally so clear-every tiny inconsistency he’s been so studiously ignoring. But why? Why would he do that?
He glances around the pond, the chairs, the reels, Carter’s fingers firm around his.
You still want this.
God. They’re inside his fantasy.
Everything is falling away now, the water, the trees. Everything translucent and fading, failing by moment.
Even her.
“Carter,” he says as she slides through his fingers like the memory of things that never were.
Her fingers bite into his arm, her face close to his. “Don’t trust her.”
And then she’s gone.
:: Part Two::
Author: Annerb
Summary: Jack tries to help Carter deal with her time spent with Fifth and the Replicators. ‘New Order/Gemini’ AU.
Rating/Warnings: Older teens for language, violent imagery, adult themes (sex, suicide, torture).
Categorization: AU, angst, drama, Sam/Jack
Disclaimer: Stargate isn’t mine; just playing for fun.
A/N: Thanks to Aurora and Trout for the betas.
:: Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three ::
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~Albert Einstein
Mimesis
Jack steps into the quiet of his house with a sigh of relief.
Less than two months as a general and he already misses shooting things way more than he ever thought he would. Or maybe it’s just the option he’d like, because there are plenty of people around him every day that he’d like to at least be able to threaten with a weapon. He just gets the sense that sort of thing is frowned upon. Stupid stars.
Tugging at his collar, Jack loosens his tie. He wonders if he could get away with at least zatting one of the blowhards flitting through his office these days if he claimed to have seen their eyes glow. That probably wouldn’t get him fired.
He’s halfway to his bedroom when the doorbell rings. He swears, resigning himself to another few minutes in his stuffy dress blues. At least they should make short work of getting rid of any door-to-door salesmen. One of the few perks of being The Man-the sheer intimidation factor.
Not a zat, sure. But good enough.
He pulls the door open. It isn’t a salesman.
“Carter,” he says.
She smiles, tugging slightly at the hem of the sweater she’s wearing. There’s a skirt down there somewhere too, but he isn’t looking. “Hi, sir.”
Jack braces an arm on the doorjamb, wondering what in the world she’s doing here.
His surprise and general lack of welcome must show, because her smile falters a bit. “Do you have a minute?” she asks.
His first instinct is to tell her he’s off the clock and send her on her way, because he’s barely seen her outside a briefing room in weeks. He can’t imagine what could be important enough to bring her here. Then again, this is Carter, and it’s not like her to show up without a really good reason.
“Sure,” he finally decides, stepping back to let her pass. “Come on in.”
She walks in, not pausing on the foyer, but heading straight for the family room like she’s done this a zillion times before.
Weird.
Jack closes the door and follows after her. “I thought you were heading off on leave?” Leave she’d actually asked for, for once, miracle of all miracles. Just another part of the new leaf she seems to have turned over since the Anubis and Fifth debacles.
He tells himself yet again that this is a good thing.
“Yeah,” Carter says, looking around the family room, her fingers running along the back of a chair. “I’m all set to go. There’s just a couple of loose ends to tie up first.”
Jack’s eyebrows lift. Loose ends?
She walks up to his fireplace, studying the pictures there.
He waits for her to say something, to get to the point of this visit, but long moments pass in silence. “Uh, Carter?” he says in case she’s somehow forgotten that she’s the one who barged in on what should be his beer and relaxing time.
She doesn’t turn, hands tightening on the edge of mantle, knuckles pressing white.
Now she’s just freaking him the hell out. “Everything okay?” he asks.
“Fifth tortured me,” she says, her voice flat like she’s talking about the weather.
“What?” It’s been three weeks since they finally rescued Carter from her time with Fifth, but this is the first he’s heard of torture. Her reports only talk of captivity, of being trapped. Never anything about torture.
She rubs at the back of her neck. “I always knew he’d be hurt, angry with me, but this was…” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head as if clearing it of a memory. She clears her throat. “When he got tired of trying to break me with pain, he slipped into my mind, whispering lies. He tried to change me into what he wanted. An object for him to possess without a mind of her own.”
