Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You were completely helpless.”

“Yes.”

“There was nothing you could do.”

“No.”  

“How did that make you feel?”

“Angry.”

“Just…angry?”

“What? You don’t think I had reason enough to be angry?”

“I think anger is the safest emotion you have left.”

*   *   *

Jack O’Neill has faced down gunfire, aliens, politicians, and death with cool equilibrium more times than he can count. But none of those come close to touching the look Carter gives him the moment before her body finally gives up the fight its been waging for seventeen days. It’s as if for a moment he can hear her thoughts as clearly as she’s been hearing his.

I’m sorry.

He catches her as she falls, as her knees buckle, her deteriorating brain no longer able to send clear signals to her body. She’s breathing, her heart beating out a fast but steady rhythm under his fingers, and at least that’s something because he sure as hell didn’t drag her ass across a desert, silently infiltrate a luckily very laxly guarded compound, and finally find a damn gate just for her to give up on him the second they are back on friendly ground.

Even unconscious she looks worn, her skin stretched tight, body battered, and none of it, he knows, none of it coming close to what must be going on in her brain. His hand slips down to the back her neck, the metal of her collar cool compared to the sickly fever radiating from her skin.

He would rip the damn thing off her right here and now if he didn’t know it would kill her.

Not that it isn’t already doing that, he thinks, staring down at her hand that even now is still relentlessly twitching.

Above all of that, he finally registers the sound of feet clanging up the ramp, the sound jarring and angry in his ears.

Colonel Riley leans over Jack, a look of wondrous relief on his face. “Colonel,” he says. “It’s damn good to see you.”

Jack nods absently. He’s more interested in seeing Janet Fraiser, but the stop at the Alpha Site is necessary. Even if they still had a GDO, they’ve been gone far too long to hope it would still work.

A medic elbows in next to Jack, taking Carter’s vitals, fingers moving unerringly to the collar. “What is this, sir?”

“Don’t touch it,” Jack snaps, his voice sharper than he intends.

There’s a beat of silence, Riley’s hand pressing down on Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s get her to the infirmary,” he says, fingers pushing in. Comfort maybe, but more likely a warning. “We need to get you both checked out.”

Jack shakes his head, gathering Carter up into his arms, ignoring the protest of the medic. “Dial Earth.”

“O’Neill,” Riley objects.

Jack can only imagine what he looks like, covered in dust, worn down by the desert, his 2IC unconscious in his arms, but he doesn’t give a shit. “Do it!” he snaps. “And tell them to have a medical team ready in the gate room.”

The medic turns to Riley, a question in his eyes, and after a long moment, the commander finally nods. “Dial it up,” he orders a technician.

In the waiting, watching the gate slowly grind into life, Jack feels his legs begin to shake with fatigue, his arms contracting around Carter’s still form. Almost there.

“Come on, Carter,” he says, not daring to take his eyes from the slowly spinning ring. “Don’t give up on me now.”

*     *     *

Back on Earth, Jack trails after Janet, following the medical team, and no one seems to think to protest.

In the infirmary, Carter’s coming to again, but something isn’t right. Her face is scrunched up in confusion and fear, her body pushing down into the bed as she tries to get away from the hands on her. One of the monitors starts to screech as Carter gasps for air through what is quickly becoming clear is panic.

“We need to get her calmed down,” Janet orders, and Jack can hear the thread of urgency in her voice.

Jack practically shoves the nurse out of the way, but at this point he’s beyond caring about appearances. He leans low over Carter, his face right in hers. “Carter,” he tries, speaking loud into her ear. “Carter!”

She doesn’t seem to hear.

From the moment he found out what these collars really do, he’s done nothing but try to shield her from his thoughts, his emotions, his impulses, but now he shoves that all aside. For the first time he consciously forces his mood on her, projecting calm and strength and yelling her name in his head.

Her eyes latch on to him, recognition flaring.

That’s it. He takes a deep, slow breath, willing her to copy the gesture.

Haltingly, she does, her eyes not straying from him.

“Good,” he says, giving her a smile, trying to calm her. “Good.”

Her hand bumps against his leg, a clumsy jerk of a gesture. He takes her hand, squeezing it hard. That’s it, Carter. Just keep looking at me.

She blinks, her eyes softening, expression almost like an apology. His name tumbles out of her lips, and he thinks he can hear her voice layered inside that gaze. She thinks she’s dying.

Not a chance.

Not a fucking chance.

Hold on, Carter. Hold. On.

“Sir,” Janet says, her voice sharp like maybe this isn’t the first time she’s tried to get his attention. “We need to sedate her if we have any hope of stabilizing her.”

He nods, looking back down at Carter, slipping the information in her mind along with something else. A promise.

He won’t let this be the end.

Carter’s eyes dip closed, her fingers falling slack in his grasp.

In the following quiet, Janet steps up to Jack’s side, her hand on his arm. “What did you just do, sir?”

He stares down at Carter’s face, finally relaxed, her calm, even heartbeat sounding out from the machines. He brushes her hair back from her forehead. “I promised her we would fix this.”

She starts seizing.

Jack looks over at Janet, his heart in his throat. “Don’t make a damn liar out of me, Doc.”

* * *

It’s hard to let Carter out of his sight, even knowing she can’t go anywhere. The mountain is small enough to keep them within range of each other no matter where they go. But for once it isn’t the collar he’s thinking about.

She’s slipping away faster than he can fucking do anything about it.

But Hammond wants an explanation and the Doc needs time and Jack yet again has no choice.

Hammond and Jonas and Teal’c are all waiting when he gets to the briefing room. He walks straight over to the jug of water, downing a full glass. He doesn’t ever think he’ll get the taste of the desert out of his mouth again.

“We’ve contacted Jacob,” Hammond says when Jack doesn’t turn to look at them.

“Good,” Jack says. They need all the help they can get.

“Colonel, I need you to tell me what happened.”

Jack looks down at the empty glass in his hand to see that his fingers are shaking. He only wishes he could blame that on the collar, and not raw fear. He puts down the glass with a dull thud. “We were in a prison, a labor camp. Neither of us could clearly remember getting there.” He turns to find them all calmly sitting at the briefing table. He has to fight the urge to pace.

“You were on a mission on Methos,” Hammond prompts.

“Yeah,” Jack says, rubbing at the back of his head. “Taking a tour of the markets. We remember that much.”

Carter staring up at the huge span of glass and iron with a smile on her face. Almost enough to forget, just for a little while.

Stay, please stay.

Jack roughly clears his throat. “The next thing we knew, we woke up in this run down mining operation out in the middle of a desert.”

“Mining?” Jonas asks.

“Yeah. Naquadah.”

Janet walks in, Jack taking a truncated step towards her.

“Doctor?” Hammond asks.

Janet drops her files flat on the table, and Jack doesn’t think it’s his imagination that she looks like she’s aged a decade in the last hour. “She’s stable for now, sir. I’m just not sure for how long.” Her eyes track over to Jack. “Colonel, I need you to tell me about her symptoms.” She stares back at him steadily, demanding clear answers.

He nods. “It started as a headache. She tried to hide it, but after a few days, she was getting run down, not sleeping, barely eating. Then four days ago, she woke up and her hand was shaking. She couldn’t stop it.”

“Anything else?”

Hell, wasn’t that enough? He wracks his brain. “Yeah. She was slurring her words pretty bad these last two days. I’m not sure she was aware of it.”

Janet nods, jotting down a few notes.

Jack’s hands clench. “It’s the damn collar doing this to her. Can’t you just take it off?”

Janet ignores his outburst, opening her laptop and looking to Hammond for permission.

“Go ahead, Doctor.”

She boots an image on the screen, turning the screen so they can all see it. It’s a brain. Carter’s, Jack assumes, only there are bright white lines curling up from the base of her spine, invading every part. “I think this explains her decreasing neurological control.”

Jonas leans in towards the screen. “What are those?”

Janet shakes her head. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen technology like this before. But to be blunt, with this much invasion into her brain stem, I’m amazed she’s even still alive.”

Can you do this?

Do I have a choice?

She gives Jack a speculative glance. “I should run some tests on you, sir, to make sure you aren’t facing a similar problem.”

Jack’s already shaking his head. “Focus on Carter. I’m fine.”

“Sir,” she counters, the word a protest.

Jack leans his hands on the table. “Mine was never anything like hers.”

Janet frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Hers drilled into her spine somehow. Mine never did that. It only broadcasts.”

“Broadcasts?” Jonas echoes.

“What specifically is the function of the collars?” Hammond asks.

Jack rolls his shoulder, resigning himself to getting through this explanation as quickly as possible. “Look. They use the collars to bind the male prisoners to what they called their hearthmates. It’s a way to keep the men from escaping. If the man gets too far from his hearthmate, the collar kills her.”

Janet’s eyes are wide. “Are you saying this collar is the only thing keeping the men there?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “That and the desert.”

“But what if—” She doesn’t seem capable of putting it into words.

Jack doesn’t need her to, having seen it firsthand himself. “What if they decided to run anyway? Some did.”

“Did the women…”

He remembers a body sitting on the edge of the desert, waiting for burial. “Yes. They died.”

“That’s barbaric.”

She won’t hear him arguing.

“But none of the other women exhibited symptoms like Sam’s?” she asks.

It’s the same question that’s been spiraling in his mind. Why Carter? Why is this happening to her of all people. “No. Just her.” He thinks of Hannah, the way she looked at Carter sometimes when she thought they couldn’t see. “But I think they may have seen it before.”

Hammond clears his throat. “But for now, she’s stable?”

Janet shakes her head. “The growth has slowed, but not stopped.”

“Which means what exactly, Doctor?”

“That we’ve only bought ourselves time. And not much of it. She’s going to continue to deteriorate.”

Jacks hands clench. “We have to go back to Parramatta, get our hands on that device.”

“We don’t even know what planet you were on, what the address is.”

“Then we find that little weasel on Methos and we make him tell us.”

“We searched for you on Methos for several weeks, O’Neill,” Teal’c says, having the gall to sound calm when all Jack wants to do is punch someone in the face. “There was no sign of you or your guide. Do you even remember what your assailant looked like?”

Jack digs through Carter’s notebook. “This symbol. There was a stall in that giant glass building.”

