(no subject)
Title: Exodus
Author: Annerb
Rating: Teens
Summary: Saying goodbye.This wasn’t how they thought it would end.
Classifications: Drama, Angst, Team, S/J, Future, AU
Season: 8 (takes off after Threads)
Prologue
This wasn’t how Jack had thought it would turn out.
Not that he’d ever actually given it too much thought. It had always been a distant, nebulous goal in the back of his mind, because to do what he did every day, he had to believe that one day everything would be resolved. That one day there would be results for all the hard work they had done. But he never actually sat down and laid out plans for his life. It seemed too much like tempting fate.
But then it was there. He’d been sitting on his dock with his old team, fishing calmly like the fate of the world no longer rested on their shoulders. Which it didn’t, he’d been forced to remind himself as Daniel handed him another beer. The world had been saved. Check it off the list.
Jack mentally ran through the list that he kept in his head:
Goa’uld? Dead.
Replicators? Disintegrated.
Freaky Ancient Weapon Capable of Destroying All Life? Destroyed.
Refuses-to-be-killed, half-ascended Anubis? Mysteriously, but permanently neutered (so he had been assured by Daniel).
Jaffa? Freed.
Extremely secret and deeply classified SGC? Public knowledge.
It was difficult to comprehend, especially the last one. With the threat of the Goa’uld and Replicators gone and their good buddies the Asgard once again capable of watching out for their Protected Planets, the SGC had achieved their goals and President Hayes had deemed it a good time to come clean to America and the rest of the world about what exactly those strange lights in the sky had been over the last few years. Oh, and by the way, we’re not alone in the Universe.
Really difficult to comprehend.
But not as difficult to comprehend as the world’s response to this wondrous revelation.
Even if Jack had spent a great deal of time contemplating the question of ‘what now,’ this was not what he would have come up with. Not that he was a starry-eyed optimist or something (that had really been Daniel’s forte). He didn’t expect that all over Earth everyone would step back and say, ‘Hey. We’re not the only life forms in the Universe. We should really try to get along better. And maybe we should get rid of concepts like money and racism and genocide and all get together and sing Kumbaya.’ He wasn’t that crazy.
But neither, in a million years, would he have thought he’d be doing what he was doing now: sitting behind a desk in an increasingly depopulated SGC, skimming the latest reports from the warfronts. He didn’t think he would be carefully searching lists of the dead and fallen for familiar names, men and women he had once commanded. He never thought he would be morbid enough to keep a list of all the SG-teams from the golden days of the SGC and slowly mark their names off with red ink as they fell on foreign soil.
Not alien soil, either, but terran earth.
Earth had discovered the Galaxy only to turn back on itself in an amazing display of self-destruction. It boggled the mind.
And what were they fighting for? Could anyone even remember anymore?
Jack could remember, mainly because he’d had nothing but time sitting behind his desk underneath a mountain. The SGC had once been the front line of Earth’s war with the Goa’uld, but now it was nothing more than a remote base of operations with only one standing order: to secure a continuous supply of naquadah.
And while some might debate Jack’s gullibility, he was in no way naïve enough not to comprehend the purpose of that naquadah.
It seemed that Earth needed saving again, but this time from itself.
Part 1: Left Behind
Predictably, Teal’c was the first to leave.
Less than two weeks after they returned from Jack’s cabin, Teal’c packed a small bundle of his belongings and departed for Dakara and his new position on the Council of the Free Jaffa Nation. It was a moment of little fanfare, but deeply meaningful nonetheless.
The original SG-1 stood together in the gate room one last time, quietly reflecting on the first time they had stood as a team on the ramp eight years previously when they had all stumbled upon a seemingly hopeless battle. But here they all stood, improbably victorious and all more whole than not, even after years of hardships, loss and setbacks. They had actually achieved what they had set out to do.
A heady moment, indeed.
Though there was sadness at Teal’c’s permanent exodus from Earth, they all knew they could still see him and to be honest, nothing had really been the same since Jack had been promoted anyway. It just finally seemed like time for them to stop holding on so tightly to the ghost of SG-1.
Not that it made letting go any easier.
As Teal’c bowed one final time at them before stepping into the waiting wormhole, none of them had any reason to be anything other than optimistic about a future that had finally come.
Little did they know that his would just be the first of many departures.
* * *
They disclosed the existence of the Stargate on a Tuesday. By Thursday Jack was already tired of seeing his face on TV. He thought it was a good thing that none of them had lives to begin with, because this was just going to make everything more difficult. Sam was convinced that the media would get tired of them eventually and Daniel seemed charmingly unaware that the scrutiny even existed.
Even Jack could have learned to accept it as the price for a new era for Earth.
But then the fighting had started. First it had been nothing more than nit-picking over who got to sit where at the Stargate talks being held, of all places, in Zurich, Switzerland. It had escalated quickly from there. It seemed that a lot of nations had a big problem with being lied to for so long. Mumbles of ‘American Imperialism’ and conspiracy could be heard everywhere.
Jack did his best to ignore it all, never having been a fan of politics to begin with, though the urge to just bang all their heads together did crop up occasionally. But as long as they left the SGC alone, he could handle the bickering.
Six months after disclosure, though, the talks stalled and America was threatening to pull out all together. After all, they were just doing everyone a favor letting them know in the first place. They didn’t owe anyone anything.
Jack did his best to ignore it and the growing unease he felt in his gut.
But then one day Daniel was standing in front of his desk, telling him that he was leaving the SGC.
“I can help,” he said. “I know I can.”
Jack didn’t want to let him go. And not just because he was a valuable asset to the program or that he had, once again, just come back from a brush with death. But Daniel had come to his office with a face already lined with concern and just said ‘Please.’ Daniel could never stand by and watch suffering, especially when he was convinced that there was a way he could stop it.
How could Jack say no to that?
He felt his head nod in acceptance, even as his stomach began to ache.
Daniel’s apartment was carefully packed up. Out of the corner of his eye Jack watched Sam lovingly bundle up the soft leather bound journals that were a tangible reminder of SG-1’s adventures together. He wondered if she was thinking about all the times they had done this after Daniel’s deaths.
Jack knew that Daniel was just moving on, not dying, but it still felt like it.
The dusty tweed suits and worn flannels that Jack carefully piled into a box reminded him of a floppy haired archaeologist who had once imparted a great truth to him in a sandy, dark cave halfway across the galaxy.
Life itself was more than enough reason to live.
He sealed the box with a strip of tape and while no one was looking, he slipped a pack of Kleenex into Daniel’s pocket.
Jack stood with Sam in the airport and waved one last time, trying not to think of his relief that he at least still had her.
* * *
The talks resumed, with Daniel now in attendance, using his new found fame as best he could, trying to be the voice of reason. Jack had seen him talk his way out of a million different situations, but his own race seemed to be more suspicious of him than the average alien. It was hard for Jack to comprehend.
But Daniel was never one to give up.
Somewhere along the line though, it had become about more than an alien metal circle hidden deep under a mountain in Colorado (not that anyone knew the actual location of the famed gate). It was if every grievance ever felt by any group of people had been brought back to the surface and the Stargate was the catalyst.
Everything escalated so quickly, however, that one day Daniel was mediating talks and the next Jack was watching with complete surprise as American embassies all over the world were evacuated and American borders were closed. He could no longer ignore the gathering storm.
Soon after, Jack began to have transfer papers fly over his desk like there was no tomorrow. He had called anyone and everyone that would talk to him, demanding to know what the hell they thought they were doing transferring his highly trained officers away from the SGC and into front line units throughout the world.
He had been told in no uncertain terms that the defense of American sanctity was the top priority. Interstellar exploration was a luxury that the U.S. government could no longer afford. It had taken the President threatening to relieve Jack of his command to get him to finally accept defeat, though for a moment Jack had let himself wonder why exactly that would be a bad thing. What was he really doing here anymore anyway?
But Jack couldn’t leave.
So for four months he helplessly watched the growing conflict and increasing political pressure on the President gradually bleed the SGC dry. He was only allowed to keep four teams for retrieval of off-world elements, primarily naquadah.
Then the unthinkable had happened. No one could ever point to a specific event, but one day Jack had woken to a speech by President Hayes declaring war against those who threatened American self-determination and safety. The lines were drawn. In reality it was nothing more than a few border skirmishes here and there with very few casualties, but Jack knew it wouldn’t take much to escalate.
It seemed that World War Three had begun. Hadn’t they once called World War One the ‘war to end all wars’? A bit premature in the end it seemed. Humans just never learned their lessons.
Jack couldn’t help but think that if Anubis was still alive, he would be laughing his half-ascended ass off.
But it was not until nearly three months since the advent of war that Jack received the transfer papers that finally brought home just how real this war was.
He didn’t call her into his office, instead he found himself wandering down to her lab. Pausing in her open doorway, he stood for long moments watching her work, leaning over some diagnostic tool with her brow furrowed in concentration. The unguarded moment did not last long, however, because like some sixth sense she realized he was watching her and glanced up from her tools.
“Sir,” she said somewhat breathlessly as she turned off the machine she had been working on. Her pleasure at seeing him faded somewhat quickly, however, as she took in his grim visage and the folder clenched rather menacingly in his fist. Her bright smile of greeting slipped off her face and she sank down into a nearby chair, obviously having already worked out the purpose of this little visit.
Jack took a few steps into the room. “I’m sorry, Carter. I did everything I could think of, even threatened to resign…but that doesn’t seem to have the clout it once did.”
