Gravity Always Wins in the End (4/6)
Title: Gravity Always Wins in the End
Author: Annerb
Rating: NC-17
Summary: After Sam is held hostage, Jack takes an impromptu trip to Atlantis.
Timeline: SGA Season 4, sometime before ‘Midway’
Categorization: H/C, SG-1/SGA Crossover, Sam/Jack
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Rodney sits at a table partially obscured by a large potted plant, shoveling oatmeal into his mouth without really tasting it. His eyes are intent on Sam, who sits at a small table next to the window, O’Neill across from her.
They aren’t speaking, their heads lowered to their meals, though every once and a while O’Neill adds something to her tray. Rodney watches them with no small amount of annoyance, wondering why Sam doesn’t seem offended by the general’s overbearing behavior.
“Rodney.”
He starts at the unexpected intrusion, his spoon still halfway to his mouth, swearing as oatmeal splatters on the front of his jacket. Looking up, he finds Jennifer and Teyla watching him closely, neither bothering to hide their amusement.
“What are you doing hiding over here?” Jennifer asks, shoving the plant back towards the wall and plopping her breakfast down on the table.
Rodney sighs, dabbing at his front with agitation. “Yes, I’d love some company, thanks for asking.”
Jennifer ignores him and claims one of the vacant chairs, not seeming to care in the slightest that she’s not welcome.
Of their own accord, Rodney’s eyes dart back to Sam, who is now staring out the window with a cup of coffee cradled between her hands.
“Is there a reason you are spying on Colonel Carter?” Teyla asks.
Rodney drags his eyes back to his companions. “I’m not!” he denies.
Teyla just gifts him with one of her patented ‘You cannot fool me, Earthling’ looks. “She will be fine, Rodney.”
“How can you say that?” he sputters. Even Rodney, self-absorbed as he is sometimes, can see she looks terrible. He still remembers the way Sam hadn’t even been remotely interested in his report yesterday.
“Give her time.”
Yeah, because patience has always been Rodney’s strong suit. “Shouldn’t we be…I don’t know, doing something?”
“Like what?” Jennifer asks.
“I don’t know. You’re the doctor!”
“You know I can’t discuss her medical care, Rodney.”
He dismisses her argument with a brisk wave. “It doesn’t take a doctor to notice she’s getting worse, not better.”
“There is nothing we can do but offer her our support and give her time to heal,” Teyla says. Rodney doesn’t think this is the time for new age wisdom.
“I bet it’s his fault,” he grumbles.
Jennifer and Teyla share a look.
“Are you referring to General O’Neill?” Teyla asks.
“It’s weird, right?” Rodney says.
“What?”
“Them,” he says with a jut of his chin towards Sam and O’Neill. “Together.”
Teyla’s lips press into a thin line as if she’s uncomfortable with the direction this conversation has veered in. “They served together for a great deal of time,” she comments diplomatically.
“So what?”
“So…it is not entirely unheard of for close bonds to develop in such situations.”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “We’ve been on the same team now, for what, four years?”
Teyla raises her eyebrows. “Are you saying you have developed feelings for me, Rodney?”
He looks up at her in alarm, but she has that evil gleam in her eye and Jennifer not-so-subtly snorts into her coffee cup.
“Oh, ha ha,” he complains, stirring his oatmeal in agitation and returning his attention to the couple on the other side of the room.
Sam is still staring out the window, but O’Neill is talking to her, his words obscured by the distance between the two tables. She looks undeniably tense, apparently not liking what he’s saying, but then his hand reaches out, fingers brushing along her elbow and she seems to deflate, looking over at O’Neill with something Rodney is hard pressed to define. She sets her cup down though, her own hand briefly meeting O’Neill’s halfway across the table.
Rodney looks away to find he hasn’t been the only one watching the exchange.
“He doesn’t seem her type,” he says, but even he can hear the lack of conviction in his voice.
Jennifer smiles, something insufferably smug in the curve of her lips like she has a juicy secret. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
Teyla shoots her a look of interest, but Jennifer refuses to elaborate, smoothly turning the conversation to Athosian birthing traditions.
If Rodney’s appetite hadn’t already been threatened by his observations of Sam, that change in topic certainly finishes it off.
He sighs, shoving his oatmeal away.
* * *
Ronon has rarely ever met a culture quite as obsessed with briefings and meetings as the Earthers. It’s no wonder Sheppard is constantly complaining about reports and memos. As far as Ronon can tell, nothing on Atlantis can be decided without a committee. He’s heard tales of the Commissary Meals Committee that surpass even the Wraith for nightmarish imagery. Who knew people could care so much about how their potatoes are prepared?