Jonas takes the book, looking down at it with interest, but Jack already knows what a dead end it is. Even if they could follow the symbol, it would take time. Time they don’t have.

She’s going to continue to deteriorate.

Jack paces over to the window, for once having no eyes for the gate. Instead, he is thinking of that day by the stream with Carter when they had every reason to feel awkward, to want to avoid each other, but all he had felt was relief.

He hadn’t known yet just how bad it really was and she’d done her best to hide it, smiling up at him in the sunlight, the strange orange cast tingeing her hair strawberry blond.

Orange light.

“Red giant,” Jack says, something sliding into place.

“Excuse me?” Hammond asks.

Jack spins around, refocusing on the people around the table. “The planet we were on. Its sun was a red giant.”

Everyone is silent, staring back at him.

“How does that help us?” Hammond asks.

“It actually does,” Jonas interjects, already flipping through his ever-present composition book. “When it became clear that Sam and Colonel O’Neill were not in the city anymore, possibly not the planet, we mined dialed addresses from the Methian DHD just in case they’d been taken off world. The only problem was that there were hundreds of them and in no perceivable order. Our only course of action would have been to dial and search those hundreds of planets, and we didn’t even know for certain that they’d been moved off world.”

“We’re still left with the issue of sorting through hundreds of addresses,” Hammond points out.

Jonas shakes his head, pointing at Jack. “Populated planets around a red giant are statistically rare. If we can compare the known addresses to astronomical data…it should significantly narrow the possibilities.”

“How significantly?” Hammond asks.

Jonas pushes to his feet. “Just give me some time.”

“I will assist,” Teal’c says, following him out.

Janet excuses herself next, going back to check on Carter.

Hammond regards Jack. “Colonel, why don’t you hit the showers and get a change of clothing? Rest for a bit?”

He’s still wearing worn BDUs crusted with dust and sweat and far too many nights of unending worry. He wonders if the dust will ever truly wash away. But he doesn’t have any interest in trying either.

He sits down at the table, pulling one of the files towards him. “I’ll start drawing a map of the Stargate compound near Paramatta.” He’d rather go himself, would love nothing more than to go back with a P-90 and backup, but he’s just as hobbled as ever. “Whoever goes will need transportation of some kind. We don’t have the time for them to hoof it.”

“Jack,” Hammond says, his hand pressing down on his shoulder.

Jack stiffens under the touch and his first instinct is to ask if Hammond has lost his fucking mind that he thinks he’ll calmly go about showering and resting while Carter is—

He blows out a breath, remembering for a moment just who this is.

“General,” he says once he can trust his voice to be even and respectful. “I really need to do this.”

Hammond stands there a long moment, not moving, before his hand leaves Jack’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll see about getting some ATVs ready and moved to the gate room.”

“Thank you, sir. Who are you going to send?”

“SG-3 and 5.”

He nods, turning his attention back to his map.

* * *

“Incoming wormhole.”

Jack’s just finished sketching out a general map for the area between the gate and the prison on Parramatta when the Earth gate springs to life.

“The Tok’ra,” the technician announces.

Jacob. Thank god.

Hammond goes down to greet Jacob, bringing him up to the briefing room with Janet.

“Have you ever seen these before?” Hammond asks, gesturing at the collar around Jack’s neck.

Jacob walks up behind him, studying it, only to suck in a breath, his fingers digging painfully into Jack’s shoulder.

“Jacob?” Hammond asks.

When he finally speaks, it’s with Selmak’s calm voice, the fingers loosening their painful grip. “They are indeed Goa’uld, but very, very old.”

“So you know what they are,” Hammond says.

Selmak nods. “The Goa’uld used them on lotars long ago. The collars not only connect the slave physically to the master, but also provide subconscious knowledge of their god’s mindset, enabling them to anticipate their needs.”

“Why would they stop using them?” Hammond asks. “It sounds like an effective tool.”

“Because the thought of a slave reading their mind scared the hell out of them,” Jack surmises.

Hammond looks up in alarm. “Are you saying that Major Carter is able to read your mind?”

“More or less,” Jack says.

“But that’s not all they do,” Jacob cuts in, voice blunt and accusatory.

“No,” Jack admits.

“I don’t understand,” Hammond says, and Jack doesn’t mistake the order in his voice.

Jack rubs his shoulder. “One day the guards got a little rough with me, but it was like no matter how hard they hit me, it didn’t hurt. Not as much as it should have.”

Jacob sucks in a breath.

“I don’t understand,” Janet says, glancing at Jacob’s stricken face.

“The Goa’uld also used their lotar as personal protection,” Selmak explains. “The collars would translate physical trauma to the slave.”

“She will pay the price in your stead,” Jack says, his voice hollow. “That’s what they told us the first day.”

“The welts on her back?” Janet says, beginning to sound nauseated.

Jack nods.

She hides her reaction very well, but Jack feels like the lowest scum all the same. “Can you remove them?” she asks Selmak.

He shakes his head. “I have only heard of these devices, never seen one in person. I am hesitant to go in blindly.”

Jack would be the first to agree. “She tried once, when we first got there. It caused a seizure or something.” He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the image of her body rigid and jerking on the floor. Had that been the moment the collar started killing her? Was that why it affected her the way it did, when all those other women seemed fine? “We need to find the damn control device.”

“I have not seen one in easily five centuries,” Selmak says. “I would not even know where to begin looking.”

Jack turns to Hammond. “Then we find Parramatta.”

“We may have a bigger problem at the moment,” a voice announces.  

They all look over at Dr. MacKenzie standing in the doorway.

He holds up a folder, walking over to stand next to Janet. “These latest scans, I don’t like the look of them.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“These readings…they suggest that Major Carter is still aware.”

“I thought she was in a coma,” Hammond says.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know if she is still receiving signals from the other collar, but something is keeping her from reaching a delta state. It’s like being stuck in a sensory depravation tank. She can’t see or speak or feel, but her mind is active, aware of time passing.”

Jack thinks that sounds like enough to drive anyone crazy, and she’d already been on the edge.

Jonas comes darting up the steps, waving a piece of paper. “I’ve narrowed it to seven possible addresses.”

They look to Hammond, to see if the price of seven MALPs is worth the possible payoff. If Carter is worth it.

He nods.

Jack goes down into the control room. They dial the first address. The MALP goes through, sending back telemetry.

“No,” he says immediately.

The fourth one, they hit pay dirt. Jack doesn’t say anything at first, forcing himself to take a second look and a third because Carter can’t afford his wishful thinking to lead them down the wrong path.

Then he sees it, the crate he’d kicked over on their way out, the fancy, curling symbol on its side.

“Yes,” he says, jabbing his finger at the screen. “That’s it.”

“You’re sure,” Hammond asks.

He nods. “One hundred percent.”

Hammond looks over at Reynolds. “Get your team assembled and ready to be briefed. You’re going through in one hour.”

Teal’c approaches Reynolds. “I will accompany you to the planet, Colonel. If you will permit me.” Maybe Teal’c can see how much it’s killing Jack to stay behind, or maybe Teal’c isn’t overly fond of leaving something to others when he can just as easily see it done himself.

Reynolds glances at Hammond, receiving a small nod. “Happy to have you along, Teal’c.”

Teal’c nods, exiting the control room to gear up for the mission.

“Reynolds,” Jack says, not looking up at the other man, but knowing he needs to say something.

“I won’t come back without it, Jack. I promise.”

Jack nods.

*   *   *

Once the teams are away, it’s just Jack, Jacob, and Hammond in the briefing room, left waiting for any kind of answer.

“Think maybe you could shower now?” Hammond asks.

“Yeah,” Jacob says. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’re pretty rank.” Despite the levity of his words, his voice is strained, barbed in places.

“And get checked out in the infirmary. That’s an order.”

Jack goes, but only so he doesn’t have to watch the way Jacob looks everywhere but at him. If he was Jacob, he’d want to kick his ass too.

He stops by the infirmary on his way.

“Can I?” he asks, gesturing towards the isolation chamber.

She’s lying on the bed, hooked up to a million machines and tubes and wires, and he hates everything about it. But she’s also still alive.

“Hey, Carter. I don’t know if you can hear me any more, but Teal’c and Reynolds are on their way to Parramatta. They’re gonna get the device.” He leans in closer. “You’re going to be fine. You just need to hold on a little longer.”

She doesn’t move of course, and he thinks of her, trapped in there if MacKenzie is right. He ruthlessly shuts off that reckless train of thought because if she somehow still can feel him, she doesn’t need his terror layering on top of her own.

Janet comes in. “Let me give you a quick check, Colonel.”

He hesitates, and Janet lays a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“We can do it here.”

He nods, sitting on a chair, letting Janet poke and prod to her heart’s content.

Draping her stethoscope back around her neck, she makes a few marks on his chart. “Other than fatigue, you seem in pretty good shape, Colonel.”

“They kept us well fed,” he says, bitterness leaking into his tone. “Didn’t want their workforce weakening.”

“I see,” Janet says, everything hidden behind her impressively professional façade as always. But Jack knows it only hides how deeply she cares.

“Do you think she’s in pain?” Jack asks.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m scared I’m hurting her with my thoughts,” Jack confesses and somehow, sitting there with Janet, it doesn’t sound stupid.

Together, they sit and wait.

Chapter Text

“Tell me about Shayla.”

Jack’s head comes up, his eyes wary, an edge of something brought in from outside this room.

MacKenzie eases back in his seat, not pushing, letting Jack settle back into his current setting. He glances down at the file in his lap. “You’re pretty…vague about her in your report.”

By the time he looks back up, Jack is firmly in defensive mode, whatever triggered memory may have surfaced once again carefully pushed under. But not forgotten.

Jack shrugs, the calculated gesture screaming anything but nonchalance. “She was a slave.”

A slave Jack took the the time to rescue even while he was scrambling to save his own life. A slave he’d never even met. “She was Kanan’s lover.”

Jack is shaking his head before the statement is even finished. “She was his mark. His pawn.”

“He didn’t love her?”

He flinches, the infinitesimal movement not missed by MacKenzie. “Does it matter?”

“Shouldn’t it?”

Jack’s hands clench into fists. “He destroyed her. Took away everything that mattered to her. And all for his personal agenda, his petty desires. Calling it love doesn’t change that.”

