Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day ???

She stood still, watching as her teammates emerged from the gate on the neutral planet they had agreed upon, approaching her cautiously. Her heart fluttered with excitement at the sight of them while her stomach squirmed in knots. After all this time, they were there, right before her, alive. Her plan had worked. But, what if they didn’t believe her? What if they didn’t think she was her? After everything she’d been through, what if she was never allowed to go home?

Their expressions were serious, their weapons raised and aimed unforgivingly at her. Behind them, a team of burly marines now emerged from the gate, holding up their rear. Too much time must have passed, she realised. She didn’t even know the date. Had she miscalculated? Had she stepped through the gate too late?

“It’s good to see you, Sir,” she said, trying her best to smile and sound light despite the weight of dread weighing down on her weary soul.

“You’re alone?” the Colonel questioned gruffly, fervently choosing not returning her smile.

His choice of words and tone stung. Of course she knew he was only checking that she wasn’t about to unleash a hidden army of enemies on them in ambush. He couldn’t possibly fathom how alone she’d been for so long.

“Yes, Sir,” she replied, raising her now shaking arms as non-threateningly as possible at the seven weapons pointed at her, her attempt at a smile steadily dissolving.

“Identify yourself,” the Colonel barked at her, still scrutinizing her. “Our Carter went missing over three months ago.”

‘Thank god it’s only been three months for them,’ she thought. Her odds had just increased. Bolstered slightly, she found more strength in her voice with her reply, “I am her.” Capturing his eyes and pleading with her own, she had to make him believe her. “I’m Major Samantha Carter, authentication code Alpha niner Bravo Echo four zero.” She had no idea how she was going to prove that, though.

“Your hair’s long, and you’re wearing strange clothes. If you are who you say you are, and I stress if,” he said half-menacingly, as though unwilling to allow himself to get his own hopes up, “what the hell happened to you?”

She sighed. She didn’t even know where to begin. “It’s a really long story, Sir.”

Day 1

March 17th 2002

Sam was busy sealing up the final mineral sample she’d collected and was putting it in a container when she became distracted by the sound of the Colonel and Daniel’s bickering.

“Daniel, it’s an empty frickin’ quarry, for cryin’ out loud.”

“We need to check out the entire site. What if it had been a space weapon factory that had been blasted by a spaceship?”

“I do not see any visual evidence of any advanced technology, nor of any such blast, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c contradicted.

“Thanks, T. Come on Daniel, what are the chances of finding a space gun in all this rubble? What is it with you and rocks, anyway?”

“Jack, what would General Hammond say if you rushed us off this planet and there was a hidden Ancient weapon that we overlooked because you can’t wait to get back home to watch a damn sports game?”

“SG-11 can come back and do another sweep after we’re gone. You wanna fanboy over rocks with them, then knock yourself out. But Daniel, so help me if you insult the great and legendary sport that is ice hockey one more time, I’m gonna-”

“Teal’c, back me up here would you?” she heard Daniel interrupt his threat, now pleading to Teal’c, as she loaded up the smaller samples into her backpack, her back turned toward them.

“I would wager that we are unlikely to find any concealed weapons on this planet. I would also wager that the Canucks of Vancouver shall be victorious tonight.”

She turned around to look at the three in surprise at Teal’c’s tone of amusement in time to catch a rare glint of humour in the Jaffa’s eyes. The Colonel immediately lit up at his friend’s support of his favourite game, leaving Daniel seething and hissing at the pair.

“Twenty bucks?” the Colonel asked Teal’c, looking thrilled.

“I do believe a wager of fifty dollars would be more appropriate. I am most confident the Minnesota Wilds shall fall.”

“Hah! You’re on big guy!” he said, positively beaming, now.

“Sam, don’t leave me with these two jocks!” cried Daniel exasperatedly at her, and she couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the situation.

“Sorry Daniel,” she spluttered, still chuckling, “but I want to get these samples back for testing ASAP. If they turn out to contain the concentration of Trinium which my initial tests show, this could prove invaluable for the X-302 project.”

“Seriously, what is it with half my team drooling over rocks today?” the Colonel sighed, making a dramatic eye roll.

“Sir, the X-302 project is Earth’s first attempt at constructing a craft capable of hyperspace flight using entirely man-made or reverse-engineered technology. That means we need all the raw material we can get, including Trinium.”

“Right,” he said pointing his finger at the sample container she was hoisting onto her shoulder. “Well your new toy better not send me and T flying into the cold of space again,” she heard him grumble.

“No, Sir, it won’t,” she said, chuckling.

“It better. So, all packed up then, Carter?”

“Yes Sir, ready to return to Earth. I’m sure you’ll all be back in time for the game?”

“Oh yes, we’ll all be back in good time to see the Wilds smash the Canucks to smithereens,” he said, throwing a sly look towards Teal’c, who merely raised his eyebrow, not taking the Colonel’s bait. “See you back at the SGC, Carter.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said in affirmation, turning around to walk the short distance to the DHD, hearing the Colonel say, “You’ve got two hours to poke around before we head back, too,” to which Daniel groaned audibly.

She sniggered at her teammate’s antics as she pushed the DHD’s symbols in sequence to dial home. It had been nice to have a simple, safe, recon mission, for once. Finding the planet lifeless and equally threat-less, the team had been able to relax, their spirits unusually high. Well, except for Daniel, perhaps, she mused. The Colonel and Teal’c were planning to watch the Stanley Cup semi-final in a few hours’ time, and she herself was very excited at the possibility that they may have discovered a more reliable source of Trinium than that of the trickles of the alloy from PXY-887. Hitting the central button, she sent through her IDC, receiving the all-clear back from the SGC, and rushed to the wormhole, eager to get the samples to the testing lab.

As she stepped through the gate, drawing in a breath as she usually did as she immersed herself in the event horizon, she readied the larger, and certainly heavier, container of samples hanging from the shoulder strap, preparing to show it to the General. She was hoping to ask him permission to drop off the samples at the lab first before she’d need to check in to the infirmary for her standard post-mission checks.

As her vision rematerialized, she was immediately struck by the unexpected darkness of the gate room. Other than the ominous, shimmering blue glow cast upon the concrete walls by the open wormhole behind her, she could barely make out the edges of the room. She also couldn’t see into the Control Room, the reinforced glass merely reflecting the image of the open gate behind her and of herself.

Exhaling the breath she’d been holding longer than usual, she instinctively drew her P90, steadily setting down the heavy container beside her feet, taking a defensive stance. The familiar loud sound of the gate shutting down sounded, and she was instantly plunged into pitch blackness.

Chapter Text

The gate behind her shut down and she was instantly plunged into pitch blackness.

Day 1 (continued)

Her ears immediately strained to pick out any scuffle of movement, any resonance of presence, but there was nothing but deafening silence. Not even the familiar background hum of ventilation or murmur of the computers, she noticed. The air was still, stagnant and even surprisingly cold, and she couldn’t help cough slightly at its stale taste, her voice ricocheting off into the dark void. Without even the emergency lighting, she’d never known until now how truly dark the inside of a mountain, hundreds of feet underground, could be.

With a burst of adrenaline, her heart hammered away at her ribs, the shock startling her into action. She worked fast to hurriedly flick on the sidelight of her weapon, before scrambling to dig out the flashlight stowed in her standard pack. Casting two narrow beams of light across the room, checking all around her, she found nothing at all out of the ordinary apart from four strange bundles of green draped on the floor.

Approaching the closest pile to the bottom of the ramp, she carefully poked at it with the end of her weapon, feeling something hard hidden amongst the folds of material. Nudging the cloth aside, she unearthed a USAS-12, still fully loaded, from what she could see. Deciding it was likely safe to use her hands to investigate the material, awkwardly leaning her flashlight so she could see what she was doing better, she discovered that she was holding a pair of BDUs. Sanders, she read on the pocket label, and sure enough, a glint of silver caught in the torchlight, and a pair of dog tags bearing the same name dropped out of the lining. First Lieutenant Amy Sanders. She strained her memory. She couldn’t recall there being a First Lieutenant Amy Sanders working on base, and she tended to be good at remembering personnel names, especially the women since there were so few officers posted at the mountain. But seeing as there were more pressing mysteries than a possibly overlooked name, she let it pass to check the other piles. To her surprise, however, inspecting the three other garments led to the same discovery. Three more pairs of BDUs belonging to airmen and officers whose names she did not recognise.

She felt confused, scared, and even queasy, but she wasn’t going to get any answers alone in the dark. She needed to find someone, or at least access a computer, and to do that, she would need to get out of the gate room, and try to reach the control room that she still couldn’t see behind the glass.

Finding both the gate room’s side blast doors firmly sealed shut, she pressed her ear to the door, but there was no sound whatsoever. Nor was there even any warmth from the other side.

Done with her investigation, she concluded that she was limited to three options. One: destroy the bulletproof glass and climb up to the control room. Two: blast the blast doors with the few blocks of C-4 she had in her pack, or three: wait for a couple of hours for the rest of SG-1 to gate in and radio them before they came through. Maybe with Teal’c’s strength they could pull the blast door open. Or maybe the other guys would come up with a better plan of action. Or maybe in the meantime someone else on base might get the lights back, or come for her.

However, her heart now hammering faster at the thought, if this was a foothold situation rather than an accident, which, considering the strange low temperature of the room and the fact that the emergency lighting even was off, it more than likely was, then time would be of the essence. She’d only been off-world two hours while she’d collected the ore samples, she thought. How could an incursion within a two-hour time frame have left the base in this condition? From what she could see from the narrow view from her light, there was no damage to the gate room, other than it being cold and very, very dark. She thought back to the piles of clothes. The Airmen hadn't fired their weapons, either. Perhaps the aliens had used a weapon that could disintegrate bodies? If so, how could she defend against that? Setting off C-4 or shooting up the glass to get out the gate room would only attract their attention and bring them back to her. Sure, she’d managed to fend off a foothold situation single-handedly a couple of years ago, but this time she was at a huge disadvantage. She was blinded, she had no intel, and she was cut-off. No, her best bet, despite the pressing urge to bust her way out of the gate room was to sit tight, hide out, and wait for the rest of SG-1 to gate in.

Settling herself out of view in case any enemies entered the control room, and making sure to hide the sample container box and any evidence she had been there at all in case the aliens came back, she crouched behind the back of the gate ramp and turned off her flashlight and P90 light, waiting alone in the complete darkness.

It didn’t take long before the silence and darkness filled her with anxiety. She was a woman of action, and it was very difficult to force herself to sit tight and wait in the deafening silence completely alone. The initial adrenaline starting to wear off, shock at her situation was starting to set in, and she could feel how cold the Gate Room was now. Her skin was itching, her hairs standing on end, ears straining hard to hear anything, but not a single sound could be detected other than her own heart thumping against her ribs and her quickened breathing. The only thing her senses could detect was the tingly feeling of her blood reacting to the naquadah in the gate. She focused on the ‘feel’ of the gate standing before her, trying to picture its exact location and dimensions by the sense alone, like some strange echo-location, her mind appreciating the single sensory input. The feel of the gate’s presence was comforting. Even if she couldn’t access the dialling program right now, as long as she had access to the gate, she had a way out of the SGC and off the planet if need be. She only needed to wait it out for two hours, then everything would somehow work themselves out, she told herself. Sure, two hours in the impenetrable darkness certainly felt longer than any normal two-hour stint, but she had been in somewhat similar situations before- trapped alone in a dark cave off-world, imprisoned in a dark cell alone; she’d survived those times then, and she would survive this time now.

Trying to calm her mind and suppress her thoughts from racing, she first spent some time amusing herself with thoughts of the bantering sessions she was sure Daniel and the Colonel were still surely having right now on the rocky planet. Then, she went through her usual habit of doing made up calculations with some of the standard formulae of physics; her favourite had always been calculating the imagined gravitational force between two hypothetical celestial bodies with made-up masses and radii. Once she tired of that, she took to reciting the physical constants to three decimal places, and the entire periodic table five times each before her mind tired and protested the eternal darkness and silence. Time was dragging on and on and it felt like she was sitting in a void. She’d never experienced such sensory deprivation as extreme as this. The closest experience to this was the time the Entity had taken over her body, and that had been one of the worst experiences of her entire life. On the up side, at least she had control over her own limbs this time, she thought, wiggling her fingers and toes to confirm her control, even if she couldn't see them.

She soon turned to watching the time on her watch, pushing the button on the dial every five seconds to light it back up. The final hour and a half dragged on for what felt like an eternity. Surely if this were a foothold situation there would be evidence through vibrations in the ground, she thought to herself. If there were a firefight or resistance by the SGC personnel on the upper levels, surely she would feel that? Or, perhaps the disintegrating weapon had been able to make all personnel on the entire base disappear in a single shot? Had the aliens sent something through the gate first to create a clear path for them to easily escape from the base? Were they already long gone from the mountain, now attacking the citizens of Colorado Springs? Was she wasting time just sitting here on her ass when she could be making a difference, perhaps getting a warning to Washington?

She’d made up her mind. She could feel her body temperature had already dropped on the low side; more than two hours had passed now and there was no sign whatsoever of the rest of SG-1 coming through. Unless Daniel had in fact found something of interest, it wouldn’t be like the Colonel to be so untimely. Especially not when he was still expecting to be watching the Stanley Cup semi-final tonight. Another anxiety-filled silent twenty minutes later and the gate stood ever still. As she watched as the figures on her watch tick on and on, indicating that precisely two hours and twenty-five minutes had passed, she made her move to start with Plan B. Well, Plan C-4, that was.

Salvaging the blocks of C-4 from her backpack, she neatly affixed them to the centre of the left-side blast door. Praying this wouldn’t bring an army of killer aliens to her position, she took cover again and detonated the C-4, whispering, “fire in the hole,” to noone in particular.

Screwing her eyes to protect against the bright light of the blast, she felt the loud blast send waves of shock through the concrete surroundings. There was no way any aliens on base hadn’t heard that. Spluttering from the smoke, she trained her light beams on the hole that had appeared in the door, quickly darting through trying to avoid burning herself on the hot edge, and rushed up the metal steps to the Control Room. Quickly scanning the room with her small light, she tried to turn on the computers, but there was no response. There was clearly no power whatsoever reaching them. The emergency back up power was either off, or cut-off. Finding the wall phone dead, too, she decided to quickly stop by General Hammond’s office, stumbling over a couple more piles of clothes on the floor that she’d failed to see in the darkness on the way and feeling a crunch of glass under her step. Hammond’s red phone was also dead, and, grabbing his laptop computer and its cable and stuffing it quickly into her backpack, she made her way as fast as possible to the nearest access ladder, quietly shutting the shaft door behind her as she had done two years ago in the last major foothold situation.

Her main plan of action was to get to NORAD on the main level, which had its own generator and phone lines completely separated from the SGC’s system, but if she deemed it safe, she’d stop and check the SGC’s own power status on the way. Assuming she could make her way up through the sub-levels safely undetected, she would hopefully be able to get in touch with the outside world from NORAD and find out more about what was happening.

Climbing was slow going in the semi-darkness, the only light from her flashlight which she’d now clipped to her tac vest constantly swaying as she climbed, making getting a handhold of the rails difficult. Hearing nothing through the access door when she’d climbed up to Level 23, she exited the silo, silently creeping through the corridor towards the breaker room.

The corridor was mostly clear, aside from two more haphazard-looking piles of clothing. Level 23 was, after all, a generally empty level, mainly taken up by housing the power distribution grid from the upstairs power generator to the rest of the SGC facility, as well as the smaller emergency back-up system. She wouldn't expect many personnel to be here anyway. Reaching the mesh gate housing the breakers, she could see straight away that the entire panel was dead. Lighting up the panel with her torchlight, she confirmed that the switches were directed downward and in the on position, but there were no lights indicating that they were receiving power at all. With her limited torchlight, she couldn’t see the status of the emergency back-up battery, so she smashed her way in through the lock on the fence to get a closer look. Reaching the correct panel, she was floored to see that the emergency back-up battery was completely drained. If the main power drawn from either the on-base generator or off-base sources was cut, the battery would kick in automatically. It had the capability of powering the base for twelve hours, even up to a day if consumption was minimized. She’d only been off-world for two hours. There was absolutely no way the battery could have been drained in that time.

Feeling completely puzzled and feeling even more anxious to get to a working computer and confirm that the completely wild hypothesis that had popped into her head couldn’t possibly be true, she returned to the access ladder and continued her climb, this time not exiting until she’d reached sub-Level 8. It had been an exhausting climb that had taken almost twenty minutes. The coldness of the metal rungs beneath her hands hadn’t helped her efforts, either.

The corridor this time was entirely empty as it was silent. Creeping again to the small reactor generator, after five minutes’ work the hum of the generator coming online and pumping power into the base was a huge relief to hear after the crushing silence of the past few hours. Seconds later, the overhead lights blinked on, temporarily blinding her. As her eyes adjusted, switching off her flashlight and weapon light, she decided she’d better vacate the level, as the power coming on would give away her position. She raced back to the emergency access ladder, not wanting to risk using the elevator, and climbed one level up to the storage level, easily finding a spacious room filled with towers of boxes serving as perfect hiding places. Leaning back against a tall stack of MRE boxes hidden from view of the entrance, she took a moment to steady her thoughts and catch her breath after the climb, feeling the tell-tale breeze of the ventilation fan beginning to work, bringing in warmer, clean air to replace the stale, cold air that had been in the room.

Pulling off her backpack, she fished out General Hammond’s laptop, lifting up the screen and pushing the power button. To her surprise, it gave no response at all. Pulling out the charge cable she found an outlet, thankful for the orange charge light that appeared on the edge of the device. Deciding to leave it to charge for a few minutes before turning it on, her mind raced as she waited. The stale air and coldness of the base, the drained emergency battery power, the dead laptop, SG-1’s failure to gate in… she was fast beginning to form a theory as to what had happened. It was a crazy theory, though. What might appear on the laptop once it turned on could help.

Giving the laptop a ten-count to charge sufficiently for a successful power-on, she saw the monitor flicker to life.

She didn’t need the General’s login for all the evidence she needed. As the Windows screen passed, the screensaver with the date displayed appeared.

January 1st 1990 00:00

The laptop’s internal clock had reset to its manufacturer’s default setting. There could be only one explanation: the laptop’s internal clock battery must have died.

She stared at the numbers, almost willing her eyes to see something different. It was a hard fact to swallow. It took years for the CMOS battery in a laptop to die.

Chapter Text

She stared at the numbers, almost willing her eyes to see something different. It was a hard fact to swallow. It took years for the CMOS battery in a laptop to die.

Day 1 (continued)

She’d seen the General using his computer in his office before their pre-mission brief that morning. Or at least, from her perspective, she had. Now, however, and there no way of knowing yet precisely how much time had passed, that morning had likely happened at least a decade ago. It was a depressing thought, and she didn’t even want to begin to face the ramifications of what that could mean. She had of course encountered time travel through a wormhole before; three years ago she had travelled in an outgoing wormhole from Earth that had passed through the sun’s solar flare, sending the wormhole and all of SG-1 back towards Earth in the past. This time, she had to admit, was different, though. She had been travelling from another planet this time, she had dialled with a DHD, which she had hypothesized had in-built safety protocols that should have avoided this exact situation, and of course, this time she had been a lone traveller. She pondered the situation for the moment, trying to calm her impending panic by sticking to thoughts of logic and strategy. She hadn’t seen any evidence of technology or even any life back on the planet where she'd been. There couldn’t be any other explanation for time travel other than the wormhole itself. This meant that, despite the safety protocols, there must still have been a non-zero possibility that the wormhole could have been influenced en-route to Earth, which the stargates could not have anticipated or detected. There was, she had to admit, an astronomically slim chance, considering the vast emptiness of space between systems, that the wormhole could, at least in theory, have been disrupted by a random gamma ray burst on the way. Or perhaps even a monstrous solar flare from a star precisely falling in the path between the two gates. She would probably never know, and she had to be the unluckiest person in the galaxy to have experienced this phenomenon twice in three short years, but that was the best theory she could come up with to fit all the anomalies she’d encountered so far, except for the strange garments of clothing. That could still be explained by an alien incursion, she thought, but if so, who knew how long ago that must have happened? There was clearly no sign of life whatsoever on the base anymore. At least she could relax slightly, her sense of immediate threat had lessened.

Assuming she had indeed travelled into the future, which was the theory she would go along with until she found evidence to the contrary, going off-world could be extremely dangerous without knowing how much time had passed. Her allies, her friends, even her father may well be dead by now. It was upsetting, but her best bet was to remain focused and continue with her original plan and head to the upper levels and gather as much information as possible before permitting herself to react emotionally at her present circumstances. If she could find a working computer or clock, or get the Base’s intranet up and running and access the base records, she might be able to find out what had happened, learn more of the incursion, and of course find out how far into the future she had been sent.

Though she’d never been herself, she knew that base records were kept up on Level 4. That would be her first stop. Stashing some of the stored MREs from the stack behind her, as well as a fistful of power bars she’d also found in the storage room into her pack, she closed the laptop and packed up, climbing her way up five levels to reach the records. As suspected, she found no sign of life on her way here either.

It appeared that the base records were kept in a large office-like room, with several, large, but silent, servers lining the walls. Booting them up, she sat at the nearest desk to her with a computer. Sliding aside the mug blocking her access to the dusty keyboard, she turned her nose at the sight of its inside, caked with a striking dark green lining. The contents looked as though they had dried and moulded years ago.

The computer login screen appeared, but it wouldn’t accept her personal login despite her more than sufficient clearance level. Of course, if she really had been sent forward in time, then from the perspective of her coworkers, she must have simply vanished. Naturally her login would have long been removed from the personnel list. She thought with a pang at how her team members must have reacted when they’d returned from the mission to find that she’d never returned. They must have searched for her, wondering if she’d misdialled, or guessing, perhaps, that a power surge had sent the wormhole jumping to a nearby gate. But their search would have been fruitless. She’d have been declared officially MIA after six months, as was protocol.

Fortunately though, she knew the admin login, which miraculously hadn’t been changed. She was surprised by this oversight, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain.

While the date on the system had defaulted and was clearly incorrect, it didn’t take her long to pull up the most recent file after sorting the directory in creation date order.

Personnel Clock In Log

Scanning the list, mostly of names she didn’t recognize, she scrolled down to the last entries, and across to read the clock-in times.

09:31:24 03-04-2005
09:31:59 03-04-2005
09:32:50 03-04-2005

That was the end of all the log entries. After this time, no more personnel had entered the base. Through official means, at least. March 2005, she re-read. This had to be the date the base personnel had been vanished in some way that made their bodies disappear, leaving their clothes, tags, boots and weapons behind. It was as though only the organic part of their bodies had been disintegrated. Or taken, she added in afterthought. Perhaps she was looking at it the wrong way. She’d been assuming it had been an attack. Had they instead been beamed away? Not necessarily nefariously either, she thought. Perhaps they’d been rescued? Perhaps everyone was safe elsewhere, while the base had simply been abandoned?

Regardless, whatever it was had happened three years after her disappearance. She needed to know more. Perhaps she could find clues in the database.

She found she couldn’t access the full base archives from here, but at least here she had access to the last twelve month’s worth of accounting files, base personnel files, invoices and expenditures, in and out logs, and phone logs. Classified mission files, however, were held on another server back on Level 23, however, and she surmised it must still be turned off, or dead. While she was becoming confident by the minute that she was in fact alone on the base, she still didn’t want to risk going back down before going topside and better understanding her situation.

Leaving the room, she made the final climb up the emergency ladder to the surface. Panting from the effort of the climb, her lungs gasped at the crisp air as she finally exited the Mountain into daylight- it was either Spring or Autumn- and she was somewhat relieved to see that the sky was tinged with pink. The sun would set soon and give her cover of darkness, if needed. She made her way to the silent, yet almost full car park. Several hundred vehicles belonging to the base personnel were parked, yet most were in a state of disrepair. Some had discoloured bonnets, some bore rusted door handles, and one car, she saw, had even gained a disused bird’s nest tucked into the nook of the wipers.

Walking out of habit to her usual parking space close to the General’s priority parking area, she stopped when she found a car she didn’t recognize parked there. She recovered quickly, her eyes easily locating Daniel’s car close to her spot, neatly parked in his usual space. It seemed to be in a decent state- no animal nests, at least- and knowing that Daniel would have happily given her permission to borrow his car, keeping her weapon close to her, she smashed the window with a nearby fire extinguisher, starting at the sudden loud noise. To her relief, no alarm sounded. Thank god for Daniel’s taste in older, lesser-secured cars, she thought. Not giving any potential enemies nearby the chance to react at the smash, however, she made quick work of hot wiring the ignition, got the engine started with surprising ease, and sped out of the parking area, hurtling through the still-standing barricade at the exit checkpoint.

She soon seemed in the clear, though. There was no untoward movement, and she wound her way down the still mountainside, the car bumping over the occasional fallen branch and protruding roots through the asphalt. It was fair to say that the mountain was long-abandoned. She gave the car radio knob a turn, but it seemed that Daniel’s car’s audio system wasn’t working anymore as there wasn’t even static to be heard. That was unfortunate, she would have liked to have scanned the airwaves for any signals indicating anyone nearby.

The thicker than usual bushes stretching across the road and damaged corners of the cement kept her pace slow, and she was forced to trundle down carefully the entire descent to reach the end of the road. It wasn’t until she turned onto the flat, wide highway into town that she truly spotted something that made her pull over instantly.

Chapter Text

...but it wasn’t until she turned onto the flat, wide highway into town that she truly spotted something that made her pull over instantly.

Day 1 (continued)

As the car rolled to a stop, she put it into park and pulled the handbrake, leaving the hot-wired engine running. Stepping out of the car, she turned to look in both directions along the wide, flat, open highway. Lining the road both ways were smatterings of wrecked cars, cascaded in all directions.

Walking up to the nearest wreck, a blue SUV, which had back-ended another vehicle in front- both now blocking the right-hand lane edgeways- she immediately saw that the vehicles were in a terrible state. The roofs were dented and weathered, the paint on the bodies of the cars eroding and patchy, and wispy grasses from the side of the road had intertwined with the frames through the smashed glass. Peering in through the bare window of the rear car, she could see the fabric of the faded leather seats cracked and sun-stained. She spotted that the keys, long rusted, were still in the ignition. Nestled below, blocking her view of the pedals, were a pair of jeans. Reaching in, she tugged them out through the window, and out fell a pair of underwear and a single sock. It was exactly like the piles of clothing back on the base. To her shock, she realised that whatever had happened there had also affected the civilians of the surrounding area.

Investigating the car in front, this time she found the car’s windows had survived the impact intact. Looking through the tinted windows she could just make out what looked like a crumpled up dress in the driver’s seat, and, behind it, to both her horror and sorrow, a front-facing child seat with the unmistakable clothing of a small child still held in place tucked under the still done-up chest belt, with several faded toys beside it strewn across the backseat.

Her heart pounded and ached in sympathy for the loss of innocent life through the fault of the SGC. They hadn’t been able to stop the attack, and the civilians caught up in it seemingly hadn’t even been given any forewarning. It was as though everyone had simply vanished in the middle of what they were doing; in this instance, driving. Suddenly without a driver, the cars on a straight would have either rolled to a stop- and she could see a couple of lone stationary vehicles far in the distance- or mostly due to the variance in speeds, had crashed into those in front.

She suddenly heard a shriek, and she startled to turn towards the source of the sound, catching sight of a pair of wild deer streaking across the road a hundred or so meters away, their bounding sending vibrations through the asphalt. Maybe it was due to her senses being sparked on alert, but as they disappeared into the brush, she couldn’t help thinking that the sound of the insects and of nature was louder than usual. There was a constant loud drone of buzzing, chirping, and even squeaking to be heard. It sounded more like the wilds of off-world she was used to, rather than the outskirts of Colorado Springs.

Quickly returning to Daniel’s car she pressed on, deciding there would be no point stopping to inspect any more vehicles. The sight of the vanished baby had been too depressing, and there was little reason to believe the other cars would spell a different story.

Pressing on, she found it slow-going weaving past and around wrecks and stopped cars the entire way back to Colorado Springs. She didn’t see any evidence of a single sign of human activity the entire way. As she came closer to town, her mind began replaying the day’s events as she drove along the emptier roads in this part of town. She recalled the agonizing wait of sitting for over two hours in the empty gate room alone in the pitch black. It seemed kind of stupid to her now, but she could never in her wildest dream have fathomed at the time that she had been sent into the future- the gate journey had seemed perfectly normal. Then she’d blasted her way out the gate room and climbed the entire twenty-eight levels out of the base, confirmed her time travel theory, and had found herself completely alone. So far, at least.

The sun fell lower in the sky, and as the sky turned a darker blue, she found that she’d driven to her home instinctively without even thinking. Rolling up the street, she saw that the tree across the street a few doors down from her house had arched its thick, green branches right across the road, forming a leafy blockade, forcing her to park her car park a little away. Spotting her house, she immediately saw that the front of her house, as well as those of all her neighbours, were entirely unkempt. Wild, burly weeds and vines had overtaken her garden, and were growing up her house walls. Her roof had partially collapsed in the centre, and what still stood was now lined with mossy green tufts of grass. All her neighbours’ houses were in a similar state. The quaint, well-to do suburban neighbourhood she’d driven from that morning- from her perspective at least- now looked entirely like an eerie run-down ghost town, even more so in the fast-approaching twilight. The silence, too, apart from a murder of crows welcoming the twilight with incessant caws, was creepy, to say the least. Unsure of what she’d find, or even if her friends would have even kept her house for her until their own disappearance, she rammed her front door in, brushing off the disintegrated paint that cascaded onto her clothes at the force, and entered her hallway.

A strange smell immediately hit her nostrils. Looking down, she clocked the moth-eaten running carpet that wasn’t hers. Entering her living room, she saw that it looked completely different. She didn’t recognize any of the furniture. A family now lived here, from what she could deduce from the scattered, dusty toys and picture books on the floor. Her house must have been sold after she’d been declared MIA. The strange smell got fouler as she approached the kitchen- there must have been spoiled food trapped in the long-unopened fridge- and, deciding it wasn’t worth further investigation, she exited the house, returning to Daniel’s car, and sat in the driver’s seat, thinking over her next move.

Daniel’s apartment was too far downtown, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get his car down the narrower, undoubtedly car wreck-filled roads in the centre of town anyway. Janet and Cassie’s house wasn’t too far away, but she noticed that none of the street lights were coming on despite the fast-fading light as the sun approached the mountain line. It was safe to assume that the local power supply, if not the entire state grid, was offline, and driving in a built up area with obstacles on the road in the pitch black would be dangerous, even with the car headlights. The temperature was fast dropping, too, she registered with a shiver. She’d need to wait out the night somewhere safe and warmer than Daniel’s car to wait for the sun to come up in the morning. The Colonel’s house was the closest, she concluded, and putting the car into drive, she made a beeline for her CO’s house before the sun fully set.

She found his front door unlocked, and let herself in swiftly, feeling relieved to recognize his decor even in the low light. Flicking the light switch in the living room to no avail, she made her way to his darkened kitchen using the P90 she’d been carrying’s side light as a guide, pulling out his emergency stash of torches, matches and candles from the bottom cupboard next to his fridge. She knew about those because she’d caught a young Cassie raiding all his cupboards and almost setting fire to the house when she’d first come to Earth, she recalled with amusement at the memory of the raucous that had ensued. She found the matchboxes well preserved, and she soon had a half a dozen or so candles lit, giving the room a rather cozy feel. At least his kitchen didn’t have a strange smell as her own house had; fortunately for her, the Colonel tended to rely on take-outs and dried noodles for meals- an ingrained habit of serving the military for so long, she presumed- rather than cooking with fresh groceries.

Carrying four candles with her back to the dark living room, she delicately set two on the coffee table, before almost dropping the other two at the sight of the couch now visible in the candlelight. Her heart stopped to see that there, draped haphazardly over the sagged seat that was his usual spot, was the unmistakable sight of the Colonel’s jeans and his favourite grey Air Force sweatshirt. An empty glass bottle of beer, too, lay nestled in the grey, surrounded by a long-since dried stain of beer that must have spilled out, leaving a discoloured patch in the material.

She simply stared at the sight. She couldn’t breathe. He must have vanished, she realised, in this very spot. The Colonel was dead. And not just the Colonel. Everyone was. The entire city was dead, and she was completely and utterly alone.

The shock hit her. Her mind reeled as the exhaustion of the day’s events caught up to her. Her body was drained of all fight. She collapsed on the sofa, pulling the discarded sweatshirt to her face, and drew in its ever-so-faint lingering smell of beer and that something that was so uniquely and comfortingly him. Curled up and still hugging his clothes, she soon fell into unconscious oblivion.

Chapter Text

Curled up and still hugging his clothes, she soon fell into unconscious oblivion.

Day 2

The roar of birdsong startled her awake. Her eyes flew open, before screwing in protest at the dazzle of sunshine streaming through the open windows. She found herself completely disoriented until the flood of memories of the previous day hit her. Her heart sank at the feel of denim under her grasp, and looking downwards to her hands, sure enough, she saw that she was clutching the Colonel’s jeans, and it looked like she’d draped his sweatshirt across her legs in her sleep to defend against the cold. Yesterday’s events hadn’t been a bad dream, after all, she realized sadly.

She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but getting comfortable seemed impossible squeezing on the tiny couch. Also, she was cold, thirsty, and, as her bladder reminded her, she hadn’t made use of a bathroom at all since her return to Earth yesterday. Not to mention, there was the raging racket of birds and insects from outside the window disturbing any chance of shut-eye. No, there was nothing for it, she concluded. She was up for the day. Glancing at her watch- which of course displayed the incorrect time- informed her that she had slept a solid seven hours. Ironically, that was more than she slept on a weekend, she noted. At least she was well-rested.

Heading for the Colonel’s bathroom, she found his toilet completely dry of water and stained black from dried mildew. Trying the sink taps, she found that they did not produce any running water, either. Not wanting to stink up her CO’s house, she unlocked the latch on the back porch doors and relieved herself at the end of his garden. She was, after all, more than used to answering the call of nature outdoors after four and a half years of off-world missions. This wasn’t off-world, however, and the number of yelps and howls she could hear of nearby wildlife startled her. Nature had certainly been left to reclaim its land in however many years without people and moving cars. The wildlife now living in Colorado Springs would have little to fear of her, and she’d have to take extra precautions.

Finished, she returned to the house and locked the back door, entering the kitchen. She spotted the melted candles and became grateful that they had simply burned themselves out rather than burning the house- and herself- down. She really must have been exhausted to have made such a careless mistake. Next, she raided the Colonel’s cupboards, rejoicing at finding some bottled soda hidden behind a particularly large supply of beer packs. Not even bothering to look at the expiry, she opened the cap, gulping down the still-faintly carbonated and rather plastic-tasting contents, before digging out some food cans and preserves. The can of minestrone soup seemed most appealing. Its label might have become papery thin with age and practically fell off as she picked it up, but she knew its contents should still be safe even if several decades had passed. Her strong hunger belayed the desire to look for a spoon, and she simply splayed the top open and necked the contents, her body instantly energized by the salty taste.

Her next pressing issue was the cold. She made quick work of setting a fire in the Colonel’s living room hearth with his stockpile of chopped wood, before heading to his bedroom to retrieve some extra layers. She’d never been in his bedroom before, and felt strangely awkward invading his privacy, but she also didn’t want to have to resort to wearing the beer-stained sweatshirt he’d been wearing when... when it had happened. Besides, another important resource in his bedroom that she knew of and might need was his stored pistol.

She found the curtains here were drawn open, too, and the morning sunshine rained down on his central, unmade bed. She couldn’t stop herself from fixing it up for him, pulling the sheets straight and arranging the ruffled blanket in a kind of ritual of respect. Fluffing up and setting his pillow down neatly, she spotted three framed photographs arranged on his bedside table. She saw that naturally there were two of his son, Charlie, but to her surprise, she saw that there was also a photograph of her. Not a group photograph, but of just her. Her stomach squirmed as she looked more closely at the photograph. At first she couldn’t place when it had been taken, but then she recognized it as being from the day that she and the Colonel had taken Cassie to the zoo together. She recalled that Janet had been there too, of course, but just as they’d arrived she’d been called away to a medical emergency back on base. Then it had become just the two of them alone staying on with Cassie, guiding her around, teaching her all the names of the Earth animals. It must have been a couple of years ago (for her at least), because it hadn’t been long since Daniel had lost Sha’re, which was why he hadn’t joined the zoo day, and Teal’c had pledged to stay on base to atone for the death of Sha’re at his hands.

She recalled with embarrassment what had happened when the three of them had eaten lunch at the zoo cafe. The waiter had referred to her and the Colonel to Cassie as ‘Mommy and Daddy,’ and then despite her mortification, the Colonel had surprised her by not batting an eyelid and answering the waiter calmly, giving their menu order. She must have blushed heavily, however, because he’d given her a playful shrug and then a smile and a wink, and she hadn’t been able to stifle the impact of these small gestures on her heart. She’d then gone on to secretly spend the rest of the day imagining that they were in fact Cassie’s parents, and she’d enjoyed the day of light humour and banter. They’d even strayed into the territory of dropping a few ‘Sams’ and ‘Jacks’ into conversation, too. After all, they’d been off-duty, hanging out with a kid, and it had been entirely innocent and harmless. Except, it hadn’t been harmless. For the first time, she’d had to actually come face-to-face with the fact that her feelings for the Colonel had at some point extended beyond those of admiration and physical attraction for her commanding officer. That she’d somehow become able to envisage them having a future together. Maybe even having a family together someday. And now, she wondered if he, too, had possibly had the same thoughts about him and her? Did he also think back to that day fondly? Was that why he’d chosen to keep this picture beside his bed?

‘Focus, Sam,’ she reprimanded herself. She needed to stay objective and focused if she was going to figure out what had happened to everyone, and what her next steps would be. There was no time for distractions and wondering about the Colonel’s hypothetical thoughts or possible feelings for her.

She walked purposefully over to his closet and pulled open the shutter doors, only to be slapped in the face by the sudden rush of smell that was so distinctly him. She mentally kicked herself for not anticipating it. Of course the Colonel’s closet full of his clothes and belongings would still smell like him. Sighing, she grabbed a large-sized sweater that was hanging, and as she pulled it over her head, she couldn’t help think that it felt like he was there, holding and comforting her. ‘So much for staying objective, Sam,’ she mentally scolded herself.

She bent down to rummage at the bottom of his closet to search for the safety box that she knew was there. Despite the light of the room, it was difficult to see the back of the closet from this low angle. Her hands soon found a firm cardboard box, and she heaved at it to make space to better continue her search, before stopping when the cursive handwriting on the box caught her eye. Carter, it read. She pulled it out to better see it in the sunlight and let it settle heavily onto her lap. There could be no doubt. The Colonel had tenderly spelled her name clearly on the lid of the box with a marker. Heart hammering, she decided to open it.

Unfurling some plastic packaging, on the top inside she found a service dress coat neatly folded, nestled in the wrapping. Raising it up from the box, she saw her award ribbons and name tag pinned to the breast. It was her dress coat. He’d kept it. Her hands began shaking, and she knew she was becoming distracted by this diversion, but she couldn’t help investigating the rest of the box’s contents.

Setting aside her dress coat and removing the remaining package, she was surprised and moved by what was beneath. He’d collected a stash of trinkets and memorabilia of her belongings. Some were of a straightforward nature. Among the items she identified his copy of her car and house keys, her base photo ID (she couldn’t believe he’d swiped that), her combat bracelet from when she was in the Gulf, her rank insignia pins in their presentation box, and he even had her pHD certificates. But some were much more personal. There was the birthday present she’d given him a couple of years ago. There was her DVD of Singing in the Rain, which she knew he hated. There was the practically falling apart astronomy picture dictionary she’d treasured since she was a child, and also her equally worn-with-use Major Matt Mason figure that she’d kept over the years. She guessed her father and brother must have received the bulk of her possessions when they’d cleared and sold her house, but the fact that the Colonel had held on to these things of her meant so much to her.

Repacking the box, but deciding to put on her combat bracelet as a reminder of her new mission- to find out what had happened to the Colonel and everyone else- she moved it out of the way, her eyes lingering again briefly on the way he’d carefully written her name on the lid, before finally unearthing his boxed gun. The gun and some ammunition retrieved, she replaced everything, making everything look untouched out of courtesy rather than logic, and headed back to the living room.

She stowed his gun into her backpack, before her eye was caught by a framed photograph on the television cabinet top. Picking it up, she saw it was a birthday party. Cassie was sitting in the middle, looking definitively more mature with more defined cheekbones than when she’d last seen her. She saw that she was holding a cake that read, “Happy 18th.” Next to her were Daniel, Teal’c, the Colonel, and she couldn’t help notice that Janet was strangely absent. She must have taken the photo, she surmised, even though the awkward angle of the shot seemed to suggest it was a self-taken timer photo. Also, despite the occasion, she also didn’t miss a subtle sadness in their faces, particularly in Cassie and the Colonel’s eyes. Deciding it was better not to jump to any conclusions, and quickly calculating that this photo would have been taken only five months before everyone’s disappearance, she decided to take the photo with her, guessing it would probably be the most recent, and perhaps, only group photo of those who meant the most to her that she would come across.

Crossing his living room, she took a moment to perch on his armchair, needing to decide her next move. Considering her options, skimming her fingers unthinkingly along the rim of the metal frame under her hands, gazing at the Colonel’s greyer hair and handsome, yet somewhat haunted, eyes in the picture, she surmised that she had two priorities. The first was of course to find any living people and make contact with them. The second was to find out exactly how much time had passed. Okay, she thought, the second wasn’t specifically a priority, but the issue would certainly nag at her. It would also be useful to know the year if, in the event that she found no one on Earth- and that was certainly an ominous thought- she would be looking at having to travel off-world for assistance, or perhaps even, for permanent relocation. It would definitely help to know how much time had passed before contacting off-world allies.

Deciding that the nearest city would at least give an answer to the second conundrum, and might hopefully shed light on the first, grabbing her pack, she headed for the front door.

As she reached the entrance, she spied something beige on the floor, poking out from under the door mat- she hadn’t seen it yesterday when she’d entered in the near-darkness. Reaching down to pick it up, it was a letter, wrinkled with age. She could just barely make out the faded grey words “University of California Los Angeles” printed on the bottom. Ripping open the envelope, she slid out the enclosed paper, her eyes quickly scanning its contents. It was an invoice for campus accommodation under the name of Ms Cassandra Fraser, dated March 2nd 2005. She quickly checked the address- yes, it was addressed to him. If it had been sent here, then that could only mean that the Colonel had been footing her university bills, and recalling the photograph without Janet, she realised it could only mean one thing: Janet must have died.

She stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the paper, searching her brain for some other explanation, but there couldn’t be. It had been arranged when Janet had fully adopted Cassie that in the case of her death, Sam was legally next in line to become Cassie’s guardian, including covering all her costs. The Colonel had been third in line. She didn’t know why, but it seemed much harder to accept Janet’s death rather than the loss of those who’d been ‘vanished’. She’d seemingly actually died; she must have been grieved for, and missed by all her friends. They’d have had a memorial ceremony that she’d missed. Then, the thought occurred to her that they must have done the same for her, too, when she’d finally been declared MIA.

Looking at her combat bracelet, she recalled she’d have time to grieve for everyone later, but she had to focus on her mission right now.

Stuffing the envelope in her pack too, she put out the fire in the hearth, and decided to fold up the Colonel’s clothes on the couch neatly. It just seemed right. Then, with a somewhat sad backwards glance- she probably wouldn’t ever see his house again- she located the Colonel’s truck keys, and headed outside to the garage, which she managed to open with a lot of force on the rusted shutter. She startled at the sight of her Indian 1940 coming into view, parked next to the Colonel’s Ford 250. He'd kept her bike, too, she saw with a pang. It looked like he, or someone else, had worked on it, too. She saw the saddle had been changed. Had the Colonel ridden it, perhaps? As tempting as taking the road trip on her bike was- weaving through traffic would certainly be easier- she'd need space to store supplies, and there was a possibility that she may run into more large wildlife on the journey. She’d already seen the large wild deer yesterday, and it would take at least two hours to reach her destination. If she ended up facing any more wildlife, she would feel safer seated higher in the Colonel’s taller truck than on her bike or even in Daniel’s flimsy old car.

She spent some time loading a box full of the Colonel’s remaining bottles of soda, some cans, a can opener, and her pack into the passenger side of his truck. Feeling extremely grateful to the Colonel for keeping his truck filled with gas, as well as for the pack of chewing gum in the cupholder space, one of which she popped into her mouth, she started the engine, its roar startling the flock of birds that had been resting in a tree draped across the street. Driving through its branches, she set off in the glare of the morning sunshine, heading north onto the I-25 for Denver.

Chapter Text

Driving through its branches, she set off, heading north onto the I-25 for Denver.

Day 2 (continued)

This time when she made a move to turn on the car radio, she was pleased to hear the sound of static- at least it worked. But as she adjusted the knob to flick through the various channel frequencies, she found that the static sadly persisted. There were no radio stations at all broadcasting within range to be heard.

Reaching the highway again, she found it in the precise same condition as yesterday evening, except that as she approached the centre of Colorado Springs, driving northbound, the turn-offs into the centre of town became even more densely littered with old accidents. It quickly became slow progress to pass by. Several times she became forced to drive off-road to skirt around the obstacles, making her grateful for the truck’s powerful and efficient four-wheel drive system.

Finally passing by the residential area of North Colorado Springs, she reached the more open countryside area, where the lanes opened up wide, allowing her to drive at a more palpable speed.

She soon passed by the Academy, making her think back to the last time she’d visited. From her perspective, it had only been a few, short months since she’d attended the Cadets’ graduation ceremony, offering her personal congratulations to the freshly promoted Lieutenants that had been scouted during their final year for the SGC’s Training Program. Elliott and Grogan had been handpicked by General Hammond himself on a routine visit to the Academy, Colonel Reynolds had chosen Satterfield for her linguistic skills, and of course Hailey had been her own find. She smiled at the memory of the heartfelt thanks that Hailey had given her after the ceremony for believing in her. She’d been incredibly proud to see that Hailey had matured and wisened enough in such a short time to show such humility. She still had that flair of arrogance, but truth be told, that self-confidence would probably serve her well in their male-dominated world. But by shedding that chip on her shoulder, she’d successfully earned the respect of Colonel O’Neill, and had passed the Training Program, waiting to be assigned an SG team, helping out the science department in the meantime while she awaited her official placement.

Beyond the Academy, the interstate became even emptier and wilder still. She didn’t remember there being this many trees lining the highway the last time she’d visited Denver. It must have taken several decades for these new trees to grow so tall, she thought glumly. As the morning rolled on, the sun continued its climb in the sky, heating the cabin of the truck, making her uncomfortable. Rolling down her windows to allow in the fresh, mountain air, she heard a few howling calls of wolves from the mountain line running parallel to the road. From the smell of the cedar pollen and the sight of the greenery blossoming thickly along the worn-down route, she guessed it was spring, and that would mean it was mating season.

A further hour later the traffic pile ups built back up at her approach to the city. As did the build up of run-down surroundings. Dilapidated stores and factories now lined the road, overgrown with thick grasses, vines and green. Pockets of entirely silent residential areas, empty schools, and markets with collapsed roofs popped up more and more. Soon the blockade of rusted, crashed cars became impassable, and there was no choice but to abandon the I-25, forcing her to take the long way round to skirt east around the city to avoid the worst of the traffic, taking her past Denver Airport. Another five minutes of slow driving later, however, she startled at the sight of a derailed train that had fallen off the overpass ahead. It crossed the entire lanes of the bypass she was on, bringing down with it part of the bridge and the entire metal barrier that had scratched and buckled around the train cars before sweeping a path of destruction into the cars below. It was a scene of utter devastation. She slowed her approach, taking in the sight of the smashed windows of the twisted cars, their wheels upended, and the sudden sight of a family of rabbits bounding out from the rear car, disturbed by her truck noise.

She decided to stop the truck and kill the engine to listen. There was absolutely no movement at all. From this raised vantage she could see the skyline of the city she knew so well, but there was no smoke, no pollution, no moving infrastructure. Not a sign of life, whatsoever. Human life, at least. The airport, too, was just visible in the distance to her right. The tips of tails of its grounded aircraft made it look more like a mausoleum than the bustling hub she’d always known it to be.

She sighed. As far as she could tell, she was completely alone. The effects of the attack had reached here, at least a 130km radius from the SGC. Turning the radio knob again and again finding nothing but static, there was no reason to believe other than that the entire state was silent and lifeless. She took a pause, opening up one of the Colonel’s soda bottles to quench her thirst from the hot drive, except it must have been shaken from the journey as it suddenly fizzed and spilled onto the Colonel’s shirt that she was still wearing.

“Damn,” she said, opening the truck’s glove compartment to search for tissues, only for her hands to clasp around a small, circular object. She pulled it out, momentarily forgetting the wetness seeping through to her torso. It was the Colonel’s yo-yo. The very same one she’d seen him play with countless times off-world. It had always amused her that such a highly-respected and authoritative figure in the Air Force could be so fidgety and childish, yet his boyish tendencies had never failed to charm her.

She set down the dribbling soda bottle and held the small toy in her hands, running her fingers over its various bumps and ridges of wear. She was in his truck, wearing his shirt, drinking his soda, holding his favourite plaything; she was sat there surrounded by everything him and yet… he wasn’t here at all. No one was. Staring at the empty train carriages smashed across the road, she thought of all the people who must have been aboard on their morning commute, ready to start their days when they’d just simply disappeared. It was just so cruel. Clutching the yo-yo, she turned it over to recognize the bear logo of his favourite hockey team. How had she never noticed that before? At the sight of it, the memory of the last conversation she’d overheard him have hit her. He’d never make her smile and laugh again with his banter and humor. She’d never hear his voice again. She wished so hard that he’d accompanied her on the gate trip back. Or better yet, rather than dooming him, too, she wished that she’d stayed on with the guys until mission end. Had she not been so excited to get those damn ore samples back early, it was more than likely that none of this would ever have happened. They would have gated home together two hours later, the wormhole unaffected by the flare or whatever had happened, completely none the wiser of the potential fate they’d avoided.

Leaning her forehead against the steering wheel, she screwed her eyes shut, fighting in futile against the onslaught of tears that came.

Chapter Text

Leaning her forehead against the steering wheel, she screwed her eyes shut, fighting in futile against the onslaught of tears that came.

Day 2 (continued)

Recovered from her breakdown, she leaned back into the driver’s seat and stared at the garbled metal of the train before her. This wasn’t the time for crying or feeling sorry for herself, she affirmed. Sure she was alone this time, but she’d been stuck in the wrong time before, and gotten back. She knew a little more about temporal and solar physics now. She had to stay positive. And besides, maybe her circumstances weren’t as bad as they appeared. She’d surely find a way, or someone who could help, just as she always did.

Finding renewed strength, she wiped her tears and nose with the pack of tissues she found in the compartment and downed the bottle of soda, grimacing at the strong taste of plastic. She’d need to find a source of water other than bottles. She’d already exhausted her mission water supply, but she couldn’t keep drinking bottled beverages seeped in microplastics from the slow breakdown of the container. Maybe she could find a river for water, she thought.

Taking a cleansing breath, she started the engine, the sudden roar of sound harshly cutting into the silence. She backed up, forcing the four-wheel drive system to take her off the road, and climbed the verge, finding a passable route across the thick grass and fauna heading north.
Then, she turned west when she found her way back to the highway, and headed straight for the town of Boulder under the far-distant mountain line, finally reaching her destination after what her body clock told her must be lunchtime. Her stomach had certainly begun protesting the long trip.

Turning into the car park, she easily found an empty spot near the entrance. The concrete building before her was quite beautiful, the dust-stained and weather-worn rising glass windows still intact, catching the reflection of the partially snow-capped mountains surrounding it. She’d visited here as a young teenager with her mother while her father had been briefly stationed in nearby Wyoming, wanting to visit as research for a science project for the school she attended at the time. It had been a fun mother-daughter road trip, probably their last, in fact, before her death, but it remained a happy childhood memory. She remembered the neat gardens out front- now overgrown and wild of course- and the orchard out front that still the building, now with sprawling pastel pink peach blossoms. There was no mistaking that it was spring. She read NIST on the side of the building, except that the ‘N’ sign was now hanging on its side, reading more like ZIST.

Fishing out a pack of still palatable biscuits she’d found at the Colonel’s house, she satiated her stomach before digging out her weapon and flashlight from the backpack. Exiting the truck and deciding to leave it unlocked in case she’d need to leave quickly, she approached the silent building and manually slid open the inoperable automatic glass entrance doors to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Entering the wide, sun-lit lobby, she was immediately forced to step over a few piles of undisturbed clothing, spotting one or two white lab coats in the far end of the entranceway. The effects of the weapon had certainly reached here, too. She stood still for a moment, ears pricked to catch any movement of disturbed animals that may have taken up residence, but all was thankfully still. Following the signs indicating to go down the central spiral stairs- she remembered going underground the some twenty years ago when she'd visited- she turned on her flashlight and headed below.

The narrow corridor she entered was lined with closed doors to various laboratories. The Institute was, after all, home to all kinds of atomic, molecular, optical and precision measurement research. Shining her light into some of the rooms, the beam of light caught sight of laser equipment, process chambers, and there were various rooms filled with wire-laden workbenches. She recalled her excitement when she’d visited here, imagining that in the event of her dream of becoming an astronaut failed, she’d love to instead become a scientist with a lab of her own just like one of these. She smiled at the memory, contented by the thought of how her life had in fact turned out, barring current circumstances, of course.

Catching another sign indicating what she was looking for, she followed the directions down two more levels of dark laboratories underground, before finding a large push door with various warnings of “Keep out” and “No unauthorized personnel” plastered over it. Ignoring the bold signs, she pushed her way through the flap doors, greeted by the sound of a low humming and the sight of a dull red glow cast inside the wide room.

“Thank god it’s still on,” she whispered to herself, before her heart began to thump as she neared the source of the sound and light: the towering NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic clock, almost reaching the height of the darkened lab ceiling. She was suddenly terrified of what she was about to find. Below it stood a glass panel, encasing a red LED display. Her eyes were drawn to the top lights, reading “USNO MASTER CLOCK.” This was the the most accurate atomic clock in the United States, the timekeeping device tasked with providing the entire country with the most accurate measurement of time.

Her eyes then fell upon the ticking LED figures displayed below the label “Master Clock Distribution” and she gasped. She had her answer.

03.29.42 13:05:35

March 29th 2042, she re-read. She’d travelled almost precisely 40 years into the future.

What on Earth was she going to do?

Chapter Text

She’d travelled almost precisely 40 years into the future.

What on Earth was she going to do?

Day 2 (continued)

“...on Earth…” she repeated the thought to herself.

There was possibly nothing she do on Earth. There were no radio signals, there was no power, there was no sign of human life whatsoever. Short of stealing an aircraft from Peterson and flying across the country to check the situation, of course. She immediately scrapped the flying idea, however. Who knew how many microfissures the hull of an aircraft could develop sitting disused in a hangar for four full decades? There’d be no one to rescue her from a wreck, and, following the frankly disturbing assumption that she was indeed the last remaining person on Earth, her safety was now of paramount priority. Decision made, she synced her watch to the atomic clock’s measurement for posterity, and made her way out of the Institute- her eyes dazzled by the midday sun upon her return to the bright, glass lobby.

As she returned to the Colonel’s truck, she decided on a quick picnic of canned beans and soda sitting under a blossoming tree. A light breeze blew through the branches, scattering a shower of petals around her. It was a beautiful sight, surrounded by the pink blossoms with the green of the mountains stretching across the horizon. She could just make out a pack of coyotes on the distant mountainside, and she enjoyed watching them, the smaller-looking dogs, last year’s brood of cubs, perhaps, imitating the older canines sniffing and rustling for food in the brush. She wished she was sharing this moment with Cassie, who loved animals so much. Last she’d known, she still hadn’t decided whether to become a veterinarian or to follow her mother’s footsteps and become a doctor. She wondered what major she’d chosen at the UCLA. The letter at the Colonel’s house hadn’t said, and she felt saddened that she’d missed out on Cassie becoming an adult and starting college. What other special moments had she missed?

The dogs disappeared from view, and done with her picnic, she took one last look at the blossoms, breathing in their gentle fragrance, before returning to the Colonel’s truck, deciding this time to take the more mountainous route south. There was a higher chance of encountering wildlife this way, but she didn’t want to pass the ghost city of Denver again and another train wreck if she didn’t have to, and she hoped for clearer roads and easier driving for the way back.

She soon decided she’d made the right choice. This route home gave splendid views as she passed through several Mountain Parks on her way back to Stargate Command, and as she came to a bridge passing over a rather large creek, she decided to stop the truck and take a look. The fast-flowing water was a pristine, crystal colour. Without hesitation, she returned to the truck to retrieve the empty plastic bottles she’d accumulated in the passenger leg space. Packing them in her backpack and hooking it over her shoulders, she nimbly climbed over the rail and down, dangling from the edge of the bridge before dropping from a height of about five feet down to the pebbled shore. Checking the coast was clear in both directions, she swilled and rinsed the first bottle before filling it up with the clear water, holding it up to the sun and marvelling at its clarity. Pressing the bottle to her lips, she took a few sips of the cool water, before deciding it tasted safe and consumed half the bottle. She didn’t think she’d drunk water this pure in months. It was incredible how much nature had returned to its natural state in only four decades without human activity and pollution.

She quickly filled it back up, along with the other plastic bottles, as well as her mission bottle, packed them up and donned the now much heavier backpack. Positioning herself on the highest rock beneath the bridge to give her a head start, she deftly jumped up the short distance and hauled herself up the rail above. A simple feat compared to the obstacle course back at the Academy, of course.

As she began to hoist herself up and over the rim of the bridge, the truck came into view and she froze at the sight before her. A magnificent-sized elk with impressive horns was stood beside it, sniffing at the driver’s window with its back to her, not even three meters from her position. The rushing sound of the creek below must have muffled its approach as she hadn’t detected the sound of its hooves on the tarmac. Thank god she’d shut the truck door out of habit when she’d gotten out, or the situation could have been much worse.

Luckily it didn’t seem to have noticed her, and she watched on as the elk continued its investigation of the truck. The effort of clinging on to the side of the bridge with both hands, however, soon become tiresome. She also realized that she couldn’t reach for a weapon in this position, either; she’d be defenseless if it turned and spotted her and made a charge for her. Judging it could be a while before it lost interest and walked off, she surmised she’d have to try and spook it safely.

Dropping back down to the bank of the creek again as silently as possible, she crept along the bank several meters until the truck on top of the bridge came into view behind her. From here she spotted a second elk with smaller horns, possibly the first one’s mating pair, approaching the bridge from the treeline to the left. Her problem had doubled.

She chastised herself for leaving the P90 on the passenger seat, but at least she had the Colonel's pistol. Removing her backpack, she withdrew it, checking the barrel was loaded and clicked the safety off. She had no intention of hurting the creatures, of course. She carefully aimed for the rail of the bridge, about three meters to the right of the truck, and took the shot. The ensuing bang ricocheted through the valley, and the two animals instantly bolted in a frenzy, disappearing into the brush.

-----

Fortunately the remainder of the drive was without incident, and it was just after five o’clock when she arrived back at the SGC. Parking the Colonel’s truck in an empty space in the priority parking, she decided again to leave the keys in the ignition and the truck unlocked. Security wasn’t exactly a pressing issue when you were all alone. She stowed the Colonel’s yo-yo in her pack’s front pocket alongside the photo of Cassie’s birthday, then, readying her P90 simply as an ingrained precaution, she exited the vehicle.

Finding the base as still as ever, she walked through the main entrance, walking down the dark passageway, using her weapon’s sidelight. As she passed through the SGC’s checkpoint, she noted that the pair of clothes just beyond the barrier lit up in the dim light must have belonged to the personnel last on the list of the clock-in log she’d read the day before.