She tried to force an unconcerned smile on her face. “I’m sure you did everything you could, sir, and I appreciate it, but we both knew this would happen eventually.”
He watched with an aching sense of loss as she began to hide behind her good soldier façade. These last few months nothing had overtly changed between them, but they were just both far too aware of the fact that they were all the other had left. It had inevitably led to a greater openness between them, but here she was, shutting back down again. Shielding herself.
For once, he almost wished for her to get pissed and chuck something at a wall. Or at least looked like she cared that she was leaving. “You don’t have to pretend this doesn’t suck, Carter.”
Her lips twitched and for a moment Jack was almost convinced he had seen a flash of panic and sadness, but then she dropped her head and began playing absently with some tool Jack couldn’t identify.
“When?” she asked softly after long moments of silence.
Jack sighed. “Immediately.” Things moved quickly these days and these would be Carter’s final hours in this lab.
Sam nodded her understanding. “Where?”
Here was the real kicker. Jack handed her the folder, waiting until she looked back up at him to answer. “I don’t know,” he said. “Apparently I don’t have high enough clearance.”
Her mouth popped open for a moment at the paradoxical statement before she slammed it back shut and reached for the folder, her fingers briefly tangling with his.
Hers wasn’t the first departure, but Jack felt like it was the last fatal slamming door.
And still he stayed.
* * *
He drove her to the airport. She made him swear to water her plants and drive her car every once and a while so the battery wouldn’t die. She promised to send for her stuff when she finally got settled at her final destination. Jack knew she never would.
They stood silently in line as she checked her bags. Twenty minutes later they were standing in front of the security check point. She was shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot, undoubtedly searching for something to say. Jack didn’t make it any easier for her.
“If you see Teal’c or Daniel, say goodbye for me,” she finally managed to say. There had been no time to contact either of them. “And tell them not to worry about me.”
Jack knew this last bit was more for his benefit than theirs. He let a cynical smirk cross his face for just a moment, realizing that she was more concerned about leaving him behind than her new mysterious posting. “They know you can take care of yourself,” he said, playing along.
She nodded briefly once, looking for all the world like she didn’t have a clue what to do next. So she simply said, “I’ll keep in touch,” even when they both knew that it was going to be nearly impossible for her to do so.
“You do that,” Jack replied, not sure how to make this easier.
Still they stood several feet apart, until Sam finally seemed to concede defeat. “Goodbye, sir,” she said.
Jack refused to wince at the formal farewell, instead trying to focus on being immensely glad that she hadn’t said anything about it having been an honor to serve with him or some crap. “Bye, Carter,” he said instead, trying, rather unsuccessfully, to imbue the simple words with…something.
In the next instant she was walking away, joining the ranks of people pulling out laptops and removing shoes in the long security checkpoint. He watched her golden head until it was no longer visible before shoving his hands in his pockets and heading back out to the entrance. He didn’t make it much further than around the corner, though, before he found himself standing still in the middle of the hall, staring at his toes.
The familiar urge to just do something began to build in him, but his feet would not move from the spot where he stood. Now he was the one standing still while everything and everyone spiraled away from him, leaving him behind. He was just about to force himself do something, undoubtedly something rash, when he heard his name called out behind him.
“Jack.”
He barely had time to register the sound of her voice before he broke his immobility and turned around to see her walking briskly towards him. And then her arms were wrapping around him and after only the briefest hesitation born out of habit he did the same.
It was nice to hold her for no other reason than that he just wanted to, and not because one of them had almost died and they felt they deserved a moment of weakness. This was something else entirely. He forced himself to relax and remember that it was okay for him to touch her now. He was allowed to do this, allowed to feel and touch and want. Even though it meant she was going away.
But all his mind could focus on was that fact that he no longer had any control. He had no say in her career or her safety. He couldn’t be there to make sure she had the back up she needed. He wouldn’t be there and he didn’t even have the clearance to know where ‘there’ was. It scared the hell out of him.
He shook the disturbing thoughts off, reminding himself that Carter was more than capable of taking care of herself, forcibly refocusing his mind on the feel of her in his arms, knowing that this was the closest either of them would get to saying, ‘I’ll miss you.’ Or to speaking of the inevitable appearance of yet another barrier between them and their vague hopes for ‘something.’
“I’ll be here when you get back,” he said. And that was the closest he would get to saying that he would wait as long as it took, that he still hoped. But she understood. He knew she did.
When she finally pulled out of his arms, he watched her walk away and bit down mercilessly on the horrible feeling that he was never going to see her again.
He drove to her house and talked to her plants, knowing she would appreciate it.
The next day, he went to work, sat behind his desk and tried to carry on.
Part 2: Falling Backwards
He didn’t hear from Sam for a month.
One night as he lay staring at his ceiling in an absurd parody of actually getting a good night’s sleep, the phone rang. Jack almost didn’t answer it, not really wanting to know what the hell could have gone so wrong to deserve a call at three in the morning. But some left over feeling of responsibility drove him to pick it up.
“O’Neill,” he practically barked into the phone.
There was a long pause and Jack was about to hang up when she finally spoke. “Sir.”
Jack sat up in bed. “Carter?”
“I can’t talk long, sir, I just wanted…” she trailed off, her voice hushed as if she was trying not to be overheard. “How are you doing?”
Jack got the distinct impression that she wasn’t even supposed to be on the phone. He suppressed the urge to demand to know where the hell she had been for four weeks and what she was doing. What could she possibly be doing that required this much secrecy? “I’m fine. Same old stuff, you know. You?”
“Good, good,” she said rather quickly.
An awkward pause stretched long. They both knew they couldn’t speak about work, but there was little else for them to discuss that wasn’t taboo.
“I should probably go…,” Sam said eventually, discomfort audible in her voice.
There were a million things Jack wanted to ask, but he knew he couldn’t put her in that position, especially considering how paranoid the government in general was getting these days. But he also knew that he had to keep her talking, he needed to hear her voice. He opened his mouth and said the first thing he could think of.
“I miss you.”
The moment the words were out, Jack wanted to pull them back into his mouth, no matter how true they were. His embarrassment increased with every passing second as Sam remained silent.
“Uh…look, Carter, I guess I shouldn’t have said-.”
She cut him off midway. “I miss you, too,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “God, I wish I could talk to you about-,” she started, frustration clear in her voice.
“Don’t, Carter,” Jack interrupted. “I’m not worth that. Just be careful. That’s enough for me.”
Jack heard some background voices over the phone. “Damn,” Sam swore, “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“I know. Thanks for calling,” Jack said, trying to make it clear that he understood. None of this was her fault.
“I’ll call again when I get a chance.”
“I’ll be here,” Jack promised. “Take care of yourself, Carter.”
“You, too,” she said softly. “Bye.”
“Bye, Carter.”
The line went dead, but Jack sat holding the phone until the sun dawned.
* * *
Four months after Sam’s transfer, Jack woke to the news that America, obviously deciding that the stalemate war could be ended by a brute show of strength, dropped a naquadria bomb in the hinterlands of China.
Jack couldn’t help but think of what he had once said to Jonas.
All right, let me be clear about something. I think this is the point Daniel was trying to make. A weapon of mass destruction can only be used for one thing. Now, you might think it will ensure peace and freedom, but I guarantee you it'll never have the effect you're hoping for until you use it, at least once. Now, just for the record, the reason we want that stuff is because we think it could be used to create defense shields. But you just go ahead, blow yourselves to hell with it.
He had been so pissed that the Kelownans refused to listen to someone from a planet that knew weapons of mass destruction never wrought anything but more war.
But Earth never seems to have learned that lesson either.
At first it seemed that America had made its point. The peace talks had resumed briefly, but not for long.
In a move so surprising and almost foolhardy to the point that Jack couldn’t help but be impressed, the rebelling nations refused to bow down to the bullish move. They knew they had inferior stuff, but they would fight anyway, almost as if the bomb had just proven the intentions of America to rule the whole planet through their monopoly on the Stargate.
Even England, France and Russia were beginning to look at America with new eyes.
Though never outright admitted to by anyone in the American government, it was clear that the bomb’s destructive power had been more than they were prepared for. They had purposively chosen a relatively unpopulated area, but a bad combination of not quite hitting the right spot and not accounting for its astounding power ensured that a city of 60,000 was wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Jack wanted to believe it had been unintentional, but faith was harder to come by every day. The government’s paranoia and tightening grip was such that they even began to eye their own citizens warily. People began to disappear off the streets, being held in undisclosed locations for indeterminate amounts of time. The government didn’t even need a reason anymore, let alone probable cause.
Jack wondered how much longer until they all were all implanted with tracking devices or had monitoring systems in their homes.
Daniel was among the group traveling to witness the fallout of America’s new toy. It was the only reason he survived the retaliatory attack on the Geneva Stargate Talks. None of the Ambassadors survived. Including a high ranking American General that had traveled to the talks in hopes of talking some sense into anyone who would listen.
It wasn’t how George Hammond was meant to fall.
More blood than ever began to spill all over the planet. Jack started the grisly tradition of keeping tabs on all the former SG personnel, feeling a fierce swoop of anger every time another one of his former airmen fell. Such a waste of life.
And still Jack sat behind his desk, doing his duty, even as a burning lava of anger began to consume him piece by piece.
