Gravity Always Wins in the End, complete.
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
A/N: There is a PG-13 version of this fic available on ffnet here.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Jack wakes to find Sam still asleep next to him, her back illuminated by the creep of early morning light. They’d climbed into bed well before sunset and her sleep had only been disturbed two or three times from anything resembling a nightmare. Leaning up slightly, he confirms that they’ve now been cocooned in this bed for over twelve hours. Clearly they both needed the rest.
He settles back against his pillow, watching the gentle rise and fall of her back with each steady breath.
Whatever miracle drug Keller has been using is working. It’s only been five days and the gashes visible around the edge of her tank top are now little more than pink lines of new skin crisscrossing each other.
He still doubts they will ever fade completely.
He’s not sure whether knowing how and when she received each of those marks makes it any easier to see. It had taken all of his restraint to sit calmly by and listen to her recite each and every horrifying thing he hadn’t been able to keep her safe from, things he never could have prepared her for. It doesn’t matter that she is one of the strongest, most capable people he knows, or that her people have proven to be eccentric, but fiercely loyal.
The sun is well into the sky by the time she shifts, her face pressing into the pillow as she slowly climbs to wakefulness. She turns to him, her eyes opening slowly as she blinks against the light.
“Good morning,” she says, tucking one hand up under her cheek, her voice rough with sleep.
“Good morning,” he echoes.
He can see her taking in his obviously wakeful state, her eyes scrunching up slightly. “Exactly how long have you been lying there staring at me?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “A while.”
She lifts an eyebrow at him, obviously not expecting him to fess up so easily. “You should have woken me up.”
“Nah,” he says, forcibly keeping his eyes from moving to the marks on her back. “You needed the sleep.”
She glances back at the window and the bright sunlight streaming in. “Do I even want to know how late it is?”
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks, tensing a bit despite himself. He’s still waiting for a sign that she’s going to retreat from last night’s honesty, to jump out of bed and get back to work. He tells himself not to take it personally when she does.
Rolling back to look at him, she slides closer and wraps an arm across his stomach. “No. Nothing but a meeting later this afternoon.”
“Fun.”
Something of his thoughts must have leaked into his voice because she hefts up on her elbow, peering down at him. “What?”
“Nothin’,” he automatically says, knowing it probably isn’t wise to point out that this is usually right about when she suddenly remembers she needs to be elsewhere.
She’s always been too smart for her own good though, and he can see the guilt flash across her face as she understands what it is he’s not saying.
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her waist and tugging until she finally allows him pull her closer. “None of that.”
They’d promised long ago that job guilt would not be a part of this relationship.
Her hair falls partially in his face as she settles against his chest, her legs tangling with his. He tugs playfully at the offending strand. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that,” he says, twining it between his fingers. “Not that it isn’t incredibly hot.”
She rolls her eyes at him, a small smile tugging at her lips and he’s about to claim victory on the cheer-up-Sam front when she reaches for his face, her own serious once more.
“I am sorry,” she says.
He begins to protest, but she takes advantage of the moment to lean in and kiss him. Her mouth is warm and lazy on his and lacks any of the desperation from previous nights. He thinks this is the way they should wake up every morning. You know, if they lived in the same galaxy.
He winds his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer. “You’re just trying to distract me,” he accuses.
He feels her lips curve into a smile against his jaw. “Is it working?”
He’s about to prove exactly how much it’s working when her stomach very loudly announces its displeasure. Sure, now she wants to eat. For the moment, he forces himself to take that as a good sign.
He looks up at her with one eyebrow lifted and she bites her lip. “Hold that thought?”
“I knew there was a reason I should keep some MREs in here for emergencies.”
“Thank goodness we are not quite that desperate,” he says with a grimace. MREs were definitely high on his list of things he does not miss about missions. But certainly lower than not being able to wake up and make out with Sam. He might have to put that at number one.
“I suppose just staying in bed all day might be a bit overly indulgent,” she says, pressing her face against his neck.
“Clothes, Carter,” he grumbles, trying to push her away, only to be thwarted by his own reluctance. “Unless you’d like to go to the commissary dressed like that.”
“Wouldn’t that do wonders for my reputation,” she mumbles as she finally rolls away and sits up on the edge of the bed with a stretch.
He gets stuck unabashedly watching the play of muscle under her skin as she moves, which ensures that he’s still paying attention when her posture changes, as if something heavy is pressing down on her.
“Sam?”
She glances back over her shoulder self-consciously. “I’m thinking I should probably go see Lorne this morning and I’m really not looking forward to it.”
“Yeah,” he says, climbing over the bed to sit next to her.
“I’m just not sure what to say.”
What do you say to someone who has lost their entire team? It’s a loss neither of them can even begin to understand; though there have been moments here and there that Jack really doesn’t like to think about. There’s just nothing to say to fix something like that.
“Maybe it’s not really about what you say,” he observes with a shrug. “Maybe it’s just about showing up.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she says, looking down at her hands.
“Come on,” Jack says, pressing a kiss to her hairline. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”
She gives him a small smile and lets him pull her to her feet.
* * *
Evan is reacquainting himself with his quarters when a soft chime alerts him to a visitor. It takes him a moment to even place the sound. It’s been that long since he’s stood here in this space with normal thoughts in his head.
Keller had only this morning finally agreed to let him out of the infirmary, worry still lining her eyes. He’s not used to someone looking at him as anything more than a specimen.