Not that Ronon particularly minds the rare meeting he’s asked to attend, especially since Colonel Carter has made it clear from the beginning that she is actually interested in his opinion as much as anyone’s. Plus, she’s usually pretty good at limiting the useless filler, not to mention keeping McKay from boring them unnecessarily.
Though, in today’s meeting she’s been uncharacteristically quiet. The topic is the Valedin and what little they have managed to learn about them. Even stranger than her inattention is the presence of O’Neill, who has little to no connection to the topic at all.
He’s conspicuous for his civilian Earth clothing and the rather obvious positioning of his chair outside the circle of others around the table, as if trying to make the unofficial nature of his presence as clear as possible. Ronon knows he wouldn’t even be in the meeting without an explicit invitation from Colonel Carter, and that’s enough for him.
Of course, Woolsey often claimed a similar position of non-interference too, which usually lasted just as long as it took for him to seriously disagree with one of her decisions.
Keller started off the meeting earlier with the news that Lorne is improving and has probably escaped any permanent damage at the hands of the Valedin’s experiments. Ronon isn’t sure that’s necessarily the kindness it seems. Being the only survivor has major drawbacks.
For the last twenty minutes it’s been McKay rambling about the vastness of the Valedin territory according to the star charts behind him, and their advanced, but in no way superior to the Ancients, technology. Ronon has been listening to less and less as McKay spirals into more and more complex terminology.
Ronon glances in the colonel’s direction again, as this is usually the point she jumps in, but she still seems pretty much uncaring that McKay is trying to bore them to death. In desperation, Ronon bumps against Sheppard’s elbow, knocking it from the arm of his chair and almost planting the semi-comatose man’s face into the table in front of him.
Sheppard glares at him, but Ronon just gestures at McKay.
Sighing, Sheppard rolls his shoulders and waits for a small break in McKay’s speech. “So what you’re saying,” he interjects quickly when McKay finally takes a breath, “is that the Valedin are formidable, but not unbeatable.”
McKay’s brow creases in annoyance at being interrupted. “If you insist on simplifying it…”
“I do,” Sheppard says, giving McKay his best ‘get on with it’ look.
McKay sighs. “Then yes.”
“So it may be possible to rescue the Yorell children,” Sheppard says, turning to Colonel Carter.
“Assuming there are any left,” Ronon amends. He isn’t quite as ready to be charitable towards the Yorell, blackmail or not. Plus, they all know that by this point, those kids are more than likely dead anyway. “I say we just take out the entire laboratory.”
Colonel Carter’s eyes latch onto him, looking more alert than she has for most of the meeting.
“You’re talking about open war,” she says.
He can’t quite make out her tone, but he doesn’t get the impression she’s really against the idea, all things said. He doesn’t blame her.
“So?” he says with a shrug.
“What, two unstoppable enemies isn’t enough of a challenge for you?” McKay sputters.
“We didn’t start this,” Ronon points out, his finger jabbing at the tabletop. “They did.”
“We can’t make war on these people,” Teyla says, calmly cutting across the argument. “Not without exposing the countless worlds they protect to the Wraith.”
Her voice is firm, even though her expression betrays that the words are bitter to her. Ronon wonders if she is more upset that these people might get away with murder or that they’ve proven to have nothing to do with the Athosian’s disappearance.
“How can you know they actually protect anyone?” Ronon counters.
“We can’t. But if there is even the slightest chance…”
The colonel has been quiet during the exchange, her hands unnaturally still on the table in front of her. Her eyes dart to Sheppard and he shrugs.
“As much as I’d love to burn these people to the ground, Teyla’s right,” he says, gesturing to the star chart. “We can’t protect those people, but the Valedin may be able to.”
Colonel Carter looks away, but not before Ronon catches the spark of anger in her eyes.
“And who’s going to protect them from the Valedin?” Ronon asks.
“We can’t always save everyone,” Sheppard says, sliding him a look akin to a warning.
Ronon shrugs, leaning back in his chair.
“No, we can’t always save everyone,” the colonel repeats, her voice tight. “Do you think there is anything else to be learned from the prisoners?”
Sheppard glances at Ronon. The prisoners had been less than forthcoming during the interrogations. Ronon isn’t completely convinced they actually knew anything of use to begin with. He suspects these particular men are valued more for their brawn than their brains. They probably have no secrets to spill.
“I really doubt it,” Sheppard says with a shrug.
“We’ve gotten all we’re going to get,” Ronon confirms.
Meaning it’s time for the colonel to decide what to do with them once and for all.
Revenge is a seductive thing, he knows. The lure of open war is probably hard for her to deny, but he sees her eyes dart towards the star chart, the decision more or less making itself.
