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The One With a Broken Heart
“Don’t act like you're hurt”
She was hit the gut. She struggled to pulled on the sweater.
Paralyzed. She couldn’t get her legs to move.
As if the other words he had said had bound her up restricting any movement. She closed her eyes desperately trying to marshal herself for an exit. After was seemed like an eternity he sat down. The bed shifted enough for her to startle the synapses firing allowing her legs could move. All she needed to do was stand.
Finally her legs obeyed and she did.
Now to walk. Freedom was there at the door.
“Hey” she hear from behind her. She willed her leg to move. There, now she just had to do this a few more times. “W-wwhat are, Vala?”
She had not found her voice yet, but her legs were moving now left….right….. left… right...
Door signal. It registered.
She needs to open the door. Right arm moves. Press button.
Swooosh
Right.. Left..right.left.right left rightleft
“Vala?” He says again she thinks she hears anger in his voice returning.
right left rightleft
Crossing the threshold it seems as if she has control now.
rightleftrightleftrightleftrightleftrightleft
Now she is running. Not sure where she is going. Down ladder. Yes, down is away.
She climbs down to the hanger bay. Mitchel is in a cockpit. She stays in the shadows sneaking to a place to just recover.
She misses breakfast the next day. Not that it was all that uncommon. So no one comments. Lunch each assumed she had lunched with another. After all she made sure to socialize with everyone. Nothing was amiss.
Dinner. They all made a habit of meeting for supper. Set at ship’s time 6:30. Between supper and dessert they chatted about new asgardian knowledge. Landry was the first to comment about her absence.
“Daniel, where is Vala?” He interrupted Sam’s summation on a new field she dubbed temporal mechanics.
“Why would you think I’d know, sir” He looked mildly disturbed the triangular wrinkle between his brows became more pronounced.
“Because you usually know.” The general replied as with the same obviousness as if he had said water is wet.
“Well I don’t, sir. We had an argument—" He started.
“Crap, Jackson what did you say?” Mitchell intoned with a sigh and the drop of a napkin. “Sorry, sir” He added realizing he interrupted his superior.
“It was private.” The all looked at him waiting for more. Daniel didn’t add anything else.
With that comment Sam looked to Teal’c. They both had just watched Cam and Daniel stare at each other in intense quite. Teal’c nodded his head.
“Excuse me General Landry.” He rose “I shall track ValaMalDoran.” He looked to Daniel with the expression of one who had smell an unpleasant odor.
“Thanks Teal’c” Landy said.
Two hours later he found her. Staring out a window in a machine shop off the landing bay. “You missed dinner ValaMalDoran.”
“What’s the point.” She turned a tear stained face to him.
It marked a turning point in the crew dynamics. For many days after she did eat off cycle with the others. Eventually, weeks later, she returned to group suppers sitting on the far side of Teal’c. She never once looked at Daniel or spoke to him first. She did answer him when he addressed her in usually a monotone yes, no or it doesn’t matter. Gone were the pigtails. She just pulled the hair back. When the colorful clothing wore out, dull Utilitarian outfits were used to replace them. When she did smile it never reached her eyes. It seems as if some part of her had been crushed. She stayed away from the Asgard core. Over time Stopped going to social activities. One day several years later while doing routine maintenance on a Power conduit she accidentally touched the wrong circuit. Sam founder her when there was a registered power drain. The burnt back of her hand telling the story.
Sam never did find a way out of the time dilation field. When she was disheartened Daniel wasn’t aware enough of other people’s troubles, having long ago become singular in his asgardian history focus, to help rouse her out of it. They all died after long lives. The ori were eventually defeated. Morgan Le Fay appeared as Daniel Jackson to many at the SGC. They all assumed the missing vessel was destroyed. Somehow he ascended (again) and was the one leading hints for them to find the arc.