The door chimes again and he tries to shake free of the fog in his head. He swipes his hand across the sensor and the door pulls back to reveal a slightly nervous looking Colonel Carter. Her face is still tinged with yellow from a fading bruise he doesn’t remember her receiving, a data pad clutched in her pale fingers.
Part of him has been waiting for her to show up ever since that day he watched her caught in a flashback, knowing the mere sight of him had been enough to trigger it. To be honest, he hasn’t been too eager to see her either since they returned.
He thinks sometimes he might be able to forget if he just never had to look at her again. But neither of them are the kind of people to hold onto such delusional ideas for long.
Stepping back from the door, he waves for her to come in. She follows him in and he gestures towards a chair, sitting down on the edge of his bed himself. She doesn’t take the offered chair, instead shifting slightly from foot to foot.
“How are you?” she asks.
He just looks up at her and she grimaces.
“Right. Dumb question.” She takes another few steps into the room, turning around as if taking it in, but he knows she’s just giving herself time to collect herself.
He waits.
“I keep thinking I should have been able to escape earlier,” she says when her face is still mostly turned away from him. “I should have found a way to get all of us out of there.”
The gaping hole left behind by his team is something Evan can’t even think of yet, too much grief to even process. The small part of him that may be a little pissed at the colonel for saving him, making him live with this, keeps him from absolving her of something he knows only too well isn’t her fault.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Of all the people here, he’s the one who’s had the chance to see her in action during those glory days of SG-1. He’d been at the SGC, heard the way people spoke her name. Had his own ass saved by her along with everyone else more times than he could count.
He still hadn’t been ready to see her in that cage though. To see Tristis take a lash to her back time after time asking for gate addresses and defenses and technology. The way her face hadn’t given anything away, her mouth stubbornly shut, never releasing anything more than a heavy grunt or the odd angry tear.
How the closest she ever got to breaking was when she plead for their lives, not her own.
Every inch of pride gone, she’d been on her knees. “Please,” she said. “Let them go.”
Tristis ran the handle of the lash under her chin, in sick mockery of tenderness. “All you have to do is give me the address,” he said so softly Evan almost couldn’t hear him.
He watched her consider it for a fraction of a second before turning her face away. Tristis hadn’t left her cell that day until he finally managed to make her scream.
Evan doesn’t understand what she’s asking of him today, standing there apologizing.
“You saved my life,” is all he can think to say, half fact, half accusation.
“Maybe,” she says with a shrug as if it doesn’t bear discussing. She finally turns to face him fully, her voice turning brisk and business-like. “If you feel up to it, we’re having a briefing on what Rodney’s managed to get from the ship this afternoon. If not, I definitely understand.”
He’s not so much listening to her words anymore as watching the way she won’t quite meet his eyes as she talks. It’s only then he realizes that she’s ashamed of what he saw her do, what he saw her almost do.
Apparently having said what she came to say, she’s walking out of the room.
“Colonel,” he calls out.
That last night, having already watched every one of his men die, he was thinking he was going to have to watch something horrific on a whole new level. He thought he’d been hallucinating when she’d first taken that guard down, but knew he never could have conjured that look on her face.
She’s staring at him now, or just past him, having turned back at his call, but he’s having a hard time thinking of a single thing to say to her. She moves to leave again and he speaks without thinking.
“You didn’t let them break you.”
It’s not really what he wants to say, not enough to explain that he knows perfectly well who the monsters in this scenario are. It was never her. He can’t find the words for that, but maybe she hears it anyway because she pauses, the only sign of her unease the clenching of her hands around her data pad, even now refusing to give too much away. After a long moment, she finally lifts her eyes to his, holding his gaze.
“Okay,” she says.
She turns and walks out.
* * *
The meeting room is once again filled with the usual suspects, Sheppard and Ronon lounging on one side, Keller, Teyla, and Lorne on the other while Rodney paces around in front of a large chart. Jack is also here again, at her request. Maybe not completely appropriate, but it’s an impulse Sam hasn’t bothered to deny. Like last time, he’s dragged his chair about as far out of the way as possible without actually leaving the room.
If Sam had somehow hoped he would keep her from making any crappy decisions, she knows now she’d miscalculated. That isn’t why he’s here. Not that willingly listening to Rodney ramble doesn’t say a lot about his willingness to be supportive.
Jack lifts an eyebrow at her and it’s only then she realizes she’s been staring. She gives him a small smile and drops her face to the folder in front of her, forcing herself to zero back in on Rodney’s words. He’s been talking about the recovered files the linguists finally managed to translate, most proving what Sam already suspected: the ship she’d stolen had indeed been a medical transport.
In addition, the files have confirmed Keller’s hypothesis as to the nature of the experiments being run by the Valedin. They are definitely trying to create an immunity to the Wraith. The subject is not particular pleasant for Sam to listen to, but more than anything, it’s Rodney’s increasingly excited tone as he discusses the research in detail that originally derailed her attention. Something about the curious gleam in his eye makes her especially aware of Lorne only two seats down and the burning sensation low in her stomach.
“The potential in this research is clear,” Rodney is saying. “It’s ground breaking, really. There are even carefully documented files for hundreds of subjects…”
Sam bites down on the inside of her lip. He seems to have forgotten he is talking about people, not Petri dishes.
The abnormally loud slap of someone snapping a folder shut causes Rodney to stumble in his recital. Everyone turns to look at Keller, her hands still spread across the folder in front of her.
“We can’t use this research,” she announces, shoving the file away from her as if something contaminated.
Oh, thank God, Sam thinks, her fingers tightening on the papers in front of her.