“He went back for her,” MacKenzie reminds him.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “The one redeeming thing he ever did. And even at that he failed.”

He feels a prickle at the back of his neck, an instinct partially born. “Could you have done it?”

“What?”

“Left her behind.”

Jack’s eyes narrow momentarily, as if somehow sensing that he’s losing control of the conversation. “Not a chance in hell.”

MacKenzie quickly looks down, jotting a nonsensical note on his pad, knowing Jack is watching.

A step in the right direction.

*     *     *

A shower should have felt wonderful, but rather than calming Jack down, the spray of water just seems to sharpen his thoughts.

It’s still going to be two to three days before they can make it back here, with or without the device. Two or three days for Sam to deteriorate, to be stuck inside the hell that is her own mind, kept there by him and his thoughts.

He paces up and down the locker room and, God, he’s never felt so helpless before. He slams the door to his locker shut with a loud clang. “Daniel!”

The room remains stubbornly empty and silent.

“God dammit, Daniel,” Jack demands, stalking around the small space. “I know you can hear me, I know you’re floating around out there somewhere.”

He cranes his neck, staring up at the ceiling.

“Help her.”

“I can’t.”

Jack spins on his heel to see Daniel standing by the doorway. He looks sad, but resolute in his goddamn ridiculous beige sweater.

“Isn’t that convenient,” Jack sneers.

Daniel has the decency to look stricken. “Jack, you don’t understand. This isn’t about rules and non-interference. I don’t think I can…reach her any more.”

Jack stares back at him, pissed beyond belief that Daniel has the gall to sound so fucking uncertain, that this higher plane of being is really, in the end, nothing but a cop out. But the anger evaporates, leaving only the helplessness, the swamping, unbearable weight of it.

“What the hell am I supposed to do, Daniel?” he asks, dropping down to the bench. “And so help me God if I hear the word ascension…”

“Talk to her, Jack.”

“She’s in a coma. I’m not sure how talking is going to help,” he says, pushing back to his feet in frustration.

“Talk to her,” Daniel insists.

“How am I supposed to do that? How am I even supposed to know if she can hear me?”

Daniel stares back at him, that familiar crinkle between his eyes like Jack is missing something painfully obvious. “You’re connected, Jack. Use that.”

Jack glances down, his fingers touching the collar around his neck. “I don’t understand—”

He looks up.

Daniel’s gone.

* * *

Jack sits in the isolation room, watching Dr. Lee and some of the techs like a hawk as they tinker with Carter’s collar, making sure they don’t do anything to set the device off again. He’s already seen what that looks like, would be very happy never to see it again. Jacob is there too, on the opposite side of the room, and Jack finds Jacob’s gaze on him as often as Carter.

Hammond appears with Janet.  “Any progress?”

Dr. Lee looks up. “We’ve isolated the frequency being used by the devices.”

“So you can turn them off,” Jacob says.

“Well, no,” Dr. Lee says. “We could probably interrupt the signal, but from what Colonel O’Neill has told us, that would more than likely kill Major Carter.”

“What about adding a signal?” Jack asks, breaking his long silence.

“What?” The technicians look surprised to see him participate.

“You know the frequency or whatever, so does that mean you could send a second signal back to her collar?”

“Possibly…but I don’t see why—”

“I have to talk to her,” he says. “And I need to be able to hear her back. Can you make that happen?”

Dr. Lee frowns. “It’s not designed to do that.”

Jack gets to his feet. “Look, we think it’s the collar that is keeping her aware, we can’t just leave her in there alone to lose her mind.”

MacKenzie nods. “He’s right. If we can find a way to reach out to her, to ground her, we can buy more time.”

“What about the memory recall device?” Selmak suggests.

“Could that be modified to broadcast Major Carter’s thoughts?” Janet asks.

Dr. Lee looks to his colleagues. “Possibly. Though even if we could get Major Carter’s broadcast, you still have no way to receive it. That’s just not the way the master collar was designed.”

Selmak nods. “The Goa’uld did not wish to feel their lotar’s emotions.”

“What about the virtual reality pods?” Jonas asks. “From P7J-989? The ones that made Daniel Jackson relive his parents dying over and over again?”

Dr. Lee nods, beginning to look excited. “If it was calibrated to pick up the signal from Major Carter, it could translate it into a virtual reality for Colonel O’Neill.”

“No. It should be someone else,” Jacob says.

They look at him in confusion. “It can’t be anyone else. Colonel O’Neill has the collar.”

“But—” Jacob tries to argue.

MacKenzie steps in. “Attempting to add another consciousness…it would create chaos.”

“General?” Jack asks.

“You have an hour to make this happen,” Hammond tells Dr. Lee and his minions.

They scramble off to get it done.

*     *     *

It takes almost three hours in the end, something to do with digging up the pods from storage, which fortunately had never been shipped off to Area 51. But soon enough, Jack was sitting back in the damn virtual reality pods, ready this time to go into Carter’s brain.

He'd pretty much do anything on Earth to avoid this, but if it means saving her life…

“Doctor?” Jack asks, turning to MacKenzie. He’s hardly made it secret, how he feels about head shrinkers in general and this one in particular, but their common goal renders all the years of bad blood and avoidance insignificant.

“More than likely her mind will have created an environment in an attempt to protect itself. And it may not appreciate your intrusion. It could get…intense.”

Jack nods.

“Just remember that your emotions feed into hers, so… Stay as calm as you can.”

“Right,” Jack says.

“Ready?” Dr. Lee asks, getting a nod from Janet.

“Do it,” Jack says.

***

He opens his eyes and he’s in a long hallway. It feels amazingly real, gravity under his feet, the enclosed static air of an underground space. It stretches endlessly in each direction.

“Carter?” he says,

He picks a direction and starts walking.

But he doesn’t care about any of that, because he’s finally found Carter.

She’s sitting on a bench right outside a door, head leaning back against the wall.

There’s a voice, just behind, coming through the doorway as she sits and listens.

You should have let me die! You did this to me! I would rather be dead. I’d rather let the damn plague take me than let them inside me. You did this. You did this.

I’ll never forgive you.

His own voice, richoting off the walls, louder and louder, a hum building and multiplying, mad with pain and the horror of detoxing off the fucking sarcophagus.

He looks back at Carter, not wanting her to hear any of this, wanting her to know it’s nonsense.

Her face is blank of emotion even as her hands clench in her lap, his voice continuing to echo and build.

“Carter,” he says, reaching for her, but his hand just passes straight through, her body flickering like an image from an old projector.  

The noise is overwhelmingly loud, Jack pressing his hands to his ears to cut out his own voice, but it’s coming from inside, his own body no more real or solid and there’s no escaping it.

I’ll never forgive you!

“Stop it!” he yells.

Everything stills, Carter disappearing, the hallway, the door, the voice. There is just ringing silence.

He turns slowly, and now he’s in a room with a high ceiling and all the corners hidden in deep shadow. It feels as if someone is watching, high up in the walls. He doesn’t recognize it, not really, but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s been here before.

He carefully crosses the room, and there she is again, tucked into the corner, knees drawn up into her chest, hands clutched to her ears. She’s rocking slightly, her lips moving but no words reaching him.

“Carter.”

The noise is beginning to build again, like a thousand air conditioners on at once. Louder and louder.

“Sam!” he yells.

Her eyes snap open, focusing in on him and the hum evaporates, leaving them in ringing silence.

She stares at him as if expecting something, the vacant stare of someone watching television.

“Carter.”

Her head tilts to the side as if she’s trying to work something out, the pattern not going according to plan.

“What is this?” he asks.

“I hate this room,” she says, her voice so insubstantial that the words seem in danger of being swallowed by the shadows.

She’s staring at something behind him and he turns to see light flickering in the center of the room like one of Thor’s holograms. Like what the first Carter had looked like. Only now it’s an infirmary bed, but only a second before it flickers and changes, now a chair with restraints, and back to an infirmary bed, each grainy and worn like something on an old film strip, and Jack knows where they are now.

He hates this room too.

Without warning, the room around them shifts, morphing into a long dark tunnel, the only sound the slap of bare feet against the puddles strewn across the ground. A semi-transparent Carter sprints past them in mint green scrubs, terror in her throat.

“Sir!”

And now Carter on the gateroom ramp with Daniel and Teal’c behind her. Rage, pure, unmitigated rage coursing through her veins as she takes a threatening step towards Hammond.

“With or without reinforcements, we are going back, sir.”

The two of them, standing together near an elevator.

“I wish I could go with you, sir.”

Please come back.

Carter sitting outside his house in a car, wanting so desperately to just go inside, fear and honor and common sense winning out, but he feels it, the way she leaves part of herself behind as she drives away.

“When was that?” he finds himself asking.

She looks up at him. “More times than it should have been.” But he’s got way more than just her words now. He feels the self-censorship, the feeling that it’s a weakness. Knows just how many hours she spent outside his room as he detoxed, the horrible things she overheard.

“I tried to tell you before it was too late.” She shakes her head. “Too late.”

The infirmary bed is back again. Only there’s someone on it now. Daniel. Another Carter is standing over him, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, hands wrapped around a healing device. Daniel’s tortured body starts seizing.

“I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel.”

It’s Carter’s voice again, only this time thin and echoing as if heard from a great distance, but with it, the almost overwhelming sense of loss and regret crawls under Jack’s skin. Of failure.

“I guess I hoped that you always knew.”

He thinks he knows now, why she never willingly told him about the connection between them. It’s insidious, and yet ephemeral, and if Jack didn’t know any better, he would assume this was all a hallucination. That he was losing his mind.

He turns his back on the scene, kneeling down by the Carter still huddled in the corner. The one he thinks is really her.

“Carter,” he says, hesitating slightly before reaching out and touching her. He’s relieved when his hand doesn’t just pass through her, but actually makes contact. He can feel the solidity of her flesh, the warmth of her skin under the rough texture of her shirt.

“You’re really here,” she says, looking up at him.

“Yes.”

Her head tilts to one side. “I see you too, sometimes.” Her eyes dart past his shoulder.

Jack feels helpless to do anything other than turn and look.

It’s Baal.

Jack’s visceral reaction is almost uncontrollable, hand reaching for a weapon where there is none, because Baal isn’t here. It’s a memory. Jack is there too, strapped to the wall, knives sticking from his chest, the pain so horrible, but nowhere near as horrible as what is to come.