However Ba’all did jump back in time and earth was invaded. Qetesh ended up ruling the Goa'uld empire for much longer than Ra had. And the Ori never did come to the Milky Way. So the ancients never did interfere, which was all the much better for them. Just Oma with her one temple and at the rate they were causing ascension it wasn’t a problem. So what if trillions were enslaved and freedom for the masses was eons away. It didn’t much matter to them.
The One That Time Blessed
A woman’s hand grabbed Sam’s wrist. Her other hand slide in a crystal into the Asgardian Interface to alter her plan. Sam looked up in confusion she was looking at two adults and 3 children in the middle of room. The golden man handed a letter ‘Col. Samantha Carter’ written in her own hand. The woman took advantage of Sam's confusion and keyed several changes quickly. Then all 5 of them put their hands up in surrender. The Odyssey streaked into hyperspace.
“Good work Sam,” came a disembodied voice for the speaker.
This broke her out of her momentary freeze. “Wasn’t me. It was…” She looked at the woman.
“Claire Mal Doran Jackson” The woman supplied the whole name with a glint of mischief in her eye while picking up the toddler.
“It was Daniel's daughter.” The woman was the spitting image of her grandmother but her hair was dark auburn rather than light auburn. The man held himself in Teal’c standard hands behind wait out eternity pose. He had brass colored hair in a tight Afro and Amber eyes.
“What are you saying, Colonel?” Landry’s voice was stir over a muttering of background voices.
“There is a family here, sir, and a letter from me.”
“Bring it all to the briefing room, ASAP.”
When they arrived Daniel, Vala, Teal’c, and Cam were already there in addition to the general.
“Unka Cam” Uttered the middle child and dove right for the man. He had the good graces to catch the girl before her head hit the table.
“I’m Claire. This is Bra’tac Carter. Our children Henry, Cameron and Hope. This crystal will clearly explain things" she paused. "Or rather most things.” She looked over to her parents, as she handed the record crystal over to the general. She noticed her mother wore the same ‘I’m confused but going along’ grin that Cameron did sitting on her uncle’s lap.
“How, er, what?” The others began to question simultaneously.
Sam sat down and opened the Letter, obvious to what else was going on.
Hey there,
Yes, this is me. And yes, I did have a child with Teal’c. As I write this, we are about to explode the ship to fuel the solution. We finally discovered the way out of the dilation field. We were here for 35 years. Our decision to have Bra’tac, well a child at all, was because Daniel and Vala had Claire. Claire needed a friend her age. She was an accident of Vala birth control. None of us is a medical doctor and didn’t take into account changes as one ages. While Daniel and Vala are in love, Teal’c and I found comfort in companionship based on friendship. I never stopped loving Jack nor Teal’c, Ishta. I thought you needed to know. I know I would.
Claire’s birth turned out to be the stroke of luck we needed. Bra’tac and Claire are wicked smart. With their help the solution that evaded me for so long was found. No telling how long, if ever, it would have been till I solved it. Don’t let things get weird between you all. Right now up you are no longer me. I wish you a good, long life.
The crystal contains discoveries I made with the Asgard core over the years. No personal info. I wrote the letter, well, you know why.
Yours (literally),
Sam
She read the letter several times. Finally someone repeating her name brought her attention away from the paper. “Sam, is this possible?” Landry asked.
“Yes sir. I was in the process of initializing a time dilation field when Claire stopped me.” She folded the paper sliding it into the shirt pocket.
The data crystal held video message for each of them as well as many Scientific advances that they all discovered along the way. In the end Bra’tac said they all wish to join the scientists in Atlantis. ‘‘T'is awkward being contemporaries with one’s not-quite parents.” He said with a smile that seemed more of Sam then Teal'c.
Daniel's video was the longest. It was a 70yo him with advice for on Asgardian language. At the end he look into the camera and said “Take the chance on her. You know I didn’t given to her all these years on this god awful ship just because of convenience. She is worth it.” He gave an awkward wave to his younger self and the video ended.
Vale’s was of advice on hobby’s she should try. And learning Asgardian was actually a fun thing to do. She offered no romantic advice to herself. She knew she wasn’t one to listen to it anyway. “Life was too short to watch me talk to myself. Stay gorgeous” and that was it.
