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magibrainChapter Summary: Questions, answers, and a plan that just might work.
Index post: [Fic] Beneath a Beating Sun - Index
Major Davis of the Pentagon had once remarked, in one of his less charitable and more off-duty moments, that the SGC seemed to be an advanced device for turning money and man-hours into policy headaches. Jack was more of the opinion that it turned early mornings and late nights into headaches of all sorts. He was hoping, on this particular late night, for a brief reprieve from that pattern – surely the trip to '542 had paid off whatever karmic debt he'd incurred for waking up that morning – but he wasn't going to bet on it.
Heading for his own quarters through Level 25 should have been relatively safe, but this was the SGC. No activity was "relatively safe". He managed to make it almost to his door before noticing that another door was conspicuously open.
A conspicuous door to be open, too. (Carter.)
He changed course, rapping on the door hard enough that it swung open the few inches required for him to stick his head in and clear his throat. "You know," he announced, "that 'sleep' thing is something we humans usually do every night."
Carter looked up from where she was sitting, cross-legged next to her bookcase, and set aside something that probably should have been in her lab and was in more pieces than it was used to being. She stood, though apparently that was just so she could better tilt her head at him. "You're not sleeping."
(...ah.) He considered that. "No," he agreed, at length. "No, I'm not."
He wandered in.
"I mean, I was going to. On my way, in fact. But I noticed the lights here were still on. What's up?"
"I wasn't tired," Carter said.
He waited for an expansion on that – maybe something to do with the eminently fascinating and incomprehensible function of whatever she'd been taking apart – before realizing that had been the explanation. "See, that's dangerous," he said, and caught a quizzical look. "You and Daniel, you tend to get distracted by something, and when next you look up three days have passed and you haven't eaten, slept, or fed your fish. Clocks are usually a little more reliable."
The quizzical look became, if anything, more quizzical. "Do I have a fish?"
He opened his mouth to respond.
"...what is a fish?" Carter asked.
"It's..." Well. That hadn't been the response he'd been aiming for. "It's a little... thing... it swims," he said, trying to illustrate with his hands. "You keep them on your desk to look pretty. Or you keep them out of your pond. Daniel has one. ...well, actually, it's Jonas's, but – my point is," he managed, "it's night. Night is a time for sleeping. Ergo... you should sleep." He made a grand gesture toward her bed.
That was, of course, the moment the Offworld Activation siren blared to life.
Carter's head snapped around and she tensed, staring past him down the hall. "Something's happening."
Jack grit his teeth. "Of course something's–"
She bolted out past him.
"Hey!" He took three steps after her, realized she wasn't going to stop or slow down, and pushed himself into a run.
For someone who hadn't had legs until recently, she was fast. Jack caught up with her in the Gate control room, already staring at one of the monitors. The Iris was closed and the monitor held data Jack could only half-read, which a tech helpfully translated as "It's an entity."
Carter jogged for the stairs.
Jack's head snapped up. "Hey! Carter!"
She'd made it into the gateroom before he got down. She was already at the base of the ramp.
"Carter," he called. "Let's take a moment and think this through?"
She hadn't been planning to. She responded with surprise. "It's an entity. One of the Pulsar beings."
"Yes, I heard." He approached, waving a hand at the 'gate. "You don't think your brain's been scrambled enough for the time being?"
She stared. Her eyes changed – they got hard, or they narrowed, or there was something he couldn't identify in them. "We don't have another way to communicate. I'm not afraid to do this."
(What, not like I was?) His hackles raised, but she had a point. She was probably trying to communicate it the only way she knew how. (I guess you don't remember the days when you had tact.) "You're sure."
She nodded.
He waved it off. "Fine. Go."
She nodded and jogged up the ramp. The entity reached out, and Jack had to repress a flinch when it took her. She turned around, the entity staring out of her eyes.
"We went around the planet," it said. "Found the site where our enemy's vessel impacted. He was not there."
Daniel drew up beside him, and Jack jumped. None of this was good for his nerves. (Do none of you people sleep?)
"Anubis is gone?" Daniel asked.
"We cannot find him."
"So that's a yes, then?" Jack asked. "Have any idea where he went?"
"No."
"Well, it's safe to assume he's out there somewhere," Daniel said. "Probably rejoined his fleets at the earliest opportunity."
"Which means it's only a matter of time before he's attacking us again," Jack said.
"A matter," the entity repeated. "It will happen in the future."
"–yeah," Jack said. (Close enough.) "So, you guys have a plan?"
"We do not. We await further data. Provide this and we shall determine a means of action. But we are ready to engage him, no matter the cost."
"That's... nice to know," Jack said. "Are you going to check back?"
Carter's head tilted up, and the entity considered. "I will return to my kind. We will count eighty-six thousand rotations of our sun and I will return."
Daniel ducked his mouth behind his hand. Jack didn't get the joke, but figured it would be better to agree than to hope for a coherent explanation. "Eighty-six thousand. Okay."
The entity released Carter, who to all appearances managed it better than he had. She walked back down the ramp as the 'gate spun up, dialing the pulsar planet again. "You taught it time?" Daniel asked.
She shook her head. "They're not equipped to understand it," she said. "But they can count."
"To eighty-six thousand," Jack said.
"Further. That's a very small number to them."
Jack threw up his hands. "I give up! No wonder you turned into one of them."
She stared without comprehension.
He faltered. "I give up," he said again.
"Out of curiosity," Daniel asked, "how long did you buy us?"
"About a day," she said. "Figured at fifteen rotations to the minute, sixty minutes to the hour–"
"Yes, yes," Jack broke in. "Are we going to have a plan in a day?"
Silence around the proverbial table.
"Right. Thinking caps on, people," Jack said. "Give our fine flickering friends something to do when they come back."
He exited the 'gateroom in what looked suspiciously like a huff. Sam stared after him. "Was that 'Colonel O'Neill's infamous sense of humor'?" she asked.
Daniel gave her a look whose meaning she couldn't divine. "You could call it that. What–"
"Something Jacob–" she paused. Daniel's expression flickered. (I keep making mistakes, don't I?) "Something Dad said."