His memory. His memory given to Carter by the damn collars. The last thing he would ever want her to know. Let alone torture herself with.

“Sam,” he snaps, fingers tight on her chin. “Stop this.”

She blinks and it changes. His own body is lying in Daniel’s place now, flesh slick with sweat and breathing labored. Carter leans over him, swathed in hazmat gear.

“Sir, please.”

But there’s more here, things he hadn’t been aware of the first time around. The way her hands are shaking, the fact that despite how steady she’s keeping her voice, she is so terribly close to losing her composure completely. She knows exactly what it is she’s asking.

I won’t survive losing you too. God, Jack, please. Do this for me. Please.

“Sam,” Jack says again.

Her eyes finally pull away from the ghostly scene. She shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear her vision. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Sometimes I get a little…lost.”

“Yeah,” he says, feeling it pulling at him already, the buzz building in the corners of the room.

She takes his hands in hers, squeezing his fingers tight. “I’m really glad you’re here, Jack.”

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he says.

She smiles. “I was scared we wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

Jack pulls back in horror. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Isn’t it?” she asks, looking confused.

“No. I came to tell you to hold on. We’ve got teams already on their way. They’re going to get the device.”

Light flickers eerily on the walls, the noise building up around the edges.

She shakes her head. “You can’t hide it from me,” she says, her eyes straying past his shoulder.

He thinks she’s taken it from his mind, or he’s projected it, or maybe there just isn’t a difference anymore, because they are staring at their bodies in the infirmary, the crowd of people around them.

“They don’t know if they can save me. Or what I’ll be if they do.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not true.”

She smiles at him, something small and sad and like a kick to his gut. “It’s too late, Jack.”

“No,” he argues.

She lets out a sharp hiss and the pain catches him off-guard, the way it shoots down his spine, his body nearly buckling under it. The sound is rising around them, grating and invasive and making his brain feel like jelly.

Is this what it’s felt like for her this whole time?

“It’s okay, Jack,” she says, her hands cool on his face, offering comfort, when all along she’s been the one battling this alone. “None of this is your fault. None of this has ever been your fault.”

The scene changes again, only this time he knows it’s not from her mind, but his.

Carter lying in that bed as still as death except for the mechanical rise and fall of her chest. Hit twice with a zat. Empty, empty shell.

“Give it a minute.”

“I couldn’t let you go,” he confesses.

She leans into him, her forehead touching his. “I know,” she whispers and it’s too much, the regret emanating from her, filling the room—the sadness, but worst of all, the resignation.

He takes a hold of both her arms. “I still can’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Not when it comes to her. There is always a choice.

“Get up,” he says.

“What?”

He heaves her to her feet, arm slung across her back. “We’re getting out of here.”

He tries to walk her out of the room, to escape it, but they just keep ending up back in the same damn place. Over and over and over again.

No escaping it.

“Jack,” she eventually says, the pain so unbearable, and they both drop back to the floor.

The images in the middle of the room are spiraling out of control, snippets flying by too fast to be recognizable, voices echoing and running across each other. White light flashing against the walls.

He hates the way her eyes keep getting caught, slipping vacant as she stares at the light.

“Sam.”

She refocuses on him, but her breathing has become erratic, shallow shaking gulps like she’s not getting enough oxygen.

“Don’t pay it any attention,” he says, turning her face away from it. “Just look at me.”

“You should go.”

He can feel it, the way things are starting to come apart, the sense that neither of them are going to be able to hold on much longer.

“That’s not going to happen,” he says.

“You can’t fix this.”

They stare at each other and he doesn’t need to turn to look to know what moment is undoubtedly spooling out behind him, just sees the way the flickering light reflects on her face.

He spent so much time on Parramatta trying to protect her from this, trying to keep his emotions in check, his thoughts quiet and benign. But it’s all welling up now and he’s right there on the edge of losing control completely.

“Go,” she says, pushing at his shoulder. “Just go. Please.”

Save yourself.

Only he can’t. He can’t leave this place. And if he can feel every creeping thought and flickering emotion in her mind, then she must know this.

You’re connected, Jack. Use that.

They stare at each other and he doesn’t need to turn to look to know what moment is undoubtedly spooling out behind him, just sees the way the flickering light reflects on her face.

Sir, just go!

“I won’t,” he says.

If he can’t fight it, then there’s really only one other thing to do. Give in.

So he does.

He stops fighting the noise and the unseen waves ripping through his flesh, stops trying to hold together and keep everything as separate and calm as he can. Just stops. He lets it all happen. Lets them be in this together. Completely.

He knows somehow that they are both tethered to this now. Both of them live, or neither.

It never could have been any other way.

For a moment he’s sure he’s going to tear apart, lose his mind, black out from the dizziness, from the chaos and noise and screams and flashing lights.

And then it all abruptly settles, all the images sliding on top of each other, coming into sharp focus and then disappearing completely, just a soft murmur in the distance. Everything right there on the surface.

Carter is pulled up into his lap and he can feel the beat of her heart, the calm, steady lift of her chest with each breath, somehow perfectly matching his.

It’s all gone now—the panic, the confusion, the anger. The doubts.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, his voice quiet and calm, an eye in the storm.

Her eyes are wide as she stares up at him. “What did you do?”

He smiles down at her. “No idea.”

Her hand twists in the fabric of his sleeve, holding him close like he might still disappear. “I wanted to tell you—” she starts to say.

He stops her, his fingers on her face. “I already know.” And he does. It’s all there, undeniable and unavoidable, everything laid bare.

“Jack,” she says, eyes wide.

He kisses her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3

“How do you feel about what’s happened to Major Carter?”

“Pissed.”

“Guilty?”

He shrugs. “It’s my job to protect her.”

It was his job. “And you couldn’t.”

His hands clench. “No.”

“Do you think she blames you?”

“No.” Even if she should.

“But you blame yourself.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Why? As her commander, did you do everything you possibly could have?”

“What does it matter?”

“You think you failed her somehow, and I’m curious why.” He tries a different approach. “You got her out alive.”

“Not good enough.”

*     *     *

Jack has no idea how much time passes because it just doesn’t seem important anymore. All that matters is Sam.

Only one moment she is there, warm and solid in his arms, and then he’s holding nothing.

She’s pulling away from him, skipping past the stream, moving ever closer to the cliff right beyond the fence. “I’m okay,” she says, laughter in her voice. “I just tripped.”

“Carter, don’t—”

She steps off.

Jack lunges awake, half-falling, half-stumbling off the bed, his hand ripping back the privacy curtain before he’s even fully cognizant. The bed next to his is empty—perfect, clean sheets folded neatly into place.

Empty, empty, empty—like his arms and his head and the air—

He can’t breathe.

An alarm next to him starts blaring.

“Colonel!”

His knees buckle, bone deep weariness stealing into his body. He feels like he’s just finished running a dozen marathons straight.

The nurses are wrestling an oxygen mask onto his face, injecting something into his IV that makes everything start to spin and go soft.

And then Janet’s there with sharp words for her staff, a cool hand on his forehead. “I need you to calm down, Colonel. Look at me.”

It’s enough of an order that he manages to focus.

“She’s stable, Colonel. I promise.”

Carter. Carter, where are you?

“Do you hear me?” Janet demands.

He nods and stops fighting.

*    *     *

His next climb back to wakefulness is a bit calmer, it only taking a moment to orient himself. He’s out, and she’s stable. But why isn’t she here then?

“I need to see Carter,” he demands, the moment Janet appears.

“Colonel, your body has been under enormous strain. You have to rest.”

He stares back at her, because she can’t really be that stupid.

Her lips press together in disapproval. “Wheelchair or no deal,” she says, hands on her hips and Jack knows this is a battle he won’t win.

“Okay,” he agrees, willing to submit himself to the indignity.

She wheels him down the hall, coming to a stop outside the isolation room, and couldn’t they have put Carter in pretty much any other room on the base than this one?

Janet comes around in front of him, putting her hands on each armrest as she crouches down. “I need to tell you what you’re going to see before we go in there, sir. She’s hooked up to monitors and she has a tube in her throat to help her breathe. This is because we decided the best thing is to keep her in an induced coma until the swelling in her brain subsides. We had to shave some of her hair for the surgery to relieve pressure in her brain, and the collar left a burn on her neck.”

Jack doesn’t know why hearing this first is supposed to make it any better. He still feels like he wants to throw up. “But she’s okay?”

She holds his gaze. “We successfully removed the device.”

That isn’t an answer. “Janet.”

She blinks, finally looking away. “We won’t know until she wakes up.”

Jack hears the unspoken. If she wakes up.

Janet gets back up, pushing him into the room. Jacob sits in a chair nearby, Teal’c and Jonas in the room above watching. But Carter is all he cares about, lying in the bed in the middle of the room.

And, God, Janet was right, she looks awful. He doesn’t know if the change in her had been so gradual that he didn’t notice, or if he’d just been doing his damnedest not to see it. She is too thin, pale to the point of her veins standing out in sharp contrast under her skin, just like the bruises under her eyes. For some reason it’s the hair that’s worst, the stain of stitches against her shorn head making her look weak, vulnerable. Two words he’s never used to describe Carter.

God, he should have gotten her out of there sooner. He’d let his caution paralyze him. It seems so stupid now, so much time wasted on an imagined boundary.

He reaches out, touching the back of Carter’s hand, the small part of it he can see under the wires and tubes.

“What happened after they connected me?” he asks.

“Don’t you remember?” Janet asks.

Jack shakes his head. It’s hard to know what was real, what was wishful thinking, and nearly all of it damning as hell. 

“Not too long after you went under, we started losing her. Her stats—heart rate, oxygen levels—all of it tipped over into freefall. Then we started losing you too. But something happened.” Janet breaks off.

Jack looks up at her, surprised to see how uncertain she looks. “Something happened?” he prompts.

Janet blinks. “Yeah. I can’t really explain it. Her vitals just…evened out, matching yours perfectly. I mean, identically. Heartbeat, respiration, brain activity. All of it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Jack looks away. He thinks he may know, which means maybe he hadn’t just imagined the whole thing.

“Somehow you kept her stable long enough for SG-3 to get back with the device. I have no idea how.”

“How long was that?”

“Just over 50 hours.”