When a light came into view at the end of the corridor she knew she'd reached the part of the complex powered by the SGC’s own reactor. Turning off her light, she walked the remainder of the passageway easily, soon reaching the first of the pair of elevators to head downwards. Pushing the button on the side nearest to her, which immediately opened- it had been on Level 0 already- she tentatively stepped inside, testing if it took her weight. When it seemed stable, she pushed the button to Sub-Level 11, then quickly exited before the doors closed, allowing it to make the trip downwards without her, before calling it back up by hitting the call button again. When the elevator safely arrived back with barely a groan, she surmised that the elevator was in a sufficient state despite almost forty years of disuse. She didn’t really want to make the climb down several hundred feet by ladder again with a now very heavy backpack unless it was absolutely necessary. She entered the elevator again and rode it down, her heart hammering at the thought that if the cable snapped, she’d fall almost a hundred feet all the way down to 11. She’d ridden this elevator countless times in the last five years, but she couldn’t help feel the journey seemed to take at least twice as long as it usually did. She watched on anxiously as the numbers all-too steadily increased with each tick, urging the next number to appear. When the number 11 appeared and the doors finally opened she practically jumped out, took a moment, then repeated the entire process with the second elevator to reach the second section of the base. When the test-run of the second elevator again returned safely, she selected Level 25 on the keypad, and journeyed down again, similarly exiting upon her arrival with huge relief.

She noticed that the air down here was much less stale and substantially warmer than it had been the previous day. The ventilation had had time to fully circulate the base, and she couldn't help feel the base was far more welcoming than she'd found it the day before. Knowing she was alone, too, she felt safer, and not having to skulk and sweep each corridor at a time anymore made a huge difference, too.

She made a bee-line for her team locker room, eager to get changed into a fresh pair of clothes and underwear. She’d been wearing the same uniform for a day and half now, and felt the strong urge to freshen up.

Making her way to SG-1’s lockers, her heart gave a jolt as she saw not J. O’Neill or her own initials on the locker doors, but instead A. Reynolds and J. Hailey respectively. Of course, she kicked herself, her name wouldn’t be here anymore, but she was surprised to see the Colonel’s name absent, too. So Reynolds had taken command of SG-1. That explained why the Colonel had been in his living room on a weekday morning, but what had made him leave? Her heart skipped a beat at the thought... could it possibly have been that he’d been unable to continue without her? Or had he been injured? She couldn't think it was a happy reason for leaving, though. The Colonel had loved his job. She looked next at Hailey's. She wondered vaguely how long after her disappearance she'd joined the team. She surely wouldn’t have been assigned to SG-1 immediately; someone with more experience would have been required on the flagship team.

She chose to open Hailey’s locker as it was the only women’s locker in the entire room whose name she recognized, but looking at the clothes hanging inside, she couldn’t help recall the Colonel’s comment about her size in amusement. “Four foot nine fighting machine,” he’d once called her. Her clothes wouldn’t even be close to fitting her. Recalling Reynolds as being considerably broader and taller than she was, she finally settled on selecting some clean BDUs from Daniel’s locker, relieved to see his name still where it belonged next to Teal’c’s. Daniel’s large-ish shirt and pants would have to do until she could find a better fitting pair in storage.

She took the new set with her to the adjacent shower room, but not much to her surprise, she found that there was no running water. Deciding to remove her sweaty underwear anyway, she simply pulled on the slightly ill-fitting, but at least fresh-smelling, BDU pants on, rolling the waistband to fit better. She would have to forgo underwear for now until she could find a clean pair in storage. She stripped to her bra and replaced her black t-shirt with Daniel's baggy one, but couldn't help putting the Colonel's sweatshirt back on over the top. It was simply comforting to wear.

Feeling tired from the long day of travelling and the elk encounter, she decided to turn in early after heating up an MRE from her pack in the microwave provided in the communal recreation room down the hallway from the locker rooms. She was anxious to get started on her long mental to-do list, but there would be plenty of time tomorrow, and she knew she would work more efficiently if she was well-rested. Making use of the guest toothbrush and unopened bottle of water that had been sitting in the VIP quarters she’d chosen on 25, she set the photograph and yo-yo she'd acquired on the side table, took a last look at the Colonel's face, curled up in the warm bed covers, and soon fell fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Day 3

She woke up feeling unusually refreshed having slept on the base. It certainly helped to not have the gate alarm sounding, various announcements blaring, and the sound of boots marching past the door every hour, she mused to herself. Checking the time on her watch, it was just after six in the morning. She’d slept twelve hours!

Determined to have a full, productive day today, after freshening herself up at the sink with the remainder of the bottled water she’d found (not wanting to waste her collected fresh water on cleaning) and the block of soap provided, she opted to skip breakfast, eager to get started on her plans and to-dos. She headed straight up by elevator to Level 20, reaching the base’s main equipment storage, where she began to gather the necessary equipment to execute her plan.

Of course, normally she would have been able to easily find what she needed from her own lab, but it was extremely doubtful her lab would have been left in the same condition after she’d more than likely been declared MIA years ago. She vaguely wondered if Hailey had ended up taking over it, but that wasn’t a priority. There might be time to investigate later, but for now, focusing her attention at the task at hand, she heaved a small-sized but deceivingly heavy generator onto a trolley, before grabbing plenty of cables, clamps, wire cutters, adaptors, and several lamps.

Pushing the heavy, precariously-loaded trolley back along the corridor towards the elevator, she selected Level 11 and got in, nervously watching the sub-level numbers count upwards as the elevator swooped its even heavier load than yesterday’s upwards. Then, at 11, she switched elevators to head for the surface level, relieved that the heavy equipment posed no apparent problem. Reaching the surface, she switched on the lanterns she’d balanced on the trolley, and entered the dark tunnel towards the exit, this time turning off right into a separate side entrance to NORAD just beyond the unmanned checkpoint. She followed this second tunnel downwards to the second level, struggling to keep control of the trolley as the slant caused it to speed up. NORAD and the main entrance’s power system was completely segregated from Stargate Command’s systems below, leaving this far smaller section of the base still entirely in pitch darkness and without ventilation. The air steadily became mustier and heavier, she noticed, and felt cold and clammy with its higher humidity. Unlike the SGC’s own internal reactor, NORAD only had access to external power from the main grid. Getting NORAD fully back online would be more difficult, but if successful, she hoped to gain access to NORAD’s satellite and powerful radio communications. She’d never seen the power room for NORAD herself, but finding a layout guide in the lantern-provided light, it wasn’t long before she managed to find the breaker room. Holding one of the lanterns nearer for a better look, as expected, while everything looked to be in the on position, the panel was entirely dark and lifeless. She set to work straight away to pull away at the panels of the system, exposing the thick cables running down from the mountain surface. She took her time hooking up the generator, wanting to be sure she wasn’t about to electrocute herself or damage the generator by making a mistake. Just as she was done and happy with the jerry rig, she turned on the generator, and with a hum the overhead lights immediately flickered on, and NORAD sprang back to life.

Pleased everything was going so smoothly so far, she headed straight for the central communications room, the nerve centre of NORAD. Assuming she could get the computer system up and running, she would gain access to the global satellite tracking system, deep-space tracking, all commercial and military domestic aircraft flight information across the entire United States, and most importantly for her cause, a powerful communications system capable of broadcasting across the continent. The SGC, too, of course had its own emergency bunker equipped with communications on 16, but NORAD’s array would be better if it was still functional.

Turning on all the equipment, she found that a couple of computers wouldn’t turn on- perhaps they’d rusted internally from the higher humidity on the Level, she thought- but soon several machines started whirring, lights started blinking, and some displays began flickering on. Typing furiously at a keyboard, she was able to make light work of gaining access. NORAD’s security was a cinch compared to the SGC’s firewalls.

As the system accepted her hacked login, she became immediately surrounded by a colourful array as the few still-working monitors began displaying all kinds of information. A glance to the bottom left screen told her instantly that there was no flight information to be displayed. Either the data wasn’t being transmitted, or there were no aircraft flying. Radar, too, detected no aircraft in a vicinity of 128km, the extent of its range. This wasn’t too surprising, though, since she hadn’t seen a single aircraft in the sky during her drive yesterday. Also unsurprising was the status of the satellites that NORAD was still receiving signals from. She counted eighty-three satellites whose signal had been lost- presumably through loss of power or damage from almost four decades of solar radiation. Of the remaining six still transmitting a signal, only one had sufficient functionality to obey the command she sent to it to maneuver into a position to point its camera towards Earth. According to its coordinates and the map of its position she pulled up on a separate monitor, the satellite was in geosynchronous orbit above Alabama; specifically above the moderately-sized city of Birmingham. Directing the satellite to zoom in on its view of the city below, while the satellite couldn’t see with enough resolution to discern individual people or movement, it was immediately clear from the vast amount of greenery among the grey concrete that this city was in a similar state to Colorado Springs and Denver. In fact, if it weren’t for all the multi-laned highways snaking into the centre of the image, she might have been unable to identify that this was an image of a city at all.

Next, she decided to try the radio communications array, commanding the six remaining satellites to relay her signal across the country, before picking up the audio receiver.

“This is Major Samantha Carter at NORAD, Colorado, calling anyone. Can anyone hear me?” she spoke into the microphone.

She waited a few moments before repeating her message, but there was no response but static. Checking her watch, it was still barely nine o’clock in the morning Mountain time. She might have better luck in a few hours when people- if there were any- were more likely to be near a radio to receive and reply to the message. Enabling the system to transfer control down to the SGC’s emergency bunker downstairs so she wouldn’t have to return all the way to NORAD each time she wanted to try to radio the whole country, after one more failed try, she decided to give up for now, heading back out of NORAD, leaving behind the trolley of equipment she’d brought. The SGC’s storage level had more than enough equipment anyway.

She walked her way briskly back through the now-lit entrance tunnel, retracing her steps back down to the SGC. Her next priority was to access the base’s mission reports and security footage. Getting the base’s main server back online on Level 23 had been a more than simple task- the machine had been perfectly preserved- and afterwards she headed up to the Secondary Command Bunker on Level 16, accepting the transfer of access from NORAD, giving her full entry into NORAD from there. When her radio calls were once again unanswered, she made her way to the Security Monitoring Centre on the same level.

Booting up the computers and screens here, she accessed the archive of security footage. She knew that only the last twelve months’ worth of footage was kept before it was wiped, but miraculously she found that she had access to video feeds between May 2004 and May 2005; the back-up generator must have shut itself off then, possibly a safety protocol kicking in from an unexpected anomaly in the reactor. Immediately selecting that ominous date, March 4th 2005, she chose the Gate Room feed and set it to play on fast forward. The feed began at midnight, quickly speeding through the early morning hours. Every now and then she’d slow the feed to check, but the room always remained silent and empty. Speeding it up again and seeing the time stamp reach the morning, her heart started racing in time with the speed of the feed. She was suddenly terrified of what she might be about to see. She almost didn’t want to see confirmation that her friends had all died, even if all the evidence so far did point to that conclusion. But how had they died. She needed to know, even if she didn’t want to watch. Was she about to see a barrage of aliens come bursting through the gate? A firefight and bloodshed as her coworkers bravely tried to hold the base safe? Yet, she recalled, she hadn’t seen evidence of a firefight in the gate room.

Her heart gave a jolt at the sight of the gate chevrons lighting up, and she immediately slowed the playback speed in time to catch the kawoosh form, holding her breath, waiting to see who, or perhaps, what would come through. Looking at the time stamp she saw that it was almost precisely 9 o’clock in the morning.

From the angle of the camera’s feed that she'd chosen, she saw as a single Jaffa stepped through confidently, dressed in a chain vest and Jaffa skirt. Despite the dark head of hair, there was no mistaking Teal’c’s bulky arms, posture and stance. She watched as he marched down the ramp, greeted by a woman who’d now come in view, to whom he bowed. She looked civilian, dressed in a cardigan and pants, and while Sam couldn’t see her face from this angle, Teal’c greeted her with respect but also had a grave expression on his face as his mouth moved in speech. Sam wondered if this person might be the current leader of the base. Whoever she was, knowing Teal’c as well as she did, she was now the recipient of bad news.

She selected another camera angle to follow the pair as they hurried to the Control Room, displaying this feed on a separate monitor, making them play simultaneously. Her heart leapt to see that Daniel had come rushing to join them in the room, soon followed by Hailey and Reynolds. She was surprised to see how different Hailey now looked; her hair looked less trim, her expression less haughty. She looked wisened with experience and age, maybe even relaxed into her role as perhaps scientific advisor in her own absence, and she watched on as she contributed confidently to the heated discussion that was taking place between the five-piece.

The civilian woman then gave an instruction to Sergeant Harriman, who began dialling the gate, and she made a mental note to check the log later to see where they’d dialled out to. She was surprised to see their expressions turn to shock, however, at the establishment of the wormhole. Daniel’s face was in full front view of the camera, and she certainly knew well his expression of panic. She wondered what could be wrong, until she saw the iris close in time with the second feed showing Harriman place his hand against the palm-scanner. They must have received an incoming wormhole before they’d finished dialling out, she surmised. She watched as four Airmen rushed into the Gate Room, one of them a woman, weapons readied. Clearly these Airmen were the owners of the same four bundles she’d first found in the Gate Room upon her arrival.

’This is it’, she thought, with a pit of dread and helplessness in her stomach. They hadn’t dialled out in time. The attack was coming. She watched on as the woman and Reynolds simultaneously began typing furiously at the keyboard, guessing they were setting the self-destruct, but not a second later, a bright, white bubble of light suddenly emerged from the gate, completely unimpeded by the iris. It enlarged and spread outwards steadily, and Sam was floored to see that as the surface of the light bubble connected with the Airmen, they instantly disappeared, their clothes falling clumsily into heaps on the floor. A split-second later, the light reached the Control Room, and to her great distress, she watched on helplessly as Daniel, Teal’c and everyone else, were gone in an instant.

Chapter Text

A split-second later, the light reached the Control Room, and to her great distress, she watched on helplessly as Daniel, Teal’c and everyone else, were gone in an instant.

She stared on at the playback, paralyzed and numbed by what she’d seen, waiting with dread to finally see the identity of the attackers who would come through the gate. But, after one minute, the gate disengaged, the iris opening back up automatically, and there was no more movement. She pulled up the security feed for the always busy commissary, and it was evident that the attack had already reached here. There was no question that this field of light, or whatever it was, had engulfed the entire base, Colorado Springs, the entire state and quite possibly even the entirety of Earth in one swift assault.

When nothing happened for a further minute, she reached out a shaking hand to play the video in fast-motion, but despite the fast playback, nothing more happened. If they had tried to set the base self-destruct, they mustn’t have had time to input their codes. When the end of the day came, and the gate had remained still, the fallen clothes unmoving, she pulled up the next file and watched the following day’s security feed at 64x speed. But again, there was no movement whatsoever from the gate, or elsewhere. Deciding it would be quicker to simply pull up the incoming gate log, she saw that in almost two months’ of recordings before he base’s back-up generator had gone offline, there were precisely zero incoming wormholes recorded. She couldn’t believe this. Surely the Tok’ra would have checked in on them? Or the Alpha Site, which would have been up-and-running then. It had been due to start operation in just a few short weeks from her time. Surely they would have dialled in for their planned daily check-in? How could absolutely nobody have made contact with Earth in two months? Unless… had they known about the attack and thought it pointless, knowing the Earth would be barren of life? But then, why had whoever’d unleashed the attack never come to claim the planet? Unless they’d come in ships, perhaps? Unfortunately, with the NORAD satellites mostly inoperable, she had no way of seeing if there was any damage from an attack from space in any of the larger cities.

Cracking open a can of diet soda from the pack she’d brought, she took a gulp, needing some caffeine in her system to augment her shock and to give her hands something to do while her brain frantically processed what she’d seen. After a few more calming sips and breaths, recovering slightly, she decided to look up the leader of the base. She was a civilian named Elizabeth Weir with a background in UN negotiations, and her profile picture indeed matched the woman whom she’d seen on the security feed. She’d replaced General Hammond a year before the attack, who, she searched on, had been reassigned to Washington to command a new organization in the Pentagon called “Homeworld Command.” She had to admit that she was hugely surprised to learn that a civilian negotiator had been put in charge to run the SGC rather than another Air Force General, but perhaps the Galaxy’s circumstances had changed significantly and merited a change in tactics and leadership. From what she’d seen, at least, Teal’c seemed to have respected the woman, and she could only have been a good leader to have earned that respect.

Next, she decided to check the outgoing wormhole logs, curious to see where the Sergeant had unsuccessfully dialed to. It had been a planet designated P4X-650. If memory served correctly, this had been on the list of planets that SG-1, as well as SG-3 and SG-18 were to scout over the coming months as potential Beta sites if the Alpha Site they’d almost finished setting up on P3X-984 ever became compromised.

A scan through the logs pertaining to the original Alpha Site as she’d known it showed that it had indeed been completed on schedule, becoming operational three weeks from the time of her disappearance. It had run for just over a year when it had been shut down, becoming compromised by an Ash’rak. The then-designated Beta Site had been used for just under a year until a civilian named Jonas Quinn had been deemed likely to have leaked the information to someone named Anubis in 2002. She furrowed her brows at the two names unknown to her: ‘Jonas Quinn’ and ‘Anubis’, though she couldn’t help but feel a slight something stir within her at the sight of the second name.

Running a keyword search on mission files containing the name Anubis, the most recent file happened an SG-1 mission report, and looking at the date, it may well have been the team’s very last report.

It read:

2005 March 2nd
SG-1 Mission Report
Members:
Colonel Albert Reynolds (leader)
Captain Jennifer Hailey
Doctor Daniel Jackson
Teal’c

As she’d seen evidence of last night, and on the video feed just now, here it was confirmed that the SG-1 team members had had a big change. She raised her eyebrow at seeing proof of Reynold’s leadership of the team, despite seeing his name besides Daniel’s locker last night. Sure, the guy was probably likeable enough, and had leadership experience- she’d known him as leader of SG-16- but she’d always held a little resentment towards him after the incident on Orlin’s planet. Of course he’d only been following orders, but he had been the one to shoot Orlin, forcing him to re-ascend, losing them of that contact with a living Ancient. She hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of what she could have learned from him, or what he could have offered the program, and they’d lost out on that because of Reynold’s decision.

She vaguely wondered what had happened to the Colonel. Her Colonel, if she could call him that, she added in after-thought. He’d been at home at the time of the attack, and he was no longer on SG-1. What might have happened to make him leave the team?

And Hailey? So she’d already reached the rank of Captain. At least from her perspective, it hadn’t been at all long since she’d first met the headstrong Cadet, hand-selecting her and getting her into the Stargate Training Program after she’d graduated. It was funny to see now that she’d unwittingly chosen her successor that day at the Academy.

Reading the contents of the report, which had been written by Colonel Reynolds, she learned that the team had gated to meet with someone named M’Zel who had intel regarding someone named Ba’al and- there was that name- Anubis. She gave a sigh. In just over three years, she’d become so out of the loop that she couldn’t even read an SG-1 report without following it. She felt like an outsider, or like a ghost that had come back to haunt the base. Almost like she shouldn’t be privy to reading these confidential files. Reading on nevertheless, she was surprised to see the term ‘Rebel Jaffa’ used, making it sound as though Bra’tac and Teal’c’s resistance as she knew it had made progress and had become a real organization by this time. Perhaps in her absence Bra’tac and Teal’c had managed to turn more and more Jaffa against their Goa’uld, to the point that they’d formed some kind of coalition? She thought that if such an organization did exist, they might be allies of Earth, and might be able to help her. She then pondered whether Bra’tac would even be alive by now after almost forty years.

The names Ba’al and Anubis cropped up again and again further down the report. SG-1 had learned that some members of this Rebel Jaffa group had infiltrated a Ha’tak belonging to Ba’al. He must be a Goa’uld, she surmised. They’d been informed that his fleet was heading to a planet named Dakara in Anubis’ name. Unfortunately, there was no further information in the report as to the significance of this planet, so closing the report, she instead searched the keyword Dakara. If this was SG-1’s last mission report, it might have some significance. However, there was little more than an entry of its gate address, as well as a short memo that it had been the place of implantation of the first the Jaffa. That seemed to be a dead end.

A search for Ba’al instead brought up several mission reports, but it was the oldest one, dated not too long after her own disappearance, that caught her eye. Her heart gave a leap as she saw her father’s name had been added to the report, and, double clicking the report to open it, she felt like she’d hit the jackpot on catching up to speed with the status of the galaxy: Daniel had infiltrated a System Lord summit together with her father. It had been a bold mission- Daniel had used a chemical compound to portray Lord Yu’s Lo’tar and had been able to listen in on the System Lord’s meeting. Ba’al’s name was among the attendees, as well as, to her surprise, Osiris. Wow, she couldn’t imagine how Daniel must have reacted to seeing his old girlfriend there, she thought. Sarah, or rather Osiris, had of course recognized him, and he’d failed to rescue her, but not before learning that Anubis, apparently an old, long-absent Goa’uld, had returned, and had been voted back into the position of System Lord. So Anubis was a new kid on the block, except he was also an older Goa’uld. Interesting, she thought.

Deciding to take a break from reading mission reports for now- there’d be plenty of time for that, and it would take days, if not weeks to get through them all- she took another swig of soda, and gave into her curiosity to pull up various personnel files.

Major Samantha Carter
Status: Missing in Action, presumed dead (dated: September 2nd 2002)

Well, that wasn’t surprising. It was protocol to pronounce missing field officers as officially MIA after six months.

Her heart began thumping as curiosity spurned her to next search for Colonel O’Neill’s file. She took a moment to stare at his younger, handsome profile picture, before scanning her eyes to the text below the photo.

Status: Retired (dated: September 8th 2002)

She did a double-take at the date. He’d not only left SG-1 shortly after she’d been declared MIA, but he’d retired altogether. It pained her to think of the grief he must have felt for her.

“I’d have rather died myself than lose Carter.”

She thought back to the words he’d been forced to say just over a year ago. She’d had no doubt of the truth of his words at the time, and sure enough, he clearly must have been unable to face working at the SGC after losing her. It broke her heart to think back to the couch where she’d found his last resting place. He’d been sat there, early in the morning, drinking beer, most likely watching tv, completely unaware of the imminent doom that the world was facing. He’d left the program because of her. Maybe if she hadn’t gone missing, he would still have been on the team, and maybe then he would have been able to make a difference. What if his being on SG-1 could have prevented this from happening? Maybe if she’d still been there, too, there could have been something they could have thought of together to prevent this disaster. It was just so unfair that a complete and utter fluke of physics had stolen her out of her time, away from her friends and colleagues and from her place on her team… and now everyone was dead. What was even more unfair, she thought, was that she hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye to everyone, or for any closure. And they hadn’t either, she thought. From their perspective, she had simply vanished without a trace, and they would have had to simply bury an empty coffin in her name. It just seemed such a cruel fate.

Rubbing her eyes from staring at a screen so long, and feeling weary from all the revelations of the day and pain of seeing her friends die before her eyes, she decided she needed a break. It was lunch time by now, after all. Following another failed check to contact anyone using the NORAD communications at the bunker, she returned to 25, helped herself to an MRE- her first food of the day- then retired to the guest quarters. She couldn’t help curling up in bed, looking at her photo of Cassie, Daniel, Teal’c and the Colonel, wondering how they'd mourned her, and how she would go about mourning and living without them, feeling completely unmotivated and utterly sorry for herself. Burying her head under the covers and allowing herself to shed a few tears, she couldn’t recall a point in her life when she’d felt so alone.

Chapter Text

Burying her head under the covers and allowing herself to shed a few tears, she couldn’t recall a point in her life when she’d felt so alone.

Sometime later that afternoon, Sam emerged from her room, steeling herself to keep going. She hadn’t been able to shut down her mind, but there was no point hiding in bed forever chasing a sleep that would not come. The fact remained that she was more than likely all alone on Earth, and that she would have to help herself. But, she reminded herself, being alone on Earth didn’t mean that she was alone in the galaxy. There was the Alpha Site. There was a tiny chance that the settlement there was still going, even after all this time. And of course there were still allies off-world. She wasn’t sure if Bra’tac or her father would still be alive, but she had the means to find out. The Asgard, surely, would be alive and well in their galaxy, too, if she could contact them. Maybe they’d know what had happened to Earth, and may even be able to help somehow. There may be other technologically-advanced allies that the SG teams had met after her disappearance who would be willing to help her. Worst case scenario, she could simply live the rest of her life off-world on one of the countless friendly human populations she’d already met over the years. She knew for a fact that at the very least, the Argosians, Madronans and the people of the Land of Light would be more than happy to have her come live with them.

She made her decision. She couldn’t stay on Earth anymore. At the very least, there wasn’t any running water, and she was desperate to get clean. Not to mention the sight of piles of clothes of dead coworkers at every turn was creepy and becoming quite frankly depressing. No, for her mental health, she felt she needed to be somewhere else, and the Alpha Site would serve as a safe place for now. It was a planet safely off the list of gates known to the Goa’uld, furnished with a living space to Earth-standards and computers she’d be able to access, and was still hopefully stocked with plenty of supplies and tech to serve all her needs. Fingers crossed, too, there’d also be people still there who could finally tell her what the hell had happened to Earth.

Reinvigorated by her plan of action, she spent the rest of the evening gathering as many supplies as could fit into the FRED she’d gotten out of storage.

Day 4

The next morning, ready-dressed in her combats and vest, she remote-controlled the fully-loaded FRED into the gate room. She looked at the overflowing pile on its back. Unsure of the current status of supplies on the Alpha Site, she’d ended up packing three months worth of non-perishables (which really did seem to last forever), heaps of cans and bottles of drinks, as many medical supplies as she could gather, several pairs of clean BDUs and women’s underwear, a ton of weapons, ammunition and claymores, the laptop she’d assumed had been Hammond’s but had transpired to be Doctor Weir’s, as well as a working spare she’d found, four naquadah generators, and most importantly, a 1 TB hard drive containing a copy of every single team mission report from 1997-2005.

Getting a MALP readied and brought down to the gate room had been easy enough as she’d seen Siler do it countless times. Next, taking a deep breath, she headed to the Control Room, preparing herself for sight of clothes she knew she was about to find on the floor.

Her eye was immediately drawn to the mangled and cracked pair of round-rimmed glasses. Vaguely recalling the crunch she’d felt beneath her feet, she realised in horror that she must have stepped on them when she’d rushed through in the darkness when she’d first arrived. She crouched down to pick them up, glass from one of the lenses sprinkling down onto what must have been Daniel’s green BDUs below.

“I’m so sorry I stepped on your glasses, Daniel,” she said glumly to the BDUs. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when this happened, either.”

She pocketed the pair in her TAC vest, then decided to inspect Teal’c’s Jaffa wear. She was surprised to find a vial and syringe inside his vest pocket. They must have been important, so she decided to keep them, too, placing them alongside Daniel’s glasses in her vest. She was surprised, too, to find that the golden tattoo from his forehead was intact, perfectly preserved into three separate pieces of gold, nestled atop his Jaffa skirt. It was as though the weapon had only attacked the biological. Except, remembering the deer, elk and wolves, as well as the birds she’d seen in the sky, that couldn’t be true. The weapon had only targeted humans. Goa’uld, perhaps, too, she concluded, when she found no sign remains of Junior. Though there was a possibility that it had slithered away and died elsewhere on the level, she thought. She decided to pocket the tiny pieces of golden tattoo as a token of her friend.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here by your side either, Teal’c. I hope you died free.”

Just as she’d done with the Colonel’s clothes, she decided to carefully fold up Daniel’s and Teal’c’s clothes neatly, placing them side-by-side on the empty space beside the computer monitors with a view of the gate. They’d have her back as she stepped through.

Turning to the computers, she rolled away the wheeled chair with what must have been Sergeant Harrimans’ clothes draped across them, and pulled up an unoccupied chair to use instead. Connecting the MALP she’d set up with the computer, she brought the camera, sensors and remote control online, commanding it to trundle to the bottom of the ramp before instructing the computer to dial the current Alpha Site, P4X-650.

Once the wormhole had been established, she tried to radio through, but there was no answer. She had been prepared for this eventuality, however. After almost forty years, the group was likely to have moved on to another planet. Hopefully they’d left clues as to where they’d gone. Instructing the MALP to approach the gate, she watched as it slowly rolled up the ramp before becoming consumed by the event horizon with a slurp, drumming her fingers on the keyboard waiting the few seconds it would take for the camera and sensor readings to come back on-screen as the MALP rematerialized on the other side. What she would see would make or break whether all her preparation had been worth it. A few tense seconds later, the visual feed returned, and to her huge relief, the Alpha Site’s Gate Room appeared undamaged and intact. It had a safe atmosphere, there were no visible hostiles, and good news was that she could see into the Control Room, similarly constructed just beyond the gate. The power was on. She had a go.

“Keep an eye on things here for me, guys,” she said, patting Daniel and Teal’c’s clothes gently, before making her way down the metal staircase and through to the Gate Room. She picked up the FRED’s remote control and directed the FRED forwards, following its slow trundle slowly up the ramp.

“God’s speed,” she said to herself, mimicking the General’s usual send-off, and followed the FRED through the event horizon to the Alpha Site.

Chapter Text

“God’s speed,” she said to herself, using the General’s usual send-off, and followed the FRED through to the Alpha Site.

As the shimmering light of the event horizon behind her extinguished as the gate shut down, she noticed an LED ceiling strip above her head, flickering. The power was certainly on, but there were signs that the base had been long disused. It was also eerily silent, just like the SGC she had just left. Her heart then sank to again find the same piles of untouched BDUs on the floor of the Control Room. The Alpha Site’s gate address was supposed to be secure, yet there was no mistaking that they had been attacked using the same weapon that had taken away the people of Earth. If the Alpha Site’s location was known to have become compromised, it was supposed to be abandoned immediately, but there were no signs that she could see that they had attempted an evac here. Perhaps the Alpha Site hadn’t known at all what was to come before the entire base had been similarly wiped of life. From the impression she’d gotten of the security feed of the SGC, it looked as though Teal’c had only brought forewarning of about two minutes prior to the attack, and they’d been unable to prevent it.

It then occurred to her, with a jolt of dread, that unless there had been any SG teams off-world at the time of Earth’s attack, then there were likely no other Earth personnel alive in the galaxy. If there had been any surviving SG teams, they would have surely gated in to Earth, but the gate log after the attack had been empty. She was all alone. Except for her father, perhaps, but would he even be alive after forty years? The Tok’ra would have undoubtedly moved their base in that time, too. How would she even go about finding them?

She decided to make a full sweep of the base. As had been described in the files she’d pre-read back home, this Alpha Site had been constructed into a mountain, and consisted of five levels. It had its own power supply generated by a combination of solar and geothermal, which had successfully run continuously the entire time without issue, and she also found a back-up Naquadah generator plugged into the grid: offline, but in seeming perfect working order. There was a mess, living quarters, a small infirmary, some research labs, and many storage rooms. She discovered that supplies were plentiful: food, ammunition, and equipment was well-stocked, and best of all, the base had running water. Satisfied that she would be safe here, for now, she decided that this Alpha Site would be her haven for the time being. The outer concrete blast door was sealed, as well as all other emergency exits; the base had been perfectly preserved from the outside elements or infestation by local wildlife or vegetation. Perhaps due to its smaller size, it somehow felt safer to her and more defensible than the SGC. The construction and layout was familiar and comforting to her, too, even if she had never set foot on the base before. Flushing toilets and being able to take a shower would be a big plus, too, not to mention there would be the benefit of being able to go outside without having to take two rather precarious elevators. She felt incredibly grateful to the SGC program for succeeding in building such a sturdy refuge in the three years she’d been missing, providing her now with more than enough supplies and safety now.

It had been easy enough to hack into the familiar computer systems. Deciding to opt for the same strategy as she had done the previous day at the SGC, she first decided to check the security camera feed. Unfortunately, this time, it seemed that the surveillance system had been operational the entire time. The video feed of the attack had long been overwritten and erased. Next, she opted to check the gate dial-in logs, which fortunately stretched back all the way back to when the base had first become operational. To her astonishment, the last dial-in had been at 09:04 March 4th, 2005. Not only was it the same date, or hour even, as the attack on Earth, but the dial-in had occurred at the precise same second as Earth’s. How was that even possible? As far as she knew, there was no way for a Stargate to dial more than one address at the same time. She had always theorized that there were safety protocols in-built into the gate to prevent multiple dialings of a gate. If a person were to step through, they would be cloned. The gate-builders would never have allowed that. And yet, here was evidence to the contrary...

Deciding to utilize the perk of running water before doing any more reading, she made use of the working laundry room, washing the Colonel’s sweatshirt along with her mission clothes, took a hot shower and changed into a fresh pair of BDUs and donning some clean female standard undergarments. She was also able to boil up a coffee pot to make very stale, but sufficiently coffee-like coffee to stave off the craving she’d had for the past few days. Feeling freshened up and energized with the hit of coffee in her, she was feeling more positive and ready to delve through the old mission reports. She had a lot of catching up to do to get back up to speed with the three years she’d missed.

She decided that her priority would be reading the flagship team, SG-1’s, mission reports in chronological order. SG-1, now a three-piece team without her, had spent the next month off mission rota searching planets for her, trying to figure out what had caused her disappearance, or otherwise get the word out to their allies of her disappearance. She could imagine the Colonel must have pleaded hard to have SG-1 taken off the mission rota for so long; it had been a tough battle for her when the Colonel had been lost on Edora. Once the Tollan had said they would be able to rescue the Colonel, albeit a very long time from then, the General had come under a lot of pressure from the Pentagon to put SG-1 back on the rota, and she had had to push back very hard to be permitted to continue to working in her lab on developing her particle beam generator and rescue the Colonel sooner. It was distressing to read that the reports written by the Colonel as that allotted time had dwindled, his reports becoming steadily shorter, more negative, and more dejected-sounding in what she could only surmise was his slow loss of hope of ever finding her again. She could completely understand. She’d had to go through a similar hopelessness too. The fact was, that despite how hard she’d worked on the particle beam generator, a large part of her had been terrified the entire time that he would already be dead by the time she got there.

Deciding to skip ahead to SG-1’s first scheduled mission following Daniel and her father’s mission report, she found that there had been a second with her father's presence soon after, where he had assisted the remaining members of SG-1 avert an asteroid strike on Earth. In the following report, she then saw that they had gained a fourth member, Major Michael Griff, whom she’d known to have recently become leader of SG-2 before her disappearance. He and the Colonel had always gotten on well, and Griff was a good marksman and soldier. She guessed the Colonel might have chosen him to lift up his own spirits, but she also wondered whether he’d felt that putting Griff on the team- someone who was quite dissimilar in temperament and abilities to herself- meant that he didn’t feel he’d replaced her or given up on her coming back. She read on to learn that the team had travelled to provide aid to the Rebel Jaffa who had indeed, she read, become a somewhat organized group. Teal’c, however, had discovered that a Goa’uld had infiltrated the group, and had swiftly killed him. She could just imagine the satisfaction that must have given him, she smiled. Next, she was very surprised to learn that the creator of the Replicators had been discovered. It turned out that she was a child-like android, who had been found dormant on a planet housing a technologically-advanced but extinct civilization. The Colonel had been forced to destroy her, however, before sending the remains to the Asgard for study. Next, the team had discovered a part-machine, part-biological weapon on a planet that had been damaged by Maybourne’s old NID croons. She would have loved to have been able to study the machine. Then, after visiting a planet named Langara, Daniel had- she had to re-read the same paragraphs several times to absorb their contents- Daniel had died. From radiation poisoning. She couldn’t believe it. But, yet, she’d seen him on the video feed back on Earth in 2005. Something else must have happened. Forcing herself to read on to the end, it turned out that, according to the Colonel’s report, the ascended being they’d met on Kheb, Oma Desala, had helped him ascend, and that he had become a glowing being just like herself and like Orlin. As she re-read the report for the fourth time now, still hardly believing her eyes, she tried to draw the emotions he must have been feeling from between the lines, but the Colonel had written the report unusually objectively. Yet, the fact that his report hadn’t been laden with any sarcasm or jokes had been enough to assure her that losing Daniel must have been painful. It had, after all, only been four months since her own disappearance. At least she was assured that Daniel did somehow later come back. Maybe like Orlin, he’d chosen to retake mortal form, and that was reassuring enough to quell her shock and keep her reading on.

The following mission reports now bore the name Jonas Quinn under the team members list. Looking him up, apparently he was from the planet where Daniel had received the fatal dose of radiation from the heavier form of Naquadah native to the planet, Naquadriah. As he was non-military, she wondered if the Colonel was trying to break him in gently on the team, as the next two months of missions were fairly standard, easy recon missions, some of which were to previously-visited planets by other exploration team units. Not much seemed to happen until SG-1 travelled to Jonas’ homeworld, where they successfully sourced some of this Naquadriah, and she was surprised to see that it was not Colonel O’Neill’s name listed as mission leader anymore, but Colonel Reynolds’. The Colonel must have retired, and sure enough, this mission had been dated September 2002, six months from her time of disappearance. The Colonel had lost two of his team members in such a short time. It was no wonder he'd retired. He wouldn't have known that Daniel would return, and that she, too, would, albeit forty years later... But she couldn't help feeling a tremendous sense of guilt for the grieving she'd put him, and her friends, through.

Sighing, she pushed on to continue reading. She learned that an Ash’rak had attacked the Alpha Site where some members of the Rebel Jaffa had been living, and SG-1, along with Lt. Hailey's help, she read, had successfully found and neutralized the cloaked Ash’rak. Then not long afterwards, she was shocked to learn that the Rebel Jaffa had been dealt a further blow. Hundreds of Jaffa, along with Teal’c and Bra’tac had both lost their symbiotes to another slaughtering attack. Fortunately Teal’c’s life had been saved by something called Tretonin, but whatever it was wasn’t effective in all subjects, and, despite being found alive, it sadly hadn’t taken in Bra’tac, who, her heart broke to read, had died.

She sat back in the chair, her mind reeling from the shock. Teal'c had lost his symbiote. And this Tretonin sounded like a drug, that must be what the syringe she’d found in his vest was, she thought, recalling the vial she'd decided to keep. Deciding to do a keyword search in the Alpha Site records, she learned that Tretonin was a drug that could replace an immune system, discovered on a planet by SG-7, that had been made of a Goa’uld Queen’s harvested symbiotes. And not just any Queen, but it had been Egeria, the Queen of the Tok’ra resistance. She was initially so excited to read that she had been found alive- more Tok’ra could finally be born, she thought happily- until it turned out that the Queen had died later that day of old age and injury. She wondered how her father must have taken the news. Suddenly curious as to what had happened to the Tok’ra, she searched and found a log dated nine months after Egeria’s discovery. The Tok’ra base had been discovered and destroyed by Anubis using a technology called the ‘Eyes of the Goa’uld’. Her father’s last known location had been on the base. He had been killed, along with ninety-percent of the Tok’ra population in one fell swoop.

She stared at the screen. There had been even more death. This time, her father, along with almost the entire Tok'ra resistance. She didn't have any chance of finding them now, and with the loss of her father, that officially made her the last Earth human alive. She felt numb. She couldn’t face reading anymore and risk coming across any more death or destruction. Checking the time, she was surprised to see that she’d spent almost five hours reading. Remembering she'd still left the laundry in the machine, she left the computer to go sort the washing, pick out her quarters and get settled in.

Day 5

Following a restless sleep, and feeling burned out from reading, she decided to spend today outside exploring. She wandered the mountain vicinity and went for a long walk for some fresh air to try to brush away the feelings of loneliness and gloom from being holed up under artificial lighting underground for so long, as well as the cloud of guilt that was weighing on her shoulders. She hadn’t been there for Daniel’s death. For her father’s. For Janet’s. She hadn’t been there to even potentially stop these things from happening. She felt helpless and guilty for missing out on so much, and it was difficult to face reading more about things passively when there was nothing she could actively do to prevent them. History had already been written. Everyone was already dead.

Making her way all the way up to the rocky peak of the mountain the base had been bored into, the sunshine on her skin and endorphin from the climb soon cleared her mind of some of the negativity she’d been feeling. From the top, she could see the tiny-looking airstrip of the base below, fitted with what she was pleased to see were some completed X-302s- she'd been working on that project at the time of her disappearance. In the distance to one side were tree-covered mountains, and on the other side stretched out a beautiful valley, carpeted with fauna and with a serene river flowing through its centre. It was practically picture-perfect. Following a grassy bank downwards to the other side of the mountain, she discovered a gentle-flowing stream offshoot from the river at the bottom, dotted with some red crab-like creatures. Across the bank, she could see trees with unripe but potentially edible fruit growing on them. She’d already studied the data gathered on the planet’s climate since the Alpha site had been in operation, and longer beforehand during its construction. It had shown that a year on the planet lasted a little over two hundred days, giving brisk winters and short summers, with the rest of the year having a climate not too dissimilar to Colorado’s. Light snow in winter months and pleasant, but not-too-hot summer months. The immediate area had grass, plants, and, upon inspection, fertile-looking soil. She could probably fish, hunt, gather fruit, even grow a garden here in the fertile soil... Long-term survival here was certainly possible. But what would be the point of long-term survival alone?

Chapter Text

Long-term survival here was certainly possible. But what would be the point of long-term survival alone?

Day 8

While it had only been eight days since she’d been sent to the future, it already felt like weeks to her. She’d spent the previous two days getting settled in; combining the supplies and rations she’d brought with her on the FRED and adding them to the huge stock she’d found on the base. She now had such a huge inventory of food that she couldn’t even estimate how long it could last her, but it was in the region of years. After all, the Alpha Site was always stocked with enough supplies to support a group of fifty strong for three months at any given time. She also had a plethora of medical supplies, which she sorted through, discarding anything that would have become dangerous so far past its expiry, and setting out anything she might need in an emergency in an easy to grab place. She also spent some time tidying up all the clothes on the floors of the rooms she most used, which had turned out to be a depressing task.

With the task of making the base tidy and livable, she found she still couldn’t face reading any more mission reports for now. What she needed was a mission of her own, and that, she decided, was to seek out off-world allies. Painfully aware that she would be travelling alone with no back-up, her best bet was to visit known safe planets that were unlikely to have fallen into Goa’uld hands, that SG-1 had been on friendly terms with, and where the people lived close to the gate. It would be highly unlikely that they would know anything of the attack on the Tau’ri, but at least she would have friendly company. Even after forty years, the villagers of such planets would surely have continued to pass on stories of the travellers that had come through the gate to the next generation, and she would surely be welcomed. After over a week of nothing but MREs, too, she was most looking forward to being served up a far superior home cooked meal, as well as catching up with the people she’d known and hearing them sing songs and tell tales of the past forty years. She couldn’t wait!

There were a few planets to choose from, but she first decided on Madrona. Due to their use of the Touchstone, its weather could be relied upon to be pleasant, warm and welcoming, and she had fond memories of the last time she had visited to check up on them a couple of years ago. They had thrown SG-1 a lavish party that had lasted two days served with bountiful tasty tropical fruits and salads and succulent, roasted game meat. And while their leader, Roham, likely wouldn’t be alive anymore, his niece, who had been young at the time, would have assumed power by now, and would surely remember her and welcome her. She wondered how to explain her own lack of ageing, but the Madronans were a simple people, and would probably buy a simple explanation of being given a gift of youth from the gods, or something. She guessed she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

Geared up and ready by 9am sharp in the Gate Room- old habits die hard, she thought with a grin to herself- she excitedly dialled up Madrona and briskly sent the MALP through. Her heart plummeted, however, to see that the telemetry came back showing a vicious snowstorm. Visibility was so poor that she couldn’t even make out any structures of the nearby village. The air temperature reading was a mere 16F. Something must have happened to the Touchstone, she thought. She would love to go through and see if there was anything she could do to help the Madronans, but unfortunately, if it had happened years ago, then the Madronans would have died of hypothermia long ago. With a heavy heart, she declared the MALP lost, and shut down the gate. She couldn’t help being hugely disappointed, and hoped the Madronans had been able to escape to another planet. She decided to check the record to see if anything known had happened, but there was nothing. SG-13 had been their last visitors, doing the annual check-up and catch-up with their off-world friendlies, and that had been three months before Earth had been attacked. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary then. What could have happened since then?

She’d have to leave it a mystery and press on. Next on her list was Argos. Another planet with a reliable, balmy climate, thanks to the Goa’uld Phelops’ meddling. Their beachside village was close to the gate, and like the Madronans, they certainly knew how to party, too. Though she’d make sure to stay clear of any cake offered, she thought bemused, and smiled at a memory of Daniel’s frequent teasing of the Colonel about the incident. She wondered how Dan’el- the baby she’d witnessed being born and named after her teammate- would look now, a middle-aged man. Now that the Argosians had returned to aging at a normal rate, she was excited at the prospect of seeing how far their civilization might have come in some forty years’ of living a normal lifespan. Over time, their limited settlement along the beach would have needed to expand. They might have built schools for the children’s long-term learning, perhaps permanent civil buildings. Maybe if she ended up living with them- and she recalled the Colonel fondly saying on occasion that he’d like to retire on Argos- she could help their development. Help them set up a legal structure, educational curriculum, advance their civilization if required. It wouldn’t be ideal, but worst-case scenario, she could probably make a life for herself there.

She decided this time to check first that nothing known had befallen the Argosians in the Base’s and mission logs. It looked as though last contact had been mid-2004 when SG-8 had provided some medical assistance for an outbreak of a virus similar to the Measles. It seemed that without the nanites, their perfect health had ended and their immune systems had been left weakened, though steadily growing as they aged normally and became exposed to more things while exploring their planet.

She changed in the locker room into a pair of desert camo combats, then returned to the equipment storage room to fish out a second MALP. Bringing it through to the Gate Room, she turned on its sensors and cameras and connected its readings with the control room’s main computer.

“Second time lucky, right?” she muttered to herself, and set about dialling the coordinates to Argos, sending the MALP through once the event horizon had formed. A few seconds later, the camera feed appeared, and she was shown the bright inside of Pelop’s temple. Good news was that it was intact, and it appeared to be daylight on the other side. Air readings were in the green, everything looked good to go. Excited at the prospect of finally talking to someone, she hoisted her pack on and returned to the Gate Room, happily marching up the ramp and through the gate.

As she stepped out on the other side, exhaling and taking in a breath of the new air, the warm climate and salty sea smell immediately hit her senses. The temple looked surprisingly disused, but since the people no longer worshipped their god since learning how he had experimented on them, perhaps they no longer visited or entered the temple. Crossing through the grand structure, she had to pull on her sunglasses to shield her eyes from the strong glare of the sun, low in the sky, casting long shadows along the beach. It looked to be early evening. Other than the sound of the waves crashing into the shore, there was nothing but silence from the surrounding buildings. Maybe the people were inside eating dinner? Once her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she noticed now that some of the houses had fallen down, while several others looked barely standing, some with missing door panels, and missing tiles from the roof. The Argosians had of course begun to explore the planet. Perhaps they had decided to build a new, permanent village away from the temple and gate instead.

Deciding to investigate the buildings here anyway, she made her way to the nearest still-standing building. It was a single-story terracotta-roofed whitehouse with two un-paned windows. Entering the open doorway and finding herself in a kitchen, she was surprised to see that the house looked ransacked. Plates were smashed. The central dining table had collapsed, its legs rotten. Probably in a bad state from the constant barrage of sea wind as opposed to the malicious workings of a person, she thought. Deciding to check the back room just in case, pushing aside the door hanging on its hinge, she froze in the doorway at the sight of the bedroom. There stood two simple wooden beds still laden with a tangle of now frayed and colour-faded bed coverings- and mixed amongst the sheets were the unmistakable, though now paled orange of the clothing she’d known the Argosians to wear. Hurrying to uncover the beds, she found three sets of clothes, all in the same state. One belonging to a male adult, one to a female adult, and one to what must have been a child in the next bed. Her heart hammered in a panic. It couldn’t be! It was impossible! She raced to the next nearest still-standing building, but found precisely the same. This time there were five sets of clothes to be found, all in the bedroom. Argos had been attacked too, and it had been while they had slept in their beds.

She simply stood in the dead bedroom, paralyzed by the sight. She couldn’t breathe. Her brain could barely process the evidence before her. Who would choose to attack the Argosians?! She couldn’t think of a people in the entire galaxy any less of a threat to anyone. Why!? How could this happen!? After the shock began to subside and she found the ability to move her legs, she glumly returned outside and sat on the beach, staring unseeing at the sinking sun. Her mind wondered back to the MALP telemetry she’d seen of Madrona. She wondered if Madrona, too, had been attacked. That would provide an explanation as to why the Touchstone wasn’t working. If there was no one there alive anymore to manually correct the weather patterns, the climate would have naturally fallen back to the default snowstorm as she’d seen before when the Touchstone had been taken.

She sighed dejectedly, and picked up a round pebble from next to her, rolled it in her palm a few times, before throwing it into the sea. She was a scientist, she reminded herself. She couldn’t let what she’d seen discourage her. She couldn’t prove her theory until she’d seen hard proof at least three times, and until then she would not permit herself to draw any conclusions. She would head through the gate one more time.

Watching an eagle-like bird swoop and attempt, but fail, to catch a fish from the water below, she forced herself to start mulling through her options. The people of the Land of Light were very kind, but she didn't want to walk through a perpetually dark forest alone to reach the village. PXY-887 was an option, too, as Earth had a long-standing trade relationship with the people on the planet to mine their trinium deposits, but she wasn’t sure if she could trust the alien “Spirits” on the planet. They were very protective of their people, and she was sure that if something similar had happened to the people there, there was a chance they might blame her. She couldn’t risk it. Casting her mind back to her more recent missions as a wave curled and crashed noisily against the shore, she thought of Vyus. Vyus was an industrial-level planet, where everyone had started life anew after the vorlix had erased their memories. While they had recovered their memories after a cure had been discovered, she felt strongly that if there were still people there, they would surely be the kind of people who would welcome her to live with them. They had, after all, accepted and forgiven Linea. The gate was also conveniently located in the centre of town, too, and she felt it seemed safe to visit alone.

Settled on her next plan of action, she stood up, tossed another stone into the sea for prosperity, and returned to the temple to gate home, bringing the MALP back with her.

Chapter Text

Settled on her next plan of action, she stood up, threw one last stone into the sea, returned to the temple, and, bringing the MALP back with her, gated back to the Alpha Site.

Day 8 continued

This time, having changed her combats to black and repacked her gear yet again to suit the next destination, as she directed the MALP through to Vyus, she kept her hopes low. She dreaded to see any evidence that the same attack had come here. If it had, then she would have to face the fact that she might be alone in the galaxy, and that would be a very frightening reality to have to accept.

The darkened warehouse shown by the MALP’s feed looked not dissimilar to the abandoned warehouse she had last seen on her last visit to the planet. Switching the camera to infrared and finding no life or movement among the crates and boxes, and seeing the air and radiation readings in the green zone, she decided it was safe and gave herself a go.

“Third time lucky, I hope,” she said to herself, making her way out of the Control Room and round to the Gate Room, following the path the MALP had made up the ramp and through the vortex.

She couldn’t help coughing at the dusty surroundings upon her arrival; the kawoosh must have disturbed the thick layer of dust that had been resting on several wooden containers around her. As the wormhole disengaged, the warehouse fell into a semi-darkness, lit only by a pale light struggling to break through tiny, dirtied windows on the upper level. Turning on her weapon’s side light, she made a quick sweep of her surroundings, concluding it was as safe as the MALP had shown, and made her way up the creaking, wooden staircase to the exit. She found that the metal door was locked, but its wooden frame was in such a severe state, almost crumbling from rot, that she was able to easily ram the door down, and she came bursting out onto the outside street, feeling like she’d stepped back in time to early 20th century London.

Except, unlike her last visit, the surrounding towering factories were silent. Their tall chimneys stood smoke-free. The nearby streetlamps looked weather-beaten, their black paint almost rusted off. And despite the daylight, there were no bustling workers or people on the streets as she remembered. Not to mention, just like Colorado Springs, nature had clearly spent the last few decades fighting back to reclaim its land.

Peering down the rail for a view of the lower street, she saw thick tree roots pushing through the concrete and snaking up the walls of the houses. Abandoned, primitive motor cars and fallen electricity poles criss-crossed the street, while patches of tall grass had taken to growing along cracks in the road. It looked like a ghost town, and it looked as she might expect if here had been attacked too, but, then, Linea had lived here. What if her memories had returned again somehow and she had attacked the people? It was certainly possible, and a part of her certainly hoped that had been the case. Either way, she wouldn’t leave until she could verify the cause of the state of the town.

She followed the street downwards from the warehouse on the hill, reaching a row of terraced identical houses on the street level. Several of their window frames were distorted with age and the weight of the roofs. A few chimneys had toppled, littering bricks onto the street, which she nimbly stepped over to reach the front food of the first house. Picking the lock, she entered the house stealthily, holding her breath in hope that she wouldn’t find what she dreaded to see… but yet, sure enough, as she entered the kitchen area, draped across a couple of dining chairs was the sight of full sets of clothes of a man and a woman and two children.

“Fuck!” she couldn’t help yelling, kicking at a wastebasket near the door, cascading its contents across the tiled floor. She stared at the scrunched paper-like material, before bending down to pick up the contents and return the basket to its original position. It wasn’t this family’s fault for having been vanished, or vapourised, or whatever the hell had happened, and she was a better person than to take it out on their belongings, even if they were dead.

‘Who the hell did this?’ she thought deflatedly, as she left the house, returning to the empty street, almost stumbling over a deceptively large tuft of grass. She wouldn’t be able to find anything that would help answer that question here, though. Sighing in defeat, there was nothing to do but backtrack up the winding street to the warehouse and head back to the safety of the Alpha Site.

Sitting and feeling utterly defeated at the desk of her make-shift office, which had belonged to the former leader Colonel Ben Pierce, she thought of the four planets she’d now found clothes, as well as the evidence on Madrona that the same fate had happened to them. She’d seen evidence of wildlife on many of the planets, too. Elks, deer, the sound of wolves, the bird on Argos and there were crabs here, too. It wasn’t life that had been erased, it was simply all humans on worlds with a Stargate. Whether it was a deliberate attack or an unfortunate mistake, she couldn’t guess. All she knew was that she had only been spared the attack by a freak accident having been sent forward in time. A freak accident that had left her more than likely, the last woman, no, the last human in existence.

Day 10

It occurred to her, as she chewed miserably on some very stale biscuits and sipped her hot, tasteless coffee two breakfasts later, that although it seemed that all humans had been erased, that wasn’t to say that all sentient beings had been erased.

The lack of humans would have killed all the Goa’uld, along with any Tok’ra stragglers, but over four and a half years in the program she’d come across plenty of other intelligent aliens. The Nox, the Unas, those naked aliens that the Colonel would make hilarious impressions of now and again, and of course- it hit her- the Asgard! Why hadn’t she thought to contact them sooner!?

After confirming the gate’s vicinity to be safe by MALP, already geared up and readied, she gated to K’Tau, making the familiar mile-or-so walk to the village just as she had done six months previously from her perspective.

As expected, the village was run down and there were no signs of life. This time she didn’t even bother to check the inside of the houses. Making her way to the far end of the village, she gasped to see that the steeple of the church-like temple had fallen down, but thankfully the main inside structure was still standing, though barely, despite a couple of fallen roof beams. Having to duck under one, she walked along the aisle among the pews to reach the still-standing stone obelisk where she could enter Freyr’s Hall of Wisdom. She didn’t miss the fresh piles of what seemed to be the droppings of a rather sizeable animal about a meter to the left of the obelisk. Just like Earth, the local wildlife certainly hadn't been shy about reclaiming their territory after the absence of the humans, and this animal was probably big, and likely still close by, judging by the condition of the droppings and the patches of brown fur she now noticed had been shed on the pews. Some pews, she saw, also bore scratchings and markings. Hearing no movement, however, she took a gamble and activated the obelisk by touching the orange button, and out came a beam of light, engulfing her.

She next found herself in the dark cave she’d previously visited. Flicking on her P90’s light and gathering her bearings, she startled as the tall hologram of the Viking-looking Freyr appeared, beginning its recorded speech. Aiming her torchlight to behind the projector just as she had done not so long ago, she pulled the control panel open, switching off the hologram and signalling Freyr. However, the projector plate stood still and dark, and no Asgard appeared. She turned on the hologram and off again, hoping to get an Asgard’s attention. When five full minutes passed and nothing had happened, despite switching between the hologram and the signalling position several times, she replaced the stone to allow the Viking hologram to finish its previous speech. Once it had ended, the beaming light shone, and she was safely returned standing before the obelisk in the temple once again. She would have to try again another day.

Skulking out the temple quietly, feeling disheartened, she set off to return back to the gate, until a sight drew her attention that made her stop. A flock of birds had gathered at several colourful trees just beyond the village. Taking out her binoculars, she could make out that they were fruit-bearing trees, the tallest ones of which were arranged in rows of what might have been an orchard, though shorter trees of all sizes had now grown interspersed between the taller, organized rows. She recalled the apple-like fruit she’d used to explain to the Colonel her idea of introducing the superheavy Maclarium element into the sun after she’d accidentally red-shifted it, and with any luck, she might get to taste the fruit this time. With a spring in her step, she made a bee-line for the overgrown orchard, the green and red round fruit soon coming into sight. These were definitely the same fruit, and she felt incredibly grateful to have found them growing in season at this time. She hadn’t had fresh food in a week and a half! She didn’t hesitate to chase off the birds, and helped herself to a ripe-looking, red one, checking it wasn’t infested by alien bugs. Satisfied, she sank her teeth into the fruit’s flesh, savouring the juicy fruit and sweet taste. It might have been the tastiest apple she’d ever tasted! Grabbing a few other ripe, untouched alien apples and stowing them in her pack, she leisurely returned to the gate, munching on her apple. At least this mission hadn’t been a total bust.

Chapter Text

Grabbing a few other ripe, untouched alien apples and stowing them in her pack, she leisurely returned to the gate, munching on her apple. At least this mission hadn’t been a total bust.

Day 11

The next morning, geared up and ready for her second try at contacting the Asgard from K’Tau, she decided she’d try dialling the Nox homeworld first. The Asgard would be preferable and more likely to help her, but after yesterday’s failure to contact them, there was no harm trying the Nox homeworld first. As the kawoosh formed, she also quickly threw in the leftover apple cores and two empty packs of MRes from last night’s dinner and that morning’s breakfast. Molecular disintegration was, after all, the most efficient and eco-friendly garbage disposal system. Not much to her surprise, however, after two failed connections to dial the Nox’s homeworld, she figured they must still have their gate buried from when they’d done so after the Triad.

Onwards, she instead dialled and went through to K’Tau, noticing that the Temple looked more slanted and precariously standing than yesterday. Activating the Obelisk, another ten minutes’ later with yet again no answer from Freyr, or any other Asgard for that matter, she gave up and left the Temple, noting the additional scratch marks on the wooden structure inside. Filling up her pack with more fresh alien apples from the old orchard on the way home, she headed home.

Day 13

On the fourth day of her now daily trip to K’Tau to try to contact the Asgard and gather the tasty fruit, at her approach to the temple she detected a loud, scratching sound coming from inside. Weapon at the ready, she stealthily approached the entranceway to spy what she could only describe as a ginormous cross between a grizzly bear and a boar, scraping its huge front claws into one of the wooden pillars of the wall. It suddenly turned and she instantly ducked out of sight, thinking it had sensed her, but it merely started grinding its back against the wood, the whole structure above her head giving a shudder under the strength of the beast. Thank god it hadn’t detected her, but she could sense that the temple probably wouldn’t last much longer, and if it collapsed, there would probably be nothing she could do alone to dig out the obelisk, assuming it would even survive. It would be too heavy to consider carrying it out even if she could make a distraction and spook the animal outside. But who knew if there were other beasts nearby, too? Painfully aware that she didn’t have her usual three team members with her as back up, she had no choice but to prioritize her life over saving the entrance to the Hall of Wisdom, and made a hasty retreat back to the gate and the safety of the Alpha Site, bringing the MALP back with her this time. K’Tau was off the list.

Unfortunately, her next, and last, effort to contact the Asgard would now fall to Cimmeria. Cimmeria had a far cooler climate than K’Tau, much denser brush, and was a considerably further walk from the gate to the hologram room where she could try to contact Thor. If memory served, it would take a three hour round-trip to walk from the gate to Thor’s Hall of Might and back even if she could easily find the way. It would be a huge risk, and she certainly didn’t fancy trekking alone in a thick forest without her teammates watching her back. There would be a high risk of encountering even more wildlife there, and she was still a bit on edge from the K’tau grizzly boar encounter, too.

Sitting in the commissary, eating more dried biscuits and a power bar, she pondered her options. Unfortunately, they were few. She either contacted the Asgard, or...no that was all she could come up with. She'd have no choice but to press on, despite the danger. She was out of other options, for now, at least.