Cam’s video was a heartfelt plea to pay attention to the flowers and trees. To hug mom and dad more and other sentimental things. Cam wondered if the other him was entirely sane anymore. He highly doubted he could have lasted.
Teal’c was the shortest. “Sam is an amiable companion but she never took the place of Ishta. You didn’t betray O’Neil.”
The One That,The One That,The One That,...
As Sam began to initiate the sequence when a bright yellowish glow caught attention. Teal’c stumbled out of it. He reached out and fell down. She finished the sequence. Rushing over to him, she found him dead. In the outreaches hand was the crystal.
Upon view it, she determined it was the solution to a problem she didn’t have time realize she had yet.
However she spent the next 35 years trying to figure out how to save Teal’c’s life. Always when they released the field to explode the ship the shield still failed.
Each time the crystal held more data telling her what not to do.
It was the one hundred and seventy fourth time through the loop that it all went right.
There had been so much data it took her a few years to get threw it all. Then still more to find another solution. All this explained why Teal’c was standing there in what looked like molded chrome suit with a gloved hand holding a programming crystal. It had been worth it they all lived. Teal’c only aged 7 years more then he had a mere moment before.
There was hundreds of years of notes from the many Daniels with Annotations from the Valas. They all had started sending themselves notes forward the 3rd time through. While Teal’c never spoke of what happened during the last trip, Daniel could read, in his own notes, how close time and time again Vala and he had been, would be, were, are going to be, Will have been. Time travel royally messed up verbal tenses in all the languages he spoke.
The Hesitation One
Minor Explosions were going off around her. Her hand hovered over the stone needed to initiate the sequence. She paused in a moment of Doubt. It wasn’t long a fraction of a second. Unfortunately that delay put the beam closer to the Odyssey
In 43 years it made contact with the hull. It was a slow burn. Mitchell saw the glow on the wall before it fully burned through.
They gathered in the Asgardian core. Vala and Daniel hugged each other with eyes closed. Mitchell stood holding one of Landry's plant. Teal’c reached a hand to her shoulder as she released the dilation field.
The Reflective one.
The blue streaks of hyperspace zipped by the window where Teal’c was looking out in the mess hall. He stood by the chair he had just had breakfast in a mere 5 hours ago with his aged teammates. He watched his reflection as his hand rose to the grey streak in his hair.
It happened. He knew he was older. There were things in the data crystal he brought that supported the conclusion. He could recall so many moments in time. The time when when Vala had dented a chair learning to play musical chairs. The small chip on the table that Daniel’s stylist made from decades of continued tapping. The table that Mitchell fell into during charades.
It didn’t happen. He had forgotten the earlier discord between Daniel and Vala. How ridged and distant Landry had been. And Mitchel who seems so less angry. He looked lost in the confusion of it all. Past that never was but had been.
“Son, I can’t know the memories you carry and” His hands softly motion a stop before Teal’c reply. “I know you can’t speak of it. Remember you aren’t alone.” The gruff voice of Landry came from behind him, the general step to the side and he saw him in the reflection.
“It will be difficult. I know you well. We have had many conversations over diverse topics. But you don’t remember that. I mourned your passing yet here. Now you are half my age.” For a man who was the rock of everyone else, the solid one he felt adrift in the moment. Uncertainty clouded his face.
“Teal’c, you have had an amazingly rough life. So many dead by your hand, even more saved. I’m sure you will come to terms with this time frame. As I said you aren't alone. We may not yet be the people you knew. But we are the people you know now.” The general never looked at him when he spoke. Just kept looking out the window.
They both were quiet for a long while. Some people began to filter in for a meal. A wry grin turn the corner of Landry’s mouth.
Teal’c tilted up a questioning brow,
“Well Teal’c not many can say they’ve had a 50 year vacation. Time to get cracking. We are almost to Earth." The general turned leaving the room.
“Indeed.” he said with the tilt of his head, a slow smile spread across his face.