* * *
A few weeks after the disasters in Geneva and China, Jack woke to someone pounding on his door in the middle of the night. Daniel was standing on his porch, seemingly oblivious to the rain pouring down over him. Jack hadn’t seen him in almost a year and he was barely recognizable as the man he once knew.
“They won’t listen,” he said in a gravely voice.
Jack had to bodily pull Daniel into his house, helping him out of his wet clothes and into some of Jack’s old sweats. Bundled up on the couch, Jack couldn’t help but notice that Daniel looked like a small child. He stared off into space as if suffering from deep shock, and Jack realized that he was.
“I tried to stop it, to make them understand, but people just keep dying,” Daniel said in a far off voice.
“It’s not your fault, Daniel. None of us wanted this.”
“Everything’s gone, Jack. We bomb, they bomb and no one seems to care anymore. Hammond’s dead, Teal’c’s gone, Sam’s disappeared, Sha’re…,” he turned to Jack and his eyes seemed to momentarily clear. “I can’t do this anymore.”
One could only imagine what Daniel must have seen in the last few weeks. People torn to pieces, towns leveled and then to go back to try to convince people to stop only to realize that no one was ever going to listen. People’s fear, anger and thirst for revenge were now beyond diplomacy. How could anyone ignore how many people were dead?
Jack wanted to punch something. It wasn’t enough that people were dying everywhere over something as stupid as a hunk of metal, they also had to do this to his friend. Daniel was broken, his optimism finally sucked away. Seven years of endless battles against a seemingly unbeatable alien foe had not done that. His own people’s paranoid stubbornness did it.
Jack finally managed to get Daniel to lie down, to get the rest he obviously needed. Jack watched him sleep for hours, letting his brain wrap around everything that had happened.
It was only when Daniel finally began to stir awake that Jack finally asked him the question that had been plaguing him. “Do they know you’re here, Daniel?”
Daniel blinked up at Jack for a moment before shaking his head. “No…I just got up one day and packed. The next thing I knew, I was here, standing on your porch.” He seemed a bit more lucid, but he still didn’t seem to comprehend what he had done.
Jack closed his eyes. A few years ago it might have seemed like no big deal for a non-military person to walk out on their post, but these days…no one’s life was their own. He knew what this would look like to the suspicious eye. Desertion, or worse, evidence that he didn’t entirely support the government’s agenda.
As Jack regarded Daniel, he seemed to have realized what he had done as well, his face draining of color.
“I….I didn’t think,” he stuttered.
“I know,” Jack said, pushing to his feet and pacing around the room.
They would be coming for him. It wouldn’t be too difficult for them to find him either, as he must have passed through a dozen checkpoints to have gotten this far from Washington.
Daniel reached over and grabbed Jack’s arm, his eyes beginning to show panic. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Jack.”
Jack didn’t have an answer and he knew there was no way to protect Daniel. So he did the only thing he could. A few hours later with surprisingly little effort, Jack smuggled Daniel off world, depositing him on Chulak with Teal’c’s family.
Daniel had protested, but Jack was no longer listening. It was the only way for him to be safe. And Jack was beginning to realize that maybe it was the only way any of them ever would be.
* * *
Three weeks after Jack watched Daniel disappear into the glimmering mouth of the Stargate, his sleep was once again interrupted, only this time by the shrill ring of his phone.
Sam.
Something was wrong, Jack could tell from the first word out of her mouth. They hadn’t spoken since the latest escalation of the war, but Sam’s tone as she discussed one inane thing after another was enough to finally confirm his suspicions as to the nature of Sam’s new position.
Goddamned war.
“Sam,” he interrupted, using her name to shock her into silence. “Everything is going to be fine, I promise. Just remember who you are, you’re a good person.”
Sam was silent for a long moment.
“Maybe you don’t know me anymore, Jack,” she said thickly in a voice that told him she was trying not to cry.
Before he could even answer, she hung up on him.
Jack held the dead phone for a long time, finally realizing what he had to do.
The time for sitting helplessly behind his desk was over.
* * *
Nyan and Brenna were the first to go of the alien refugees. Jack had them brought in to the SGC for routine ‘check-ups,’ before offering them a chance to get off Earth and go anywhere they wanted. They both seemed incredibly saddened by what was happening to their adopted planet, but neither hesitated when they were offered a place by Melosha on the Land of Light.
Jack couldn’t blame them.
In the end, about twenty alien refugees living in America were smuggled out through the gate over the next few weeks. This wasn’t their war; they all deserved a chance at a real life.
Soon there was only one alien left. Jack went in person to collect her.
He waited for her outside a large lecture hall on the depopulated college campus. It was obvious that the draft was draining students away at an alarming rate. Only a handful of students came out as the bells rang noon.
Her eyes fell on him immediately. She didn’t need to ask what he was doing there. There were only two reasons he would show up, and his opening words ruled out the first one.
“As far as I know, they’re all fine,” Jack said.
Cassie nodded and silently led him towards her dorm where she already had a bag packed, her decision made long ago, before the first bomb even fell.
Stepping back out into the sunlight, Jack shouldered her bag and pulled on his sunglasses.
“What about you, Jack?” she eventually asked.
She wanted to know if he was leaving, too. Jack fidgeted, but did not answer. But Cassie knew him well enough to be a step ahead.
“You still haven’t decided, have you? It’s easy for you to risk everything to get those you care about out of the way, to make sure they’re safe. But you’re not sure you can get yourself to follow.”
Jack wondered when exactly Cassie had become this perceptive. Part of him missed the naïve kid who had bought his bluff that all Earth kids were required to have a dog.
“It’s not running away, Jack. It isn’t dereliction of duty. And even if it is, maybe it’s well past time to be selfish. None of you worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that this would be our future. She didn’t die for this,” she said with a thrust of her finger towards a bank of newspapers.
The press, as always, was having a field day exploiting the terrors of war for their own circulation benefits. They plastered the country with larger than life color images of death and suffering, breeding and feeding fear. That hadn’t been what Janet had been about. She had been about quiet, anonymous sacrifice with no need for acclaim. He couldn’t help but think that she would be appalled.
“What do you think she would have done?” The question surprised Jack as it left his lips, but he found that he really, really wanted to hear Cassie’s answer. Somehow it was really important to know what Janet Fraiser would have thought.
Cassie paused, staring blindly at the campus quad that was nearly empty except for the presence of a few armed security forces. Eventually she turned to Jack and placed a hand on his arm. “She would have risked everything for us, too.”
Jack nodded, but Cassie wasn’t done.
She sighed in defeat and ran a hand over her face. “But I don’t think she could have left either, not until she had saved as many people as she could. By any means.”
There wasn’t so much censure in her voice as understanding. Jack forced himself to meet her eyes, realizing that he’d already known what he was going to do all along. And Cassie had known it, too.
Now he just had to figure out a way to do it.
Part 3: Resolve
The staff at the SGC and the Alpha site was quite thin and Jack knew each of them inside and out. It was easy to avoid the government plants that were there more out of traditional suspicion than any real worries that Jack O’Neill might have a plan up his sleeve. After all, he was old news and the least of the government’s worries.
Ironically enough, the Stargate Program was of little concern to anyone anymore, as if they had completely forgotten what had started this mess to begin with. But as long as nothing interrupted the procurement of naqaudah, the SCG was pretty much left alone.
Jack couldn’t help but notice the similarity to the Goa’uld system of slavery. How was he really any different than Pyrus, Ellori or any of the other dozens of human rulers that had blindly supplied the Goa’uld with naquadah in exchange for safety from retribution?
But for now, Jack was actually glad of the situation. He slowly shuffled personnel between the SGC and the Alpha site, feeling that at the very least, the people still here deserved their own final choice. Smuggling the loved ones of those people who chose to relocate to the Alpha site took a bit more finesse, but within four months, Jack had finally accomplished it with little fuss.
It was time for the next phase of his plan.
He’d had to call in every last marker he had to his name and indebt himself to countless more people, but he eventually did the undoable. He found Colonel Samantha Carter. Playing his last card, he had Siler rig something up and finally convinced the right bigwigs that if Carter couldn’t come and fix the gate, there would be no more naquadah. The results had been almost instantaneous. And now he was standing in the parking lot, waiting for a transport to deliver her back where she belonged.
When she first stepped out of the dark sedan into the bright sunlight, he almost didn’t recognize her. She had lost weight and her skin looked pallid in the sun. Her eyes automatically fell on Jack, but as she moved towards him, he couldn’t help but think he was looking into the eyes of a stranger.
Jack cursed himself for not getting to her sooner.
She stopped in front of him and saluted, not seeming to notice or care that he was wearing civvies and they were standing in the middle of a parking lot. “Colonel Carter reporting for duty, sir.”
It was hard to match up this cool professionalism with the woman who just a few months ago had held back tears as she spoke to him on the phone.
“Carter,” he acknowledged with a nod, not completely unprepared for her attitude. Talking on the phone was one thing, being together in person another all together. On the phone, her presence had never been like a swift shot the gut like it was today, ruthlessly reminding him of just how much he had missed her.
Sam was already moving towards the check-in, studiously avoiding his gaze, as if somehow aware of his thoughts. “What seems to be the big problem, sir?”
Jack reached out and stopped her with a simple touch to her arm. He wasn’t sure if he imagined her start slightly at the contact. “This way,” he said with a jerk of his head away from the mountain and towards the parking lot.
She was given no choice but to follow him, but she kept glancing back at the mountain. “Sir, I really don’t have time for this. I can’t stay long and I don’t know how long this might take.”