"You'd be briefed on it," Daniel said, putting a hand on her back and steering her toward the door. "Tell you the truth, I don't know how much good a briefing would do you. Jack's sense of humor is something you really endure more than understand."
"Any advice?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Get used to it."
"Yeah," she said. (I guess I'll get used to a lot.)
-
A call had gone out to Hammond when the entity arrived, but given its apparent lack of interest in sticking around for diplomacy, he hadn't come directly in. Instead he arrived in the morning – still somewhat earlier than he usually started the day, but not excessively so, though the SGC was already bustling. Jack, who'd managed to get some sleep (as he suspected neither Carter nor Daniel had deigned to do), was there to meet him as he cleared the second security checkpoint on Level 11. "Morning, General."
"Colonel," Hammond greeted. "Any new developments?"
"Not since last night, no sir," Jack said. "Probably not until tonight, unless Anubis has something up his sleeve. Whatever else you say about these things–" and Jack could think of a lot to say about the entities, "–they do seem a bit literal-minded."
"I'm strongly considering remaining on base until the situation with these entities and Anubis has been resolved," Hammond admitted. "It seems even odds that we'll have a major development the moment I park in my driveway."
"Well, I've said it before, General," Jack said. "We should just convert the entire galaxy to Mountain Time."
Hammond made a noise of acknowledgement, without actually responding to the joke. Jack cleared his throat.
"Feeling I'm getting is that no one has any plans yet," Jack said. "At least, no one's approached me about anything. Then again, the entity did just zip in, say 'Anubis is gone, but sure, we'll help,' and zip on out again."
Inter-species diplomacy, especially with a species which had neither a concept of diplomacy nor a concept of time, was... interesting. To put it one way. "So far as you can speculate, what sort of help are we talking about?" Hammond asked.
"Honestly, sir, I have no idea," Jack said. "Throwing people into walls, turning off 'gates, turning shields into space guns. This is really more Carter's department than mine. Still, given that Carter took down a ha'tak when we were on the planet and she was... you know." He made an "ascended" sort of gesture with one hand.
Hammond nodded. "Then, assuming we can unlock more of this latent potential, these entities could be just the sort of eleventh-hour allies we need. Do you think one might agree to come to act as a liaison, as Major Carter did?"
"No harm in asking, I guess," Jack said, and they rounded a corner. Then he paused. "General..."
Hammond stopped as well, looking back at him. "Hm?"
"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but... it just strikes me as odd that I haven't been ambushed by Bregman recently."
Hammond snorted. "Noticed that, did you?"
"I want to make it clear I'm not complaining."
"I struck a deal with Mr. Bregman," he said. "By turning over details of what exactly we were up against after Prometheus, I was able to convince him that now was not a good time. He agreed to postpone all interviews until after the situation with Anubis was resolved, in exchange for allowing him access to film almost anything he wanted. You're still going to have to make an appearance on tape, Jack, but focus on saving the world for now."
Jack gave a thin smile. "You know how to make saving the world sound worth it, sir."
"Presidential orders, Colonel."
"Aren't they always." He stuffed both hands into his pockets. "Maybe if we saved it just enough to, you know, save it, but not quite enough to justify...?"
Hammond was chuckling. Jack held an innocent look for a few moments longer, then gave it up.
"Right. Well, I'm going to see if anyone has anything yet."
"You do that," Hammond said, motioning him off. "I have a few calls to make to places like Area 51."
"Tell the boys 'hi' for me," Jack said, and walked off.
-
First stop: Daniel's lab.
Daniel was, to be honest, the least likely person to have come up with any grand strategy for saving the galaxy from Anubis's advance, but Jack wasn't honestly expecting anyone to have come up with anything by six in the morning. Besides, Daniel was also the least likely to give him either a headache or some sort of existential crisis – and that said something, after the last month – and that was always a better way to start the day.
Except that Daniel wasn't there.
Jack wandered in anyway, idly picking up one of the printouts from the P3X-439 tape and frowning at it. It was written in Ancient, and he could sound out something about exteratoris and trabinae, but he was fairly certain he'd never known what either of those words meant, time loops and Latin studies notwithstanding. He set it down, picked up a statuette from the nearest shelf, and was interrupted by a noise from the hall.
He turned to see Daniel, hanging just inside the door like a teenager waiting to admit something. Which was a little odd, given that it was his lab, and he was usually slightly less uncertain about discouraging Jack from fiddling with whatever he happened to be fiddling with.
"I was just looking for you," Jack said, setting the statue back.
"I was just..." Daniel started, and then shook his head and abandoned that statement. "Sorry. You need something?"
"Nothing specific. Just checking in." Daniel's expression hadn't much changed, and that was making him curious. "What's up?"
"I was down on Level 19," Daniel said, with a tone that said that was nowhere near the full story. Whatever the story happened to be.
"And... something weird happened?" Jack hazarded.
Daniel tilted his head, in a not quite right, not wrong either gesture. "I needed information on something, so I stopped by McKay's office," he explained.
(Jeez. Now what did he do?) "What did he say?"
Daniel looked surprised. "Huh? He told me what I needed."
(...what?) "So–?"
"So I stopped by McKay's office," Daniel said. "I mean, it's weird. For six years I always headed to Sam's office first. All this time, I kept expecting Sam to be there, off and on. And now she's back. So why aren't things back to normal?"
Jack eased into Daniel's chair. "You know she's not technically back on duty yet."
"That's not the point," Daniel said. "The point is I didn't even think about it."
"Has it occurred to you that things shouldn't be back to normal yet?" Jack asked.
"Why not?"
"If there's one thing I don't want turning normal, it's this," Jack said. "Hell, I get enough grey hairs every time you decease on us, and you've been doing it a lot longer."
Daniel couldn't help a smile. Sam was in her lab, Jack was mangling English, God was in his heaven and, at some level, all was right with the world. Sort of.
"My point is, she was dead for a while. Ascended. Amnesic. Whatever – it wasn't good. And if we're at the point where we can shrug and say 'all in a day's work,' we are in big, big trouble. This should not be routine."
Daniel looked at him, surprised. Jack grimaced.
"Not making sense?"