Looking resigned, as if she knows there is only one thing left to do no matter how distasteful she finds it, she flips her file shut. “Fine. The prisoners will be released and we will hold off on any action against the Valedin. For now.”
Her eyes dart to O’Neill as if waiting for disagreement, but the man’s face remains as inscrutable as ever.
“Rodney,” she continues. “Do we have a way to contact the Valedin without giving away our position?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking a bit surprised by the request. “Their ships use subspace for communications, but without an imbedded tag, it’s impossible to trace the source of a transmission.”
She nods along as if any of that actually makes sense. “How long to set that up?”
“I’ll need a few hours,” Rodney says.
“Okay,” she says, pushing up from her chair and signaling the end of the meeting. “Let me know when it’s ready.”
Ronon isn’t the only one watching her closely as she leaves.
* * *
Rodney has set up a cart with salvaged bits of the Valedin ship’s communications systems jerry rigged to a combination of Ancient and Earth technologies. It isn’t pretty, but Sam believes him when he assures her it will work.
“The line is secure?” she asks.
“Yes, completely,” he says. “No way these guys trace it.”
Sam knows Rodney can grate on people, but she’s come to find way more comfort in his overbearing arrogance than she would have suspected. “Open the channel.”
A young Valedin technician appears on the other end. “Ident, please,” he says without looking up at the screen as if he does this a thousand times a day.
“We don’t have one,” Sam says evenly.
The kid looks up in surprise at the sound of her voice, his eyes widening and posture straightening.
“I’m Colonel Carter of Atlantis and I’d like to speak to your leader.”
The kid nods his head a couple of times, his eyes darting to the side. “Sure,” he eventually says, the screen going blank.
“What, no muzak while we’re on hold?” John asks.
Sam manages a wry grin at his attempt to break the tense atmosphere. Her eyes dart to Jack where he stands well off the to side, leaning against a railing. There is a flicker of light on the screen and she turns her attention back to it.
She isn’t ready for Tristis’s face to appear. She really should have been.
He has a way of looking at her as if she’s not quite human, asking his questions with a toneless, bored voice, seemingly uncaring if she gives him any information. Maybe because he takes greater pleasure in her silence.
It’s only then when he tries to loosen her tongue with force that any sort of life takes up residence in his frigid eyes.
She reminds herself that the lash is a tool used only by bullies, by people not quite as certain in their superiority as they claim, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t find any uncertainty in the sharp crack of the leather against her back.
“Samantha, it’s good to see you again,” he says as if she is an old friend and not his victim.
Sam’s hand has tightened on the back of Chuck’s chair and that firm grip is the only thing keeping her from stepping back away as Tristis’s voice grates across her skin. It feels as if every last drop of blood has abandoned her face, her throat closing tightly on any words she might force to the surface.
“You look well,” he continues when she doesn’t answer.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see John send her a look of concern. When she just continues to stare silently, he takes control of the conversation.
“We have some of your men,” John says, casually stepping half in front of Sam as if to shield her from Tristis.
“I see,” he says with a smirk, his eyes not leaving Sam. “I imagine you haven’t found them to be very useful prisoners.” Sam can’t help but think about Tristis’s definition of ‘useful’. “I’m afraid they are of no particular value to me if you are looking for a ransom of some kind.”
“We don’t want anything from you,” John says, his voice going hard. “We’re sending your men to the Yorrel planet. You can retrieve them there.”
Tristis looks suspicious. “And why would you do that?”
“Contrary to your own practices, we don’t murder and torture members of other races,” John snaps, losing a bit of his control.
“How enlightened of you.”
Something in that familiar mocking tone finally breaks Sam’s immobility, shattering the choking hold on her throat, bringing her body back under her control. She steps around John, leaning into the screen.
“One last thing,” she bites out, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. “Tell your leaders…tell them I said this isn’t over. That you had better all pray that we don’t defeat the Wraith anytime soon, because the moment we do…” She pauses, letting the silence draw long between them. “Time’s up.”
There is the tiniest flash of unease on Tristis’s face before he covers it with a leer. “It would be my pleasure to spend more time with you, Samantha.”
The innuendo falls heavily in the room, but Sam refuses to betray even a flicker of distaste. Turning slightly to Rodney, she draws her hand sharply across her throat, and Tristis’s face disappears as he severs communications.
She stands there a moment in the resounding silence, her breath swelling painfully in her chest with everyone’s eyes on her and it’s just too damn much.
“Get those men the hell out of my city, Sheppard,” she orders before striding down the stairs and ducking into the nearest hallway.
She can just make out John’s voice cutting across the heavy silence reigning in the control room. “You heard the Colonel. Dial it up.”