Jack continued dragging her towards his car. “Carter, there is nothing wrong with the gate. Just get in the car.”
She pulled her arm out of his grasp, bringing them both to a halt. “What?” she demanded with wide, suspicious eyes as if trying to gauge if he had lost his mind in the months since they had last spoken.
“Carter….please,” he finally said, willing her to trust him.
Something shifted in her expression at his plea. She nodded silently and climbed into his car.
They sat in tense silence until their destination became clear. Sam glanced around at the scenery and said, “You made it up.”
“Yes,” Jack said, his hands gripping at the wheel.
Sam stared at him in shock. “Why? Don’t you know how much trouble you could get into?”
Jack sighed as he pulled into his driveway. “Carter, you know why. And do you really think that kind of trouble matters anymore?”
He led her into the house, closing the door carefully behind them.
“Sir, this is crazy,” Sam said, standing awkwardly in his entryway looking as if MPs were going to jump out of his coat closet at any moment. These days, there was always someone watching.
“You’re just getting that?” Jack said, absently rubbing at his temples in a hopeless attempt to relieve the constant tension headache he had been living with for months.
He could feel Sam’s eyes on him, her palpable concern breaking through whatever barriers she’d felt the need to erect between them the last few months. He knew why she did it. She didn’t want him to see her as weak. But Sam had never been able to completely turn off her heart, even if she’d wanted to. Jack was glad to see that she was still the woman he had known, at least in this one small way.
“What’s wrong, sir?” she finally asked from the hallway, probably still not quite brave enough to step into the room.
Jack laughed humorlessly, wondering if she was being deliberately obtuse or if she had really been shielded that much. Well, at least her ignorance, or denial, he could fix. He pushed to his feet and walked straight to his bookcase, pulling out a thick folder of paper he had been slowly gathering over the last year of this war. A tangible document of what had been lost.
While his back was turned, Sam’s curiosity had managed to push her down the last few steps into the living room.
Jack dropped the folder on the table in front of Sam and gestured for her to look. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Take your pick.”
Sam cautiously approached the table as if it held a bomb, and in some ways, Jack mused, it did.
The sheets of paper were slowly spread across the table by Sam’s steady hand, each one detailing only two things: names and numbers. Casualty totals and lists of names, both the achingly familiar and the anonymous victims from both sides. The dividends of the last two years.
Jack could see realization dawning on her face and felt a perverse sort of pleasure in the way her façade cracked slightly. She backed away from the table as if burned.
Jack’s pleasure quickly melted into concern as Sam’s face paled and her fingers began to tremble. “You must have known…suspected,” Jack said lowly, watching her fiddle with the cuffs of her sleeves.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said stonily, blindly turning back to the door. “I have to get back.”
“It does matter, and you know it,” Jack said, his voice stopping her mid-step. “And I can’t just ignore it anymore.”
Sam spun back around to face him, studying him intently for a moment. “Sir, what have you done?” she asked with quiet horror.
Jack didn’t answer, but just leaned against the arm of the couch, his arms crossed, letting her work it out.
After a long moment, in true Carter fashion, she hit straight on the mark with the barest of clues. “Where is Daniel? Have you heard from him? And Cassie?”
“You already know those answers,” Jack said, sitting back on the couch once more now that he was sure she would stay.
He watched Sam wander aimlessly around the room, occasionally pausing to touch various objects. Jack knew her well enough to know that she was thinking hard. Trying to work out what all of this meant.
“You sent them off world,” she finally said, not needing any confirmation. She turned back around to look at him. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked.
Jack suppressed the urge to reach out and touch her. “I want you to go, too.”
Shock didn’t really cover what she seemed to be feeling. He saw a thousand emotions pass over her face in that one moment. Relief, horror, hope, anger, embarrassment, guilt. She paced back and forth down the length of his living room, finally turning to him.
“Leave Earth? Are you serious?”
It was funny, ironic even, that for a moment Jack actually wished he was still her commanding officer. So many years of wondering what it would have been like to not have any restrictions between them, but now he desperately wanted to be able to order her to stop asking questions and just do as she was told. Not that it had ever been that cut and dry between them, but at least it had been comfortable and even a little predictable.
But Jack was no longer her commanding officer. He couldn’t order her to do squat, let alone commit what some might see as treason. What he could do, though, was play the card he had never let himself use before. It scared him slightly, that he was desperate enough to try and use her feelings against her, but there was no more room for half measures.
“Please, Sam, just do this for me,” Jack said.
Sam’s breath hitched as if she couldn’t quite believe he had asked. She shook her head, though whether in denial or as an attempt to clear her head, Jack didn’t know.
“Why should I?” she finally choked out. “What makes me so special that I get to run away from this mess? I’m just one person. I’m not more important than anyone else,” she said, clearly affected by his plea, but refusing to budge nonetheless.
“Yes,” Jack said rather more intensely than he intended, “you are.”
Sam’s eyes slid from his face, clearly made uncomfortable by his words. “Fine, so my brain makes me important,” she said bitterly, “isn’t that even more reason for me to stay?”
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t talking about your brain.”
Sam made a strange sound halfway between a derisive laugh and snort of disbelief as if she couldn’t believe there was anything else ‘special’ about her. “Even if I wanted to, even if I agreed, what makes you think they won’t come after me? I doubt the government would so easily let go of their favorite toy.”
Jack hated the way she was talking about herself. She’d always had insecurities about certain parts of her life, but her intelligence had never been one of them. They’d made her hate that part of herself. “You won’t have to worry about them,” Jack said with certainty, his fists clenching at his sides.
Sam raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you be so sure?”
Jack looked away from her, not wanting her to read the truth, but she was already there. She could read the choice he was willing to make for the entire planet in his eyes.
“You can’t be seriously considering…,” she said breathlessly.
“Is it really so hard to believe? This whole damn planet is going to blow itself to hell no matter what I do. All that’s left is making it a little harder for them to do, and get the people I care about as far away from this mess as I can.”
Sam took a deep breath as if trying to regain control, and Jack didn’t blame her. This was a hell of a lot to have thrown at her so fast.
But Sam managed to digest it quickly and hone in on the one thing he would rather she would have overlooked. “You’re going to stay behind.”
Jack stood abruptly and turned away, not particularly wanting to get into this. Especially with her.
But Sam wasn’t backing down. “I know you. For all your bluster about damning the planet to hell, you still have no intention of leaving with us. If you do this, you’ll be trapped here, alone, forever. You say this is just about getting the rest of us safely away...but that’s not really it, is it?”
“Sam,” he said softly, a little disarmed by how accurately she was reading the situation. Her eyes flew to his face and suddenly she looked overwhelmingly vulnerable. Jack moved to kneel by her, reaching one hand out to touch her face. She unconsciously leaned into the contact, even as she regarded him warily. “This is about you, not me. So don’t pretend that I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Don’t pretend that this isn’t destroying you. You can’t go on this way.”
Sam paled at his blunt words, but then she reached up and wrapped her fingers gingerly around his. “The same could be said about you, Jack.”
Jack’s hand tensed automatically at her words, but he just shook his head, refusing to acknowledge her point. “I just need to know you’re safe before I…”
“Before you what?” Sam pressed. “Sacrifice yourself for the greater good?”
“I wasn’t planning on dying, Carter,” Jack said evasively.
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t talking about your life,” she said, throwing his own words back at him.
Jack knew what she meant. He very well could get out of this whole mess with his life, but with little else. An empty, lonely shell. In some ways it would be worse. Maybe that was the attraction. Fitting punishment. Because in the end, he could acknowledge that the others deserved a second chance at a real life. He just couldn’t find it in him to extend such clemency to himself.
“You’re such a goddamned tragic hero. Rescue your friends and then stay behind, saving all the hard choices and guilt for yourself.”
There was far too much truth in her words for Jack’s comfort, but all he could do was remain where he was, staring up at her helplessly, unable to deny it.
Sam fell silent and pushed up from the chair, walking away from Jack and the bleakness of his expression. Her eyes eventually fell on the collection of papers on Jack’s table. The list of the dead and fallen among the SGC personnel rested on top. She ran her fingers over it, smearing the red ink like blood.
She thought of his plan, the decisions he was willing to make and was enveloped by an overwhelming feeling of inescapability.
“There’s really no other choice, is there?” she observed.
Jack came up behind her, just short of actually touching her. “No. I don’t think there is.”
Then she turned and met his eyes and for the merest moment he thought he saw a glimmer of the old Sam Carter. “I won’t let you do this alone.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest, but her hand moved up to block the words.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen, Jack O’Neill. We do anything we can to make this stop, using that plan you’ve got tucked up your sleeve.”
“And then?” Jack asked tentatively against her fingers, feeling a strange mix of hope and dread at the same time.
Sam stared at him for long moments, dropping her hand to his chest. “Then we go.”
Jack closed his eyes, warring with the instinct to make her safe at any cost and his relief that he might not have to do this alone. Then he realized that this was what he’d hoped she’d say all along.
He wondered what kind of a person that made him.
He turned away, slowly pacing the room, allowing his fingers to reach into his pocket and wrap around the soft white crystal that he’d been carrying around for weeks. It represented his last chance, one last ditch effort to make things better. His power to affect change, should he choose to use it.
Jack slowly pulled the crystal out, resting it on his open palm, and offered it to Sam. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise before her cool fingers wrapped around his, hovering protectively over their lifeline.
They would save the world one more time.
Then they would see about saving each other.