"Actually, I get it," Daniel said. "And I agree."
Jack straightened himself up. "That's a first."
"That's not true."
Jack inclined his head. "You're disagreeing with me."
"Right." Daniel laughed – it was good to hear. "Sorry."
"So, how's McKay doing?" Jack asked. "Whining about heading back to the planet?"
"Actually, no," Daniel said. "He was heading off to talk to Sam about something. I think he'd be fine with never seeing that place again."
"Well, that makes two of us," Jack said, and eyed Daniel critically. "Three?"
"Only if Anubis is part of the deal."
"It's not exactly a weekend in Minnesota, Daniel."
"Neither is Cheyenne Mountain. And to be fair, the base really hasn't killed anyone yet."
"It gave me pneumonia!"
"Well, if you want to split hairs..."
Jack grabbed one of the pencils from the cup on Daniel's desk, and flipped it directly towards Daniel's chest.
Daniel watched it bounce off his jacket, gave a small smile, and shook his head. "Well, Kovacek has something for me," he said, collecting two or three folders from seemingly random locations around his lab. "I'll catch you later."
He stepped out, and Jack stood from the chair. "Daniel."
Daniel stopped and turned back. "Mm?"
Jack paused for a moment, considering how best to phrase things, and in the end couldn't come up with anything better than "How's she doing?"
Daniel exhaled, and stepped back inside. "I don't know. Adjusting. Confused. You've seen her. Or did something happen last night?"
Jack shrugged. "Just wondering if you had anything to add."
"She had her entire identity revoked," Daniel said. "And then she came back here, and... I don't know. I think I'm hoping that as long as we provide a space for her, she'll remember how to fit into it, sooner or later."
"Well, between the three of us..." Jack started.
"Yeah. Hopefully." Daniel gave half a smile. "–Teal'c doesn't seem bothered by this. You notice that?"
Jack tilted his head. "Hadn't, really. Think he knows something we don't?"
"That seems to be his thing, these days," Daniel said, and shook his head. "Maybe he's just better at this than we are."
Jack snorted. "Wouldn't be difficult."
"Yeah." Daniel tucked the folders under his arm and jammed both hands into his pockets. "Anyway. Kovacek. See you around."
"Don't forget to write," Jack said, with an arch of his eyebrows. Daniel nodded it off, and headed out into the hall.
-
Jack probably should have known that going to find Carter after that conversation was a bad idea, but it wouldn't have mattered. Bad idea, good idea, he was responsible for her, and that made it necessary. To his mind, at least.
He found her in her lab with the room's lights off, the only illumination coming from the desk lamp she was sitting beside. Her elbows rested on the desk next to a stack of folders more than a foot deep, and her index finger and thumb dug into her tear ducts, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her teeth were gritted tight.
...well. Not the usual posture he wanted to see people in, when he came to see them. (So, no sleep on your end then, either.)
He cleared his throat, knocked against the doorframe, and said "Carter?"
And she jumped. Took her hand away from her face and knocked it into the pile of papers, knocking them into something techy and probably expensive, then scrambled to catch that before it fell off the edge of the table. For a moment she didn't seem to notice him at all, her entire attention eclipsed by the situation in front of her, and when that was set to rights again, she looked back to the door.
"Colonel!" There was a faint shading of deer-in-headlights around the edge of her expression. "I didn't see you there."
He made a disarming gesture. "Didn't mean to startle you," he said. "Just, you know, thought I'd stop by, check in." He didn't ask if she was all right, because that gave her the opportunity to lie – and she would, not out of pride or disrespect but because it was Carter, very Carter, not to admit when things were going wrong. Instead he pulled up a chair, marveling at how odd it was to sit with her at her desk, and looked over the clutter. "What's up?"
Carter swallowed before she answered. "Ah – nothing. Just trying to remember, sir."
(Aha.) He gave a sympathetic wince. "Come up with something bad?"
"Not much of anything, actually," she said, looking to the stack of folders. "I'll think I have something, then it slips away. I mean, I didn't expect it to be easy–"
Jack looked over her. She'd steadied herself, slipped on all the old masks again. "Well, if it helps, it seems like you're remembering to me."
She didn't look at him. "Why do you say that?"
(Because you caught yourself when I came in the room. Because you've been calling me "sir" or "Colonel" since you came back. Because you're trying to do all this on your own.) "You're back to acting like a subordinate," he said. "Tell you the truth, I kinda liked the other way better."
That caught her attention. She fixed him with a stare of such mingled shock and confusion that he was instantly convinced he'd said something wrong. Soon the look turned searching, her eyes moving between his with such intensity that he wanted to look away. He remembered those long minutes when she – still the entity then, still a stranger – had possessed him; it felt as if she could read every facet of his soul.
She looked away then, shaking her head as though to clear it. He looked away too, coughing softly back in his throat.
"Sorry," she said, and neither of them knew what she was apologizing for.
"Don't be," he answered on instinct.
They sat in silence.
"I finished all of my mission reports," she said at length, when her voice was steady. "I still can't remember writing them. I can only remember a few things they talk about. I keep looking at everything I have here, trying to work out what kind of a person that makes me. Who I'm supposed to be."
He laughed, earning himself another piercing look. "That's definitely something you would do," he said. "Analyze." He took a breath, leaning forward over the table. "Carter, I'm going to say something to you that I don't usually have the chance to."
Carter's eyebrows raised.
"I think you're going about this wrong," Jack said. "This isn't a test. You don't need to study for it – we won't dock you points if you get it wrong. You can't get it wrong. Just be yourself, even if you don't know exactly what that means. Hell, who does?"
Carter was quiet.
He lowered his voice. "Sam?"
"What are we?" she asked.
"What?" He fumbled through answers. Human. Air Force. SGC. That couldn't be what she was asking.
"How do we relate?" she asked, staring at her hands. "When I was Satya, when Daniel suggested I was Sam Carter, you didn't trust me. I don't like not knowing who I am."
"That's not–" he paused. "–exactly true."
"I don't need precision." She looked up at him, and didn't look away.
(That makes one of us.) He didn't want to answer I don't know, but didn't know how else to. "We're friends."