Jack looks up at her sharply. “It didn’t…feel that long.”

He can see the curiosity gleaming in her eyes, but she doesn’t ask. “When Reynolds came back with the device, Selmak was able to remove first Sam’s and then your collar. It was touch and go again at that point, especially with Sam. But we got her straight into surgery and you evened out pretty quickly after that.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two days. You’ve been sleeping solidly since then.” She gives him a critical look. “Whatever you did, it obviously took a huge physical toll.”

It’s a blatantly leading statement, but Jack has no intention of playing. He glances up at Jacob. “What about the healing device? For Carter?”

“We talked about it,” Janet admits. “We both agree it’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Brain damage isn’t simple trauma, not like a broken bone or a gunshot wound. The human brain is constantly evolving, changing day by day. Selmak doesn’t think the healing device is sensitive enough to know which cells to affect and which ones to leave alone.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it could erase part of who she is. And not just memories, but what fundamentally makes her Sam. She could wake up fourteen years old again, or maybe just no longer remember how to use a microwave. Or maybe not know who any of us are.”

For her life, Jack thinks that would be a small trade, but knows Carter wouldn’t feel that way. “So then what now?”

Janet shakes her head, looking as uncomfortable with their helplessness as Jack is. “All we can do is wait.”

“Great,” Jack says, looking down at Carter again. “My favorite thing.”

“You need your rest, Colonel. And yes, I will sedate you if I have to.”

Jack lets her roll him away.

* * *

Jack gets released from the infirmary a day later, but they keep Carter sedated for another five days before finally dialing back the meds keeping her asleep.

They wait to see if she’ll ever wake up.

Jack wanders down to the briefing room, looking down over the gateroom as Hammond and Jonas see Methian and Parramatta delegates back off through the Stargate. According to Jonas, the Paramattan planet wasn’t even aware of the Stargate, let along that there are other inhabited planets in the galaxy. Just a rude awakening all around for them.

The off-worlders using Paramatta for their own gains had apparently been running quite the racket. Collecting government prison stipends, a percentage of the profits from the textile trade, and a kick back for the black market naquadah. Which to the warden seemed like nothing but useless rocks.

“Colonel,” Hammond says as Jack enters the briefing room. “Good to see you up and around. I thought you had a least another day under observation.”

“I negotiated a reduced sentence.”

“Not for good behavior, I would imagine.”

Jack tries to smile, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Hammond leads him back to into his office. “The Methians are very thankful to us for helping shut down the blackmarket trade in naquadah and humans.”

“I’m sure they are,” Jack says, not ready to feel charitable towards anyone involved in the whole mess. Probably the main reason he’d been happy to stay stuck in the infirmary while they were on base.   

Hammond is watching Jack closely, and he knows that ‘how are you feeling’ conversation is about to come. Fortunately the phone rings before the general can get around to it.

He picks up the phone. “Hammond.”

He listens a moment, nodding before hanging up. He looks at Jack. “She’s awake.”

Jack is up and out of his seat before Hammond can even say go.

The isolation room is full of people, ironically enough, by the time they get there. Jacob, Janet, and a nurse are next to Carter’s bed, Jonas and Teal’c standing back against the wall.

Jack crosses over near the foot of the bed, Jacob giving him a glance before ignoring him completely.

Janet is leaning over Carter, who is seems to still be waking up, looking around in confusion. “Sam,” Janet says, voice warm and firm. “Blink twice if you understand me.”

Carter’s forehead creases, eyes rolling around the room, nothing close to recognition there.

Oh god, Jack thinks.

“Sam,” Janet says, speaking louder this time and right into her ear. “I need you to blink twice if you can understand me.”

Carter’s eyes swing wide, finally settling on Janet. She blinks once, and after a painfully long moment, a second time.

There’s an audible breath of relief in the room, but Jack isn’t ready to let go of this tension in his gut yet.

“You have a tube in your throat to help you breathe,” Janet says. “Don’t fight the vent. I’m just going to check you, and then we can see about removing it.”

Carter eyes are wide, but she blinks twice again.

Janet picks up Carter’s right hand. “Can you squeeze my hand?”

The fingers contract weakly.

“Good,” Janet says, moving to her left hand. “And the other?”

They stare at the completely still hand.

“Sam?” Janet says, speaking a little louder. “Can you squeeze my hand?”

It doesn’t move.

Carter shifts in the bed, panic beginning to show on her face and Janet smiles, patting her motionless hand. “Good,” she lies. “That’s good.”

Does her feet too, Carter pressing into her touch, each foot moving, but the left side noticeably weaker again.

By this point, Carter’s eyes are rolling around the room again, her good hand lifting off the bed in what looks like agitation or pain. Janet touches Carter’s face as the heart monitor speeds up, leaning in close. “Sam, what is it?”

Carter’s hand gestures again, her eyes darting side to side.

“I don’t understand,” Janet says.

Carter’s hand brushes at her throat and Jack gets it.

Janet does too, leaning into her. “We got it off, Sam. The collar is gone.”

Carter’s eyes are moving across the room again, her heart rate not slowing down. Her hand touching her throat again.

“I’m going to have to sedate her if we can’t get her calmed down.”

Jack steps up next to the bed, stepping in front of Jacob. “Carter.”

Her eyes latch on to him immediately, her body stilling.

He swallows hard, forcing a smile on his face, keeping his voice light. “Hey, don’t tell me you’re worried about me.”

Her arm clumsily bumps his arm, her eyes not leaving Jack’s face.

“I’m fine,” he says, taking her hand in his. “It’d take a lot more than a trip through your brain to take me down.”

Her eyes close, her body relaxing.

“Not that it wasn’t scary, mind you. All that math and physics and Stargate diagnostics. You really need to get a normal person hobby, Carter.” He’s babbling at this point, barely aware of what he’s saying, but it seems to be doing the trick, as Carter’s vitals slowly even back out.

He squeezes her fingers, feels the weak pulse of movement in response, and has to work not to let his raw relief show through. She knows who he is. She’s still in there.

Jack lingers another moment, even as he can feel Jacob’s gaze burning a hole in his back.

*   *   *

Jack avoids Carter’s room the next of the day, only swinging back by once the base has mostly emptied. She had the tube taken out that afternoon and was breathing on her own, all of which Janet took as a very good sign. She’d even been able to speak.

Jack tried not to think way a low bar that was.

He peered in the room, not surprised to find Carter awake, looking over at him before he can slink back away.

He walks up to the edge of the bed. “So. Can you hear my thoughts?” 

She shakes her head.

“Not even a little?”

“No.”

He gives her a tight smile. “Well, that’s good. Everything back to normal.”

She closes her eyes, her hand rubbing at her chest. Somehow, she doesn’t look like it’s a good thing. “It feels…strange,” she says, her voice still weak, but no longer slurred.

“Just give yourself some time.”

“I feel hollow.” Her eyes dart to him, like maybe she’s admitted too much. “But blessedly quiet,” she tacks on with a wry twist of her lips.

He smiles. “Are you calling me noisy?”

He’s hoping for a laugh, but instead her expression sobers. She takes a breath as if steeling herself for something. “About what happened—”

He shakes his head. “Alien influence, Carter.” No one’s fault. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself.

She looks mulish for a second and he knows she’s going to push this if he gives her the chance.

He thumps his fist on the edge of her bed, forcing himself to keep the smile on his face. “You just need to concentrate on getting better.”

He doesn’t want to hear her take it back. And the small chance that she’s actually trying to say something else…that’s even worse. Because she’ll regret it, sooner or later.

He forces himself to smile. “SG-1 will be waiting for you, Carter.”

Just like always.

***

Her voice was the first thing to come back, at first a bit stunted and clumsy, but gaining strength fast. The same cannot be said of her physical strength. Her left side shows a decided weakness, and walking seems to be something that will take quite a bit more work.

Carter, unsurprisingly, is not pleased.

Jack hears the distinct sound of a metal tray rattling against the concrete as it hits the floor as he approaches the room.  

“Sam, this is going to take time,” Janet says, clearly not for the first time. “I’ll give you a little time.”  Janet steps out into the hall, leaning back against the wall. She looks like she’s one step from losing it.

“Hey, Doc,” Jack says.

“Sir.”

“Why don’t you go get some coffee or something? I’ll sit with Carter for a while.”

He doesn’t know how she manages to look both relieved and guilty at the same time. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Of course, you should,” he says, shooing her. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it.”

The quickness with which Janet retreats doesn’t bode well for what Jack might find inside. He cautiously eases inside, taking in the food sprayed across the floor, a fork still sitting abandoned on the covers of Carter’s bed.

“Quite the impressive mess you’ve got going here, Carter.”

She looks pissed as hell, but he knows that’s not what this is really about. This is about her body failing her. This is about what they tried to take from her in that prison, what they’d come so close to stealing from her. That in some small way, maybe they’ve succeeded. She is not as she was. She may never be.

“Carter,” he says. “I know this sucks.”

She’s staring up at the ceiling, her weak arm tucked in against her chest. She’s trying to fight it, he can see that, recognizes the stubborn line of her jaw, but it’s also clear this is one battle she’s not going to win.

“Carter,” he says, against his better judgment reaching out and touching her arm.

She blinks against the tears, but they finally escape, her face turning away from him.

He lowers himself to the chair next to her bed. “If anyone deserves a good cry, it’s you. I promise I won’t tell.”

She turns to look at him and it breaks his heart, the bleakness in her eyes. Fuck. He’s back up on his feet, reaching for her. “Hey,” he says, pulling her into his arms.

Her fist thumps against his chest as she lowers her face to his shirt. He can feel the way the sobs wrack her frame but somehow, she doesn’t make a sound. He just holds her silently as it goes on and on.

She’s calm in his arms, but her grip hasn’t lessened. “I remember,” she whispers, her face turned into his neck. “I remember all of it.”

Jack closes his eyes. There’s some sick part of him that had hoped maybe she just wouldn’t remember. That maybe he’d imagined most of it.

“You didn’t leave me,” she says.

His arms tighten around her. “No,” he says.

Maybe that should mean something, but it can’t. The way her fingers are twisting in his shirt tells him she knows that too.

“You’re going to get better, Carter,” he says, knowing exactly what she needs to hear. “You’re going to get better and you’re going to want your life back. Don’t give up on that.”