Sending the MALP that she’d left in the Gate Room after her return from K’Tau back through to Cimmeria this time, the telemetry showed that while the other side looked safe, with clear but passable 50F weather, unfortunately it was night time on the planet. She’d have to wait several hours until sun up to gate through. Deciding to spend the time repacking her supplies to be more suitable to the terrain, adding in additional ropes and a decent-sized axe in case she needed to cut down shrubbery or trees, an extra emergency blanket, a tent and a waterproof tarp. She also decided to check the database to print out the hand-drawn map to the Hall of Might that Daniel had made. Under normal circumstances, she thought she could probably find the way herself, but the path she knew was now likely overgrown and the terrain would be different. The Cimmerians hadn’t developed cement or more permanent infrastructure, and she expected she might need some help locating the Hall by herself.

Redialling six hours later, the MALP feed confirmed that the Cimmerian sun had risen. It was mission time. Gating through and headed in what she remembered to be the direction of the Hall of Might, far East of the village settlement, she quickly became enshrouded by the thick forest. It was slow going, painstakingly wading through thick brush, the path below that she remembered had, as she had anticipated, been entirely hidden by the underbrush. She had to rely on her compass readings and the occasional sightings of the sun through the dense canopy above to keep track of her bearing. An hour later, and still no sign of the Hall, her body began tiring of the constant pumping of adrenaline as she strained with constant vigilance for the detection of any movement of animals or threats. It truly sank in, now, how much she had always relied on her teammates out in the field. She and her teammates could wordlessly rely on each other to cover each corner, to perceive any threat in an instant, and protect each other at the face of danger. Now, she had to work four times as hard to be on the lookout for any sign of a threat, and any mistake, any missed sign could be fatal. No one would come looking for her.

After a further hour, her pace was slowed even more when a light rain began to fall. She finally had to accept that she was lost. Rain clouds had completely hidden the sun, and despite knowing the position of the gate from her compass, she’d lost sense of which way the Hall of Might would be from this location. The map hadn’t been useful without any of the paths visible anymore, either. She decided that she could either turn back and give up for the day, or press on. Knowing that it was still early morning on the planet, and that she still had plenty of time before darkness approached, she decided to continue on. But first, she’d need a better vantage. Stopping to retrieve the climbing rope she’d packed, she nimbly tied up a harness, helping her deftly climb the tree despite the dampness of the trunk from the light rain.

Although from the ground level the view was nothing but the same thick brush, miraculously, high up from the tree line she could see where the path to the village had been carved into the forest.

“Thank you,” she said into the rain. She could see with her binoculars that there was a clearing beyond it where the village must be, and she could make out the mountain behind it where she had had to walk far, led by Kendra, to reach the Colonel and Teal’c, trapped behind Thor’s Hammer. Looking to the east of the clearing at the foot of the mountain, she knew the Hall to be around a forty minute walk, or about three and a half clicks through the forest in that direction. Unfortunately, as far as she knew, that path hadn’t been as often used and hadn’t been as well-trampled, leaving nature to successfully reclaim this part of the forest, hiding the way. But she could approximate the distance she’d need to walk in that direction from years of field work. Emboldened, she climbed back down the tree and pressed on in the direction needed, keeping the compass needle in the same direction. She only needed to climb a tree one further time as she neared the approximate location before she was able to pick out a hint of a clearing. Making her way there, sure enough, the small Asgard obelisk came into view.

“Thank god!” she said, rushing towards it, not even hesitating to push the button and be beamed into the hall and out of the rain.

The inside of the cave she was transported to was dark and cold, but at least it was dry. She’d had to walk more than two hours in the rain to get here; four hours total. It was a miracle she hadn’t encountered any animals larger than a bird or squirrel-like creature she’d seen scurrying in the branches occasionally. Brushing off the rain from her cap, the towering hologram of the viking form of Thor appeared, lighting up the darkness, beginning to boom its message. Again, as on K’Tau, despite disrupting the hologram, there was no incoming contact from the real Thor, or any other Asgard at all. Considering how far she’d come, she decided to wait half an hour this time. She needed a break from all the walking anyway. Perhaps Thor was in the bathroom? Or asleep? Did the Asgard even use bathrooms or sleep, she wondered to herself. But just like on K’tau, there was no sign of the Asgard at all.

Reluctantly allowing the Hall to beam herself out, she thought to leave a spare radio switched on at the base of the obelisk, hidden under some leaves to protect it from the rain. Its batteries should last several days, and this would allow her to locate the position easier next time she tried.

On her return the rain suddenly turned torrential, and she ended up wading through mud under a dripping canopy. Despite walking in a straight line back to the gate, following the compass direction, the going was so incredibly rough through the squelching ground that it was well after midnight Alpha Site time when she finally made it back safely through the gate, completely disheartened and utterly exhausted. At the base of the ramp, she simply dumped her soaked pack and supplies onto the Gate Room floor, headed straight for the shower room, then practically fell into bed, asleep in seconds.

Chapter Text

At the base of the ramp, she simply dumped her soaked pack and supplies onto the Gate Room floor, headed straight for the shower room, then practically fell into bed, asleep in seconds.

Day 14

She woke up the next day late, still feeling lethargic and tired from the previous days’ hike, as well as feeling completely lost and alone. She hadn’t spoken to another person in two entire weeks. She hadn’t been able to make contact with either the Nox or the Asgard and get any form of help, and she still had no clue whatsoever what had happened to everyone. The sinking realization of how vulnerable she had been alone off-world on Cimmeria had seeped in, too. She needed her teammates. She missed them terribly. She missed having anyone to talk to. Feeling low, she couldn’t even summon the energy to get out of bed. She simply lay on her back, twirling the combat bracelet on her wrist in self-comfort, thinking of the Colonel.

”Up and at ‘em, Carter,” she could almost hear him say in his brisk voice, ordering her out of bed.

“Sorry, Sir, not today,” she uttered aloud, turning her head to speak to his image in the photo from Cassie’s birthday.

Flickering her eyes to again study the features on Cassie’s face instead, it occurred to her for the first time that she had met Cassie as an aged woman in the future. How, then, had it been possible for her to die only aged eighteen? How could she have saved SG-1 in the first place by sending them back to their own time? It didn’t seem to make sense. She pondered the paradox momentarily, until it hit her that she, herself, had been removed from her time. But still, wouldn’t the paradox with Cassie have taken that into account? Future Cassie would have known that she’d disappear in the future, right? Or she thought, as an astounding revelation occurred to her, the fact that Cassie had needed to age to save her in the future was surely proof that everyone wasn’t really dead? Or, that it meant that there must be a way for her to bring everyone back, right? Hope began to trickle back into her system. She couldn’t give up on trying to contact the Asgard. They were the likeliest way for her to undo what had happened. She was sure of it.

It was later that afternoon when she’d finally summoned the motivation to get herself out of bed, desperately needing to relieve herself by now. Her appetite had returned, too, and she hurriedly headed to the officer’s room to make use of the microwave and heat up a late lunch-cum-early dinner, before heading to the mud-stained Gate Room to pick apart the still soggy contents of her pack in the Gate Room from yesterday's mission. After wringing out her sleeping bag, and shaking out the wet tarp, which sent a spray of water across the ramp, she lay them down on the floor, setting out everything that needed to dry out. The washable items, including the pack itself, and her dirt-sodden clothes got dumped into a laundry machine. She spared a thought for the base personnel whose job it was to sort through and clean the SG teams’ kits when they got back. It had been a tedious job, and by the time all was cleaned up and hung to dry, the day was almost over.

Day 15

Her plan to visit Cimmeria again today was thwarted by scenes of thunder and lightning sent back by the MALP she’d left behind. The heavy rain had worsened further into an incredible monsoon, flooding the entire vicinity of the gate. She would have no choice but to give it a few days before trying again to allow the forest a chance to dry out.

Stuck on the base having to wait it out before she could get back to her mission, the time began to drag incredibly slowly. She wasted some time going through the rest of the food inventory, rejoicing at discovering some packs of powdered gelatin. It had been an absolute scandal to find that the Alpha Site hadn’t been stocked with any jell-o, but that wasn’t going to deter her from trying to mix up her own version of her favourite dessert. She minced the last three of her K’Tau apples in a blender, extracting the juice, then warmed it in a large mixing bowl, adding the gelatin powder. Finally, she placed the whole lot into the surprisingly still-working smaller fridge in the commissary dessert area that she’d had to clear out and clean to remove the terrible smell when she’d first arrived. Even after forty years, like her house on Earth, the back kitchen area still carried a lingering bad smell. The other, larger, fridges back there she’d ended up mentally designating as hazardous waste. She wasn’t going to even think of opening those.

She’d have to wait a few hours for her attempt at jell-o to set, so she decided that she couldn’t put off reading the rest of SG-1’s mission reports sat on the hard drive in Colonel Pierce’s office any longer. They’d been weighing heavily on her mind the last week or so, but she hadn’t been able to face reading them after the shock of learning of Daniel’s, Bra’tac and her father’s deaths. On top of still struggling to come to terms with the death of the entire human race, it had seemed too much. Knowing that Janet's death would come up, too, as well as the unknown of what other terrible things she would likely learn, had filled her with dread each time she'd thought about reading the rest of them. Reading the reports had made her feel so helpless, as well as guilty, that she hadn’t been there to help or to support them. Knowing there would be nothing but the dismal lead up to the end of the human race. Having said that, though, a tiny sense of hope had started to grow within her, too. She’d been saved in the future. There had to be a way to undo what had happened, right? She also couldn’t deny that there was a possibility that there might be valuable information contained in the reports, too. A potential ally that the SGC had met later on after her disappearance who might be willing to help her if she was unable to contact the Asgard. Or perhaps a clue as to what had led to the disappearance of all humans. Or there might even be some information pertaining to a piece of technology that could counter what had happened.

“Let’s do this,” she said aloud, deciding she couldn’t put it off any longer. She entered the office and sat down at the desk, starting up Dr. Weir’s laptop, the connected hard drive’s yellow light flickering as it hummed to life.

Aside from a couple of basic, fruitless recon missions following the loss of Teal’c’s symbiote and Bra’tac’s death, the first report that stood out had occurred a mere two weeks later. Daniel- her heart had given a huge jolt to read his name- had appeared to Teal’c, advising him of Anubis’ plan to visit Abydos to search for the last ‘Eye’. She recalled reading that Anubis had used these ‘Eyes’ to wipe out the Tok’ra homebase, including her father. It turned out that the named ‘Eyes of the Goa’uld’ were in fact a super-weapon that housed six individual crystal-like power sources. The Colonel- her heart had leapt a second time to read his name- had come out of retirement to assist the mission, but unfortunately he had been unable to prevent Jonas Quinn from being captured and presumably killed by Anubis in the scramble for the jewel hidden in the pyramid. To her further shock, she read on to learn that Anubis had taken the ‘Eye’, and the remaining members of SG-1 had barely escaped the planet in time before Abydos had been obliterated by the weapon. She couldn’t imagine how the Colonel must have felt to witness all the Abydonian’s deaths, including Skaara, whom he’d always seen as a second son. It was somewhat comforting to read, though, that all the Abydonians had been ascended by the being Oma Desala, the same ascended being who’d helped Daniel.

Daniel must have de-ascended and become mortal soon afterwards, as his name appeared as a member of SG-1 in the very next mission report, replacing Jonas Quinn. Despite searching, she couldn’t find his reason for returning to the mortal plane written in the base computers. She wondered if, like Orlin, he had simply chosen to return to being a human. Maybe the destruction of Abydos had proven too much? Maybe he’d wanted revenge? Orlin had told her that ascended beings had rules that prohibited them from interfering with those beneath. Perhaps Daniel had been bound by similar rules, she wondered, though she found it puzzling that Oma had again gotten away with flouting the rules to ascend the Abydonians.

Moving on, the next several reports were again of a simple nature. Mostly uninhabited worlds, though here and there SG-1 encountered a few skirmishes with Jaffa belonging to either Ba’al or Anubis, though the members always managed to escape safely. Colonel Reynolds seemed to be a good, tactical leader for the team, and she could also see that Hailey had indeed turned out to be a good successor to her. Perhaps due to her small size, she had a knack for pulling off good shots and getting through firefights unscathed. In addition, just like herself, she, too, seemed to have had a similar penchant for coming up with last minute saves. She almost began to read the reports with a tinge of jealousy, though she’d never been the jealous type. No, she reassured herself, it wasn’t envy from wanting the glory of being the heroine and saving the day. It was a simple longing stemming from her loneliness that she’d missed out on these team adventures with Daniel and Teal’c. She missed being in the thick of the action, being given the same scientific puzzle-solving opportunities, and scraping out of fights for her life as they had. Having said that, she couldn’t doubt that her being sent into the future had thrown her into possibly the largest galactic puzzle of all to solve.

Squashing her feelings, she continued on with the reports. She reminded herself that she needed to stay objective; this was information gathering, not a melancholic window into the adventures of her long-dead friends. She read of a diplomatic dispute with a group of Unas that Daniel had dealt with, and then... she finally came to it. Janet’s sudden death in a Jaffa ambush off-world. Helping an injured SG member off-world, in the line of duty, a single staff weapon blast had instantly killed her. It had been so pointless and unfair. While trying to save another life, at that. It hurt so much to think of Cassie, and how she must have suffered with her grief at the sudden death of her second mother. At least Daniel had come back, but she and Janet never had. She also couldn’t prevent her mind from wondering to thoughts of, if she and the Colonel had been there on the team instead of Reynolds and Hailey, whether her death might have been prevented?

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, Cass,” she whispered with a sigh and a sniff, and she stood up to take a break from reading to go blow her nose and check up on the status of the jell-o.

Day 16

Early next morning, spooning mouthfuls of the colourless and slightly apple-tasting jell-o, the texture sufficient to satisfy her craving, she’d summoned the energy to get back to finishing the reports. Following her first bowlful of jell-o for dinner the previous night, she’d ended up deciding to take the night off from reading, playing solitaire with a pack of playing cards she'd found, trying to take her mind off the guilt.

Feeling mostly refreshed from her long, though somewhat fitful sleep after turning in early, she was determined to get to the end of the mission reports while the mega-storm continued to rage on Cimmeria.

Teal’c’s efforts to continue with his recruitment of Rebel Jaffa, despite the loss of Bra’tac and hundreds of lives in the recent attack, took a further blow when she read that Drey’auc and Rya’c had been captured. He’d left the team to search for them off-world, but from what she could ascertain, he had returned to the SGC after a couple of months having never found them.

“That’s so awful Teal’c, I’m so sorry,” she said aloud to the laptop monitor. She couldn’t imagine his grief and pain having recently lost Bra’tac on top, as well as Janet and his former teammate Jonas Quinn within such a short period.

As she continued to read on, as she had dreaded, the reports painted a picture of a bleaker and bleaker state of the galaxy. It seemed that Anubis had used his new technological advantage to begin an all-out assault on his fellow System Lords using the ‘Eyes of the Goa’uld’. There seemed to be few allies available to the SGC; there was no more contact from the few remaining Tok’ra, there was no mention of any new allies made, and Teal’c only seemed to have a few ten Jaffa remaining loyal to his cause. From those few spies working within the System Lords’ ranks, the SGC had learned of the destruction of the system lords named Morrigan and Bastet, whose names she recognized listed in the report she’d read long ago back on Earth of Daniel and her father’s infiltration of the System Lord summit. Teal’c wrote in the report that he suspected a great many more powerful and high-ranking Goa’uld had likely been on the receiving end of Anubis’ attacks, but from their position they could only garner a small glimpse of the state of the galaxy. She also noticed that the Asgard had been strangely absent, but perhaps their attention had been turned to their war with the Replicators in their own galaxy. She hoped that the android SG-1 had discovered and had given to them had proven useful.

In one of the last reports, she learned that Ba’al had recently declared himself Leader of the United System Lords. She was very impressed that the other remaining Goa’uld had banded together. It must have taken a truly evil common enemy to make them overcome their long-standing wars and infighting to unite. But soon afterwards, Teal'c was informed by an off-world informant that Anubis had successfully defeated most of Ba’al’s key planets with his superweapon and claimed Ba’al’s entire territory and remaining army. In the fallout, Teal’c’s group of Rebel Jaffa had finally suddenly grown to a large number as the System Lords had fallen one by one. Some she guessed had wanted revenge for their god, and many likely banded together out of fear of Anubis. However, the fast swelling of the ranks of the Rebel Jaffa campaign had become chaotic with a lack of supplies, leadership and consensus on strategy. She was surprised to learn that Teal’c had suffered a loss for leadership, and what must have been a last-ditch attempt, he had travelled to a planet with ceremonial significance to all Jaffa named Dakara hoping to unite the Jaffa, but that was where the reports had come to an abrupt end.

The most likely explanation that she could come up with was that Anubis had somehow created a weapon that targeted humans. But how could he have possibly attacked them all, seemingly at or around the same time? How could he have ensured his own armies and himself were unharmed? Did that mean that Anubis now had control of all former Goa’uld-occupied planets? Was he out there, with an army of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Jaffa that had had forty years to expand and build countless ships controlling the entire galaxy? It was a terrifying thought that she might not be alone at all, but in fact was surrounded by enemies, and had simply been lucky to avoid detection so far. But she couldn’t answer these questions from her small perspective. She still felt strongly that her best bet would be to continue with her efforts to contact the Asgard. They would surely, considering their observation of planets falling under the Protected Planets’ Treaty, know what had happened to the people of K’Tau, Cimmeria, and even Earth.

Chapter Text

She still felt strongly that her best bet would be to continue with her efforts to contact the Asgard. They would surely, considering their observation of planets falling under the Protected Planets’ Treaty, know what had happened to the people of K’Tau, Cimmeria, and even Earth.

Day 21

It was lunchtime, five days since the washout on Cimmeria had begun, that the MALP finally indicated that from what she could tell, the sky was clear and the forest had had time to dry out sufficiently for a second attempt at contacting Thor.

Sadly, despite her patience and all her precautions, the battery in the radio she had placed to help her locate the obelisk must have run out or become waterlogged, because after stepping through, she couldn’t pick up its location signal.

“Damn.” She would have to rely on memory and her tree-climbing navigation strategy once again.

Fortunately, luck seemed to be on her side this time, because it only took her an hour and a half to find the obelisk, despite the fact that all of her trail signs had been washed away. Searching around the base of the obelisk, the radio she’d hidden must have been washed away in the flood, as there was no sign of it. Touching the button to activate the transporter, she was beamed into the cool, dark cave once again, but unfortunately her attempt at contacting Thor was completely fruitless despite trying for thirty minutes. It was beyond disheartening to receive no answer. She was risking her life to come all the way here, and she couldn’t understand why the Asgard weren’t answering her calls. They’d just always seemed omnipresent, and always able to save the day when needed. They’d helped the Colonel when he’d had the Ancient database downloaded into his brain. Thor had saved the Cimmerians when Heru’ur had come to claim the planet. She was also ninety-percent sure they’d saved K’Tau when she’d accidentally shifted the output spectrum of the sun towards infra-red. Hell, she herself had saved them once, even. How was it that they were suddenly unreachable now? Was it possible that they knew of the attack on all humans, and weren’t monitoring the galaxy anymore? Had they simply turned off their communications receivers? She didn’t know what to do next.

Still undecided as to whether she’d return or not, she planted a second radio in a more stable and better-hidden position just in case, and began the trek home. Her luck must have all been used up on the easy walk in, however, as the return journey proved to be a complete doozy.

“Ah, fuck!” she couldn’t help shout out as she stupidly tumbled over a root and twisted her ankle less than twenty minutes into the walk back. The pain was immense, and she took a moment to lean against a tree, taking her weight off her now throbbing ankle, the shock of the injury setting in and making her feel nauseous. She had to take several deep breaths to try to stave off the incredible pain and get her brain to focus on her surroundings. She couldn’t afford to stop moving and rest up, completely alone on an alien planet. Besides, it would take days for her sprain to even begin to improve. There was no way she could risk staying past nightfall, either, when there was no knowing what nocturnal animals may be lurking in the forest. She’d have to press on.

Fishing out a multi-purpose support brace from her pack- she always made sure to pack at least one extra as the Colonel often seemed to nick his joints on something more often than not- she slipped it on, forcing herself to put weight on the injury, hobbling through the harsh, obstacle-ridden terrain. She couldn’t afford to give herself a dose of morphine as she needed all her focus to stay alert for any dangers around her, so she instead chose to wash down simple, low-dose painkillers every two hours together with gulps of her water canteen. The pain each individual step cost her as she limped back was unbearable, and it had ended up taking seven agonizing hours to safely make it back to the gate, barely just in time before the sun had fallen.

Finally back safely through the gate, dumping her pack on the ramp once again just as she had done on her last return, she used up her remaining strength to crawl her way through the base to the darkened infirmary, taking her weight off her foot, almost glad for once that there were no personnel around to see her child-like movements. She heaved herself up onto the gurney near the door, vaguely considering taking an X-Ray of her foot before her exhaustion hit a breaking point and she found herself completely unable to move any further. She simply lay still, thinking how her injury only further instilled the desperate isolation of her situation. She’d had no back up. No General Hammond gating in, hailing her on her radio, asking why she was late for the scheduled check-in. If she hadn’t been able to get back, despite the SGC’s unofficial motto, she most certainly would have been left behind. She had in some ways already been left behind. Left alone as likely the last human alive in the galaxy, and now her situation had just worsened. She was injured, and it was too risky to continue to try to contact the Asgard.

Her last feeling before passing out on the infirmary bed was one of hopelessness. She’d used up her last option.

Chapter Text

Her last feeling before passing out on the infirmary bed was one of hopelessness. She’d used up her last option.

Day 22

She woke up shivering and completely disorientated. She could feel the cold of a hard floor pressed against her cheeks, draining the heat from her body. She had no idea where she was. Reaching out a hand in front of her in the semi-darkness, her hand clasped round a small, metal… wheel? Reaching upwards and lifting her head she made out the glint of a metal rail in the low light. She was grasping the base of an infirmary bed. Her bearings came back to her; she was on the floor, face-down in the infirmary.

“Janet?!” she called out, finding her throat hoarse and sore, her head suddenly throbbing hard. What had happened? As she moved to pull herself to stand, an intense shooting pain from her ankle struck, and in a flash, the memory of the previous day came back. She’d fallen and injured herself on Cimmeria. She must have passed out on the infirmary gurney and fallen off at some point later. She hadn’t changed out of her sweat-soaked clothes or brushed her teeth. It was no wonder she was cold and her throat now hurt.

Looking at her watch, she saw that it was 08:00 hours. She couldn’t have been out more than four hours considering how late she recalled getting back. Thank god she’d moved the crutches to a more accessible place when she’d sorted out the infirmary supplies, though in hindsight, she probably should have put them in the Gate Room. Limping to the crutches leaning against the back wall, she grabbed them, and made use of them as she hobbled towards the med kit of painkillers she’d set up for herself in case of such an emergency, and injected herself with a stab of morphine. She wouldn’t need a clear head now that she was safely back on base, and she’d welcome the mind-clouding and drowsiness-causing side-effects if they could take away the pain of her god-awful situation in addition to the incredible throbbing from both her head and ankle.

With the pain in her ankle soon lessened to a bearable degree, she managed to make it to the main locker room with the aid of her crutches, changing her clothes gingerly, being careful with her ankle, and brushing her teeth. She gulped down some of the tap water from the sink, before slowly making her way through the corridors to her quarters. Despite the physical effort, she still couldn’t get warm. Retrieving the Colonel’s sweatshirt from under her pillow where she’d been keeping it, she pulled it on over her head, keeping the hood on, and this time made sure to cover herself with her warm blanket before curling up into her bed.

She woke up another four hours later, according to her watch, still feeling cold. This time at least she’d managed to stay in the bed, but she recognized that feeling of malaise and discomfort that accompanied a fever. She felt clammy and could feel that she'd sweat a lot in her sleep. She’d definitely over-strained herself on the mission yesterday, and her body had been weakened. Maybe she'd picked up a bug in the forest on the way back. Damn.

Unable to get comfortable at all or fall back asleep, she had no choice but to get up. She chose to make her way back to the infirmary, having decided to give herself an X-Ray to check that she hadn’t hairline fractured her ankle. She wished so badly that there were medical staff there helping her, Janet especially. It was miserable having to help herself, especially when she felt so unwell and weak. The pounding in her head was dire, and figuring out the X-Ray machine was taking all the concentration she could muster. She knew she could put it off for later, and she could practically hear Janet’s voice in her head admonishing her and telling her to get off her feet and take it easy, but she needed to know now how much damage she’d done to herself.

“Yeah, I know. Just let me do this then I promise I’ll put my feet up.”

Fortunately, studying the scan once she’d completed the X-Ray, there was no sign of any fracture.

“Just an ankle sprain. Take it easy, right, Janet?”

She was no doctor, but field medical training and personal experience told her that she was facing at least a week, probably more like two, of rest to allow her ankle time to recover. As the last human alive, being in optimal health was a top priority, and she would have to stand down for now.

“You’d be proud of me. I’m actually gonna put my health first for once like you always asked.”

She’d always been berated by her friend for working late into the night, skipping meals and becoming a little carried away with her projects, often sidelining her own health. “Just wish you were to help me now. I have to say, I feel like total crap,” she said, rubbing her throbbing forehead.

She slowly made her way to the commissary for what was now lunch time, polishing off the remainder of the homemade jell-o, and fixing up herself a cup of hot, stale coffee. She wasn’t sure how much caffeine would be leftover in coffee that was forty years past its expiry, but it would probably serve just as well as a placebo to lessen her headache.

Knowing there was a lot of time to pass while her ankle healed, and knowing she’d need to take it easy with her fever, she decided to raid some guest quarters to seek out anything to dull her mind. Though she hadn’t known him personally as he must have joined the program after her disappearance, she was pleased to find a portable DVD player in Lieutenant Mecker’s quarters, who had a rather decent movie collection. Their tastes weren’t exactly aligned, but it would be enough to stave off insanity, at least.

Day 29

It had now been more than four long weeks of solitude and Sam was feeling restless and incredibly desperate for any form of real conversation. As a woman of action, being forced to take it easy, doing nothing but sitting around for prolonged periods of time, playing with the Colonel’s yo-yo, a pack of cards and watching sci-fi movies with ridiculous plots had made her feel irritable and agitated. She’d actually ended up hurling the DVD box case of ‘Signs’ in anger for its dissatisfactory conclusion.

"Their weakness is water? You've got to be kidding me!" she'd shouted at the screen.

She’d never been much of a movie or tv-watcher, but she definitely missed movie nights with the guys. Hell, she’d happily watch Star Wars ten times in a row with Teal’c if it meant she could have his company. She missed the Colonel making references to The Simpsons at any opportunity, and calling her Dorothy, too. She was glad she hadn’t found a DVD of either of those in anyone’s quarters, as she was sure the sight of either would have made her burst into tears.

While her body was having to take it easy, that hadn’t stopped her mind from constantly racing with the continued lack of stimulation. She desperately needed to form her next plan of action and start working towards that goal. She couldn’t stay in this limbo state any longer before she’d start losing her mind. At least resting up for an entire week had given her plenty of thinking time.

For now, it looked like the Asgard were off the list. It was a shame they’d had to use the power booster device that the Colonel had built using Ancient knowledge to save the alternate universe. As far as she knew, Area 51 had never managed to re-construct a new one from the specs and scans taken of the original. She could also find no evidence in the base logs of any alternate power source that would allow her to dial an eighth chevron.

All humans, of course, were out of the question. Any Tok’ra, Goa’uld or Jaffa with their human physiology not on Anubis’ side wouldn’t have been invulnerable to that white bubble light, so they were out, too. So what other friendly, non-human populations or people did she know of that potentially had the technology to help her?

She thought of the Unas slaves she’d recently, at least from her own perspective, helped free, but imagined that if the slave traders had been vanished by the weapon, they likely wouldn’t be friendly towards her, nor did they have any technology of use to her.

Then there was the human android, Harlan. He would certainly have survived, and he might certainly have useful technology despite the rundown laboratory. But was she desperate enough to gate there? He’d certainly be company, though she wasn’t sure if she could take more than a few hours of his Comtraya-ing no matter how desperate she was for conversation. Okay, she’d make going to visit Harlan Plan… Z.

Then there was Nem, the sea creature who’d kidnapped Daniel. He would have survived, but she couldn’t trust him. And there were the Spirit aliens from Tonane’s planet, too, but she couldn’t trust them, either.

Then of course there was the Nox. The fact that she couldn’t dial their homeworld was most likely due to the fact that the Nox had deliberately hidden or buried their gate. Even if their gate had been dial-able, they would certainly have survived the galaxy-wide attack due to their non-human physiology. Yes, the Nox would certainly be her next best bet following the Asgard. They’d been, or still were as far as she knew, a member of the Four Great Races. She had only been given a small glimpse of the Nox’s technological abilities when she’d visited- they’d shown her their flying city- and she'd also experienced first-hand their psychic and healing abilities. They must have been worthy of standing alongside the Ancient gate builders and the Asgard. She had to get to them. Unlike the Asgard, who were completely out of reach in another galaxy, the Nox resided here in the Milky Way. That was practically on her doorstep on a cosmic scale, she reminded herself. Just because she couldn’t gate to the Nox homeworld, it certainly wasn’t out of her power to reach their planet. All she’d need to do would be to gate to the nearest Goa’uld-occupied planet to the Nox homeworld, steal a ship capable of hyperspace and fly to the Nox’s homeworld. The Nox had the ability to camouflage themselves and there was a chance that her sensors may not be able to detect their flying city, but they would surely be able to pick up a message if she transmitted one. She also knew them to be pacifists, and she was confident that they would not attack a Goa’uld ship approaching the planet without communicating with it.

Hobbling her way to the Control Room, still using the set of crutches, she set to work finding the location of the Nox’s homeworld on a star chart, then searched for the nearest Goa’uld occupied-world that was likely to have a ship. She saw that the Nox had chosen their homeworld well. It lay on the far edge of the galaxy on one of the less planet-dense galactic arms, outside the domain of any Goa’uld. She saw that the closest planets to there with stargates had gate addresses that they’d obtained from the Ancient database, not from the Goa’uld cartouche. Those wouldn’t have any ships she could fly. She raised her eyebrow as she recognized the red-designated planet P9C-372 that had been included in the search results. She’d never forget the horrendous experience of being trapped in her own body when an electrical entity from there had invaded her body.

Expanding her search, it seemed that the nearest planet known to the Goa’uld that was likely to have a ship looked to be P1D-555. This planet had been taken off the mission rota after Tok’ra intel had deemed it too dangerous to visit. It was said to be a highly guarded planet under the control of the System Lord Yu. Now, however, with the effects of the weapon, any Jaffa or Goa’uld that had been living there should now be long-dead, and its ships and technology left behind for her taking. If she could get a cargo ship from there and fly it at max speed, she estimated that it would take her roughly twenty-four hours to reach the Nox Homeworld. That was more than reasonable.

But…what if Anubis’ forces were there? Anubis would have surely seized such an important-seeming planet of Yu’s? What if sending a MALP through would give away that there was a human from Earth still alive? The MALPs were a well-known marker of the Tau’ri. If a MALP was discovered, Anubis, or whomever it had been, might attack her here.

Or would they? As far as she could determine, the Alpha Site's location still remained a secret. The galaxy-wide attack, as best as she could guess, had been indiscriminate. The attacker must have dialled all gates on a list they had, like the cartouche they’d found at Abydos. No SG personnel had been captured near the time of the attack, and Jonas Quinn wouldn’t have known the location of this base when he’d been captured on Abydos. As far as she could guess, she was safe here. But Earth may not be, though. If a MALP was found, Earth would be targeted. She’d never be able to risk going back. Was there anything she could do?

Pondering the problem for a moment, an absurd idea came to her. What if she rebuilt an entire MALP? Made it unrecognizable as being of Earth design, then rigged it to explode if there were indeed Jaffa on the other side, so they would never have a chance to guess who had sent the probe?

She had to admit, a surge of excitement rose in her at the thought of having such a project, even if it was potentially overkill. At the very least, it would serve to keep her mind occupied for the last week of healing her ankle still needed, and if it kept Earth safe, then that would be a bonus.

"Just can’t keep yourself from tinkering with your doohickeys, can you?” she could imagine the Colonel saying to her.

“You know me, Sir,” she grinned aloud, feeling energized from her new plan, before rebuking herself for talking to herself again. She’d noticed she’d started doing that a lot lately. Maybe she was going crazy with all this solitude.

She hobbled straight to the MALP storage room and quickly gathered some tools, eager to get tinkering right away.

Chapter Text

She hobbled straight to the MALP storage room and quickly gathered some tools, eager to get tinkering right away.

Day 36

A week later, late in the afternoon, her mini-MALP was done. She’d allowed the project to consume her, enjoying picking apart the probe, thankful for the distraction from her solitude that it had provided. She hadn’t had much time to work on her old bike before her slip forward in time. Upgrading her Indian had always been a satisfying outlet for her desire to pick things apart when an SG team hadn’t brought back any interesting technology from off-world in a while. She knew Siler would have enjoyed this MALP rebuilding side project almost as much as she had, too; he’d always been on hand to help her with her bike during down-time. She’d also noticed she’d started talking to herself less since she’d started work, which could only be a good thing. Her injury, too, was doing much better with the continued rest, though not perfectly healed.

Her finished probe was, at least to her eyes, now completely unrecognizable as a MALP. While she’d preserved the remote control workings of the wheel traction, everything else had been completely rebuilt from parts of the former MALP itself, scavenged parts from another FRED, a metal shelf, and even a UAV she’d found in storage. She’d completely rebuilt the bottom frame using cutting and welding equipment, and had decided to reduce the size and the number of wheels down to four from six. The entire top had been redesigned and recreated, too. She’d replaced the heavy battery, since her version wouldn’t need to last several decades, flattening the finished version, making it look like a lightweight ladybug, complete with black spots for its two hidden cameras and all the sensors buried in the body. Finally, she’d removed the unnecessary probe claw and arm on the top, and placed inside it two C-4 charges set to detonate remotely if the necessity arose.

Not wanting to wait until the next morning, the mini-MALP was sent straight away on its maiden voyage to P1D-555, zipping up the ramp like a small remote-controlled car. It had turned out surprisingly speedy compared to its bulky, heavy former model. It soon sent through its first off-world telemetry. Displayed on the screen was… darkness, she saw to her dismay. Surely it couldn’t have broken already? It hadn’t been attacked, had it? Tilting up its mini cameras, she soon saw the reason: two large moons had come into view. It was night time on the planet. She’d have to re-dial in about eight hours- about 1am her time- to be sure to get a better picture in the daytime.

“D’oh,” she spoke aloud in an imitation of the Colonel. Panning the camera back down and switching to infra-red, there were no heat sources detected. As far as she could tell, there was no movement or life nearby. It would be a shame to have to blow the mini-MALP she’d worked so hard on when there seemed to be no signs of life. She decided to risk leaving it there for her next dial-in, praying there was no one there to discover it in their morning.

She knew her ankle still wasn’t fully healed, but with her project complete, she could already feel herself starting to go crazy again with boredom. Being continually stuck on the base all alone was making her feel reckless. She couldn’t face waiting a further week for her ankle to fully heal. If the coast looked clear on P1D-555 later tonight, she was going first thing tomorrow, even if that reduced her daylight hours on the other side. She just had to kill another eight hours until then.

-----

She first decided to venture out of the base for the first time since her injury, testing her ankle on the uneven mountainside, spending a couple of hours sitting on the mountaintop above the airstrip, soaking up the last of the evening sun, enjoying the fresh air as she gazed around at the mountainous surroundings.

“Sir, you’d be proud of me for taking this long of a rest,” she said aloud. “I bet you wouldn’t be so bummed out if you were faced with the prospect of being forced to live here for the rest of your life.”

She found herself wondering what his cabin and the Minnesotan surroundings looked like. It pained her to think that she’d never get to see his cabin with the pond he’d often described. She knew she couldn’t ever have, but she wished she could have taken him up on his invitation to go fishing with him. What did he look like off-duty, truly relaxed in his own world? Now she’d never have the chance at being alone with him, far from civilization, out of uniform, maybe even being out of his chain of command after he’d retired...

Tearing her mind from thoughts of the Colonel- they weren’t productive, after all- she set her mind towards what she’d say to the Nox once she contacted them. She wasn’t even sure that they would even know what had happened to the humans of the galaxy, and she wondered what their reaction would be. She recalled that in the Triad, the Nox had remained neutral between Skaara, a human, and Klorel, a Goa’uld. The Nox would probably offer her sympathy and pity, but they may not necessarily choose to take her side against the perpetrator, nor would they even offer to help her find out what had happened. But she had to at least try.

The sun began to set, and needed to return to the Base for safety. She only had six more hours to kill. She knew it was stupid, but in a desperate bid to pass the last bit of time, she’d ended up setting up a board of chess at a table in the empty Mess Hall with Cassie’s photo, imagining she was playing the game with her like they used to every Saturday she was on Earth.

“Bishop to F5,” she voiced aloud, before moving Cassie’s white pawn to E4 to counter herself, imagining her smile smugly, thinking she had a chance at outsmarting her.

She first allowed Cassie to beat her deliberately, before playing a rematch where she allowed herself to win, before pushing the chessboard away, scattering a couple of pieces onto the floor, laying her forehead to rest on the table. Even though it was dinner time, there was no sound other than the dull hum of the ventilation system. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to imagine the chatter of voices and clatter of cutlery of personnel who should be here, busy dining in the Mess at this time. Sometimes the silence was too much.

The final four painstakingly slow hours she passed packing up her trusty backpack, which didn't take her as long as she could have hoped. She was now well-used to preparing for solo off-world missions in various terrains. She also prepped some bulkier supplies to leave in the Gate Room, but her initial mission was to be simple, stealthy recon. She'd have to wait until she could see the other side, however, to finalize her needed supplies, and whether she'd need to bring larger things for a longer-term stay. As midnight finally rolled around, she permitted herself to return to the Control Room and dial P1D-555 again, praying enough time had passed.

To her relief, a low, but bright morning sun could be seen, basking the scenery in an inviting, glowing warmth. She quickly spotted the DHD in the foreground, confirming that she would be able to get back safely. She panned the camera up and around to see that the immediate vicinity of the gate was defended by tall walled, limestone turrets, giving multiple high and low defensible positions for any Jaffa at the Gate, but she couldn't see any movement of any hostiles. Panning the camera to the left, she found a single stoned path leading away from the gate, lined with wooden lanterns, leading to a row of several wide, single-storey Chinese-style buildings. Further in the distance was what appeared to be a village, and beyond that, standing on a raised hill was a magnificent circular, white-walled pagoda palace. Zooming in with the mini-MALP’s front camera, she could make out wide, red pillars supporting its multiple levels of roofs. On the very top of the pointed terracotta roof stood a towering golden metallic symbol of Lord Yu, like a giant weather vane, glinting in the sunlight. The Tok’ra’s intel certainly looked to be correct. This was unquestionably a Goa’uld stronghold that belonged to Yu. While she couldn’t see any ships or airfields from here, she felt confident that she would more than likely be able to find a ship here.

Shutting down the gate, satisfied that she’d still have a go come morning, she set about prepping her mission pack and supplies for the terrain she’d seen, food for at least a two-day journey, though hopefully longer if she successfully contacted the Nox, and then she’d be geared up and ready for ship out in eight hours’ time following a good nights’ sleep.

Chapter Text

Shutting down the gate, satisfied that she’d still have a go come morning, she set about prepping her mission pack and supplies for the terrain she’d seen, food for at least a two-day journey, though hopefully longer if she successfully contacted the Nox, and then she’d be geared up and ready for ship out in eight hours’ time following a good nights’ sleep.

Day 37

Sam woke up after just six hours’ sleep feeling refreshed and excited about her mission today. Her ankle was still a teensy bit tender, but more than healed enough in her opinion to walk on, or even run, if the mission required it. Janet probably wouldn’t have cleared her, but she wasn’t here, and that left herself the chief medical officer on base. She couldn’t face another day stuck on base, so it would have to be healed enough.

An hour before mission time she was already ready and geared up and in the Gate Room, having set the gate to dial Earth. She’d decided last-minute that it might be worth bringing Daniel’s handwritten Goa’uld dictionary along with her. Less than a minute later, she was back at the SGC.

She hadn’t been on Earth for over an entire month, and despite its similarities to the Alpha Site, there was something extremely reassuring about stepping down the ramp of SGC. Here would always be home.

“Thanks for holding the fort, guys,” she said to Daniel and Teal’c’s remains up in the Control Room. “I'm just gonna borrow something from your office if you don’t mind, Daniel.”

Up ten levels, searching through Daniel’s office, she scorned to see that if anything, he’d managed to make it even more disorganized and chaotic than how she remembered it.

“What did you do with the place?” she asked rhetorically. It took her a good ten minutes to track down the crumpled notebook she’d known, now since restrung together by hand. She guessed the thought had never occurred to him to type it up.

At the same time, she made another spontaneous decision to head three levels down to 21 and grab the Goa’uld ribbon device and healing device from the safety box there, too. It wasn’t as though they were of any use to anyone here, and who knew if they would turn out to be useful visiting a Goa’uld-controlled world? Then finally, seeing as there was nothing to lose trying, she also took the opportunity to try the NORAD communications array again. Of course, unsurprisingly, her calls went unanswered.

Safely back at the Alpha Site by mission start time, despite the heaviness of her pack now being weighed down by Daniel’s thick dictionary, her water bottles and food, the Goa'uld devices, along with extra ammunition and medical supplies, she was practically bouncing with excitement at the prospect of finally doing something. Something that would surely end her loneliness.

She checked the mini-MALP to re-confirm that there was still no movement on the other side- which there still wasn’t- and stepped through.

—-

She quickly swept the immediate vicinity, soon finding empty Jaffa uniforms and dropped staff weapons in what seemed to be barracks. The weapon had attacked here, too, and to her relief, as far as she could tell, there was no sign that anyone had been here since.

The outpost, which forty years ago must have been a deadly stronghold of Jaffa, Goa’uld and weapons, now turned out to be an incredibly beautiful and strangely serene place. The architecture was stunning; its sign of ageing and disrepair only adding to the mystery and charm, giving the buildings an ancient and exotic look. She couldn’t help thinking how excited Daniel would have been to have seen this sight. Surely even the Colonel would have been impressed.

Letting down her guard slightly, she re-dialled the Alpha Site and sent the mini-MALP back through to hide the sign of her presence, then returned to walk along the main, chiseled path towards the nearby buildings to search for any sign of a shipyard. Aside from the gravel nestled between the larger stones crunching beneath her feet, there was nothing but silence. Enjoying the tranquility and being off-world and finally doing something, she felt the pent-up frustration she’d held drain away as she drew in the sweet scent of blossoms blooming on the nearby trees. It was incredible to her that here, on the edge of the galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away from Earth, it smelled just like that day sitting outside the NIST building. The day she’d found out how far she’d been sent into the future. It seemed so long ago now. It felt like it had been months, and she thought about how far she’d come and how much she’d learned. Yet, the more she learned, it seemed, the more questions seemed to arise. She still hadn’t confirmed who had done this, and certainly not how, or even why. She still had absolutely no idea what her next step would be if she failed to make contact with the Nox. This was a mission that she couldn’t afford to fail. The prospect of never again seeing or speaking with another human was sometimes unbearably overwhelming.

Continuing on, becoming more and more confident that there was no danger here, her ears caught the sound of running water. Setting her weapon to the side, she idly twirled her combat bracelet as she came to a beautiful, small red bridge crossing a stream teeming with golden carp. As she watched them coil and splash, a light breeze brushed against her cheek, and couldn’t help but notice a strange sense of comfort wash over her. The wind continued on, rustling the nearby trees, and she was immediately reminded of the sound of rain from the backyard of her childhood home.

“Look at you now, Sam,” she spoke aloud to her younger self with a small smile. “You always wanted to go into space, and now we’re here, on the far side of the galaxy, looking to steal a spaceship.”

Not exactly a childhood dream come true, she thought, but the prospect of flying her own ship in space alone was rather exciting.

She found no immediate signs of any shipyard or hangar near the gate, so she continued to follow the lantern-lined path, which eventually led her uphill and into a glorious courtyard. She took a moment to gaze at the surprisingly well-kept, tranquil garden, despite the time that had passed. On, she continued up the steps between two thick red pillars on either side that led inside the main temple.

“Holy Hannah!” she couldn’t help gasp as she laid eyes upon the marvellous sight.

Despite all her travels to various planets stemming from different cultures, she’d never seen anything like this. The entrance hall was simply magnificent. Her mouth hung agape to study the tens of dominant red pillars lining the hall, bright red and decorated with fascinating, intricate statues of winding, golden dragons snaking upwards towards the tall, towering ceiling. The ceiling, too, was grand; laden with vast paintings of mythical beasts battling and domineering above her head. She’d always thought Goa’uld decor was always over the top with its overbearing golden Egyptian motifs, but she had to admit that Yu’s taste in Chinese-themed decor warranted this much gleaming grandeur. It was an incredible sight.

At the end of the hallway, she spotted what must have been Yu’s throne for when he visited this planet, which sat upon a raised, red stage. Behind it, a gigantic canvas hung, covering the entire back wall, emblazoned with the golden symbol of Yu. She decided to walk among the pillars to get a better look at the throne, gasping in surprise when she felt something- or someone- tug her backwards.

She immediately grabbed her weapon and spun around towards the assailant, realising at the sound of ripping fabric that in fact the top of her backpack had simply snagged on a dragon’s claw etched into the pillar behind her.

“Oops,” she said, bending down and inspecting her damaged pack, before picking up the torn material loop from the floor and pocketing it. She didn’t want to leave behind any trace that she’d been there.

Just short of reaching the raised stage, she came to a stop as a familiar sensation of tingling in her blood hit her. Crouching down again, this time she pressed her hands to the floor. It felt just like the entrance to the Tok’ra tunnels on Vorash. She was sure there was a hidden ring platform within the floor below her. Surely, just like the getaway she’d witnessed Osiris make in Egypt by activating a hidden set of rings in the pyramid to reach a cargo ship, this would also take her to the nearest ring platform, which likely to be a getaway ship for the System Lord in case the planet came under attack.

She looked around, but failed to find any panel to activate the rings. Osiris, she recalled, had pushed a button on the back of his Goa’uld ribbon device to activate the rings. Feeling glad she’d thought to bring the device with her from the SGC, she figured it was worth a try. She retrieved it from her pack and slipped it on her left hand, slotting her fingers one-by-one into each metal finger cap. Pushing the orange button on the back of the palm, to her triumph, the distinctive sound of the ring transporter could be heard, and she looked up to see the ceiling above her retract open to reveal a set of rings, which descended to envelop her.

The next thing she saw, however, was not the inside of a ship.

Chapter Text

The next thing she saw, however, was not the inside of a ship.

Day 37 (continued)

She felt the air rush by her as the rings descended below her, disappearing into the floor, and she found herself in a darkened alcove, dimly lit by several lights along the walls. The lighting was unmistakably of Yu’s more favoured Chinese-like design, highlighting the narrow space she was in, not much bigger than the VIP quarters she’d used back at the SGC. By the cold, clammy feel of the air, she guessed that she was inside a cave, though the walls were hidden by golden panels, vaguely reminiscent of the inside of a Goa’uld mothership. Lining the panels were several blank screens, as well as two long consoles on either side of the room. Sensing no immediate danger, she quickly removed the ribbon device from her hand, not wanting to accidentally send a blast wave and destroy anything, and stowed it away, then approached one of the consoles.

She only had a very limited understanding of the Goa’uld written language, a lot of which she’d picked up on the fly off-world, but at the very least, she managed to initiate the system, the left-handed screen lighting up and holographically displaying the record of a huge database. Unfortunately to the best of her understanding, the main data entries were secured behind a passcode. She was, however, able to recognize the glyphs for “map”, giving her access to a diagram of the immediate vicinity. She located herself inside a cavern about five kilometers north of the city, likely serving as an emergency bunker for Yu. To her relief, she also located the stronghold’s stock of cargo ships and gliders, about a kilometer to the west of the temple. She’d have to ring back to the temple, then walk to the shipyard.

She also found a star map of the surrounding area in the galaxy. She followed the shape of the galactic arm to its outer edge, soon locating the Nox’s homeworld by its gate address. She knew P9C-372 must lay in that vicinity, but it wasn’t at all notated on Yu’s chart. It seemed that the SGC had been correct in its belief that the Goa’uld didn’t have knowledge of the entire gate network list. Using the coordinate notation of the Goa’uld, a six-point grid system similar to the stargate’s address but instead using hieroglyphs, she wrote down the assigned notation for the Nox homeworld onto an empty space in Daniel’s notebook, wishing that she’d thought instead to bring one of the cameras he usually kept in his office. A visual record of the star map would probably have been more helpful, but hopefully any ship she could find would have access to the same map.

She was eager to try to access the rest of the entries, but she’d already exhausted the menu options that she could read herself without extensive use of Daniel’s book to try to translate the on-screen text. Extrapolating the rest would probably be pain-staking, particularly if she wanted to try to access the more secure entries. If, worst case scenario, she failed to contact the Nox, or even correctly navigate her way to the planet at all, then at least she could always return here afterwards and see if she could find anything useful. But for now, she was eager to continue with her main mission and get straight to finding a ship, so she switched off the system and stood near the far end of the small space where she could sense the ring platform, took out the ribbon device, and activated the rings to return.

Exiting the temple, she once again passed through the serene courtyard, noticing this time that the neat bonsai-style trees were fake. It was no wonder they had remained so spruce over the past four decades.

She soon found a graveled path that led west of the temple and followed it, enjoying the way the wind almost seemed to deliberately play with her hair, trailing her all the way down the hill. She couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable sense of ease on this world as she strolled along, taking pleasure in the beauty and peace of her surroundings.

As she reached the bottom of a valley, the sun before her began to lower in the sky, and the lanterns that stood along the path suddenly lit up, breaking up their elongated shadows cast on the ground with their soft light. Apart from that, though, the ten minute’s brisk walk past more rows of empty Chinese-style buildings remained thankfully uneventful, and she soon found the yard that had been indicated on the map, housing a number of parked cargo ships as well as a squadron of gliders.

Choosing the nearest suitable and intact-looking one, she keyed the usual door buttons on the side panel to enter it, but the sequence wasn’t accepted. Apophis’ door codes were clearly different to Yu’s. How would she get in?

‘Rings,’ came the answer, popping into her head. She’d have to return to the ring platform and program it to locate a ship.

Fifteen minutes later, slowing down as her tender ankle just began to protest the uphill return walk, she had returned to where she could feel the ring platform’s location in front of Yu’s magnificent throne. She saw that it had long vanished without a trace into the floor; the rings hidden once again into the ceiling above. She knew a search for a button panel on the wall would be fruitless as this was clearly meant to be a hidden emergency escape route from the temple in case of attack. How, then, was she supposed to access its inner mechanics without activating it first?

Except… and she paused her investigation of the floor as the idea came to her... she’d used the ribbon device to remotely activate the rings. The ribbon device had a neural interface. Could she possibly think herself onto a ship? Choose her destination with her mind? She’d never heard of such a function of the device, but there was only one way to find out. She slipped the device back on her left hand, and this time she thought hard, imagining the rings aboard a cargo ship, picturing the one she had earlier stood outside of. Standing right above where she could sense the hidden platform, she activated the top button of the hand device once again, focusing her mind hard as the rings lowered and surrounded her.

Chapter Text

Standing right above where she could sense the hidden platform, she activated the top button of the hand device once again, focusing her mind hard as the rings lowered and surrounded her.

Day 37 (continued)

As her vision re-materialized, along with the rest of her body, this time she found herself standing in the middle of the wide, empty cargo hold of a ship.

“Hah! It worked!” she whooped quietly. She’d always held a dislike, even fear, of the Goa’uld hand devices, but this time she felt extremely grateful for the technology before stowing it away again for safety.

To her surprise she found that hadn’t boarded one of the cargo ships she’d seen earlier, though. She’d thought at first that she’d been transported aboard a Ha’tak, but judging by how quickly she’d found her way to the front pel’tak area through the darkened corridors, and by the far narrower bridge area and slim dual windows, she guessed that she was in fact aboard an Al’kesh. She’d never been aboard one before, only seeing them from the outside while being on the receiving side of their attacks.

She slipped off her heavy pack onto the floor- her shoulders burdened from wearing the supplies-laden bag for so long- and took the single, front helm seat. At first glance the layout of the controls bore a passing resemblance to a cargo ship’s helm, but there were many additional controls and consoles on either side of the seat. The two sides of the bridge, too, also bore additional consoles and screens. She was faintly reminded of the cockpit of an F-16. She guessed that an Al’kesh, being about at least twenty times the size of a Tel’tak, was likely typically crewed by two or three Jaffa, whereas a cargo ship was designed for solo piloting.

The view outside the front windows showed that it was dark outside. Her first instinct was to think that she must be in space, but she couldn’t make out any stars, and she soon noticed that the ship’s engine was completely still. No, she surmised, she must instead be inside a dark structure still on the planet’s surface, possibly another cave, like the earlier alcove she’d ringed into. That would prove a problem to fly out of, she thought to herself. A second problem that arose was that she’d never actually flown a Goa’uld ship alone before, and she was quickly finding that she didn’t recognize most of the controls on the consoles around her. She hadn’t counted on ending up heisting a ship of this size or complexity.

The team had always relied on Teal’c or occasionally her father to fly the ship when needed, and while she’d occasionally watched Teal’c work those simpler controls, she generally spent her time in the engine room checking out the workings of the advanced crystal panels, or sitting in the cargo hold going over last-minute mission details with the Colonel. Fortunately, though, her father had relented in giving her a single, basic flying lesson in the cargo ship following his recovery from their return from Netu. It had been the very same ship that Jolinar had used in her getaway, and she could also still vaguely remember the memory that the recall device had shown her of how Jolinar had flown the stolen Tel’tak back to the Tok’ra base after her escape through Bynarr’s rings. That would have to be enough to go on for her mission now.

After an initial investigation of the console’s controls, she nervously managed to get the engine on, the ship around her humming to life, and Goa’uld text now appeared, displayed over the darkened windows before her, waiting for her command. Unfortunately, while she knew the basics of how to steer a cargo ship and hopefully, therefore, an Al’kesh, she had absolutely no idea how to retract the roof of whatever structure she was inside of, nor how to scan her surroundings to determine what kind of structure she was even in.

After spending ten minutes carefully studying Daniel’s notes, unfortunately she hadn’t made any progress finding anything that could be similar to the Goa’uld word for either ‘sensors’ or even ‘outside’.

“Thanks, Daniel,” she said with a sarcastic sigh, staring out at the black outside.

She couldn’t let something this simple stand in her way, though. If she couldn’t reason and figure out something logically, she would have to fall back on military training and try something a little more reckless. She raised the shield and brought the ship’s weapons online, two buttons she fortunately could recognize, and sent a single shot forward. Chunks of material were blasted out the way, and what she guessed to be chips of wood now came scattering across the front shield, causing it to shimmer and glimmer in reaction. Once the blast had settled, she saw some of the last of the remaining daylight outside come seeping through a newly-formed hole in a wall, looking to be around fifteen meters or so in front of the ship.

“Nice,” she praised herself, imagining the Colonel approving of her ’just blow it up’ plan.

Recognizing now that the structure was simply a wooden hold, likely of similar design to the outhouses near the gate, she decided that the easiest solution would be to simply fly the ship forwards and bust her way out. Fortunately the Al’kesh also possessed the same red orb-shaped hand control as a Cargo Ship that her father had shown her how to use, and that she’d often seen Teal’c use. She held it between both hands, which lit up an orange colour at her touch, then she pushed the control forwards ever so slightly, the ship instantly reacting to her instruction and gliding forwards slowly. The Al’kesh was no F-16, but its hand control had a similar subtlety to the Falcon side-stick that she was more than used to. As she approached the wall, checking the shield was still active, she gave the hand control a sharp push forward, as she would do in a Falcon to quickly accelerate, and the large ship responded with a slick lurch forward, easily smashing its way through the structure, successfully emerging outside.

“Sweet,” she said, in imitation of what the Colonel might have said.

She now found herself hovering low above a flat, grassy plain, pale yellow in the glowing, setting sunshine. Unable to use the sensors, she had to rely on the front windows. She instructed the ship to come to a stop and swivel to the right slowly to pan around, seeing that the view outside the window remained largely unchanged, showing nothing but more stretches of open grassland and the occasional tree until the wrecked hangar she’d exited came into view- a structure built into a hill, a set-up somewhat reminiscent of the Alpha Site that had been her home the past month. Other than that, there was not a single structure in sight. She must have been ringed far away from the gate.

She spent some time as the ship remained hovering idly, pouring through Daniel’s notes and trying to rack her brains to remember how to work the sensors. Jolinar would have known. She might have a chance at remembering, too, if she thought long enough. Once, an inkling had come to her, but a warning had sounded at the press of the wrong button, making her quickly deactivate whatever she’d pressed.

“Dad, Teal’c, I wish one of you was here now. I just want the sensors up,” she moaned aloud in frustration, rubbing her face in self-comfort. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped.

She’d been so pent up on getting off-base and doing something that she hadn’t carefully considered quite the demands of the mission she’d set herself. Sure, in her head, ‘find a ship and fly to the Nox homeworld’ had seemed simple enough, but when it came to it, was that actually even possible to achieve by herself?

Should she give up? There was still the option to ring back to the temple as long as she was on, or close to, the planet's surface. But once she left orbit, she’d be completely on her own in deep space. If she didn’t have full working of the ship, it could prove dangerous. Fatal, even. What if one of Anubis’ ships detected her? What if there was worse out there? Was this a risk she should really be taking? She looked at her combat bracelet. Her mission wasn’t done, she reminded herself. There had to be a way to bring everyone back, and for Cassie to age and save SG-1. Sitting on her ass at the Alpha Site wasn’t going to achieve anything. The knowledge of how to fly the ship was inside her. She’d surely figure it out. She had to. Everyone was counting on her.

At least there was no hurry, she reassured herself. Usually, being on a cargo ship meant that there was a mission to complete, and generally without much time. A rescue mission to save Dad, a race against time to save Teal’c and the Colonel from the failed glider retrofit, or the mission to intercept and sabotage a System Lord meeting in a minefield. They’d always been working against the clock, and while she never shied away from pressured settings, unfortunately it had meant that there’d never been the time, nor even the need, for her to stop and learn all the workings of the cargo ships she’d ever ridden. Also, she was now confident that the planet was uninhabited, aside from herself. She could take all the time she needed to figure out the system, except that beyond Daniel’s limited notes, which were quickly turning out to be quite useless; its contents more attuned to the historic details found in ruins than a technologically-advanced working spaceship, she wasn’t going to have many options but guesswork.

“God I wish I’d taken the time to learn Goa’uld,” she said aloud, before returning to look through Daniel’s notes, hoping to find something she’d overlooked.

After around twenty minutes, she still hadn’t figured out the sensors, but she had now, through a lucky combination of button-pressing, made a step in the right direction. She must have successfully pulled up navigation because the display seemed to be asking for a six-symbol destination. Keying in the hieroglyphs in the order she’d written them in Daniel’s book, she selected the confirmation button, which brought up a display of a flight path.

”Thank god,” she said. There was no way she would otherwise have been able to even begin to plot a course from Yu’s planet to the Nox homeworld manually.

Three button options now presented themselves, but unfortunately, there were two that she didn’t recognize. But there was no hurry, she reassured herself again. No need to feel frustrated. She stared at the display, confident that the option in the centre indicated the Goa’uld equivalent to ‘cancel’, which she’d picked up over the years. Of the other two, she guessed one might be for manual flight, as she’d always seen Teal’c and her father use, sat at the helm monitoring the flight constantly with adjustments. This was the safer option when flying through dense Goa’uld territory, needing to make course corrections here and there to avoid detection near known occupied systems, or when flying at high speeds or having to push the engine beyond safe protocols as they had when they’d raced to the solar system to save the Colonel and Teal’c. But when Jolinar, injured and exhausted, had fled Netu, she could remember that she had set the stolen Tel’tak’s course as automatic before collapsing unconscious in the seat. The second unknown button must be for a direct, automated flight. But which was which?

Daniel’s book proved to be useless after all. She sighed, concentrating hard, straining to remember. Jolinar had been shot at as she’d ringed through to Sokar’s palace. She’d raced through the darkened, gloomy hallways of the palace to the outside, racing to the far end of a pier while dodging blasts before letting herself into a cargo ship. She’d sealed the door behind her, hearing the outer hull being pelted by Jaffa outside, before keying in the Tok’ra planet’s coordinates and hitting- she was quite certain- the left button. Would these buttons be the same configuration?