She didn't look satisfied, but she nodded.
(It's all vague, isn't it?) he realized. (Nothing I could say would tell you.) "You'll figure it out."
She looked down. "Yes, sir."
A long moment passed.
Jack cleared his throat. This was not, generally, the sort of conversation he did well in, and if Carter was looking for answers, he might have to send in Daniel instead.
He inspected the cuff of one sleeve.
There wasn't anything on it.
"Listen, if you need anything..."
She nodded absently.
Jack paused, and grimaced. With the entity, literal as it had been, even the simplest meanings had been easy to lose in translation. That was getting better, but it hadn't gone away. "I mean that," he said. "Anything. Coffee, an ear for a couple of hours... directions to the MALP bay in the middle of the night..."
"Identity?" Carter said.
The grimace turned into a wince, and he looked down for a moment. (Right. The one thing you want, and no one can get it for you.) "...I hear there's going to be cake in the cafeteria today," he offered.
She gave him an expression he'd never seen on her, before. Actually, it looked like one of Daniel's. "I think I understood that," she said.
...he didn't. "What?"
She shook her head. "Something Daniel said. It's not important." Her look turned long and level, preternaturally calm. "I don't need anything. Thank you, sir."
(And I get the feeling you're lying.) That, at least, was returning to normal. When were any of them not lying about something? "Hammond was asking about strategic recommendations," he said – at least a change in topics was still something to talk about.
"I've talked to several of the scientists," she said. "They have a lot of questions. I've tried to provide answers."
"Meaning of life stuff?"
Whatever she'd understood earlier, that one passed completely over her head. "Strategic recommendations," she said. "It's still all hypothetical."
"Well, what isn't?" Jack asked, and pushed himself away from the desk. "Keep on it. You'll think of something. You always do."
"That's reassuring," she said, with a very faint smile. "I hope that's true."
"It is," he said, and stood. "You know how to find me...?" (In case you do need anything,) he didn't say. After a point, they were just talking in circles.
Carter nodded, and he headed out.
Instinct told him to look back at the threshold of the door, and he did.
Carter had blocked out his presence entirely, and was thumbing through the stack of files with single-minded focus again. The troubled look was back as though it had never vanished; as though she wasn't quite cognizant of the time it would take him to get away.
(One step forward, one step back.) He stood there for a moment, but there was nothing his mind provided him to say. All he could do was walk away.
McKay was coming down the hall when Jack stepped out into it, and he looked startled to see him. "Colonel!" he called, and glanced toward Carter's lab. "You were just talking with Major Carter?"
Jack had half a second of How is this your business? before he remembered that they worked in the same department. "Yeah."
"She didn't say anything, did she?" McKay asked.
(What? Anything?) "No," he said. "Mostly we just stared at each other. There was a lot of blinking."
McKay started a nod, but traded it out for a confused stare. "Blinking?"
Jack gave him a disparaging look.
McKay shook his head. "Right. Did she mention anything specifically about PV1-542?"
"Nothing of any interest."
"Okay." McKay seemed reassured by that. "Well, we're working on something. Never fear. If we can manage to pull enough of the technology off the base, it might even not be a total wash."
("Never fear?" "Total wash?") Jack's eyebrows hopped. "Good to know."
"We'll need the Tok'ra," McKay said.
He paused. "The Tok'ra?"
"Yes." McKay looked lost. "Tok'ra? The nice Goa'uld?"
"Yes, I know who they are," Jack said. "I don't know why you're dictating policy."
"Trust me," McKay said. He had a manic gleam to his eye that Jack hoped was just the thrill of science. "We are working up such a plan. But we need the Tok'ra, and we need that al'kesh Teal'c brought back."
"You'll have to armwrestle the folks at Area 51 for it," Jack said.
"Oh, believe me, when they hear what we're planning, they won't have any problems," McKay said.
"What are you planning?"
"Something," McKay said, lapsing back into annoyance. "We need the Tok'ra, we need the al'kesh, a dedicated tech retrieval team would be nice, and if you could find some coffee that doesn't taste like it's been scraped off the bottom of one of those military transport things, that'd be good too."
"I'm assuming that's a personal request and not part of your diabolical plan."
McKay looked offended. "It's hardly diabolical."
"Daniel keeps a stash in his office," Jack said. "Ask him." He turned to go, and thought better of it. "And what's with the sneaking around? What are you doing?"
"If I tell you the details of our frankly brilliant plan, you'll start dictating what we can and can't do before we even know if it's possible yet," McKay said. "We'll have a full briefing for you later."
"How much later?"
"When we have it," McKay said. "If you'll excuse me."
Jack threw up his hands. "Go! Fine!"
"Call the Tok'ra," McKay called as Jack headed off down the hall.
"Request it from Hammond," Jack called back, and shook his head. Scientists.
-
It wasn't long before one of those scientists was on the move again. Her purpose, however, had little to do with PV1-542, or any of the strategies slowly crystallizing around it.
It was still morning when Sam poked her head into the infirmary, taking her bearings amongst the unfamiliar people and unfamiliar machines. A few of the people glanced her way, but none of them seemed immediately moved to intercept her.
"Sam!"
Except for Janet, apparently, approaching from the far side of the room with an armful of folders. Sam turned to face her, giving a small, uncertain smile by way of greeting. "Are you always in here?"
"Well, it seems like it some days," Janet said, drawing up in front of her. "Technically, I was covering the night shift for Dr. Gerrard. His daughter's been having a horrible night. Appendicitis, most likely. Had to take her in to the hospital. Hammond's given me leave to go home, get some sleep, but it's been a quiet morning, and... you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
Sam shook her head.
Fraiser sighed, smiled, and waved it off. "Well, it'll come to you. What can I do for you?"
"You said I could come by if there was anything I needed," Sam said. Janet nodded.
"Of course. What do you need?"
"I don't know," Sam said.
Fraiser blinked, leaving the next few seconds open for elaboration. None came. After those seconds were up, she exhaled, lined up the edges of the folders against her palm, and gestured back through the room. "Why don't you come back to my office?"