“SG-1 is waiting for me?” she says, bitterness lacing the words.

“This will pass.”

“I think you really believe that.”

He has to.

But he still remembers too, the feel of her lips against his.

He forces himself to let go of her. To get up and walk out of that room.

Jacob is in the hall when Jack walks out. Jack barely acknowledges him, just nodding wearily in greeting and moving past him.

Jacob’s hand on his arm stops him. “Care to tell me what that was?” he bites out, his head jerking back towards Carter’s room.

“Excuse me?” Jack says.

He isn’t ready for the sheer rage on Jacob’s face. His hand tightens to the point of pain. “Don’t forget, Jack. I know what those collars really are, even if they don’t.”

It takes a moment for Jack to figure out what he means, and then it’s like a sledgehammer to his gut. Not the telepathy, not the transfer of injury, but the transfer of need. The collars that turned all of those women into little better than sex slaves.

You want this.

Even worse than Jacob’s accusation is the fact that Jack had been tempted. God, part of him had wanted to just let it happen, to take what she was offering.

But he hadn’t. It’s his one small saving grace. He hadn’t.

Some shred of guilt must show on his face though, because Jacob face flushes red. “She was completely at your mercy, you bastard.”

Jack feels his anger spark, rage that’s been boiling just under the surface and frankly he’s almost glad to have a reason to let it fly, especially at Jacob, of all people. He takes a threatening step towards him, fist twisted in the front of Jacob’s shirt as he shoves him back against the wall. He’s got his fist pulled back and God, more than anything he just wants to let that hit fly because he finally can. There’s no one here to take his punishment for him anymore. Just him.

“Sir!” Janet says, voice sharp.

Jack takes a shuddering breath, looking down at Jacob’s furious face, and deliberately lowers his fist. “If you seriously think I would ever take advantage of her… Then we don’t know each other, Jacob.”

Jack shoves away from him and stalks down the hallway.

*   *   *

He thinks Carter and Jacob must have had some sort of serious talk because even though Jacob still won’t meet Jack’s eye, he doesn’t try to pick another fight. Jack tries not to be disappointed.

His own frustration begins to take a back seat to the tension growing in Carter. Each day she’s more drawn, more discouraged by the crawling rate of her recovery. Jack tries to give her space, but he hears that she’s snapping at Jonas and Janet, spending long hours staring at the ceiling with her useless arm cradled to her chest, and whatever small progress she’s made stalls out completely.

She’s always been a bit of a fatalist.

She’s not used to things not coming to her, even with hard work.

He’s trying to do his part, to give her space, a chance to let this mess between them settle back into the background.

Scuttlebutt on the base has it that Jacob has now ignored four direct summons from the Tok’ra.

It’s been ten days since she regained consciousness when it all finally comes to a head.

Jacob is laying in on her, Carter giving as good as she takes, their voices ricocheting and amplifying off the walls.

“Whoa, kids. What’s going on?”

“Stay the hell out of this, Colonel,” Jacob snaps. “If it was up to all of you, you’d just coddle her to death.”

He wants to shout that he, of all people, knows what Carter needs. It’s right there on the tip of his tongue.

Only he doesn’t have the right.

Carter’s looking at him like she’s waiting almost, waiting for him to say it.

He turns and walks out, Carter’s gaze burning into his back.

The last thing Jack really expects when he receives a summons to the infirmary the next morning is to find Sam in a wheelchair, Jacob calmly standing right behind. There’s the air of a newly clearing storm clinging to the space.

“Hey, guys. We found a great place that specializes in Sam’s kind of injury, only an hour away. It’s an assisted living rehabilitation clinic. I’ve taken a leave of absence from the Tok’ra, I’m going to go with her.”

He can only imagine how Jacob had explained the concept of ‘leave of absence’ to the Tok’ra. Or maybe he hadn’t even bothered trying. If there is one thing Jacob and Selmak agree on implicitly, it’s Carter.

“I don’t understand,” Jonas says. “Do they not have what you need here?”

She looks near tears and that should be sign enough that she is struggling. “I just…can’t do this here.”

Too many eyes watching, or maybe just too many memories of things she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to do again.

Or maybe things she’d like to take back but can’t.

He catches her giving him a sharp glance and has the uncomfortable feeling that she can still read his damn mind. “I expect you guys to visit me. At least once a week. I mean it.”

Jonas smiles, leaning down and giving her a hug. “Of course.”

Teal’c steps forward to claim his hug. “We will visit often.”

She grabs Jack’s hand, looking just a little bit lost as she tugs at it, making it clear he’s not getting away without a hug of his own. Maybe making it clear that of all of the things she’s running away from, he is not one of them.

“Promise me,” she whispers as he leans into her. “Promise you’ll visit.”

She knows far too well how much easier it would be to stay away.

He nods, giving into the weakness to turn his face into her neck, just for a moment. “I promise.”

He watches her get wheeled away.

Chapter Text

“Baal…,” he opens with.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘No.’ We don’t talk about him.”

“I’m sorry, Colonel, but I thought Baal was the reason we were here.”

Jack shakes his head.

“He tortured you.”

If he hoped to incite Jack to anger, he misses the mark, his face remaining perfectly calm, unmoved. “Yeah. Yeah, he did. Killed me a lot too. I’m sure that’s in your little report.” He shrugs. “But he’s a Goa’uld, so it’s not like that’s unexpected.”

From what glimpses of truth leaked into the surviving medical report, MacKenzie really doubts what Jack had gone through was that cut and dry, but his attitude towards it is interesting enough that he decides not to derail it. “So, you don’t need to talk about it because you’re fine with it.”

Jack grins, something wide and hollow and completely feral. “He’ll get what’s coming to him one of these days. And I’m going to be there to see it. That’s enough.”

For a moment MacKenzie thinks he sees a flash of just what it is that makes men and women here willing to follow Jack O’Neill into hell and back. It’s chilling, and bizarrely comforting all at the same time.

The corner of Jack’s mouth twitches with what finally seems like genuine humor. “He’s evil, and I’m a pain in his ass. It works.”

“Simple.”

Jack nods. “The way I like it.”

It’s the in between he’s having problems with. The Tok’ra. His own mind.

Major Carter.

The least simple thing of all.

***

As far as assisted living places go, the one Carter shacks up in isn’t terrible. Carter and Jacob have a small apartment with a kitchen and bathroom, everything accessible and easy to navigate. There’s a garden and PT facilities, and best of all it’s not on base.

She’s been here a week and Jack, Teal’c, and Jonas are following through on their promise to visit. The four of them having lunch together while Jacob makes himself scarce.

Jack doesn’t notice it right off, but about halfway through the meal, he catches Carter staring at his empty glass. Her hand twitches as if fighting an unwanted impulse. A hearthmate serving the needs of her master.

“Carter,” he says, voice soft.

She flinches, looking up at him, and there it all is, screaming out from her eyes. They’ve always had this, this ability to have a conversation without any words, but it’s different now, so much more undeniably personal. He knows exactly what is going on in her mind, what that place is still doing to her even now.

And he fucking hates it.

Jonas, as usual, catches on quick, but completely misses the subtext. “Oh,” he says, glancing from Sam to Jack’s empty glass. “I can get that.” He moves to push to his feet, but Carter’s hand on his arm stops him.

“No,” she says, her eyes still on Jack.

For a horrifying second he thinks she’s going to find some way to do it herself, but then she blinks, her expression clearing. Her chin lifts a notch, and he feels something in his stomach ease. “He has two perfectly good legs,” she says, a thread of unbending iron in her voice. “He can get it himself.”

More than anything Jack wants to reach across the table and touch her, reassure her somehow, but he forces himself to settle for giving her a grim, understanding smile. “He certainly can,” he says, pushing to his feet and grabbing his glass. “Anyone else?”

Jonas looks uncertainly between them, but offers his glass, trying to be a team player. “Thank you.”

“Sir?” she says.

He turns in the doorway. “Yeah?”

She’s not quite looking at him, something tense still stiffening her shoulders, but her voice is light, teasing. “While you’re in there, feel free to do the dishes.”

Jack’s surprised enough to laugh. “Don’t push your luck, Carter,” he shoots back with a grin.

She smiles back, her eyes finally connecting, and it’s so damn good too see that he gets stuck staring before finally coming back to his senses and turning for the kitchen.

He does the dishes anyway, just because she asked.

*     *     *

One week, Carter calls him, asking him to come out and see her.

Jonas and Teal’c had already talked about going out on Friday. “Sure. We were—”

“No. Just you.”

He pauses. “Okay.”

He waits out in the gardens for Carter the next afternoon like she’d asked him. He catches movement out of the corner of his eye, and it’s Carter. She’s walking, leaning heavily on a cane, but she’s walking towards him.

“Surprise,” she says, her free hand swinging wide as if showing off a magic trick.

“Nice,” he says, trying to look properly appreciative and not like the lurch of her ungainly step makes his gut burn. A full five weeks out of the collar, and this is as far as she’s come.

“Can we?” she says, gesturing at a nearby bench.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, eyeing her as she sits down.

He lowers himself down next to her. It’s the first time they’ve actually been alone together since that day in her room. He’s done his job so very well.

“You’re growing out your hair,” he says, his fingers falling just short of touching the strand brushing her jaw.

She smiles. “I haven’t had long hair since I was seventeen. Figured I’d give it a try.”

Something about that bugs him. “When you come back to SG-1…”

“Jack,” she says. “We both know I’m not coming back.”

He feels panic squeeze his chest.

“Angus says I’ve recovered amazingly so far, my hearing and speech and eyesight are almost back to normal.”

“Almost,” Jack repeats.

She grimaces, looking away, confirming what he suspects. “Limited peripheral vision in one eye, haloes in the dark, and sluggish reflexes in my hand. And that’s just the good news. I’m no use to you anymore.”

Jack closes his eyes, rage building in his chest.

“I think I always knew,” she confesses, and he doesn’t know how she can sound so fucking calm about all of this. “From the first morning I woke up with shaking hands I must have known I would never see combat again, even if we did find a way home.”

No. No. That fucking place does not have the right to do this to her. To humiliate her and nearly kill her and now take her career from her? The one thing she really cared about, fought so fucking hard to get in the first place.