Her voice is hoarse, lined with pain, but distorted with something else just underneath that sets Jack’s teeth on edge. He thinks it must be the knowledge that she’d been undergoing all of that for weeks while they unsuccessfully tried to find her.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” he asks, wondering if this is what has been keeping her in her lab, making her put off missions with SG-1. All the time she spent off base. And here he’d just thought she’d finally gotten herself a life.
She shrugs, a sad, hopeless little gesture.
He crosses over to stand behind her. “Carter?” he asks, touching her shoulder.
She turns abruptly, stepping up against him, her face covered by her hands.
Jack freezes a moment in surprise and then tentatively puts his arms around her, one hand rubbing her back. “You got away from him, Carter,” he says. “You made it out.” With very little help from them incidentally.
She nods against his neck, her hands sliding around his back, fingers digging in. “He underestimated me,” she breathes.
Jack frowns, something just the tiniest bit off in her voice.
She pulls back, looking up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. Hell. A crying Carter is something he really sucks at dealing with.
“Hey,” he says, hand moving to cup the back of her neck. “You’re okay.”
She smiles, just the tiniest bit, and the next thing he knows, she’s reaching for his face and moving her lips way too close to his.
“Whoa,” he objects, pulling back. “What’re you doing?”
She doesn’t seem put off, her fingers curling in his lapels. “I would have thought that was obvious,” she says, leaning in to kiss him again.
Jack grabs her shoulders, holding her away. “Look. Obviously you’re upset right now, not thinking clearly…but this isn’t--.”
There’s a flash of something in her eyes, there for only an instant, but almost…vicious?
“Maybe you’re the one not thinking clearly, Jack,” she says, hand trailing down his chest, and now he knows something is wrong.
“Okay,” he says, feeling the hair rising on the back of his neck. “Why don’t we just go back to the base and get you--.”
She moves like quicksilver, twisting his hand up and around in one smooth motion, one way too quick and strong to be countered. Pain radiates down his arm, her violent grip forcing him to his knees. She doesn’t even look winded, or like she’s exerted herself at all, her fingers like steel bars around his wrist.
He looks up at her in surprise, and her lips quirk, her painfully familiar face devoid of any humanity. It’s chilling as hell, and something he’s only seen a handful of times before-when she was possessed by the entity, by Jolinar.
“What are you?” he asks.
She leans in, her face pressed up close to his. “Took you long enough,” she taunts.
Her fingers dance across his forehead before pressing sharply down, agonizing pain dissolving into darkness.
* * *
With a loud groan, Jack wakes in a small silver cube of a room. He squeezes his eyes shut against the glittering light, the pain streaking through his brain. God. He’d really hoped never to experience this again. He can feel the rippled pattern of blocks under his back and swears under his breath. Fucking Replicators. Just when he thought he’d seen the last of those bastards.
Gingerly opening his eyes, he takes quick stock of his body, eyes darting around the room. Other than a headache the size of Chulak, he seems uninjured. The room, on the other hand, is not at all what he expects. Hard metal, yes, but not as nearly as impersonal. It’s set up sort of like a weird museum, various mechanical objects carefully displayed on raised tables. A motorcycle. A naquadah reactor. A model rocket.
The Replicator weapon.
Jack shoves to his feet, not bothering to question what the hell the thing is doing here in the first place. All he knows is that if he’s dealing with Replicators, he sure as hell wants that thing in his hands.
He’s just reaching for it when she shows up.
She appears from the wall itself, melting into place molecule by molecule, and if he’d had any last lingering doubts as to just what she is, they’re long gone now.
The Replicator’s eyes dart to the weapon, her frozen face releasing into a disturbingly human smile. “Do you truly believe that can harm me?”
He doesn’t hesitate, grabbing it and firing. The pulse passes through her as if nothing.
She calmly crosses the room, taking the weapon from him and gently placing it back on the pedestal like a priceless piece of art. “I’ve been at the SGC for three weeks, General, spending all my time studying your little machine. Do you really think I didn’t find a way to make myself immune?”
Jack’s mind is spinning with all of the implications-weapon won’t work, she’s been at the SGC, where the hell is Carter?
“I don’t believe you,” he says, stepping warily back from her. “We would have known. Medical tests alone--.”