“Are you crazy?” Rodney exclaims.
Keller turns in her chair to look at him. “In case you’ve somehow managed to forget, may I remind you that they used thousands of innocent people like lab rats to get this information?”
Rodney doesn’t seem particularly fussed by that fact. “What, so we should just throw it away and let thousands more innocent people get added to the all you can eat Wraith buffet instead?”
He’s looking around the room for support, but Sam makes no attempt to stifle the unfolding discussion.
“Using this makes us no better than them,” Teyla observes from next to Keller. “No matter our intentions.”
“Hey, morality is great,” Ronon says, “but it doesn’t keep the Wraith from killing you. Trust me.”
“Exactly,” Rodney agrees, dropping into the empty seat next to Ronon. “We can use this information to get rid of the Wraith once and for all, and then deal with the Valedins.”
“And the people they killed?” Keller asks. “What about them?”
Rodney winces, but continues unapologetically forward. “Well, excuse me for saying this, but they’re already dead. There’s not much we can do for them.”
“If it had been you in that cell, McKay, I think you’d feel differently.”
It’s the first Lorne has spoken since this briefing began and everyone falls silent, Rodney shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“What do you believe we should do, Evan?” Teyla asks.
He glances quickly in Sam’s direction, maybe looking for some signal from her, but she just stares back, needing to hear what he has to say more than anyone. They had been his men, his team. As far as she’s concerned, his opinion on this matters more than anyone else’s.
“It’s not like it was science,” Lorne eventually says, his voice tight. “It was torture. But throwing it all away…does that mean they died for nothing?”
He looks around the table, everyone’s eyes dropping away from his gaze, only Keller answering.
“I don’t know,” she admits.
“Colonel,” Lorne says, everyone’s attention coming to rest on Sam. “What do you think?”
All of Lorne’s earlier ambiguousness is gone as he looks at her, leaving only a painful sort of implicit trust that doesn’t grate the way she thinks it should. Instead she feels a strange certainty slide down her spine, something indefinable easing inside her.
In that moment, she knows exactly what needs to be done.
“I think I’m more worried about you right now, Major, than our hypothetical morality.”
She can see his shoulders straighten, as if to counter any accusation of weakness on his part. “Me? I’m fine.”
He is far from fine, she knows. She wonders if that is how she’s sounded these last few days, running around with a smile plastered on her face and “I’m fine!” never far from her lips.
“What I mean,” she clarifies, “is that I can’t protect you if this makes it back to Earth.”
She can’t stop the IOA or some other rogue interest from turning him into a science experiment in the name of the better good if any of this ever makes it into an official report. She sees understanding ripple through the room, every eye moving to Jack. The outsider.
“General?” Sam asks.
He meets her eyes across the room. They both know her use of his rank is no accident.
Jack’s posture doesn’t change, still slouched back in his chair as if supremely indifferent to the conversation. “As far as I’m concerned, Colonel, this is your call. It’s not really any of the IOA’s business,” he says, lazily pushing to his feet. “Or mine.”
She watches him leave the room, his voluntary absence saying a lot about his position on the subject and his faith in her.
There was a time she would have agreed with Rodney, he has to know that.
“We can win this war without their shortcuts,” Sam says, the decision far easier to make than she expects. Maybe one day they will come to regret her decision, but she knows she can’t live with the alternative. “Destroy all files associated with this research. I don’t want a single trace of it left anywhere.”
“Sam,” Rodney protests, leaning forward in his chair.
“I mean it, Rodney,” Sam interrupts, her tone not leaving any room to doubt her seriousness. “This is more important than your curiosity.”
He looks like he might put up a fuss for a moment before slouching back in his chair. “Okay, fine,” he says, his hands held up in defense. “Consider it done.”
Sam’s eyes slide over to John and he nods slightly, letting her know he’ll make sure it does.
“Dr. Keller,” Sam says. “You’ll wipe all mention of this from Major Lorne’s file?”
“I will,” she promises.
“Good.” Sam looks around the table, making sure everyone understands the gravity of this decision. “If, someday, Major Lorne wishes to explore this further, it will be no one’s decision but his own. Otherwise, this will not be spoken of again. Is that understood?”
They all nod.
“Dismissed.”
One by one they file out of the room, leaving Sam sitting alone at the head of the table.
* * *
When Jack leaves the meeting, he doesn’t go far, just wandering out onto a balcony off the main control room. Only thirty or so minutes pass before Sam finds him out there and it doesn’t escape his notice that it’s the first time since he’s gotten here that she’s been the one to seek him out.
“Meeting all done?” he asks as she steps up next to him at the railing, her shoulder brushing against his.
“Yup.”
He doesn’t ask her what has been decided, and she doesn’t offer, so they just stand there for a while, feeling the wind sweeping up off the ocean.
“So now what?” Jack eventually asks.
“Well,” she says, turning sideways to look at him with one hand raised to shade her eyes from the sun. “I’m thinking of taking Keller’s advice.”
That isn’t what he expects to hear. “Yeah?”
She nods. “A little time off will probably do me some good.”
He turns, leaning against the railing far enough to block the sun from her eyes. “You finally figure out how to be in command and on vacation at the same time?”
Her lips twist into a wry smile. “I’m thinking of going to the mainland for a few days.”
The mainland. Close enough to be contacted in an emergency, but far enough away to relax for once. Proof again that Sam’s brain can come up with a solution to anything if given enough time.
“I’m sure John can handle another few days of doing my paperwork.”