“I don’t think I could have done it anymore anyway,” she says, soft like a confession. “Even if I’d had the choice.”

“Done what?” Jack says, buzzing rage making him more gruff than he means to be.

She smiles, a sad little jerk of a gesture, her hand lifting to his face. Her thumb brushes along his jaw and it’s so much like that dark night back on Parramatta. You’re wrong about me.

“Carter,” he breathes, his traitorous fingers wrapping around hers, not wanting her to move away.

She leans in closer, her face so near his. “Not even I’m that good at pretending.”

He closes his eyes. He tells himself that more than anything he’s wanted to believe that this could be put back in a box, that everything could go back to what it was, that that would be a good thing. The best thing. For her.

But she’s telling him in no uncertain terms that there is no chance of that, and he hates the traitorous relief swelling in his chest almost as much as he hates the part of him that just can’t accept this. Not when the cost to her is so damn high.

What right do you have?

He looks down at her grip on his hand and it’s all just too damn much. “So you’re looking for the consolation prize.”

She freezes, staring back at him as if she can’t quite believe he said that to her. Hell, he can’t believe it either and he’s the one who said it. What the fuck is wrong with him?

“Wow,” she says, blinking back at him, but holding her ground. He’s used to a Carter that does one of two things—clams up or walks away. Today she doesn’t have the decency to do either. “I never thought I would actually miss it.”

“Miss what?”

She stares back at him. “The collar.”

Christ. He pushes to his feet, letting go of his grip on her hand with real difficulty before pacing a few steps away.

“You know,” Carter says, leaning back against the bench. “A few months ago I might have assumed you were pissed at me. That that’s what this really is. Maybe because you think I’m quitting, giving up. I would have chalked this up to you being an ass.”

His chin lifts with a jerk.

She’s unrepentant. “But I think this is something else entirely. I think you’re freaked out because you’re actually that unsure of this—of me—despite everything. And I just…I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t think you do either.”

“You think you know me that well, huh?”

“Yes,” she says, her gaze steady. “I do. And if you could just…stop for a second, you’d realize that goes both ways.”

“Carter…”

“Then tell me I imagined it.”

“What?”

“Tell me none of it happened. Tell me I’m wrong.”

He opens his mouth, knowing exactly what to say, what’s best for her, but for once the lies and excuses don’t come.

The silence stretches between them, Carter eventually looking away.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ve done the footwork. I didn’t deal with any of this particularly gracefully myself, so I get it if you need…time.”

He thinks she should be pissed, but she just looks tired. She leans back against the bench, just a fraction of movement, but there is a whole world of exhaustion and weariness in the gesture that makes him ache. More than anything he wants to tell her that he doesn’t need time, but the words stick in his throat, mired by anger and frustration and knowledge that this is not the way it is supposed to be. She was never supposed to have to settle for plan B.

“You know where to find me,” she says, and it kills him, the way her voice isn’t completely steady.

He watches her slowly shift back her feet, leaning heavily on the cane. He has to curl his hands into fists in an attempt not to help her. She’s always been about doing things herself, now more than ever.

She walks back inside, Jacob meeting her at the door. They talk for a short moment, Jacob’s hand on her arm, but she just shakes her head, disappearing inside.

Jacob looks up over at Jack, and he does not look well pleased. Shit. Jacob starts in his direction and Jack seriously considers making a run for it, if he didn’t think Jacob would only make him pay double for it later.

When Jacob draws near, he merely stands there silently for a while, and it’s an effective torture technique, but Jack absolutely refuses to squirm. Much.

“You got something to say, Jacob?”

“It’s no secret that you’re not my favorite person these days.”

“Glad we got that cleared up,” he says, moving past Jacob.

“You haven’t been here, Jack. You didn’t see her smash a mirror with her crutch out of sheer frustration. Didn’t see her rail at Angus and threaten to send him to her favorite black hole. Didn’t hear how quiet she got, not getting up off the couch for three days straight. You weren’t here at 2 am when she finally broke down and wept for everything she’s lost.”

Jack closes his eyes.

“But you’re not really angry with her. Mainly I know this because if you were, I’d already have kicked your ass.”

“What exactly are you trying to say, Jake?”

“I’m saying that maybe you should figure out what it really is that has you so pissed and stop taking it out on her. Or maybe I really will kick your ass.”

He walks away.

“I did this to her,” Jack says, not really even aware of the words until they tumble out. “I didn’t put that thing on her, but everything that happened, that was me, my thoughts. I did this to her.”

Jacob turns back to look at him. “Yeah, you did. What are you going to do about it?”

He doesn’t have a fucking clue.

*   *   *

Monday morning, it’s waiting for Jack when he gets to his office. Just an inconspicuous stack of papers with official insignia and signatures and her fate sealed in bureaucratic ink sitting on his desk, waiting to tell him that the career of Major Samantha Carter, USAF is at an end.

It’s really over.

He turns around and walks straight back out of his office.

He ends up sparring with Teal’c, which is never a great thing to do when he’s mad or distracted, but maybe a little punishment wouldn’t be the worst thing.

Teal’c calmly adjusts his style to Jack’s unpredictable, foolishly over-invested onslaught, and is careful not to knock Jack back on his ass more than is strictly necessary. Jack doesn’t take this as a kindness.

“Jonas Quinn and I will be visiting Major Carter tomorrow.” On top of everything, he has the gall to not sound even remotely winded. Bastard.

“She’s not a major anymore, Teal’c. Just plain old Sam Carter.”

Teal’c’s fist connects, Jack sprawling back on the mat.

“Will you accompany us?”

Instead of getting back up, Jack wrenches his gloves off, ripping at the tape on his hands, taking perverse pleasure in the sting of pain. “Probably not,” he admits.

“For what reason?”

Jack sighs, jerking a particularly stubborn strip of tape off the back of his hand with something like vengeance. “Because I’m pretty sure I royally screwed the pooch this time.”

Teal’c doesn’t rise to the bait, refusing to let Jack’s strange words derail him. Jack imagines the meaning is about as transparent as his attempt to throw Teal’c off topic. “I see,” he says instead, and Jack can feel the weight of disapproval layered in the words. God save him from nosy Jaffa.

Luckily Teal’c seems to have said his full, letting Jack brood in silence as he collects his gear and heads for the treadmills. He had hopes that the sparring would be enough to ease this uncomfortable hum of energy under his skin, the itch of anger climbing his throat. It wasn’t.

Nothing a dozen punishing miles on the treadmill can’t fix, right?

Jack is almost home free when Teal’c speaks again.

“Baal took a great deal from you. I did not think you would allow him the victory of taking away even more.”

Jack turns, a wave of cold suffusing his body. It takes him a moment to find his voice. “What the hell does Baal have to do with anything?”

Teal’c meets his gaze dispassionately, clearly unmoved by the raw aggression in Jack’s voice. “You have been unlike yourself since he held you captive. I am not the only one to have noticed this.”

Jack takes a step towards him, his hands tightening into fists. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Teal’c.”

Teal’c raises one eyebrow at him, and Jack thinks it must be pretty damn clear how badly he wants to knock him on his ass right now. Teal’c’s voice lowers. “Have your feelings for Major Carter changed?”

“Teal’c,” Jack bites out. This is not something they talk about. Ever.

But Teal’c simply stares back like a giant, stubborn lump of Jaffa, blocking his escape.

“No,” he grudgingly admits. “No, of course not.”

Teal’c nods. “And hers?”

Despite every reason she shouldn’t feel for him that way, despite his own disbelief, Carter has done way more than her fair share to make it abundantly clear. “No,” he says.

“Then it would seem the answer is simple, O’Neill.”

Jack drags his hands through his hair, biting back a sick huff. “Oh really? Why don’t you enlighten me?”

Teal’c takes a step towards Jack, his height seeming to increase with the small movement. “You will do as you must, because the alternative is to lose Major Carter completely. I do not think you will be so foolish, O’Neill, no matter how distasteful the solution.”

With that, he turns on his heel and heads for the exit.

Shit. When Teal’c is breaking out the tough love, Jack knows things have got to be bad.

Maybe you should figure out what it really is that has you so pissed.

Gets on treadmill.

He wasn’t right long before they ever set foot on Parramatta. He can’t ignore that anymore. And what if, God, what if his feelings for her had made everything worse?

He thought he was using his anger to keep her safe, to keep his distance.

Now he just doesn’t know how to turn it off.

*   *   *

“We are going,” Teal’c says, standing in his office doorway the next afternoon.

“Are you coming?” Jonas asks, unaware of the undercurrents.

“No,” Jack says.

He sees Teal’c’s lip curl with distain before he turns his back. “Let us go, Jonas Quinn.”

“Teal’c?”

He turns back to look at him.

“When you see Carter, can you tell her…” Hell. “Just tell her I’m doing the footwork.”

Teal’c’s brow furrows, but he inclines his head. “I shall do so, O’Neill.”

Jack sits at his desk for another fifteen minutes until he can’t stand it anymore and then strides down the hallway, jabbing his finger at the elevator call button enough times to earn himself a sideways glance from the service man walking by.

Jack just glares at him and hits the button four more times for good measure.

Three floors up, Jack walks down the hallway, scanning nameplates and only having a vague idea of the location of the office he’s looking for. He finally finds it, not even bothering to knock because he thinks if he stops long enough to think about, he’ll spin back around and leave.

Fortunately there’s only one person inside, sitting behind a desk.

“Colonel O’Neill,” MacKenzie says, looking nearly as surprised to see him in his office as Jack is to be there.

Jack masters the impulse to turn around and leave, letting the door swing shut behind him.

“Can I help you?” MacKenzie asks, already looking at him like he’s going to have to break out the straight jacket.

Jack paces back and forth in front of his desk a minute, finally coming to a stop, staring up at the ceiling.

“Look. I’m…really pissed,” Jack says. “Like, really, really pissed. All the damn time. Which, normally? I just deal with. But the thing is, I’m taking it out on the people who deserve it the least.” He pins MacKenzie with a challenging stare. “Can you fix that?”

He waits for the bullshit he associates with MacKenzie’s profession, but for once the guy actually surprises him, leveling him with a steady gaze. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I’m willing to try, if you are.”

I do not think you will be so foolish, O’Neill, no matter how distasteful the solution.

Shit.

MacKenzie gestures at a chair.