“Yes,” she says, lips pressing together in prim disapproval. “I must admit I was a little disappointed just how easy it was. You rely too much on machines.” She advances on him, her fingers skimming his cheek, digging in under his jaw when he tries to jerk back away. “And the rest?” She shakes her head. “Human brains are so…malleable. Especially when I’m showing them exactly what they want to see.”
He moves out of her reach. “Where is Carter?”
The flash of viciousness is back in her steely gaze. “Oh, now you want to know where she is. Six weeks she’s been on this ship, and now you’re worried for her?” Her eyes are hard, reproachful. “She doesn’t need your concern.”
Jack tries to shake the inanity of this machine lecturing him on responsibility, ignoring the way the taunt lodges under his skin. “Where the hell is she?”
The Replicator paces away, reaching out to one of the little critters climbing across the wall. It hops up onto her hand like an eager pet.
“He couldn’t break her,” she says, clearly not interested in answering his actual question. “He couldn’t make her bend to his will, so he made me.” With a flick of her wrist, the creature climbing her arm is sucked slowly down into her skin, small waves rolling up her arm as it sinks below the surface. She holds her hand up, examining it closely as she bends it back and forth. “He gave me this body, thinking to make me weaker. Controllable.” Her hand twists into a fist. “But he only made me stronger.”
With horrific clarity, Jack can imagine how it must have all gone down. Fifth in his clumsy confusion creating something he could never hope to control. Sam Carter with no moral compass or inhibitions.
“He underestimated you,” Jack surmises, remembering her words from his house.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes bright, triumphant. “He did.”
And there is that past tense again. Jack doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he hasn’t seen anything of Fifth up here. “What did you do to him?”
Her hand drops, her back straightening. “I set myself free,” she says, eyes hard and mercenary, and he can’t believe he ever could have mistaken this thing for Carter for even a moment. “And now I will do the same for her.”
Jack really doesn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
She crosses back over the space, her hand trailing along his shoulders as she passes behind him. “She is more brilliant than you could ever comprehend,” she says, voice like an insidious whisper. “You hold her back.”
Jack frowns. “I want to see her.”
He expects a fight, more overblown posturing, but she simply nods. “Of course,” she says, pointing to a small gap that has appeared in one of the glittering walls. “She’s through there.”
Jack takes one hesitant step towards the opening, not sure what her game is.
She smiles, something polite and plastic that goes nowhere near her eyes. “You can have some time to talk to her. I’m not without compassion, after all.”
Jack seriously doubts her compassion, but can’t pass up the chance to set eyes on Carter-the real Carter-even if it is a trap.
He ducks cautiously into the room, his eyes sweeping the cold, hard space-little more than a metal box-finally settling on a form seated against the back wall.
“Carter.”
She glances up at him, but just as quickly away, her knees pulling up into her chest. Her hair is unkempt, the grown out length of it tucked haphazardly behind her ears, revealing skin so pale as to almost appear bruised against the faded blue of her BDUs.
He warily approaches her, not liking the way her eyes are darting around the room as if attempting to look anywhere but at him. She’s started mumbling something under her breath.
He crouches down in front of her, gingerly touching her knee.
Her eyes snap up to his face. “What?” she demands, voice sharp with impatience.
This is pretty much the last reaction he expects. “Carter? You okay?”
“Sure. Of course.” Her lips stretch into an empty smile. “Peachy, even.” She wheezes slightly as if she’s made a joke.
Jack just stares back at her with growing uncertainty.
Carter’s sick amusement rapidly fades as he silently watches her, leaving her looking irritated with his confusion. “Can we just move this along?” she asks, hand flipping impatiently.
He’s going to get whiplash at this rate. “Carter. I don’t know--.”
She pokes him in the chest. “You’re supposed to say you’re here to rescue me,” she informs him.
He blinks. “I am?” He’s fairly certain he’s as trapped here as she is. She’s the one with all the good ideas, not him.
She nods. “Yes. We must stick to script after all,” she says, bitterness lining her words. She turns her head to the side, apparently back to pretending he isn’t here.
“Carter,” he says, beginning to lose his patience. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t,” she says, still not looking at him. “You aren’t real.”