Next
Author: Annerb
Rating: Teens
Summary: Saying goodbye.This wasn’t how they thought it would end.
Classifications: Drama, Angst, Team, S/J, Future, AU
Season: 8 (takes off after Threads)
Prologue
This wasn’t how Jack had thought it would turn out.
Not that he’d ever actually given it too much thought. It had always been a distant, nebulous goal in the back of his mind, because to do what he did every day, he had to believe that one day everything would be resolved. That one day there would be results for all the hard work they had done. But he never actually sat down and laid out plans for his life. It seemed too much like tempting fate.
But then it was there. He’d been sitting on his dock with his old team, fishing calmly like the fate of the world no longer rested on their shoulders. Which it didn’t, he’d been forced to remind himself as Daniel handed him another beer. The world had been saved. Check it off the list.
Jack mentally ran through the list that he kept in his head:
Goa’uld? Dead.
Replicators? Disintegrated.
Freaky Ancient Weapon Capable of Destroying All Life? Destroyed.
Refuses-to-be-killed, half-ascended Anubis? Mysteriously, but permanently neutered (so he had been assured by Daniel).
Jaffa? Freed.
Extremely secret and deeply classified SGC? Public knowledge.
It was difficult to comprehend, especially the last one. With the threat of the Goa’uld and Replicators gone and their good buddies the Asgard once again capable of watching out for their Protected Planets, the SGC had achieved their goals and President Hayes had deemed it a good time to come clean to America and the rest of the world about what exactly those strange lights in the sky had been over the last few years. Oh, and by the way, we’re not alone in the Universe.
Really difficult to comprehend.
But not as difficult to comprehend as the world’s response to this wondrous revelation.
Even if Jack had spent a great deal of time contemplating the question of ‘what now,’ this was not what he would have come up with. Not that he was a starry-eyed optimist or something (that had really been Daniel’s forte). He didn’t expect that all over Earth everyone would step back and say, ‘Hey. We’re not the only life forms in the Universe. We should really try to get along better. And maybe we should get rid of concepts like money and racism and genocide and all get together and sing Kumbaya.’ He wasn’t that crazy.
But neither, in a million years, would he have thought he’d be doing what he was doing now: sitting behind a desk in an increasingly depopulated SGC, skimming the latest reports from the warfronts. He didn’t think he would be carefully searching lists of the dead and fallen for familiar names, men and women he had once commanded. He never thought he would be morbid enough to keep a list of all the SG-teams from the golden days of the SGC and slowly mark their names off with red ink as they fell on foreign soil.
Not alien soil, either, but terran earth.
Earth had discovered the Galaxy only to turn back on itself in an amazing display of self-destruction. It boggled the mind.
And what were they fighting for? Could anyone even remember anymore?
Jack could remember, mainly because he’d had nothing but time sitting behind his desk underneath a mountain. The SGC had once been the front line of Earth’s war with the Goa’uld, but now it was nothing more than a remote base of operations with only one standing order: to secure a continuous supply of naquadah.
And while some might debate Jack’s gullibility, he was in no way naïve enough not to comprehend the purpose of that naquadah.
It seemed that Earth needed saving again, but this time from itself.
Part 1: Left Behind
Predictably, Teal’c was the first to leave.
Less than two weeks after they returned from Jack’s cabin, Teal’c packed a small bundle of his belongings and departed for Dakara and his new position on the Council of the Free Jaffa Nation. It was a moment of little fanfare, but deeply meaningful nonetheless.
The original SG-1 stood together in the gate room one last time, quietly reflecting on the first time they had stood as a team on the ramp eight years previously when they had all stumbled upon a seemingly hopeless battle. But here they all stood, improbably victorious and all more whole than not, even after years of hardships, loss and setbacks. They had actually achieved what they had set out to do.
A heady moment, indeed.
Though there was sadness at Teal’c’s permanent exodus from Earth, they all knew they could still see him and to be honest, nothing had really been the same since Jack had been promoted anyway. It just finally seemed like time for them to stop holding on so tightly to the ghost of SG-1.
Not that it made letting go any easier.
As Teal’c bowed one final time at them before stepping into the waiting wormhole, none of them had any reason to be anything other than optimistic about a future that had finally come.
Little did they know that his would just be the first of many departures.
* * *
They disclosed the existence of the Stargate on a Tuesday. By Thursday Jack was already tired of seeing his face on TV. He thought it was a good thing that none of them had lives to begin with, because this was just going to make everything more difficult. Sam was convinced that the media would get tired of them eventually and Daniel seemed charmingly unaware that the scrutiny even existed.
Even Jack could have learned to accept it as the price for a new era for Earth.
But then the fighting had started. First it had been nothing more than nit-picking over who got to sit where at the Stargate talks being held, of all places, in Zurich, Switzerland. It had escalated quickly from there. It seemed that a lot of nations had a big problem with being lied to for so long. Mumbles of ‘American Imperialism’ and conspiracy could be heard everywhere.
Jack did his best to ignore it all, never having been a fan of politics to begin with, though the urge to just bang all their heads together did crop up occasionally. But as long as they left the SGC alone, he could handle the bickering.
Six months after disclosure, though, the talks stalled and America was threatening to pull out all together. After all, they were just doing everyone a favor letting them know in the first place. They didn’t owe anyone anything.
Jack did his best to ignore it and the growing unease he felt in his gut.
But then one day Daniel was standing in front of his desk, telling him that he was leaving the SGC.
“I can help,” he said. “I know I can.”
Jack didn’t want to let him go. And not just because he was a valuable asset to the program or that he had, once again, just come back from a brush with death. But Daniel had come to his office with a face already lined with concern and just said ‘Please.’ Daniel could never stand by and watch suffering, especially when he was convinced that there was a way he could stop it.
How could Jack say no to that?
He felt his head nod in acceptance, even as his stomach began to ache.
Daniel’s apartment was carefully packed up. Out of the corner of his eye Jack watched Sam lovingly bundle up the soft leather bound journals that were a tangible reminder of SG-1’s adventures together. He wondered if she was thinking about all the times they had done this after Daniel’s deaths.
Jack knew that Daniel was just moving on, not dying, but it still felt like it.
The dusty tweed suits and worn flannels that Jack carefully piled into a box reminded him of a floppy haired archaeologist who had once imparted a great truth to him in a sandy, dark cave halfway across the galaxy.
Life itself was more than enough reason to live.
He sealed the box with a strip of tape and while no one was looking, he slipped a pack of Kleenex into Daniel’s pocket.
Jack stood with Sam in the airport and waved one last time, trying not to think of his relief that he at least still had her.
* * *
The talks resumed, with Daniel now in attendance, using his new found fame as best he could, trying to be the voice of reason. Jack had seen him talk his way out of a million different situations, but his own race seemed to be more suspicious of him than the average alien. It was hard for Jack to comprehend.
But Daniel was never one to give up.
Somewhere along the line though, it had become about more than an alien metal circle hidden deep under a mountain in Colorado (not that anyone knew the actual location of the famed gate). It was if every grievance ever felt by any group of people had been brought back to the surface and the Stargate was the catalyst.
Everything escalated so quickly, however, that one day Daniel was mediating talks and the next Jack was watching with complete surprise as American embassies all over the world were evacuated and American borders were closed. He could no longer ignore the gathering storm.
Soon after, Jack began to have transfer papers fly over his desk like there was no tomorrow. He had called anyone and everyone that would talk to him, demanding to know what the hell they thought they were doing transferring his highly trained officers away from the SGC and into front line units throughout the world.
He had been told in no uncertain terms that the defense of American sanctity was the top priority. Interstellar exploration was a luxury that the U.S. government could no longer afford. It had taken the President threatening to relieve Jack of his command to get him to finally accept defeat, though for a moment Jack had let himself wonder why exactly that would be a bad thing. What was he really doing here anymore anyway?
But Jack couldn’t leave.
So for four months he helplessly watched the growing conflict and increasing political pressure on the President gradually bleed the SGC dry. He was only allowed to keep four teams for retrieval of off-world elements, primarily naquadah.
Then the unthinkable had happened. No one could ever point to a specific event, but one day Jack had woken to a speech by President Hayes declaring war against those who threatened American self-determination and safety. The lines were drawn. In reality it was nothing more than a few border skirmishes here and there with very few casualties, but Jack knew it wouldn’t take much to escalate.
It seemed that World War Three had begun. Hadn’t they once called World War One the ‘war to end all wars’? A bit premature in the end it seemed. Humans just never learned their lessons.
Jack couldn’t help but think that if Anubis was still alive, he would be laughing his half-ascended ass off.
But it was not until nearly three months since the advent of war that Jack received the transfer papers that finally brought home just how real this war was.
He didn’t call her into his office, instead he found himself wandering down to her lab. Pausing in her open doorway, he stood for long moments watching her work, leaning over some diagnostic tool with her brow furrowed in concentration. The unguarded moment did not last long, however, because like some sixth sense she realized he was watching her and glanced up from her tools.
“Sir,” she said somewhat breathlessly as she turned off the machine she had been working on. Her pleasure at seeing him faded somewhat quickly, however, as she took in his grim visage and the folder clenched rather menacingly in his fist. Her bright smile of greeting slipped off her face and she sank down into a nearby chair, obviously having already worked out the purpose of this little visit.
Jack took a few steps into the room. “I’m sorry, Carter. I did everything I could think of, even threatened to resign…but that doesn’t seem to have the clout it once did.”