Either way, it was fifty-fifty. She smashed the left-hand option in time as she saw the memory play in her head once again, and the ship’s engine began to purr, almost seeming glad that it had finally been given permission to take off. She herself felt a similar sense of relief as immediately, the grassland outside the window disappeared, as the ship directed itself upwards, reaching orbit in no more than thirty, smooth, seconds, before initiating hyperspace. She’d done it.

Day 38

The ship had flown itself smoothly and without incident for more than twenty four hours now. More than once she’d accidentally dozed off in the helm seat for a couple of hours at a time, but the ship had continued to fly on happily without her input until finally it emitted a loud beeping noise, which woke her, presumably to indicate that it was reaching the end of its programmed destination.

Unfortunately, while in hyperspace, she hadn’t been able to access sensors since they didn’t work in hyperspace anyway, and she’d been worried about doing anything that might interrupt the ship’s course. The last thing she’d wanted was to find herself suddenly dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere without sensors or even remembering how she’d even got navigation up in the first place.

Luckily, as the ship dropped out of hyperspace, a button flashed, and deciding to push it, a map of the system she now must be in appeared on-screen. She didn’t need to be able to read the detailed sensor readings in Goa’uld to see from the relative size of the two planets detected in orbit of this star that they were uninhabitable gas giants, not dissimilar to Uranus and Neptune, far away from the star. Nothing like the Earth-sized planet she had been to when she’d first met the Nox. She was certain she hadn’t input the coordinates wrong from Yu’s star map, but was it possible she’d misread the map? Had it been the adjacent star system she’d chosen? She wished she’d had the camera to be able to see the map again. Either way, there was no detectable habitable planet in this system.

Unless, she thought, as an idea came to her. A small possibility still remained that the planet was hidden behind the sun from this vantage, undetectable by the ship’s automated sensors. Emboldened by this small grain of hope, she put her hands on the red orb, engaging sublight, then encouraged the ship forward on a course around the star. At max sublight speed, it took her twenty minutes from her position to traverse around the star. As she approached its far side, a partially-formed, wide band of what appeared to be an asteroid field was added to the star system’s map on the display. As she approached their location, she could see with her own eyes thousands upon thousands of huge chunks of rocks of irregular size and shape glinting in the sunlight from behind the ship that had settled into an irregular orbit, exactly in the habitable range of the system.

This was no asteroid field, she realised with horror. There was too little dispersion. Too much inconsistency in the size. A true field should have reached around the sun, slowly forming a uniform belt over the course millions of years. This was far more recent. Nothing but an enormous patch of rubble. It could only be the remnants of a planet.

The Nox homeworld had been destroyed.

‘Anubis must have done this,’ she thought in complete dismay. She felt numb and sick. How could she work against this? She’d read of the power of the Eyes of the Goa’uld in the reports, but to see evidence of his power before her eyes like this... it was worse than she could have possibly envisaged. She could never have considered that he had the ability to entirely destroy the planet of one of the more advanced races in the entire galaxy. Maybe even the most, with the Furlings and Ancients absent, and the Asgard in another galaxy. What could she possibly do to counter that kind of power?

“What the hell am I supposed to do now!?” she shouted angrily into the void at the rock remnants that now served as the Nox's graveyard outside the window. The only people she’d thought had had a chance of helping her. The sudden hopelessness she felt was almost overwhelming.

“There’s still hope, Sam,” came a voice from behind her.

Chapter Text

“There’s still hope, Sam,” came a voice from behind her.

Day 38 (continued)

She was so shocked to hear a voice other than her own inner voice that she nearly fell out of the seat that she’d been sitting on. She ripped her head around to the source of the voice, but there was no one there.

’Jesus, I’m actually going crazy from being alone so long,’ she thought.

“You’re not going crazy,” the voice spoke again, and this time she realised that she recognized the voice.

“Orlin?” she called out disbelievingly into the emptiness of the bridge area, then jumped to see Orlin appear, standing right beside her, looking exactly as she remembered him. He was even wearing the same clothes.

“Orlin! Holy Hannah, you scared me! But you’re here! Hi!” she said, barely able to form a coherent sentence at the complete shock of seeing another person in front of her after all this time.

“Hi Sam,” he answered back calmly, smiling kindly. “You’re looking well despite your current circumstances.”

“My circumstances being that I think I might be the last human being alive? Yes, I’m well enough, despite that, thank you. Am I- I am the only human alive, right?” she asked, wanting confirmation.

“In this galaxy, yes, you are.”

“Oh my god,” she said, burying her face in her hands. She’d already long-suspected it, of course, but hearing the confirmation was still hard-hitting. A few seconds passed while she recovered before she took in the full meaning of his words. “Wait, what did you mean, ‘in this galaxy’? Are there other human populations in other galaxies?”

“It’s a big universe,” he said, shrugging whimsically and clearly dodging the question, before looking out the pel’tak’s windows. “I know the feeling of being so alone. It’s been a long time since I spoke with another,” he said suddenly. “Not since I was last on Velona, when I died again, in fact,” he said, looking a little morose.

“I’m sorry Colonel Reynolds shot you, Orlin. He had orders to test the weapons under any circumstances.”

“I know,” he smiled sadly. “Actually I couldn’t have re-ascended and removed the weapon if I hadn’t been mortally wounded, so in a way, his action saved you all.”

“I guess that’s true,” she agreed. At least she could forgive Reynolds for what he’d done, now.

She wanted to indulge in his nostalgia further, but she couldn’t help wanting, no needing answers.

“How did you find me?” she asked, changing the subject.

“When I sensed the presence of a single human in this galaxy again, I almost couldn’t believe it. After all, all the humans in this galaxy were wiped out some time ago, though time of course time has a different concept to my people. I decided to investigate, and I couldn’t believe it was you, Sam,” he said, returning his gaze to her, smiling broadly. “I found you on the System Lord Yu’s former stronghold and followed you here.”

She thought back to her time on the planet, and the strange sense of calm and serenity she’d felt the entire time there. Looking back now, she was shocked to think how unusually incautious she’d been on the planet. She hadn’t even thought to stop and do a sweep of Yu’s temple before she’d walked straight in. It had been so unlike her. Had that been his influence? Watching over her and trying to subtly calm or reassure her?

“Well I’m glad you’ve stopped by. Believe me, I really appreciate the company. I was going stir crazy all by myself with no one to talk to. Though, if you were there following me, I could have done with help flying the ship here,” she said, half-jokingly.

“You did a wonderful job of flying the ship here yourself, Sam, despite being unable to read Goa’uld. And, from what I saw of your memories, to have come this far at all. You are a most resourceful and intelligent human being, and as I said last time we met, you are brilliant,” he smiled proudly, and she couldn’t help blush at his sudden compliments. “However, you may recall that I also said that I am prevented from interfering with mortal matters,” he continued. “I am not at liberty to divulge any information that you could not otherwise gain access to on your own by your own means. The Others would intervene to prevent me from doing so.”

“So you couldn’t have shown me how to fly the ship here?”

“No.”

“And, by extension,” she added, thinking of her current predicament, “you can’t tell me who attacked all the humans, and why?”

“No, I can’t.”

“But you know?”

“Of course I do,” he replied simply.

“Right,” she said, hoping she hadn’t insulted him. “Can you at least tell me if I’m getting hot or cold?”

She smiled at the puzzled expression that suddenly appeared on his face. “Sorry, I mean, can you tell me if I’m close to the truth or not?”

“I can confirm your theories if you come to them by your own initiative, yes,” he answered kindly.

“Well, I guess that’s something,” she conceded. “This could turn into a long game of twenty questions, though.”

“What is ‘twenty questions’?” he asked, once again looking puzzled.

She couldn’t help laugh, and as the mirth rose in her it occurred to her that it must have been the first time in over a month, the entire time since she’d first found the remains of everyone she’d ever known on Earth, that she’d actually genuinely laughed. It felt so good to have a conversation with a real person.

“Sorry, it’s a game where the player can only ask questions that have a yes or no answer,” she explained.

“Ah, then yes. I would be happy to play with you, Sam,” he said, also smiling back, clearly pleased that he was having such a positive affect on her mood. “But I may not be able to answer all your questions.”

“Okay, I understand,” she said. Finally, after all these weeks, she had a chance at getting to the bottom of everything, and she was not going to waste any time asking all the questions that had been burning inside her for over a month.

She excitedly asked her first question, “Did Anubis do this? Attack all the humans in the galaxy?”

“He did.”

She nodded at the final confirmation of her theory.

“And the Nox?” she looked out of the screen windows at the giant, spinning debris floating in the distance.

“Yes.”

Apophis had known of the Nox. There was no reason to believe that Anubis couldn’t have gotten hold of that same information.

“There was evidence that the gate on Earth and the gate on the Alpha Site, a base we have off-world, was attacked at exactly the same time. Was I right thinking the two gates were dialled simultaneously to send the attack?”

“They were,” he confirmed.

“Wow,” she remarked. That was an impressive feat, one she’d never even thought possible. “And I’m guessing it wasn’t just the two Tau’ri gates, it was all the gates in the galaxy at the same time, right?”

She saw a smile appear on his face. “I would say, using your earlier terminology, that you are hot.”

She nodded, considering the ramifications of the confirmation and the incalculable energy requirement that would require, before blushing at the potential double meaning of his words. He didn’t seem to notice, though.

She paused her line of questioning, thinking about her long-term plan. She wanted to undo what had been done, but he definitely wouldn’t be able to advise her what she should do next, or probably even to confirm whether there was a way to undo the attack on the galaxy at all. But, he had said there was still hope when he’d first appeared…

“Orlin, I was thinking. I’ve been sent to the future, after an event which eradicated all humans in this galaxy. I had the idea that if I managed to somehow travel back into the past, and I stress if,” and she was pleased to see a sudden spark alight in his eyes, as though he was urging her to continue. “Unless I find out how Anubis did it, or maybe even why, even with my foreknowing, there may be no way to prevent the same events playing out the same way again.”

“Then you must learn more to find out the cause of the humans’ disappearance, and find a way to prevent it from happening again,” he said simply, as though that was an easy task.

“Okay, so if I find that out, and if I find a way back, would you or the Others stop me from changing the past?”

“No, I certainly would not stop you. And, I don’t think I would be prohibited from saying that nor would any of the Others be opposed to you taking any action to undo Anubis’ actions.”

“The Others disagree with what happened, even if they couldn’t interfere?”

He remained silent, looking pensive for a while, before seemingly deciding to answer.

“It’s complicated. Simply put, the universe is infinitely vast, and this galaxy is, to most, but a single speck of sand. Time for us also does not pass linearly for those in the highest-most planes of existence. It is not a matter as simple as holding an agreement or disagreement on the matter. There are many who are unaware, and there are many who simply hold no opinion at all.”

“I see,” she said, trying to grasp at the complexities of ascended beings. She couldn’t even comprehend the idea of Daniel becoming such a being. “And you suggested there are different planes of existence?”

“For one of your perspective, yes it would be easiest to explain it that way. For those you may call highest-most ascended, they are far beyond having opinions on mortal matters,” he said, looking almost bitter. “It could be likened to you observing the in-fighting between two colonies of insects. The outcome has no bearing at all on your existence, even if to those insects it is a life or death struggle. There are some ascended who do, however… perhaps verge on the side of disagreement towards the eradication of mortal human life in the Milky Way. Some of the Others were once beings who resided in this galaxy, as I did. A small few do, still, hold an old fondness towards its current inhabitants.”

Like Daniel, she thought. He had tried to prevent Anubis from attacking Abydos. He clearly hadn’t ascended so far that he had become beyond caring about the Abydonians anymore.

“Orlin, did you ever meet my friend Daniel Jackson when he was ascended?” she asked, thinking of the year he’d spent as a being just like Orlin.

She saw him pause, before looking solemn. “No, I’m afraid our paths did not cross.” That didn’t surprise her though, as he had said earlier that he hadn’t spoken to anyone else in over forty years. Being ascended was beginning to sound like a rather lonely, and rather strictly rule-bound existence. Perhaps that was why Daniel had decided to come back after all, she wondered.

“Did you know the Abydonians were all ascended after Anubis destroyed Abydos?”

“I did not,” he replied quickly, before suddenly looking very serious. “Tell me, what do you know of what happened to Abydos?”

“Urm,” she said, surprised by his sudden questioning look, and also by the fact that Ascended beings didn’t seem to be as all-knowing as she’d previously thought. He hadn’t known about the Abydonians’ ascension. “Anubis found something called the Eye of Ra there, and he was able to use it in a superweapon that he used to destroy the planet. It’s what I think he used to destroy the Nox homeworld too, right?”

“You are correct. And what do you know of Anubis himself?”

“Urm,” she hesitated again, rather taken aback at Orlin’s sudden decision to start up his own line of questioning. “He’s a Goa’uld who recently joined the rank of the System Lords, and seemed to gain power quickly. Everything I’ve learned about him happened after I was sent forward in time, though. I’ve just been reading bits about him from mission reports written by my coworkers at the SGC.”

“I see,” he said, his expression looking neutral now. Was he disappointed in her answer? “Have you completed your research?”

“Pretty much, there were hundreds of reports to go through, but I had a long time to read them,” she started, wondering if he already knew of all the mission reports she'd spent days reading from reading her mind. “But I still never learned why or how Anubis could have done this. If I don’t know that, how can I stop history repeating itself? Assuming of course, that is, that I can even figure out how to travel back in time at all to try.”

“Perhaps these mission reports are not the only source of information available to you.”

“The database I found back on Yu’s planet?” she asked, but he simply looked pained and seemed to be unable to answer.

“You?” she asked, pointing at him.

“No, as you know, I cannot tell you anything myself.”

“Right, of course. Then where? On Earth? Off-world elsewhere?”

“No,” he said, pointing at her head. “In there.”

Chapter Text

“No,” he said, pointing at her head. “In there.”

Day 38 (continued)

She simply looked puzzled at him. What did he mean? In her head? But she didn’t know anything more than she’d learned in the past few weeks of reading reports.

“When we exchanged spirits on Earth, I found your soul to be pure, but… there was also a hidden darkness.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling completely confused and nervous by this sudden information.

“Forgive me. As I said the last time we met, reading one’s mind is an invasion of privacy. I’m sorry to confess that I disrespected that when I peered into your memories then, and once again when I found you on Lord Yu’s world. I was curious to know how you’d survived Anubis’ attack, and what your intention was on the planet.”

“Urm, that’s fine, I don’t mind you reading my mind, really.”

Honestly, she didn’t really care about her privacy; she had nothing to hide from him, and she’d already learned she could trust him after they’d exchanged spirits. ”So what did you see?”

“When you first came across Anubis’ name in that file you read, what was your reaction?”

“What?” she started, feeling lost at first as to what he was talking about. But then it hit her that he must be talking about that day so long ago when she’d been reading the first lot of mission files back on Earth. So he’d seen that memory. Why? She’d just seen the security feed in the Security Monitoring Centre. She’d just watched Daniel and Teal’c and the others’ last moments. That day felt truly like months ago now. She remembered seeing Walter dial the gate, and then she’d decided to look up the Alpha Site. She’d seen the original base had been potentially compromised to Anubis by Jonas Quinn, and she’d felt confused by the names she hadn’t known then… Except, she remembered feeling a brief hint of recognition at reading Anubis’ name.

“I kind of felt like I’d heard the name before,” she finally answered.

“Where?” he pressed.

“I don’t know,” she said, furrowing her brows in frustration, trying to think back, but feeling pained to only remember her panic and distraught at learning how everyone had disappeared.

“You do know, Sam. Think,” he said kindly, but urgently.

There it was. She’d had a split-second thought that maybe Jolinar had known the name.

“I was once host to a Tok’ra symbiote named Jolinar.”

“Yes, you were,” and he smiled now. Clearly she’d given the answer he’d hoped for. “And she was previously a Goa’uld, was she not?” he asked.

“Yes, she was, but she wasn't evil like the others. She turned on them and joined the Tok'ra,” she couldn't help correct. She'd always held an ire when anyone suggested that Jolinar had been anything other than a Tok'ra.

“When she blended with you, you gained the entire Goa’uld genetic memory of Jolinar’s lineage.”

“Are you saying Jolinar’s mother knew of Anubis?”

“She did. And as it so transpires, Jolinar did, too, unwittingly. I can help you remember.”

“Is that not interfering?”

“Assisting you to remember what you already know is not breaking the rules. I am not supplying you with new knowledge,” he said, though he looked rather anxious.

“I see,” she said. He was clearly toeing a fine line, but if there was a loophole in the Others’ rulebook, then she wasn’t going to question it further. At least she had a lead now, though the prospect of delving into Jolinar and a queen Goa’uld’s memories was daunting. There had been times, mostly soon after Jolinar had taken her as a host, that she’d suffered from strong, unpleasant and uncontrollable flashbacks. And this time there’d be more than one Goa’uld’s memories to deal with.

“Orlin, if you make me remember everything, what if the memories take over? What if I change into a Goa’uld myself?” she asked hesitantly, suddenly imagining herself yelling at Orlin and spouting evil, arrogant things.

“You are right to be hesitant. Accessing the entire memory buried in your subconscious would overwhelm and permanently corrupt your personality.” Her eyebrows instantly raised in alarm to hear that. “But rest assured that I can guide you to only access the memories you need.”

Well that was good to hear, she thought. She had no choice but to trust him. Taking a deep, readying breath, she asked, “So how do we do this?”

“If you’re ready, then you need only simply open your mind, close your eyes, and relax,” he said soothingly, and she recalled him using the same words when he’d used his power to share his spirit with hers back at her house in her living room several months ago. She obeyed his instructions, closing her eyes and trying her best to stay calm at the immediate prospect of delving into two Goa’uld’s past.

Behind her eyelids, she could see a brightness appear before her, and she guessed that he’d returned to his glowing, ascended state. Trying her best to calm her racing heart and ‘relax,’ as he’d instructed, she sensed the brightness increase as he approached her, and soon felt a warmth envelop her, the peaceful, kind spirit of Orlin washing through her body and mind, and all went black.

-----

She opened her eyes to find herself in a wide, golden council chamber, restless at having been forced to wait so long. No one dared make her wait and wasted her valuable time if they wished to continue drawing breath. This insolence and disrespect was maddening. She looked around with irritation at the pompous figures she’d been forced to sit with. All far beneath her, of course. She loathed having them in her presence. Yu, in particular, she had been engaged with in a long battle over a territory dispute of late. Those mining planets were hers, she seethed in rage. She’d already lost almost a dozen Ha’taks to his continuous onslaught over the past half year, a huge setback to her plan to finally conquer Sokar- sat hunched across from her in haughty ignorance of his impending end by her hand. It was a plan she’d been working towards for decades. The ugly, ancient savage who still chose to use the original host beast did not deserve the honour of being called ‘Goa’uld’. He was no “God”. The creature was too primitive, too lacking in the vanity and splendor and thirst for glory that the new generation of Goa’uld now beheld. Sokar needed to be quickly quashed out of his old, vile, miserable fantasies of darkness and death, and Yu would pay for the obstruction he was causing.

Perhaps she would make him pay right now, she thought with a rush of glee. They may have been denied weapons when they’d arrived, but she was confident she could easily overpower the pathetic excuse for a god with her own bare hands. She’d surely enjoy the feeling of ripping the vile being from his hosts’s neck-

“Sam,” came a distant-sounding voice from beside her.

“Intruder!” she cried when she caught sight of the unknown unblended human standing beside her throne, wearing strange clothes, but to her surprise none of the others reacted to her exclamation. “Guards!” she cried again.

“Sam, remember who you are,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately grabbed, ramming the man into the wall, her earlier seething at Yu and Sokar bolstering her desire to immediately snuff the life out of this unwelcome disturbance. She would destroy this human first. He would make a pleasant appetizer before accosting Yu later, she thought with a hungry grin.

“I’m Orlin, remember? I’m guiding you through the memories you hold of Queen Hestia.”

How dare this human speak her name so? She would gladly snap his neck. In an instant, she was on her feet and had rammed the vermin into the back wall by the neck.

“You are Samantha Carter,” he choked, as she began crushing his throat. “Remember!” he spluttered.

Something in her triggered at the sound of the name. Her father, Jacob Carter. Blending with Jolinar had saved him. The Tok’ra. She wasn’t a Goa’uld. She was from Earth. She was here, trying to learn about Anubis!

“Oh shit! God, I’m so sorry Orlin!” she cried, instantly releasing Orlin’s throat from her grip. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he said, coughing and clutching at his throat, trying to steady his breath. “I, too, was surprised by the intensity of the genetic memory you carry. I wonder if that’s why all Goa’uld are born so evil when they carry such a rage and hatred for even others of their own kind.”

She nodded, now fully understanding the extent of the emotions a Goa’uld could carry. She hastily looked around, suddenly remembering and feeling fearful for those she was surrounded by, but to her surprise, none of them seemed perturbed by her attack on Orlin. In fact, none of them were even looking in her direction.

“We’re safe,” he said, sensing her panic. “We’re inside a memory, and it cannot be altered by anything either of us do and say. We are simply observers.”

That was a huge relief. She still felt wary, but slowly gave in to her curiosity, decided to inspect the seated System Lords, pulling the long train of the elaborate silver-coloured garment she’d found herself wearing along with her, walking around them in turn. She’d met several System Lords personally, though they should have been unrecognizable to her now in different hosts. Yet, she instantly found herself knowing them regardless.

She saw Lord Yu, Apep, Balor, Tiamat, Osiris, Isis, Heru’ur and Setesh, all using human hosts, as well as the horrifying Unas form of Sokar, barely fitting on the red-embossed throne supplied to him. She knew Osiris and Setesh to be siblings and bitter rivals from her memory from Jolinar’s mother, Hestia, and she watched quietly as they exchanged an argument in the Goa’uld tongue, though she was able to understand every word regardless. She saw as Osiris’ mate, Isis, attempted to step in and abate the fight, causing a raucous.

“Enough!” shouted Heru’ur. “Our Supreme Lord shall arrive any moment. He will kill you for your repugnant behaviour.”

“In that case, perhaps we should leave them to their fate,” smarmed Lord Yu. Sam couldn't help agree with him.

“If they were killed now, however,” began Orlin, leaning in so close to her that their shoulders were touching, “then you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of killing Setesh on Earth ten thousand of your years from now.”

“I wouldn’t say that gave me any pleasure, Orlin,” she started. “Though I don’t regret it,” she said with a smile. She saw as many of the Goa’uld suddenly turned toward the sealed main entrance to the chamber just in time for it to slide open, and a young Egyptian boy with long, braided hair stepped in. She felt herself return to her throne without thinking and bowing unconsciously. She guessed the memory would force her to play her part.

“Supreme Lord Ra, we have gathered as you wished,” Apep crooned, bowing immensely deeply with respect. “You have captured Anubis?”

She watched as Ra merely clapped his hands, and seconds later, the sound of a struggle and a roar could be heard, as another Unas was brought into the chamber by several humans she knew to be some of the very first Jaffa, though they wore a far different uniform to how she knew them. They also carried different, cruder weapons, and bore no forehead markings.

“I am one of your members,” Anubis proclaimed in a deep rumbling beast-like voice. “You cannot treat your fellow System Lord as such,” he roared.

“Anubis, your crimes are known,” Ra spoke authoritatively despite the higher voice of his child host. “You sought to build a weapon capable of destroying planets through advanced technological means that you would not share. You sought to destroy all worlds controlled by each of the System Lords and claim complete power for yourself. You have betrayed your kin, and we have already voted unanimously that you are to be stripped of your status as System Lord. Your territory and resources are to be divided equally among the remaining members of the council.”

Sam felt a huge elation rise in Hestia at the news she would be gaining more territory. Ra clapped again, and a human slave walked in, holding a treasure casket, who bowed and presented it to her god.

Ra opened the casket, and Hestia could see six, round jewels, neatly arranged inside. She felt an excitement rise in her at the thought of receiving one.

“I entrust these components of Anubis’ superweapon to my most loyal System Lords,” he said, earning a huge growl of rage from the Unas-form of Anubis, who struggled in the grasp of the Jaffa.

Ra ignored him, slowly handing five of them out one by one to others in the room. When he gave away the last jewel to the pathetic, so-called Goddess Tiamat, and Sam didn’t receive one, she immediately became incensed. How dare she, Queen Hestia, not be considered one of his most loyal subjects?! This was an inconceivable betrayal, after years of service! After she’d even bestowed him the great honour of producing his children! The sacrifices she had made to appease the Supreme Lord for almost a hundred years were to simply fall flat?!

In a fury, she stood to her feet, meeting Yu’s eyes, who also looked equally indignant. He had not received a jewel, either. Together they stormed their way to Ra, and she was seething, quite ready to make her anger known-

“Sam, it’s time to go,” came a voice along with a hand on her shoulder, and she was about to bat it away when the next thing she knew, she’d found herself lying flat on her back, staring up at a darkened grey ceiling.

“Do you know where you are?” came the same voice again, sounding laden with concern. Why did they care? Why should she care? She was about to make Ra pay. “Samantha Carter!” came the incessant voice again, only now it seemed familiar, and piece by piece, she slowly came to realize that she was not the infuriated Queen from eons ago, she was Samantha Carter, lying on the floor of an Al’kesh, floating in space, with a strong pain in the back of her head.

“Woah, I’m back.”

“Yes, you are. Are you okay?” Orlin asked, his voice laden with concern.

“Yeah,” she said, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head. She must have lost consciousness and smacked her head on the floor. “That was intense.”

“You were unconscious for around an hour,” and she checked her watch to see that it was now just after four o’clock in the afternoon, despite the black of space outside the ship windows. “Do you remember what you saw?”

“Yes, vividly. Anubis was scary. So was Jolinar’s mother,” she added in hindsight as she pulled herself up to lean against a console on the side of the ship, before rummaging in her pack for a power bar. She’d found herself starving. “Do you mind?” she asked, indicating the power bar she’d just pulled out.

“Please, go ahead. You must keep up your energy,” he replied, smiling, as he watched her open the bar and take a bite. “I must say, I do miss the taste of Earth food. I particularly enjoyed the stroganoff we shared.”

They held each other’s eyes and shared a moment as she remembered the dinners they’d had together during the two weeks she’d been stalling the testing of the weapon on Velona. They’d talked so much, and she’d found Orlin so easy to converse with. It might even have been easy to have fallen into a relationship with him if he hadn’t been forced to escape and ascend again, though she wasn’t sure the SGC would have approved of that. Or the Colonel, she thought with a jolt.

“We must discuss the memory we saw,” Orlin said, breaking her out of her thoughts, and she did her best to hide her blush. She hoped he couldn’t see her thoughts. “We witnessed the very first organized assembly of the group of Goa’uld that called themselves System Lords. You still know some of them.”

“Yes,” she said, chewing and swallowing a bite of cranberry granola. “I know Yu, of course, and Setesh, or Seth as he called himself later. I met Heru’ur and Osiris, too, recently. And I know of Sokar, too, though I never personally met him first-hand,” and she shuddered slightly as she recalled the pale hooded figure from Jolinar’s memories. “He attacked Earth when we had Apophis.”

“Apophis was also in the memory. He was once known as Apep.”

“That was Apophis?” she asked in surprise, before the knowledge started seeping back, and she recalled it to be true.

“Yes, he was still comparably very young at the time, but he gained power quickly through a combination of luck and strategy by becoming an apprentice of sorts to Ra.”

“That’s right, I remember now. Wow. I’ve never really grasped quite how old the Goa’uld really were.”

“Yes, such long frames of time can be difficult to imagine for mortals with short lifespans. No offence, of course,” he added quickly.

“None taken,” she said. Personally, she had little desire to live for so long, either as an ascended or as a long-lived Goa’uld.

“So, what did you learn of Anubis? Or, I should say, what did you recall of Anubis?” he asked with a glimmer in his eye. Perhaps he was clearly trying to assert to these ‘Others’ that he wasn’t technically helping her, even if she personally felt he was.

“I learned, sorry remembered,” she corrected, going along with his ascended rulebook line-toeing, "that even the System Lords, as bad as they are, unanimously voted to banish Anubis because his plans were so evil."

“Precisely. We also saw the Eyes of the Goa’uld.”

“Yes. Anubis made them?”

“That I cannot answer, I’m afraid. But there is another memory I would like to show you where we can see more of Anubis that Jolinar possessed.”

“Jolinar met Anubis?!” she asked, surprised to have absolutely no recollection of what would surely have been a strong memory. Her memories of Hestia had been completely buried, but she had thought she’d slowly come to remember a fair bit of Jolinar’s past over the years, particularly since her trip to Netu and the use of the Tok’ra memory recall device.

“Jolinar saw Anubis, though at the time, she did not know his identity,” Orlin clarified. “Would you like a break first before we continue?”

“No, I’d rather get it over and done with to be honest,” she answered quickly. Delaying the experience would only increase her anxiety, she reasoned. Hestia’s memory and emotions hadn’t been particularly pleasant to access. She crouched to stash away her now empty power bar wrapper into her side pocket, then quickly took a swig of water from her bottle, before standing up.

“I’m ready,” she said determinedly, trying to hide the uncertainty she also felt.

“Okay, if you’re sure, then close your eyes and relax again.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, if you’re sure, then close your eyes and relax again.”

Day 38 continued

“Wait,” she interrupted. “Can we do this sitting? I don’t want to fall on my head again,” she said, unconsciously rubbing her head again.

“Yes, of course,” he said, and as she sat down on the ship’s floor, he followed suit, smiling and sitting before her cross-legged.

She smiled back shyly, nervous at their proximity. The thought that if he had a physical body, their knees would practically be touching, crossed her mind. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, allowing herself to be vulnerable to him but trusting him entirely to keep her safe while they ventured into her memory once again.

The bright light of Orlin’s ascended state appeared behind her closed eyelids again, and suddenly she found herself in a marble-lined corridor. Greek-style white pillars stretched along the way, while ornate torches provided a warm, gentle glow.

Her feet carried her purposefully towards the Throne Room, and she felt thankful that she hadn’t seen any slaves on the way. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know of her intentions.

“I hear something,” she heard the inner voice of Rosha say to her, and they slowed their approach to the room, skulking behind the draped purple curtains, out of sight in the shadows.

“You bring many agreeable offerings, but your unannounced visit displeases me,” she heard the booming voice of Cronus speak in Goa’uld, though again, she found herself understanding every word.

“Forgive, me my Lord,” she heard a cool, monotone male voice say. “But let me assure you this is a matter with which you shall be most interested in.”

“Out with it before I kill you where you stand,” he said menacingly.

“Yes, my Lord,” he replied in the same cool voice, and she and Rosha were both surprised to notice that the speaker didn’t seem at all intimidated by Cronus’ threat. “It concerns Queen Morrigan. You have recently conquered more than half of her territory, including several of her former strategic military outposts. I am truly humbled to be in the presence of a God so powerful.”

There was a pause and she guessed the man was bowing deeply to Cronus.

“You may continue,” came Cronus’ voice.

“I don’t trust the man speaking, Jolinar,” Rosha thought to her. Nor did she. But his tactics of flattery seemed to be working. Typical Goa’uld arrogance, she thought, and Rosha agreed. Cronus had always been one of the worst victims of this Goa’uld failing.

“She stole a large, green jewel from me,” the man continued. “It holds great sentimental value to my family. I am a scientist, and if you have found it, I would gladly offer you my services to develop a new form of weapons upgrade for your ships in return for it.”

“He’s lying,” said Rosha confidently, and again she agreed with her host’s assessment.

Deciding she wanted to see this man, she very carefully crept to a better, and lower position, giving them both a slim view of Cronus standing pompously as always in front of his marble throne in front of a man. The sight of the man would have made her stumble if Rosha hadn’t acted fast to take back control of her own body and keep their balance. Although his robes gave the impression of splendour and wealth, the visible side of his face looked hideously ravaged by some kind of disease.

She had been working as a spy in Cronus’ circle for almost a decade, and knowing the System Lord as she did, she couldn’t believe that he had granted an audience to such a diseased, unblended human.

“My armies raided and dismantled Morrigan’s cities in the take over,” Cronus spoke. “No such jewel was found. However, I still demand that you present your weapons research to your God,” and she saw his eyes flashed, “and I shall spare your life.”

Sam saw in disbelief as a curl of a smile appeared on the man’s lips. He truly wasn’t afraid of Cronus at all. What he did next then stunned both her and Rosha.

“You shall be fortunate if I spare your life, fool,” he said, as he tipped his boil-covered head. Then she saw as out of his breast from beneath his robes arose what she could only liken to black smoke. It spewed outwards from the man, who instantly collapsed into a heap on the floor, then rushed into the body of Cronus, whose expression had now switched from anger to alarm to neutral in barely a second. She quickly hid again, suddenly fearing for their life. What had they just seen?

“Sam, you don’t need to hide. It’s safe to watch,” said the voice of Orlin from behind her, and she suddenly remembered who and where she was. She wasn’t Jolinar, fearing for her life. This was only a memory. But she couldn’t help feel the lingering alarm of both Jolinar and Rosha, pinning her feet to the floor.

“Sam, watch what he does next. It may be important,” said Orlin, his eyes twinkling as he entered the Throne Room, beckoning that she follow him.

She did so, hesitantly at first, but when Cronus didn’t react to her entry, she felt reassured, and stopped to take a moment to approach the body on the ground. The man looked as though he was a wealthy merchant, with trinkets lining his pockets and gold thread woven into his robes. Every inch of visible skin, however, from his fingers to the exposed ankles in his sandals to his entire face were covered in boils. It looked like radiation poisoning.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“You may learn in time,” Orlin replied mysteriously. “But as Jolinar chose to follow Cronus, we, too, must follow, or the memory will fade out.”

She nodded her understanding that the memory was constrained by Jolinar’s original movements, and they followed behind in Cronus’ steps in the wide open, several slaves they passed bowing to their god and to herself; completely oblivious to Orlin walking by her side.

Cronus approached his own private chamber, and the door closed behind him.

“I take it we can’t follow?”

“Jolinar didn’t see inside, so no, we can’t. Let’s wait here. He’ll be back out soon.”

When Cronus hadn’t reappeared for a minute or so, her earlier shock had now faded and she relaxed and turned to look at Orlin, realising he’d been staring at her.

“What are you looking at?” she asked shyly, and was surprised to see him blush and let out a chuckle.

“It’s just, I can’t help finding myself thinking that dress looks lovely on you, Sam,” he said with a broad smile.

She followed his eyes and looked down, seeing that she hadn’t even noticed how revealing the clothes she had been wearing were. She found herself dressed in a lightweight white, cleavage-revealing chiton tunic, tied tightly with a golden rope that accentuated her slim waist, the slits down each side of her tunic giving an unobscured view of the side of her legs.

She felt her cheeks redden and hastened to rearrange her tunic more modestly, only giving Orlin a flash of her leg.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said awkwardly, trying and failing, however, to suppress a grin.

“When in Rome, right?” she joked, giving up on adjusting her clothing, then laughed when Orlin tried to correct her with the name of the planet they were on. “Never mind,” she relented, still giggling.

“Would it make you more comfortable if I too, dressed suitably?” he asked with a sudden mischievous look, and in a flash, he’d exchanged his Earth garments for a modest, white toga adorned with the same, golden rope belt she had. She simply stared, her eyes drinking in the new sight of him. She had to say, the look really suited him. The ancient style seemed to fit his burly stubble and light hair. She couldn’t deny that she’d always thought of him as handsome, but as she stood there, their gazes connecting, she couldn’t help her heart quicken as a crazy urge to kiss him suddenly welled in her. They were in the privacy of her mind, she reassured herself. No one could see them, hell, she was all alone in the galaxy except for him. What shame would there be in indulging herself?

He seemed to have read her mind, and perhaps, she thought, he was reading it, since they were in her mind. She saw his gaze became more intense, and she felt herself drowning in his blue eyes, filled with such wisdom and intelligence.

She took a step closer to him, yearning to close the gap between them, before she was startled as the door to Cronus’ chamber suddenly flew open, and Cronus himself marched out, now carrying a zat’nik’tel, and passed straight through her as though she were a ghost.

“Come on,” Orlin said, grabbing hold of her hand and pulling her to follow the Goa’uld.

Barely recovering from the emotions and surprise of their near kiss, she felt herself being pulled by the hand, and together they hurried to run after Cronus as he marched briskly through the majestic corridors until he stopped by what she remembered to be the upper slave quarters. These were home to the higher-ranking human slaves- those who served all the Goa’uld’s needs, as well as those training to become future Lo’tars to the various Goa’uld in Cronus’ circle, including Jolinar’s.

She watched as Cronus summoned one of the older-looking males, wearing a simple tunic and carrying a leather satchel, commanding him to follow him back to the Throne Room. The slave looked clearly nervous at being summoned alone so unexpectedly by the armed, and quite frankly threatening-looking Goa’uld. Cronus’ expression had become, she saw, unusually crazed. As she saw them reach the Throne Room, she watched as the slave became unable to control himself from flinching at the sight of the disfigured body that was still lain on the floor.

Cronus hit the side button of the zat'nik'tel, which snapped open, and the slave immediately fell to the floor bowing and begging for his God’s mercy. She instinctively reached forward, wanting to help him, but Orlin pulled her back by the hand, and pointed towards the scene, indicating that she continue watching. To her surprise, she saw that Cronus instead aimed the weapon at the dead merchant, whom he zatted three times. On the third zat, the body, robes, and all the trinkets he had been carrying all vanished into thin air.

Grateful to still be alive, the slave began to thank his god for his mercy, practically crying tears of joy, but wordlessly, Sam watched on in horror as Cronus leaned back in the strange fashion that the merchant had done earlier, and the same black smoke burst forth from his body and flew directly into the slave. She felt Orlin clutch at her hand tighter, as though he knew she’d need some form of comfort at what was a horrific sight. They watched on, side-by-side, as Cronus collapsed in a loud heap on the floor, and the slave, now strangely calm and almost robotic in his movement, walked up to the unconscious System Lord and rummaged in his clothing, swiftly removing a pale green jewel.

“That was the jewel given to Osiris in Hestia’s memory,” Sam whispered, quickly recognizing it from the previous memory that was still fresh in her mind.

“Yes, it later became known as the Eye of Osiris,” Orlin whispered back.

They watched together as the slave concealed it in the satchel he had been wearing, then, without a backwards glance, he marched out of the Throne Room and in the direction of the gate.

“We have come to the end of the memory,” Orlin said simply.

“What, that’s it?” Sam asked confusedly, letting go of Orlin’s hand. She’d thought they were going to see a memory of Anubis.

“That’s it,” he replied simply.

“What just happened?” she asked, now turning to Orlin, still reeling internally from the horror of the scene they’d witnessed.

“You tell me,” said Orlin enigmatically.

She stared at the unconscious form of Cronus. She knew he couldn’t be dead, since he was using the same host she’d known in her own time.

“It looked like the smoke was possessing people,” she said hesitantly. “First the merchant, then Cronus, then the slave.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Like a Goa’uld,” she muttered.

“Precisely like a Goa’uld,” he replied simply, inviting her to continue with his eyes. A jolt of electricity ran through her at the look in his eyes. He was clearly eager for her to continue her train of thought.

“That was Anubis?!” she asked, since Orlin had said that was who Jolinar had unwittingly seen in her memory.

He nodded, but continued to watch her quietly and patiently, as though waiting for her to continue speaking. How could that smoke have been Anubis? But then, now that she thought about it, the consistency hadn’t in fact looked like smoke at all. It had looked, remembering Orlin’s appearance when he changed to a glow of energy before using his powers, like a darker version of that ascended state. But that was crazy. Surely impossible, even. But she had to ask.

“Orlin, did... did Anubis ascend?”

Chapter Text

“Orlin, did... did Anubis ascend?”

Day 38 (continued)

Her head reeled from the ramifications of the revelation that Anubis had managed to ascend.

With his unique powers and knowledge it was no wonder he had been able to gain power so quickly. From what she understood of the ascended, like Orlin, he would have gained access to advanced technological knowledge. Orlin had, after all, been able to build a Stargate from simple materials found on Earth and without the use of naquadah. He was able to control the forces of nature, like Oma, as he’d before commented that that was ‘easy’. And she’d now seen that he could take hosts implicitly, including other Goa’uld. He could have easily used that ability to pose as powerful System Lords, just like she’d seen him take control of Cronus, giving out orders or making decisions that eventually fell into his favour. The System Lords were considered gods by their followers. Not one Jaffa or slave would have ever questioned their god’s orders, even if they were unusual. It was the perfect way for Anubis to have quickly gained power in the galaxy in such a short time, eventually conquering and killing all the Goa’uld, Jaffa and humans in the galaxy in one fell swoop… somehow. “Orlin, am I safe?” she asked suddenly as a horrible thought occurred to her. Orlin had seemingly easily found her, what if Anubis could too? Surely she was vulnerable to him finding her the exact same way. “If Anubis ascended, can he find me here like you did?”

“I’m sorry, Sam, I can’t answer that question,” he said, looking conflicted.

A strange anger flared within her. She wanted to snap, ”Well that’s not helpful or reassuring at all,” but managed to quash the retort.

“Can you at least tell me whether you being here with me is putting me at risk of attracting the Others by being here?” she asked after regathering her feelings, hoping he would be able to give a sufficient, indirect answer to confirm her safety.

“I believe you already know that I would never do anything that would put you at risk, Sam.”

He was right. She knew that he wouldn’t have come here at all in the first place if that would put her in danger, so she dropped her line of questioning.

She imagined instead how in the ten thousand years since his banishment, Anubis must have wondered the galaxy, remaining quiet in the shadows, before discovering and gaining ascension, then biding his time before deciding to seize the galaxy at the right moment. She wondered what had made Anubis decide to act now, all of a sudden. He’d been, from what she could tell, completely off the radar until recently. The memory of Jolinar definitely wasn’t from too long ago. From what she could remember, it hadn’t been long after that that her identity as a Tok’ra spy had been discovered, and Cronus had sent the Ashrak after her. She quickly estimated that Jolinar must have seen Anubis here around the same time that she herself had joined the SGC Program. But what had been special about then?

Scanning her brain, a gut-feeling suddenly stirred inside her. No, it was more like a thought process. It was like she was channeling Queen Hestia’s thought patterns. She could remember her pacing her chambers, strategizing for hours. Like a game of chess, the galaxy had been her board, and she would plan meticulously, calculating moves often decades into the future. Queen Goa’uld lived for thousands and thousands of years, and such time spans seemed only like months to humans. The most powerful piece on the board had, since the discovery of the Tau’ri, always been Ra, and like Hestia, Anubis would have loathed the Supreme System Lord and envied his position of power. But, a year before she’d joined the SGC, the Colonel and Daniel had killed him on Abydos. Without warning, the chessboard had suddenly lost its most powerful piece. The board had opened up, and Anubis must have seized the opportunity to rejoin the game.

“Colonel O’Neill and Daniel killing Ra gave Anubis the opening in the power of the galaxy to start making his way up the ladder and take control, didn’t it?” she asked Orlin, who’d been quietly watching her mull over and process the memories he’d chosen to show her, allowing her to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“That’s right,” he nodded, looking solemn.

“So, it’s Earth’s fault this happened. It’s our fault everyone got wiped out,” she said dejectedly. She couldn’t help being reminded of Kinsey’s scathing words several years ago. They’d opened Pandora’s box, and look what had been the result.

“No,” he replied, throwing her a comforting look. “Anubis is immortal. Ra would have eventually fallen to another rival Goa’uld, or died of old age. We’ll never know, but Anubis would have found a way to seize the galaxy one way or another.”

“But we accelerated that process.”

“It is likely, yes. I’m sorry, Sam.”

“Me too,” she sighed dejectedly.

Her mind turned to continue its thoughts again of the chessboard-like galaxy, and the masses of Jaffa army and slaves that Hestia had once controlled. She could remember the feeling of unlimited power and near euphoria induced by the unwavering adoration and loyalty of the humans of her dominion. Subjects who built ships and temples for her. Who obeyed her commands in battle and freely gave their lives unquestionably in her name.

“What I don’t understand, is why Anubis would want to get rid of every human in the galaxy. Who would be left to worship him? The Unas?” she asked, remembering the hideous, beast-like host he and Sokar had taken ten millennia ago, choosing not to claim a host from the newly-discovered Tau’ri planet.

“It is not Unas he wishes to rule over.”

“Then, another species, one I haven’t encountered before?”

“You possess memories of a Goa’uld Queen,” he interrupted, “yet you’re still not thinking long-term enough, Sam,” he said uncharacteristically sternly. “Don’t forget, Anubis is immortal.”

She thought back to the broken statue of Pelops she’d seen on Argos. “There was a Goa’uld who once tried to accelerate the natural evolution of humans. Maybe Anubis is waiting for a species that hasn’t even evolved yet?” She had a sudden image of Anubis keeping alien monkeys in cages and breeding them to his specifications.

“With the knowledge available to him from the ascension process, why wait for nature to take its course?”

“You mean, he’ll create brand new beings to serve him?”

“Yes. That is Anubis’ final plan, and you must prevent this.”

She felt shocked by this information. She couldn’t believe how far Anubis was willing to go to maintain his own order. He planned to fashion the entire galaxy exactly to his own specifications. Hestia and the other System Lords had been right. Anubis was truly evil.

“You said there was hope, when you first turned up. Can I ask whether ascended beings can know the future?”

“Ask yourself, Sam, would I have given the Velonans the technology to build a defence against the Goa’uld if I could have foreseen them using it to plan the conquest of other worlds?”

“Right, that’s a no, then.”

“No.”

“So you’re telling me I have to stop Anubis, but you don’t actually know whether I have a chance at stopping Anubis?”

“I can see… probabilities,” he said, looking somewhat agitated.

“There are forks in the road, but you don’t know which one I’ll ultimately take.”

He nodded, and she nodded back her understanding.

“Well I’m no precognitive but the only path I can see that would stop him from carrying out the rest of his plan would be by undoing what he’s already done. He’s too powerful now,” she said, thinking back to the chunks of the Nox homeworld still drifting idly in space. “The only way would be by going back in time and preventing him from ever assuming that kind of power in the first place. And of course, I want to undo all the death in this galaxy.”

“I agree with your assessment,” he nodded.

“Good," she said, glad that Orlin had confirmed that time travel would be the best course of action for ther to take. But could it even be done? "But Orlin, I don’t know of any alien species capable of time travel other than possibly the Ancients and the Asgard, and I don’t even know where the former are, and I can’t contact the latter. What am I supposed to do next?”

“You have already achieved time travel. Twice in fact.”

“Yeah, but those were completely random flukes. A solar flare hit the wormhole just as it passed through Earth’s sun and sent us back in time on our planet. I’m guessing a similar event affected my wormhole again this time. But those were totally unpredictable events, there’s no way I can replicate those same circumstances- what?”

She’d stopped mid-sentence when she’d seen the wide, expectant smile that had appeared on Orlin’s face.

“That look. You’re saying it can be done.”

“I am saying nothing, Sam. And I have no look,” he said, quickly rearranging his face with a smirk. “I am merely listening to your thoughts.”

“Orlin… Come on, please throw me a bone, here! I have absolutely no idea where to go from here,” she pleaded.

“I was banished once. You know I can’t interfere, Sam.”

“You just practically told me that Anubis ascended and what his plan is!”

“I did not. I merely guided your speculation,” he said amusedly.

“Ah!” she huffed in frustration. She was becoming frustrated by his constant cryptic half-answers. The subtleties in these rules set by the so-called “Others” was driving her nuts. It was no wonder Daniel had quit being ascended, she thought. She knew she was probably overreacting, but she couldn’t fight the strange rush of swirling emotions that had been ignited in her. She took a moment to think. She’d gone from almost kissing him to now feeling frustrated at him! What the hell was wrong with her? It must be an affect from accessing the buried memories. Jolinar would certainly have encouraged her earlier behaviour, she'd always enjoyed flirting with attractive men and women before meeting Lantash. And now she was feeling a frustration and anger that was characteristic of Hestia well within her. She was sure Orlin knew this, too, as he’d already stepped back, seemingly choosing to give her space.

She took a step back herself, then walked out of Cronus’ throne room and returned to the corridor outside. She didn’t want to end up lashing out in anger at Orlin then later regret it. He was the first person she’d had to talk with in over a month, and logically she knew he was doing all he could to help her, but the emotions that had arisen in her from the Goa’uld were now so raw and strong. She needed some space to recover and regain some control of herself.

“I need some fresh air,” she called, not waiting for his reply, and rushed out of the palace and into the gardens.

Standing beside a raised, circular fountain, watching the water splash and spout upwards, trying to calm herself, she heard Orlin shout from behind her, panting as he ran to catch up to her.

“Sam! We can’t be here. The memory will end. This isn’t where Jolinar went after she saw what happened to Cronus.”

“I don’t care! You’re in my mind. Change it,” she barked, not unlike a Queen commanding her First Prime.

“I can’t do that,” he said exasperatedly, then she saw as he stopped mid-step and looked upwards, a dark look suddenly falling onto his face.

“What is it?” she asked, a sense of concern now quickly replacing her earlier frustration at his unexpected change in expression.

“Some of the Others are here," he said, suddenly looking fearful. "They’re watching. They know what I did.”

“Help me recover my memories?”

“No, not that," he said, his eyes holding her gaze. "I’m sorry, Sam, I have to go,” he added hastily, running up to her to reach out to hold her cheek just as he’d done when he’d died from his wound on Velona.

“Orlin, wait!” she said, holding his hand to her cheek with her own and leaning into the feel of his touch. “I’m sorry I got mad. Don’t leave me alone again.”

“I’ll be back when it’s time. You already had what you needed,” he added quickly with a fierce last gaze into her eyes, before reverting to his glowing state and disappearing, and all went black.

Chapter Text

“I’ll be back when it’s time. You already had what you needed,” he added quickly with a fierce last gaze into her eyes, before reverting to his glowing state and disappearing, and all went black.

Day 39

It was the throbbing of her head that woke her. She opened her eyes, finding herself in semi-darkness, soon recognizing the gentle hum of the ship’s engine rattling the floor beneath her back.

“Orlin?!” she called out, wincing in pain at the volume of her own voice, but there was no answer. No breeze indicating his presence. Had it all been a crazy dream?

She hauled herself up from the floor, leaning against a side console, her head pounding against her skull, wincing at the light coming from the illuminated console on the wall beside her. She felt as though she was suffering from the hangover of her life. She squinted her eyes to shield from the brightness of the Goa’uld text before she was surprised to see that it read “shield status”. And then there was the panel indicating the efficiency of the hyperdrive next to it. Another section below showed the ship’s hull status. Ignoring the pressure in her head, she looked at the whole screen, and then the entire console behind her on the other side of the bridge, finding to her utter amazement that she could understand everything she was seeing on the screens. She could read Goa’uld!

It hadn’t been a dream, after all. She really had accessed and regained parts of the Goa’uld genetic memory within her. She really had seen Anubis in his dark ascended form. And unfortunately- and she grimaced to remember- she really had yelled at Orlin. Just as she had been getting him to answer vital questions about her time travel plan, too. Why had she had to get angry and lose control of her emotions at such a crucial moment? Then he’d suddenly vanished and left her. She recalled the expression that had appeared on his face. He’d looked like he’d been caught. He’d already been banished once… was he being punished once again?

“They know what I did,” he’d said. What had that meant, if it hadn’t meant recovering her memories? Had he put her at risk? She was pretty sure he’d also said, “You already had what you needed,” before she’d lost consciousness. What on earth had that supposed to mean, either?

All that she could deduce was that she was completely alone again, and that she likely wouldn’t see him again for a long time.

She looked at her watch to see that it was almost zero two-hundred hours. She’d been passed out at least the last eight hours or so, and she badly needed to pee. She made use of the Al’kesh’s facilities, then fixed herself up a cold MRE meal before heading to the consoles once again, her headache somewhat more bearable after her late-night meal.

To her utter relief, she soon found that she now had full working access to the ship and all its functions. The first thing she decided to do was to use the ship’s computer to model the movement of the remnants of the Nox’s homeworld. It didn’t take long for the Al’kesh to run a simulation and estimate that from the movement and distribution of the fragments, they had been blasted apart approximately forty-one Earth years ago.

Anubis could have learned the location of the Nox homeworld from his time ascended. Then, once he’d re-collected the six jewels of the Eyes of the Goa’uld, he’d have easily destroyed the entire planet. That would have paved less resistance before moving on to eradicating the rest of the life in the galaxy, though as pacifists she doubted whether the Nox would have even taken any action against him at all.

There was nothing more to be done in this star system, she decided. She accessed the ship’s navigation logs from the front console and plotted a return course to Yu’s stronghold, again setting the course as automatic. It was strange to see herself work the ship’s systems while clearly remembering how she’d struggled with them only a day earlier. She now felt as though she’d always been able to fly a ship of Goa’uld design, and the conflict in her memories was quite confusing, as well as somewhat disturbing. It reminded her of how she’d felt after Jolinar had died inside her. She’d lain huddled in the infirmary for days, unable to distinguish whose memories or feelings were whose, unsure of who she even was anymore. Fortunately for her this time, Orlin had kept his word. He’d only allowed a select amount of memories, as well as language and ship-flying ability, it seemed, to be recalled. She hadn’t been overwhelmed, and thankfully, she didn’t feel any more of Hestia’s intense emotions or even Jolinar’s fears or desires anymore.

As the ship continued to fly itself on its course back to Yu’s planet, she decided to think back on those select memories that Orlin had chosen and to analyze everything she could remember. It was important to think why Orlin would have chosen those. At first she found it difficult to differentiate from what she had learned from seeing in the memories, and what she felt like she’d already known before. She simultaneously felt both like she’d known what the Eyes of the Goa’uld had looked like for millennia, and also hadn’t known at all. She’d known of Anubis’ banishment for eons, yet she’d only first learned of his name a month ago. It was very confusing.

From what she could conclude, and based on what he had said, he had wanted her to know of Anubis’ banishment after a bid to take control of the galaxy using the superweapon. That he’d been alone for millennia. That he’d somehow learned to ascend at some point. That he was now immortal, powerful, and could now take anyone, including other Goa’uld, as hosts.

Still deep in thought, wondering if there could have been anything she might have overlooked, she spun around in the pilot’s chair, moving to stand with the intention of grabbing her water bottle for another drink, but ended up placing her weight on her tender ankle at just the wrong angle, sending a shooting pain coursing up through her body.

“Ouch!” she cried out in pain, immediately withholding the weight from her ankle and hobbling forward to kneel beside her backpack. She could almost hear Janet saying, ”I told you so.”

She reached into her pack for her med kit to take some painkillers, before spotting the Goa’uld healing device she’d packed and stopping her rummaging. Was it possible that she could use it now? She figured it was worth a try, at least. She took it from the pack, slipping her right hand through the middle part, and instantly found herself able to activate it. It lit up a bright orange, and as she gingerly moved it over her injury, she instinctively closed her eyes, finding that she could see the damage within her mind’s eye, along with various readings of blood pressure, bone density, as well as her other health-related data notated in Goa’uld. The x-ray had been correct. She could see no damage at all to the bone, but the device soon pin-pointed and highlighted two ligaments that still bore partially-healed tears.

She first focused her mind to repair the cells in the outermost ligament on the side of her foot, which she saw seamlessly mend themselves inside her mind’s eye, before slightly adjusting the device’s position to hover above the top of her foot. She mended the tear in the topmost ligament here too, before conducting a scan around the rest of the foot to make sure there was no more damage. The rest of her foot appeared to be in perfect health, so she opened her eyes and instructed the device to turn off, which it did, suddenly feeling tired from the concentration she’d required. Without a symbiote, use of the healing device was quite taxing. She’d had the same experience after miraculously managing to heal Cronus and averting Earth’s destruction a couple of years ago previously, too. She didn’t know how she’d managed it at the time, but perhaps she had always had the ability within her, as her father had once said when she’d faced Seth. She packed away the healing device, and removed the support band she’d been wearing on her foot, carefully swivelling her foot around in circles, relieved to find it pain-free and perfectly pliable.

“Thanks Orlin,” she said aloud, as it was due to him that she now had full-workings of the healing device. She was also of course hugely grateful for the risk he had taken to help her.

She took the sip of drink she’d originally wanted, then decided to take a rest. She was facing a long journey back, and the use of the device had worn her out.

Day 40

Shortly after zero three-hundred hours the next morning, following some bouts of light sleep as well as taking some time to investigate the Al’kesh logs, which it turned out hadn’t been frequently utilized, the sound of a beeping indicated that she was approaching the original star system. As the ship approached the planet, she switched to manual and set the ship in a low orbit over the stargate’s position on the light side of the planet, scanning the planet for life signs. As she’d suspected on her first visit, the entire planet was completely lifeless. She was easily able to use the ship’s sensors to detect the ring platform in both the temple, the hidden alcove with use of a security code the Al’kesh had stored, as well as all the rings of the individual cargo ships on the ground. Deciding the safest option would be to make it look as though she had never set foot on the planet in case Anubis ever came, she landed the ship manually in its original location within the structure she’d half-destroyed, which it turned out had been located over a hundred clicks from the temple and the stargate. Then, grabbing all her belongings and making use of the ship’s facilities one last time, using the secret access code, she set the rings to beam herself directly into Yu’s hidden alcove.

Well-rested from her long flight, she immediately dived into pouring through Yu’s logs, Daniel’s notes now of course no longer needed. Fortunately the same access code from the Al’kesh had granted her access to what had turned out to be Yu’s secret intelligence centre. She now had full access to information of his former armies, star charts and maps of his territory and his enemies’, and most interestingly, a vast entry dedicated to Yu’s research pertaining to Anubis.

“Thank Yu,” she joked aloud with a smirk, imagining the Colonel appreciating her terrible joke, before settling in to read through it all.

Day 41

Sam rubbed her forehead in soothing circles. She’d spent the past day making notes in blank spaces of Daniel’s books trying to unearth every crumb of information pertaining to Anubis in Yu’s database, which, naturally due to Yu’s millennia-long lifespan, as well as what seemed to be a meticulous personality trait of his, had turned out to be exceptionally extensive. She was sure that the reason for Orlin giving her the ability to read Goa’uld was that there must be something here that would help her undo what Anubis had done. She had packed plenty of rations for several more days, and had decided that she would not leave the alcove except for bathroom breaks in the Temple until she had found what Orlin had intended for her to find.

It wasn’t until over twenty hours later, including a fitful sleep on the hard floor when her eyes had tired too much from the reading, that one of the newer logs caught her eye. As she had previously read in the SGC’s mission reports, Ba’al had indeed recently declared himself what could be translated as “Leader of the United System Lords”, which Yu hadn’t refrained from ranting and raving about throughout his more recent logs. She’d been amused to read his more colourful and unfavourable descriptions of the System Lords throughout his logs, making the entries more akin, in some parts, to a teenager’s diary than a true report.

Yu had noted that Ba’al had boasted during a secret meeting, to which Bastet and Morrigan had also been in attendance, about a potential way to stop Anubis. He had bragged that he was working on a device that used the power of Ra, which Yu had immediately branded preposterous. She wondered if he had meant the Eye of Ra, which of course was far out of reach in enemy hands. Yu then hadn’t hesitated to again go off on a rant in his entry about Ba’al’s ridiculous ideas and time-wasting- but, wait, no. She realised she’d made a mistranslation. Yu hadn’t written the name “Ra”, he’d likely meant the ”sun”; the symbol for both in Goa’uld being interchangeable. Ba’al had likely been talking about the power of a sun- a flare- perhaps, she wondered. It seemed a stretch, but was it possible that Ba’al had been looking into constructing time travel technology with a star to undo Anubis’ rise to power, like she was? But from what she’d learned from the SGC reports, and what she later confirmed in Yu’s logs, all of Ba’al’s outposts and planets, along with his entire territory had been completely razed and claimed. Had Anubis possibly found out about Ba’al’s plan and destroyed everything preemptively?

But there had to be a way for she, herself, to utilize the same technology. She was sure from Orlin’s hints that he had believed, or known, there was hope. That there was a “future possibility” as he’d put it, that he could see where she could be successful. Practically speaking, what she needed was the technology to measure changes within a star. Then she’d be able to monitor flares and dial a wormhole at the right instant.

She thought of how she’d been able to monitor Vorash’s sun with Cronus’ mothership and predict when it would go supernova when she’d wiped out most of Apophis’ fleet. Unfortunately, with a sense of disappointment, she could now confirm with her recalled Goa’uld memories that not even a Ha’tak computer had the ability to measure the minute changes within the corona and magnetic field that would lead to the prediction of the eruption of a solar flare in real time.