Is that what this is all about? “I am real, Carter.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, her jaw clenching. “You’re never real,” she says, a slight waver in her voice.
That brings him to a stop. What does she mean, never?
“Carter,” he says, grabbing her shoulders, fingers digging in. “I’m really here. She…that whatever she is, she came to my house, stuck her hand in my head.” He scrunches up his forehead. That is really one of the things he’d love to never experience again. “I woke up here.”
She shakes her head, the belligerence replaced with bone deep exhaustion that hurts to see. Six weeks, he reminds himself. That’s how long she’s been here enduring this.
He takes her face carefully in both of his hands. “I swear to God, Carter. I’m really here.”
She meets his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “Just once, I’d like to be weak enough to believe that.”
“Come on, Carter. I really need you to snap out of it. You’re stronger than this.”
“Just once,” she whispers, her fingers curling in the lapels of his jacket. She pulls him down without warning, pressing her lips to his.
He jerks back, fighting to keep his balance. What the hell is up with Carters and kissing him today? “Carter-.”
“God, really?” she bursts out. “Are you going to throw the regulations at me?” She laughs hoarsely, shaking her head. “My subconscious is really sick.”
He has no idea what to say to that.
She drops back against the wall, regarding him soberly, some small thread of analytic Carter still in there. “Or do you think I’m just getting better at deluding myself? The hundredth time she tries to use you against me?”
She leans in, like she’s confessing something. “When you kiss me back…that’s when I know it’s not really you.”
Jack feels something break in him, the despair in her voice mingled so tightly with something like…longing. “Jesus, Carter, what the hell has she done to you?”
She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “Tiny little pieces,” she says. “So she can build me back up. Change me. But I won’t. I won’t let her.” Her fingers dig into her temples. “I won’t. Because none of this is real.”
Jack sighs, realizing convincing her of anything right now is a losing battle. “You’re right, Carter,” he says, patting her on the shoulder as she leans into him. “She isn’t going to win. We won’t let her.”
Her face turns to his neck. “God,” she mumbles, “you even smell like him.”
“Dammit, Carter,” he breathes, glancing around the room. He’s going to have a hard enough time figuring a way out of here without a delusional Carter on his hands saying things he really shouldn’t be hearing.
He feels the feather light touch of her fingers along the collar of his shirt, and when he pulls back to look at her, she’s regarding him with a furrowed brow. “Sir?” she asks, her voice shaking.
Before he can answer, there’s sound behind them, Sam’s face paling at something she sees over his shoulder.
“No,” she says, voice sharp as she shoves hard against Jack, knocking him sideways. She scrambles for the opposite corner of the room, wedging herself in as tight as she can.
“What the hell?” Jack mutters, regaining his balance and looking for whatever set Carter off.
Behind him, the Replicator stands in a newly appeared doorway, a few of her little friends swarming behind her. Jack pushes to his feet, stepping to stand between the Replicator and Carter. “What the hell have you done to her?”
The Replicator smiles. “I told you. I am improving her.” She steps past Jack, easily moving him out of her way. He tries to stop her, but her little pets circle him, forcing him back against the opposite wall with sharp little snaps of electricity.
“No, no, no, no,” Carter chants as the Replicator nears her, her hands firmly covering her ears.
The Replicator stands over her, hands on her hips. “Come now, Sam. Don’t make a scene.”
“Please don’t make me do this,” Carter pleads. “Please.”
The Replicator kneels next to Carter, her fingers caressing her cheek. “Shhh. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
Jack can feel it coming, opening his mouth to shout a warning, but the Replicator has already jammed her fingers into Carter’s forehead. He winces.
After only a few moments, the Replicator pulls her hand back and Carter’s eyes snap open, and here’s that competent, unflappable woman he knows so well. She pushes to her feet, standing tall and almost at attention.
The Replicator hands her a gun that seems to have magically appeared in her hand. “Now just as we practiced,” the Replicator whispers near Carter’s ear. “Just this one last thing and you will be free.”
Carter lifts the weapon, pointing it straight at Jack.
He’s staring back at a machine. In that moment, he has no doubt that she has it in her to kill him, this woman who only moments before was kissing him and crying on his shoulder.