“I’m sure he’ll love that,” Jack says, very happy to see that evil gleam in her eye directed at someone else for once. He doubts Sheppard will ever make the mistake of finishing Sam’s paperwork while she’s gone ever again.
“The only hitch is that I need someone who can fly a puddle jumper to get me there,” she says, looking up at him with her head titled to one side as if seriously considering the dilemma.
Jack fights a smile, deciding to play along. “Sounds like you need a chauffeur.”
She nods and then lifts her finger to poke him in the chest as if an idea has just come to her. “Hey. Don’t you have the Ancient gene?”
“Why yes, I do,” he confirms, grabbing her finger.
“What a coincidence.”
They stare at each other with rather stupid grins on their faces until Jack catches movement out of the corner of his eye and remembers that there is a room full of people just on the other side of the glass probably following this exchange with far too much curiosity.
He lets go of her hand. “So what are we talking about here? Beaches? Sweaty jungles? Dare I say deserts?”
“Temperate forest,” she says.
Jack groans. “Tell me this isn’t a camping trip.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Scared of roughing it for a few days?”
“One would assume you’ve already had more than enough camping to last a lifetime, Carter.”
“Yeah, well the site I have in mind has spectacular waterfalls and thermal pools and I don’t seem to remember visiting too many of those.”
Now Jack is interested. “Too bad I didn’t think to pack my swimsuit.”
Sam leans into him, shamelessly brushing up against his arm as if they aren’t still easily in sight of everyone in the control room.
“Well, then I won’t either,” she says with a smile that is probably as close to a leer as he has ever seen her get.
Jack clears his throat, blinking against the rather pleasant images now bombarding his brain, really wishing they were already on the mainland and well away from prying eyes. “When do we leave?”
“I was thinking now.”
“Now is good,” he says, nodding his head emphatically. “Now is really, really good.”
He doesn’t even care if they have to eat MREs.
A Day Too Soon
Jack finds Sam lying on a large flat boulder, half under the dancing spotty shade of a tree. Her legs are bent and hanging off the edge, toes dipping into the water below with the languid swish of her foot. She has on the same insanely brief pair of shorts she’s been wearing the entire trip, today paired with a white tank top that’s partially pulled up to expose the smooth stretch of her stomach to the sun. Her arms are draped up above her head, eyes closed.
He’s not sure he’s ever seen her quite this much at equilibrium before. It makes him wish this little vacation could go on forever.
“You have to go back,” she surmises, not moving from her position.
He wonders how she can know that just from the sound of his footsteps, unless Woolsey’s panicked voice had somehow carried all the way from the jumper. “I really wish I didn’t have to.”
She peers up at him, one eye still scrunched shut against the light. “Are you asking for asylum?”
“You offering?”
She smiles, sitting up and holding out a hand to him. “I think I could very easily get used to you being here.”
He settles on the rock behind her and she leans back against his chest. “You don’t think I’d get in the way?”
“Maybe I like having you in my way,” she says with smirk, twisting slightly to look back at him.
He wraps his arms around her, his fingers meeting with the sun-warmed skin of her stomach. He’s content for a while just to watch the thin trickle of the waterfall radiating ripples across the surface of the small pond, to listen to her soft sigh of contentment, but the knowledge of his imminent departure makes the temptation of her skin too much to pass up.
He runs his lips along the soft skin at the base of her neck, his tongue darting out to taste the mild salt of her skin and her head rolls back against his shoulder, offering him better access. He continues to move his way across the top of her shoulder, sliding the strap of her tank top down and out of the way. When she makes a soft sound, her fingers digging into his thigh in response, he grabs her waist and urges her to turn slightly until her feet lift up, the cool water dripping down his shin as her legs slide over his.
She’s more or less sitting in his lap now and he wastes no time leaning in to kiss her, finding her already halfway there, her hand sliding around the back of his neck, urging him closer.
The kiss gains momentum until he finally reluctantly pulls back with a groan. “I really need to get around to retiring one of these days.”
She makes a muffled sound akin to a huff of disbelief against his throat. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
He ignores the quip, refusing to be derailed. “I’ll go back and quit and smuggle myself back over on the Daedalus. Caldwell owes me one.”
She laughs, a warm throaty sound that makes his plan sound saner by the moment. When he continues to just stare at her, her eyes widen.
“Are you serious?”
He holds on to the fantasy for a moment, playing it out in his mind. There’s more than enough cold reality to douse it and he sighs, lowering his face to her sun-warmed hair. “I don’t like the idea of another six months slipping by.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, her arms tightening around him.
They both went into this with eyes open, knowing what it meant for her to take this job. Nothing is going to make that distance any easier, but Jack thinks that having seen her here now, seen the people under her command, the way they all look after each other, it might just be enough to make it bearable.
“You know,” he says, “you’re doing a great job here.”
She leans back, seeming to scrutinize his expression. There’s still something a little uncertain in her eyes as she looks at him. “Yeah?” she asks.
That last lingering thread of uncertainty doesn’t particularly worry him. Self-doubt has always been the first thing she lets go of in a crisis, just another reason she is so damn good at what she does.
“Yeah,” he says, reaching out to tug at her braid. “But you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not nice to hear,” she says, looking pleased.
“Just…could you try not to get snatched off-world anymore? Consider it a personal favor.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promises, pressing a kiss to his jaw, her fingers dipping into the waist of his jeans. “So…exactly how much time do we have?”
Jack bites back a groan as her hands move lower. “Enough,” he replies, reaching for her.
She smiles.