She tried to force an unconcerned smile on her face. “I’m sure you did everything you could, sir, and I appreciate it, but we both knew this would happen eventually.”
He watched with an aching sense of loss as she began to hide behind her good soldier façade. These last few months nothing had overtly changed between them, but they were just both far too aware of the fact that they were all the other had left. It had inevitably led to a greater openness between them, but here she was, shutting back down again. Shielding herself.
For once, he almost wished for her to get pissed and chuck something at a wall. Or at least looked like she cared that she was leaving. “You don’t have to pretend this doesn’t suck, Carter.”
Her lips twitched and for a moment Jack was almost convinced he had seen a flash of panic and sadness, but then she dropped her head and began playing absently with some tool Jack couldn’t identify.
“When?” she asked softly after long moments of silence.
Jack sighed. “Immediately.” Things moved quickly these days and these would be Carter’s final hours in this lab.
Sam nodded her understanding. “Where?”
Here was the real kicker. Jack handed her the folder, waiting until she looked back up at him to answer. “I don’t know,” he said. “Apparently I don’t have high enough clearance.”
Her mouth popped open for a moment at the paradoxical statement before she slammed it back shut and reached for the folder, her fingers briefly tangling with his.
Hers wasn’t the first departure, but Jack felt like it was the last fatal slamming door.
And still he stayed.
* * *
He drove her to the airport. She made him swear to water her plants and drive her car every once and a while so the battery wouldn’t die. She promised to send for her stuff when she finally got settled at her final destination. Jack knew she never would.
They stood silently in line as she checked her bags. Twenty minutes later they were standing in front of the security check point. She was shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot, undoubtedly searching for something to say. Jack didn’t make it any easier for her.
“If you see Teal’c or Daniel, say goodbye for me,” she finally managed to say. There had been no time to contact either of them. “And tell them not to worry about me.”
Jack knew this last bit was more for his benefit than theirs. He let a cynical smirk cross his face for just a moment, realizing that she was more concerned about leaving him behind than her new mysterious posting. “They know you can take care of yourself,” he said, playing along.
She nodded briefly once, looking for all the world like she didn’t have a clue what to do next. So she simply said, “I’ll keep in touch,” even when they both knew that it was going to be nearly impossible for her to do so.
“You do that,” Jack replied, not sure how to make this easier.
Still they stood several feet apart, until Sam finally seemed to concede defeat. “Goodbye, sir,” she said.
Jack refused to wince at the formal farewell, instead trying to focus on being immensely glad that she hadn’t said anything about it having been an honor to serve with him or some crap. “Bye, Carter,” he said instead, trying, rather unsuccessfully, to imbue the simple words with…something.
In the next instant she was walking away, joining the ranks of people pulling out laptops and removing shoes in the long security checkpoint. He watched her golden head until it was no longer visible before shoving his hands in his pockets and heading back out to the entrance. He didn’t make it much further than around the corner, though, before he found himself standing still in the middle of the hall, staring at his toes.
The familiar urge to just do something began to build in him, but his feet would not move from the spot where he stood. Now he was the one standing still while everything and everyone spiraled away from him, leaving him behind. He was just about to force himself do something, undoubtedly something rash, when he heard his name called out behind him.
“Jack.”
He barely had time to register the sound of her voice before he broke his immobility and turned around to see her walking briskly towards him. And then her arms were wrapping around him and after only the briefest hesitation born out of habit he did the same.
It was nice to hold her for no other reason than that he just wanted to, and not because one of them had almost died and they felt they deserved a moment of weakness. This was something else entirely. He forced himself to relax and remember that it was okay for him to touch her now. He was allowed to do this, allowed to feel and touch and want. Even though it meant she was going away.
But all his mind could focus on was that fact that he no longer had any control. He had no say in her career or her safety. He couldn’t be there to make sure she had the back up she needed. He wouldn’t be there and he didn’t even have the clearance to know where ‘there’ was. It scared the hell out of him.
He shook the disturbing thoughts off, reminding himself that Carter was more than capable of taking care of herself, forcibly refocusing his mind on the feel of her in his arms, knowing that this was the closest either of them would get to saying, ‘I’ll miss you.’ Or to speaking of the inevitable appearance of yet another barrier between them and their vague hopes for ‘something.’
“I’ll be here when you get back,” he said. And that was the closest he would get to saying that he would wait as long as it took, that he still hoped. But she understood. He knew she did.
When she finally pulled out of his arms, he watched her walk away and bit down mercilessly on the horrible feeling that he was never going to see her again.
He drove to her house and talked to her plants, knowing she would appreciate it.
The next day, he went to work, sat behind his desk and tried to carry on.
Part 2: Falling Backwards
He didn’t hear from Sam for a month.
One night as he lay staring at his ceiling in an absurd parody of actually getting a good night’s sleep, the phone rang. Jack almost didn’t answer it, not really wanting to know what the hell could have gone so wrong to deserve a call at three in the morning. But some left over feeling of responsibility drove him to pick it up.
“O’Neill,” he practically barked into the phone.
There was a long pause and Jack was about to hang up when she finally spoke. “Sir.”
Jack sat up in bed. “Carter?”
“I can’t talk long, sir, I just wanted…” she trailed off, her voice hushed as if she was trying not to be overheard. “How are you doing?”
Jack got the distinct impression that she wasn’t even supposed to be on the phone. He suppressed the urge to demand to know where the hell she had been for four weeks and what she was doing. What could she possibly be doing that required this much secrecy? “I’m fine. Same old stuff, you know. You?”
“Good, good,” she said rather quickly.
An awkward pause stretched long. They both knew they couldn’t speak about work, but there was little else for them to discuss that wasn’t taboo.
“I should probably go…,” Sam said eventually, discomfort audible in her voice.
There were a million things Jack wanted to ask, but he knew he couldn’t put her in that position, especially considering how paranoid the government in general was getting these days. But he also knew that he had to keep her talking, he needed to hear her voice. He opened his mouth and said the first thing he could think of.
“I miss you.”
The moment the words were out, Jack wanted to pull them back into his mouth, no matter how true they were. His embarrassment increased with every passing second as Sam remained silent.
“Uh…look, Carter, I guess I shouldn’t have said-.”
She cut him off midway. “I miss you, too,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “God, I wish I could talk to you about-,” she started, frustration clear in her voice.
“Don’t, Carter,” Jack interrupted. “I’m not worth that. Just be careful. That’s enough for me.”
Jack heard some background voices over the phone. “Damn,” Sam swore, “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“I know. Thanks for calling,” Jack said, trying to make it clear that he understood. None of this was her fault.
“I’ll call again when I get a chance.”
“I’ll be here,” Jack promised. “Take care of yourself, Carter.”
“You, too,” she said softly. “Bye.”
“Bye, Carter.”
The line went dead, but Jack sat holding the phone until the sun dawned.
* * *
Four months after Sam’s transfer, Jack woke to the news that America, obviously deciding that the stalemate war could be ended by a brute show of strength, dropped a naquadria bomb in the hinterlands of China.
Jack couldn’t help but think of what he had once said to Jonas.
All right, let me be clear about something. I think this is the point Daniel was trying to make. A weapon of mass destruction can only be used for one thing. Now, you might think it will ensure peace and freedom, but I guarantee you it'll never have the effect you're hoping for until you use it, at least once. Now, just for the record, the reason we want that stuff is because we think it could be used to create defense shields. But you just go ahead, blow yourselves to hell with it.
He had been so pissed that the Kelownans refused to listen to someone from a planet that knew weapons of mass destruction never wrought anything but more war.
But Earth never seems to have learned that lesson either.
At first it seemed that America had made its point. The peace talks had resumed briefly, but not for long.
In a move so surprising and almost foolhardy to the point that Jack couldn’t help but be impressed, the rebelling nations refused to bow down to the bullish move. They knew they had inferior stuff, but they would fight anyway, almost as if the bomb had just proven the intentions of America to rule the whole planet through their monopoly on the Stargate.
Even England, France and Russia were beginning to look at America with new eyes.
Though never outright admitted to by anyone in the American government, it was clear that the bomb’s destructive power had been more than they were prepared for. They had purposively chosen a relatively unpopulated area, but a bad combination of not quite hitting the right spot and not accounting for its astounding power ensured that a city of 60,000 was wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Jack wanted to believe it had been unintentional, but faith was harder to come by every day. The government’s paranoia and tightening grip was such that they even began to eye their own citizens warily. People began to disappear off the streets, being held in undisclosed locations for indeterminate amounts of time. The government didn’t even need a reason anymore, let alone probable cause.
Jack wondered how much longer until they all were all implanted with tracking devices or had monitoring systems in their homes.
Daniel was among the group traveling to witness the fallout of America’s new toy. It was the only reason he survived the retaliatory attack on the Geneva Stargate Talks. None of the Ambassadors survived. Including a high ranking American General that had traveled to the talks in hopes of talking some sense into anyone who would listen.
It wasn’t how George Hammond was meant to fall.
More blood than ever began to spill all over the planet. Jack started the grisly tradition of keeping tabs on all the former SG personnel, feeling a fierce swoop of anger every time another one of his former airmen fell. Such a waste of life.
And still Jack sat behind his desk, doing his duty, even as a burning lava of anger began to consume him piece by piece.
* * *
A few weeks after the disasters in Geneva and China, Jack woke to someone pounding on his door in the middle of the night. Daniel was standing on his porch, seemingly oblivious to the rain pouring down over him. Jack hadn’t seen him in almost a year and he was barely recognizable as the man he once knew.