But then her eyes flicker downward slightly, like she’s staring at his shoulders again and he finally gets it. His stars. He’d still been a colonel frozen in the ice when she was taken. Why would her subconscious change that detail?
She’s finally realizing he’s real.
“Please,” she whispers, horror in her eyes.
“Do it!”
Her other hand lifts to support the weapon, but Jack can see the way her arms are shaking, the white pressure of her knuckles as she fights the command. She stares back at him, every tiny thing she’s feeling flashing across her expressive face.
“Sir,” she says.
He lifts his hands out in front of him. “Carter,” he replies, knowing with every fiber of his being that she’s stronger than this.
She closes her eyes, and when they open again, there’s nothing but complete calm. The corner of her mouth lifts in the tiniest smile, and he knows she’s apologizing for something.
He smiles back because no matter what happens, this isn’t her fault and he knows that.
She doesn’t pull the trigger though, instead swinging the weapon wide, stepping across Jack and pointing it at the Replicator.
The Replicator just shakes her head with disappointment. “You can’t hurt me with that.”
“I know,” Carter says. Pulling her arm back in, she tucks the gun tight up under her own chin. “But I can hurt me.”
Jack takes a sharp step towards her. “Carter, no.”
The Replicator appears unimpressed with the threat. “Your death will accomplish nothing. You know I will simply kill him myself after you are gone.”
“Maybe,” Carter says, confidence building in her voice. “But he understands that I’d rather die myself than play your sick games, than spend another day in this hell.”
“If you wish to be free,” the Replicator says, “you know what you must do. The only thing holding you back is yourself.”
“Never going to happen,” Carter bites out.
There’s a flash of something like curiosity or surprise on the Replicator’s face, a ghost of long dead expectations. Her head tilts to the side. “I see I may have miscalculated. Variables will have to be adjusted, scenarios evaluated.”
There’s a shuffle of sound behind Jack, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes off Carter. He hears it first, the soft chimes leading the flash of white light and he lunges forward, wrapping himself around Carter.
He thinks he hears the retort of a gun, but they are already on the bridge of the Prometheus, whole and sound, Carter right there in front of him, solid in his arms. Thank God. Jack lets go of her and spins around to see Ronson in the command chair.
The ship shudders underneath them.
“Fire all weapons,” the colonel commands.
“Now that is what I call perfect timing,” Jack quips, moving to get out of the way as the ship engages the Replicator.
Ronson give him a distracted, fleeting grin. “My pleasure, Jack.” He glances towards the front of the ship, his smile fading.
Carter is still standing where she materialized, gun still in her hand, unaware or uncaring of what is going on around her. She’s staring at everyone around her as if she can’t quite trust her eyes.
“Carter,” Jack says, taking a step towards her as the ship continues to shudder underneath them.
Her eyes latch on to him, the gun lifting.
He lifts his hands. “Carter. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Her shoulders lift with the heaviness of her breathing. “You’ve said that before,” she counters, her voice wavering.
He glances at the gun in her hand, taking another few cautious steps towards her. “I don’t know what she did to you, Carter. What she tried to make you believe. But this is real.”
Her other hand lifts, supporting the gun, her back straightening. “Don’t.”
“You aren’t going to shoot me, Carter,” he says, waving away the guards moving towards them.
“No,” she admits. The gun drops slightly, but he can see it in her eyes, see what alternative she’s considering. “I’ve been saved before. Hundreds of times. And I always end up back there.” She folds the gun back up against her chest, not so much aiming it as cradling it. “Maybe I just want it to all be over.”
Jack feels his heart climbing up into his throat. They did not come all this way just for her to blow herself away the second they are back on friendly ground. “It is over, Carter. I promise.”
“I can’t believe you.” Her fingers tighten.
“Carter--.”
She’s enveloped in a flash of blue, the gun falling unused from her fingers as her body crumples to the floor.
Jack turns to see Teal’c holding a zat, his face deeply troubled, but determined. “She would have harmed herself,” he says, more incomprehension than an attempt at explanation.