~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
A/N: There is a PG-13 version of this fic available on ffnet here.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Jack wakes to find Sam still asleep next to him, her back illuminated by the creep of early morning light. They’d climbed into bed well before sunset and her sleep had only been disturbed two or three times from anything resembling a nightmare. Leaning up slightly, he confirms that they’ve now been cocooned in this bed for over twelve hours. Clearly they both needed the rest.
He settles back against his pillow, watching the gentle rise and fall of her back with each steady breath.
Whatever miracle drug Keller has been using is working. It’s only been five days and the gashes visible around the edge of her tank top are now little more than pink lines of new skin crisscrossing each other.
He still doubts they will ever fade completely.
He’s not sure whether knowing how and when she received each of those marks makes it any easier to see. It had taken all of his restraint to sit calmly by and listen to her recite each and every horrifying thing he hadn’t been able to keep her safe from, things he never could have prepared her for. It doesn’t matter that she is one of the strongest, most capable people he knows, or that her people have proven to be eccentric, but fiercely loyal.
The sun is well into the sky by the time she shifts, her face pressing into the pillow as she slowly climbs to wakefulness. She turns to him, her eyes opening slowly as she blinks against the light.
“Good morning,” she says, tucking one hand up under her cheek, her voice rough with sleep.
“Good morning,” he echoes.
He can see her taking in his obviously wakeful state, her eyes scrunching up slightly. “Exactly how long have you been lying there staring at me?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “A while.”
She lifts an eyebrow at him, obviously not expecting him to fess up so easily. “You should have woken me up.”
“Nah,” he says, forcibly keeping his eyes from moving to the marks on her back. “You needed the sleep.”
She glances back at the window and the bright sunlight streaming in. “Do I even want to know how late it is?”
“Do you have somewhere to be?” he asks, tensing a bit despite himself. He’s still waiting for a sign that she’s going to retreat from last night’s honesty, to jump out of bed and get back to work. He tells himself not to take it personally when she does.
Rolling back to look at him, she slides closer and wraps an arm across his stomach. “No. Nothing but a meeting later this afternoon.”
“Fun.”
Something of his thoughts must have leaked into his voice because she hefts up on her elbow, peering down at him. “What?”
“Nothin’,” he automatically says, knowing it probably isn’t wise to point out that this is usually right about when she suddenly remembers she needs to be elsewhere.
She’s always been too smart for her own good though, and he can see the guilt flash across her face as she understands what it is he’s not saying.
“Hey,” he says, reaching for her waist and tugging until she finally allows him pull her closer. “None of that.”
They’d promised long ago that job guilt would not be a part of this relationship.
Her hair falls partially in his face as she settles against his chest, her legs tangling with his. He tugs playfully at the offending strand. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that,” he says, twining it between his fingers. “Not that it isn’t incredibly hot.”
She rolls her eyes at him, a small smile tugging at her lips and he’s about to claim victory on the cheer-up-Sam front when she reaches for his face, her own serious once more.
“I am sorry,” she says.
He begins to protest, but she takes advantage of the moment to lean in and kiss him. Her mouth is warm and lazy on his and lacks any of the desperation from previous nights. He thinks this is the way they should wake up every morning. You know, if they lived in the same galaxy.
He winds his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer. “You’re just trying to distract me,” he accuses.
He feels her lips curve into a smile against his jaw. “Is it working?”
He’s about to prove exactly how much it’s working when her stomach very loudly announces its displeasure. Sure, now she wants to eat. For the moment, he forces himself to take that as a good sign.
He looks up at her with one eyebrow lifted and she bites her lip. “Hold that thought?”
“I knew there was a reason I should keep some MREs in here for emergencies.”
“Thank goodness we are not quite that desperate,” he says with a grimace. MREs were definitely high on his list of things he does not miss about missions. But certainly lower than not being able to wake up and make out with Sam. He might have to put that at number one.
“I suppose just staying in bed all day might be a bit overly indulgent,” she says, pressing her face against his neck.
“Clothes, Carter,” he grumbles, trying to push her away, only to be thwarted by his own reluctance. “Unless you’d like to go to the commissary dressed like that.”
“Wouldn’t that do wonders for my reputation,” she mumbles as she finally rolls away and sits up on the edge of the bed with a stretch.
He gets stuck unabashedly watching the play of muscle under her skin as she moves, which ensures that he’s still paying attention when her posture changes, as if something heavy is pressing down on her.
“Sam?”
She glances back over her shoulder self-consciously. “I’m thinking I should probably go see Lorne this morning and I’m really not looking forward to it.”
“Yeah,” he says, climbing over the bed to sit next to her.
“I’m just not sure what to say.”
What do you say to someone who has lost their entire team? It’s a loss neither of them can even begin to understand; though there have been moments here and there that Jack really doesn’t like to think about. There’s just nothing to say to fix something like that.
“Maybe it’s not really about what you say,” he observes with a shrug. “Maybe it’s just about showing up.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she says, looking down at her hands.
“Come on,” Jack says, pressing a kiss to her hairline. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”
She gives him a small smile and lets him pull her to her feet.
* * *
Evan is reacquainting himself with his quarters when a soft chime alerts him to a visitor. It takes him a moment to even place the sound. It’s been that long since he’s stood here in this space with normal thoughts in his head.
Keller had only this morning finally agreed to let him out of the infirmary, worry still lining her eyes. He’s not used to someone looking at him as anything more than a specimen.