“They won’t listen,” he said in a gravely voice.
Jack had to bodily pull Daniel into his house, helping him out of his wet clothes and into some of Jack’s old sweats. Bundled up on the couch, Jack couldn’t help but notice that Daniel looked like a small child. He stared off into space as if suffering from deep shock, and Jack realized that he was.
“I tried to stop it, to make them understand, but people just keep dying,” Daniel said in a far off voice.
“It’s not your fault, Daniel. None of us wanted this.”
“Everything’s gone, Jack. We bomb, they bomb and no one seems to care anymore. Hammond’s dead, Teal’c’s gone, Sam’s disappeared, Sha’re…,” he turned to Jack and his eyes seemed to momentarily clear. “I can’t do this anymore.”
One could only imagine what Daniel must have seen in the last few weeks. People torn to pieces, towns leveled and then to go back to try to convince people to stop only to realize that no one was ever going to listen. People’s fear, anger and thirst for revenge were now beyond diplomacy. How could anyone ignore how many people were dead?
Jack wanted to punch something. It wasn’t enough that people were dying everywhere over something as stupid as a hunk of metal, they also had to do this to his friend. Daniel was broken, his optimism finally sucked away. Seven years of endless battles against a seemingly unbeatable alien foe had not done that. His own people’s paranoid stubbornness did it.
Jack finally managed to get Daniel to lie down, to get the rest he obviously needed. Jack watched him sleep for hours, letting his brain wrap around everything that had happened.
It was only when Daniel finally began to stir awake that Jack finally asked him the question that had been plaguing him. “Do they know you’re here, Daniel?”
Daniel blinked up at Jack for a moment before shaking his head. “No…I just got up one day and packed. The next thing I knew, I was here, standing on your porch.” He seemed a bit more lucid, but he still didn’t seem to comprehend what he had done.
Jack closed his eyes. A few years ago it might have seemed like no big deal for a non-military person to walk out on their post, but these days…no one’s life was their own. He knew what this would look like to the suspicious eye. Desertion, or worse, evidence that he didn’t entirely support the government’s agenda.
As Jack regarded Daniel, he seemed to have realized what he had done as well, his face draining of color.
“I….I didn’t think,” he stuttered.
“I know,” Jack said, pushing to his feet and pacing around the room.
They would be coming for him. It wouldn’t be too difficult for them to find him either, as he must have passed through a dozen checkpoints to have gotten this far from Washington.
Daniel reached over and grabbed Jack’s arm, his eyes beginning to show panic. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Jack.”
Jack didn’t have an answer and he knew there was no way to protect Daniel. So he did the only thing he could. A few hours later with surprisingly little effort, Jack smuggled Daniel off world, depositing him on Chulak with Teal’c’s family.
Daniel had protested, but Jack was no longer listening. It was the only way for him to be safe. And Jack was beginning to realize that maybe it was the only way any of them ever would be.
* * *
Three weeks after Jack watched Daniel disappear into the glimmering mouth of the Stargate, his sleep was once again interrupted, only this time by the shrill ring of his phone.
Sam.
Something was wrong, Jack could tell from the first word out of her mouth. They hadn’t spoken since the latest escalation of the war, but Sam’s tone as she discussed one inane thing after another was enough to finally confirm his suspicions as to the nature of Sam’s new position.
Goddamned war.
“Sam,” he interrupted, using her name to shock her into silence. “Everything is going to be fine, I promise. Just remember who you are, you’re a good person.”
Sam was silent for a long moment.
“Maybe you don’t know me anymore, Jack,” she said thickly in a voice that told him she was trying not to cry.
Before he could even answer, she hung up on him.
Jack held the dead phone for a long time, finally realizing what he had to do.
The time for sitting helplessly behind his desk was over.
* * *
Nyan and Brenna were the first to go of the alien refugees. Jack had them brought in to the SGC for routine ‘check-ups,’ before offering them a chance to get off Earth and go anywhere they wanted. They both seemed incredibly saddened by what was happening to their adopted planet, but neither hesitated when they were offered a place by Melosha on the Land of Light.
Jack couldn’t blame them.
In the end, about twenty alien refugees living in America were smuggled out through the gate over the next few weeks. This wasn’t their war; they all deserved a chance at a real life.
Soon there was only one alien left. Jack went in person to collect her.
He waited for her outside a large lecture hall on the depopulated college campus. It was obvious that the draft was draining students away at an alarming rate. Only a handful of students came out as the bells rang noon.
Her eyes fell on him immediately. She didn’t need to ask what he was doing there. There were only two reasons he would show up, and his opening words ruled out the first one.
“As far as I know, they’re all fine,” Jack said.
Cassie nodded and silently led him towards her dorm where she already had a bag packed, her decision made long ago, before the first bomb even fell.
Stepping back out into the sunlight, Jack shouldered her bag and pulled on his sunglasses.
“What about you, Jack?” she eventually asked.
She wanted to know if he was leaving, too. Jack fidgeted, but did not answer. But Cassie knew him well enough to be a step ahead.
“You still haven’t decided, have you? It’s easy for you to risk everything to get those you care about out of the way, to make sure they’re safe. But you’re not sure you can get yourself to follow.”
Jack wondered when exactly Cassie had become this perceptive. Part of him missed the naïve kid who had bought his bluff that all Earth kids were required to have a dog.
“It’s not running away, Jack. It isn’t dereliction of duty. And even if it is, maybe it’s well past time to be selfish. None of you worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that this would be our future. She didn’t die for this,” she said with a thrust of her finger towards a bank of newspapers.
The press, as always, was having a field day exploiting the terrors of war for their own circulation benefits. They plastered the country with larger than life color images of death and suffering, breeding and feeding fear. That hadn’t been what Janet had been about. She had been about quiet, anonymous sacrifice with no need for acclaim. He couldn’t help but think that she would be appalled.
“What do you think she would have done?” The question surprised Jack as it left his lips, but he found that he really, really wanted to hear Cassie’s answer. Somehow it was really important to know what Janet Fraiser would have thought.
Cassie paused, staring blindly at the campus quad that was nearly empty except for the presence of a few armed security forces. Eventually she turned to Jack and placed a hand on his arm. “She would have risked everything for us, too.”
Jack nodded, but Cassie wasn’t done.
She sighed in defeat and ran a hand over her face. “But I don’t think she could have left either, not until she had saved as many people as she could. By any means.”
There wasn’t so much censure in her voice as understanding. Jack forced himself to meet her eyes, realizing that he’d already known what he was going to do all along. And Cassie had known it, too.
Now he just had to figure out a way to do it.
Part 3: Resolve
The staff at the SGC and the Alpha site was quite thin and Jack knew each of them inside and out. It was easy to avoid the government plants that were there more out of traditional suspicion than any real worries that Jack O’Neill might have a plan up his sleeve. After all, he was old news and the least of the government’s worries.
Ironically enough, the Stargate Program was of little concern to anyone anymore, as if they had completely forgotten what had started this mess to begin with. But as long as nothing interrupted the procurement of naqaudah, the SCG was pretty much left alone.
Jack couldn’t help but notice the similarity to the Goa’uld system of slavery. How was he really any different than Pyrus, Ellori or any of the other dozens of human rulers that had blindly supplied the Goa’uld with naquadah in exchange for safety from retribution?
But for now, Jack was actually glad of the situation. He slowly shuffled personnel between the SGC and the Alpha site, feeling that at the very least, the people still here deserved their own final choice. Smuggling the loved ones of those people who chose to relocate to the Alpha site took a bit more finesse, but within four months, Jack had finally accomplished it with little fuss.
It was time for the next phase of his plan.
He’d had to call in every last marker he had to his name and indebt himself to countless more people, but he eventually did the undoable. He found Colonel Samantha Carter. Playing his last card, he had Siler rig something up and finally convinced the right bigwigs that if Carter couldn’t come and fix the gate, there would be no more naquadah. The results had been almost instantaneous. And now he was standing in the parking lot, waiting for a transport to deliver her back where she belonged.
When she first stepped out of the dark sedan into the bright sunlight, he almost didn’t recognize her. She had lost weight and her skin looked pallid in the sun. Her eyes automatically fell on Jack, but as she moved towards him, he couldn’t help but think he was looking into the eyes of a stranger.
Jack cursed himself for not getting to her sooner.
She stopped in front of him and saluted, not seeming to notice or care that he was wearing civvies and they were standing in the middle of a parking lot. “Colonel Carter reporting for duty, sir.”
It was hard to match up this cool professionalism with the woman who just a few months ago had held back tears as she spoke to him on the phone.
“Carter,” he acknowledged with a nod, not completely unprepared for her attitude. Talking on the phone was one thing, being together in person another all together. On the phone, her presence had never been like a swift shot the gut like it was today, ruthlessly reminding him of just how much he had missed her.
Sam was already moving towards the check-in, studiously avoiding his gaze, as if somehow aware of his thoughts. “What seems to be the big problem, sir?”
Jack reached out and stopped her with a simple touch to her arm. He wasn’t sure if he imagined her start slightly at the contact. “This way,” he said with a jerk of his head away from the mountain and towards the parking lot.
She was given no choice but to follow him, but she kept glancing back at the mountain. “Sir, I really don’t have time for this. I can’t stay long and I don’t know how long this might take.”
Jack continued dragging her towards his car. “Carter, there is nothing wrong with the gate. Just get in the car.”