Sam’s not sure she can make it all the way back to her quarters, far too many speculative eyes between here and there and she only has one or two terribly worn threads left holding everything in check.
She barely slips into the safety of her bathroom before the bile climbing her throat refuses to be contained any longer. Falling to her knees, she heaves painfully, every restrained memory and flash of feeling burning its way up her throat.
She’s so busy trying to turn her stomach inside out that she doesn’t register Jack is there until his cool hands are against her neck, pulling her hair back from her face. He gives her a damp cloth and she presses it to her face, collapsing back against the nearest wall.
“Sam,” he says. “Did he…”
“No,” she denies, shaking her head. Tristis may have done many things to her, but there were some lines that not even he crossed.
Jack still looks uncertain and she knows that’s why Tristis made the innuendo in the first place, hoping to leave any last splinter in place. Bastard.
But Jack’s uncertainty has as much to do with her own stubborn refusal to let him in, to give him even the vaguest explanation of what she’d been through. Reading a report isn’t the same.
“He didn’t,” she repeats, reaching for his hand and looking him straight in the eye.
He considers her for a long moment. Nodding his understanding, he slides down the wall next to her in the tiny space.
“I shouldn’t have left you wondering,” she says.
“I know it’s not easy to talk about.”
She shrugs, knowing that’s far from a good excuse. “There was one guard who tried,” she admits after a moment. “That’s how I escaped.”
She can feel the tension in Jack’s shoulder against hers.
“He didn’t get anywhere,” she says. “And I may have ruined any future chances for him to ever again.”
“Good,” Jack says, his tone matching the feral satisfaction that has slipped unconsciously into hers.
“It was Tristis who…,” her voice cracks, the undeniable lava of rage crawling back up her throat. “I wanted to kill him. God, I still do. Not for what he did to me, but because he made me sit there and watch him murder my people right in front of me.”
She looks down at her hands where they tremble with fury against her lap. For the life of her, she can’t make them stop.
“There is this part of me that doesn’t give a damn how many innocent people might be exposed to the Wraith, if only it could the mean the end of these people. And if it had somehow been Tristis down there in the brig…”
“You would have made exactly the same decision you did,” Jack says, his steady hands covering hers.
She closes her eyes against his absolute certainty in her. He hadn’t been there, he hadn’t seen. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because you aren’t like them. You’re smart enough to know your own limits and when to listen to the voices of reason around you. I know it wasn’t easy, but in the end you still decided to protect those people, no matter how much it cost you personally. You decided to let someone less invested do the interrogations. It doesn’t matter what you felt, only what you did.”
She lowers her head to his shoulder and he puts his arm around her. They hold that awkward position in her cramped bathroom for a long time before she finally finds her voice again.
“The Yorrel…,” she says, pulling his free hand between hers, her fingers tracing along his palm. “They live on one of those forest planets, the kind that can steal your breath away with its fall colors. Orange and yellow and fire red. It felt so nice to get off-world again. The village was abnormally quiet, though. That should have been our first clue…”
She speaks until every moment is spilled out, every confession and fear, every injury sustained. He listens quietly the entire time even though she can feel the thrum of barely contained emotions right under his surface. He doesn’t interrupt though, and she’s grateful.
When she’s finally done, heavy silence falling between them, he pushes off the ground, reaching down to pull her up to her feet. He holds her there a moment, his jaw clenched.
“I should have been here,” he says.
It’s a ridiculous statement, but it’s one she understands. She knows well enough that it has nothing to do with a lack of faith in her abilities. They’ve spent a decade looking out for each other and that protectiveness hadn’t stopped when it ceased to be his job. But he also knows that their lives are based on uncertainty and have been for as long as they’ve known each other.
“There’s no way you could have known this was going to happen, Jack,” she says. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
He nods, reaching out to touch her face. “Neither could you.”
She instinctually flinches, wanting to pull back from what he’s trying to tell her, the way he’s twisting her own words back at her, but his thumb is firm under her chin and she’s stuck holding his gaze.
It wasn’t your fault.
Feeling the rise of tears she doesn’t have the strength to fight, she leans into him.
“I’m exhausted,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” he says, his hand dropping down to her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Come on.”
Somehow he manages to maneuver her to the bed and she slips under the sheets, feels him climb in behind her, his body curling safely around hers. His chest is warm and solid against her back, one of his hands draped over her hip and she feels her body finally surrendering, tension leaking away.
“I didn’t think you were really here that first night,” she says, her voice low and thick with fatigue. “I was pretty sure I had finally lost it completely.”
They both know she never would have asked him to come.
“Sleep,” he says, his lips warm against the back of her neck.