Jack kneels down by Carter, sliding the gun away from her limp hand. “Yeah, Teal’c,” he says, brushing her hair back from her face. “I think she might have.”
Ronson finally gets the last shot in on the Replicator ship, the burst of light flashing into the room. The fight was brutal, but the Prometheus had caught the Replicator by surprise. Too wrapped up in her little scenarios, Jack thinks, to even notice the approach of their rescue. And now she and her ship are in pieces.
Tiny little pieces.
Jack’s hand tightens on Carter’s arm.
They’d gotten her back. But would they ever be able to convince her of that?
* * *
Daniel stands at the foot of the infirmary bed, watching Carter. She’s still unconscious, hands and feet bound as a precaution until they can get her back to the SGC. Like she hasn’t already been through enough captivity, Jack ruthlessly thinks.
“How could we not have known?” Daniel asks.
Three weeks her Replicator double had been living with them, and none of them noticed. What does that say about them?
“You never suspected?” Jack forces himself to ask.
Daniel glances at Teal’c. “No. I mean, we’ve barely been on any missions yet, but that was just because Sam seemed so obsessed with studying the Replicator weapon. I figured she was just compensating for her time with Fifth.”
Teal’c nods. “She was driven, focused. But it was not something new.” His jaw flexes, and Jack thinks he’s having just as hard of a time accepting this as the rest of them.
“There was…” Daniel says, trailing off hesitantly as if not sure he really wants to say it.
“What?” Jack prompts.
Daniel sighs. “Well, one time she sort of…snapped at me. But she apologized later, told me she’d been having a hard time at home and didn’t mean to take it out on me. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Carter is generally a nice person, but even she has her days.
“There’d just…” Daniel shakes his head.
“What?” Jack presses.
“There was just something about her eyes, you know?”
Jack shudders remembering the day she came to his house. Took you long enough.
“We have all been adjusting to changes,” Teal’c says.
Jack’s promotion, Carter’s new command of the team, the Antarctica outpost.
Looking at Daniel and Teal’c, Jack doesn’t think either of them take anymore comfort in that than he does.
* * *
They’ve had Carter in the infirmary under close observation for four days now, running each and every test the doctors could even think of. As much for her health as their own peace of mind. There is no way they are letting another Replicator waltz in here under their nose.
Never again.
“Hey, Carter.”
She looks up at him, eyes clear, but mouth tight. “Colonel.” She grimaces. “I mean, General.”
He waves away the mistake. “Takes a while getting used to. Believe me.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t stick, practically melting away before it even makes an appearance.
He steps a bit closer to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she says, her voice cautious.
“Yeah?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying not to look like he doesn’t believe her. “Everything…settling?”
She looks up at him, and try as he might, he just can’t read anything in the look she’s giving him. That is startling enough to put him on edge.
“Is it really necessary to keep me locked up in here?”
“We just need to make sure you aren’t going to…”
“Hurt myself?” she asks.
He winces.
“I was just…confused for a while,” she admits.
“That’s understandable,” he says.
She shifts in the bed, rolling her shoulder like everything around her isn’t quite a good fit. “I just need to see more than this room. Is there any chance I’ll be getting out of here soon?”
He smiles, jabbing a finger over his shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” she says.
Jack beats a retreat, stepping out into the hall where Janet is waiting for him.
“Well?” she asks.
Jack shakes his head. “Honestly? I have no idea.”
Janet sighs. “I know what you mean. I can’t decide if she’s just telling us what we want to hear, or if she’s really beginning to believe that she’s back.”
That’s the problem with someone like Carter, she’s smart enough to manipulate them. “So what next?”
“I’m not sure, sir. We can’t keep her locked up here forever, but I don’t think we can risk letting her be on her own just yet.”
“Yeah,” Jack says, thinking back over his conversations with Daniel and Teal’c. “What do you think about getting her out of here for a few days if we stay with her? Let her see that she’s not trapped? That the world really is out there?”
Janet nods. “That might be a good idea, sir. Just keep a close eye on her. The tiniest thing could set off a psychological break.”
Fresh air and open space and nothing to remind her of metal and mind games. They can watch her, the three of them, and maybe, just maybe she’ll believe it eventually.