"Okay." Sam nodded. It was familiar enough – someone asked her to go somewhere, do something, and she did it. People asked her questions, studied her, and she answered. That was simple. Sometimes it seemed like the only simple thing.
Janet held the door open for her, and she stepped inside, standing awkwardly until Janet shut the door and motioned to a seat. "Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?"
"On my mind," Sam repeated, as though to herself. Then she shrugged, and sat. "A lot of things. Anubis. Colonel O'Neill. Mostly..." She gestured to herself. It was quickly becoming a sort of kinesic touchstone, a gesture to ground herself in the world, though so far not many people had seen her perform it more than once. She herself was barely aware of it. "Me. Sam. Satya."
Janet made a silent Ah. "How can I help?"
Sam shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know," she said again. "I guess I was trying to jog my memory. I think I've exhausted the stimuli in my rooms."
Fraiser considered for a moment. Pursed her lips. Then she turned to the cabinet at the back of her office and took a small pot with several flowers which had been resting on top. She turned back, setting them on the desk between them. "These are yours," she said.
Sam reached out to touch them, examining the leaves, the petals, the way the stem vanished into the dirt. "Mine?"
"You kept them in your lab," Fraiser said. "I always assumed that you liked having something alive in there, to break up all the machines. When we thought you'd died, I just... rescued them." She shrugged. "They would have been thrown away, otherwise."
"You preserved them," Sam said. Fraiser smiled.
"That's my job. Preserve life." She leaned forward, taking a closer look at Sam's face. "You know, we used to spend time together. Outside of the SGC. You've got a goddaughter." Sam looked confused, and Fraiser explained. "A girl you brought back from another world," she said. "A long time ago. Her people had all been killed. I've been raising her, but you and Colonel O'Neill have helped. She was really broken up, when you died."
Sam was silent.
"You could see her, if you want," Janet offered. "I'm sure we could find a few minutes, catastrophes notwithstanding."
"Everything was simple in the pulsar," Sam said. "We all had the same questions. We shared the same past, and memories. The scope of our existence was predictable and regular." She shook her head. "Except for the signal, there was no reason to go outside the star."
"Do you miss it?" Janet asked.
"No," Sam said. In that, at least, the answer seemed easy. "It wasn't notable. We knew complexity existed, but we didn't reach it. I don't know that they'd be able to understand. Godparents."
The Offworld Activation siren went off.
Sam looked up, then twisted in her chair to look back at the door. "It's hard for me to tell," she said. "Is this a higher frequency?"
"Of 'gate activations?" Janet asked, half-rising from her own chair. "Depends on when you're comparing it to."
"I should–" Sam said, and would even have finished that sentiment if the ringing phone hadn't interrupted her. Janet picked it up.
"Dr. Fraiser."
Sam quirked her head, focusing on the receiver. She couldn't hear much. Janet nodded.
"Yes. ... I can. ... As a matter of fact, Major Carter is here with me. Would you like to–? ... I'll tell her. ... Yes, sir."
She hung up.
"One of the entities just showed up," she said. "It's being taken up to the conference room on Level 19, if you'd like to see it. It's here to answer any questions we might have."
That was a little, rhetorical lie, but neither of them mentioned that: there were classes upon classes of questions the entity was probably yearning to ask, itself, and many more that it couldn't answer, no matter how much it wanted to. Sam stood. "I should go there, then."
"All right." Janet stood up as well, opening the door for her. "It was good to have you stop by."
Sam nodded, picked up the flowerpot, and headed out.
Halfway through the infirmary, she stopped and doubled back. "Cassie," she said.
Fraiser had gone back to her desk, but she looked up.
Sam was standing in the doorway, looking down at the flowers. "Her name is Cassie, isn't it?"
Fraiser felt herself smile. "It is."
Sam watched her for a moment, and a smile ghosted over her own features. "Thanks," she said, and vanished out into the hall.
-
It was a day of arrivals.
The entity appeared first, answering Hammond's call over the MALP channels. It wasn't clear whether or not it was the same one who'd visited earlier, but it didn't seem to matter; so long as they were ascended, they seemed almost entirely interchangeable. There were a few quirks that had differentiated Satya, though those might have been chalked up to a pre-revelation society as compared to a post-revelation one, or to Daniel's attempts to socialize her. The entity that came was considerably more brusque.
Jacob Carter and Selmak arrived not long after, and were similarly whisked away to the growing group of eclectic experts on Level 19. And, while the conference room didn't close its doors, very little information intelligible to anyone but those experts filtered out of it.
That didn't stop a slow anticipation from filling the air.
By fifteen hundred the entire base was abuzz, the rumor mills at full output. By sixteen fifty, the conference room's doors had closed, sealing out distraction and sealing in all indication of what was going on. It was eighteen twenty-five before the call went out.
The scientists had something.
-
The command staff of the SGC gathered in the briefing room before the hour was out. Carter picked up the remote from the table, unconsciously echoing countless briefings before. It was almost as though things had never changed – except that this time McKay was with her, and Teal'c and Jacob sat at the briefers' end of the table along with an idly rotating glowing form, and things hadn't been routine since Carter had died.
The screen buzzed on, warming up to a video of a very familiar star.
"This is PSR-PV1-542," Carter said, indicating the screen. Jack made himself look at it, watching the steady rotation. It was an act of defiance like looking an enemy in the eye. "A pulsar of about one point six solar masses and a radius of about fifteen kilometres, internal structure unknown due to manipulation."
"We're familiar with it," he said. "What's the plan?"
Carter stood straighter. "We want to blow it up."
Everyone stared.
Jack shook his head, trying to eject surprise from it. "You want to what?"
"Obviously, we'll want to get everything we can off the base before we detonate," McKay said. "And obviously this is no one's first choice; we went through a lot of simulations. But it looks like this is our best shot for taking Overdressed And Dramatic out, once and for all."
"At the moment we have two big problems," Sam explained. "We have no weapons that can defeat Anubis' Ancient technology, and we have no weapon that can harm Anubis. We've proven that the entities can, if not destroy Anubis, at least occupy his attention – a service which they're more than willing to provide. They don't like him much." She cleared her throat, not quickly enough to hide her own dislike. "And no matter how advanced Anubis has become, it's highly unlikely that his flagship could withstand the focused energy of an exploding sun as well as several billion entities' assault."