The door chimes again and he tries to shake free of the fog in his head. He swipes his hand across the sensor and the door pulls back to reveal a slightly nervous looking Colonel Carter. Her face is still tinged with yellow from a fading bruise he doesn’t remember her receiving, a data pad clutched in her pale fingers.
Part of him has been waiting for her to show up ever since that day he watched her caught in a flashback, knowing the mere sight of him had been enough to trigger it. To be honest, he hasn’t been too eager to see her either since they returned.
He thinks sometimes he might be able to forget if he just never had to look at her again. But neither of them are the kind of people to hold onto such delusional ideas for long.
Stepping back from the door, he waves for her to come in. She follows him in and he gestures towards a chair, sitting down on the edge of his bed himself. She doesn’t take the offered chair, instead shifting slightly from foot to foot.
“How are you?” she asks.
He just looks up at her and she grimaces.
“Right. Dumb question.” She takes another few steps into the room, turning around as if taking it in, but he knows she’s just giving herself time to collect herself.
He waits.
“I keep thinking I should have been able to escape earlier,” she says when her face is still mostly turned away from him. “I should have found a way to get all of us out of there.”
The gaping hole left behind by his team is something Evan can’t even think of yet, too much grief to even process. The small part of him that may be a little pissed at the colonel for saving him, making him live with this, keeps him from absolving her of something he knows only too well isn’t her fault.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Of all the people here, he’s the one who’s had the chance to see her in action during those glory days of SG-1. He’d been at the SGC, heard the way people spoke her name. Had his own ass saved by her along with everyone else more times than he could count.
He still hadn’t been ready to see her in that cage though. To see Tristis take a lash to her back time after time asking for gate addresses and defenses and technology. The way her face hadn’t given anything away, her mouth stubbornly shut, never releasing anything more than a heavy grunt or the odd angry tear.
How the closest she ever got to breaking was when she plead for their lives, not her own.
Every inch of pride gone, she’d been on her knees. “Please,” she said. “Let them go.”
Tristis ran the handle of the lash under her chin, in sick mockery of tenderness. “All you have to do is give me the address,” he said so softly Evan almost couldn’t hear him.
He watched her consider it for a fraction of a second before turning her face away. Tristis hadn’t left her cell that day until he finally managed to make her scream.
Evan doesn’t understand what she’s asking of him today, standing there apologizing.
“You saved my life,” is all he can think to say, half fact, half accusation.
“Maybe,” she says with a shrug as if it doesn’t bear discussing. She finally turns to face him fully, her voice turning brisk and business-like. “If you feel up to it, we’re having a briefing on what Rodney’s managed to get from the ship this afternoon. If not, I definitely understand.”
He’s not so much listening to her words anymore as watching the way she won’t quite meet his eyes as she talks. It’s only then he realizes that she’s ashamed of what he saw her do, what he saw her almost do.
Apparently having said what she came to say, she’s walking out of the room.
“Colonel,” he calls out.
That last night, having already watched every one of his men die, he was thinking he was going to have to watch something horrific on a whole new level. He thought he’d been hallucinating when she’d first taken that guard down, but knew he never could have conjured that look on her face.
She’s staring at him now, or just past him, having turned back at his call, but he’s having a hard time thinking of a single thing to say to her. She moves to leave again and he speaks without thinking.
“You didn’t let them break you.”
It’s not really what he wants to say, not enough to explain that he knows perfectly well who the monsters in this scenario are. It was never her. He can’t find the words for that, but maybe she hears it anyway because she pauses, the only sign of her unease the clenching of her hands around her data pad, even now refusing to give too much away. After a long moment, she finally lifts her eyes to his, holding his gaze.
“Okay,” she says.
She turns and walks out.
* * *
The meeting room is once again filled with the usual suspects, Sheppard and Ronon lounging on one side, Keller, Teyla, and Lorne on the other while Rodney paces around in front of a large chart. Jack is also here again, at her request. Maybe not completely appropriate, but it’s an impulse Sam hasn’t bothered to deny. Like last time, he’s dragged his chair about as far out of the way as possible without actually leaving the room.
If Sam had somehow hoped he would keep her from making any crappy decisions, she knows now she’d miscalculated. That isn’t why he’s here. Not that willingly listening to Rodney ramble doesn’t say a lot about his willingness to be supportive.
Jack lifts an eyebrow at her and it’s only then she realizes she’s been staring. She gives him a small smile and drops her face to the folder in front of her, forcing herself to zero back in on Rodney’s words. He’s been talking about the recovered files the linguists finally managed to translate, most proving what Sam already suspected: the ship she’d stolen had indeed been a medical transport.
In addition, the files have confirmed Keller’s hypothesis as to the nature of the experiments being run by the Valedin. They are definitely trying to create an immunity to the Wraith. The subject is not particular pleasant for Sam to listen to, but more than anything, it’s Rodney’s increasingly excited tone as he discusses the research in detail that originally derailed her attention. Something about the curious gleam in his eye makes her especially aware of Lorne only two seats down and the burning sensation low in her stomach.
“The potential in this research is clear,” Rodney is saying. “It’s ground breaking, really. There are even carefully documented files for hundreds of subjects…”
Sam bites down on the inside of her lip. He seems to have forgotten he is talking about people, not Petri dishes.
The abnormally loud slap of someone snapping a folder shut causes Rodney to stumble in his recital. Everyone turns to look at Keller, her hands still spread across the folder in front of her.
“We can’t use this research,” she announces, shoving the file away from her as if something contaminated.
Oh, thank God, Sam thinks, her fingers tightening on the papers in front of her.