”You already had what you needed,” had been Orlin’s last words.

Maybe she was barking up the wrong tree. She hadn’t had the ability to read Goa’uld or fly space ships before. Maybe this wasn’t anything to do with Ba’al at all. Was there another civilization the SGC had already encountered that could help her achieve her goal?

The Tollan would have been her likeliest bet technologically speaking, but they had been completely destroyed. In hindsight, she even wondered if it had been Anubis who, sensing their threat, had instigated the plot that had led to their demise.

She thought back to all the mission reports she’d read through, written after her disappearance, but couldn’t recall any human or alien civilization that the teams had discovered that would be advanced enough to help her now, except for the creators of the Replicator-making android. But from what she could recall, that civilization was long extinct, and a follow-up report by maybe SG-15 had stated that the planet had been scoured in an attempt to salvage any useful technology, but it had been determined that the replicators had either consumed or destroyed all remaining advanced technology.

”You already had what you needed,” she recalled again.

Was he being more specific? She was certain he’d known of a potential solution for her that he’d been trying to guide her to. Surely he would have carefully chosen his words before he’d been forced to leave by the Others. Did he literally mean that what she needed was from a race that she, herself, had already met?

She thought back to her past four and a half years on SG-1. It looked as though Anubis had destroyed the more advanced civilizations with the superweapon, but he may have made a naive mistake only erasing the humans. That meant that their planets were, like Yu’s, untouched and intact, with their technology more than likely preserved for her taking.

The Gamekeeper’s civilization had certainly been advanced- they had developed stasis pods, which had given them a long life while they’d lived in their created a virtual reality. Unfortunately this technology would not serve any useful purpose to her cause unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life hiding from her solitude in an imagined reality. She couldn’t help give a pause as her mind wandered at the thought, and the possibilities that could produce...

“Get a grip, Sam,” she admonished herself, squashing aside the image of herself sitting on a dock, overlooking a small pond, being handed a beer by a relaxed, smiling Colonel, just the two of them in the woods-

She pushed her mind to continue its earlier train of thought. “How about the Eudorans?” she thought to herself. They’d had incredible power-generation technology, cloning, and neural technology, but nothing that she could foresee would be useful. Not to mention, she’d never seen any indication of them possessing a space program, or anything that would help her with time travel, and their stargate had been seemingly destroyed in the bombing attacks.

Then there was the Aschen she’d encountered just over a year prior. She’d only had a limited glimpse of their technology as they’d stayed on Volia for the entire negotiations process for joining their Confederation, never visiting their homeworld. But she had seen first-hand their transportation technology when they had beamed aboard the Harvester. Their Harvesters had possessed anti-gravity, gliding across the terraformed planet unpiloted, gathering the farmed crops. She’d also seen first-hand the deployment of their biological weapon from beneath the Harvester, which they’d claimed could target enemies’ specific DNA. The Aschen had certainly made considerable advancements in the Goa’uld’s absence, comparable to the Tollan. They even seemingly had interstellar capabilities, though the impression she’d gotten was that their capability was limited as they had only been able to venture to their nearby star systems. They certainly hadn’t yet reached transgalactic capability.

Regardless, thinking back to the talks she and the Ambassador had held aboard the Harvester, she now recalled that they had mentioned in passing that they had converted a gas giant planet in the Volian system into a second sun to extend its farming season. It occurred to her now, that in the excitement of the swift progression of the talks, followed by the stress of Kinsey’s interference, the ploy to trick the Aschen into revealing their secret plot before almost being captured, and leaving behind the Ambassador to stop Earth being destroyed by their bioweapon, had made her completely overlook this perhaps key detail. That feat alone- of being able to control-convert an entire planet into a star- meant that in her opinion, the Aschen probably rivalled, if not surpassed that of the Goa’uld in some technological ways. The Goa’uld had made their own advancements and innovations over long millennia, but the Aschen must have, in a relatively short period of time, progressed to an incredible level. Converting a gas giant into a star was no small feat. They would have needed advanced knowledge on solar dynamics, an understanding of a star’s magnetic and changing gravitational fields, not to mention the ability to monitor in real-time the thermonuclear reaction within the star… including, possibly, the ability to predict its activity, including flares being, or about to be, produced from beneath the corona’s surface! That was it!

“Under no circumstances go to P4C-970,” the blood-stained note from the other, now redundant, future had warned.

That must be how that Colonel O’Neill must have sent that message, she realised, suddenly bursting with excitement at the indirect confirmation of her theory. The Aschen had, in all likelihood, unwittingly created a time travel machine!

“Sorry, Sir, but I’m afraid that’s an order I won’t be following this time. I think these circumstances do in fact deem that I go to P4C-970.”

Chapter Text

“Sorry, Sir, but I’m afraid that’s an order I won’t be following this time. I think these circumstances do in fact deem that I go to P4C-970.”

Day 43

Sam settled into her make-shift office back at the Alpha Site, spending time the next day brushing up on all she could find in the database on the Aschen. She also searched to see if anything more had been learned of them after her disappearance, but there was no record. A good thing they hadn’t had any contact with them, of course. They had, after all, tried to destroy all life on Earth first by a plan of mass-sterilization, then more invasively with a bioweapon as she’d made her escape.

Sadly, however, this meant that she had very little to go on. No one had seen the homeworld of the Aschen, and she had only met two Aschen people. Mollem and Borren had seemed restrained and somewhat private people, though she could only speculate whether the rest of the Achen race was anything similar. Diplomats she’d known of were generally intelligent, but not necessarily the most charismatic of people. Generally the complete opposite of Colonel O’Neill, despite his position as de-facto ambassador to the Asgard, she thought amusedly. She had to admit, though, that Ambassador Faxon had seemed rather different to the general stereotype she’d always held. She recalled with a flutter in her stomach how he’d had the guts and charm to ask her out right in front of the General and the Colonel. It had pained her immensely to have been forced to make the decision to leave him behind to his almost certain death.

In short, she would pretty much be going in completely blind to an advanced enemy’s home planet. She had to admit that she felt quite intimidated by the Ashen and the prospect of visiting their unknown and surely highly technologically-advanced world completely alone. She knew that just like Earth, the Aschen had overthrown their reigning Goa’uld in the past, advancing technologically alone, then had later re-discovered their gate without ever finding the DHD. They had built their own dialling system, just like Earth had, and this of course meant that there would be no quick dial out if she found herself in danger once she arrived. She would have to take a naquadah generator with her to dial out manually if she couldn’t find or operate their dialling system, and a second in case the former failed.

She also recalled that they’d stated that they’d had no iris during the negotiations, but they hadn’t known anything of outside enemies at the time. What if they’d built one since then to defend themselves? Or what if they’d chosen to install a weapons system that activated when an unknown traveller arrived?

She also didn’t know the Aschen written language, which would be vital to decipher. She’d briefly seen strange markings on a monitor in the Harvester where they’d had the negotiations, but she couldn’t remember at all anymore what they’d looked like, or if Daniel had commented and said anything about the symbols. Sadly, despite scouring his mission report on the Aschen, she found that he had completely omitted this vital observation. At least she knew that the Volians spoke a derivative of Welsh, so she’d have to return to Earth before her departure to the Aschen Homeworld to pick up his notes on that.

——

“You won’t believe what happened to me, guys,” she called to Daniel and Teal’c’s remains upon her return to the SGC later that day, referring to the fact that she had met Orlin and had learned, or perhaps, re-learned, how to fly Goa’uld ships since her last trip to Earth. “And I'm going to borrow more of your notes, Daniel, sorry,” she added. “Okay, I really need to stop talking to people who aren’t actually here,” she muttered to herself as she reached the elevator to head up to 18.

Up a few levels, she returned the Goa’uld dictionary she’d borrowed- she wouldn’t be needing those at all anymore- before scouring his messy office once again. Despite the complete disorganization, she truly felt grateful for once for Daniel’s obsession with researching dead languages. His collection was turning into a valuable resource. If she ever got back, she decided she’d never again giggle at the Colonel’s frequent eye-rolling when their friend got carried away with his rambling about dead languages.

It took a good forty minutes to finally dig out Daniel’s notes on the mission to Volia, along with photocopies of the recovered newspapers; his handwritten memos scrawled across them as he’d translated the articles. This could turn into a Rosetta Stone if she could find any Volian text there.

In addition to the Volian notes, she also decided to bring the video camera that had been sitting on his desk, which she’d regretted not bringing on the mission to Yu’s world. She’d had to charge it but had found it to be thankfully still workable. She also charged and prepared some extra batteries for it, and also packed some of Daniel’s multicoloured pens and blank notebooks.

Day 44

Back at the Alpha Site, with her FRED readied in the Gate Room, all packed and prepped with an assortment of supplies, ammunition, medical supplies and as many tools and equipment as she could foresee needing, bypassing the lockout on the address in the system, she dialled the Aschen homeworld.

She had to admit that she almost felt a sense of dread when she saw as the last chevron lit up and locked, the wormhole forming. A part of her had ever-so-slightly wished the Aschen homeworld was in fact being sucked into the black hole of P3W-451, whose address had been top of the list she and the Ambassador had given them. She couldn’t recall ever feeling such a deep sense of foreboding before a mission. Sure, she’d felt nervous visiting Yu’s stronghold alone, but a part of her had expected Anubis’ weapon had taken care of any Jaffa there. This time, she couldn’t help feel that that wouldn’t be enough to safeguard her there. Still, she was almost certain the technology she needed to get back to her own time was there, and the whole galaxy was counting on her.

Taking a deep breath, she instructed her mini-MALP to go through the newly-formed event horizon, the seconds waiting for the telemetry to be sent back dragging on and on. She had absolutely no idea what she was about to see, and the wait only increased her anxiety.

The relayed image finally flickered on the computer screen. The mini-MALP was transmitting an image of a stark white, brightly-lit, empty room on the other side. Whizzing it around to get a full 360 degree view, she was puzzled to see that there was nothing to see at all. There weren’t any visible control panels or buttons. There were no work stations or seating. She couldn’t see anything that looked remotely like a dialling system they might have constructed, either. The walls, she could see, were plain, windowless, and even to her surprise, doorless. She couldn’t see any way in or out the facility. She panned the camera up and down to the ceiling and floor, but still, there was nothing remarkable to see at all except for the Stargate itself behind the mini-MALP standing inside the square room that looked to be about twice the size of the SGC gate room.

But the lights were on, and that meant that there had to be a power source somewhere. Readings were in the green, too, and the temperature was acceptable, though a little on the cool side at a steady 40F. The MALP was also picking up trace EM-readings being emitted from somewhere, too. She was reminded of the room where they had found the Ancient repository several years ago when the downloading device had appeared on the wall after she and the rest of SG-1 had arrived. Perhaps this was similar. Perhaps she wouldn’t find anything until she went through.

She couldn’t help her sense of foreboding increase further at the thought, though. The place looked completely lifeless and admittedly, rather ominous. She desperately wished her team would be going with her. Or that Orlin was still here with her to bolster her confidence or calm her with his presence, even if he wouldn’t be able to physically help her if she came under attack the moment she stepped through. She couldn’t help feeling scared, but the Aschen had the technology she needed. She couldn’t be certain, but Orlin, surely, had intended for her to go there. She had to trust him, and she had to have courage.

Making her way to the ramp at the foot of the gate, with a last look at the Alpha Site, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she saw it, she secured her backpack on with the front buckle and sent the FRED through first, giving it a moment to get clear of the gate on the other site. It would provide her with a place to duck behind if needed.

“Here goes,” she said to herself, readying her weapon and stepped through, bracing herself for the worst.

As her vision rematerialized, a long, thin, clear screen stretched across the far end of the wall from nowhere, lighting up with text in a strange, green alien writing. She instantly ducked behind the FRED, keeping still, her ears picking up the soft sound of a whirring and a clicking. Her heart hammered in her chest. She couldn’t see from her position what was happening. She also now noticed there a faint smell of something like wheat in the air. Peering around the side of the FRED slowly, weapon primed and ready, she spotted a yellow line that had appeared on the floor, which seemed to be guiding her in the direction of a nearby, tall arch that hadn’t been there before. Yellow alien text was displayed on the top of the white, metallic structure, matching the colour of the floor line. She guessed she was meant to follow it.

Looking around and seeing no movement, nor anything immediately threatening, she hesitantly emerged from her hiding position and cautiously followed the line to the arch, startling as it suddenly produced a gas at her approach, along with a bright light which suddenly passed over her body. She instinctively held her breath and deftly ducked backwards away from the light and arch, which to her further surprise, then melted seamlessly into the floor before her eyes.

“Woah!” she couldn’t help exclaim, looking at the floor where the arch had just stood, seeing that it looked completely smooth, with no sign of an opening at all. The gas soon dissipated, too, and unable to keep from drawing breath any longer, she gasped frantically, trying to steady herself. The gas, to her relief, had seemed harmless. She was reminded of the decontaminant sprays that SG teams utilized upon their return from hazardous, potentially contaminated worlds. Maybe this was simply the standard procedure for all gate travellers arriving.

The arch must have been a scanner, too, she guessed, because suddenly the text on the wall changed to red, as did the previously yellow line in the floor. It must have detected that she wasn’t Aschen, she thought frantically. She would surely be attacked any moment. She ran back to hide again behind the FRED, weighing her limited options, her heart racing. Her sense of foreboding had been justified. There wouldn’t be any time to dial up the gate with one of the naquadah generators she’d brought, as she’d already surmised. No control room or dialling system had appeared. She was trapped and cornered. She gripped her P-90 to her chest tightly. There’d be no choice but to fight her way out.

Chapter Text

She gripped her P-90 to her chest tightly. There’d be no choice but to fight her way out.

Day 44 continued

She could barely detect the low-toned beeping that now sounded, followed by a similar clicking sound to that which she’d heard earlier, over the thudding of her pulse in her own ears.

Panting in shallow breaths as she waited for an attack, when the clicking stopped and there was no further sound aside from the dull beeping, she risked quickly peering round the FRED to see that what appeared from her position to be a large, white cube, located at the end of the new red line in the floor. Back to hiding behind the FRED she considered the situation. Was it a weapon? A bomb?

A higher-toned and more persistent beep now blared, along with multiple clicking noises high up from all around her. There were now tiny flashes of red from evenly spaced black, glass domes in the walls and ceiling, and she could see several lasers being trained on her position. She was being warned. If she didn’t cooperate, the system would shoot. She’d have to obey and approach the object.

Going against every instinct in her body, she got up and walked over to the indicated area and peered into the cube, around one meter wide, startling as she saw the top melt away, revealing an empty container. The way it morphed itself, as well as the sound it produced, creepily reminded her of the replicator blocks she’d seen rearrange themselves into various bug shapes on Cronus’ ship when they’d been sent to another galaxy after being accelerated by the supernova’s blastwave. Similarly, it looked like the Aschen had developed miniature blocks able to arrange themselves into needed shapes.

Acutely aware of the lasers pointed on her and the alarm still ringing, she thought fast. If the earlier arch had indeed been a scanner, then there was a possibility it had only reacted to the weapons she was carrying, like an airport metal detector. Was she supposed to remove her weapons and put them in here? She decided she’d have to take the chance. One by one, she swiftly deposited the Colonel’s pistol, her P90, the knife in her vest and the hidden one sheathed in her leg strap. It wasn’t until she deposited the Goa’uld hand device from her pack that the sensor seemed satisfied. Silence fell, and the box was swiftly swallowed into the floor, her weapons disappearing along with it. She was alarmed to think she had now been left defenceless, standing alone in the once again empty room, but her eyes were drawn to the sight of the wall lasers completely disappearing into the walls, and the guiding line below her feet changed back to yellow. She’d done the correct thing.

Her eyes tracked the yellow line towards the farther end of the wall, puzzling to see it came to an abrupt end. The floor then suddenly warped, and up rose what looked to be a simple, doorless, white closet. She approached hesitantly to see a single, grey tunic hanging inside it. Despite the four decades that should have passed, she was surprised to see that the grey clothing- exactly the same design and colour as those she’d seen Borren and Mollum wear- looked in pristine condition. She noticed, too, that it seemed to be exactly her size. Was it possible it had been newly-made for her just now? Had the scanner in the strange arch just taken her measurements?

“Am I supposed to wear this?” she asked aloud, but there was no answer. No change in the yellow text on the wall.

She couldn’t risk hesitating anymore though, not if she didn’t want to risk the reappearance of the wall lasers. With trepidation, she removed her TAC vest, feeling increasingly vulnerable as she continued to strip off her clothes one by one in the wide, cold, empty alien room, profoundly aware that she was being monitored.

Her clothes removed apart from her underwear, finding herself shivering in the frigid room, she pulled the tunic from the closet and slipped it over herself. To her shock she immediately felt something like thin bands within the material grip around her neck, wrists and torso all at once.

“What the-!” she shouted as the upper half of the clothing now tightened around her torso.

In a panic, she pulled up the long skirt of the outfit to see that some kind of wired sensor inside the waist seemed to have attached itself to her. She rolled up her sleeves to see that similar devices in the wrist cuffs had also pinned to her wrists, too, covering up her watch and combat bracelet. There was no pain, but no matter how much she tugged at the devices or clothing, they would not come off.

“Great,” she said aloud.

She didn’t want the closet to disappear and take her clothes with it as had happened with her weapons, so she risked returning to the FRED to place her clothes on top of the pile of supplies there. To her relief, the floor line didn’t turn red in protest.

A clicking noise behind her made her jump, and she was relieved to turn and see a wide, open green-framed doorway form in the back wall, the yellow guiding line now extending itself through the doorway. For the first time, she was given a glimpse outside the previously windowless room, where an ominous dull red glow could be seen, like that of an old photographer’s darkroom. She didn’t want to venture out into the homeworld of an enemy weaponless and defenseless in the near-dark, so she chanced slipping her TAC vest and backpack back on over the tunic, to which the system thankfully didn’t object. She prepped her flashlight in case she’d need it, too, then, exiting the facility, stopped in her tracks at the sight before her.

She was surrounded by rows of towering buildings in all directions. A magnificent red-tinged, cratered moon hung in the sky above, illuminating the vast, modern cityscape around her in a red hue. At first, she thought that the giant blue and yellow alien text she could see scrolling and changing across the moon was written onto the moon itself, before deducing that she must be looking at a giant, transparent screen floating high above the city.

The very next second, however, she gasped to see the moon suddenly vanish, instantly replaced by not one, but two suns in the sky. One was enormous and red, burning high in the sky, the other was much smaller and yellow, low in the sky and partially obscured by the nearby towers. Their combined, warming light streamed down across the stunning cityscape around her, reflecting off the metallic-like panels around her, briefly blinding her. She quickly grabbed her sunglasses from her pack’s side pocket, and when her eyes had adjusted, she saw that the suns had brightened up the sky from the previous dull red to a now bright, orange-tinged sky, radiating from what she now guessed must be a projection on the inside of a ginormous dome encompassing the entire city.

Continuing to take in the immense, silent city around her, she saw that she couldn’t make out the edge of the presumed dome, nor the city itself, which stretched as far as she could see. She could see now in the new daylight that these hundreds of windowless buildings were all white, just as the Aschen gate room she had previously been in, and they stood neat and ordered, all of a similar, homogeneous design and clearly built of the same construct. Their bright, spotless colour was striking, and she was surprised to see no signs of weathering or age whatsoever. The entire city looked simply immaculate; the shining glass of their tall, square roofs completely intact. It was a stark contrast to all the planets and cities she had seen so far, all overgrown, weather-beaten and run-down from forty years of neglect. This city looked as though it could have been built just yesterday. In fact, recalling the weapons storage compartment and arch she’d seen materialize before her eyes out from the walls and ceiling, perhaps that notion wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps the city had just been built. She simply stood there, mouth agape, paralyzed by the breathtaking scope of such an advanced city. It reminded her somewhat of the brief glimpse she’d had of Othalla, the Asgard’s homeworld, when she’d helped defend it from the Replicators.

She looked up as more alien writing flashed across the sky above her, still a mixture of light blue and yellow-coloured text, occasionally rotating and changing. Some, she suspected, looked more like figures than alphabet. Daniel would have known, she thought to herself. She hoped that the computers weren’t written in this same language, or that there was some kind of vocal interface, otherwise it was going to take her a very long time to decipher the language and learn how to operate them.

She stepped onto the wide, metallic, yellow line-laden walkway before her, which she guessed served as a road. Except, unlike Earth and Vyus, there were no damaged vehicles by the side of the road. There was no trash or overgrown tree roots pushing their way through damaged concrete. There was nothing remarkable to see at all. And as she took several steps along the roadway, the metal beneath her feet clinking gently, she now noticed that she seemed to be the only source of movement or sound around. There wasn’t even a trace of movement in the air or wind at all.

As she took a few more steps along the yellow guideline, a clicking followed by the sudden appearance of a sign from nowhere to her left caught her by surprise. As she walked towards it, it lit up, and many-coloured alien texts began scrawling across it, with several elongated buttons forming in several rows, also in different colours. She couldn’t make heads or tails of the writing, and she didn’t think Daniel’s notes that she’d brought were going to be of any help to her at all. It was looking unlikely that she was going to find anything of the Volian language here after all. She badly wished Daniel himself was here with her. This would surely have been a cinch for him, or at least a linguistic puzzle that he would have enjoyed sinking his teeth into. She took a moment to think. What would Daniel do if he were here? Assuming he didn’t immediately recognize the origin of the language, what would he do next?

Recalling the endless videos he used to take of walls of ancient text on missions, the first thing she decided that he would do would be to use his camcorder to take a photo of the screen, which she did. She’d have to return to Earth and Daniel’s treasure trove of languages to find the closest matching language.

"What else?” she asked him mentally.

"I’d want to know the origin of the people. I’d try to discern from their architecture or culture," she could almost hear him say.

But that didn’t help her here. These buildings were all completely modern, possibly new, and without any distinct cultural features that she could see. There were no golden pagodas here. No terracotta houses. No visible statues. Perhaps she would have to venture inside a building to see if she could find anything more discerning and learn more about their culture inside.

The roadside sign seemed to be waiting for her to make a choice, and her attention was captured by the largest, top enlarged yellow menu button, which was floating outwards holographically. The yellow colour so far had seemed to indicate giving her direction so far, so she put away the camera and decided to take a chance, gingerly pushing the menu option. The yellow line in the road below her feet instantaneously took a new path, elongating along the road into the distance and turning right and disappearing behind the next building.

She could just imagine the Colonel making a quip reference to the Wizard of Oz as she considered the yellow line beneath her feet.

“Yes, Sir, I’d better follow the yellow brick road if I want to find the way home, right?” she spoke aloud.

Following the path, she was puzzled to see that it seemed to come to a stop in front of nothing. Deciding to trust the AI that was presumably leading her somewhere, as she closed in on the dead end, she marvelled to see a brand new path building itself right before her, a bridgeway stretching up and across to a higher floor on the next tower.

Testing the newly built path warily with a single foot, she determined that the pathway felt surprisingly steady, and she dared to climb up it. As she reached halfway up the new bridge, she saw as a framed doorway, the same yellow colour as the path with more alien script written into it, formed in the plain building before her, and a light inside flickered on.

Alarm bells suddenly started going off in her mind, and she slowed her ascent as she approached the entranceway. She couldn’t see the interior of the building from here. What if the door re-sealed itself behind her? How would she be able to get out again? She was defenseless, weaponless, and completely unable to read the alien language.

“This would not be a prudent course of action, Samantha Carter,” she could imagine Teal’c warning her.

Teal’c was right. This was a bad plan. If she got cut off from the gate, she might end up dying of starvation sealed inside a giant building seemingly constructed of what were essentially not much different to replicator blocks. She still knew practically nothing of the Aschen, even whether they were even still here. She hadn’t seen any sign of clothing. What if they were here, luring her into a trap? It seemed that she’d allowed herself to be lulled into a strange false sense of security again, like when she’d been on Yu’s planet. Was it possible that Orlin was here, watching and encouraging her again? But she hadn’t felt any breeze indicating his presence, she thought, and she’d gotten the impression that he’d been forced to leave by the Others. No, he couldn’t be here, she surmised. Had she simply instead been so mesmerized by the grandeur of the city that she’d let her guard down? Either way, she determined that following lines unquestioningly into unknown buildings was not a prudent course of action at all.

She turned and decided to quickly retrace her steps, hoping the Aschen system wouldn’t be angered by her sudden change in destination. As she approached the halfway point across the bridgeway again, a sign, similar to the one she had first seen, suddenly assembled itself before her eyes. The system had recognized her return and seemed to be asking where she wanted to go instead. At least it wasn’t pointing lasers at her.

“I want to go back to the Stargate,” she told it. She’d decided that the best course of action would be to return to the SGC, look up the alien script with the picture that she’d taken, then make sure she was well-prepared for her return here.

The sign didn’t react to her request, however. The options on the screen simply remained unchanged. It didn’t appear that the system had a voice-based interface at all. Pulling up Daniel’s digital camera, she compared the picture of the screen she had taken, with the one before her now. One option on the list was different- the highlighted top yellow one she’d previously selected had disappeared, and a new, different, green one had appeared near the bottom. She recalled that the text on the wall of the facility when she’d first arrived had been green. Come to think of it, the frame of the doorway, there, had been green, too. Would that be the one that might take her back?

She took a photo of the new menu options, then selected the bottom option on the touchscreen. The light below her feet changed green, and indeed, to her immense relief, led back the way she’d come up the pathway and towards the building that housed the Stargate.

“Okay, we might be getting somewhere,” she muttered to herself.

The bridgeway ended up taking her all the way back to the first sign, where the options were again restored to the previous ones.

Pulling out a blank notebook she’d borrowed from Daniel’s office, and copying the alien text of the bottom menu button, she wrote “Yellow: take me to the tall building over there.” Then she copied the bottom menu button text from the photo she’d just taken, and wrote, “Green, take me back to the gate.”

'Oh boy, this could become pain-staking work,' she thought.

The wall of what she recognized to be the building housing the gate, however, had remained sealed. Could another green button on this sign open it back up?

There was only one green option of the multicolored options; the top-most yellow one still highlighted, floating at the top. She chose the green one, and to her relief, a second green line snaked back towards the building, a green doorway opening itself up.

”Thank god,” she said, before hastily following it.

Back in the Aschen gate room, she immediately noticed that it wasn’t as cold as she remembered it being when she’d first arrived. She took a photo of the green text on the wall in here, then stepped back out to take a few photos of the changing, swivelling giant sky text, then decided to tackle the problem of dialling the gate. She first decided that she wouldn’t dial the Alpha Site directly. She had no idea how intelligent the Ashen AI was, and didn’t want to hand it the address to the Alpha Site. Instead, she decided she would first dial Argos, since it was one of a few planets she knew that would be reliably safe without needing to send a MALP through first, since Pelops had ensured it would remain a safe paradise for the people he’d been experimenting on by terraforming the climate and eliminating dangerous predators. She couldn’t see her watch anymore, but she knew it was still mid-morning her time, and that meant it would be early evening Argosian time, still providing light in the temple on the other side.

In ten short minutes, she had hooked up the naquadah reactor she’d brought in the FRED to the gate and now began dialling the chevrons manually one by one, heaving the panel round each time. She’d never done this before without Teal’c’s help, but quite to her surprise, she found that she wasn’t working up a sweat at all. She didn’t feel tired at all from what she had anticipated would be an incredible physical effort turning the inner ring around all by herself. She found herself wondering if the Aschen had possibly done something to loosen the mechanism?

Not complaining, she gave a last, relatively easy push to lock what she reasoned must be the Aschen homeworld’s unique point of origin, but to her surprise, the last chevron failed to light up and lock. Puzzled, she checked the naquadah generator, but it looked to be in perfect working order, its power output at full efficiency. The other six chevrons on the gate were still lit up. She was sure she hadn’t mis-dialled, too, as she’d carefully watched each chevron light up and encode correctly.

Had the Aschen done something else to affect the gate? Was it possible that they had changed their point of origin, if that was even possible? She pondered whether to re-try for a moment before it then occurred to her that this gate had never been updated to compensate for stellar drift by the periodic DHD correlative updates, since it didn’t have a DHD. It could be dialled into from outside, but just like Earth’s gate could originally only dial nearby Abydos and Helios, she couldn’t dial outside of the planets within the Aschen confederation, which was a huge problem, because she didn’t know the coordinates for Volia.

She scolded herself for neglecting to consider that she wouldn’t be able to dial outside of the Aschen local network. She was sure she’d skimmed over the address to Volia the previous evening when she’d been pre-reading as much as she could about the Aschen, but unfortunately she hadn’t thought to memorize it or write it down.

If she couldn’t remember the gate address to Volia, she would be stuck here forever.

Chapter Text

If she couldn’t remember the gate address to Volia, she would be stuck here forever.

Day 44 continued

Strangely though, despite her predicament, she found that she didn’t start to panic. She simply stood at ease, staring at the gate, searching her brain for the address to Volia for a moment before it happened that a green light lit below her, and the strange, but increasingly familiar clicking sounded. She turned to see that a new green-framed exit, different to the one she had used earlier, had formed at the end of the new guiding line. Judging by the light coming from the other side, this way didn’t seem to lead outside. Deciding to follow it, she was relieved to find a small room housing what was unmistakably the Aschen dialling system.

“Thank you,” she spoke aloud to the AI, as she calmly walked to the green alien text-covered screen, where she didn’t need to read Aschen to recognise the gate address she’d seen the previous evening. Selecting it from the limited options that had presented themselves, including, she saw, P3W-451 with what looked like a warning in red beside it, to her immense relief, the sound of the gate dialling could be heard from the main room. She took a photo of the gate addresses, before returning to the gate room in time to see, with a sense of satisfaction, the vortex form with a giant kawoosh.

She wouldn’t be able to use the mini-MALP and there was no way to check the other side, but she would take the chance. At least she knew there was a working DHD on the other end, or at least, there had been when she last visited. Worst case scenario, if the DHD had been damaged in the past forty years by bad weather, she knew the Harvesters that worked there had their own on-board dialling systems, and they seemed to still be operating judging by the faint smell of cut crop still lingering in the air. She reasoned she could probably find one and get it to dial her back here if needed.

Digging out a couple of spare guns and ammunition still stashed in the FRED, she tried to remove the Aschen clothing to better prepare herself for her trip to the farmland planet, but found that a low-toned sound emitted from the clothing. It was still firmly affixed to her.

Giving up, she stepped through the gate, pleased to find the immediate vicinity of the gate on Volia looking exactly as she remembered it.

Wide rows of farmland spanned the horizon, now glowing orange in the late evening sun. The crops were certainly patchier and wilder from what she remembered, but they were still surprisingly thriving, looking half-grown as though they had been harvested a couple of months prior. There weren’t, however, any Harvesters within visible range flying in her vicinity, but fortunately she found that the DHD was still perfectly functional. As she keyed in the coordinates to Argos, simply for additional safety in case the automated Harvesters could log her input address, she briefly wondered where the crop went if there was no one to consume it on the Aschen homeworld, before stepping through to the dusty temple, before proceeding to dial Earth.

----

As she returned to the SGC, she spotted the four airmen’s clothing that still lay untouched on the Gate Room floor. She couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t she thought to tidy them away the last time she’d been here. Such a mess was indignant.

She threw them, along with all the various piles in the Control Room unceremoniously into the waste baskets below the dialling desk out of sight, then marched to the elevator to head up the few floors to Daniel’s office to begin a search for any written language that closely matched the photos she had taken of the text. She found the state of disorganization of Daniel’s office simply repugnant. How could he have ever called himself a scholar? She couldn’t fathom how he could ever have got any work done in such an inefficient environment.

After searching the chaotic office, finding herself compelled declutter it as she went, she finally discovered that the spiky characters of the Aschen script she’d photographed bore a resemblance to an ancient script called cuneiform, a language she recalled hearing him mention several times over the past four years. She continued on to read that cuneiform was one of the oldest written languages on Earth, which originated from the Mesopotamia era three thousand years ago, from the area now known as Iraq. ’Intriguing,’ she mused aloud. She considered that might provide an explanation as to how the Aschen had managed to advance so fast in a relatively short time compared to almost all other planets. They might have been one of the earlier groups of humans taken, and already having their own writing system when they’d been taken as slaves may have helped them self-organize better and assemble a rebellion faster, giving them more time to reach such a superior and most respectable advanced technological point.

She read on to learn that there were several offshoots of the written and spoken language related to cuneiform, though unfortunately, while there was a visual resemblance, the language had naturally evolved over the five millenia. The dictionary she’d found gave translations for symbols representing “ox” and “river”, but of course those terms would have quickly become obsolete and would have been lost or replaced over the years. The original numbering system seemed to have completely changed too. This also wasn’t surprising since ancient numbering systems were often inefficient, becoming streamlined as maths progressed to needing to incorporate larger numbers, decimal points and power notations. A developing society couldn’t continue to express ‘nine’ as nine separate stacked symbols representing ‘one’. The Mesapotamians originally counted in base 60, like minutes on a clock, but that, too, may have changed since. She would need to bear that in mind, however, if she wanted to make solar-related calculations down the line.

Four hours soon flew by, and she was satisfied that she had a start. It had been a fascinating pursuit of knowledge, but she had had to accept that she had finally reached a blockade. She had no syllabary foundation and no way of guessing the sounds of the symbols. They had simply changed too much over the millennia. She wasn’t sure if even Daniel would have had sufficient intellect to manage any further progress than she had.

The task should have been overwhelming, and she braced herself for the incoming feelings of gloom that she would expect to accompany the acceptance of an almost impossible task… yet, they didn’t come. Instead, she felt nothing but curiosity piquing inside her. Yes, she thought, it could take a lifetime to figure out the language on the planet, but it was a task worthy of her and her intelligence, and the reward of being able to utilize the Aschen technology would be worth the investment. She would just have to be patient.

“Patient,” she repeated aloud.

”In time, you’ll find that we can be a very patient people.”

How intriguing. She was starting to sound like Mollem. Again, she expected herself to react negatively to the notion, but instead felt nothing other than a keen desire to return to the Aschen homeworld and begin her research there. It was as though her emotions were dulled, or suppressed. Something must have been done to her, she mused, and she could only theorize that it must be the clothing she couldn’t remove. They’d connected to her, and although there hadn’t been pain at the time, she now realised that its function must not be to harm her, but to perhaps influence her physically.

She saw a pair of scissors in the stationary stand on Daniel’s desk. What would happen if she were to cut at the clothing? There were no lasers in the wall here to get angry at her. There would be no harm in testing her hypothesis, she reasoned. Grabbing Daniel’s scissors, she made an incision into the skirt of the clothing, but to her mild surprise, it simply re-seamed itself instantly. She tried to make a larger cut into the sleeve but again it fixed itself in an instant. What a fascinating technology, she marvelled. She briefly thought of trying to burn the clothing to remove it, but then quickly questioned why she would want to damage such an incredible technology. She couldn’t help but feel that it would be a shame to damage it before learning more of its purpose. It might be altering her physically and emotionally, but she strongly felt that her first priority would be first determining whether it was a threat to herself, or not, before attempting any further to remove it.

Abandoning the pair of scissors, she gathered the notes she’d amassed on cuneiform writing and Mesapotamian cultures from the same time period, then calmly set off for the infirmary to investigate the new conundrum. She performed a blood test on herself, then patiently waited for the machine to deliver the results, as she’d seen Janet do hundreds of times. Thirty minutes later, the readings showed that her blood hormones were markedly affected. Lowered oestrogen, serotonin and epinephrine had been measured. That would explain her dampened emotional reactions, she thought. The neurotransmitters acetylcholine and dopamine however were greatly increased, which would provide improved alertness, concentration and memory.

”Fascinating,” she remarked to herself.

Satisfied that the effects of the clothing weren’t posing any physical harm to her, in fact, feeling that they seemed to be having, if anything, a beneficial influence on her, she decided it would be most logical to leave the clothing on and return to the Aschen Homeworld as soon as her supplies were gathered. Working from the base up by sounding out the symbols with out-of-date ancient dictionaries here at the SGC wasn’t going to work. She’d have to guess the meaning of the words on the planet itself through context and break down the sounds from there, and that of course meant going back to the homeworld and seeing the language in action.

It would take time, but, just like the Aschen, she would be patient.

Chapter Text

It would take time, but, like the Aschen, she would be patient.

Day 45

She’d found it impossible to fall asleep that night at the SGC in her usual VIP quarters despite the late hour and long day. She didn’t feel at all tired, instead feeling incredibly charged and wired. By zero hundred hours according to her laptop’s clock, she’d relented and ended up getting up, taking the opportunity to brush up on her knowledge of solar dynamics. Sleep seemed like such a waste of valuable time when it could be channelled into studying and learning instead, anyway.

Riding the elevator to Level 19, as she’d anticipated, she found her lab had indeed been largely cleared out, though the main standard equipment framed the walls just as she remembered. Curiously it looked as though it had not been reused since her absence from the SGC, instead looking more like a storage room. A pointless, nostalgic notion of her coworkers, perhaps, she briefly wondered.

Though she found all trace of her previous possessions to be gone, the base library had fortunately provided the scientific texts that she remembered utilizing when she’d needed to do her calculations for repairing the damage done to the K’Tau sun. She also gathered her own previous research that she had conducted into the solar flares SG-1 had been affected by in 1999 and in 1969 to travel in time, and found some useful papers pre-downloaded into the base archives on stellar evolution, dynamics and quantum mechanics, storing digital copies that may become useful at a later time onto her trusty laptop.

----

Sleep had finally come to her for a couple of hours at the library computer desk she’d been sat at early in the morning, but it had been shallow and dreamless. By zero eight hundred hours she was wide awake, satisfied with her preparations, and infused with an overwhelmingly strong desire to continue with her linguistic endeavour back on the planet.

An hour later, standing on the gate ramp, her backpack weighed down by many multicoloured pens, notepads, and extra batteries for the camera, she found herself to be calm and confident this time as she stepped through the event horizon, most unlike her previous visit. She couldn’t help find the notion that she had been so fearful and anxious the last time rather ridiculous now that she felt a sense of belonging there.

In fact, when the green text re-appeared on the long screen against the back wall of the bare, white Aschen gate room on the other side, she almost felt as though she was being welcomed back. She took out a new notebook and copied the alien text, then proceeded to copy down the alien text from the arch which had reformed, writing ‘decontamination and scanner’ with a question mark, as she couldn’t interpret which was which, then passed through the arch, barely reacting to its emitted gas or scanning light. This time there was no red-light protest as she hadn’t even considered bringing any weapons back with her; she was safe here, after all. Then, just as before, she was led straight outside through the same green doorway.

The sky was already orange-hued for morning, with the larger, red sun high in the sky when she stepped outside. With her sense of unease and fear repressed, she felt nothing but an uninhibited sense of curiosity as she began to explore the city. Ignoring the roadside sign that had again appeared, she spent perhaps the next few hours, though she seemed to lose all sense of measuring time, simply walking along the main roadway for several blocks at a time, freely allowing herself to indulge her inquisitiveness to examine the signs that would sprout up here and there. Occasionally she’d write down changes in locations on the signs, she’d add to a map of the city layout she’d decided to compile, all the while keeping her bearings along with the sky text above, and also spent some time idly watching the light blue and yellow notations change above her trying to guess their meaning.

It became apparent that almost every building she passed looked exactly the same from the outside. Some would occasionally vary in height or width, but on the whole there was little variation in the smooth and clean, cold and metallic and almost completely uniform buildings. She wondered how the Aschen that once lived here had known where to go? Had each individual who’d lived here always followed similar guiding lines? She also wondered why there seemed to be no trace of any of the people that had lived here. There was not a single pile of clothing to be found at all along the identical rows of paths.

Walking along yet another row of plain, shining white buildings glinting in the dual sun’s light, she now noticed a strong sense of hunger suddenly develop within her. It occurred to her now that she hadn’t consumed anything at all since her last meal on the Alpha Site the morning of her original mission here. That was well over twenty-four hours ago by now. How could she have not even noticed that fact until now? The sky above her suddenly shifted towards a bluer colour, catching her eye. Looking up, she saw as the larger, red sun disappeared, before reappearing just above the horizon between the rows of towers either side of her, while the smaller, yellow sun simultaneously moved upwards to dazzle prominently high in the sky. The giant text scrolling across the sky, too, changed colour and size, from the smaller, previous light blue scrolling to a large yellow text, like an announcement. She deduced the city was being summoned to lunch.

She wondered for a moment whether the city, through the clothing she’d been forced to wear, was causing her body to feel hunger at its designated time, or whether the city was aligning itself to her own bodily rhythm and needs. She was pretty sure it was around twelve o’clock her time around now, though she couldn’t access her watch under the restraining wristcuffs. The idea that the city might be governing itself to suit her and her needs impressed her, even giving her a sense of self-pride and self-importance towards the notion.

After making a brief note in her book about the new yellow announcement, she followed the yellow line that had appeared on the pathway, which this time led her to what she recognized to be a transporter. It was the same metallic design as the one she’d used to reach the Harvester on Volia a little over a year prior. Stepping onto the transporter’s triangular panel, she activated the flashing yellow button on the keypad that looked to be the same combination of symbols as the sky text on what looked like a diagram of a map just as she herself had been drawing. Blue rings of light engulfed her, and she suddenly found herself standing on a different transporter platform in front of a different tall building.

She saw as a yellow-framed doorway appeared instantly within the plain wall at the end of the yellow guiding line that had snaked itself away from her. She recalled the memory of the similar situation she’d found herself to be in yesterday, though this doorway was located on a lower level of the building to the one she’d previously been led to. She also knew this wider building to be located in a different part of the city based on her perspective of the dome above.

She found herself remember the hesitance she’d felt yesterday. Logically, she thought, it seemed the clothes were controlling her emotions and dampening her sense of fear, even perhaps influencing her thoughts, but she couldn’t seem to summon the ability to care. She marched uninhibited straight through the yellow doorway, feeling anticipation at entering an Aschen building for the first time. She now found herself in a vast, furniture-less room, which was completely spotless. She estimated it was the same width as the entire building she’d just seem outside, about a hundred meters in length.

As she approached the centre of the room, a single, circular metal table with a glassy surface and accompanying chair assembled themselves, rising up from the floor with clicks, and she found herself taking the offered seat. Before her, within the middle of the table, was a grey, metal panel. Looking around at the vast emptiness of the room, which looked as though it had the space for hundreds of similar tables, she imagined at one time it must have been used to feed and serve hundreds of Aschen at one time like a giant canteen. But there weren’t hundreds of Aschen still living in the city anymore. It was fascinating to her to see how the city had adapted to her, its sole inhabitant.

Before her eyes, a bowl of food suddenly materialized with a blue light on the metal plate in the middle of the table before her, along with an eating utensil. The metal plate had been another transporter. The bowl was thin and white, and contained within was what looked like a gloopy, rather colourless porridge. It looked remarkably like the food she and SG-1 had been served during their time working in the power generation plant under the domed city on the ice planet of P3R-118. But she didn’t feel nostalgic at the thought of her team, or the brief memory of the closeness that had developed between herself and the Colonel on that mission, she simply picked up the bowl and utensil from the transporter panel and placed it in front of her, her hunger urging her to sample the gruel-like porridge. It must have been manufactured using the crop from Volia, she deduced, as it had a somewhat corn-like aftertaste, but on the whole was pretty much as equally tasteless as the slop of P3R-118.

Regardless, she found herself eating the entire bowl, and was intrigued to find herself feeling energised and filled when she was done despite the rather conservative amount. She returned the bowl and utensil to the transporter plate, where it vanished in an instant, and a yellow line appeared in the floor, leading out the building, indicating that she leave. As she stood, the table dematerialized, the chair behind her following suit, both sinking into the floor with the same clicking noise. She followed the guiding line out into the still blue-ish daylight, and decided to begin an investigation of the transporter outside.

The map that had been displayed earlier had returned to blank, but beneath it, a panel similar to the signs displayed the menu she’d seen on her first arrival. She recognized the same large, floating yellow button that she’d chosen yesterday, as it had the same symbols she’d written down, including a funny-looking wavy symbol. The button was floating outwards and flickering, almost seemingly begging that she push it. After writing another memo, she relented into her curiosity and pushed the button, finding herself immediately returned to the precise same location as she had been yesterday, near where she knew the Stargate was located. The same bridgeway once again materialized before her as she reached the glass dead-end, and again, a yellow-framed opening had formed in the higher floored room.

Yellow words written onto the frame looked to read the same as the button she had just pressed, as she recognized the wavy symbol in the same position. She stepped through, and, similar to the canteen she had just been in, she found herself in an equally vast and empty space. She was guided to a nearby newly-formed metal chair, where she sat down, and an elaborate panel immediately appeared before her along with holographic shapes in the air before her. A light shone down from the ceiling onto her head, similar to the scanning light that she’d experienced from the arrivals arch. She didn’t feel threatened at all, however, instead she relaxed to see the lights in the walls glow light blue, providing what looked like a puzzle, not unlike an IQ test. She soon found that she could use her mind to move the objects to the correct place, presumably through the head scanner. The system would ask her to assemble a shape, or she’d need to move newly-created blocks to the correct place, then once she’d cleared it, a more challenging and abstract task would replace it.

Over the next hour or so, the tasks became more and more complex, sometimes seemingly appearing within her own mind as opposed to visually before her. It was like her mind could interpret the more mathematically-based queries without needing to understand the Aschen notation. She found herself relishing the problems, marvelling at the holographic scenes appearing before her eyes and within her own mind.

Before too long, she was almost disappointed when the lights changed to pink. This time she was now offered different tasks, focusing more on what she supposed was molecular biology and chemistry. Some tasks she could complete, but it soon became apparent that the Aschen’s knowledge was beyond her own, and she found many of these tasks far less intuitive, sometimes struggling to recognize what was required of her.

The green-coloured tasks seemed based on engineering and logistics, and fortunately she found herself able to answer some of the tasks, though she later became stumped when text-based questions began appearing. Yellow, too, had become a mixture of abstract questions that she could occasionally answer relating to infrastructure and what she grasped was related to the management of people. When the screen later changed blue and last black, however, she had become completely unable to read the entirely-text questions for either, and to her almost frustration she ended up stupendously failing all tasks.

She’d been at it for what felt likely to be hours, but despite expecting to have tired by now, she had relished the thrill and pursuit of the correct answers. She’d felt fully engaged the entire time, despite what should have been frustration with the reading questions. She’d enjoyed the stimulation and feeling that had come with the problem-solving, feeling no mental tiredness whatsoever.

It was to her great disappointment when the holographic displays went blank, the wall side lights changed white, and the light above her head turned off. She stood, and a screen on the far wall appeared, giving what she guessed were her test results. The numeric figures beneath the green and light blue categories seemed highest, the black and blue scores were presumably close to, or precisely zero, with the pink and yellow scores remaining in the middle. She looked at the name of the category in light blue, indicated by five alien symbols. She then noticed that the first and last symbol, a flat-ish character was the same, along with a spiky one, a broad one and a multi-dashed one in between.

“S,” she spoke aloud, surprising herself that she seemed to intuitively know the sound. ”Science,” she surmised, considering the context of the light blue-coloured tasks she'd been given.

She saw that several of the other categories carried the same s-sounding symbol; the pink and green word in the middle, and the yellow at the start, but unfortunately she couldn’t guess any further progress as to what they read. But she was definitely making progress. She took out her notebook to write the symbols for science, noticing the green text she’d copied earlier in the Aschen Gate Room at the top of the page. Aschen Prime she jotted below it unthinkingly, before pausing to re-read what she’d just written. How did she know it said that? She stared again at the text. Yes, she was certain that the last figure, a single vertical dash, represented the numeral one as opposed to a sound, and the term “Prime” had just seemed naturally fitting. Looking up at the light blue Science category still displayed on the wall, she saw that the spiky and multi-dashed symbols in her notebook matched the sound “ah” and “en” in science, and she couldn’t help a gut-feeling that the wavy one sounded out to say “sh.”

“Ah-sh-ehn,” she read aloud, with a huge satisfaction. Aschen Prime. That must be the name of the planet, she realized.

She took a picture of the five categories with her camera of the test results, which was fortunate, as the next second the display vanished and changed to entirely light blue. It seemed that she had been put in the science category. In yellow appeared the same symbol combination as on the transporter menu that had brought her here, except now she could read that the last two symbols, the wavy and multi-dashed ones combined to make “shen”. Or the suffix ”-tion” she thought. “Designation: science” it surely read. She quickly took a photo again before it disappeared, and a flash of light blue below her eyes caught her attention. She pulled at the collar of her grey tunic to see that a single light-blue button had appeared on it, reminding her of a military rank insignia. Intuitively, she knew she had been designated Science: Rank 1.

The doorway reopened itself, and as she stepped outside, the sky above her began to dim. She looked up to see the smaller, yellow sun suddenly vanish from view, reappearing far lower in the sky, and the sky changed to a faint pink. She must have undergone the testing process the entire day, though strangely, she hadn’t at all felt tired until now. Now, however, she suddenly felt extremely weary, overwhelmed by a desperate need to sleep. A yellow line appeared in time with a yellow message being displayed in the now evening sky, likely summoning the city to rest, but she found she couldn’t muster the mental energy to consider deciphering the text or even take a photo to check later.

Her body obeyed the line before she’d even decided what to do, finding herself being led to another transporter, which again showed a map of the nearby city. A new yellow spot had appeared on one of the outer parts. Too increasingly drowsy to even consider interpreting the instruction, she pushed the button, appearing in a completely different vicinity, and judging by the new perspective of the sky text above her, she could tell she was on the other side of the dome. She faintly registered that the buildings here were somewhat smaller and narrower. She stepped down from the transporter, and a yellow line snaked along the path, reaching the nearest building, creating an opening in the wall. She was now so tired that she could feel the energy draining from her body with every step she took towards the entrance, and the sky above her shifted darker once again. Curious, she summoned the energy to look upwards, spotting the last sun disappear entirely from view, and the image of the red moon she’d seen first upon her arrival phased into the night scene gently, flickering stars joining them.

She staggered into the indicated building and found herself in a compact space. It had furnished itself with some simple white furniture, as well as what was unmistakably a bed in the centre, though it was fitted with a glass cover, which retracted before her eyes. She felt no desire to examine its features; that could be postponed until the following day. She simply removed her backpack and climbed into the bed, laying down on the firm, grey mattress, and before she could begin to protest being sealed inside as a glass panel enclosed above her, unconsciousness had already claimed her.

Chapter Text

...and before she could begin to protest being sealed inside as a glass panel enclosed above her, unconsciousness had already claimed her.

Day 46

She opened her eyes to find herself flat on her back inside the glass pod. The glass panel above her suddenly retracted to either side, and she sat up, completely unaware of how long she’d been asleep. She felt incredibly refreshed for it, though. It had been a pleasing, solid, dreamless sleep, entirely different to the sleep she had struggled to attain back on Earth the previous night. She briefly wondered if she had been unable to attain sleep at the SGC because she was now required to sleep in this type of Aschen bed.

She climbed out of the sleep pod and, assuming this was a bedroom, looked around for any kind of closet for a change of clothes, but didn’t find any. To her surprise though, although she’d been wearing the same clothes for nearly forty-eight hours straight, she found that they still looked, and smelled, pristine. There was no evidence that she’d sweat at all in that time. She’d produced no body smell as she would expect by now, and she now noticed that she didn’t even feel the need to utilize a bathroom either. The clothing must be controlling more than her hormones and concentration ability, she realised. They seemed to be controlling her basic functions, including respiration and metabolism, too, and she now considered that this must be why she hadn’t felt any difficulty to dial the Aschen gate manually two days prior, nor why she didn’t register the cold of the city.

Her sense of desire to learn and absorb more information was also clearly influenced by these changes. She spent more than an hour investigating the computer panel she’d found inside her new home, trying to guess the meaning of the words on the options offered here- different to the signs outside- and writing down her theories and ideas based on the small number of symbols she had already extrapolated from yesterday.

Suddenly finding herself now desiring to go outside, she grabbed her pack, camera and notebooks, and left through the door to see that the sky was pale orange designating morning again. A beeping sounded from below her chin, and she saw that the light blue button on her collar had lit up again. At the same time, a similarly coloured line led her back to the nearby transporter. She wondered if she was perhaps being summoned to work.

She felt herself obey the line, and with the push of the highlighted light blue button on the map, she was instantly transported inside another vast, empty room. This time, with a huge chorus of clicks, she watched as long workstations, circular tables and chairs, and several computer panels all lit light blue all materialized simultaneously before her eyes forming a large circle, leaving a vast empty space in the middle. It was unmistakably a science lab, and it had been constructed just for her, she thought with a sense of pride. She couldn’t help feel instantly at home, and despite her dampened hormones, she almost felt a rush of pleasure from the progress she was making here on Aschen Prime, together with an almost faint sense of excited anticipation at what she may be able to discover here.

She quickly found, however, that further progress would be stalled until she could decipher more of the language. For now, she was not going to be able to operate the complex computers here. Each computer bore a flat panel resembling a keyboard, with twenty hexagonal glass keys lit with different light blue individual symbols. On the left side, there was a single yellow key which looked different to the others, and she was sure she hadn’t seen it in any of the alien writing so far. Pushing it, she found that it switched the entire keyboard layout to another set of different lit symbols, functioning not unlike the Caps button on a standard laptop. A second push gave a third arrangement of keys. That gave her a set of sixty symbols in the Aschen alphabet in total to decode before she could utilize the Aschen computer system.

Pushing the caps key again, she took a photo of the first set of twenty, then another of the next two, then began to write each symbol in order onto a fresh two-page spread of her notebook, forming a neat alphabet. At least she had a basis for the extent of the written language now, she thought to herself. It was like a puzzle; and one that she would thoroughly relish deciphering. Some symbols seemed to represent syllables, and some were individual sounds. She’d already decoded nine sounds simply by determining the words “Aschen”, “designation” and “science”, which she found the individual symbols to and wrote the transliterated sound in her English alphabet, taking a moment to appreciate the good fortune that at least the oral language of the Aschen sounded aloud like English. The task was steadily becoming attainable, and she pulled out her camera to look through the photos she’d gathered so far to try to deduce more symbols with the headway she had already made.

Day 48

It had been like a game of sudoku, where as she completed more spaces in the grid, the process of filling the rest of the squares steadily became faster and easier. Over the next two days, she’d spent her time trying to decipher as many words from context as she could; mulling around the city tracking the changes in the locations on the signs, writing down all the words she’d interpreted into a long dictionary in her book. Occasionally the AI would try to steer her back to what she’d guessed to be her work duty back at the science lab with the light blue line, but it hadn’t seemed to anger at her choice to bunk off work. Thankfully since her initial arrival on the planet, the AI now seemed to have become patient like the Aschen people she’d known. It must have assessed that she didn’t pose a threat.

She’d also found that strangely, just as she had recognized the sound “s” for science after the testing, she was slowly finding that a symbol or two would jump out from the text that she hadn’t yet interpreted. Standing outside her designated home at the sign below the teleporter two mornings later, once again ignoring the now daily summoning light blue line, she had discovered a way to access menus on other screens, and for the first time found a pink option. She recalled the tests she’d been given related to molecular biology and chemistry and had found herself compelled to press it, eager to see what an Aschen chemistry lab must look like. The pink-coloured option that began with what she strongly felt read “meh” stood out, followed by what was the symbol “deh” from designation. Did it read “medical”? She’d been wondering whether the designation test had downloaded information into her mind during the mind scan, but if that was so, then why could she only recognize sparse symbols? It didn’t seem like the Aschen to have created such an inefficient download system, unless she had differing brain chemistry, perhaps. Or maybe, she thought, it had been deliberately designed to ensure her mind was not overwhelmed as it slowly interpreted the new information.

She wrote down the symbol for “meh” with a note reading “pink”, then the rest of the word along with medical with a question mark, then gave into her overwhelming sense of curiosity to select the pink menu button. A map now appeared along with three or so buildings across the map that now glowed pink. She chose the nearest one, and felt the transporter initiate itself, finding herself rematerialize within a building.

Again she was in a wide, empty, spotless building, similar to the canteen she’d been summoned to twice already, until it suddenly morphed into what looked like a sparse ward. Soft pink lights now lined the walls, and a medical bed appeared in the centre with what might be a body scanner attached. Rows of cabinets and stations also materialized, equipping themselves with various tools and odd-looking contraptions before her eyes, and she was vaguely reminded of Niirti’s lab on Hanka that she’d seen not too long ago. She couldn’t help as a memory of the old Volian newspaper headline flashed before her eyes, too.

”Vaccination causes sterility,” she recalled.

Despite her strong prior sense of curiosity, and despite the effects of the clothing, she suddenly found that there was just barely enough initiative within herself to allow her to decide that she didn’t want to have anything to do with Aschen medicine. A dull sense of concern crept inside her as she suddenly recalled that they’d almost wiped out the entire Volian race. What if the planet and the clothing would have a continued effect on her, she found herself wonder fleetingly. What if it made her change her mind later? She’d already found herself doing things or holding opinions that weren’t her own...

Quickly pulling out Daniel’s pink highlighter from her backpack side pocket, she wrote “medical” next to the symbols she’d earlier copied from the transporter, and then wrote “BAD IDEA” in capitals, flipped the notebook shut and wrote “Be careful Sam” on the front cover, before backing up and swiftly returning to the transporter, selecting the yellow mark that would take her back to the safety of her home.

By the time she was outside her home again, her earlier unease had already completely subsided and had been forgotten. Restored to feeling calm and re-infused with a thirst for learning more, she set about getting back to investigating the menu options. The designation button was still there, though no longer highlighted, and she was just about to choose from one of the alternative yellow-coloured options, which she had come to think of as the safest options, when she sensed the sky above her subtly change tone. While she was increasingly losing the ability to track the passage of time, she didn’t think it could be time for her to be summoned to her single meal of the day yet. Besides, she hadn’t been made to feel hungry. She looked up to see that a green text had appeared on the sky screen, replacing the usual yellow and light blue text that was always displayed. She had never seen green text displayed on the sky, and guessing it must be something related to the Stargate, she quickly found the green menu option on the sign menu that would lead her there. Pushing it, the sign morphed into the metallic transporter, which she stepped onto, and appeared in front of what she recognized to be the building housing the gate. Pushing the secondary green option on the menu, the green pathway line snaked into the Gate building, the green-coloured opening appearing in the wall, and her ears immediately picked out the rippling sound of a formed wormhole coming from inside the building.

Despite the logical risk of entering the Aschen gate room unarmed with a potential incoming wormhole established, her heightened sense of curiosity completely overrode the possibility of any danger, and she couldn’t help walk into the gate room, eager to see more.

She was intrigued to see that the gate had been raised several meters above the floor and turned on its side at a ninety-degree angle by a floor mechanism, just as she had seen the Volian gate do so when she’d escaped from Borren and Mollem from the Harvester. The gate was being held face down above a giant, white vat, and what looked like grain was being dropped through the event horizon from the other side, gushing downwards into the vat. The smell of the grain in the room was strong, and she realized now that they must have received a delivery earlier the day when she’d first arrived.

She noticed unconcernedly, as the grain continued to pour into the vat, that her FRED and mini-MALP were missing, which was just as well, as they would have ruined the cleanliness of the room upon her food’s arrival. It wasn’t like she had any need for her previous belongings anyway when the city provided her with everything she needed.

The delivery of the grain soon came to an end, and as the wormhole disengaged, the gate righted itself and returned to its original standing position on the floor. A green line lit beneath the huge vat, and she watched as it slid itself through a new, green exit to the left side of the gate; one she hadn’t seen before. She was tempted to follow it, but before she could come to a decision, the vat had already disappeared through the opening and the wall had resealed itself behind it in an instant. Curious to see where the vat was being led, she decided to exit the building and briskly walk around the side of the building to see if she could see where her food was travelling to, but to her disappointment, there was no sign of it at all. She looked up to the sky to see the green text still scrawling, with what looked like many figures in the sky. Her eyes quickly picked out the spiky symbol designating “ah” at the end of a four-symbol combination.

“V-oh-lee-ah,” she guessed aloud with a strong intuition that she was correct. The green text must be a delivery invoice announcement for the city to see.

She couldn’t confirm it yet, but as she stood gazing around her city, she could picture it filled with life. Thousands of Aschen of different coloured designations and ranks being guided around the ever-changing puzzle of the city that could morph to suit their needs. The city provided its people with nutritious food, good health, and a shortened, efficient sleep, thereby maximizing the time they had to spend on researching and advancing their civilization, while she guessed that the people perhaps served as a physical, living extension of the system. What a marvelous, harmonious symbiosis. What a fascinating and truly mesmerizing concept. She could feel nothing but a sense of pride at having been accepted as part of such an advanced machine.