* * *
Jack breathes in the cool, fresh air coming off the water. There’s the slightest taste of fall in the air, driving away the humidity and mosquitoes, making the day damn near perfect. Helped, of course, by the fact that Carter is finally here.
She’s quiet in the chair next to him, ignoring the reel by her feet. She’s reminded him of Alice these last few days, like she’s just waiting to wake up from her twisted dream. She’s building to something, has been for a while now, but he just contents himself with sitting in the sun next to her.
After a while, she shifts, her eyes sweeping across the deck. “You still…,” she starts to say, her voice falling flat over the water. She shakes her head. “I didn’t think…”
“Carter?”
She reaches for his hand, her fingers griping tight around his. “You still want this.”
“What?”
Her foot brushes the reel on the dock. “You. Me. This place.”
They are wading into dangerous waters here, but he’s so happy to have her talking about anything at all that he doesn’t care. He squeezes her fingers, his voice quiet. “Did you think I’d stopped?”
She shrugs, a broken gesture that makes his chest ache. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I did.”
He shakes his head. “That’s just not ever gonna happen, Carter.”
She closes her eyes, a tear squeezing out. She bats at it, turning her face away. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he says, touching her face. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
She looks up at him. “More than you know,” she says.
She’s so close now, right there next to him and maybe seeing her here is doing strange things to him, but he just can’t help it. He kisses her. If this is what it takes to convince her…
For a moment she’s stiff against him, and he thinks he’s going to have to apologize for being such a fucking idiot, but then the tension leave her like a rubber band snapping, and she’s kissing him back.
He deliberately keeps the kiss soft and careful, letting them both settle into the sensation, the rightness of it.
“This is real, Sam,” he says, his fingers brushing her cheek.
She smiles, something sad and aching in the gesture. “I wish it was too,” she whispers, her forehead brushing his. “I really do.”
He closes his eyes. Just when he thought maybe there’d been some small progress.
He tries to pull away, but she’s grabbing his arm, her fingers digging in tight. “Where did Teal’c and Daniel go? You brought them too, didn’t you?”
“Of course. They’re just--.” He gestures back at the cabin.
“Just what?” she asks. “Getting groceries? Driving in separately?”
Jesus, she’s getting worse. Maybe they should get her back to the SGC. “Just calm down, Carter. It’s going to be okay.” He reaches for his phone. “I’m just gonna give Janet a call.”
“Jack,” she says, taking his face in her hands, her voice soft like he’s the one losing his mind. “Janet’s dead.”
Jack freezes.
“You know that. You know she’s dead.”
He thinks about it, getting ready to open his mouth and deny it, only…he does know that. But, no. He’d just talked to her, she’d been there when they brought Carter back. She’d been there.
Only Janet is dead. He remembers the funeral. Carter’s face as she read a list of names.
How can both be true?
“How did we get off her ship?” Carter asks.
Jack blinks, his brain trying to keep up. “What?”
“How did we get off the Replicator ship?”
“We got beamed off.” He remembers the tingle of the light, the way he grabbed for her.
“Are you sure?”
Of course he’s sure. Maybe there had also been a sharp retort, a tingle in his spine… The metallic taste of…gunpowder? No, that can’t be right. Cold metal on his skin?
Carter is relentless, not giving him an inch. “How did they beam us off? How did they even find us?”
It’s like grabbing on to smoke. The harder he digs for concrete details, the more it all slips away.
“Jack?” she presses. “How did we get off her ship?”
God, he has no idea.
“Why can’t I remember?” he asks.
Her eyes close, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Because we’re still on the ship, Jack. We’re still here.”
“We never left,” he says, and just like that it’s finally so clear-every tiny inconsistency he’s been so studiously ignoring. But why? Why would he do that?
He glances around the pond, the chairs, the reels, Carter’s fingers firm around his.
You still want this.
God. They’re inside his fantasy.
Everything is falling away now, the water, the trees. Everything translucent and fading, failing by moment.
Even her.
“Carter,” he says as she slides through his fingers like the memory of things that never were.
Her fingers bite into his arm, her face close to his. “Don’t trust her.”
And then she’s gone.
:: Part Two::