“Are you crazy?” Rodney exclaims.
Keller turns in her chair to look at him. “In case you’ve somehow managed to forget, may I remind you that they used thousands of innocent people like lab rats to get this information?”
Rodney doesn’t seem particularly fussed by that fact. “What, so we should just throw it away and let thousands more innocent people get added to the all you can eat Wraith buffet instead?”
He’s looking around the room for support, but Sam makes no attempt to stifle the unfolding discussion.
“Using this makes us no better than them,” Teyla observes from next to Keller. “No matter our intentions.”
“Hey, morality is great,” Ronon says, “but it doesn’t keep the Wraith from killing you. Trust me.”
“Exactly,” Rodney agrees, dropping into the empty seat next to Ronon. “We can use this information to get rid of the Wraith once and for all, and then deal with the Valedins.”
“And the people they killed?” Keller asks. “What about them?”
Rodney winces, but continues unapologetically forward. “Well, excuse me for saying this, but they’re already dead. There’s not much we can do for them.”
“If it had been you in that cell, McKay, I think you’d feel differently.”
It’s the first Lorne has spoken since this briefing began and everyone falls silent, Rodney shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“What do you believe we should do, Evan?” Teyla asks.
He glances quickly in Sam’s direction, maybe looking for some signal from her, but she just stares back, needing to hear what he has to say more than anyone. They had been his men, his team. As far as she’s concerned, his opinion on this matters more than anyone else’s.
“It’s not like it was science,” Lorne eventually says, his voice tight. “It was torture. But throwing it all away…does that mean they died for nothing?”
He looks around the table, everyone’s eyes dropping away from his gaze, only Keller answering.
“I don’t know,” she admits.
“Colonel,” Lorne says, everyone’s attention coming to rest on Sam. “What do you think?”
All of Lorne’s earlier ambiguousness is gone as he looks at her, leaving only a painful sort of implicit trust that doesn’t grate the way she thinks it should. Instead she feels a strange certainty slide down her spine, something indefinable easing inside her.
In that moment, she knows exactly what needs to be done.
“I think I’m more worried about you right now, Major, than our hypothetical morality.”
She can see his shoulders straighten, as if to counter any accusation of weakness on his part. “Me? I’m fine.”
He is far from fine, she knows. She wonders if that is how she’s sounded these last few days, running around with a smile plastered on her face and “I’m fine!” never far from her lips.
“What I mean,” she clarifies, “is that I can’t protect you if this makes it back to Earth.”
She can’t stop the IOA or some other rogue interest from turning him into a science experiment in the name of the better good if any of this ever makes it into an official report. She sees understanding ripple through the room, every eye moving to Jack. The outsider.
“General?” Sam asks.
He meets her eyes across the room. They both know her use of his rank is no accident.
Jack’s posture doesn’t change, still slouched back in his chair as if supremely indifferent to the conversation. “As far as I’m concerned, Colonel, this is your call. It’s not really any of the IOA’s business,” he says, lazily pushing to his feet. “Or mine.”
She watches him leave the room, his voluntary absence saying a lot about his position on the subject and his faith in her.
There was a time she would have agreed with Rodney, he has to know that.
“We can win this war without their shortcuts,” Sam says, the decision far easier to make than she expects. Maybe one day they will come to regret her decision, but she knows she can’t live with the alternative. “Destroy all files associated with this research. I don’t want a single trace of it left anywhere.”
“Sam,” Rodney protests, leaning forward in his chair.
“I mean it, Rodney,” Sam interrupts, her tone not leaving any room to doubt her seriousness. “This is more important than your curiosity.”
He looks like he might put up a fuss for a moment before slouching back in his chair. “Okay, fine,” he says, his hands held up in defense. “Consider it done.”
Sam’s eyes slide over to John and he nods slightly, letting her know he’ll make sure it does.
“Dr. Keller,” Sam says. “You’ll wipe all mention of this from Major Lorne’s file?”
“I will,” she promises.
“Good.” Sam looks around the table, making sure everyone understands the gravity of this decision. “If, someday, Major Lorne wishes to explore this further, it will be no one’s decision but his own. Otherwise, this will not be spoken of again. Is that understood?”
They all nod.
“Dismissed.”
One by one they file out of the room, leaving Sam sitting alone at the head of the table.
* * *
When Jack leaves the meeting, he doesn’t go far, just wandering out onto a balcony off the main control room. Only thirty or so minutes pass before Sam finds him out there and it doesn’t escape his notice that it’s the first time since he’s gotten here that she’s been the one to seek him out.
“Meeting all done?” he asks as she steps up next to him at the railing, her shoulder brushing against his.
“Yup.”
He doesn’t ask her what has been decided, and she doesn’t offer, so they just stand there for a while, feeling the wind sweeping up off the ocean.
“So now what?” Jack eventually asks.
“Well,” she says, turning sideways to look at him with one hand raised to shade her eyes from the sun. “I’m thinking of taking Keller’s advice.”
That isn’t what he expects to hear. “Yeah?”
She nods. “A little time off will probably do me some good.”
He turns, leaning against the railing far enough to block the sun from her eyes. “You finally figure out how to be in command and on vacation at the same time?”
Her lips twist into a wry smile. “I’m thinking of going to the mainland for a few days.”
The mainland. Close enough to be contacted in an emergency, but far enough away to relax for once. Proof again that Sam’s brain can come up with a solution to anything if given enough time.
“I’m sure John can handle another few days of doing my paperwork.”