Chapter Text

Day 50

With her vastly improved memory and concentration, as well as the blossoming intuition that she’d been gifted for recognizing the symbols, it had only taken a mere five days since her arrival to have pieced together, decoded, interpreted and fully memorized every single symbol and its corresponding sound. Her giant language sudoku grid was finally filled, and it had been a most satisfying task to have accomplished. She could now read the language fluently, and she was ready.

That morning, summoned as usual to her work duty from her assigned living quarters, she eagerly complied, strongly yearning to get started using the advanced computers in the science lab.

Having arrived and taken a seat at the alien keyboard, it soon became apparent that while learning to read the language had been one thing, learning to type and spell wasn’t going to be as straight forward as anticipated. As she searched for functions by sounding out all the English words she knew through the alien combination of sounds and syllables, it made for an initial awkward start. But rather than feel frustrated, she revelled in the new challenge it presented.

She finally made a breakthrough when she pulled up a screen that seemed to be displaying instructions for her assignment. It seemed that she was required to complete the schematics for an unfinished new line of spaceship. She summoned the stored holographic display of the project to appear in the centre of the room, approximately two meters cubed, which rotated slowly before her. While she still hadn’t learned to read the numerals yet and couldn’t grasp the scale of the ship from the notated dimensions, she found herself mesmerized by the design. She quickly learned how to zoom in and out of various parts of the ship by touching and swiping the hologram, where she could pull up displays of its inner mechanics and systems, complete with further notations and remarks.

The project looked absolutely fascinating. She wondered whether perhaps the mind scanner during her designation testing had learned that she had been working on the X-302 project back on Earth before her disappearance and had found her suited to this task. She couldn’t help feel a great sense of pride that such an advanced city would need her help. She wouldn’t fail it, she thought, as the button on her collar gave a satisfied flash.

Day 57

A week into her project, her backpack and the notebooks that she’d clung to for so long abandoned and all but entirely forgotten back in her Aschen home, she had become completely immersed into the ship-building project. She’d now gained full function of the computers, where she’d come to learn that the Aschen hadn’t made much headway into developing what they had termed, “faster-than-light travel,” or their equivalent to hyperspace. Their current engine’s speed was limited, requiring almost a year one-way to reach the other two planets in the Confederation, Volia and what she’d now learned was another planet called Lannao. The city had deemed that a new generation of ships be built to allow for travel to some newly discovered planets in the galaxy, and she would be glad to assist in the expansion of the Aschen Confederation.

Having already picked up the Aschen’s notation for numerals and measurements, she soon came to realize that the Aschen’s problem had been the power source for their engines. While the Aschen had developed exceptionally efficient off-world solar power generation plants that powered the city, their power output capacity still paled in comparison to the power-generation ability of naquadah, as used in Goa’uld hyperdrive technology. The Aschen homeworld didn’t seem to have any trace of the element, and the people’s only knowledge of it seemed to be as the construct material of the stargate. She found a record of an attempt to synthesize it artificially, but it had proven unstable. To serve the city and complete her assignment, she concluded that she would need to design and create a brand new hyperdrive from scratch that could utilize liquid naquadah to power the Aschen’s ship. It was certainly a task worthy of her with her knowledge from the X-302 project, as well as the rich, intimate knowledge of Goa’uld technology provided from her restored memories, and not to mention together with her new heightened focus, brain power and memory.

——

She soon completely lost herself into the mentally stimulating task, falling into a routine of gratifying, long hours of work, amidst shortened, efficient periods of eating and sleeping, all governed by the city’s clock. The task was achievable, but it would still require time. But just like the city, she would be patient, and she was proud to serve her city.

Day ???

With a huge sense of satisfaction, after what may have been months of hard work, though the time had sailed by incalculably in a flurry of concentration and academic pursuit, the Aschen’s new hyperdrive engine design was now finalized. All the simulations had been completed and had passed her high standards, and she now commanded the AI to synthesize the necessary parts in another section of the city.

Meanwhile, she had had to return to Yu’s homeworld to steal some naquadah from the Al’kesh’s hyperdrive, but with her efficient metabolism and increased strength, the heavy weight of the liquid metal in the container she had designed and manufactured for the purpose hadn’t posed any difficulty at all for her to carry it back to the gate.

By the time she was back on Aschen Prime, she knew the engine would have been synthesized by the computer from her schematics and be ready for its first test.

The transporter outside the Gate terminal building sent her to an enormous open-topped structure that was connected to the inside of the vast city dome wall, where her newly-created engine was now housed. Following the engine test, the rest of the spaceship was to be assembled there, as this structure had the ability to access the outside of the dome for when the craft would finally launch to reach countless new worlds waiting to be added to the grand Aschen Confederation.

A walkway assembled itself to allow her to climb upwards to access the core of the drive. At the top, she carefully poured the pre-calculated necessary amount of the liquid metal into the finalized engine part, before assembling each component back manually with the tools she’d already requested be manufactured by the AI. Satisfied everything was ready, she descended back down the walkway, which disappeared into the floor again, then stepped back to admire her work, filled with great anticipation. Finally, she instructed the computer to begin the first drive initiation from the wall’s system access panel.

In a flash, the data screen on the wall’s light blue numeric readings changed to red, the engine ruptured, and in a rush of fire and heat, she was flung back hard against the back wall, and she knew no more.

Chapter Text

In a flash, the data screen on the wall’s light blue numeric readings changed to red, the engine ruptured, and in a rush of fire and heat, she was flung back hard against the back wall, and she knew no more.

Day ???

She woke up shivering from the cold, and a dull pink hue cradled her eyes as she blinked them open. She faintly recognized the medical ward she’d seen before, though that now seemed so long ago. As she sat up on the grey ward bed, she realized that she was completely naked. She recalled with a jolt a vision of the engine exploding right before her eyes.

The appearance of a yellow line leading from the bed interrupted her memory, and with a familiar clicking sound, a closet of the same design as she’d seen when she’d first arrived in the Aschen gate room arose from the floor. She stood and walked towards it unthinkingly- after all, she’d been obeying the city’s lines for so long it had become second nature- when the pink lights lining the walls caught her attention.

”Pink: BAD IDEA,” she recalled suddenly.

She’d written those words in capital letters in Daniel’s notebook she’d always carried when she first arrived. Daniel, she thought with a melancholic pang, contemplating how distant the memory of him had become after so much time. How long, even, she found herself wonder. How long had she been working on the hyperdrive project? Her watch had been covered up the entire time since she’d first arrived. She hadn’t thought to track the passage of time at all. She now recalled in horror how she’d become so entirely fixated on achieving the task she’d been set that now that she thought about it, she couldn’t even remember if she’d had a single conscious thought at all since she’d started on the project. She was suddenly terrified at the memory of how she’d practically become a part of the city, with weeks, if not months, passing by in a blur of compliance… She’d become nothing but a biological extension of a program, doing its bidding without a single contradictory or questioning thought.

But now she was naked. And she was herself again. The tunic and the wiring she’d been wearing must have been incinerated in the explosion. She could barely believe she’d even survived such an accident when she’d been in such close proximity to the rupture. She must have been brought here barely alive and unconscious before spending days being healed, her body inadvertently being given the chance to re-balance and detox. Now she was free of the city’s control with her own free will again and she fervently knew that she most definitely did not want to become its drone again. She would not put on the Aschen clothing and allow the AI to control her again.

Ignoring the yellow line, she purposefully made her way to the transporter on the other side of the room that was otherwise sealed from the outside. She quickly skimmed the map to the outer area where she knew her house to be located. She transported herself there and ran inside where she looked around frantically at the mostly bare space, but there was no trace of her backpack, or in fact any of her belongings. She thought back to how she’d seen the FRED and her MALP had been missing from the gate room the last two times she’d visited, too. Had they been cleared away by the city? Was that why everything was always spotless? Come to think of it, was that why she’d never seen any evidence of any clothes of the surely thousands upon thousands of vanished Aschen?

Where would they have been taken, she hastily wondered, and could she summon her belongings back? Just as she paused to consider potential solutions, a yellow floor line once again appeared, leading her to yet another closet that had formed in the corner of her small room with what she now felt to be incredibly ominous clicking.

This was bad. She needed to fall back and get to the gate. She turned to leave her house to transport herself back to the Gate terminal, but the doorway instantly sealed itself before her with another round of clicks, confining her inside the suddenly darkened room. The yellow-framed closet stood tall, glowing eerily behind her, and in the silent darkness, she couldn’t miss the row of red lights that had appeared in the walls and ceiling with further chilling clicks all around her. She was trapped and surrounded. Naked and defenseless. It was clear the city wouldn’t let her leave unless she submitted herself to its control again. What choice did she possibly have?

But last time, the clothes hadn’t taken control of her instantly. She’d still have enough clarity of thought to move about the city for a short amount of time until she could find a way to disable it somehow, she reasoned. She’d have to act fast, though. She recalled how by the time she’d decided to leave Aschen Prime the first time, it had already begun to affect her metabolism because she recalled noticing she hadn’t felt the cold anymore by then. She’d been able to manually dial the gate with ease by then, too. That couldn’t have been much more than an hour after her arrival. Then, by the time she’d arrived back on Earth- ’Oh my god,’- she recalled with a jolt of horror the memory of how she’d so coldly tossed away her friend’s clothes like that. How could she have done that? Then she’d steadily lost control and all track of conscious thought… She couldn’t let it happen again this time.

She suddenly jumped at what sounded like a powering up sound from the surrounding lasers.

“Alright, alright!” she shouted aloud, despite knowing the system had no way of hearing her.

She ran towards the closet and pulled the tunic on, feeling a stab of panic as once again wires attached themselves to her neck, wrists and torso, like hidden, thin sets of shackles.

After several seconds, the lasers disappeared and the lights in her room flickered back on. The AI seemed to have been appeased, but the clothing would already be pumping her full of god knows what, she thought despondently. There was no time to waste.

She pulled up the computer panel inside her home, almost struggling to input the symbols to search the keyword “storage” due to her shaking fingers either from fear or the cold, or perhaps both. To her relief, however, a menu option appeared with a long inventory of what had been stored. She found there to be thousands upon thousands of items of clothing listed. The city had indeed tidied up the remnants of the vanished Aschen, she thought darkly. It was a morbid thought, but there was no time to consider it further. Skipping past the thousands upon thousands of identical entries, she soon found a description of what could only be her backpack, FRED, weapons and mini-MALP, and hastily selected that the city restore them to their original locations.

With a clicking sound, a square storage bin slid out from the side of the wall, similar to the one in the Aschen gate room that had stored her weapons, and she raced towards it, pleased to find her backpack intact. She hurriedly grabbed it by the previously torn top loop, and unzipped the main pocket, grasping the notebook inside, noticing the words she’d written to herself on the front cover: “Be careful, Sam.”

She hadn’t been, she thought with a lump in her throat. She’d completely fallen into the city’s snare. She could not let it happen again.

Underneath the notebook she felt a familiar softness. Pulling at it, her heart was filled with a huge sense of melancholy to see the folded grey Air Force sweatshirt she’d taken from the Colonel’s bedroom disentangle from her pack, the notebook and pens that had been nestled on top clattering to the floor with it. She had to fight back a sting of tears as a rush of memories and long-suppressed emotion now almost overwhelmed her. It was almost physically painful to recall how she’d completely lost sight of her mission for so long. She felt sick. She could barely breathe. She’d wasted so much time. Everyone was still counting on her to restore the galaxy, she remembered. The Colonel was still there, too, in the past. She had to get back to him.

She hastily pulled the grey sweatshirt over the Aschen tunic to serve as a reminder of her mission, grateful, too, for the extra layer in the cold of the Aschen city, then hurried out of the doorway that had reopened for her once again.

Barely noticing the blue sky above indicating it was afternoon, she saw the light blue summoning line appear, which was fine with her, because the science lab would likely be her best bet for accessing the AI’s main controls.

She sprinted to the transporter, allowing it to take her to her place of work, where she immediately set about searching keywords for “main control” and “city key systems”. One good thing about the effects of the clothing at least was the fact that they had greatly assisted her to memorize the language to fully and easily navigate the computer system’s complex layout and workings.

She worked hard for what might have been twenty minutes, frenziedly progressing through new menus that she’d never accessed before. She became spurred on to work even faster when it came to her attention that she didn’t feel cold anymore, though she wasn’t sure if that was an indication that the clothing was starting to affect her, or whether it was simply her own adrenaline coursing furiously through her system and warming her up.

When the menu changed black, indicating she’d accessed the Administration section, she knew she’d made progress in the right direction. “Computer Mainframe Access” she read. “Designation: Administration only” it warned. She was only designated “Science”, but regardless, she wasn't prohibited from accessing the section, and a few moments later she’d found access to the artificial intelligence monitoring subroutine in charge of automatically running the city. A clicking sound alerted her to the fact that the AI was watching her, and she looked away from the keyboard to see that the lasers were back, all trained on her position again. It must be anticipating what she was planning to do. There was nothing for it, though. She scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the menu and jabbed at “Disable” just as the lasers all shot at her, perforating her entire body.

Chapter Text

She scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the menu and jabbed at “Disable” just as the lasers shot at her, perforating her entire body.

Day ??? continued

“Son of a bitch!” she yelled as she keeled onto the floor, recoiling from the excruciating pain of the attack. The sting of the shots all over her body was simply agonizing, but thankfully at least, the lasers had fallen silent and turned black after the first wave of their attack. She winced in dire agony as she forced herself to roll to her side to unclip the backpack from her back, channeling immense effort into fishing out the Goa’uld healing device from inside its front pocket. The tunic had already resealed the burn holes, hiding the extent of her injuries, but using the device’s scanning function and her own senses, she was able to locate and heal up each spot, eighteen in total all across her body, the pain gradually easing as she progressed.

Finally done, and her strength mostly regathered, she panted as she pulled herself up to look at the screen, which now read, “Safety Monitoring System. Status: Disabled.”

“Oh thank god,” she said, pressing her forehead to the keyboard in relief.

She wasn’t in the clear though yet, she remembered with a stab. She still needed to disable the effects of the tunic attached to her. The fact that it had repaired itself after disabling the AI only proved the two systems were separate.

She sat up and continued to browse through the black-coloured menus, but found nothing at all related to the clothing, nor any useful-looking information related to control of the population who lived here. She decided to look through the pink-coloured Medical system, but again found nothing. Could it be in the yellow civil-related section, she wondered, recalling the colour of the closets?

As she switched the menu to the yellow-coloured designation, she noticed her fingers start to slacken as she began navigating the menus steadily more slowly as the last chill of the city’s cold left her body. She felt herself relax as a sense of warm, soothing comfort infused her senses. She wondered hazily why she was in such a hurry. There was no need to feel such frenzy or frustration. Such a behaviour was inefficient.

She could feel as her senses began to sharpen; her hearing in particular, as the occasional soft beeps from the computer seemed to strengthen. She could feel her mind focusing, and the new infusion of dopamine in her brain now began begging her for a far greater, far more rewarding task. One that was worthy of her intelligence. The matter of the clothing was trivial. Inhibitive, even. Her final goal was to achieve time travel, but how could she ever hope to utilize the superior Aschen computers and reach such an extraordinary feat simply… human? She needed to allow herself to become enhanced again. She needed to be like the Aschen to ever hope to achieve the intelligence and ability to command the power of a star.

She kicked her dropped backpack aside on the floor to take her usual seat beneath the keyboard, readying herself to switch the computer system to the light blue section when a clattering sound drew her attention. Looking to her right she realized that the Colonel’s yo-yo had been thrown out of her opened backpack’s front pocket. It had skidded across the floor a meter or so, and the sight of it immediately reminded her of the derailed train in Denver that had blocked her way when she had first found the yo-yo in the Colonel’s truck.

'Shit,' she thought. She was losing herself already. She needed to get back to Earth, NOW.

The effects of the clothing were taking her over much faster than last time. Maybe because it was the second time, and the system had learned to adjust to her brain function? Wait, no, she realised, as an insane craving to use the computer before her and be bathed in that light blue welled inside her. It was like an addiction. Yes, she’d been made to be addicted to the pursuit of research.

She quickly jumped down to the floor to pull a pen from her backpack side pocket and quickly scrawled in huge letters on the back of both her hands. ”It’s the clothing,” she scrawled on the back of her left hand. ”Fight it!!” she wrote on her right.

She had to get home right now and find a way to get the clothing off there before she lost all clarity of thought again. She quickly gathered her pack and stuffed the yo-yo into the sweatshirt front pocket and saw to her relief that despite the AI being off, the transporter was still standing where it had been earlier and looked to be functional. She ran to it, selecting the green location next to the Aschen Gate Terminal Building on the displayed map. She instantly found herself rematerialized in front of the transporter outside, which didn’t morph itself into the familiar sign as usual. However, she was able to press the Terminal Building itself on the map displayed, and to her relief the green-framed doorway opened up, where she could just make out her FRED inside that was waiting for her.

With the AI offline, however, despite her entry into the Gate Terminal building the side control room wouldn’t open up. She was pretty sure it was a security measure that only enabled authorized Aschen to dial out, trapping undesired enemies in a doorless room. She vaguely recalled that it had appeared instantly when she had gone to acquire the naquadah for the city’s project, but only after some time when she’d first arrived. Perhaps the system at the time been waiting for the effects to be strong enough to ensure that she would return? This time, though, it looked as though she’d have no choice but to dial out manually again. It was a good thing she’d instructed the system to return her FRED.

She hurriedly hooked up the naquadah generator that had been safely stowed in the FRED, whose power boost loosened the gate’s inner ring with a resounding shunt. With her improved memory, she easily recalled the Volian address this time, and it was with a sense of unease that she found little effort once again to physically turn the inner ring of the gate around to engage each individual chevron. As the last chevron locked, she jumped back out of the way as the wormhole formed with a thunderous kawoosh. How had she never before noticed how inexorably loud the sound of the gate activating was?

As she stood watching the light blue rippling surface, she found herself staring as though she was seeing it for the first time. The colour strongly reminded her of the science section of the Aschen system, and she was now overcome with a sudden, huge compulsion to return to the transporter and back to her workstation. The city needed her. She needed to find out why her hyperdrive engine hadn’t worked. She could feel the unknown enigma pulling at her from within her own body, like a puppeteer plucking the strings of a puppet. The thought of leaving the planet was like a pain… she couldn’t do it.

She turned around and reached out with her right hand to turn off the naquadah generator’s connection to the gate when she froze at the sight of the words she’d written on the back of her hand, ”Fight it!!”

“Shit!” she shouted again, and this time she didn’t give herself a second to reconsider. She simply dashed through the event horizon, then raced to dial directly to Earth from the nearby Volian DHD.

Back in the Gate Room there was no time to waste. She could feel herself turning. A tremendous, burning sense of loss at being away from the planet was welling inside her. She ran on up to Level 19 desperately trying not to lose sight of what she needed to do. She needed to get to her old lab. It would still have what she would need.

With her mind sharpened again from the effects of the clothing, it had been more than easy to come up with the idea of using an EM pulse to shut down its effects. She quickly set up the necessary equipment which had fortunately still been stored there, burying herself in the new task, giving her a brief respite from the insatiable drive to return to the planet.

Soon, she had completed the necessary preparations to initialize the pulse. It had proven rather unsatisfactorily simple, taking very little time having been a more than easy task for a mind like hers. She hesitated as she prepared to activate the pulse. She couldn't help think that she would be giving up too much by doing this. The Aschen had bestowed upon her a great gift. How could she even be considering turning it off? What hope did she have of enacting her time travel plan without such enhanced intellect, focus and efficiency anyway?

She found herself move to unplug the system with both of her hands when she read, ”It’s the clothes!” and “Fight it!!”

She hesitated again, her hands now trembling. She felt a great conflict wage within her. She didn’t know what to do. She could feel Aschen Prime summoning her back. But she also felt a nagging need to fight it. She looked up to her doorway, considering leaving and returning to the Control Room to gate back when she had a fleeting recollection of the Colonel standing there. He would often visit her here in her lab, teasing her about working too hard. She could almost envisage him ordering her to get the pulse over and done with. She looked down at the back of her hands again, seeing the sleeves of his sweatshirt she was wearing, and seeing the bulge of the Colonel’s yo-yo stored within. Her mission was getting back to him, and saving everyone, she recalled with a surge of adrenaline.

In a split-second judgement she flipped the switch and initiated the pulse. She felt a buzzing sensation together with a loud humming sound, but after both subsided, she felt… nothing. There was no change. The clothing didn’t loosen their restriction. It hadn’t worked.

”Good,” she mused with satisfaction, already forgetting her earlier thoughts of the Colonel, and marched straight out, eager to return to her superior science lab on Aschen Prime.

Chapter Text

It hadn’t worked.

”Good,” she mused satisfiedly, and marched straight out, eager to return to her superior science lab on Aschen Prime.

Day 176

The EM pulse had, in fact, worked. Less than two minutes after initiating the pulse, by the time she’d made her way back down to the Control Room and had begun instructing the dialling computer to dial out straight to Aschen Prime, she’d slowly found her own thoughts seeping back. Recalling Daniel and Teal’c’s clothes that she’d thrown so unceremoniously into the wastebasket under the desk where she’d been standing, she’d quickly fished them out. She’d then simply stood there, holding them, allowing herself to experience the guilt, melancholy and sadness that had accompanied the find. She’d missed them, and for once, she’d been grateful to once again feel the loneliness that had been all-consuming until Aschen Prime. It had been easy, now, to understand why she’d been so easily ensnared by the Aschen’s control. Perhaps, subconsciously, she’d wanted an escape. Perhaps she’d needed a respite from her fear of failure, the unimpeded isolation of her circumstances, and the overwhelming responsibility of saving billions and billions of lives all by herself...

But now she had realised that she would need to face that responsibility face head-on. She wouldn’t waste any more time. She would have to return to Aschen Prime, but not yet. It would be of her own volition when she could be sure she was in control again. She would not permit herself to lose sight of the mission again.

She’d then made the decision to completely shut down the dialling computer and remove the keyboard, which would make it harder to dial out if she ended up changing her mind before she was completely herself. She’d also left a note to herself on the disabled keyboard with a sticky-post reading, ”Don’t go back until you remember the mission, Sam."

She’d then spent the next three days on base recovering from both the short and long-term effects of her connection to both tunics. Fortunately, she’d only received a short dose this time, but she’d still found herself having to fight the occasional recurring urge to return to the planet. Consuming food other than the Aschen gruel for what had turned out to have been almost four months, based on her laptop’s clock, had also led to incredibly painful bowel movements. The lack of running water on the base hadn’t helped, either. She’d also suffered from insomnia, hot flashes and frequent bouts of nausea as her body had slowly weaned itself from the hormonal changes, as well as volatile emotional mood swings, ebbing from bouts of crying at the impossibility of the task that still faced her, to the shock of what had happened to her, to fear of losing her sense of self and control again.

One success, however, was that she’d finally managed to prize off the tunic with considerable effort after finding it had been rendered unable to mend itself by the EM pulse. It had still taken her a good twenty minutes or so to cut away and remove every piece, though, including the skin-tight wired parts. Despite the metabolic changes she’d undergone meaning that she hadn’t produced any sweat or any other bodily secretions the entire time, she’d found that her underwear’s material hadn’t fared so well underneath. Stuck below the first tunic for almost four months straight had left them well-worn and even torn in some places. She’d relished throwing those away, though without running water and with gate travel off the cards for now until she was satisfied she’d fully recovered, she’d sadly had to forgo what would have been a well-earned hot shower.

She’d had a fleeting fantasy of taking the Colonel’s truck back to the crystal clear creek she’d found on the way back from Boulder for a dip; it would be late summer outside by now and surely pleasantly warm. But Orlin had confirmed that she was the last human being alive. She couldn’t risk another wildlife encounter, nor even picking up a parasite from the untreated water and developing a fever like she had after her last time on Cimmeria. Her safety and well-being was of utmost paramount importance, and she couldn’t take any unnecessary risks or waste any more time.

She’d had to cling onto thoughts of nothing but her own recovery and of her mission like a lifeline, and it now came as a huge sense of relief that her bloodwork finally came back indicating her hormone balance was again within normal parameters seventy two hours later. Her mind felt completely clear, and it was with a rather reassuring trepidation that she now faced the fact that she would have to return to the planet that had nearly killed her twice and had stolen almost four months of her life.

It was time to prepare. She found the battery in her video camera had run out, so she decided to charge it just in case. She also found herself a new, working, wristwatch, as well as a spare, and set them to match the date and time on her laptop: September 20th 2042. She also packed some extra notebooks and plain paper, extra standard camping gear as well as a large stock of food. With the AI switched off, she wasn’t expecting to be summoned to lunch and be provided with the gruel anymore, but at least she didn’t anticipate being forced to wear the clothing again. That meant, however, that she would have to face the continuous cold environment of the city without the tunic that could artificially maintain a warm body temperature. She would have to dress appropriately, as well as bring a thermal sleeping bag, gas heaters and blankets if she was going to keep warm enough to be able to concentrate on her work in the Aschen lab.

Day 177

The MALP she’d sent through now showed the Aschen Gate Terminal to be exactly as she’d left it almost four days prior. Her FRED, mini-MALP, the naquadah generator set-up and the square weapons storage were all still there, apparently untouched. To her surprise and relief, too, the green-framed exit had remained open. That would make things easier.

Bundled up warmly, she bravely returned to Aschen Prime, bringing with her a second FRED loaded with extra supplies, finding more evidence still that the AI had indeed remained offline. No more arches, closets or lines appeared of their own accord from the floor.

She first checked the naquadah generator to see that it had automatically turned itself off. Perhaps a safety precaution that had been programmed into the new line of generators after her time travel, she mused. Heading outside, she saw that the sky outside no longer seemed to change from its projection of blue afternoon, and the sky text, which had always displayed measurements of the quality of air, the Aschen date, and various statistics related to the workings and research of the population no longer updated themselves, and was stuck frozen on the same display.

Utilizing the transporter which was still standing near the Gate building, she was fortunately still able to gain access to places manually without the guiding lines of the AI. Soon back at her usual workstation in the science area, she dived straight into studying the measurements of the planetary system’s sun. Bringing up a giant, and helpfully warming holographic representation of the Aschen’s sun in the middle of the room, she soon found out why the city was so cold. Its sun had become a subgiant, and was in the process of becoming a red giant. According to the most recent measurements, its surface temperature had plummeted by several hundred degrees over the past three hundred years or so of statistics held. Essentially, it was dying.

Delving into the Aschen’s historical records, she was amazed to learn that the sun’s conversion into a subgiant had in fact been inadvertently initiated by the Aschen themselves almost three hundred years ago, reminding her of the chain reaction she had accidentally set off in K’Tau’s sun a year prior. The Aschen, it seemed, had hoped to artificially increase the emissive power output of their sun to increase the yield of their solar-based power generation, and it had worked; the civilization and its technological level had thrived and flourished. In a few short decades, they had become a race numbering in the hundreds of millions, and had even branched out into space, building a colony on their nearby single moon, complete with a project to terraform the entire surface and create an atmosphere. She read on to learn that they were also in the process of developing a space program capable of interstellar flight a further decade later when the output spectrum of the sun unexpectedly began to red-shift and its diameter began to swell considerably. Their plan had back-fired. The Aschen scientists realised that they had failed to anticipate the rate at which the star would burn its hydrogen core following their greedy manipulation. An unforeseen and exponential chain reaction had been initialized, undetectable deep within the star’s core, running rampant and unchecked for several decades. By the time the external corona had changed red it was too late, and it had been determined that there was no way to reverse the effects.

In a feeble attempt to warm their now fast-cooling planet, they had ignited the largest gas giant in their system to create a second star to stave off heat-death, but its distance from the planet had only garnered marginal improvement. Due to significant changes to the planetary’s atmospheric and climate conditions from the sudden cooling, she learned that the planet had fast become inhospitable. The Aschen had soon been left with little choice but to pour their collective resources into building the mega domed city in which she was standing to save its people from extinction. Remarkably, in the scramble to obtain enough raw material to construct the city and dome, the Stargate had been unearthed in a wasteland on the other side of the planet, and scientists, recognizing its unique and alien origin had ordered it to be brought in, and a few thousand selected Aschen had holed themselves up inside.

She was horrified to read that, faced with limited resources in the finite-sized dome, and cut off from the rest of the planet, the Aschen had had to make the decision to make a deliberate and significant culling of its population. The decision of who had been permitted to survive had been made based on the statistical analysis by an artificial intelligence subroutine- what she herself had named the AI- that had been developed along with the city’s construction to oversee the continued safety and survival of their race within the dome. While it wasn’t written in the database, she guessed that would have meant choosing people in the best of health with a natural longer lifespan, and she even found herself wondering if the AI would have favoured people more likely susceptible to compliance and who would have been easier to control. Like herself, she thought darkly. With her propensity for burying herself in science projects and working too hard, having scanned her mind in the designation test, the AI must have found it all too easy to hook her on the hyperspace engine project.

But people must have opposed this cull, though, she thought. They must have rioted, as the Volians had done. Again, nothing was shown on record, she could simply imagine that the AI may have subtly given the more easily controlled persons high positions of power within the society, setting them up as pawns to use and control the masses, safeguarding the future of the city.

The record showed that after the population had been reduced from hundreds of millions to a mere approximate hundred thousand permitted to live within the dome, an enforced program of sterility had come into force, confining reproduction to a limited lottery to be determined by statistical analysis by the AI. Again it didn’t say, but Sam could guess that that meant that the AI would have begun selectively breeding the people most likely to continue their survival. 'Or its survival,' she thought gravely. She read on to learn how over the years the AI had become increasingly relied upon to determine smaller issues, such as which people were suited for which duties, where they lived, and how they even lived. Further progress had ensured that the city had been made an entirely sterile and clean environment to safeguard the small population from any disease, and they had also developed a lifespan-lengthening medicine.

Unfortunately, food shortage had still presented a problem. While the Aschen had invented nanotechnology that could create almost any object, it could not synthesize food, it seemed. With no access to the rest of the now barren planet to farm or create new resources, and as extracting moisture from the steadily freezing ground below the city became a problem, the farms using a technology similar to hydroponics within the dome for growing and creating food began to fail. Fortunately, before starvation took effect, a special tunic was invented that could control the Aschen’s metabolism artificially, streamlining respiration to ensure zero waste, meaning that they could live healthily on very little sustenance. Sam wondered if the AI had seized this opportunity to secretly modify the design of the tunic as it manufactured them to ensure that the entire population would fall under its complete control. Regardless, with the stringent and effective rationing, the situation stabilized, and they survived for another twenty years.

The turning point, it seemed, had been the successful activation of the Stargate. After the Aschen population had settled into their assigned designations having avoided starvation and death, research into the discovered Stargate had begun. Scientists had built a program which had continually automatedly dialled the symbols in random sequences and lengths. It had run for several years dialling thousands upon thousands of random addresses before it had finally hit a working seven-symbol address, successfully dialling Lannao. Stunned to find other humans on the other planet, rather than risk polluting their city with people whom they considered more primitive, the AI had assigned the plan of subtly claiming their world as their own and having them serve the superior Aschen’s needs. Less than four months later, Volia had also been discovered, and the same plan had been successfully instigated, and with the steady supply of food and mineral resources transported from each world, the Aschen people no longer faced extinction.

“But of course, by then,” she spoke aloud to the empty, black domes of the lasers still puncturing the walls and ceiling around her, “you wouldn’t have been prepared to relinquish control back to its people, would you?”

Chapter Text

“But of course, by then,” she spoke aloud to the empty, black domes of the lasers still puncturing the walls and ceiling around her, “you wouldn’t have been prepared to relinquish control back to its people, would you?”

Day 179

Camping out in the cold science lab with her portable heater, gas stove, bottles of water and MREs, as well as her sleeping bag and some blankets, she’d set to work with her time travel plan. Short of starting a campfire, she’d almost felt as though she was on a normal recon mission together with her team, up alone on first watch. Except there would be no one waking up to relieve her in a few hours. She was all alone, and everything would be down to her.

She’d easily found the subsection in the light blue science system that would allow her to monitor the solar wind and flare activity of the sun. Fortunately, due to the Aschen’s predicament, they had set up an entire array of monitoring satellites around the sun, taking round-the-clock detailed measurements. To her astonishment, they even had monitoring stations on the surface of the star itself, below the hotter plasma of the corona. The information and readings available to her here in the science core of the system were far more than she could have ever dared hoped for, nor could have even ever dreamed to be scientifically possible. She could hardly believe the Aschen had developed a technology that could withstand the extreme temperatures of a star for such extended periods of time. If, in the unlikely event that a satellite did fail and succumb to the heat, a new one would be automatically manufactured on the moon base and launched to replace it. She found herself in such awe of the incredible level the Aschen had reached. Short of efficient hyperspace technology, the Aschen’s level easily surpassed that of the Goa’uld, and she suspected that if there had been naquadah native to their homeworld, the Aschen would have likely branched out to perhaps even have become a dominant force in the galaxy.

She was then elated to discover that not only did the satellite array simply record solar activity, but the core’s powerful processor was more than able to use their data to systematically predict upcoming solar flares and their magnitude. She’d immediately set about getting the computer to predict the time and size of the next flare, waiting and watching the subsequent ejection and observing its size on a scale holographic representation of the sun in the centre of her science lab. To her exultation the prediction algorithm was incredibly accurate, though unfortunately, her elation soon fell short when she observed its size and compared it with past records. The monitoring satellites around the main subgiant sun showed that its unstable Helium core caused it to frequently spew giant bursts of stellar winds, a natural progression in a star’s evolution to a Red Giant. The city was well protected within the dome from these bursts, however, based on the research she herself had compiled following her previous time travel experiences in both 1999 and 1969 that she’d previously downloaded to her laptop, these Aschen solar eruptions would be far too large. She couldn’t know precisely, but guessed that they would likely send her either forward or backwards in time in the order of thousands of years. It wasn’t going to be that straight forward after all, it seemed.

Fortunately though, as she had already learned, Aschen Prime had a second sun, which also had its own monitoring array. Checking the readings and logs for the far smaller star that the Aschens had artificially created, she saw that it was far more stable than the main sun. Too stable, in fact. Records showed that it only produced small flares at a frequency of less than twice a month.

She was looking for a flare of a similar magnitude to the 1999 flare on the same side of the Aschen sun, as that flare on the left side had sent SG-1 back in time precisely thirty years. There was little margin for error, but with the information she had brought with her on the precise magnitude of the first flare, she could deduce the necessary magnitude for a flare that would send her back the necessary forty and a half years. In addition, based on Cassandra’s elderly appearance when they had been sent far into the future, she had guessed at the time that she had been sent forward to the late 2050s, ironically only ten years from now. That Cassandra, now dead in this timeline, had said that they had stepped through the gate “too soon” and had been sent forward too far. The timing would need to be precise, it seemed, and she would only have a small window in time to travel back to. Too early, and she would be forced to hide out in the galaxy until she could return to Earth after March 2002, her original time of disappearance, as she couldn’t risk polluting the timeline beforehand. Too late, and she would lose her position on SG-1 and more than likely miss figuring out how to prevent Anubis’ attack, and simply be killed along with everyone else.

The records for the smaller sun, stretching back almost three hundred years since its conversion, showed that a flare of the magnitude she would need only occurred every decade or so, with the next not being due for another roughly three years or so. While technically speaking she could wait that long to enact her plan- time was, after all, relative- she didn’t want to sit around for years on standby, waiting to jump through the gate at the precise moment for that one, single shot. Instead, she decided that her best bet would be to look into manipulating the smaller sun herself. In addition, she would need to dial a planet that lay directly behind the smaller sun in their relative positions at that precise time in order for the wormhole to pass through the eruption and become disrupted back through time- and that would require that she return to Earth to get her old calculations on planetary drift to be able to work on updating the Aschen dialling program, or otherwise, bring the dialling program herself to be able to dial any planet outside the local network.

Unfortunately, there was a snag. It was fortunate that she’d happened to pull up a map of the Aschen Confederation network at all, or she wouldn’t have even spotted the problem. It seemed that Volia’s current relative position to Aschen Prime meant that it was close to the main, monstrous Aschen sun. With its frequent bursts of flares, any wormhole in its path was at high risk of manipulation; there was a possibility that she could be sent thousands of years into the future or past if she travelled to Volia now. She could of course dial Lannao, but despite Aschen records showing that the planet was not too different to Volia, she had never been there, and couldn’t know if the DHD would be intact after this time. In addition, in her entire time on Aschen Prime, she had never seen a shipment of crop or mineral come through from Lannao. It was possible that the Harvesters there were no longer in operation, or that something had happened there. Without the ability to use her MALP from here to ascertain the safety of the other side, unless it became absolutely necessary, she decided that the most prudent option would be to stay on Aschen Prime for the time being and focus on learning how to manipulate the smaller sun’s flares artificially before she could return to Earth in two months’ time when Volia emerged from the other side of the main sun to retrieve Earth’s dialling program.

----

Day 200

Over the next three weeks, trapped on the planet for the time being, she’d had to find ways to keep her spirits high and mind distracted from the loneliness when she needed a break. She started up a daily schedule of jogging around the city under the unchanging blue daylight sky above, which also served to keep her warm and release endorphins. She also started a journal logging her progress and theories towards attaining time travel in the spare pages of her now redundant notebook, and she even started a new project of constructing a very basic low-speed motorbike to explore the city using parts from the two MALPs and two FREDs she had, as well as with parts she had instructed the computer to assemble.

Loneliness and frustration would occasionally creep in as the long days began to blend together, and on occasion she would even find herself longing that she could have her emotions taken away again- it had been such a blissful respite- but she’d learned a hard lesson from her experience during the last few months. Grief and sadness, while painful, were essential. She had to turn them into a driving force to keep focused on her mission and get back to her time as soon as she could. She couldn’t let herself lose sight of the mission again.

Later that day, as she returned to the Gate Terminal building to restock on her water and MREs that she was having to ration as she hadn’t banked on staying on Aschen Prime for almost three months straight, she saw again no evidence of any crop shipments from Volia. She’d learned that they normally arrived biweekly, but in the last three weeks there had been no shipment, nor any dial in as she’d set up the computer to inform her of any incoming gate activity. She wondered if the AI had always sent a command through the gate when the Harvesters dialled in, and without it, the Harvesters on the other side didn’t send the crop through. Already tiring of nothing but MREs and protein bars, she would have happily tried to eat the raw grain if it came down to it, or even try her hand at making flour with the equipment she had, but at least the gate room hadn’t been periodically inundated with tens of kilograms of crop dumped on the floor, she mused.

Regardless, she kept headstrong. Her mission to get back in time was steadily becoming more and more attainable, and now, as she breezed through the endless silent, empty, stark white blocks on her crude bike, she found herself starting to plan in her mind what she would do when she got back. Aside from giving her friends and Cassie huge hugs, and seeing that warm smile and look of approval in the Colonel’s eyes reserved only for when she beat the odds and made the impossible happen- which always made her stomach squirm and roll from pride- she was dying for a cup of real coffee, and hell, she could probably even eat three steaks at O’Malley’s. But most of all, she craved taking her real motorbike out for a spin through the bustling, lively streets of Colorado Springs. She couldn’t wait to be surrounded by noise and voices and life again. She couldn’t wait to get back, and she could almost taste it.

Chapter Text

Day 265

A little over two months later, Sam had made considerable progress into how to artificially generate a solar flare of the magnitude needed to send her back. Precisely as she had attempted with K’Tau’s sun, she had concluded that she would need to introduce superheavy metals into the star and set off an unsustainable chain reaction to temporarily increase its density. It would then become briefly unstable and belch out flares of material as it tried to re-establish hydrostatic equilibrium. Fortunately for her, the Aschen had already developed this technology when they had converted their own gas giant, as well as that of the Volian system. Using the schematics from the Aschen science core, she had already launched over a hundred satellites that she’d modified and constructed with the computer system, each with a large payload of three different heavy metals of various molecular weights. They were set to take a further few weeks to arrive, given the distance of the star. It had proven difficult to estimate how much material would be required to garner the desired flare even with the advanced Aschen computer core, and the process would likely take months of trial and error, but success now finally seemed to be coming into the realm of possibility.

Waiting for the first set of satellites to arrive, she had now begun to set her mind towards the task of what to do once she arrived on Aschen Prime in the past. There was the inescapable pressing issue that once she got back in time there would be several tens of thousands of living Aschen on the other side of the gate, and she wouldn’t be able to dial out quickly if she couldn’t gain access to the Aschen’s restricted control room. Then, assuming she got past that significant hurdle, there was also the issue of what to take back with her. She couldn’t take anything that would disrupt the timeline- she certainly wouldn’t be able to take any of the mission reports back with her in case they were discovered- though at a minimum, she had decided on concealing the syringe she’d found in Teal’c’s clothing. The substance named ‘Tretonin’, as she’d learned from the past records, had seemed important. But then, she still had plentiful nagging doubts. Could she even change what had happened? She still didn’t know the location of the weapon that Anubis had used, nor how he had even dialled all gates simultaneously. What if she miscalculated the flare and ended up in the wrong time?

She crouched down to click on her camping stove to heat up another dry ration for her lunch, so deep in thought that she didn’t even notice the rush of air that brushed her now almost close to shoulder-length hair.

“Hi, Sam.”

She almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of the voice and turned to see Orlin appear at her side in the science lab.

“Orlin! You’re back!” she exclaimed in utter delight at the sight of another person after endless months of complete solitude. She darted up and was overcome by a desperate desire to hug him, before recalling that he had no corporeal body.

“What- what’s wrong?” she then faltered at the recognition of the pained look in his features.

“I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. I was prevented from communicating with you.”

She wanted to interrupt and reassure him that she held no resentment towards his absence as it hadn’t been his fault, but the pressing look in his eyes kept her quiet.

“Since we last spoke,” he continued, “I have been covertly monitoring Anubis,” he said, looking more grave than she’d ever seen him. “He knows there is a single human alive. He knows about you, Sam.”

“What!? How?!” she shrieked, a sudden sense of panic engulfing her. “From you?”

“Know that I would never have shared that information. But you surely remember that some of the Others found me talking to you on the ship. All knowledge is available to ascended beings if they choose to seek it. Just as I found you on Yu’s planet, Anubis also came to know of your existence.”

“One of them told him?”

“Perhaps... or perhaps not. Or rather, not directly or deliberately…” and she felt her eyebrows raise at his non-answer as she hoped for further clarification. “It’s complicated,” he added after a pause. “Simply put, given time, all truths can be known.”

“Okay…” she trailed off noncommittally. That didn’t really make any sense to her, but she quickly decided that the how wasn’t her most pressing issue. She needed to know more so she could plan what to do next.

“Does he know where I am?” she asked.

“He does,” he replied darkly, and Sam felt an instant stab of fear at the thought that her position had become compromised. “However, he first plans to use the weapon again. He is flying to the planet of its location now as we speak, and he will arrive in approximately one of your hours.”

She noticed that he had slipped, stating that the weapon was located on a planet, but the way things were going, that might not even matter anymore. Her mind’s eye immediately conjured an image of the white light she’d seen in the SGC security feed video emerging through the Aschen gate and spreading outward through the rows of white buildings, disintegrating her, too.

“One hour?” she repeated, exasperatedly, and checked the time on her watch. “What can I do in that time?” she asked pleadingly.

“I’m sorry there is such little time. I came here as fast as I could. And, as you well know, I cannot provide you with a solution. In fact, I should not be speaking to you at all. There are many Others here watching me again,” he said, looking up morosely at the lab’s ceiling. “You must think on your own. But I will certainly do all I am permitted to assist you.”

She wouldn’t be safe anywhere on the planet, and still couldn’t dial outside the Confederation, where neither planet would be any less immune to the weapon, anyway. But what if she got off the planet entirely? There was the moon colony. It must have a living space, and though it would be cutting it close, she was fairly sure she could command the city to construct a Harvester and fly it to the moon from the opening in the dome where she’d run the engine test all within an hour.

“Orlin, if I get in one of the Aschen’s Harvesters and fly to the moon, will I be able to get far enough away from the gate to escape the weapon?” she asked, hoping she’d at least be able to hide out there long enough to come up with another solution.

She saw him hesitate to answer, looking upwards again, and his eyes clouded for several moments.

“I believe I am permitted in telling you that the weapon’s array radiates outwards from a Stargate beyond its planet’s surface almost unimpeded through the vacuum of space across entire star systems.”

“Entire star systems?” she repeated back, staggered to hear of the huge range of the weapon. What hope did she have of running away from that? ”So you’re telling me there is nowhere in space I can fly to where I could escape the weapon?”

“Not in the time you have, you cannot.”

“But if I had more time?”

“Theoretically, if you spent several days flying outwards away from the galaxy, you would-”

“Okay, I get the picture,” she cut him off, imagining gating to Yu’s planet on the edge of the Milky Way and flying far out into deep space. “How about subspace, then?” she said, remembering the swirly view of hyperspace outside the front windows as she’d flown the Al’kesh to the Nox’s homeworld. “I can gate to Yu’s planet and fly the Al’kesh you found me on into hyperspace to ride out the attack in subspace,” she said, speaking quickly to keep up with her mind as it continued to generate idea after idea in a desperate grab to find a solution.

“A good idea, Sam, and one I would expect of you,” he replied after a pause, “but sadly, no. The effects of the weapon also carry into subspace.”

“Then I dial out!” she said, clapping her hands in triumph at coming up with such a simple solution. “The SGC tried that, but they didn’t dial out fast enough. I can simply dial out and keep the wormhole open to block Anubis from dialling in.”

Again, he looked upwards in hesitation of answering but she could already tell from his expression that he was about to contradict her answer.

“The Others permit me to tell you this, since they do not believe there is a way to prevent your destruction.”

“Tell me what?” she asked hesitantly, feeling disheartened by the fact that ascended beings far more intelligent and knowledgeable than herself had apparently already written her off as dead already. That was likely why Orlin was even being permitted to talk to her again at all, she realized.

“Anubis is able to override the dialling program of all gates connected to the network. Even gates with an already established wormhole become overridden. The outgoing wormhole will be disengaged remotely.”

“How is that possible?”

“With the knowledge of the Ancients, it can be done.”

She absorbed the information. She was out of ideas. Except...

“Wait- Orlin, you said all gates connected to the network. What if I take this gate out of the network?”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m not sure if I could in the time allotted, but I could try. Just theoretically speaking, answer my question, would that work?”

“...Yes, it would,” he answered after a longer pause, still. Every answer to her questions seemed to be taking longer and longer for him to reply.

She quickly began to rack her brains to think of how she would begin to go about disabling a gate not connected to a DHD from the gate network, when she saw another pained look come over his face. She knew the Others were listening in and continuing their debate as to whether she was doomed or not in their higher plane of existence, and she felt bad putting him in this position after everything he’d done for her, but her life was on the line, along with potentially the fate of the entire human race.

“There’s something more you want to tell me,” she stated rather than asked.

“Sam, I’m not sure how much more they will permit me to speak with you.”

“Orlin, please,” she begged.

“Even if-” he said, leaving the sentence unfinished, merely standing there staring into her eyes with an expression of sorrow. He gave a sigh, before continuing, “If you disable the gate, Anubis still knows your location. He will come to this planet himself by ship in mere hours.”

“So I can escape the weapon but I’ll be trapped here and he’ll come for me here and destroy the city, anyway?”

“No, worse. He will claim the technology for himself.”

She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let him learn of her research into time travel. If he gained the idea of manipulating the timeline history could be re-written and things could turn out even worse than before.

“The Others...will they help? Will they stop Anubis?” she asked desperately, struggling to come up with any other ideas, but she already knew his answer.

“If they’d had any intention of stopping Anubis, they would have taken action to prevent the first time he fired the weapon.”

“Right, of course.” He had given the precise answer she had expected. “Then the only way out I can think of is by time travel. Volia’s still just within range of the main star- assuming of course it produces a flare at all in the next fifty-four minutes-“ she said, looking at her watch, “is in a high activity phase. It’ll send me back or forward too far. Either way, I won’t know the state of the galaxy let alone this planet when I come through.”

He simply stood in silence, staring at her and looking sad.

“Orlin, please, help me,” she begged despondently. “I don’t know what to do. I’m out of options.”

Again, he didn’t reply, and she felt vexed by his silence. She didn’t know if the Others had stopped him from entirely communicating with her, but the truth was, she didn’t care about their rules and inner politics at all.

“Agh!” she cried in frustration. “Why are you here, then? You said you’d be back when ‘it was time’. What did that even mean?”

She saw him give a sigh again, then he replied solemnly, “I had hoped it would mean that you had succeeded and were about to go back. You were so close, Sam.”

She didn’t fail to notice that Orlin now sounded like he’d given up on her too, just like the so-called Others.

“But you also knew that Anubis finding me first was an eventuality, too, all along?” she asked.

“It was always a high possibility,” he quietly conceded.

“So- what- you’ve just come to say goodbye?” she asked, exasperatedly.

He paused again, then looked longingly and melancholically into her eyes. “Sam, you know how I feel about you.”

“Yes, I do, Orlin, and I appreciate you telling me, but I’m not sure this is really-”

"I never meant to cause you such great pain and suffering,” he interrupted, his eyes looking intensely sincere.

She suddenly felt confused by his words. What pain and suffering had he caused her? This was all Anubis’ fault.

“When I learned that Anubis was planning to launch an attack on the human population of the galaxy,” he continued, “I believed that you would be the person most likely to be able to prevent it.”

“Orlin, what are you telling me?” she asked, her heart hammering.

“I wanted to wait longer, so you’d have a chance to learn more about Anubis and what he was planning first-”

“Wait longer for what?” she questioned again, but he ignored her.

“-but when I saw he was creating an asteroid to strike your planet I wasn’t sure if you would survive. When I saw you enter that wormhole alone, I took the opportunity.”

“What are you saying, Orlin? That you sent me here to the future?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it again!” she pleaded. There was no time to be angry at him for being the cause of her being here in the first place. “Send me back!”

“The Others learned of my interference. Of what I did. They will prevent me from doing so again. They will not prevent Anubis’ actions, either. I’m so sorry, Sam.”

Her mind reeled. He’d come here to warn her, but he couldn’t help her at all. She had fifty minutes to come up with something, or everything she’d been through and accomplished until now would have been for nothing. She’d spent months on this planet. First as a drone, then after fighting off the city’s snare she’d slowly and patiently formed her plan to travel back. She’d been so close to manipulating the sun, she’d already been preparing for her trip back, and all the while she’d been completely oblivious to the fact that there had been a silent ticking clock hovering over her head, counting down the time until Anubis found her. She pained at the thought of those wasted four months that the city had controlled her… she might have only needed a few more weeks, but now it was too late.

There just hadn’t been enough time.

----

Fifty minutes later

At the sight of the chevrons lighting up, with a nod from Orlin who was stood fast by her side in the Aschen gate room, she set the timer, clasped tightly in her hand. It was time.

The vortex of the incoming wormhole formed before her with a kawoosh, and she stood in silence, watching the event horizon rippling, waiting.

“You’re the bravest human the galaxy has ever known, Samantha,” whispered Orlin’s soft voice from beside her, but she could only nod in muted reply as she stared rigidly ahead at the open gate.

She’d never see Earth again, she thought as she clutched the timer even tighter between her fingers. She’d never see SG-1, her family, again. The Colonel… he’d kept her possessions in that box. He’d never know that she’d returned the favour, she thought, as she reached with her free hand to feel the roundness of his yo-yo stowed in her side winter coat pocket. She could only hope he’d died knowing how she’d felt...

A bright bubble of shining pure, white light welled through the shimmering surface of the event horizon. It spread outwards from the gate, approaching her fast. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t meant her imminent end, she thought fleetingly. Instinctively, she screwed her eyes shut, squeezing out a single tear, which dropped down unhindered into the now collapsed heap of clothes fallen below, soaking into the material and disappearing without a trace.

The timer fell with a clatter onto the hard white floor, face up, and the gate shut down. Orlin, feeling immense grief at the loss of the woman he’d loved, simply remained, unmoving, observing as the timer continued on.

When the figures showed fifty seconds remaining, he saw the gate re-open, and soon the cloaked figure of Anubis, along with some of the drones he’d recently witnessed him develop, marched into the gate room.

“Anubis,” Orlin spat. He was responsible for killing Sam. He’d loved her, and being able to do nothing to save her had been the hardest thing he had ever faced in his millennia-long existence. He wished so badly he’d had more time with her. He almost wished he could have stayed mortal and been with her on Earth.

“You!” boomed the faceless, hooded form of Anubis, as his drones moved in formation to gather protectively around him. “You are the one responsible for sending the human forward in time.”

“I am,” he replied fiercely, his voice laden with anger.

“Your plan has failed,” he blared with a hint of amusement in his voice. “She has been eliminated,” he said, indicating with his gloved hand the heap of thermal clothing beside him. “I will now learn of the human’s intentions and claim this planet as my own.”

“Your actions end here, Anubis,” Orlin snided with a sly smile of satisfaction as he saw the figures on the timer reach precisely zero.

There came a surging, humming sound, and suddenly the two naquadah generators hidden behind the gate exploded, engulfing the room in torrents of heat and fire. Their simultaneous detonation, enhanced ten-fold by the naquadah-laden gate, instantly vaporized the gate, the entire city, together with a significant part of the continent.

Unperturbed by the explosion in his ascended state, Orlin watched as molten debris were flung around him at lightning speeds, as he gave a last thought for Sam. At least her death hadn’t been for nothing. With his force-shield obliterated, Anubis, as merely a half-ascended being, was now trapped for eternity amidst the floating chunks that had once been the city where Sam had last stood.

Chapter Text

March 17th 2002 (continued)

“Welcome back SG-1, sorry to have had to cut your mission short,” the General greeted his flagship team as they marched down the ramp.

“Oh you know me, Sir, I like rocks as much as the next guy and all...,” he jibed, sending a wink back towards Daniel following close behind him who to his amusement gave a loud harumph in protest. “But I must say, I do appreciate you making sure we were back in time for the game.”

The sound of the gate shutting down behind them could be heard, and he was surprised that the General hadn’t acknowledged his joke, so he added, “So, what’s this about, Sir? You said there might be technical problems?” He was sure Carter would be already on it by now, whatever it was.

He came to a stop at the foot of the ramp as he saw his commanding officer gave a pause, having looked the team over, a serious expression appearing on his face. Jack then did the same, looking from Daniel to Teal’c who also came to a stop beside him. What was wrong?

“Where’s Major Carter?” Hammond asked brusquely.

The unexpected question sliced through him. What did he mean? He’d just sent Carter back home ahead of them a little over ten minutes ago with those damn ore thingies.

“Sir?” was all he could ask, utterly blind sided by the apparent conflict of information.

“General Hammond, Major Carter returned before us to deliver the ore samples she collected containing the new potential Trinium source mere minutes before you ordered our return,“ Teal’c provided, and Jack was grateful the big guy had found the words to answer for him.

Jack looked round at his teammates again to confirm that he wasn’t losing his marbles, and the sight of their equally perplexed looks- Teal’c’s right eyebrow was particularly sky high- seemed to agree with his confusion.

“She didn’t come through, Colonel,” the General stated, and Jack felt a dead weight sink to the pit of his stomach at his words. “We received an incoming wormhole with an IDC from SG-1 about ten minutes ago,” he said, turning his head around to look at Walter sat in the Control Room, who nodded his own confirmation, clearly listening in, “but no one came through.”

’What!?’ he thought, but found himself unable to form any words from the shock.

“How can that be possible, General Hammond? We all witnessed Major Carter’s return home through the gate,” asked Teal’c.

“Yeah, I saw her go through, too,” confirmed Daniel from beside him.

“What the hell is going on?!” Jack cried out unrestrainedly in a flurry of panic, having finally regained his voice. Something had happened to Carter, and he damn well wasn’t going to bother with formalities.

“When the gate shut down with no travellers, we tried to dial back and radio to ask what had happened, but we couldn’t get a lock,” answered the General, and Jack saw Walter nod his head again, looking grave.

“What do you mean you couldn’t get a lock?” he heard himself parrot the General’s words, though very little of the information seemed to be actually sinking in.

“It took almost five minutes of dialling to get a connection, Sir,” Walter said, speaking over the tannoy mic.

“Once the wormhole was established, I decided the best course of action would be to simply recall you all just to be on the safe side,” added the General.

“Was there any power surge on our end?”

He could barely register Daniel’s question. His mind was simply reeling. They’d only just had to go all the way to Russia to beg for their DHD and get a goddamn Goa’uld to help them get Teal’c out of the gate, for god’s sake. What if their dialling in just now had erased Carter’s pattern from inside the gate forever? What if his gating home had just inadvertently killed her?

“Nothing unusual was picked up on our end that we’ve found so far,” Walter replied through the tannoy.

“Make sure of that Sergeant,” the General barked. “I want a full diagnostic and a report compiled by fifteen hundred hours.”

“Yes, Sir,” came the Sergeant’s sharp reply.

“What if the wormhole jumped?!” he said suddenly, surprised at himself for even recalling what had happened with the second gate in Antarctica in his shocked state. “What if she’s just accidentally been sent somewhere else?”

“I can have SG-3, 5, 12 and 15 geared up and ready for pre-brief in one hour.”

“Request permission for SG-1 to join the search, Sir,” he pleaded, deciding he ought to tack on the salutation and do his best to rein in his emotions if he wanted a place on the search and rescue team.

“Pending you pass your post-mission physical, approved.”

“Thank you, Sir,” he said gratefully, and he turned around to see Teal’c and Daniel had already made a start to march swiftly towards the infirmary.

“I’ll have Doctor Lee pull up a list of nearby addresses to ‘297 where you were,” he heard the General call after him. “Be back in the briefing room by fifteen hundred hours.”

“Yes, Sir!” he called back behind him as he marched as fast as his legs would take him to the elevator, for once eager to endure Janet’s prodding and get the tests done.

-----

A little over an hour later, the Colonel was in the briefing room leading the talks with the General, Daniel, Teal’c and the four assembled SG teams who would be assisting with the search.

“-and when Carter and I were sent to the Antarctic gate by the power surge, we were flung through at such high speed we were both knocked out on the other side. I broke my leg and ribs,” he said, wincing at the memory of almost freezing to death in that damn icy cavern, slowly drowning in his own fluids as he coughed up blood from his punctured lung.

“That would explain why she hasn’t dialled in yet,” nodded Colonel Reynolds in understanding. “She might be hurt or unconscious.”

“Exactly,” he said gravely, grimacing at the thought of Carter lying unconscious in a heap of blood on some unexplored planet, alone.

Suddenly everyone turned at the brisk sound of footsteps clambering up the metal spiral staircase to see Sergeant Davis come marching up into the room.

“Sergeant, report,” barked Hammond sharply.

“Diagnostics turned up no abnormalities in the gate, Sir. No indication that her pattern had been stored in the buffer.”

’Oh thank god,’ thought Jack.

“No reason I can find as to why we couldn’t get a lock on ‘297 for five minutes after we tried redialling to ask why no one had come through,” he continued. “The only thing at all out of the ordinary so far was that the IDC signal we received was attenuated by zero point five percent, Sir.”

Many looks were exchanged around the table among the team members. Clearly Jack wasn’t the only one who hadn’t a clue what on Earth that could possibly mean.

“Zero point five, Sergeant?” the General asked, sounding exasperated. He clearly didn’t have a clue, either.

“That could indicate that the signal was partially directed elsewhere or inhibited on its path here,” supplied Doctor Lee, who now also came jogging up the stairwell and into the room, visibly panting, and heaving a giant scroll of paper under his arm.

“Thoughts, Doctor?” the General demanded more, but the scientist simply shrugged his shoulders and unfurled the paper he’d brought across the briefing table for everyone to see.

“Keep at it, Sergeant. Dismissed,” said the General to Walter, who promptly left, before moving to join the table next to himself to see the Doctor’s hand drawn map of the path between Earth and PS1-297, where SG-1 had just been.

“For now, here and here,” and he watched Doctor Lee indicate wide circles in an area either side of the wobbly pencil-drawn wormhole path, “are where I recommend you start the search.”

Colonel O’Neill stood back as the General began dishing out the various destinations to each of the five team leaders who were now prepared to begin the search, all thoughts of the Stanley Cup semi-final long gone from any of the present soldiers’ minds.