"Could you go back to the part where you want to blow it up?" Daniel asked.
"I'll admit it might be overkill," Sam said, "but we think we shouldn't take any chances."
"Isn't that pulsar inhabited?" O'Neill asked, with a glance to the silent entity. "And might not they take unkindly to us exploding their place of residence?"
Carter smiled darkly, gesturing over. "Actually, sir, it was the entity who suggested it."
O'Neill's eyebrows tried to hide in his hairline. "So when it said 'no matter the cost...'?"
"Yes sir." She nodded. "They really don't like Anubis."
"It's not that we're not impressed," Hammond said, "but how will that help us?"
"We think if we can destroy Anubis' flagship and defeat Anubis himself, we can effectively break his empire's bid for dominance," Sam said. "The other System Lords can and will take care of his fleets."
"They haven't had much luck thus far," Hammond pointed out.
McKay grinned. "They haven't had a full report on the vulnerable systems of Anubis' ships."
"And are they going to?" Jack asked.
"A preliminary analysis of the captured al'kesh has been completed," Teal'c said. "Although the precise specifications of the technology still elude us, we have learned much we will be able to share." He raised one eyebrow. "We have also determined that it is not beyond repair."
"Which is significant," McKay broke in. "Because..."
"Because of the shields," Carter picked up. "Analysis of the al'kesh's shields and armor show that with some modification, it can be made to temporarily resist the high levels of radiation around PV1-542."
"How temporarily?" Hammond asked.
"About three minutes," McKay said. "Which is just enough time to warp in and beam onto the hok'ha'tak."
"What good will that do?" Hammond asked. "The ha'tak can't withstand the radiation."
"The entities understand technology," Sam said. "In some ways, better than we do. They can scrub the ship for radiation and augment its shields, so–"
"It's really quite fascinating," McKay interrupted. "A lot of Anubis' early modifications aren't so much a matter of adding new technology as recalibrating and reintegrating what was already there. I'm fairly confident we can bolster the shields enough to keep us safe from over ninety-nine percent of the pulsar's radiation."
Jack looked from physicist to physicist. "That's good."
"Well, it's still not something to spend a few hours in, but yes, that's good," McKay said. "Because it means that we can draw whatever ship Anubis brings in into the pulsar's kill zone. Then it's just a matter of alerting the entities and warping out."
"The entities will detonate the pulsar, destroying Anubis' ship and hopefully killing Anubis," Sam said. "If not, the entities will do what they can to engage him on their own. I think they'll be able to damage him significantly if not destroy him."
"So all we have to do is draw him in," McKay said. "Given that Colonel Edwards has been there without disturbance since we left, Anubis probably learned his lesson about running in anytime the base is occupied, but we think we can lure him in with the transmitter on the planet."
"That's where we come in," Jacob said, standing. "Anubis has been waging a fairly successful bid to hunt down and eliminate Tok'ra cells. We have reason to believe that he's recently broken some of our most secure codes. At the moment, because of our offensive operations, we're more of a priority than Earth is."
His head dipped. When he looked up, Selmak spoke. "Our plan is to stage a series of encoded transmissions from the base to a Tok'ra ship, suggesting that we are to use the planet as the lynchpin in a strategy to strike against Anubis' forces. If Anubis believes that we have reached the point where the planet can be used against him, he will come to deal with the threat."
"And that's when we have him," McKay said.
Hammond leaned back. "Could you run through what exactly you're proposing?"
McKay hesitated for the half-second it took Carter to take the stage again. "Yes, sir. We provide the System Lords with intelligence which will allow them to engage Anubis' advanced fleets – intelligence which, because it focuses on vulnerabilities rather than systems technology, we don't believe will represent any threat to our interests. We send teams to the planet through the 'gate and to the ha'tak on the al'kesh. We use the planet's transmitter to lure Anubis into the system, and draw him into the kill zone by engaging him with the ha'tak. The planetary team will leave via the Stargate and the ha'tak will warp out of the system, alerting the entities to detonate the sun and destroy Anubis and his ship."
"It's really very–" McKay began.
"Simple," Carter said.
"...elegant," McKay finished.
Silence fell around the table.
McKay looked around, grinning more than was probably healthy. "Questions? Comments? Requests for clarification?"
Silence persisted for a few more seconds. Jack cleared his throat. "When can we start?"
"We still need to modify the al'kesh," Carter said, "and give the Tok'ra the information they'll need about the planet's transmitter. We'll also need to contact the entities with the precise details, and start sending out dossiers to any System Lord willing to listen to us. All told, it should take–" she trailed off.
"Two days?" McKay said. "Three at the most."
Everyone looked to Hammond.
Hammond straightened up, laying both hands on the table. "For the first time in quite a while, it appears we have a plan," he said. "Let's see it through. Dismissed!"
-
Jack stopped into Carter's lab for no reason whatsoever. "That," he announced, "was awesome."
Carter looked up, and her expression reminded him of dogs his parents had owned. Absolute attention and incomprehension. It threw him. "Colonel?"
"The plan," he said. "Nice, neat, gets the job done. Flashy."
"It'll take some work," Carter said.
"I know. We can pull it off." (If we can get you back, we can do anything.)
"Pull it off," she echoed. "We'll do our best. All the principles are sound. We just need to do it."
"Well," he said. She looked up. With a smile, he flourished a go to it and headed for the door.
"Colonel." Her voice stopped him. It was hard and flat – faintly inhuman. He turned quickly.
Carter's head had drooped, and she stared sullenly at a spot just above her desk. Whatever her expression was – disappointment or annoyance or exasperation or pain – it was one of these new ones, the ones he couldn't read. Finally she looked up, and the expression, though muted, was still raw.
"I don't know what you expect of me," she said. "I need you to tell me."
He felt ill – a flash of radiation between his lungs, a twisting denaturement. "The plan," he said. "That you planned. You know what to do."
She nodded.
"Do that," he said.
She nodded again, and turned to her work. He stood for a moment longer before stepping away.