She closes her eyes.
Day Five
Author: Annerb
Rating: NC-17
Summary: After Sam is held hostage, Jack takes an impromptu trip to Atlantis.
Timeline: SGA Season 4, sometime before ‘Midway’
Categorization: H/C, SG-1/SGA Crossover, Sam/Jack
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Rodney sits at a table partially obscured by a large potted plant, shoveling oatmeal into his mouth without really tasting it. His eyes are intent on Sam, who sits at a small table next to the window, O’Neill across from her.
They aren’t speaking, their heads lowered to their meals, though every once and a while O’Neill adds something to her tray. Rodney watches them with no small amount of annoyance, wondering why Sam doesn’t seem offended by the general’s overbearing behavior.
“Rodney.”
He starts at the unexpected intrusion, his spoon still halfway to his mouth, swearing as oatmeal splatters on the front of his jacket. Looking up, he finds Jennifer and Teyla watching him closely, neither bothering to hide their amusement.
“What are you doing hiding over here?” Jennifer asks, shoving the plant back towards the wall and plopping her breakfast down on the table.
Rodney sighs, dabbing at his front with agitation. “Yes, I’d love some company, thanks for asking.”
Jennifer ignores him and claims one of the vacant chairs, not seeming to care in the slightest that she’s not welcome.
Of their own accord, Rodney’s eyes dart back to Sam, who is now staring out the window with a cup of coffee cradled between her hands.
“Is there a reason you are spying on Colonel Carter?” Teyla asks.
Rodney drags his eyes back to his companions. “I’m not!” he denies.
Teyla just gifts him with one of her patented ‘You cannot fool me, Earthling’ looks. “She will be fine, Rodney.”
“How can you say that?” he sputters. Even Rodney, self-absorbed as he is sometimes, can see she looks terrible. He still remembers the way Sam hadn’t even been remotely interested in his report yesterday.
“Give her time.”
Yeah, because patience has always been Rodney’s strong suit. “Shouldn’t we be…I don’t know, doing something?”
“Like what?” Jennifer asks.
“I don’t know. You’re the doctor!”
“You know I can’t discuss her medical care, Rodney.”
He dismisses her argument with a brisk wave. “It doesn’t take a doctor to notice she’s getting worse, not better.”
“There is nothing we can do but offer her our support and give her time to heal,” Teyla says. Rodney doesn’t think this is the time for new age wisdom.
“I bet it’s his fault,” he grumbles.
Jennifer and Teyla share a look.
“Are you referring to General O’Neill?” Teyla asks.
“It’s weird, right?” Rodney says.
“What?”
“Them,” he says with a jut of his chin towards Sam and O’Neill. “Together.”
Teyla’s lips press into a thin line as if she’s uncomfortable with the direction this conversation has veered in. “They served together for a great deal of time,” she comments diplomatically.
“So what?”
“So…it is not entirely unheard of for close bonds to develop in such situations.”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “We’ve been on the same team now, for what, four years?”
Teyla raises her eyebrows. “Are you saying you have developed feelings for me, Rodney?”
He looks up at her in alarm, but she has that evil gleam in her eye and Jennifer not-so-subtly snorts into her coffee cup.
“Oh, ha ha,” he complains, stirring his oatmeal in agitation and returning his attention to the couple on the other side of the room.
Sam is still staring out the window, but O’Neill is talking to her, his words obscured by the distance between the two tables. She looks undeniably tense, apparently not liking what he’s saying, but then his hand reaches out, fingers brushing along her elbow and she seems to deflate, looking over at O’Neill with something Rodney is hard pressed to define. She sets her cup down though, her own hand briefly meeting O’Neill’s halfway across the table.
Rodney looks away to find he hasn’t been the only one watching the exchange.
“He doesn’t seem her type,” he says, but even he can hear the lack of conviction in his voice.
Jennifer smiles, something insufferably smug in the curve of her lips like she has a juicy secret. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
Teyla shoots her a look of interest, but Jennifer refuses to elaborate, smoothly turning the conversation to Athosian birthing traditions.
If Rodney’s appetite hadn’t already been threatened by his observations of Sam, that change in topic certainly finishes it off.
He sighs, shoving his oatmeal away.
* * *
Ronon has rarely ever met a culture quite as obsessed with briefings and meetings as the Earthers. It’s no wonder Sheppard is constantly complaining about reports and memos. As far as Ronon can tell, nothing on Atlantis can be decided without a committee. He’s heard tales of the Commissary Meals Committee that surpass even the Wraith for nightmarish imagery. Who knew people could care so much about how their potatoes are prepared?