-----

March 31st 2002

Jack kicked his foot against the base of his locker door in frustration. It swung open and clattered in protest against the locker beside his, before remaining half open, almost leering at him, daring him to snap it shut again. ’Who the hell is the General to order me home?’ he fumed. Okay, he was his Commanding Officer and had had every authority to do so, but quite frankly, if he wanted to stay on base for the past fourteen days straight and refuse to go home, that was his own damn fucking business. He didn’t care if Janet or Daniel were apparently ”concerned” for his so-called mental well-fucking-being. They could both go fuck themselves for ratting him out like that. Yes, he was probably being even more of a sarcastic, sadistic a-hole to everyone than usual and yes, he probably looked ridiculous sprinting into the Control Room at every single off-world activation klaxon, be it in the dead of night or not, but he didn’t give a damn. If there was gonna be any news of Carter, he would damn well be there to hear it first.

The sound of the locker room door creaking open then being closed quietly only made him seethe further. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he certainly didn’t want anyone to talk to him. All he wanted was to be left alone to stew in his own foul mood.

There was a long silence, and he could practically feel his team mates’ gaze burning into the back of his skull.

”What!?” he lashed out when he couldn’t take the silent stalemate anymore, and he spun round to face the unwelcome intruders at the door. Sure enough, Daniel and Teal’c were both stood there, side by side, watching him. Teal’c was looking stoic and neutral as always, but had a strong urge to knock the sympathetic look Daniel’s face was wearing right off.

“I don’t wanna hear anything,” he hissed.

“Jack, we heard you’re-”

“Did you not just hear me say, ‘I don’t wanna hear anything’?” he bit angrily. He might be a booksmart genius, but he could swear Daniel was completely thick sometimes. Not to mention infuriating, too.

“O’Neill,” Teal’c began, and he immediately stilled. Somehow he could never unleash the same frustration at his Jaffa friend as he often did with Daniel. “The General cannot remove me from this base. I assure you I shall contact you immediately if anything more becomes known.”

“And at least our team’s been given permission to re-scout some of the earlier planets in case any of us missed her for whatever reason.”

“I know that, Daniel,” he couldn’t help hiss. He was the fucking team leader, of course he already knew that.

“Will you stop biting off my head!?” Daniel suddenly yelled, taking him by surprise. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re on the same side, Jack. I want her back just as badly as you do, so will you quit being such an asshole?!”

He felt himself get up and rush towards the man in an instant before he’d already made the conscious decision when Teal’c calmly strode between them, blocking the way by placing either hand on each of their shoulders.

“This confrontation serves no purpose in assisting our endeavour to find Major Carter,” the Jaffa said coolly.

It would definitely help him feel better, though, he thought grouchily, but there would be no point fighting his way through Teal’c no matter how much he still wanted to throttle Daniel.

Ignoring Daniel’s continued leer, he relented, backing up from Teal’c.

“Fine,” he yielded, waving his arms non-threateningly in surrender. “Now get out the way, I have a whole pack of beer waiting for me at home,” he said, starting to push his way past to leave, and Teal’c stood aside to allow him past.

“Just don’t show up with a hangover tomorrow,” he heard Daniel remark snidely from behind him.

“Fuck off, Daniel,” he simply said, before slamming the locker room door shut behind him.

-----

April 17th 2002

“We can’t give up on her, Sir,” he pleaded. He couldn’t believe what he was being ordered to do. It had only been a month for cryin’ out loud.

“I know how much she means to you.”

“She’s a very valuable member of my team, and a valuable resource to this program,” he affirmed nonchalantly.

“No one’s questioning her value, Jack, but the Pentagon feels that it’s time to cut-“

“She’s still alive, Sir,” he found himself shouting fervently. He knew he ought to keep his tone and volume to a more subordinate level but he couldn’t seem to muster the strength. They couldn’t force him to give up on her. “I don’t know how I know, and I don’t have any proof, but I just know it.”

He saw the General let out a sigh, before saying, “Colonel, I don’t know of anyone more resilient or more resourceful than the Major. I know that if she’s still out there-“

“She is still out there,” he hissed. To hell with those kinds of hypotheticals.

“Then wherever she is you know she’s doing damn well everything in her power to get back.”

“She is,” he replied fervently.

“But I have my orders, and you have yours, Jack. It’s been a whole month, and all the potential sites have been scouted twice over now. I’ve been lenient so far but SG-1’s back on mission rota as of tomorrow morning.”

“But-”

“But,” the General interrupted and he knew he’d pushed his luck. This discussion was over. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not expecting her to make her way back at some point. I’m afraid that she’ll have to get back on her own-”

He barely caught the last of the General’s words, however, as he promptly stormed out the office, not even stopping to apologize to Walter whom he walked straight into. He then headed straight to the locker room to change before going top-side and clocking out hours before his shift was even due to end. If they wanted to come after him, let them, he thought. He didn’t care anyway. If he couldn’t find Carter, he didn’t see how he could care about anything else ever again.

Chapter Text

Day 44

Back at the Alpha Site, with her FRED readied in the Gate Room, all packed and prepped with an assortment of supplies, ammunition, medical supplies and as many tools and equipment as she could foresee needing, bypassing the lockout on the address in the system, she dialled the Aschen homeworld.

She had to admit that she almost felt a sense of dread when she saw as the last chevron lit up and locked, the wormhole forming. A part of her had ever-so-slightly wished the Aschen homeworld was in fact being sucked into the black hole of P3W-451, whose address had been top of the list she and the Ambassador had given them. She couldn’t recall ever feeling such a deep sense of foreboding before a mission. Sure, she’d felt nervous visiting Yu’s stronghold alone, but a part of her had expected Anubis’ weapon had taken care of any Jaffa there. This time, she couldn’t help feel that that wouldn’t be enough to safeguard her there. Still, she was almost certain the technology she needed to get back to her own time was there, and the whole galaxy was counting on her.

Taking a deep breath, she instructed her mini-MALP to go through the newly-formed event horizon, the seconds waiting for the telemetry to be sent back dragging on and on. She had absolutely no idea what she was about to see, and the wait only increased her anxiety.

The relayed image finally flickered on the computer screen. The mini-MALP was transmitting an image of a stark white, brightly-lit, empty room on the other side. Whizzing it around to get a full 360 degree view, she was puzzled to see that there was nothing to see at all. There weren’t any visible control panels or buttons. There were no work stations or seating. She couldn’t see anything that looked remotely like a dialling system they might have constructed, either. The walls, she could see, were plain, windowless, and even to her surprise, doorless. She couldn’t see any way in or out the facility. She panned the camera up and down to the ceiling and floor, but still, there was nothing remarkable to see at all except for the Stargate itself behind the mini-MALP standing inside the square room that looked to be about twice the size of the SGC gate room.

But the lights were on, and that meant that there had to be a power source somewhere. Readings were in the green, too, and the temperature was acceptable, though a little on the cool side at a steady 40F. The MALP was also picking up trace EM-readings being emitted from somewhere, too. She was reminded of the room where they had found the Ancient repository several years ago when the downloading device had appeared on the wall after she and the rest of SG-1 had arrived. Perhaps this was similar, she thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t find anything until she went through.

She couldn’t help her sense of foreboding increase further at the thought, though. The place looked completely lifeless and admittedly, rather ominous. She desperately wished her team would be going with her. Or that Orlin was still here with her to bolster her confidence or calm her with his presence, even if he wouldn’t be able to physically help her if she came under attack the moment she stepped through. She couldn’t help feeling scared, but the Aschen had the technology she needed. She couldn’t be certain, but Orlin, surely, had intended for her to go there. She had to trust him, and she had to have courage.

Making her way to the ramp at the foot of the gate, with a last look at the Alpha Site, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she saw it, she secured her backpack on with the front buckle and sent the FRED through first, giving it a moment to get clear of the gate on the other site. It would provide her with a place to duck behind if needed. “Here goes,” she said to herself, readying her weapon and stepped through, bracing herself for the worst.

As her vision rematerialized, a long, thin, clear screen stretched across the far end of the wall from nowhere, lighting up with text in a strange, green alien writing. She instantly ducked behind the FRED, keeping still, her ears picking up the soft sound of a whirring and a clicking. Her heart hammered in her chest. She couldn’t see from her position what was happening. She also now noticed there a faint smell of something like wheat in the air. Peering around the side of the FRED slowly, weapon primed and ready, she spotted a yellow line that had appeared on the floor, which seemed to be guiding her in the direction of a nearby, tall arch that hadn’t been there before. Yellow alien text was displayed on the top of the white, metallic structure, matching the colour of the floor line. She guessed she was meant to follow it.

Looking around and seeing no movement, nor anything immediately threatening, she hesitantly emerged from her hiding position and cautiously followed the line to the arch, startling as it suddenly produced a gas at her approach, along with a bright light which suddenly passed over her body. She instinctively held her breath and deftly ducked backwards away from the light and arch, which to her further surprise, then melted seamlessly into the floor before her eyes.

“Woah!” she couldn’t help exclaim, looking at the floor where the arch had just stood, seeing that it looked completely smooth, with no sign of an opening at all. The gas soon dissipated, too, and unable to keep from drawing breath any longer, she gasped frantically, trying to steady herself. The gas, to her relief, had seemed harmless. She was reminded of the decontaminant sprays that SG teams utilized upon their return from hazardous, potentially contaminated worlds. Maybe this was simply the standard procedure for all gate travellers arriving, she thought.

The arch must have been a scanner, too, she guessed, because suddenly the text on the wall changed to red, as did the previously yellow line in the floor. It must have detected that she wasn’t Aschen, she thought frantically. She would surely be attacked any moment. She ran back to hide again behind the FRED, weighing her limited options, her heart racing. Her sense of foreboding had been justified. There wouldn’t be any time to dial up the gate with one of the naquadah generators she’d brought, as she’d already surmised. No control room or dialling system had appeared. She was trapped and cornered. She gripped her P-90 to her chest tightly. There’d be no choice but to fight her way out.

She could barely detect the low-toned beeping that now sounded, followed by a similar clicking sound to that which she’d heard earlier, over the thudding of her pulse in her own ears. Panting in shallow breaths as she waited for an attack, when the clicking stopped and there was no further sound aside from the dull beeping, she risked quickly peering round the FRED to see that what appeared from her position to be a large, white cube, located at the end of the new red line in the floor. Back to hiding behind the FRED she considered the situation. Was it a weapon? A bomb? A higher-toned and more persistent beep now blared, along with multiple clicking noises high up from all around her. There were now tiny flashes of red from evenly spaced black, glass domes in the walls and ceiling, and she could see several lasers being trained on her position. She was being warned. If she didn’t cooperate, the system would shoot. She’d have to obey and approach the object. Going against every instinct in her body, she got up and walked over to the indicated area and peered into the cube, around one meter wide, startling as she saw the top melt away, revealing to her absolute astonishment that there was already something deposited inside the box. It was unmistakably a standard-issue SGC black backpack.

’How… how is that possible?’ she thought, immediately patting her own back with her hands to confirm that she was still wearing her own, which she was.

She hauled this second one out of the cube, noticing its worn appearance, then spotted that this backpack bore the precise same torn top loop as her own did from when she’d accidentally snagged it in Yu’s palace. She stared at it, frozen, her brain- still alarmed by the ongoing threat- struggling to turn the wheels into place. What was it, and why? Had the pack been constructed just like the arch and storage container?

But she couldn’t ignore the lasers pointing at her. Briefly dismissing the unexpected second pack, the thought occurred to her that perhaps the earlier arch’s alarm had been signalled by the weapons she was carrying, like an airport metal detector. She decided to promptly place all the weapons she was carrying inside the box, and as she placed the last knife she always stowed in her leg hold inside, the box moved back, melting into the wall and disappearing without a trace.

----

After she had been forced into the grey tunic that could not be removed, she finally exited the facility. After recovering from her surprise at seeing the sky turning to day before her eyes, and the shock of the sight of such a vast, incredible, pristine modern city, she made use of the bright, new daylight to open up and investigate the contents of the inexplicable second backpack.

Crouching down and leaning against the wall of the building she’d just exited, she unzipped the main pocket to find at the very top what looked like the notebook she’d just taken from Daniel’s office the night before. Only, this one was thoroughly worn, and it was to her horror that her eyes were instantly drawn to the very hastily-looking written message:

“GET OFF THE PLANET NOW!” it read in capital letters, underlined twice.

She immediately stood to attention, looking around to check the coast was clear before hastily scanning the rest of the note, the page shaking in her unsteady grasp.

“Dial Volia manually,” it said, and written below was what she recognized to be the gate address for the planet.

“It’s safe. DHD’s there. Get back to the SGC.
Generate an EM pulse in our lab.

Turn off the clothing-DO IT NOW!!” and the last line at the bottom of the page was triple underlined.

She didn’t hesitate to obey. There would be time to look through the rest of the notebook and pack later. The handwriting was unmistakably hers, and she’d said “our” lab”; she trusted herself to have not written such an urgent message if it wasn’t of vital importance.

The leftover adrenaline from her earlier state of fear that was still in her system aided her in bolting back through the still-open green doorway into the Aschen gate room at high speed, where she set about heaving one of the naquadah generators off the FRED, dragging the heavy object towards the base of the gate. She then tore the necessary power cables from the FRED, winding them around both sides of the gate as fast as she could, before turning on the generator, which loosened the inner ring of the gate with a resounding shunt. She then proceeded to heave the inner ring round with immense effort, finding herself wishing that Teal’c had been there to help her. She’d never dialled a gate manually by herself before, and it was with incredible force that she slid each correct chevron into position one by one, giving pause to allow it to lock and light up each time, before rotating the ring round once again. It was draining work, but the sight of the urgent words written on the open page of the notebook with the address to Volia she kept checking spurned her on to keep heaving. The final, top, chevron successfully locked, and she jumped back to allow the vortex to form, before grabbing the notebook, along with the duplicate backpack and sprinted through the gate without a backwards glance, leaving everything else behind.

The next moment she found herself on Volia, where it looked to be early evening. Not stopping to take in the sight of the endless rows of farmland, she dashed to the DHD, where she made a snap decision to dial Argos first just in case there were any Harvesters here that could detect and store gate addresses being dialled out. Then, from Pelops’ temple, she dialled back to Earth, where she’d only just been the previous evening, except this time it was with a panic that she dashed down the ramp in the Gate Room, through the open side blast door and along the corridor to take the elevator straight to her science lab as instructed by the message. She found her lab to have been cleared out of her previous belongings and made into a storage room, but thankfully she saw that the main standard equipment still lined the sides of her lab. It didn’t take her long to set up an EM pulse to go off, but following a tingling sensation, she was surprised that nothing seemed to happen.

The message had told her to turn the clothing off, and she’d expected the wires to loosen, or for some sign to occur, but it hadn’t. She decided instead that she should try again to remove it as she had failed to do so in the Aschen gate room. Rummaging through some file cabinets she came across a pair of scissors, and started to cut at the fabric. It took a good twenty minutes’ work, but she successfully managed to hack the tunic away piece by piece, finally removing the remaining pieces of wire around her wrists, neck and upper torso with a pair of wire cutters she’d located. Now completely free of the tunic, she changed into a pair of spare clothes from her own pack, before deciding to investigate the contents of the strange, extra pack, starting with the notebook.

She flipped over the page with the urgent message to see the other side bore equally hastily-written scrawled writing, which read:

”Watch the videos. Follow the instructions. Use this book as a dictionary. Learn and memorize everything.
Get back before December 18th 2042 when Anubis finds you.
Good luck Sam.”

She stared at the words on the page, stunned by the idea that Anubis would find her. She’d never even considered it a possibility. Her mind reeled as she stared at her own handwriting on the page. There couldn’t be any other explanation for this message but that it must have been sent back in time by her future self.

She saw there was also a long P.S. written on the right-hand side of the page spread, and a further, and shorter P.P.S below it, but she couldn’t decipher either as they had been written in the same alien text that had been displayed on the wall of the gate facility. This other, future, version of herself must have both learned to read and write the alien language, as well as utilize time travel, she gasped in realization. But if so, why only send a message back in time?

She had to know more. She rummaged through the pack to search for the aforementioned videos, and it didn’t take her long to find Daniel’s old camcorder that had been wrapped in what she recognized as the same grey sweatshirt she’d taken from the Colonel’s house, presumably to protect it. However, unfolding the garment, she saw that the other Sam’s efforts hadn’t worked. The pack must have been flung through the gate at a large force. The camcorder was smashed to pieces.

Chapter Text

The pack must have been flung through the gate at a large force. The camcorder had been smashed to pieces.

Day 44 (continued)

Thankfully, Sam had found the SD card inside the broken camcorder to be salvageable.

Popping it out of the damaged camera and swapping it out with the blank SD card she’d made sure was in the freshly-charged camcorder she’d packed just that same morning, turning it on, she saw as the thumbnails of the most recent data files appeared on the tiny screen. There were several pictures of what looked like digital screens of various coloured alien text, and at the bottom of the list were three video files, all dated as having been recorded on the same day. Squinting to see the lengths of the videos on the camcorder’s tiny screen, she saw that the first was very short, the second was much longer, and the third was a couple of minutes shorter than the previous; and all showed a thumbnail of herself talking to the camera.

The first thing that Sam noticed about the images of herself was her hair. She was surprised to see that it was practically shoulder-length. She also noticed she was wearing what looked like winter gear, and she didn’t miss her disheveled look in all three videos. She looked frankly panic-stricken, frozen mid-speech by each screen capture, and there was also a strange glow of orange lighting up half her face in all of them.

Deciding she ought to watch them in order, she selected the first, shorter one.

“Oh crap, I don’t even know what to say,” the audio played as an image of herself standing in some kind of bright, white room, now filled the screen. It was obvious from the shaking that she was holding the camcorder in her own hands.

“I’m banking everything on you finding the backpack with my message and this video when you first arrive on the planet for the first time, otherwise we might be kinda screwed,” the other Sam spoke in a hurried voice. It was clear that she’d felt she didn’t have much time to make the recording.

“Won’t it simply be in front of the gate when she first arrives?” and she was astonished to immediately recognize that the voice speaking was unmistakably Orlin’s.

“The city clears everything away after a while,” she heard herself reply to him, looking to her side, presumably at him. “That’s why there are no clothes left behind like on the other planets.”

“So if it’s not there when she first arrives?”

“Then Sam,” and she felt a jolt to be addressed directly by name, and she saw as the other Sam returned to look again directly into the camera, straight at herself. “In that case, you’ve probably just repeated my mistake and spent four months under the control of the city, and found this backpack in the city’s inventory list.”

’Four months under control of the city?’ she thought in alarm at the prospect.

“Actually, I should probably make two separate videos for each scenario,” the other Sam added, looking even more stressed. “Hang on, let me start again,” she said, and the video shook even more as she fumbled to push the record button again to turn it off, and the video ended.

Sam stared at the thumbnails of the photos and videos on the SD card that had now reappeared. Judging by the length of her hair, it was clear that this Sam was from at least many months in the future, and judging by the white room she was in and the winter gear she was wearing, she seemed to be on the Aschen planet. This Sam had clearly figured out time travel, but she still didn’t get why she’d only used it to send a message. Why hadn’t she gone back in time herself?

She wanted to move on to watching the next video right away, but decided it would be better first to head to Daniel’s office and fish out the HDMI cable she knew he kept in his desk drawer, which she’d seen him utilize hundreds of times to re-watch videos of some kind of ancient language he’d found on a mission. Fortunately, she found that it hadn’t rusted over the past four decades of disuse, and she soon connected the camcorder to his desktop monitor, where the contents of the SD’s memory showed in much larger detail. She then eagerly selected the second video, a seven-minute long video, desperate to know more.

“Sam,” began the second video, and she had to admit that after her long isolation- aside from her brief reunion with Orlin just over a week ago prior- she found it incredibly reassuring to have someone addressing her by name and talking to her, even if it was indirect through a video recording.

“This video assumes that you found my message immediately after you first arrived on Aschen Prime. That’s the name of the planet.”

She noticed that this time she saw that the other Sam looked and sounded a little more collected and less flustered. Perhaps she’d taken a moment to consider what to say before turning the camcorder back on again.

“I’m guessing, or rather hoping, that you opened up my pack straight away after exiting the Gate Terminal, where you found this message,” and she held up and showed the precise notebook she herself was holding which had the same urgent note on the top page. “You then probably headed straight back to Earth, where you should have disabled the clothing by now.”

Sam found herself nodding to herself on the video, and she felt her stomach flop in giddy anticipation at the thought of finally getting some answers. Orlin had of course tried to help her, but he had had to avoid many of her questions, often giving indirect answers. This Sam, however, would surely have no reason or need to hold anything back from wanting to help herself.

She found herself propping her elbows up on Daniel’s desk and leaning closer to the monitor, as though that would help speed up the process of finally getting some answers.

“If you’ve not done that yet, and you’re still wearing the clothing for any reason, then stop this video and do that right now. Okay? Good. The tunic takes control of your behaviour. I got stuck serving the Aschen’s Artificial Intelligence that runs the city, what I call the AI, for four months before I broke free because of a lab accident. Actually that’s not really important,” she said, though she couldn’t help feeling curious as to what had happened. What if it happened to her again? It was clear, however, that this Sam had a lot of information to share and likely little time to do so, based on her stressed expression and the continued high speed at which she spoke.

“What’s important is this, and I’m going to assume you’re still at the SGC watching this. Okay, first, you’ll need to stay there and learn the Aschen language before you go back. And I mean memorize absolutely every symbol by heart, and learn to be able to read at speed. I made a dictionary in the notebook with the message,” and she held up the notebook again. “You’re smart, you can do that, Sam, even if we kinda suck at languages,” she smiled, and she found herself smiling back in agreement. She might have spent over four years in Daniel’s company but she’d never really picked up much from him. She was reminded of the task the Colonel and Teal’c had had to accomplish while in a time loop just over a year ago, where they’d had to memorize an Ancient text, and from what it had sounded like, it had taken them at least a month to do so.

“Study the alphabet, learn it, and memorize it,” continued the on-screen Sam. “God, I’m seriously glad I compiled this before,” she then said to herself, waving the book that her real self was also holding, “because there would have been no way I could have had time to write this all out now… So, yeah, you’ve probably gotten the impression I’m making this video in a hurry-,” and just as she spoke, a soft beeping sound could be heard from off-camera.

“A little less than twenty-two of your minutes, Sam,” came Orlin’s voice.

“Exactly. Anyway, I’ll get to that. So, after you memorize the Aschen alphabet- it reads like English by the way, though you’ll soon learn that for yourself. Anyway, you’ll need to go back to the planet, and most importantly you’ll need to bring a copy of the SGC dialling program with you. I almost got trapped on the planet here because I could only dial out to Lannao, another other planet in the Confederation, because of the position of the suns here. To use a solar flare to send you back, you’ll first need to configure the Aschen dialling computer to be able to dial outside of the Aschen Confederation in any direction if you wanna use a solar flare at the time you want.”

So she had utilized a solar flare to accomplish time travel. Her theory had panned out, she realized, relieved. Then she grabbed a ripped piece of paper that had been lying on the floor of Daniel’s cluttered office and began making notes.

1. Learn alphabet
2. Dialling program

“Actually, damn,” the voice said, and she looked up to see herself looking flustered, and the screen shook considerably. “I just realised that when you disable the Aschen AI you probably won’t find access to the Aschen’s own dialling program. I never managed to find how to access it, at least. Sorry Sam, you’re going to have to come up with your own system of rigging your own system or just somehow bringing the entire dialling system with you. I’ll leave that to you, but make that a priority,” and Sam made another brief note.

“Okay, next, you’ll need to bring a portable EM pulse generator with you, too, to disable the tunic you’ll be forced to wear again when you go back. Take it with you to the science lab I’m going to show you for when you go to disable the AI controlling the city. I don’t think it’ll recognize it as a weapon.

3. EM pulse

"Anyway, the AI was initially programmed to safeguard the city’s survival, and it’s very protective of the city it runs. I thought I’d shut it down before but it turned out to have only been temporary. It somehow overrode my disable command. I just found out it had been watching me the whole time,” and she gave a pause, looking upwards at a point behind the camera. “It still is,” she added darkly, and the screen gave a shake as she picked up the camera and rotated it to show the same raised, black domes she’d seen earlier in the Aschen gate room dotted all around the room. It looked like she was in some kind of computer lab, and she could see the same strange, soft orange glow from her face rippling on the walls, too.

“The AI has no auditory input, so thankfully it can’t hear me telling you this on the video, but you’re going to have to permanently disable it this time,” she said, adding deliberate emphasis to the word permanent, and she wondered if she meant she’d need to blow it.

“First, watch the menus I go through and memorize them, but I can’t show you all the way into its system because the AI is smart and will catch on to what I intend, and I don’t want to provoke it,” and although the camera was now focusing on what looked like an Aschen version of a keyboard, she could hear a sliver of terror in the other Sam’s voice as she said the word ‘provoke’. She wondered if the AI had attacked her before.

She saw as the camcorder got flipped around, and she briefly caught an image of what looked like a giant, bright, glowing orange-coloured sphere in the middle of a white room, before she was shown an image of a computer menu on what she recognized to be an Aschen transporter that she’d seen and used on Volia during the treaty negotiations.

“This is a map of the city, and this is the button that gets you back to the gate,” and her finger pointed to a green button. “Orlin, I’ll be back in a moment,” she called to him off-screen in a louder voice, before holding the camera over the map to show the green icon she was selecting. A blue-ish white light then appeared, and after it dissipated it was clear from the different lighting that she was now outside.

“This is the Gate Terminal where you just were,” and the camera swivelled up to show the building she’d crouched beside earlier, where she’d found the message. She was given a brief flash of the blue sky above before the camera was tilted down to show the menu again. “This button here,” and she pointed the video down again to show a different green menu choice, “will open up the doorway to go inside. By the time you get back to this planet, I expect that you’ll have memorized the alphabet and should be able to read the options for yourself. See, this one says, ‘Gate Terminal Building’.”

Frankly, it looked like nothing but a bunch of scrawly markings, pointy lines and circles to her. She honestly couldn’t see how she was going to manage, but she figured if she’d done it before, she’d learn to do it again.

“Okay, so when you come back again, you’ll come out of the Gate Terminal, come to this sign, though it’ll look a bit different at first until you ask it to teleport you. Anyway, the menu will be the same, so choose this light blue button here, that says “science”, and then select this one here to teleport to my computer lab. Well, it’ll be yours soon,” she said, and she didn’t miss the fleeting melancholy in her voice.

“Orlin, I’m back,” she called after the blue-white light had reappeared and disappeared, and a swivel of the camera showed for the first time Orlin himself, who was standing, admiring what she finally saw to be a large sun in the centre of the room. It was taller than himself, rotating incrementally slow, casting a warm, gentle hue on his handsome features.

“Speaking of, do you even show up on this thing?” she heard the other Sam ask, and there was a tumble and odd noise as she guessed she was flipping the view screen to see if Orlin was being detected by the camera. “Huh, yeah, there you are. At least I don’t look weird like I’m talking to myself,” she mused, and Orlin gave a wan smile before replying, “Ascended beings don’t consider talking to oneself to be ‘weird’.”

She smiled at the exchange between them, reminded of a similar conversation they’d shared when they’d first met at her house on Earth.

“Right, sorry. Anyway, Sam, you can use any computer, but I like this one,” and she flipped the camcorder vertically so she could show both the screen and keyboard simulation, making the video now appear sideways.

“I’m typing ‘Administration Server System’ into the search field here, can you see?”

She couldn’t read what it said at all, of course, but she was surprised to see the square screen roll forwards and flip, switching to a completely different screen, where the outline and text suddenly changed to black. She had to say, the control interface of the Aschen system was honestly nothing short of cool, which was probably saying a lot coming from someone who’d stolen and flown a spaceship just a week prior. It was also truly fascinating to be watching herself use such an alien system with stark ease, too. If it weren’t for the danger that this so-called ‘AI’ presented, she would have been rather excited at the prospect of herself learning to work and use this system as well as this other Sam could.

“Black indicates we’re in the admin part of the system. Okay, then you want to choose this menu here. Then here,” and she watched as the menus of scrawly, illegible alien text changed. “Then this one, but actually I’m not going to go any further because the AI will probably attack me again,” and there was a pause, and she found herself imagining the same red lasers appearing in the walls. “But after this,” she continued, “if memory serves, I think it said “City Control Interface” and she picked up the notebook that she had placed next to the keyboard and flipped several pages over, writing down a line of alien script. “Wait no, I think it was “Computer Mainframe Access” and she scratched out the earlier line and re-wrote the transliterated text of what she’d said. “Sorry, I had lasers pointed at me by this point, I don’t exactly remember.”

So it had been the lasers, she thought with a shudder, remembering her mentioning provoking the AI earlier.

“I think that was it,” she continued on. “Then there’ll be an option at the bottom that says ‘Disable,’” and she wrote another five symbols largely and circled it. She herself flipped through the book and found the exact same page. “Find it and push it as fast as you can before it shoots you, which unfortunately happened to me. But you can heal yourself with the healing device if that happens. Anyway, that’ll disable the AI temporarily.”

It was quite frightening to hear how casually she was mentioning being shot at by lasers, and how she was guiding herself into the same dangerous situation, but this would be the only way, it seemed.

“Next, use the EM pulse to disable your clothing again, then you’ll need to find the actual subroutine of the AI hidden in the computer system and delete it. I don’t know how long it’ll be temporarily disabled for so be quick. This is why I need you to be absolutely sure you’ve memorized the Aschen script before you go back,” and she looked very serious in the camera.

She understood. She’d be on her own for that part of the mission she was being drafted into. She’d have to be able to read the menus perfectly to quickly find the solution herself.

“You’ll have to find the original subroutine and delete it. I can’t help you with that since I can’t risk looking it up and giving the plan away. Then after that you’ll be safe, and you’ll be cold,” she said, stepping back and indicating the thermal wear she was wearing. “Dress warmly and bring lots of supplies and food. Okay, I’m gonna make a second video now, so watch that too,” and following a fumble and shake of the camera, the video went blank.

Chapter Text

Okay, I’m gonna make a second video now, so watch that too,” and following a fumble and shake of the camera, the video went blank.

Day 44 (continued)

“This is the second and last video I’ll be making. If you found my message later, following the test explosion, then that means you have precisely three months to implement this plan. Hopefully that won’t be cutting it too close. Otherwise, if fortunately you found this video straight away, then you have seven months to implement this plan before Anubis finds you and uses the weapon again.”

She saw as the other Sam pushed back the left sleeve of her thermal coat and showed her watch as steadily as she could seem to muster to the camera.

“December 18th 2042,” she said, reading aloud the date now visible on her watch face; the same date she’d seen written on the note. She looked at her own watch that she’d managed to uncover from under the tunic remnants, but saw that the EM pulse had turned it off. Regardless, she knew it to be mid-May. She had seven months to get back in time safely.

“That’s when Anubis finds you,” the video continued. “You have to travel back in time before that, and as I said in the previous video, you’ll also need to somehow bring the entire dialling program with you to do that.”

She turned the camera up, giving a close up of the giant holographic representation of a sun in the centre of the room. She could see now that there was a light blue square blinkering over a part of it near the camera with alien notation.

“See there?” and she pointed to that same square. “The computer has predicted that a small flare will erupt just over ten minutes from now on the left side of the sun. I’d set up the computer to automatically monitor the solar activity on the main and lesser sun of the system. You’ll soon find out for yourself, but the larger sun will be of no use to you. It's a sub-giant. Thankfully, I made a bunch of notes and memos in the back of that notebook while I was trying to calculate the mass of material needed to produce a flare. I’m sure they’ll come in handy for you, but I expect you'll be able to figure it all out for yourself soon enough.”

At her words she began flicking to the back of the book she was still holding to look for them, eager to see how she’d successfully achieved time travel, before the Sam in the video’s strange question drew her attention.

“Anyway, Orlin, I know you already told me how this has happened, but I still don’t get why? If it knew all along, why now?”

She couldn’t understand what the other Sam meant by “it”. She also couldn’t understand why she would be asking “why”. Why had what happened?

Feeling puzzled, she continued to watch as Orlin slowly walked into the scene, standing beside the holographic sun again.

“After you broke loose from its control and temporarily disabled it, once back online, the AI, as you call it, covertly monitored you. It considered you a threat, and it calculated that rather than attack and provoke you again, the city’s best chance of survival would rest on making you believe that you had succeeded. It ‘played dead,’ to use an Earth phrase.”

“Yeah, I know, you already told me that. What I still don’t get is why it’s done this for me? Why is it helping me?”

She still didn’t understand what they were talking about. What could this so-called AI have possibly done for her?

“It’s been monitoring you the entire time. It extrapolated that your intentions were not to harm the city but to simply utilize its technology. It judged that you would likely leave the planet once you had completed your task. Based on its algorithms, it calculated that to assist you would hasten that end.”

“It wants me to leave?”

“It’s an incredibly advanced program, but that is all. It has no sentience. It doesn’t want anything. It is simply programmed to ensure the city’s survival.”

“Okay, I get that. But why now?” the other Sam asked, sounding irritated, probably because Orlin hadn’t actually answered her original question. But then another beeping sounded, and she saw the blue square above the sun give a flash, reminding that there was clearly little time before the flare. “Why didn’t it help me earlier?” she asked again, speaking faster than earlier. “I’ve been working on this for three months!” and she didn’t miss that she sounded rather bitter as she spoke.

“It was still gathering data on your precise goals when it detected a sudden change in your bio signs.”

“My what?” the other Sam questioned, sounding as baffled as she herself was feeling by this presumed unexpected answer. “When?”

“You have become excessively agitated since my presence.”

“Well, I just found out my position has been made and I’m facing my death twenty minutes from now, along with the permanent end of my entire species if this plan doesn’t work! Of course I’m excessively agitated!” and she certainly didn’t mask any emotion from her words. “And now you’re telling me that the AI could have helped me months ago?!”

She felt saddened on behalf of this other Sam. From what she could tell, she likely did die just twenty minutes after recording this message for her. There seemed to be no evidence that she had come through with the message.

“But why didn’t I, or rather *she* come through, too?” she found herself wondering as she continued watching. They wouldn’t have experienced entropic cascade failure as they were from the same universe. She and the other Sam could have worked together.

“The subroutine doesn’t know the cause of your agitation,” Orlin said, answering her earlier question. “It has merely detected that your vital signs now are similar to when you first deactivated it.”

“So it thinks I’m a threat to it again? That I’m going to try to deactivate it again?”

“Yes, it does, and its algorithm promptly predicted that the sudden appearance of a flare would most likely lead to your departure and leaving the city untouched.”

“Wait, the flare is real, right?” the Sam in the video suddenly asked, sounding fearful, though of course Sam herself knew the answer, having seen the evidence already. “What if it’s just showing what it wants me to see?”

“No, it’s real,” Orlin confirmed.

“Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “But how did it do this?”

“The array also functions to stabilize the artificially-created star in case of unforeseen changes. The subroutine was able to use it to seed a small flare. In this case, approximately nine months.”

“But it can’t make one big enough for me to go back to my time, can it?”

“Not with the current set-up, it can’t. But it doesn’t know how far you were planning to go back, anyway.”

She heard her sigh, and there was a pause of silence before the camera was swivelled around to show her face, looking at the camera head-on.

“I’ve only got a few more minutes before this flare so I can send you this message,” she said hurriedly. “I know you. You’ll be wondering why I didn’t come back with the message,” and she found herself give a wan smile. Of course she’d know herself well. “I have to stay behind and destroy the city. I can’t let Anubis find out what I was planning here. I can’t go back in time, either, because the paradox of there being two of us in the same time frame would likely alert the Others or Anubis to our presence earlier, giving us less time to find a way back,” she said, giving a nod towards Orlin, who she guessed must have previously advised her of the risk. “I have to stay here and die with the city,” she said into the camera. “It's my punishment for wasting all those months being controlled by the city.”

“That wasn't your fault, Sam.”

“It doesn’t matter now, anyway,” she conceded quietly. “I can only hope that it won’t be for nothing. If you find this video, you're my legacy, Sam,” she said earnestly, dead-on into the camera. “You're my second chance. You're not alone. Or at least you won’t be for long, because you’re going to get back to everyone you care about and save them all. You can do it. Good luck, Sam.”

Chapter Text

“You're my second chance. You're not alone. Or at least you won’t be for long, because you’re going to get back to everyone you care about. You can do it. Good luck, Sam.”

Day 85

Following viewing the videos, she’d promptly relocated herself to the Alpha Site, where all memory of her earlier frustrations with being stuck idle on that same base less than two weeks prior, injured and hopeless, had been thrown out the window. Another version of herself had given her life to safeguard her own and guide her, and she wouldn’t fail her.

As instructed, she had first set about memorizing the alphabet that her other self had fortunately compiled and written out. Then, using the handwritten and translated sentences she’d found throughout the notebook, as well as the plentiful recordings of the written language found throughout the videos and the countless images photographed by the other Sam, she had started practicing sounding out the words and sentences.

It hadn’t taken her long to decipher the P.S. message she’d left herself:

"It was Orlin who sent us forward in time. Don’t be mad at him. Thanks to him we have a chance at saving the galaxy and everyone we care about."

So that’s what he’d meant when he’d said, “They know what I did,” she realized. He’d been punished by the Others for his interference by sending her forward in time, presumably to escape Anubis’ weapon and have a chance at undoing it by going back again. That explained how he’d found her on Yu’s planet having sent her there himself. He was expecting to find her in the future eventually. But if he’d been punished for his interference, how had he been able to assist this future version of herself? He’d clearly been helping her by answering her questions about the AI, and warning her about a paradox of two of them in the past... She wondered if he’d been there the entire time on the planet with her, too, or if he’d simply showed up to warn her of the attack from Anubis? But he surely wouldn’t have permitted her to be controlled by the city for four months, she thought. No, it must have been the latter, but even so, why had the Others permitted his interference again?

She’d hoped that the P.P.S message might shed some further light, but it had instead read, ”The weapon is on a planet,” which, truth be told, seemed an incredibly vague piece of information. Nonetheless, it would no doubt prove useful down the line, assuming she ever got back, she assured herself. Upon finding no further secret messages to herself in the book, she simply returned to her studies. Her questions and unknowns regarding Orlin would likely have to go unanswered.

——

By the time she’d been confident of her mastery of the alphabet and being able to read at speed, almost a month had passed, and she was down to only five months remaining before her deadline. It was disheartening that it had taken so long, but she had never been good at languages, and it was essential that she could read at a fluent level to have a chance at taking down the so-called ‘AI’ subroutine before it had a chance to take her down.

She’d then set about gathering the necessary equipment. She’d practically memorized the videos by now, having viewed them so many times during her efforts to learn the language, and could easily recall what she’d need. A portable EM pulse generator. A rigged portable version of the dialling program she herself had written. She also guessed from having seen brief glimpses of the camp-like set-up the other Sam had had in the lab that it looked like she’d also likely end up camping out long-term on the cold planet, so she also gathered additional winter gear, camping resources and food to those she’d already sent to the planet on the FRED she’d brought when she’d first arrived.

She’d worked fervently and as fast as she could to assemble everything and prepare, fully aware that the time until Anubis’ discovery of her was fast ticking down.

——

It had been fortunate that she had packed so many supplies this time because the second MALP she’d sent through to the Aschen homeworld had shown that the first FRED and her mini-MALP had vanished, presumably ‘cleared away’ just as the Sam in the video had said.

Fortunately, though, aside from that, despite her nerves and fear of the AI, her return to the Aschen homeworld had ended up otherwise going spectacularly to plan. Just as the Sam in the video had shown her, she’d transported herself to the same science lab, and had disabled the AI just as she’d been shot at. She’d healed herself with the healing device stowed in her backpack, had turned off the effects of the tunic she’d been forced to wear again with the portable EM pulse generator she’d brought, then had successfully navigated her way through the menus to discover and promptly delete a subroutine that from what she could best tell, looked like a command that ran the automation and continual analysis of the city.

At first, she hadn’t been sure it had been the correct one, and she’d already learned from the other Sam of the way it had tricked her into thinking it was disabled. But she’d later become confident of her success when she’d next stepped outside. The sky of the dome had no longer been bright blue as had appeared on the video and had been displayed when she’d arrived before transporting herself to the lab. Now, the entire projection upon the inside of the dome had shut down, showing a very bleak-looking outside. The fast-swirling swathes that lashed the dome looked to be that of a raging blizzard, and she could also just make out the very faint, giant orange halo of what must be the main Aschen sun peeking through the raging windstorm.

She’d then settled in on the gloomy, cold, dark homeworld of the Achen.

Then confident of her safety from the AI and the clothes she’d once again had to prize off piece by piece, she’d set up camp in the lab and spent the first two weeks of her stay on Aschen Prime familiarizing herself with the alien systems. The notes and journal that her predecessor had written in the back of her notebook had proven most helpful, giving her a formidable head start on understanding the capabilities of the Aschen core system, and she’d soon found her way to the needed systems. Having found the ability to predict any solar flares of both suns, she’d promptly set up a round-the-clock monitoring system for both, with an alert that would sound if a flare prediction was made. She’d also been surprised to discover that the holographic representation of one of the suns in fact had a physically warming effect, so she’d decided to leave one running twenty-four hours a day in the lab; a far more efficient and long-lasting source of warmth than the portable gas heaters she’d brought with her.

----

Day 201

Finally, after just under four months of trial-and-error, and following seven different sets of satellite array deployments to the smaller sun, as well as calculations based on her previous research of the past flares on Earth SG-1 had utilized, she was now confident that she had correctly nailed the necessary payload for a flare that would garner her a roughly forty and a half-year jump back. Now all she had to do was instruct the computer to construct and re-send the precise same set of satellites as the last back to the sun, a journey of which would take four weeks.

‘In one month I’m going home,’ she thought to herself with immense relief as she calculated that it would fall safely within the allotted time, too.

Over the past several months in each interim while waiting for the different load of satellites to reach the smaller sun, she’d also been busying herself with studying the Aschen history, as well as preparing for her return- in particular with tackling the problem of how to overcome the Aschen that would be there once she arrived in the past.

She’d checked the logs of that approximate timeframe to see precisely how many Aschen personnel she would be facing on her arrival, and to successfully enact the plan she had come up with, she had also needed to know if there were any non-Aschen persons on the planet around that time, too.

According to the logs, it seemed that there was little gate travel. About twice a year, a team of ambassadors would visit Volia and Lannao each, presumably to check up on the people and the continued status of the shipments, but aside from that, no Volians nor Lannaons lived on Aschen Prime. This was the information she had hoped for to successfully pull off her plan.

Except, she had found an anomalous entry of a single non-Aschen, non-Lannaon and non-Volian that had come to live on the planet just over forty-one years ago. "Origin: Uh-th," she’d sounded out, reading the symbols on the screen. "Earth", she’d realized, initially surprised. She’d always assumed that the Ambassador had been killed. She’d even attended his funeral and spoken to his family, feeling guilty for her part in having to leave him behind when she’d escaped the Harvester on Volia. But she’d been wrong. The logs had clearly stated that he had been alive and living on the planet right up until Anubis’ attack, when the population had been entirely reduced to zero overnight until her arrival.

She’d then decided to search the system for more information on Earth. The Ambassador, it seemed, had been surprisingly forthcoming with providing information to the Aschen. She was dumbfounded to see a very long entry consisting of highly excessive details he had given on Earth’s politics, including leader’s names, population distribution, countries names, maps, and even world history. Of course he was no soldier, and she didn’t expect him to hold out against torture with no past training or experience, but she was very surprised to see the volume of information he had given them. Had they somehow brainwashed him? The other Sam on the video had mentioned being controlled by the city. Had Joe succumbed to a similar control and inadvertently divulged this extensive information? Reading on, she was concerned to read that it seemed that based on his information, the Aschen had been able to determine Earth’s location, and they had been planning a retaliation attack on Earth by ship. In fact, right up until Anubis’ attack, the Aschen scientists had been working hard, focusing their efforts on building a more advanced ship capable of intragalactic travel to claim Earth and retribution.

But then the plot, and the Ambassador, had died along with everyone else. But once she got back, he’d be there, too, as would their plans to attack Earth. She would have to alter her plans to accommodate rescuing the Ambassador, and it seemed that she would have to sabotage the Aschen’s plans to attack Earth, too.

She’d also spent considerable time considering the story she would tell the SGC when she got back. She’d already learned from the past mission logs that Daniel was going to die a few months following her disappearance. She couldn’t interfere in his death, because Daniel later facing Anubis would be vital to the progression of the SGC learning about Anubis and his plans. But, if Daniel was going to meet Anubis, then she wouldn’t be able to divulge to him anything about her knowledge of Anubis for fear that he find out about her. She also felt a duty to protect Orlin and the secret of what he’d done, too.

----

Day 230

She woke up in her thermal sleeping bag, both energized and nervous.

Her last set of payloads had finally arrived at the smaller star. Her dialling program was tested and good to go. She’d had to wait an additional two days to be sure that the nearest planet with a Stargate that lay behind the smaller sun’s current position, P5N-44, lined up precisely, but today was the day.

Everything was ready. Everything was riding on today.

She served herself a last breakfast cooked on her stove, then transporting outside, she took a last look at the silent city that had been her home for the past three months. The next time she saw it, it would be full of life.

There was no way to check the other side for safety first. She took a deep breath as she stepped through at the precise pre-calculated time set on her watch. While entirely impossible, she would need to calm herself as much as possible. The AI would be monitoring her bio signs and she needed to allay as much suspicion as possible.

The moment she came through on the other side, she saw as the familiar, “Welcome to Aschen Prime,” sign appeared on the far wall. Trying but failing to still her racing heart, she looked around the silent, bare and entirely windowless Aschen gate room. It was no different at all to the gate room she had just left. She couldn’t have miscalculated though, or else she’d have come through on P5N-44, but there was no way at all to know if the time jump had been successful.

She took off her wristwatch, and stealthily hid it behind the gate, along with the Goa’uld ribbon device and radio she’d also brought with her, then allowed herself to be guided by the yellow line that had appeared in the floor through the arch. Following the decontamination procedure, she had no choice but to relent to putting on the presented Aschen tunic for what was now a third time. She hid the winter gear she’d had to remove behind the gate and retrieved the ribbon device, tucking it under the tunic’s skirt into the knife leg holster she had left on, relieved that the security didn’t trigger despite her concealed weapon. A green line appeared and she was cleared to pass through the green doorway that had opened up in the wall, and she was both filled with relief and utter dread as to what, or who she would see outside.

She crept out and peered around the doorway. The city she’d known and had lived in for so long was now filled with an incredible dance of colour, movement and life. Tens of tunic-clad people were buzzing along lines like grey bees, mostly in silence, though a few were conversing in pairs. Paths, buildings and walkways constantly moved and realigned themselves raising or lowering people from different levels of surrounding buildings, or forming walkways between them.

She was broken out of her entrancement at the sight of such life after all this time, however, as she saw that the sky above was now announcing in green the arrival of a person from an unknown location. There was no time to stop and marvel at the city. She couldn’t allow anyone the chance to stop and question her.

She walked as briskly as she could, not wanting to run and draw attention to herself, and soon reached the location of her usual transporter, which looked like the roadside sign she’d seen on the first day of her arrival. Selecting Science, she was surprised to see additional search fields parameters presented that she’d never seen before. Narrowing her search to solar activity monitoring, she was surprised to see that the map that now appeared was different, too. She hadn’t expected, though she probably should have anticipated, that the city was far more complex when it bore a higher population.

A voice behind her informed her that a group of Aschen were approaching the transporter from behind her. She’d have to make a decision fast, but there was such an immense density of icons and colour on the map.

Selecting a light blue destination at random, half-confident that any science lab would have the necessary core access she’d need, she instructed the map to transport her there, where she froze at the sight of five Aschen scientists working in the considerably larger room. This laboratory was equipped with far more workstations and equipment than the lab she’d spent the past five months living in.

Looking around, trying to get her bearings, four of the scientists didn’t seem perturbed at all by her entrance, presumably deep in their research, but a curt-looking woman looked up at her from her workstation and immediately came marching up to her.

Sam took a deep, calming breath and tried her best to mask her inner anxiety.

“I do not know your face,” the woman said in a calm, non-accusatory manner, with a flat tone that reminded her of the way Mollem and Borren had always used.

“Hello, I’ve been reassigned. I am to work here today,” she forced herself to say as steadily as possible despite the raging pummeling of her heart.

“Designation?” the woman suddenly demanded, snappishly.

She was sure the woman didn’t seem suspicious of her, but her slight annoyed- sounding tone surprised her. She’d read of how the AI had designated different workers different duties based on the different colour systems, and had them working almost round the clock for it with shortened and more efficient sleep and eating patterns. Was she simply eager to be rid of the disturbance and return to her work?

“Science,” she stammered in reply.

“Rank?” she asked tersely, and Sam became concerned to see that two other scientists in the room had now turned their heads towards herself at what was likely an unusual disruption.

“One,” she stabbed at, having absolutely no idea about there being ranks within the population. She’d missed ever coming across that term in her reading.

There was a tense pause, but then it seemed that she must have guessed correctly as the other scientists returned to their screens. The curt woman’s eyes, however, narrowed as they snapped to stare at her neck, and she now noticed that this woman had three light blue lights on her collar. Her own tunic, she guessed, must have been showing a blank.

She saw a brief haze of confusion come across the woman’s features, and she began to grow concerned that her cover would be blown, before to her immense relief, the woman seemed to accept her answer. It was possible, she guessed, that this woman had no concept of someone being in the wrong place, or lying about it. Perhaps the Aschen never lied to each other or had any reason for deceit.

The woman turned, and led her to an unused computer workstation.

“You will use this station until your work is complete. Then you will report to Designation when you are done,” the woman commanded slickly.

Having been in the military almost her entire life, and having been raised by an Air Force General, Sam was more than used to recognizing those in higher positions of authority. This presumed rank three scientist was likely a leader amongst the group of scientists, and was clearly well-used to delegating orders.

“Understood,” she replied blandly, herself being used to following orders from higher-up figures.

She watched from the corner of her eye as the woman then promptly returned to her own station without even a backwards glance, soon typing at her own station keyboard furiously, seemingly instantly re-immersed in her own work, along with the other scientists.

’Thank god,’ she thought internally, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. The first part of her plan was going better than she had expected.

She knew that with their shortened sleep cycle, chances had been that she would travel back during working hours, and she had expected to run into others, but so far blending in seemed to be working. The thought made herself calm somewhat, and she hoped the bio signs that the AI would no doubt be monitoring would reflect that, too.

She immediately set to work. Having done it before, and several times in practice runs over the past few weeks, it only took her a few minutes to reach the black Administration section. As her screen flipped and changed colour to black, she saw that the two scientists working either side of her had stopped their work to watch her. Ignoring their curious stares, however, she continued on.

As she neared the menus related to the safety subroutine, she heard the scientist to her right who was still watching her with interest suddenly ask, “What are you doing?” just as a clicking from all around alerted her to the appearance of lasers in the walls and ceiling.

She quickly pulled out her ribbon device from under her tunic skirt and slipped it on her left hand, just as all five scientists began to make their way to her, all looking faintly alarmed. She focused her thoughts on activating the shield as she hit the top orange button with her right palm, and the shield went up just in time as the lasers began shooting at her, blocked by the wall of light she’d summoned. Unfortunately, from the sound of cries of pain around her- a mix of male and female- it sounded as though at least two other scientists had been nicked by the ongoing attack.

She forced herself to ignore their shouts and screams and the roar of continued laser shots being constantly impeded by her shield as she scrolled down through the menu and smacked the Disable button, which caused the lasers to immediately cease firing.

She took a moment to look away from the screen to check the situation around her. There was only one scientist left, his face bloodied with laser punctures, who was cradling his left shoulder as he bent over to check and tend to the curt woman on the floor, who looked to be dead. The other three scientists were also laying on the floor with no sign of life.

“What have you done?” asked the male scientist, looking up at her, meeting her eyes through her shield, and despite the effects of the tunic he was wearing, she could swear there was almost a glimmer of anger and fear in his eyes. She couldn’t hesitate though. She couldn’t allow him the chance to alert anyone to what she’d done.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she raised her left hand and summoned a blast wave out from her palm, hurling him back with a resounding, sickening thud as his head connected to the side wall at force, before he fell in a heap, unmoving.

The lab fell into a stilled silence, but there was no time to feel guilt now. She turned off her shield and a few short minutes later, just as she’d done several months before, she found the subroutine to permanently delete the AI. She knew this would immediately alert the entire city’s people to her actions; she could just imagine the lines suddenly disappearing and people becoming stuck and confused. She’d have to hurry and continue with her plan before her position was made.

She switched the system to that indicating both the medical and biology system, and the screen obeyed and flipped and rotated to pink. Having practiced progressing through the next steps countless times in preparation, it only took her a few more minutes to prepare a bioweapon configured to target the DNA of the Aschen people. Despite her run-throughs, however, she couldn’t be sure of how long it would need to take effect on a live test subject. She set it to be constructed and released high above the city, and based on past experience she knew it would only take five or so minutes to detonate.

In truth, she had wanted to prepare the bioweapon back in her own lab and bring it with her through the gate, but she couldn’t have been sure of her success. There had been a possibility that the AI would have trapped her in the gate room and nullified its effects through the city’s automated sterilization system before it had had time to spread to the entire populace. She’d finally concluded that while risky, her best bet had been to disable the AI from the science lab first, which would also disable the city’s sterilization system, before constructing and detonating the weapon.

Next, she switched the system back to light blue and ordered the computer to construct an EM pulse generator to turn off the effects of her tunic, which she did. Finally, she switched the system over to yellow to search for the only other non-Aschen human on the planet. She soon found the Ambassador to be located in a civil-designated building in a northern-part section of the dome, and quickly memorizing his location, she darted to the transporter, selecting the destination nearest his location from the yellow-dense part of the map.

After the blue light of the transporter disappeared, she found herself in a part of the city with particularly tall-buildings. Looking around at the multitudes of walkways interconnecting the buildings, she recoiled at the strange, absurd chaos before her. Around forty or so adults, all homogeneously dressed in the same grey, were standing around on the surrounding multiple level walkways looking absolutely bewildered and lost without the coloured guidelines. A few people were shouting, pointing up at the sky that had now darkened, bathing everything and everyone in the real subdued, red light of the sub-giant she had always seen the past three months. But their reactions were so dulled and muted it was strange to see them struggle to understand the failure of the dome’s projection. Of course, none of these Aschen had ever seen the outside of the dome. It was possible, even, considering the very few that even travelled off-world, that none of them had even seen a real sky in their entire lives nor even knew the truth of their planet's condition.

She didn’t have time to watch the peculiar scene unfold, though. She saw that the building before her bore a yellow doorway with “Aschen Confederation” written in proud, large, yellow symbols, and she promptly entered, where she found herself in a vast lobby that was in a similar state as outside. With the lack of guiding lines, the people didn’t seem to know where to go, or even perhaps where they were. Ignoring them again, her eyes were drawn to a giant screen in the centre of the room indicating that there were over thirty floors in the building, each with different subsections- mostly dealing with relations with Volia and Lannao. One, she saw, however, clearly read Earth.

She spotted what looked to be multiple internal transporters located on the side wall of the lobby, and immediately ran towards them, dodging her way through the sea of odd, confounded Aschen. Once she'd reached the nearest transporter she quickly stood on the pad and ordered it to take her up to the twenty-seventh floor, were she next found herself in a room of similar size to her own previous science lab in the future. Only, the walls here glowed with a soft yellow, and rather than circular, the three desks that occupied the room were rectangular and lined in a row facing the same way- in precisely her direction. The three men, who had previously been stooped forward in silent work at each desk, showing only the tops of their heads, looked up one-by-one at her entry, and she was horrified to see that Joe’s wasn’t the only face she recognized.

Chapter Text

The three men, who had previously been stooped forward in silent work at each desk, showing only the tops of their heads, looked up one-by-one at her entry, and she was horrified to see that Joe’s wasn’t the only face she recognized.

Day 230 (continued)

“Major Carter,” Mollem said slickly, and she could see Borren leering at her from behind his work screen at the desk beside him. “I must say I am surprised to see you here.”

She found his choice of words quite ironic. He didn’t seem surprised at all; in fact, he’d spoken rather neutrally, though he did suddenly seem menacing as he rose up swiftly from his chair and began to stride across the room towards her with large steps, with Borren in tow, following suit.

She however, was surprised. She hadn’t banked on running into the only two Aschen in a city of tens of thousands who knew her, and faltering in shock, she took a step back behind the transporter.

“Mollem, Borren,” she said, raising her arms to indicate that she was defenseless. “Yes, I’m sure you are surprised to see me. You see, I- I’ve come to posit an alternate trade offer,” she fumbled as her mind skimmed through her limited options. She likely had enough time to get back on the transporter, but then she’d probably lose all chance of rescuing the Ambassador.

Miraculously, however, her words seemed to have an effect on them. They both stopped in their tracks, looking suddenly intrigued. They then looked at each other and seemed to wordlessly agree to forgo attacking her until they’d heard her out. The Ambassador, too, now stood up from behind his work station, and walked around his desk to stand rigidly beside the two Aschen.

“We would hear of your offer, Major,” he said dully, sounding precisely like the now-dead Aschen scientist woman, and how she remembered Mollem and Borren speaking in the negotiations. There was no trace of relief in his eyes at seeing her, or at his impending rescue. There was none of the smile or charm in his face that she remembered. It was no wonder he’d been so forthcoming with providing information on Earth. He’d clearly been put under the city’s control, she saw, as her eyes were drawn to the single yellow button on his collar. It was disconcerting to think that this must have been what the other Sam had gone through, too. She’d been under the city’s control for four months. She must have become just like the Ambassador was now- an emotionless drone. It was a horrifying thought.

She suddenly became concerned that this part of her plan might not be set to go as smoothly as she had anticipated. If he had been brainwashed, he might not be willing to cooperate.

The three men continued to stare coldly at her in quiet anticipation. She wouldn’t make it back to the transporter now, which was between herself and the three men. She wouldn’t stand much chance in a fist fight against them, but she didn’t want to have to use the ribbon device still hidden in the leg holster in front of the Ambassador unless it was a last resort. But if it came down to it, she was pretty sure she could stall them and stealthily slip the device out from under her skirt before they’d have a chance to attack.

She was just about to suggest that Earth had changed its mind about the necessity of population control when she noticed a purple tint come wafting into the air. The three men all looked up simultaneously, noticing the billowing coloured gas, too. Then, in unison, both Aschen grabbed at their throats as their eyes suddenly bulged in their sockets, their faces turning stark red.

“The bioweapon-,” Borren rasped, sounding as though he was struggling for breath.

She seized the moment of distraction to lurch forward and close the gap to grab at the Ambassador’s arm and try to pull him towards the transporter.

“Ambassador! We have to get out of here!”

“I… we must help them,” he said hazily, resisting her pull with considerable strength, remaining firmly in place as he struggled to comprehend the situation or to know what to do.

“No, you need to come with me!” she ordered as she tugged at him again, trying to block out the horrifying gagging sounds that were now erupting from the throats of the two other men.

When he didn’t move again, still frozen on the spot, staring at his coworkers who had now begun coughing up blood, she said firmly, “Here’s my trade offer. I kill all the Aschen who kidnapped and brainwashed you, as well as tried to destroy our planet, and you cooperate and let me take you home.”

“You--- did— this-,” spluttered Mollem, who promptly coughed up blood and collapsed forwards onto his knees. Borren, too, fell to the floor the next instant, keeling over and gasping for air.

“Consider it retribution for what you almost did to Earth,” she spat, referring to the bioweapon that had been jettisoned behind her when she’d escaped from their Harvester, blocked by the iris only just in time.

The Ambassador still looked dazed, but she felt his resistance slacken slightly and with a great pull she heaved him onto the transporter pad with her, beaming them away and leaving Borren and Mollem to their deaths.

The purple haze was even more concentrated back in the first floor lobby. The entire floor was in chaos. Tens of Aschen were spluttering and writhing on the floor, clutching their throats, many coughing up blood just like Mollem had. She tried not to see the horror and suffering in their eyes. Horror and suffering that she herself had caused. She knew the Aschen weren’t intrinsically bad people. From what she’d extrapolated from their history, the AI had seized control through what she’d guessed had been the grey tunics they’d been forced to wear. They’d been enslaved and indoctrinated from birth, governed by the AI, no different to the thousands upon thousands of Jaffa in the galaxy under domination of the Goa’uld. She’d always wonder if a city-wide EM pulse could have released them and turned them good, but with the entire human race on the line, it was a risk she couldn’t afford to take. The Aschen people were a sacrifice she’d had to make to ensure her own survival to save the rest of the galaxy.