“I’m sure he’ll love that,” Jack says, very happy to see that evil gleam in her eye directed at someone else for once. He doubts Sheppard will ever make the mistake of finishing Sam’s paperwork while she’s gone ever again.
“The only hitch is that I need someone who can fly a puddle jumper to get me there,” she says, looking up at him with her head titled to one side as if seriously considering the dilemma.
Jack fights a smile, deciding to play along. “Sounds like you need a chauffeur.”
She nods and then lifts her finger to poke him in the chest as if an idea has just come to her. “Hey. Don’t you have the Ancient gene?”
“Why yes, I do,” he confirms, grabbing her finger.
“What a coincidence.”
They stare at each other with rather stupid grins on their faces until Jack catches movement out of the corner of his eye and remembers that there is a room full of people just on the other side of the glass probably following this exchange with far too much curiosity.
He lets go of her hand. “So what are we talking about here? Beaches? Sweaty jungles? Dare I say deserts?”
“Temperate forest,” she says.
Jack groans. “Tell me this isn’t a camping trip.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. “Scared of roughing it for a few days?”
“One would assume you’ve already had more than enough camping to last a lifetime, Carter.”
“Yeah, well the site I have in mind has spectacular waterfalls and thermal pools and I don’t seem to remember visiting too many of those.”
Now Jack is interested. “Too bad I didn’t think to pack my swimsuit.”
Sam leans into him, shamelessly brushing up against his arm as if they aren’t still easily in sight of everyone in the control room.
“Well, then I won’t either,” she says with a smile that is probably as close to a leer as he has ever seen her get.
Jack clears his throat, blinking against the rather pleasant images now bombarding his brain, really wishing they were already on the mainland and well away from prying eyes. “When do we leave?”
“I was thinking now.”
“Now is good,” he says, nodding his head emphatically. “Now is really, really good.”
He doesn’t even care if they have to eat MREs.
A Day Too Soon
Jack finds Sam lying on a large flat boulder, half under the dancing spotty shade of a tree. Her legs are bent and hanging off the edge, toes dipping into the water below with the languid swish of her foot. She has on the same insanely brief pair of shorts she’s been wearing the entire trip, today paired with a white tank top that’s partially pulled up to expose the smooth stretch of her stomach to the sun. Her arms are draped up above her head, eyes closed.
He’s not sure he’s ever seen her quite this much at equilibrium before. It makes him wish this little vacation could go on forever.
“You have to go back,” she surmises, not moving from her position.
He wonders how she can know that just from the sound of his footsteps, unless Woolsey’s panicked voice had somehow carried all the way from the jumper. “I really wish I didn’t have to.”
She peers up at him, one eye still scrunched shut against the light. “Are you asking for asylum?”
“You offering?”
She smiles, sitting up and holding out a hand to him. “I think I could very easily get used to you being here.”
He settles on the rock behind her and she leans back against his chest. “You don’t think I’d get in the way?”
“Maybe I like having you in my way,” she says with smirk, twisting slightly to look back at him.
He wraps his arms around her, his fingers meeting with the sun-warmed skin of her stomach. He’s content for a while just to watch the thin trickle of the waterfall radiating ripples across the surface of the small pond, to listen to her soft sigh of contentment, but the knowledge of his imminent departure makes the temptation of her skin too much to pass up.
He runs his lips along the soft skin at the base of her neck, his tongue darting out to taste the mild salt of her skin and her head rolls back against his shoulder, offering him better access. He continues to move his way across the top of her shoulder, sliding the strap of her tank top down and out of the way. When she makes a soft sound, her fingers digging into his thigh in response, he grabs her waist and urges her to turn slightly until her feet lift up, the cool water dripping down his shin as her legs slide over his.
She’s more or less sitting in his lap now and he wastes no time leaning in to kiss her, finding her already halfway there, her hand sliding around the back of his neck, urging him closer.
The kiss gains momentum until he finally reluctantly pulls back with a groan. “I really need to get around to retiring one of these days.”
She makes a muffled sound akin to a huff of disbelief against his throat. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
He ignores the quip, refusing to be derailed. “I’ll go back and quit and smuggle myself back over on the Daedalus. Caldwell owes me one.”
She laughs, a warm throaty sound that makes his plan sound saner by the moment. When he continues to just stare at her, her eyes widen.
“Are you serious?”
He holds on to the fantasy for a moment, playing it out in his mind. There’s more than enough cold reality to douse it and he sighs, lowering his face to her sun-warmed hair. “I don’t like the idea of another six months slipping by.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, her arms tightening around him.
They both went into this with eyes open, knowing what it meant for her to take this job. Nothing is going to make that distance any easier, but Jack thinks that having seen her here now, seen the people under her command, the way they all look after each other, it might just be enough to make it bearable.
“You know,” he says, “you’re doing a great job here.”
She leans back, seeming to scrutinize his expression. There’s still something a little uncertain in her eyes as she looks at him. “Yeah?” she asks.
That last lingering thread of uncertainty doesn’t particularly worry him. Self-doubt has always been the first thing she lets go of in a crisis, just another reason she is so damn good at what she does.
“Yeah,” he says, reaching out to tug at her braid. “But you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not nice to hear,” she says, looking pleased.
“Just…could you try not to get snatched off-world anymore? Consider it a personal favor.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she promises, pressing a kiss to his jaw, her fingers dipping into the waist of his jeans. “So…exactly how much time do we have?”
Jack bites back a groan as her hands move lower. “Enough,” he replies, reaching for her.
She smiles.
~The End~