With a curse, Jack sits down.

Chapter Text

“Did you ever read Major Carter’s report about your time with Kanan?”

“No.”

“She had a theory as to why Kanan went back for Shayla so many months after he had originally abandoned her.”

“Of course, she did,” he says, the tiniest curve of his lips undermining the annoyance in his voice. MacKenzie doesn’t even think he realizes how much he’s giving away.

He picks up the report, reading out loud from it. “Confronted with the strict code of honor held by Colonel O’Neill, Kanan would have had no choice but to judge his own actions by the high moral values of his human host and find himself wanting. Colonel O’Neill would never leave an ally behind, and so Kanan sought to right this wrong, even at the cost of his own life, or that of his unwilling host. In the end it was not Kanan who rescued Shayla, it was Colonel O’Neill.”

“That’s a pretty picture she painted,” he says, dismissive, but his eyes are pulled down towards the carpet like he feels the need to hide something.

“You think she idealized you?”

“She saw what she wanted to see.”

Blunt. Matter of fact. And clearly a deflection.

“She looked up to you.” He points to the file. “Her respect for you is pretty clear to see. Her admiration for you as an officer and a human being.”

Jack shifts in his chair, clearly not liking the direction this heading. “It’s just a report.”

Only it’s not. “You really have a hard time seeing yourself that way, don’t you?”

“What way?”

“As someone to be admired.” He pauses, lets a beat pass, and then decides a calculated risk may be in order. “Someone to be loved.”

Jack’s head jerks up. “You’re going to want to be real careful what you say here.”

MacKenzie refuses to flinch, to betray a weakness for Jack to exploit. “Does she know?”

“Know what, exactly?” he bites out, a threat layered in each syllable.

He doesn’t blink. “That you’re here, talking with me. What did you think I meant?”

Jack eyes him. “You’re a real pain in the ass, Doc. You know that?”

MacKenzie smiles, not missing his sudden elevation to ‘Doc’.

*  *  *

Carter gets offered a position at Area 51. It’s at once a surprise and not one. They would have to be mad not to snatch her up after all. She tells Jack of it over the phone, long awkward pauses where he is probably supposed to have something to say, but there isn’t anything. Not really.

He can still tell he’s disappointed her. Yet again. It seems to be a pattern.

*  *  *

The next Saturday, Jack drives out to see Carter.

“Hey, I brought you something.”

Brings her bike.

He’d talked to her physical therapist, made sure he thought she was ready for something like this. Angus had thought it was a great idea. “Sometimes convincing yourself you’re still capable of doing things you love is the hardest part of recovery.”

“I’m…not sure I’m ready,” she says and Jack feels his stomach clench. Damn. He was trying to remind her of the things she loves, the things she still has, not highlight her weaknesses.

“I’m sorry, Carter,” he starts. “I thought—”

She stops him though, one hand on his arm. “Would you… Maybe you can drive?”

“You sure?” He hadn’t even presumed to ride it here himself, towing it instead, because she’s that’s protective of her bike.

She nods. “And maybe…next time I’ll take my turn.”

Shit. She’s still the bravest damn person he’s ever known.

She wraps her arms around him, leaning tight against his back and he doesn’t think that’s all fear.

They stop at rest area, one with trees and a picnic area.

She sits on the bench, leaning back and letting out a long breath like a convict getting her first taste of freedom. “Thank you for doing this,” she says, knocking her elbow into his leg when he sits on the table, his feet on the bench.

He shakes his head. “You deserve a hell of a lot more.”

She peers up at him. “Is that what you think?”

Somehow he thinks they’ve picked up their conversation from a few weeks back. Or maybe this is about that awkward call where she told him about Nevada. She hadn’t been asking much of him. Just some little sign maybe, that she isn’t completely spinning her wheels here.

She closes her eyes, leaning back on her elbows and turning her face up to the sun.

He stares at her hand there, inches from his knee.

“Do you want me to tell you to stay?” he asks.

She blows out a breath. “No. Of course not.”

“Then what?”

“I guess…I want you to say that it matters to you, one way or another.”

He’s left her out on a limb, and she just wants one small sign.

“It doesn’t,” he says.

Her hand pulls away as she recoils in reaction, but he reaches out and stops her, his hand around her wrist. “The collar is gone,” he says, knowing he’s messing this up, but all he’s got is pressing on at this point, trying to make her understand.

“I know,” she says, voice hard.

“Distance is just…miles now.” He shrugs. “Just geography.”

She stares at him, and he just holds her gaze, watching her brain spinning as if she’s trying to decipher some language she’s never heard. Just when he thinks he might have to find a way to explain himself, her expression shifts as she finally gets it.

Distance won’t kill this. It doesn’t matter to him if she goes or not, because if he has to follow her, or just pull this off from afar, he will. He isn’t going to let this go.

“Okay,” she says.

They reach a truce of sorts, sitting out there in the sun together. A cease-fire, and it’s like they’re both just waiting to see where things land.

*   *   *

Carter finally ready to try to bike on her own. She looks nervous.

“You can do this, Carter.”

She tears back into the parking lot and any apprehension he’s hoarding evaporates as she sweeps the helmet off. She’s windblown and flushed and smiling the widest he’s seen since long before they lost Daniel.

“That was…amazing,” she says, practically bouncing as she steps up to him and he’s stuck staring at her, a painful sort of brightness that he can’t look away from.

“Jack?” she asks, hand on his arm, and he moves without thinking, leaning in and kissing her, like this is something they just do.

After the initial kiss, he pauses, pulling back to search her face for any inkling of hesitation before leaning in to kiss her again.

He hears her helmet hit the ground with a thunk and then her arms are around his neck, her body pressing closer.

There’s no doubt here, no question of this being anything less than 100% her.

“You were right, I’m confused about most things most of the time.”

She rolls her eyes. “Jack.”

He slides his thumb down the line of her jaw, letting himself unabashedly look at her. “But not about you. Never about you.”

“I know what I want,” he says. “I’ve always known. It just…doesn’t seem fair, to get this after what I did to you.”

“What they did to me, not you,” she corrects.

He nods. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

“Yes,” she says, her voice thickening. “Sometimes it is.”

Is that how she feels about Baal? Maybe they’ve just been chasing each other around this endless loop of guilt. “That wasn’t your fault, Carter.”

“And this isn’t yours.”

*     *     *

Jack goes out to see Carter every weekend, and once during the week if he can manage it.

One night they go to a movie and then out to some abandoned park to ‘look at the stars.’ It’s tricky, trying to date a woman who lives with her father. A father with superhuman strength and access to more unpleasant planets to strand him on than Jack likes to contemplate.

It’s a bit like being teenagers, coming out to a park after dark to make out. He’s not complaining.

“I’ve been seeing MacKenzie.”

He can feel surprise stiffen her spine. “You have?”

“Not in a dating sense. No need to be jealous.”

“Jack.”

“Twice a week,” he says.

He knows she wants to ask why, but won’t quite let herself. He waits.

“Did Hammond…?”

“No.”

“I thought nothing in the universe would get you to talk to him of your own freewill.”

He huffs. “Sure, it offends my sense of bravado.”

“Not to mention your privacy.”

“True,” he says with a shrug.

“But then…why?”

He shifts onto his side, lifting up on his elbow so he can look down at her. His fingers brush against her check as he reaches out, absently twiddling with the ends of her hair. “Because it turns out there are a couple things way more important than my bravado.”

He reaches for her, pulling her closer, his hand coming into contact with her left hand. He feels her automatically pull back, has seen the way she goes out of her way to hide the weakened limb, stuffing it in her pocket, never using it to reach for anything.

He tugs back, lifting it up in his hand, massaging the length of her palm.

“Jack,” she says, tugging against his grip.

“I was just trying to remember exactly how many times this hand has saved my ass over the years,” he says.

“Yeah, well it probably never will again,” she says.

“Oh, I bet it has a few tricks left,” he says, carefully tracing each finger with complete absorption.

Her eyes follow the movement of his fingers over hers. “It’s just a hand,” she says, her voice quiet.

“Your hand.” He presses a kiss to her palm, not missing the way she sucks in a breath at the contact.

“It’s a part of you, Sam. Stop trying to hide it,” he says.

He feels her hand tentatively press against his chest.

She unbuttons his shirt. “Maybe it has a few skills left…”

*   *   *

Dropping her off after a different date.

She’s been building to something all afternoon. She only has one more week here at the facility, so Jack assumes it may partially have something to do with what moving back to Colorado Springs will mean for her. For them.

He’s walking her up the path.

“Spit it out, Carter.”

“What?”

“Whatever it is you’ve been dancing around all day, just say it.”

She blinks back at him, suddenly looking almost ill, and Jack changes his mind. Maybe he doesn’t want to hear this after all. He has little doubt she is about to drop a bombshell on him.

“I want to go back,” Carter blurts.

What? “Go back?”

She nods, her chin lifting just a fraction of an inch. “To Parramatta.”

Jack stops in his tracks. She might as well have asked to have the collar back. “Excuse me? I can’t possibly have heard you right because it sounded like you want to go back to a planet that did everything it could to kill you.”

“I need to go back.”

His arms tighten around her waist, the thought of her out there again terrifying him. “You aren’t cleared for gate travel.”

“I’m not cleared for combat, for front line teams,” she reminds him. Even scientists get off-world with fair regularity. If the SGC could be foolish enough to trust Felger out there, Carter certainly can be.

“This isn’t exactly a friendly planet you’re talking about undertaking scientific testing on.”

“Jack,” she says. “I need to go back. Just once.”

“Maybe you could pull a string or two?” she asks, and the fact that she would even ask that says a lot about how much this means to her.

He looks up back towards her apartment to see Jacob staring down at them, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks very unhappy.

Jack absolutely refuses to let go of Carter.

“Your dad is going to kill me,” he says.

Carter bites her lip. “For dating me? Or for taking me to Parramatta?”

She is not going to let this go. Damn it all to hell. He sighs. “Both.”

She smiles, leaning in to kiss him. “He’ll get over it.”

Jack can still feel the dagger-like intrusion of Jacob’s stare into his back. Oh, what the hell, he thinks. If Sam Carter wants to kiss him, he is so not going to complain about where and when.

“Thank you.”

He shakes his head. She should really get it by now. “Anything.”