She pulled her arm out of his grasp, bringing them both to a halt. “What?” she demanded with wide, suspicious eyes as if trying to gauge if he had lost his mind in the months since they had last spoken.
“Carter….please,” he finally said, willing her to trust him.
Something shifted in her expression at his plea. She nodded silently and climbed into his car.
They sat in tense silence until their destination became clear. Sam glanced around at the scenery and said, “You made it up.”
“Yes,” Jack said, his hands gripping at the wheel.
Sam stared at him in shock. “Why? Don’t you know how much trouble you could get into?”
Jack sighed as he pulled into his driveway. “Carter, you know why. And do you really think that kind of trouble matters anymore?”
He led her into the house, closing the door carefully behind them.
“Sir, this is crazy,” Sam said, standing awkwardly in his entryway looking as if MPs were going to jump out of his coat closet at any moment. These days, there was always someone watching.
“You’re just getting that?” Jack said, absently rubbing at his temples in a hopeless attempt to relieve the constant tension headache he had been living with for months.
He could feel Sam’s eyes on him, her palpable concern breaking through whatever barriers she’d felt the need to erect between them the last few months. He knew why she did it. She didn’t want him to see her as weak. But Sam had never been able to completely turn off her heart, even if she’d wanted to. Jack was glad to see that she was still the woman he had known, at least in this one small way.
“What’s wrong, sir?” she finally asked from the hallway, probably still not quite brave enough to step into the room.
Jack laughed humorlessly, wondering if she was being deliberately obtuse or if she had really been shielded that much. Well, at least her ignorance, or denial, he could fix. He pushed to his feet and walked straight to his bookcase, pulling out a thick folder of paper he had been slowly gathering over the last year of this war. A tangible document of what had been lost.
While his back was turned, Sam’s curiosity had managed to push her down the last few steps into the living room.
Jack dropped the folder on the table in front of Sam and gestured for her to look. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Take your pick.”
Sam cautiously approached the table as if it held a bomb, and in some ways, Jack mused, it did.
The sheets of paper were slowly spread across the table by Sam’s steady hand, each one detailing only two things: names and numbers. Casualty totals and lists of names, both the achingly familiar and the anonymous victims from both sides. The dividends of the last two years.
Jack could see realization dawning on her face and felt a perverse sort of pleasure in the way her façade cracked slightly. She backed away from the table as if burned.
Jack’s pleasure quickly melted into concern as Sam’s face paled and her fingers began to tremble. “You must have known…suspected,” Jack said lowly, watching her fiddle with the cuffs of her sleeves.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said stonily, blindly turning back to the door. “I have to get back.”
“It does matter, and you know it,” Jack said, his voice stopping her mid-step. “And I can’t just ignore it anymore.”
Sam spun back around to face him, studying him intently for a moment. “Sir, what have you done?” she asked with quiet horror.
Jack didn’t answer, but just leaned against the arm of the couch, his arms crossed, letting her work it out.
After a long moment, in true Carter fashion, she hit straight on the mark with the barest of clues. “Where is Daniel? Have you heard from him? And Cassie?”
“You already know those answers,” Jack said, sitting back on the couch once more now that he was sure she would stay.
He watched Sam wander aimlessly around the room, occasionally pausing to touch various objects. Jack knew her well enough to know that she was thinking hard. Trying to work out what all of this meant.
“You sent them off world,” she finally said, not needing any confirmation. She turned back around to look at him. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked.
Jack suppressed the urge to reach out and touch her. “I want you to go, too.”
Shock didn’t really cover what she seemed to be feeling. He saw a thousand emotions pass over her face in that one moment. Relief, horror, hope, anger, embarrassment, guilt. She paced back and forth down the length of his living room, finally turning to him.
“Leave Earth? Are you serious?”
It was funny, ironic even, that for a moment Jack actually wished he was still her commanding officer. So many years of wondering what it would have been like to not have any restrictions between them, but now he desperately wanted to be able to order her to stop asking questions and just do as she was told. Not that it had ever been that cut and dry between them, but at least it had been comfortable and even a little predictable.
But Jack was no longer her commanding officer. He couldn’t order her to do squat, let alone commit what some might see as treason. What he could do, though, was play the card he had never let himself use before. It scared him slightly, that he was desperate enough to try and use her feelings against her, but there was no more room for half measures.
“Please, Sam, just do this for me,” Jack said.
Sam’s breath hitched as if she couldn’t quite believe he had asked. She shook her head, though whether in denial or as an attempt to clear her head, Jack didn’t know.
“Why should I?” she finally choked out. “What makes me so special that I get to run away from this mess? I’m just one person. I’m not more important than anyone else,” she said, clearly affected by his plea, but refusing to budge nonetheless.
“Yes,” Jack said rather more intensely than he intended, “you are.”
Sam’s eyes slid from his face, clearly made uncomfortable by his words. “Fine, so my brain makes me important,” she said bitterly, “isn’t that even more reason for me to stay?”
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t talking about your brain.”
Sam made a strange sound halfway between a derisive laugh and snort of disbelief as if she couldn’t believe there was anything else ‘special’ about her. “Even if I wanted to, even if I agreed, what makes you think they won’t come after me? I doubt the government would so easily let go of their favorite toy.”
Jack hated the way she was talking about herself. She’d always had insecurities about certain parts of her life, but her intelligence had never been one of them. They’d made her hate that part of herself. “You won’t have to worry about them,” Jack said with certainty, his fists clenching at his sides.
Sam raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you be so sure?”
Jack looked away from her, not wanting her to read the truth, but she was already there. She could read the choice he was willing to make for the entire planet in his eyes.
“You can’t be seriously considering…,” she said breathlessly.
“Is it really so hard to believe? This whole damn planet is going to blow itself to hell no matter what I do. All that’s left is making it a little harder for them to do, and get the people I care about as far away from this mess as I can.”
Sam took a deep breath as if trying to regain control, and Jack didn’t blame her. This was a hell of a lot to have thrown at her so fast.
But Sam managed to digest it quickly and hone in on the one thing he would rather she would have overlooked. “You’re going to stay behind.”
Jack stood abruptly and turned away, not particularly wanting to get into this. Especially with her.
But Sam wasn’t backing down. “I know you. For all your bluster about damning the planet to hell, you still have no intention of leaving with us. If you do this, you’ll be trapped here, alone, forever. You say this is just about getting the rest of us safely away...but that’s not really it, is it?”
“Sam,” he said softly, a little disarmed by how accurately she was reading the situation. Her eyes flew to his face and suddenly she looked overwhelmingly vulnerable. Jack moved to kneel by her, reaching one hand out to touch her face. She unconsciously leaned into the contact, even as she regarded him warily. “This is about you, not me. So don’t pretend that I don’t know what you’ve been doing. Don’t pretend that this isn’t destroying you. You can’t go on this way.”
Sam paled at his blunt words, but then she reached up and wrapped her fingers gingerly around his. “The same could be said about you, Jack.”
Jack’s hand tensed automatically at her words, but he just shook his head, refusing to acknowledge her point. “I just need to know you’re safe before I…”
“Before you what?” Sam pressed. “Sacrifice yourself for the greater good?”
“I wasn’t planning on dying, Carter,” Jack said evasively.
“Believe it or not, I wasn’t talking about your life,” she said, throwing his own words back at him.
Jack knew what she meant. He very well could get out of this whole mess with his life, but with little else. An empty, lonely shell. In some ways it would be worse. Maybe that was the attraction. Fitting punishment. Because in the end, he could acknowledge that the others deserved a second chance at a real life. He just couldn’t find it in him to extend such clemency to himself.
“You’re such a goddamned tragic hero. Rescue your friends and then stay behind, saving all the hard choices and guilt for yourself.”
There was far too much truth in her words for Jack’s comfort, but all he could do was remain where he was, staring up at her helplessly, unable to deny it.
Sam fell silent and pushed up from the chair, walking away from Jack and the bleakness of his expression. Her eyes eventually fell on the collection of papers on Jack’s table. The list of the dead and fallen among the SGC personnel rested on top. She ran her fingers over it, smearing the red ink like blood.
She thought of his plan, the decisions he was willing to make and was enveloped by an overwhelming feeling of inescapability.
“There’s really no other choice, is there?” she observed.
Jack came up behind her, just short of actually touching her. “No. I don’t think there is.”
Then she turned and met his eyes and for the merest moment he thought he saw a glimmer of the old Sam Carter. “I won’t let you do this alone.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest, but her hand moved up to block the words.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen, Jack O’Neill. We do anything we can to make this stop, using that plan you’ve got tucked up your sleeve.”
“And then?” Jack asked tentatively against her fingers, feeling a strange mix of hope and dread at the same time.
Sam stared at him for long moments, dropping her hand to his chest. “Then we go.”
Jack closed his eyes, warring with the instinct to make her safe at any cost and his relief that he might not have to do this alone. Then he realized that this was what he’d hoped she’d say all along.
He wondered what kind of a person that made him.
He turned away, slowly pacing the room, allowing his fingers to reach into his pocket and wrap around the soft white crystal that he’d been carrying around for weeks. It represented his last chance, one last ditch effort to make things better. His power to affect change, should he choose to use it.
Jack slowly pulled the crystal out, resting it on his open palm, and offered it to Sam. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise before her cool fingers wrapped around his, hovering protectively over their lifeline.
They would save the world one more time.
Then they would see about saving each other.
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