The instructions had been so basic. For years, that had been the foundation of their interactions: she knew what to do; he trusted that. The approval was more a courtesy, required on technicality, than a requirement. And now–
And now.
If she'd have broken down, come back as a wreck or a ruin, that would have been hard – but in some ways, it would be easier than this. There were things you could do if you'd fallen down. It was harder to walk on ice, in constant danger of unbalancing, and Carter was walking a knife-edge of being herself or not. They were walking into a place where all of them had to work together, just like SG-1 always had before, and one of them had no idea what that even meant.
(If we can get you back, we can do anything.) That was a problem as much as an assertion. It was still a big "If."
Two hallways down, he ran into Daniel walking along and looking preoccupied with a folder under one arm. Jack cleared his throat. "Where are you headed?"
"I was–" Daniel stopped. His brow furrowed, and he repositioned the folder under his elbow before tilting his head at Jack again. "Actually, nowhere in particular. Why?"
Jack hiked a thumb back the way he'd came. "I'd like you to check in on Carter," he said, and Daniel nodded. Of course, just after Daniel nodded, he looked over with an expression a few shades shrewder than Jack was generally comfortable with.
"Jack, how are you dealing with this?"
Jack caught himself on the corner he was about to turn down, and swung back around. "What do you mean?"
"I was too... you know." Daniel scratched the back of his neck. "Last time. But to have someone you've known well and worked with show up after you thought they were dead, but have no memory of you..."
A silent Ah dawned in Jack's eyes. "Daniel," he said. "Really. It's all right."
"I'm just saying it's got to be difficult," Daniel said.
"Well," Jack said, "you'd know all about that, wouldn't you? You being in the same boat as me."
Daniel gave him an unimpressed look. "Jack."
"I'm fine," Jack said. "Now and forever. ...go see Carter." He jerked his thumb back toward the stairwells, and ducked around the corner before Daniel could ask him again.
(Right.) Daniel gave up; he hadn't really expected that to work. Jack's ability to not talk about things rivaled that of brick walls and some of the less-talkative varieties of tree.
Hopefully Sam hadn't picked that up from him. He headed for her lab.
-
SG-1 had more or less lived in each others' SGC labs. All of the SG teams were comfortable with their own members, and most of them became friends as well as teammates – it was difficult not to, given the fires in which those friendships were forged.
SG-1 was closer than most. While their habit of finding new and novel ways of getting into (and out of) peril wasn't the only thing their friendship stood on, it certainly didn't hurt. In various ways, they'd been in each others' minds, in each others' stewardship, in each others' care, in each others' confidence, in each others' memories, and once, however briefly, shuffled around each others' bodies.
Labs were easy territory.
Which made the fact that Daniel paused outside of Sam's lab an occurrence of note, and not a welcome one.
Over the years, Daniel had had time to get used to Jack's at-first-glance inconsistent behavior with regards to his team. It still frustrated him, more than often, and it would be a lie to say he fully understood it, but he knew that when the man actually showed concern, it was a good bet that there was something to be concerned about. He'd been remarkably sanguine about Sam's return, thus far.
He didn't know what he was expecting, nor what he'd be steeling himself against, so after a moment's hesitation, he pushed himself forward into the doorway. Sam was inside, sitting at her desk, frowning at a file.
He stepped inside, and cleared his throat. "You have a moment?"
Sam looked up. "Yes. In more ways than one, actually." She put the file aside on a stack of its peers. "You need something?"
"No." Daniel took another step in. "I mean, I was just on Level 19, and... thought I'd stop by, say hello, you know. You've really been going after those mission reports, haven't you?"
Sam looked toward the pile. "They're good reading," she said. "Colonel O'Neill's especially. He's surprisingly good at telling stories."
"You're not the first to have said that," Daniel said, wandering up to the desk with a small grin. "I believe 'gripping' is the word most people use. Are they doing any good?"
She shook her head. "Not really."
Daniel helped himself to a chair. "Is anything coming back?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
"I remembered..." She trailed off, searching for words. "There was something. An image. Images. Things people said. Things I said. There's just no context."
"And context is everything." Daniel exhaled. "Well, context is just the sum of the rest of those details. So if the details are coming back–"
"Then the context will, too. I know. It's just a matter of time."
(It will happen in the future,) Daniel filled in.
"We haven't really be able to sit down and just talk," Daniel said, changing the topic for lack of anything to offer on the previous one. "Without showing you around, or getting ready for a mission, or getting you situated, or anything. ...I mean, I suppose we've been asking you how you are and if you're all right, and you've been doing this really specifically socialized thing where you've just been answering in the affirmative and positive, which is... well, actually somewhat diagnostic, I suppose..."
He shook his head, jolting himself out of that tangent and back onto the topic at hand.
"What I'm saying is, you should tell me how you're really doing. You should give me that knowledge."
It took a moment to realize that she was looking at him with amusement. Even after the realization, he wasn't sure he'd read it correctly. "You don't have to talk to me like that," she said. "I can infer."
"Sorry." He nudged his glasses back up on his nose, using the moment to conceal his own reaction. It was a tricky line to find – Sam, Satya, what either one could or couldn't process. "Just thought it might be good to have a bit of redundancy in communication; you know. Though if you wanted to talk about denotation and connotation..."
Sam gave a very small laugh. It faded, however.
"So," Daniel said. "How are you?"
"I don't know," she said. "I have no frame of reference. Not very well for Sam, I guess. But I've never done this before – tried to recover an entire identity of memories." She looked down at her hand. "...I mean, I don't think I have. Have I?"
"No," Daniel said. "Not like this."
She nodded. "So how do you know if you're doing well, in times like these?"
Daniel looked across the wall, across the counters – they were surrounded with implements of science, quantitative measurement, solid data and fact. What she was asking couldn't be apprehended by any of them. "They say that experience is something you don't get until just after you need it," he said, and glanced back to Sam to see if he'd need to explain who they were. Sam just nodded, unhappily. "You gonna be all right?"
"I don't know," she said, and a moment later decided it was the wrong answer. "I mean, I'm sure I will be."
Daniel shifted. "If you need anything–"
"I know. Thanks." She looked up. "I'll be okay."