Not that Ronon particularly minds the rare meeting he’s asked to attend, especially since Colonel Carter has made it clear from the beginning that she is actually interested in his opinion as much as anyone’s. Plus, she’s usually pretty good at limiting the useless filler, not to mention keeping McKay from boring them unnecessarily.
Though, in today’s meeting she’s been uncharacteristically quiet. The topic is the Valedin and what little they have managed to learn about them. Even stranger than her inattention is the presence of O’Neill, who has little to no connection to the topic at all.
He’s conspicuous for his civilian Earth clothing and the rather obvious positioning of his chair outside the circle of others around the table, as if trying to make the unofficial nature of his presence as clear as possible. Ronon knows he wouldn’t even be in the meeting without an explicit invitation from Colonel Carter, and that’s enough for him.
Of course, Woolsey often claimed a similar position of non-interference too, which usually lasted just as long as it took for him to seriously disagree with one of her decisions.
Keller started off the meeting earlier with the news that Lorne is improving and has probably escaped any permanent damage at the hands of the Valedin’s experiments. Ronon isn’t sure that’s necessarily the kindness it seems. Being the only survivor has major drawbacks.
For the last twenty minutes it’s been McKay rambling about the vastness of the Valedin territory according to the star charts behind him, and their advanced, but in no way superior to the Ancients, technology. Ronon has been listening to less and less as McKay spirals into more and more complex terminology.
Ronon glances in the colonel’s direction again, as this is usually the point she jumps in, but she still seems pretty much uncaring that McKay is trying to bore them to death. In desperation, Ronon bumps against Sheppard’s elbow, knocking it from the arm of his chair and almost planting the semi-comatose man’s face into the table in front of him.
Sheppard glares at him, but Ronon just gestures at McKay.
Sighing, Sheppard rolls his shoulders and waits for a small break in McKay’s speech. “So what you’re saying,” he interjects quickly when McKay finally takes a breath, “is that the Valedin are formidable, but not unbeatable.”
McKay’s brow creases in annoyance at being interrupted. “If you insist on simplifying it…”
“I do,” Sheppard says, giving McKay his best ‘get on with it’ look.
McKay sighs. “Then yes.”
“So it may be possible to rescue the Yorell children,” Sheppard says, turning to Colonel Carter.
“Assuming there are any left,” Ronon amends. He isn’t quite as ready to be charitable towards the Yorell, blackmail or not. Plus, they all know that by this point, those kids are more than likely dead anyway. “I say we just take out the entire laboratory.”
Colonel Carter’s eyes latch onto him, looking more alert than she has for most of the meeting.
“You’re talking about open war,” she says.
He can’t quite make out her tone, but he doesn’t get the impression she’s really against the idea, all things said. He doesn’t blame her.
“So?” he says with a shrug.
“What, two unstoppable enemies isn’t enough of a challenge for you?” McKay sputters.
“We didn’t start this,” Ronon points out, his finger jabbing at the tabletop. “They did.”
“We can’t make war on these people,” Teyla says, calmly cutting across the argument. “Not without exposing the countless worlds they protect to the Wraith.”
Her voice is firm, even though her expression betrays that the words are bitter to her. Ronon wonders if she is more upset that these people might get away with murder or that they’ve proven to have nothing to do with the Athosian’s disappearance.
“How can you know they actually protect anyone?” Ronon counters.
“We can’t. But if there is even the slightest chance…”
The colonel has been quiet during the exchange, her hands unnaturally still on the table in front of her. Her eyes dart to Sheppard and he shrugs.
“As much as I’d love to burn these people to the ground, Teyla’s right,” he says, gesturing to the star chart. “We can’t protect those people, but the Valedin may be able to.”
Colonel Carter looks away, but not before Ronon catches the spark of anger in her eyes.
“And who’s going to protect them from the Valedin?” Ronon asks.
“We can’t always save everyone,” Sheppard says, sliding him a look akin to a warning.
Ronon shrugs, leaning back in his chair.
“No, we can’t always save everyone,” the colonel repeats, her voice tight. “Do you think there is anything else to be learned from the prisoners?”
Sheppard glances at Ronon. The prisoners had been less than forthcoming during the interrogations. Ronon isn’t completely convinced they actually knew anything of use to begin with. He suspects these particular men are valued more for their brawn than their brains. They probably have no secrets to spill.
“I really doubt it,” Sheppard says with a shrug.
“We’ve gotten all we’re going to get,” Ronon confirms.
Meaning it’s time for the colonel to decide what to do with them once and for all.
Revenge is a seductive thing, he knows. The lure of open war is probably hard for her to deny, but he sees her eyes dart towards the star chart, the decision more or less making itself.