Daniel still hesitated. Sam reached out without thinking, extending one hand toward his forehead – then stopped, frowned, and dropped it again. (What was I doing?) she wondered. It had been a vestigial gesture, left over from her time as Satya and impossible to translate. Daniel looked confused, expression edging toward concern.
"I'll be okay," she repeated, with more force because she couldn't muster more certainty. (This is who I am. This is who I was supposed to be.)
"Sam, no one–" He cut himself off. "You're doing fine. It's difficult. We understand that, even if we don't seem to. And we're here to help."
"I know." Her voice was cool and final. "You don't know how, so you just do without understanding. It's a gamble. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it makes things worse." She exhaled. "And that's okay because it's the only option we have."
-
Daniel found Jack in one of the general-use offices, reviewing something – probably the mission proposals. Reading up on the escape routes, probably. It was a risk, and that was what they did. That was always what they did.
He didn't bother to announce his presence past "She's really not back, is she?"
Jack looked up. Daniel was lingering in the doorway, and he looked like Daniel – like the Daniel of two days ago, like the Daniel of two months ago, like the Daniel before Kelowna and the Daniel of Abydos. "Carter?" he asked. Daniel nodded, and Jack thought (No, she's not). But Daniel knew that – Daniel, who'd thought she was back when she was Satya. He wasn't looking for the truth, he was looking for reassurance, so Jack said "She will be." For an instant, he wanted to ask Aren't you?
Daniel nodded, and didn't walk away. He wanted to say something, but didn't know how. Something along the lines of I'm worried for her or I missed her or I miss her, but he couldn't support any of the statements. "How did you know?" he asked instead.
"What?"
"How did you know she was Sam? You said that even if Satya was exactly like her–"
"She wouldn't be, I know." Jack looked to the wall. A quiet smile tugged up one edge of his mouth. There was a line to be drawn, something about the difference between being exactly like and just being, but he couldn't put it to words, and it wasn't a real answer, anyway. "Intuition. Assumption."
Daniel smiled softly in response. "Yeah." He wandered in, looking at the folder. "What're you reading?"
"Final revision on the orders," Jack said, flourishing the cover. "You haven't gotten yours?"
"Haven't checked. How are they?"
"Reads like we're putting on a play," Jack said. "Complicated."
"Curse of Anubis," Daniel said. "Everything about him is."
Jack looked up. "You and Teal'c are on the al'kesh as Carter's backup. You get to get the ha'tak up and running, just in case the entities don't put everything back where they found it."
Daniel looked as surprised as Jack had. "You're not coming?"
"I'm meeting Jacob on the base; he's bringing the ciphers. We'll be chatting with Malek and some guy called Letoc, trying to piss off Anubis. This is my job description. I annoy Goa'uld."
"We'll be in contact?" Daniel asked.
"I hope not. Radio silence unless things go wrong." He shook his head. "As soon as Anubis shows up, Jacob and I evacuate. You pull him into orbit and then warp out as fast as you can. The entities will use your exit as their signal."
"And it's just five of us?" Daniel asked. "That's it?"
"The fewer, the better," he said. (Fewer to die if and when things go wrong.) "The only reason you're going is because Anubis used Ancient on his ships."
Daniel stuck both hands in his pockets. "Worried?"
Jack tossed the folder back onto the desk. "It's a good plan," he said. "Risky, but solid. Seems like it could work."
Daniel arched his eyebrows. "And?"
"Well, things haven't really been working for us, have they?"
Daniel shrugged. "So maybe we're in for some good luck."
"Maybe."
-
There came a point, after everything which could be said and done was said and done, when the only things left were Godspeed and Good luck. It was one of the parts of SGC life that had become almost ritualized, and Jack O'Neill counted on its happening.
He just usually expected it to happen a little closer to mission start.
Hammond found him, which was unusual. He was at his locker, pulling on a civilian jacket, and was interrupted by a "Jack." from the door. And there Hammond stood, framed by the flat light from the hall.
"General," Jack said. "You're staying on-base tonight?"
Hammond nodded. "Just as a precaution."
(Ah.) "Well, with your blessing, sir, I'm going to head home," Jack said. "Just one of those things I like to do, in the days leading up to mortal peril."
Hammond nodded, and made a granting gesture toward the elevators. It wasn't a dismissal, though, and after a moment, he spoke.
"It's no secret that SG-1 is the best we have," he said. "But given everything that's occurred, I have to ask. Are you certain your team is up to this?"
There was, Jack thought, slightly more to that question than met the eye. Or ear, as the case might be. Hammond had made the decision before sending out the mission orders; asking about the competence of the team assigned was best done before that. He might have been looking for reassurance – but Jack didn't believe that. Or he might have been looking to see if he needed to offer reassurance, which Jack believed slightly more. He gave a dark smile.
"General," he said. "You don't think that just because the fate of the galaxy lies in the balance, one of us is suffering almost total amnesia, and the rest of us still have no clue how to deal with her means that we're not fit for an incredibly delicate, dangerous and dare I say critical mission, do you?"
Hammond looked like he was beginning to regret asking. Jack's smile faded.
"I know what's at stake, sir," he said. "And I know why you're concerned. Under any other circumstances, I'd say you were wise to be. But I know for a fact that if you asked Daniel or Teal'c, they'd say 'this is what we do.' And... probably some other, confident things." Or at least things underscoring the inescapable necessity. It was like confidence, in the SGC.
Hammond nodded. "And Major Carter?"
Jack showed one hand. "At the moment, to her, this is all she's ever done," he said. "And despite everything that's happened – or, hell, because of everything that's happened – she's still the best we've got. Yes, sir, I'd say we're up to this. We're more than up to this."
Because this was the culmination of all the blows against the SGC: the attacks, setbacks, losses. The people under his command in SG-1 were the ones to carry the legacy of Abydos, of Revanna, of Tollanna, of the asteroid sent to finish them off and the Stargate-destroying weapon that almost did. And they carried the legacy of PV1-542, and the ancient rage of the entities in its star. It was only right and natural that they should see it finished, if this was where and how the last battle would take place.
"We're gonna kick ass."