Looking resigned, as if she knows there is only one thing left to do no matter how distasteful she finds it, she flips her file shut. “Fine. The prisoners will be released and we will hold off on any action against the Valedin. For now.”
Her eyes dart to O’Neill as if waiting for disagreement, but the man’s face remains as inscrutable as ever.
“Rodney,” she continues. “Do we have a way to contact the Valedin without giving away our position?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking a bit surprised by the request. “Their ships use subspace for communications, but without an imbedded tag, it’s impossible to trace the source of a transmission.”
She nods along as if any of that actually makes sense. “How long to set that up?”
“I’ll need a few hours,” Rodney says.
“Okay,” she says, pushing up from her chair and signaling the end of the meeting. “Let me know when it’s ready.”
Ronon isn’t the only one watching her closely as she leaves.
* * *
Rodney has set up a cart with salvaged bits of the Valedin ship’s communications systems jerry rigged to a combination of Ancient and Earth technologies. It isn’t pretty, but Sam believes him when he assures her it will work.
“The line is secure?” she asks.
“Yes, completely,” he says. “No way these guys trace it.”
Sam knows Rodney can grate on people, but she’s come to find way more comfort in his overbearing arrogance than she would have suspected. “Open the channel.”
A young Valedin technician appears on the other end. “Ident, please,” he says without looking up at the screen as if he does this a thousand times a day.
“We don’t have one,” Sam says evenly.
The kid looks up in surprise at the sound of her voice, his eyes widening and posture straightening.
“I’m Colonel Carter of Atlantis and I’d like to speak to your leader.”
The kid nods his head a couple of times, his eyes darting to the side. “Sure,” he eventually says, the screen going blank.
“What, no muzak while we’re on hold?” John asks.
Sam manages a wry grin at his attempt to break the tense atmosphere. Her eyes dart to Jack where he stands well off the to side, leaning against a railing. There is a flicker of light on the screen and she turns her attention back to it.
She isn’t ready for Tristis’s face to appear. She really should have been.
He has a way of looking at her as if she’s not quite human, asking his questions with a toneless, bored voice, seemingly uncaring if she gives him any information. Maybe because he takes greater pleasure in her silence.
It’s only then when he tries to loosen her tongue with force that any sort of life takes up residence in his frigid eyes.
She reminds herself that the lash is a tool used only by bullies, by people not quite as certain in their superiority as they claim, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t find any uncertainty in the sharp crack of the leather against her back.
“Samantha, it’s good to see you again,” he says as if she is an old friend and not his victim.
Sam’s hand has tightened on the back of Chuck’s chair and that firm grip is the only thing keeping her from stepping back away as Tristis’s voice grates across her skin. It feels as if every last drop of blood has abandoned her face, her throat closing tightly on any words she might force to the surface.
“You look well,” he continues when she doesn’t answer.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see John send her a look of concern. When she just continues to stare silently, he takes control of the conversation.
“We have some of your men,” John says, casually stepping half in front of Sam as if to shield her from Tristis.
“I see,” he says with a smirk, his eyes not leaving Sam. “I imagine you haven’t found them to be very useful prisoners.” Sam can’t help but think about Tristis’s definition of ‘useful’. “I’m afraid they are of no particular value to me if you are looking for a ransom of some kind.”
“We don’t want anything from you,” John says, his voice going hard. “We’re sending your men to the Yorrel planet. You can retrieve them there.”
Tristis looks suspicious. “And why would you do that?”
“Contrary to your own practices, we don’t murder and torture members of other races,” John snaps, losing a bit of his control.
“How enlightened of you.”
Something in that familiar mocking tone finally breaks Sam’s immobility, shattering the choking hold on her throat, bringing her body back under her control. She steps around John, leaning into the screen.
“One last thing,” she bites out, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. “Tell your leaders…tell them I said this isn’t over. That you had better all pray that we don’t defeat the Wraith anytime soon, because the moment we do…” She pauses, letting the silence draw long between them. “Time’s up.”
There is the tiniest flash of unease on Tristis’s face before he covers it with a leer. “It would be my pleasure to spend more time with you, Samantha.”
The innuendo falls heavily in the room, but Sam refuses to betray even a flicker of distaste. Turning slightly to Rodney, she draws her hand sharply across her throat, and Tristis’s face disappears as he severs communications.
She stands there a moment in the resounding silence, her breath swelling painfully in her chest with everyone’s eyes on her and it’s just too damn much.
“Get those men the hell out of my city, Sheppard,” she orders before striding down the stairs and ducking into the nearest hallway.
She can just make out John’s voice cutting across the heavy silence reigning in the control room. “You heard the Colonel. Dial it up.”
Sam’s not sure she can make it all the way back to her quarters, far too many speculative eyes between here and there and she only has one or two terribly worn threads left holding everything in check.
She barely slips into the safety of her bathroom before the bile climbing her throat refuses to be contained any longer. Falling to her knees, she heaves painfully, every restrained memory and flash of feeling burning its way up her throat.
She’s so busy trying to turn her stomach inside out that she doesn’t register Jack is there until his cool hands are against her neck, pulling her hair back from her face. He gives her a damp cloth and she presses it to her face, collapsing back against the nearest wall.
“Sam,” he says. “Did he…”
“No,” she denies, shaking her head. Tristis may have done many things to her, but there were some lines that not even he crossed.
Jack still looks uncertain and she knows that’s why Tristis made the innuendo in the first place, hoping to leave any last splinter in place. Bastard.
But Jack’s uncertainty has as much to do with her own stubborn refusal to let him in, to give him even the vaguest explanation of what she’d been through. Reading a report isn’t the same.
“He didn’t,” she repeats, reaching for his hand and looking him straight in the eye.
He considers her for a long moment. Nodding his understanding, he slides down the wall next to her in the tiny space.
“I shouldn’t have left you wondering,” she says.
“I know it’s not easy to talk about.”
She shrugs, knowing that’s far from a good excuse. “There was one guard who tried,” she admits after a moment. “That’s how I escaped.”
She can feel the tension in Jack’s shoulder against hers.
“He didn’t get anywhere,” she says. “And I may have ruined any future chances for him to ever again.”
“Good,” Jack says, his tone matching the feral satisfaction that has slipped unconsciously into hers.
“It was Tristis who…,” her voice cracks, the undeniable lava of rage crawling back up her throat. “I wanted to kill him. God, I still do. Not for what he did to me, but because he made me sit there and watch him murder my people right in front of me.”
She looks down at her hands where they tremble with fury against her lap. For the life of her, she can’t make them stop.
“There is this part of me that doesn’t give a damn how many innocent people might be exposed to the Wraith, if only it could the mean the end of these people. And if it had somehow been Tristis down there in the brig…”
“You would have made exactly the same decision you did,” Jack says, his steady hands covering hers.
She closes her eyes against his absolute certainty in her. He hadn’t been there, he hadn’t seen. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because you aren’t like them. You’re smart enough to know your own limits and when to listen to the voices of reason around you. I know it wasn’t easy, but in the end you still decided to protect those people, no matter how much it cost you personally. You decided to let someone less invested do the interrogations. It doesn’t matter what you felt, only what you did.”
She lowers her head to his shoulder and he puts his arm around her. They hold that awkward position in her cramped bathroom for a long time before she finally finds her voice again.
“The Yorrel…,” she says, pulling his free hand between hers, her fingers tracing along his palm. “They live on one of those forest planets, the kind that can steal your breath away with its fall colors. Orange and yellow and fire red. It felt so nice to get off-world again. The village was abnormally quiet, though. That should have been our first clue…”
She speaks until every moment is spilled out, every confession and fear, every injury sustained. He listens quietly the entire time even though she can feel the thrum of barely contained emotions right under his surface. He doesn’t interrupt though, and she’s grateful.
When she’s finally done, heavy silence falling between them, he pushes off the ground, reaching down to pull her up to her feet. He holds her there a moment, his jaw clenched.
“I should have been here,” he says.
It’s a ridiculous statement, but it’s one she understands. She knows well enough that it has nothing to do with a lack of faith in her abilities. They’ve spent a decade looking out for each other and that protectiveness hadn’t stopped when it ceased to be his job. But he also knows that their lives are based on uncertainty and have been for as long as they’ve known each other.
“There’s no way you could have known this was going to happen, Jack,” she says. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
He nods, reaching out to touch her face. “Neither could you.”
She instinctually flinches, wanting to pull back from what he’s trying to tell her, the way he’s twisting her own words back at her, but his thumb is firm under her chin and she’s stuck holding his gaze.
It wasn’t your fault.
Feeling the rise of tears she doesn’t have the strength to fight, she leans into him.
“I’m exhausted,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” he says, his hand dropping down to her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Come on.”
Somehow he manages to maneuver her to the bed and she slips under the sheets, feels him climb in behind her, his body curling safely around hers. His chest is warm and solid against her back, one of his hands draped over her hip and she feels her body finally surrendering, tension leaking away.
“I didn’t think you were really here that first night,” she says, her voice low and thick with fatigue. “I was pretty sure I had finally lost it completely.”
They both know she never would have asked him to come.
“Sleep,” he says, his lips warm against the back of her neck.
She closes her eyes.
Day Five