“I find it highly curious that I am not affected by this contagion,” Joe suddenly remarked languidly, looking puzzled as she continued to heave him by the arm through the sea of floundering Aschen fighting for their breath, towards the yellow-framed doorway leading outside.

“I programmed the bioweapon to only affect Aschen DNA,” she said, panting from the effort of pulling him as he continued to resist.

She threw a glance back at him as she continued her brisk pace towards the exit, navigating her way past the people on the floor, and she saw that he didn’t seem to comprehend her answer. Had he forgotten that he wasn’t even Aschen?

As they finally exited the building into the gloomily-lit outside, now a brownish mixture of red and purple, she felt him stop and looked back to see him staring up at the sight of the now transparent dome above, just as some other Aschen had been doing so earlier. She too, looked up, and could now see swathes of purple clouds raining down upon the city from the giant glass sphere she had constructed, perched atop of the tallest building of the city in the far distance.

“You did this?” he asked, echoing Mollem’s words, and it surprised her that he still seemed emotionless despite the sickening scene around them: forty or so bodies growing steadily silent, each of their faces marked with purple panic as blood poured from their facial orifices, dripping down from their ears, noses, mouths, and even their eyes. It was even worse than she could have ever imagined when she’d come up with the plan of attack. But Joe didn’t seem scared, angry, or even perturbed at all. He was showing nothing but a faint intrigue as he now gazed upon the changed circumstances around him.

“I did. I can explain more in my lab,” she said, hoping to appeal to the sense of curiosity the Aschen people seemed to have to get him moving.

When they reached the street side transporter, just as she was about to select her previous light blue location, he stopped her hand and batted it back.

“I am not permitted to enter Science-designated buildings,” he stated neutrally, and refused to alight onto the transporter’s pad.

She was desperate to get away from the gurgling and gasping sounds of the last remaining living around her, though. In a desperate bid for his cooperation, she instead decided on a new tactic.

Summoning her best authoritative voice in imitation of the curt scientist from earlier, she commanded, “I am a Rank Three Scientist. I require your assistance in the Science Lab. You will come with me for the betterment of our goal to reach Earth.”

“Understood,” he replied automatically, and to her relief he robotically stepped onto the transporter beside her. Before she could allow him to even question what she’d just said, she jabbed at the light blue button. After the blue light of the transporter had abated, she found great solace in the silent lab after the bloodcurdling sounds from the street they’d just been stood. She raced to set the EM pulse generator she’d constructed earlier to go off again, then turned back to see the Ambassador staring blankly at the five still scientists on the floor, though he made no comment.

The next second, a hum and a buzzing passed through her body, informing her that the pulse had successfully been initialized, but she could detect no change in the Ambassador’s demeanor, except that she saw the single yellow light on his collar had gone out. She guessed it would probably take some time for his true personality to return after what had likely been over a year of being under its control, though she was confident it would, considering that the other Sam had seemingly fully recovered from four months’ control.

Leaving the Ambassador staring at the bodies, she returned to her workstation, setting about enacting her final plan. As she typed at the keyboard, going through the menus that she’d also practiced during her many pre-mission run throughs back in the future, she felt the Ambassador quietly approach her, watching silently over her shoulder. It was quite disconcerting, but she hoped that he wouldn’t pose her a threat. He’d recalled her name, calling her ”Major”. He still surely had memories of her and knew who she was, didn’t he?

Even so, she felt a shiver of dread run through her as she gave the computer instructions to assemble several large devices. He was still watching her, and she was quickly becoming nervous that he, too, could read the language. If he could, then he would surely be able to anticipate her plan.

“I’m impressed to see that you can read the language,” remarked the Ambassador haughtily, as she continued to type furiously. She was somewhat relieved to hear that he hadn’t expected her to read the Aschen language, then he must know she wasn’t really Aschen.

“Yeah, that’s a long story,” she replied simply.

“I see,” he remarked, but didn’t seem curious enough to pursue it further.

Silence fell again and she was acutely aware of his continuous stare from over her shoulder. She could feel the hairs on her body underneath the tunic standing on end, priming themselves, seeking to sense whether he was a threat or not. She couldn’t tell where his allegiance lay, and she simply prayed that the EM pulse would be doing its job already.

“What are you doing, Sam?” he asked after a little while, and she hoped that his unexpected usage of her first name was a good sign.

“I’m making sure we’ll stay safe.”

“You appear to be attempting to compromise the structure of the glass dome,” he countered snappishly.

’So he can read, after all,’ she thought.

“Joe, listen to me,” and she stopped mid-work to turn round to look right into his cold, brown eyes, hoping to reach some part of him that must still be inside there. “The Aschen attacked us first. Don’t you remember? They were going to sterilize our people. Then they sent the bioweapon through our gate. They would have killed us all if I hadn’t closed the iris in time.”

“I will not hear you speak against the Aschen,” he snapped, and she was both relieved and fearful to see a sliver of anger alight in his eyes. His emotions were returning. “I cannot allow you to target the dome. We’ll all die,” he cried as he suddenly launched to push her away from the computer.

“Joe! I’m here to- rescue- you!” she panted, as a struggle ensued over control of the computer and she saw as he jabbed at the keyboard, attempting to abort the instructions she had been setting.

“You will- not destroy- this city!” he shouted, and it was with surprising force that she was pushed aside and she fell onto the hard floor, smacking her forehead against the desk on her way down.

Briefly disorientated, she came to her senses to see that the Ambassador had begun typing at the keyboard again, presumably undoing the commands she had been giving the system. She couldn’t let him stop her from destroying the city. She couldn’t be certain that every Aschen would be killed by the bioweapon, nor if there were any currently off-world that could find out what she had done. She had to destroy all trace of the Aschen and the dome.

“Joe! Stop!” she shouted as she pushed him off the chair and he fell aside. She expected him to fight back with increased anger and readied herself, but instead he paused, and they stared at each other in a silent stand-off, and she could swear she caught a flicker of understanding cross his face. She took the opportunity to try again to get through to him.

“Joe! I’m Sam, remember?” she cried, pleading him to remember who he was. “I’m here to rescue you. You can go home now- to Earth,” she said with a smile, and she was amazed to see his lips curl into the beginnings of a smile before a look of horror crossed his face.

“I do remember. Oh my god, Sam, I- I was helping them,” he said, burying his face in his hands.

“I know. It’s not your fault,” she said, trying to sound reassuring.

“I was helping them prepare to launch an attack against Earth, Sam!”

“I know, Joe. I know about that. It’s okay. You’re not in any trouble. Can you just let me finish what I was doing so we can get out of here?”

He nodded before scooching back away from the workstation with his hands raised as though to indicate that he would no longer attack her. Reassured the situation had been defused, she re-took her seat at the system to re-initialize the partially finished construction of the explosive devices she had ordered be assembled.

“What happened here?” Joe suddenly asked, and she looked up to see him looking around at the bodies as though noticing them for the first time. “They don’t look like the bioweapon killed them...”

“No,” she replied quietly. “I had to take them out to access the computer in the first place.”

“I see,” he said quietly, looking rather disturbed.

“I know. It’s not pretty. But it’s for the greater good,” she asserted, more to reassure herself than him.

“Where’s your team? The rest of SG-1?” he asked, and it suddenly occurred to her that of course he would expect an entire rescue force to be elsewhere on the planet. He would surely never imagine that she’d be here by herself.

“Actually, I’m alone,” she replied, quietly. “As I said before, it’s a long story.”

“Yeah, you said.”

“Yeah…” she trailed off, focusing on her work again. With a few more taps, the explosive devices were set, and she gave them a thirty minute count. That should give them plenty of time to safely dial out to Volia.

She then pulled up the schematic for a powerful but compact power generator, and had the computer assemble it in the lab beside her as she had done with the EM pulse generator. She then tested it worked before heaving the rather heavy object towards the transporter, beckoning Joe to follow.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A generator. We’re going to the Gate Terminal.”

“Oh…” he said, and she was a little disconcerted to see that he looked uncomfortable with the idea.

Fortunately, though, he cooperated in coming to her side at the transporter, and even offered to help carry the generator, though she declined, deciding it best to carry it herself. When both were stood entirely on the pad once again, she selected the green indicator on the map outside the Terminal building, and the familiar blue light engulfed them both, sending them back outside.

“Oh my god,” Joe commented quietly, looking around, but once again she tried not to look at the destruction she’d caused.

In front of the Terminal Building there was nothing but eerie silence. There was no more gasping or writhing. The grey-clad people lain on the metallic paths were now completely still and entirely devoid of life. The effects of the bioweapon looked to have taken its course.

She hadn’t just drained the city of colour, she’d drained it of life, too, and she had to work hard to quash any thought that the scene before her barely looked any different to the aftermath of Anubis’ weapon.

As they entered the empty Gate Room, she felt Joe’s pace slow behind her.

“Major, how long have I been here?” he questioned quietly again, lingering in the doorway, and she grew slightly concerned that he’d dropped the use of her name again.

She had absolutely no idea of the date, either. It hadn’t been displayed when she’d briefly looked at the sky upon her arrival and she hadn’t the chance to check before she’d raced to turn off the AI, which had inadvertently disabled the system’s time-tracking mechanism.

“Actually, funnily enough, I kinda lost track of time too.” The watch she’d left hidden behind the gate would be of no use to her here, either. “I-I’ve been here a while, too,” she confessed, musing to herself that at least there was a half-truth in her statement. “I guess we’ll find out together when we get back,” she said, smiling at the thought. He didn’t return her smile, however, instead looking somewhat disgruntled by her answer.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

She was beginning to grow concerned about his change in demeanor. He’d almost been smiling earlier in the Science lab; she’d definitely seen a glimmer of his former self, but now it was like a shadow was creeping back over his features, darkening his eyes.

They’d be off the planet soon, though, she reassured herself. She could deal with whatever aftermath would come from disabling his clothing later; hopefully by then with the SGC’s help, too. She couldn’t wait to contact them. She took out the radio she’d brought back with her from behind the gate and placed it on top of the power source so she wouldn’t forget it, then worked quickly to attach the power source to the gate. To her relief, the gate gave a shunt, indicating the gate was receiving enough power for a manual dial-out.

“Joe, can you help me turn this ring around?” she called back to him as she began turning the inner ring towards the first symbol, but saw that he was still stood in silence in the doorway, simply watching her.

Turning her attention back to the gate, with great effort, she forced the ring around to position the first symbol for Volia in the first, top-right chevron. After it engaged successfully, indicated by the chevron lighting up, she paused and looked around to ask Joe for help again.

Except, Joe wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Shit!” she muttered under her breath, and she raced out of the building, just about spotting him through the purple haze almost at the transporter already.

“Joe! Stop!” she shouted out, but he ignored her, continuing onwards.

If she couldn’t make it to him in time, she wouldn’t have any way of knowing where he’d transported to. The AI and his clothes were off. She wouldn’t have any way of tracing him again.

She sprinted at top speed towards him, throwing her entire weight into tackling him just in the nick of time before he could touch the panel to activate the transporter, knocking him flat on his back, and she tumbled, rolling on top of him.

“What the hell are you doing, Joe?!” she shouted down at him as he struggled against her grip of his wrists.

“I have to deactivate your weapon,” he seethed. “I can’t let you destroy this great city.”

She didn’t understand. The yellow light on his collar was still off. Why was he relapsing like this?

“This entire place is gonna blow in about twenty minutes!” she shouted. “Joe, I swear, if I have to knock you out and carry you through the gate, I will!”

Her words didn’t seem to get through to him, though. He looked menacing, exactly like Mollem had earlier. It frightened her, too, that he continued to struggle against her with a strength that she wouldn’t have expected from an untrained man held captive for over a year. With a roar, he pushed her clean off him, throwing her into the air and aside, and as she rolled to recover, she saw he'd already made to haul himself up back towards the transporter.

She had to stop him at all costs. She wouldn’t leave him behind a second time.

She leapt up at speed, her Air Force training leaving her faster than him, balled her right fist and punched him hard in the back of the head with all the strength she could muster, and he fell flat on the ground, rendered instantly unconscious.

Taking a moment to nurse her right knuckles, she quickly checked his pulse and pupils to assess she hadn’t caused too much injury, then hauled him up over her shoulder and carried him back to the Terminal where she hurriedly completed the dialling sequence, grabbed her radio, and gated them off-world to safety.

Chapter Text

June 14th 2002

He’d been showing Carter how to golf through the gate and asking her where the furthest planet was that they could gate to so he could set a new record, when the rude sound of his phone ringing woke him from his dreamy stupor.

His eyes flew open, and it was with great annoyance that he saw that it was still dark. Cursing whomever had woken him up from such a nice dream, it was then that he realized that he must have passed out on the couch again, based on the awkward knots that had formed in his back and the nagging stiffness in his neck.

’Wait...,’ he posited sluggishly as his thoughts returned to whom his dream had been of, and his brain finally began to engage, piecing together why his phone would even be ringing at this hour.

“Carter,” he breathed aloud, racing to reach for his phone, ignoring the unfinished beer bottle he’d just knocked over in his haste, its contents now pooling onto the floor. He wrenched up the phone’s receiver and pulled it to his ear, but the line had gone dead.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” he grunted irritatedly.

He redialled, but after only getting through to the Cheyenne Mountain switchboard, muttered, “Screw that,” and shoved the phone back down.

Instead, he set about unearthing his cell phone from among the chaotic state that his living room had steadily slipped into over the past ten weeks since he’d been banned from staying overnight on base.

He flicked on the lamp beside his couch and successfully dug out the cell phone from down the back of the couch seat. He snapped the flip phone open and read, ’Three missed calls.’

‘Damn silent mode,’ he thought.

He then quickly punched the keys that would dial the last caller:
Spacemonkey: one minute ago.

“Jack! It’s Sam!” and he could just make out the rumble of a car engine over Daniel’s loud, exuberant voice shouting down the phone. “I’m on my way to the SGC already-”

He snapped the phone back shut without even a word, not wanting to waste any more valuable time. Then he quickly made to shove the phone into his back pocket when he realized he wasn’t wearing any pants.

“Goddammit.”

Cursing again, he grabbed yesterday’s pair that he’d tossed over the back of his dining chair the evening before, hoicked them up his legs, then grabbed his truck keys by the front door, not even bothering to lock up behind him.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, he shrugged off the last of the sluggishness of the multiple beers he’d nursed the night before and started the ignition. The thought of Carter being back should be enough to steady and sober him to at least drive to the base, at least, he figured.

----

Thirty minutes later, the remaining members of SG-1 had convened in the Control Room. There was a buzz in the air despite the extremely late hour. Even ever-stoic Teal’c seemed particularly jubilant.

“We got a radio contact from someone claiming to be Major Carter,” said General Hammond, who, too, looked rather excited, though somewhat dishevelled, probably by having been woken in the night by the night shift staff. “Voice rec matches records. A MALP’s being prepped right now to be sent through to the gate address she gave us.”

Jack nodded, and began rocking on his heels, itching to do something already. Where were those damn technicians with the MALP?

After what had seemed like an eternity, the side blast door finally opened, and they saw as a MALP was wheeled into the Gate Room. Daniel beside him breathed a sigh of relief- he was probably feeling just as anxious as himself- and the three watched as some Airmen set it up. Again, the process seemed to take forever. Siler surely could have done it in half the time, he thought irritatedly, but the man was probably home in bed, for once not injured and holed up in the infirmary as usual.

“Ready, Sir,” the on-duty Technician finally called, and the General gave the order to dial the coordinates that had been given.

“What’s the gate address?” he asked, hoping the trembling in his voice hadn’t been as obvious to the others as it had been for himself.

“‘297,” he replied.

That was where he’d last seen her, but there was no way she could have been there the entire time. SG-1 had scouted the area three times during the past three months, they’d done a UAV fly-over and SG-11 and a bunch of engineers had been there periodically over the past week working on setting up the beginnings of a base camp to begin mining the Trinium there.

“She can’t have been there the whole time, surely?” asked Daniel, having clearly had the same train of thought as himself, but he merely shrugged back. They’d find out soon, he guessed.

“I know we’re all excited, people, but I want to remind you,” and the General looked around to each one of them one-by-one. “She’s been MIA for over three months. You all know the procedure,” he said firmly, and he nodded slowly in reply, Teal’c and Daniel following suit.

Standard procedure was to assume the MIA party to be compromised. All outgoing information was to be kept to a minimum, and they had to meet on a known, neutral planet with a high security detail to assess safety. If they passed initial checks, now that the Alpha Site was officially up-and-running, they would be taken there for round-the-clock observation and a continued threat assessment before being brought back to Earth.

“Chevron seven, locked,” announced the on-shift Technician, whose female voice sounded oddly shrill when he was so used to Walter’s voice announcing the dialling progress.

The gate formed, and she sent the MALP through following the General’s command.

“I want the mic off first,” the General ordered, and the Technician complied with a nod and the flip of a switch.

They all waited with bated breath as the MALP trundled slowly up the ramp to be swallowed by the gate, the seconds until the video feed re-appeared on the screen seeming to take forever.

The screen finally flickered to life, showing a display of the rocky quarry he remembered from his own last sweep of the planet just last month, which had been a kind allowance by the General. He also caught sight of some mining equipment, tarps and neatly stacked boxes to the side, before his heart stopped at the sight of Carter walking into view of the camera.

She looked noticeably thinner than he remembered. Her surprisingly long, wild and bedraggled hair was almost touching her shoulders, too, and there was what looked like a large, fresh cut and hints of a burgeoning bruise on her forehead. She was wearing strange, grey clothing that he felt like he’d seen somewhere before, though he couldn’t place it, but what surprised him most of all was that she looked nervous as hell.

She gave a small smile, then took what looked like a typical Carter steadying breath, before she spoke.

“Thank you for sending the MALP,” and he saw her give a wan smile before continuing. “This is Major Samantha Carter. Authentication code Alpha niner Bravo Echo four zero. I’m not sure how long I’ve been missing for, though based on the equipment here I guess it’s been a little while…”

She paused as she looked aside at the equipment, then looked into the MALP camera awkwardly at the lack of any reply from them.

“At least I’m glad to see the Trinium results panned out...” she added quietly before trailing off, looking unsure.

“The mic’s off, right?” the General whispered, and the Technician nodded her confirmation. “Assessment, people?”

“Sounds like her, but she looks nervous, Sir.”

“Think she has something to hide?” the General asked, eyebrows raised.

“Does her clothing not resemble that of the Aschen?” Teal’c remarked, and he suddenly realised that that was exactly where he’d seen them before. Shit, this was bad.

“Oh my god, yes, that’s exactly like what Borren and Mollem were wearing,” agreed Daniel, wide-eyed. “How is that even possible?!”

“The Aschen? The advanced race who tried to trick us then kill us all?”

“Yes, Sir, the very one,” he said, and he could feel his heart sinking. This was really bad.

“Can you hear me?” Carter said, and she was looking even more unsure than before, hugging herself with her grey-sleeves arms at the prolonged silence from their side, before chewing on her bottom lip as she tended to do when she was nervous.

“How is her hair that long after only three months?” Daniel then asked. He, too, had made the same observation. His earlier elation at her being found was fast-fading. Either she’d been captured and meddled with by a dangerous race of people, or this wasn’t even her at all.

“Let me do the talking,” the General ordered, and they all fell silent as the General nodded to the Technician to switch the mic back on.

“This is General Hammond of Stargate Command,” he said loudly into the mic, the sudden volume startling him.

“General!” she practically shrieked, and his heart lifted somewhat to see her break into a huge smile that made her look more like the Carter her remembered. “It’s so good to hear your voice, Sir! Can I ask what date it is?” she asked, but the General shook his head.

“MIA protocols are in place, Major,” and he saw her face fall in clear disappointment at his words. But how could she not know how long she’d been gone for?

“I see... I understand, Sir,” she replied, sounding crest-fallen and rather nervous again, her earlier smile long-gone. She knew the protocols, and knew they’d be assuming she was compromised.

“Are you in any immediate danger?” he asked.

“No, Sir.”

“Okay. Two teams will come through in half an hour. I expect you to be unarmed and fully cooperative and forthcoming with their questions.”

“Yes, Sir. Of course,” she said hastily, and she stepped back- the entirety of her grey knee-length wear coming to view. It was unmistakably the same kind of get-up the Aschen accountants had been wearing, he thought. “And urm,” and she hesitated, looking almost embarrassed. “Could you have them bring some food and drink? Actually I don’t have any supplies or anything with me and it’s pretty hot here,” and he noticed the temperature reading on the screen for the first time, reading 86F.

“Yes, of course. Sit tight, Major. Hammond out,” and he indicated the mic be turned off and the gate shut down, the video of Carter going black.

“Thoughts, people?” he asked the three of them, but he seemed to have lost his voice again, and Daniel was looking equally lost in thought. It was Teal’c who spoke for them.

“Based on her behavior, I believe it to be Major Carter, however I am concerned by her clothing and nervous disposition.”

“Me too,” said Daniel. “And I got the impression that she didn’t seem to know how long she’d been gone for, which I thought was a bit odd.”

“She said she doesn’t have any supplies with her,” he said, regaining his voice. “I’m thinking she might have escaped from somewhere and gated to ‘297 for safety before contacting us.”

“That was my assessment as well, Colonel.”

“Request permission to lead the meet and greet, Sir.”

He’d expected to be given the instant go-ahead, but to his surprise the General gave pause before saying, “Honestly, Colonel, I’m concerned this mission might be too personal for SG-1-”

There was an instant furore as he and the other two of his team all protested the General’s words at the same time.

“What?!” he couldn’t help yell.

“General, please, who else is going to know best if it’s really her or not?”

“General Hammond, I must protest,” chimed in Teal’c, looking equally eager to join the mission.

Silence fell as the General raised his hand, and there was another pause before the General seemed to relent.

“Okay, be geared up and ready in thirty,” he said, to which Jack couldn’t stop himself from whooping in his best imitation of Homer Simpson.

“Sorry, Sir,” he added quickly at the admonishing look he’d received from his CO.

“But you’re not going alone. I’ll have SG-18 sent as back-up. They were due to go off-world in two hours’ time anyway, so I’ll have them meet you in the Gate Room.”

’Marines,’ he thought, stifling an inwards eye-roll. The General wasn’t pulling any punches with this one.

“Understood, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

Daniel and Teal’c immediately set off for the locker room, but the General pulled him aside before he could follow.

“Jack,” he said quietly, “I know how much you want her back. I know how much you want it to be her, but let me be clear. If she’s had anything to do with the Aschen…”

He knew what he was saying. He might have to make some difficult decisions.

“I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled at all times, Sir.”

“This could be an Aschen ploy,” the General continued. “She’ll need to be detained for interrogation, whether it’s really her or not. We need to find out how much she knows. I’ll send word to the Alpha Site to expect your arrival.”

“Understood, Sir.”

----

Thirty minutes later, Jack was marching determinedly into the gate room with his team in tow when he found SG-18 already there, standing lazily at the base of the ramp.

“Pushing one minute over mission start, Jack,” Colonel Reeves teased, tapping at his watch emphatically. “Would’a thought you’d beat us here considering the nature of this particular mission,” he added, receiving smirks from his three teammates.

Why was everything always about racing and bravado with the damn Marines, he thought.

“Well, I had to pick up some extra stuff for the trip, and well, you know, the knee’s been acting up lately and all…” he said, rubbing his left in emphasis for his attempted excuse for being slower than ‘18.

“Sure you don’t wanna sit this one out? Or, I can take lead if you need, Jack,” he teased again, and he just brushed it off. There was no way he was handing command of this mission over to Reeves and his croons.

“Nah, I’m good, thanks for your concern,” he replied, taking care to lather his voice in as much sarcasm as possible. “You four’ll hang back and keep the gate secure in case things don’t go to plan. Eyes on Carter at all times,” he ordered.

“Where else would they be?” Reeves sniggered under his breath quiet enough so Hammond couldn’t hear, to another round of smirks from his teammates, but he reined in his irritance at team SG-Lughead. While they barely had the combined IQ of a fish, they were pretty damn good shots when things went FUBAR.

“Just stay focused on the mission,” he barked, wanting the bravado banter session to be done with so he could get on with the damn mission. “Give us a five second count before you follow us through.”

“Yes, Sir,” they replied in perfect unison, finally standing to attention.

The gate was dialled, and following the kawoosh, he turned to his teammates.

“Teal’c, Daniel, let’s go get Carter.”

----POV switch----

She stood still, watching as her teammates emerged from the gate on the neutral planet they had agreed upon, approaching her cautiously. Her heart fluttered with excitement at the sight of them while her stomach squirmed in knots. After all this time, they were there, right before her, alive. Her plan had worked. But, what if they didn’t believe her? What if they didn’t think she was her? After everything she’d been through, what if she was never allowed to go home?

Their expressions were serious, their weapons raised and aimed unforgivingly at her. Behind them, a team of burly marines now emerged from the gate, holding up their rear. Too much time must have passed, she realised. She didn’t even know the date. Had she miscalculated? Had she stepped through the gate too late?

“It’s good to see you, Sir,” she said, trying her best to smile and sound light despite the weight of dread weighing down on her weary soul.

“You’re alone?” the Colonel questioned gruffly, fervently choosing not returning the smile.

His choice of words and tone stung. Of course she knew he was only checking that she wasn’t about to unleash a hidden army of enemies on them in ambush. He couldn’t possibly fathom how alone she’d been for so long.

“Yes, Sir,” she replied, raising her now shaking arms as non-threateningly as possible at the seven weapons pointed at her, her attempt at a smile long dissolved.

“Identify yourself,” the Colonel barked at her, still scrutinizing her. “Our Carter went missing over three months ago.”

‘Thank god it’s only been three months for them,’ she thought. Her odds had just increased. Bolstered slightly, she found more strength in her voice with her reply, “I am her.” Capturing his eyes and pleading with her own, she had to make him believe her. “I’m Major Samantha Carter, authentication code Alpha niner Bravo Echo four zero.” She had no idea how she was going to prove that, though.

“Your hair’s long, and you’re wearing strange clothes. If you are who you say you are, and I stress if,” he said half-menacingly, as though unwilling to allow himself to get his own hopes up. “What the hell happened to you?”

She sighed. She didn’t even know where to begin. “It’s a really long story, Sir.”

----

It seemed to be summer on the planet now and she’d been immensely grateful for the can of diet soda and the snack the Colonel had sneaked into his pack for her. She was part way through her prepared story, explaining how she’d come to live on the Aschen homeworld, which it seemed they had anticipated since they’d recognized the clothes she was wearing, when a yelp and a rustle from the treeline beyond the quarry drew their attention.

“Carter?” she saw the Colonel question, and she knew he would be suspecting she’d planned some kind of ambush. She had hoped she could have explained more before she’d have to reveal the man she had managed to tie up in the woods.

“I was getting to that. You see, when I escaped from the Aschen homeworld, I rescued Joe.”

“You mean, Ambassador Faxon?” asked Daniel, and she saw the Colonel O’Neill throw him a scathing look, and he quietened. She guessed Jack had told them he’d be in charge of the interrogation, and she knew the regulations in place to keep everything need-to-know.

“Yes, Joe Faxon,” she clarified. “He was alive in the city.”

“You said you were alone, Carter,” the Colonel warned. “You know I don’t like unexpected surprises.”

She knew well. He always grumbled when the Tok’ra gave sparse details for joint missions that always tended to end up biting them later.

“I know, Sir. I’m sorry. He’s uh- he’s quite a mess. I wanted to get to that part of my story so I could explain his condition first.”

“Condition?” he demanded, his eyes suspicious and sharp.

“He’s in some kind of withdrawal from the planet. He’s all over the place. Violent, then sobbing. He keeps trying to run away. From the sounds of it, he probably has just, again. He wouldn’t come willingly. I had to err...,” she trailed off.

“You had to what?” he demanded fiercely.

“I had to knock some sense into him, literally. Twice,” she said, and she rubbed her darkening knuckles and she hoped he’d get the idea.

He narrowed his eyes, and she could feel him scrutinizing her. His tone of voice was quite frightening but she knew he was simply following procedure. She knew, too, that he’d be suspecting her of trying to split the teams up, to force him to send the Marines off after Joe so they’d be down to three.

“Did he do that to you?” he suddenly asked, and he then pointed to her head, which took her by surprise. She hadn’t even realised she was injured. But sure enough, as she raised her hand to feel her forehead where the Colonel was pointing, she felt a raised bump and what must be a line of dried blood. It must have happened when they’d been fighting in the lab, though she’d been so focused on regaining control of the computer she couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten the injury. Though come to think of it, she wondered now if she’d ended up with a slight concussion.

“Yes, Sir,” she confirmed after a pause. “Though it wasn’t really his fault.”

She saw him sigh, then he backed up, not taking his eyes off her for a second, before he whispered something to the Marines’ Colonel- she couldn’t remember his name- who nodded and ordered one of his teammates to dial the gate.

Then the Colonel strode back to her, watching her in silence. Once the wormhole had formed, she watched as he leant his chin down to speak into his radio still attached to his TAC vest, all the while keeping his eyes on her.

“General, O’Neill here. Carter claims she has Ambassador Faxon with her here on the planet from the Aschen homeworld, but she says he’s unstable, or something. Apparently he’s done a runner. Request two more teams to come sweep the forest.”

There was a long pause, presumably as the General both recovered from his surprise to hear that the Ambassador was still alive, then considered sending another two teams into what he must believe to be a potentially dangerous situation.

“Understood,” he finally answered. “I can have 3 and 7 there in ten. I already called them in.”

She understood by his usage of the term ‘called them in’ that it must be night in Colorado Springs. He must have woken up backup teams to come in on standby.

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll have Carter sent to Alpha for detainment as soon as they come through.”

The Alpha Site must have been finished, then, she surmised. She didn’t like the idea of detainment, but she was sure she’d be cleared. Physically, she didn’t have anything to hide; she’d already hidden the Tretonin syringe and Goa’uld ribbon device that wouldn’t corroborate with her story far away from the gate to be picked up at a later time, and she’d spent the last few weeks perfecting her story. She only hoped they’d find Joe and detain him, too, before he hurt himself.

“Copy that. Hammond out.”

Chapter Text

Physically, she didn’t have anything to hide; she’d already hidden the Tretonin syringe and Goa’uld ribbon device that wouldn’t corroborate with her story far away from the gate to be picked up at a later time, and she’d spent the last few weeks perfecting her story. She only hoped they’d find Joe and detain him, too, before he hurt himself.

June 21st 2002
987 days to go

Having been welcomed back to the SGC, where she and Joe had been greeted by a round of cheers, whoops and salutes in the Gate Room by several SG teams- many of whom she heard had been part of the original search team for herself- she was escorted by SG-1 up the two sets of stairs to the briefing room, where the General, Janet, and a group of four armed Airmen was waiting for them.

“Welcome back to Earth, Major, Ambassador,” the General greeted them in turn.

“Thank you, Sir, it’s good to be back,” she replied with a salute and a nervous smile, which the General returned. Janet, too, flashed her a bright smile from his side, which she returned to the best of her ability.

“It’s definitely good to be back, General,” replied Joe modestly from beside her, stepping forward to shake the General’s offered hand.

“You’ve both already spent a week undergoing tests at the Alpha Site, but you’re still both to remain here on base for observation for at least another week under constant guard,” the General said firmly, indicating the four Airmen.

“Understood, Sir,” she replied, nodding.

“That’s totally understandable, General,” added Joe, who also nodded.

“Let’s get straight to it people, this is gonna be a long debrief,” he said, aiming to take his usual seat at the head of the table.

“Wait, coffee!” shouted Daniel, who quickly darted to grab a fresh cup from the pot in the corner of the room, while the Colonel gave an audible groan from behind her, as he often did at the prospect of a long meeting. Normally she would have had to work to suppress a giggle at her two friends’ boyish antics, but today, despite the calm exterior she was doing her best to exert, her insides were squirming with intense anxiety. It was essential that they buy her story. Their lives would depend on it. Everyone’s did.

There was a kerfuffle of movement and chairs scraping the floor as the group seated themselves at the conference table. She decided to take the middle seat on the left side to give herself some distance from the General, but when the Colonel then eased himself into the seat between herself and the General, she felt an instant pang of recognition at his aftershave- the very same scent that had lingered on the two sweatshirts she’d had to leave behind in the future. He hadn’t come to visit her at the Alpha Site once since he’d escorted her from a distance a week prior, even though Teal’c, Daniel, Janet and even her father had each paid her a single visit. She hadn’t been in this close proximity with him for so long, and the smell that was just him was nothing but intoxicating. Truthfully, she’d been hoping before the meeting that he wouldn’t take a seat across from her since she knew how well he could read her, but now she wasn’t sure she was glad he was seated this side of her, either. She couldn’t see his face directly from this angle, but the mere feel of him, just inches away from her body, coupled with the strong smell of him was knocking her off kilter when it was vital that she focus on the story she needed to sell.

Daniel then took the seat beside her, setting down a steaming mug in front of himself, and she was just considering getting up and grabbing a cup for herself to try to dampen the distracting smell when the General spoke up.

“Doctor Frasier will be joining us to give her medical input during the Major’s de-brief,” the General began, indicating Janet, who had taken the seat by his side, opposite the Colonel. “As will the Ambassador-,” who was now sat directly opposite herself, flanked by Teal’c on his other side, “-as I’m sure he’ll have valuable input during your debrief, Major.”

Joe gave the General and herself a nod and a smile, and she felt somewhat jealous of the way he looked so at ease. He was clearly over the moon to be finally back on Earth. She, however, while glad to be back, couldn’t relax yet. This was the moment she had been dreading.

The General then turned to Joe, and added, “We’ll get to you in turn, Ambassador, but we’ll be starting with you first, Major,” and he and everyone turned to look at her. It was time.

“Of course it’s understandable that you haven’t had a chance to submit your report yet, so we’ll start off going by the short version compiled by Colonel Riley, head of the Alpha Site,” he said, rumpling a set of stapled papers in his hands.

She hadn’t in fact even begun to muster the strength to pen a single word of her own report. She’d spent her entire week in detainment reeling in shock from the scenes of carnage she’d caused on Aschen Prime. Being able to hear Joe’s frequent shouts and screams through the thin corrugated aluminum walls from across the more basic Alpha Site than that which she’d known in the future hadn’t helped at all, either. His threats and pleadings to be returned to Aschen Prime, as well as colourful rants directed at herself for stealing him away from his ‘home’ while he’d suffered through a withdrawal from the prolonged effects of the tunic had only served as a constant reminder of the suffering she’d put the entire Aschen race through, too. She’d figured the misery it had caused her probably hadn’t been any less than she’d deserved, though.

A second rustle of the papers in the General’s hands drew her from her thoughts just in time as he began his line of questioning.

“So I’m to understand that you claim you were sent back in time, and ended up living, and hiding out, among one of our enemies for over a year?”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied as assertively as she could muster, trying to ignore the anxious knot in her stomach.

“How on Earth did you end up being on the Aschen homeworld?” questioned the General.

“See, that’s the bit of the story I don’t quite get,” interjected the Colonel, turning to look at her for the first time, and she felt paralyzed in her seat by the suspicion in his eyes. One of the Colonel’s better skills was his ability to read people, and he probably knew her better than almost anyone after years of serving together so closely, and now, from his proximity, she was terrified that he’d already be able to sense her nerves. She moved to hide her shaking hands under the table and forced herself to straighten her posture to appear more confident. This was the sketchiest part of her story, and she had to make sure he wouldn’t end up seeing right through her lie.

“When I stepped through the gate to bring the Trinium samples back to the SGC, I came out the other side, but instead of being back at the SGC, I noticed briefly that I was back on the same planet I’d just left, except that everything around me changed and suddenly everything was covered in thick snow.”

“Just like when we were in the Cheyenne missile silo in 1969 when we saw the SGC disappear,” commented Daniel from beside her.

“Exactly,” she said, feeling relieved that Daniel was backing up her story with his own experience. It bolstered her, allowing her to continue with a stronger voice. “I guessed right away what must have happened, based on my experience in 1969, but of course I had no way of knowing whether I’d just been sent forward or back in time.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine, Sam,” Janet commented sympathetically.

“I know,” she answered darkly, but she couldn’t look up to meet her eyes. Even though the details she was telling were a lie, she truly had been sent into a time completely unknown to her. Those emotions from that first day, standing terrified in the dark, thinking she was in the middle of an alien attack, cowering just meters from where she was in fact sat right now, had been very real. She wished she could share with them all exactly what she’d been through. She wished she could tell them of the terror and fright and uncertainty that had gripped her over the past seven months.

She sighed, drew in a breath and urged herself to continue. “My first instinct of course was to dial Earth, but if I’d been sent far into the past or future, I knew my GDO codes wouldn’t be accepted, and any radio communication might alter the timeline. I decided I couldn’t risk contacting anyone from Earth until I knew the exact date. If my radio signal was picked up in the 60s, for example, like last time, it could cause irreparable damage to the timeline.”

“I appreciate the caution you took, Major. I must say it’s probably a good job it was you who was sent into the past. Others may not have been equally considerate of any consequences of their time travel,” the General said, side-eyeing the Colonel with a raised eyebrow.

“Thanks, Sir, as ever for your vote of confidence,” the Colonel replied sarcastically.

“Anyway,” she interrupted, wanting to keep going now that she’d started, “I next decided to dial the Alpha Site. It was nearly completed at my time of departure. If I’d only jumped a short time or so in either direction, there was likely to be someone there.”

“But obviously there wasn’t,” the Colonel said.

“Not that I could tell. Actually, I didn’t want to risk going through without a MALP, but when none of my radio calls got an answer, it was clear that I’d likely been sent at least half a year either way of my original time.”

“A reasonable assumption,” the General remarked. “So what did you do next, Major?”

She took another deep sigh. It was difficult to talk. She wasn’t a good liar, and the hardship of being unable to share with them her actual experiences was starting to get to her, though she expected the anguished expression likely playing on her face right then was probably aiding the realism of the story she was telling.

“I didn’t have many supplies with me because I’d only been planning on returning to Earth with the Trinium samples. The Colonel and Teal’c had been carrying the main supply packs. It was really cold on PS1-297, probably winter, so I couldn’t stay there long. One potential piece of evidence I had going for me was that there was no quarry settlement on the planet or evidence that there had been. I thought the Trinium sample I’d been taking back had looked promising, and if I’d been sent to the future, I would have expected some evidence of an Earth mine or some kind of previous settlement. But there was nothing to be seen but flat snow.”

“A good thought, Major. As you saw a week ago, we did in fact bring back some samples after your disappearance and we’re set to start mining there in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s good. About the Trinium,” she said, giving the General a half-smile. “So, I went along with the more likely scenario that I had been sent back in time, though I still couldn’t know for sure. I started to check off planets to whose address I could remember one by one in my mind. Assuming I’d been sent to the past, I couldn’t go anywhere where I knew the Goa’uld may have been fairly recently. I also couldn’t go anywhere I might create a paradox and meet anyone earlier than I should have, either.”

“That does not allow for many worlds,” Teal’c remarked.

“No, it didn’t. As it turned out, there weren’t that many safe planets I could remember the sequence to that would qualify. Argos was out with Pelops and the nanites, the Land of Light wouldn’t have been safe with the Touched, Chulak was obviously out, and the Temple with the light by the beach-”

“Ah we had good times hanging out there, didn’t we?” interrupted the Colonel. “Coming down off our Goa’uld lightshow high, shouting at each other the whole time. I bet you’re quite familiar with that kind of thing now, Ambassador,” he winked across the table.

“Let’s not bring that up, Colonel,” he said abashedly, and she quite agreed. It had honestly been hell having to listen to him for the first three days following his eventual capture, and she didn’t need another reminder.

“Also,” she continued to rescue Joe from his embarrassment and steering them back on topic, “I couldn’t show up on K’Tau earlier than our first visit and contact the Asgard for help from there either, because if that turned out to be Earth’s first contact with the Asgard, then I’d really be tampering with the timeline.”

“Fair enough Major. As I said, I appreciate the degree of caution you took.”

“Thank you. So, finally, and I don’t know why I happened to remember the gate address, but I came up with Volia.”

“I gotta say Carter, that is totally the nuttiest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Colonel, could you please allow the Major to speak without your constant interruptions? This is already set to be a long briefing as it is,” the General said, irritatedly.

’Thank you, General,’ she thought internally, as the Colonel stiffened and quietened in his chair, and she heard both Daniel and Janet work to stifle their own sniggers either side of the table. Joe, too, threw an amusement look towards the Colonel across the table, probably glad he’d gotten comeuppance for the joke he’d just made at his own expense.

“Yes, I know it was a highly risky idea,” she said, daring to take a look at the Colonel to meet his earlier comment, before quickly returning her gaze safely to the General. “But going with the idea that I had indeed been sent into the past, I thought Volia would likely be a decently safe planet. It had been long-forgotten by the Goa’uld, and they were fairly technologically advanced so thought I might be able to get a decent reference on how far back I’m gone judging by what I found there.”

“By whether you found farmland or whether you found the city that had stood there before the Aschen had taken control?” asked Daniel.

“Exactly.

“That was good thinking, Sam,” added Joe.

“Indeed,” mused Teal’c.

Thank god they were buying her reason for going there. The hardest part of her lie-telling had passed.

She then spun a story of how she’d known immediately from seeing the two suns in the sky and the long-stretching extensive farmland that she couldn’t have travelled too far into the past. The Volians had clearly already met the Aschen. She then went on to describe how she’d followed the main path and located a nearby Volian village. She’d been able to disguise her uniform to ensure that Keel didn’t recognize her the next time she gated to the planet in the future with SG-1 by removing and hiding her jacket, TAC vest and weapons, and she’d ripped a pair of pants she’d found hanging to dry and cut the legs short to conceal their shape.The villagers she’d met hadn’t been a particularly intelligent people, and she’d managed to convince them quite easily that she was from the other planet in the Aschen Confederation, which they’d called Lannao. There didn’t seem to be much travel between the two planets, and the Volians, only around forty or so people in total in the village nearest the gate, including Keel, had bought her story. She said it had been clear that Keel hadn’t recognized her at all, confirming her travel into the past, even though he hadn’t looked too different to how she remembered him.

“You said he looked pretty much the same? So why didn’t you just gate to the Land of Light or somewhere else and wait it out if you knew then that you hadn’t been sent that far into the past?” the Colonel suddenly asked, and as he spoke, he accidentally knocked his arm against hers, and the contact dazed her briefly before she realised with a jolt that he wasn’t buying this part of her story as well as the others were. He probably wouldn’t buy why she would risk staying, either, and the truth of it was, under those circumstances, she didn’t think she would have. But her lie had to corroborate with the truth of the fact that she had gone to Aschen Prime- there was no covering that up, because Joe himself was living proof of that.

“But I couldn’t be sure exactly how much time had actually passed,” she countered, doing her best to meet his eyes, all the while trying to suppress the anxious pounding of her heart. “The Aschen could extend their lifespan.”

“That’s right,” confirmed Joe, jumping into the conversation. “Mollem said they had drugs that could double the human lifespan,” and for the first time she felt glad that he was here, joining the briefing.

“For all I knew it could have been twenty or even thirty years in the past and the Volians might not have appeared to have aged at all.

“Fair enough, Major,” the General accepted, and she felt the tension in the Colonel beside her ease slightly. He seemed to be buying it. “So you ended up on the Aschen Homeworld?”

“Yes, I got quite lucky, actually.”

“If you could call that lucky,” muttered the Colonel.

“I would, personally, since I got rescued,” countered Joe, and she nodded back at him, earning a wide smile of gratitude.

“Actually, it turned out to be extremely lucky for all of us,” she continued, “but I’ll get to that.”

She continued her fabricated tale, going on to explain how she’d heard that a couple of Aschen ambassadors were planning to come to visit soon to check on the growth and continued health of the crops. It had seemed, from talking with the others, that they didn’t keep a census of who lived on the planet, which had been a very big stroke of luck for her. She had been living on Volia for three weeks by then, learning all she could, and the Volians had been more than welcoming and happy to have a new face in their community, as well as extra hands-on help with their upcoming harvest season. They hadn’t asked any probing questions or seemed that curious about her at all, in fact. The Aschen ambassadors, who fortunately hadn’t been either Mollum nor Borren whom she was set to meet again in the future, hadn’t questioned her appearance among the Volians, either. She’d gotten the impression that they didn’t hold much interest in the individual Volian workers as long as their crop yield continued to meet their demands. She hadn’t planned on standing out, but she’d ended up daring to ask the Aschen personnel whether there was any chance for her to take a job on the Aschen homeworld, which she’d learned was called Aschen Prime.

“Okay, now that’s totally nuts,” interjected the Colonel, turning in his seat to look straight at her. “You asked outright to go to their homeworld?!”

“They didn’t know who I was, Sir,” she said, trying to reassure him that she hadn’t gone mad, and desperately trying not to blow her own cover. “They hadn’t met us yet. They knew nothing of humans outside their Confederation. They had absolutely no reason to believe I could be from another planet, and it was a valuable chance to learn about their incredibly advanced technology first-hand.”

“I have to agree with the Colonel there, Major. That was a huge risk you took,” the General interjected.

“I know, Sir. But it turned out to pan out well.”

She described how at first they’d looked at her like she was insane, but after questioning her, they’d recognized her intelligence-

“Well you do practically exude genius from your sweat glands,” the Colonel quipped. “Uh- sorry, Sir,” he quickly tacked on following the stern look he’d been thrown from the General for his string of interruptions, and sank low into his chair.

After that she’d talked for about twenty minutes straight describing how she’d ended up working as a scientist for the Aschen. She’d struggled at times to speak- she hadn’t spoken this much in seven months- and at one point she’d ended up in a coughing fit, for which Janet had had to get up and bring her a glass of water to calm her throat.

She then continued to spin a tale of how she’d come to live as one of them, how she’d been assisted to learn their written language, and had eventually ended up working as a scientist in one of their numerous labs. She went on to explain how she’d ended up behaving like one of them due to their required clothing, using her observation of Joe’s behaviour and that of the people she’d seen a week earlier. Thankfully, Joe himself had also joined in the talk at this point, attesting to how he’d been controlled and had lost all sense of thought and himself, which she was extremely grateful for, nodding along with his personal description, but taking a brief back seat and allowing him add to the credibility of her story.

She then described how she’d been in a lab accident that had disabled her clothing and had been released from the control of the city, but that the system or other people hadn’t seemed aware that she was herself again. She’d then had to blend in like a spy, pretending to behave like the others, eating nothing but a single bowl of gruel per day-

“It’s no wonder you looked like you were going to burst into tears when I handed you the jell-o and diet soda I’d brought you on ‘297-”

“Colonel O’Neill, if you interrupt her one more time, I’m ordering you straight out this briefing,” the General suddenly boomed, looking exasperated.

But she found herself appreciative of the respite, taking the chance at another sip of water to try to steady her nerves again before continuing on with her lie.

Janet took the pause in her story to add in corroboration from both her own and Joe’s test results. She’d explained that while Joe was of a healthy weight, with optimal blood levels of vitamins and minerals due to his altered metabolism adapted to the nutritive gruel, her diabled clothing could explain her own weight loss as well as deficiencies of iron, zinc and some other vitamins. Only Sam knew, of course, that those symptoms were due to her pushing herself to work round the clock in her Aschen science lab, working to travel back in time before Anubis found her, leading her to frequently skip meals and sleep.

Once Janet had finished with her insight, Sam then explained how she’d decided to play along and secretly gather information on the Aschen from the inside when the news had broken about a new, potential planet to be claimed as part of the Aschen Confederation about two months after she’d arrived on the homeworld, and that that had been when she’d finally known the date.

“Fortunately I remembered that the mission to Volia had been soon after my birthday, so I knew I just had to wait it out there for another fifteen months and wait for time to catch up with my disappearance, when I could rescue Joe and take us home.” Then she turned to look at Joe across the table. “I’m sorry I couldn’t rescue you any sooner.”

“It’s okay. They didn’t mistreat me, per se, and I consider myself highly lucky that I got out at all.”

“I’m still sorry I could never visit you either, Joe. I couldn’t risk being discovered.”

“That’s totally reasonable. I would probably have ratted you out, anyway. I was under their control, as you saw,” he said, giving her a sheepish smile.

She was glad of his forgiveness, even if the truth was that she hadn’t been there all along at all.

“So, why did it take you three months to find us if you could measure time there?” asked the Colonel hesitantly, side-eyeing the General as if seeking permission to speak.

She had anticipated this question. She had hoped to have travelled back nearer to her date of disappearance, but all things considered, she’d been very lucky at being only three months late.

“P3W-451,” she lied. “They eventually used the addresses you’d given them to compensate their dialling program and I couldn’t prevent them from dialling the black hole planet about a year after I started living there,” she lied.

“I never knew that. We were almost sucked into a black hole?” questioned Joe, looking terrified at the notion.

“You might not have noticed the effects of the time dilation if you hadn’t known about it. Plus you never communicated with the Aschen scientists, right?” she replied quickly, compensating for her lie, and to her relief, he nodded. “Anyway, I selfishly let the time dilation effects of the black hole rattle up as a way to cheat and move us forward in time, as it were, to get me closer to getting back to my own time, before I helped them disengage the wormhole. But then, of course, I’d lost complete track of time with the rest of the galaxy. But in all the chaos of the black hole in the Science section, at least, where it took them a very long time to even figure out what had even happened, fortunately I was able to secretly work on their bioweapon and learn how to harness it.”

“You used the bioweapon on them?” the General asked, looking disbelieving. She looked around to see that Teal’c, Daniel and the Colonel, too, all looked shocked to learn this piece of information. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to talk about this part of her story at the Alpha Site, and she guessed Joe hadn’t, either.

“Yes. I-I killed them all, Sir,” she confirmed, her voice suddenly sounding small from the rush of blood pounding through her ears. Her throat, too, felt suddenly dry and hoarse from the effort of telling the story she’d told thus far, but also from the emotional impact of being faced with having to describe the action she’d taken.

She saw the General look to his left to Joe for confirmation, as though he could never believe that she would be capable of taking such ruthless action, but he nodded.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Joe said quietly.

There was a heavy pause, and she couldn’t stop the sound of the gasping and choking Aschen that she’d killed from playing in her ears.

“I programmed the bioweapon to only affect those of Aschen DNA so the Ambassador and I could escape,” she choked out, and she looked up to meet Joe’s eyes, which looked pained. He, too, was likely remembering the writhing bodies in the failing city as she single-handedly destroyed their entire civilization.

“I had to do it, Sir,” she continued heavily. “They were developing a new type of hyperdrive to reach Earth. They had all kinds of detailed information on our planet for their attack. They knew our location,” she said and saw Joe wince in guilt at her words. “That wasn’t your fault, Joe,” she added, “but General, they were planning to fly here and attack us with the bioweapon, Sir.”

“I can confirm that, General,” said Joe, and she again found herself again grateful for his corroboration. “I was working with them. I can’t believe I never even questioned what they were making me do.”

“You were under the city’s control. You were practically brainwashed. It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated, before turning to the Colonel and General who were still looking at her in stunned disbelief. “I never figured out a way to sabotage their plans, and I couldn’t come up with an alternate, permanent solution to safeguard Earth following our escape,” she said quietly, now starting downwards at her hands clasped in her lap. “I had to make a pre-emptive strike. But I assure you all, killing them and destroying the city was an absolute last resort.”

The room had become uncomfortably silent. She could feel her skin crawling with the piercing look of everyone staring at her. She could only look down at her clasped hands, trying to push away the fresh memory of the bodies. She was a soldier. Of course she’d killed a multitude of Jaffa and various enemies over her years in service on SG-1. Enemies who often weren’t that unlike the Aschen. But what she’d done to the Aschen had been far beyond the call of duty. Her action had been nothing short of genocide. She even feared she would face charges for her crime. She’d probably deserve them.

“It can’t have been an easy decision for you to make, Major,” she heard the General finally say.

She shook her head, still looking downwards, her mind still reeling with the vivid memory of what she’d actually done. She’d tried to quash it from her mind the past week she’d spent on the Alpha Site, carefully constructing a barrier between herself and what she’d done, simply focusing on sticking to her story in the interrogations, and passing the tests and refusing to type a word of the mission report she would have to eventually submit. Her father and friend’s brief visits through the bars of her holding cell had been brief respites, too. But now that she had to say it out loud, say what she’d done... it was like she was confessing her sins. And genocide was surely the largest sin of all. Even if she had saved herself, Joe, and likely the entire population of Earth, she couldn’t but feel that she was no better than Anubis himself. She’d wiped out an entire race of people and reduced their entire civilization to frozen rubble. How could she ever recover from that?

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she finally said.

She meant her words. Not just the decision to wipe out the Aschen civilization, but she also thought back to the incessant loneliness she’d felt, trapped and completely alone in the future. She thought of everything that she’d been through to get back, and everything she still had to do. The mission still wasn’t over. She still had to save Earth all over again. And worse still, was that she was still alone. She was alone in having to conceal and carry the truth. She couldn’t reveal to anyone where she’d actually been and what she’d learned, for fear that the knowledge would spread to Anubis. Three months had already passed since her disappearance. Daniel would die soon, and he was going to ascend and be just like Anubis.

”In time, all things can be known.”

Daniel was the last person who could find out about her time travel, and that meant concealing the truth from everyone. Everything would have to rest on her, and her alone, to stop Anubis from repeating history, and the thought, now that this crucial part of her mission was upon her, was completely overwhelming. She couldn’t stop the burning of her eyes as she felt herself breaking under the insurmountable pressure.

Just like the tens of thousands of bodies that had fallen to the ground by her hand, she too, felt herself falling into despair. Just like the dome she had ordered destroyed, which would now be an icy wasteland exposed to the barren, frozen outside of the planet, the wall she’d built up around herself while she’d been in shock in detainment on the Alpha Site now ruptured.

She crumbled into her seat, screwing her eyes shut in vain against the onslaught of tears that forced their way out. The next second, there was a rush of movement around her and felt herself instantly being hauled out of her seat to her right by whom she recognized to be Daniel, who pulled her straight into a comforting hug. She soon felt the strong hand of Teal’c’s, too, resting on her arm, rubbing her soothingly. She hadn’t had any physical contact or any such touch from another person in so, so long, and the emotional disconnect of the past half year hit her as she completely broke down, collapsing further into Daniel’s embrace.

“Let’s take a break before we debrief the Ambassador,” she heard the General call from across the room.

“Sam, for what it’s worth, you did the right thing,” Daniel whispered into her ear.

She couldn’t reply to him, all she could do was sob into his embrace until she felt him pull back and step aside to allow Janet to take his place, and she had to bend down to hug her short friend, who whispered into her ear, “You’re back home, Sam. That’s all that matters,” before pulling away.

“Take all the time you need, people. We’ll reconvene for Ambassador Faxon’s de-brief at 15:00 hours. Until then, everyone dismissed,” and she heard the General disappear into his office to allow the team some privacy, and by the sound of additional footsteps, the Ambassador had followed him.

Teal’c then took her place, holding her shoulders square on with both hands.

“Samantha Carter, you have shown remarkable courage. I am most proud of you for the resilience and strength you have shown,” he said, his gaze full of sincerity, before drawing her into his strong arms. “You performed admirably as a warrior,” he spoke into her ear. “Do not permit the actions you were forced to take tarnish your spirit.”

She sobbed even harder at his words, and all she could do was nod graciously into his broad embrace. She didn’t have the voice to thank him for his words. She knew that he spoke with a genuine sincerity and wisdom from past experience. He, too, had been forced to make many atrocities and killings as the former First Prime of Apophis. He knew well the guilt and anguish she was feeling, and he, too, even knew the burden of carrying the almost impossible task of saving his own people on his own shoulders. She felt incredibly grateful to have him as a friend.

When Teal’c finally stepped back after her sobs had finally mostly abated, she then caught sight of the Colonel standing behind the group, lingering back awkwardly, fiddling with the back of his chair with both hands, watching them all. Their eyes met, and she wanted so badly for him to utter those two words and hold her, but knew he surely wouldn’t here. Not in front of everyone. Not in view of the General’s office and the remaining guarding Airmen.

He took several steps towards her as the others seemed to part aside knowingly, and her heart froze in her chest as he approached. He’d remained so cold and distant the entire time he’d interrogated her off-world. It had hurt her, too, that he hadn’t been to visit her while she’d been barraged with test after test in detainment at the Alpha Site. Had he been afraid to believe it was really her until the proof had come through? And now that he’d heard her story, would he even believe her lies? He knew her so well. What if he hadn’t bought her story? Or, rather than disbelieving her, what if he despised her now for what she’d done? Would he even want her back on his team after what she’d done?

She practically held her breath as he came to a stop right before her. He kept looking into her eyes, and she felt like he was staring into her naked soul. She felt incredibly vulnerable and weak. She desperately needed his approval. Some sign from him that things were okay. That she was going to be okay.

“You did good, Carter,” he finally said simply.

She felt her eyes fill once again. She hiccuped back a sob as she nodded silently at his approval, grateful to see that there was no hate to be seen. No disgust.

“It wasn’t the same round here without you,” he added quietly.

Her heart leapt. She knew what he was trying to convey, even if he couldn’t say it aloud in front of the Airmen. He was saying he’d missed her, and god she’d missed him more than anything. She couldn’t stop further tears from rolling down her cheeks. Tears of relief that he didn’t seem to hate her for what she’d done. But she needed more. She needed more reassurance from him. She needed him.

To her surprise, he seemed to read her mind, and she could do nothing but stand immobilized as he suddenly stepped forth to close the gap between them, before uttering in a barely audible whisper, “C’mere.”

She didn’t hesitate to fall into his offered embrace. She held onto him so tightly, not allowing any gap between their bodies. She didn’t care if the action would be seen as insubordinate, and neither did he, it seemed. She pulled him even closer to him with shaking arms, burying her face into the crook of his neck as she felt him do the same, closing his arms around her as though he, too, was clinging to her for life.

“Thank you, Sir, for not hating me,” she sobbed quietly into his ear so the others wouldn’t hear.

“Carter, why would I hate you?” he whispered back in her ear, the tickling sensation of his breath on her lobe like electricity running down her neck and through her insides.

“For what I did. I killed them all. How can you see me the same way ever again?”

“Carter, you saved Earth. That’s all I see. I’m proud of you,” he said, giving her an additional squeeze with his last words, and she nodded her understanding, unable to say anything more, before she felt a sense of loss as he pulled away.

She then stood there, her entire body trembling. Her senses were so overwhelmed by the sensation of the hug that she couldn’t even see her other friends. It couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds, but it was like his words and the brief contact had undone seven months' worth of anguish.

She was going to be okay.

Chapter Text

...it was like his words and the brief contact had undone seven months’ worth of anguish. She was going to be okay.

980 days to go

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy eating fruit that much.”

She’d been sitting alone, simply enjoying the general hubbub and murmur of conversation around her, as she’d tucked into the grapes, apple, pineapple and watermelon slices piled high on her tray. Admittedly, these fruits didn’t have anything on the K’Tau apples that had been her only source of fresh food in the future, but after so many months of living off nothing but dried, preserved food, the juicy fruit of the SGC commissary were more than heavenly enough.

“You should see Teal’c on a normal day,” she replied, smiling at the Ambassador who’d approached her. “He’s a real fruit fiend.”

He gave a chuckle, then left to pick up an empty tray and select his own lunch, leaving her back to her thoughts until he returned with a similarly-stacked tray and asked to join her.

“Of course,” and she indicated that he sit with her. “And I see I’m not the only one craving fresh food. That pile might actually even rival Teal’c’s typical breakfast,” she quipped.

“Well, you know, after nothing but Aschen gruel for over a year...” he said, leaving his sentence unfinished and shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders in apparent distaste of the memory of the gruel.

She gave a false laugh to maintain her charade, but the truth was, she’d never actually tasted the Aschen’s staple meal that she’d read and heard about. To be fair, though, macaroni and cheese MREs could be just as tasteless, and she’d certainly had her fair share of awful food off-world over the years, so she could imagine well enough.

“So we’re finally getting out of here tomorrow, and we can finally get to get rid of them,” he said, throwing a nod towards the two guards standing either side of the commissary door who had been following their every movement the past six days at the SGC. They’d both passed all the physicals and questions that had been thrown at them, and they were both set to be finally permitted to go home at zero-nine-hundred hours the following morning. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get out?”

Admittedly, she hadn’t really given it much thought, though Janet had already offered to bring some of her clothes from her house and drive her home.

“I guess I’m going to take a spin on my bike and just soak up some real Earth sun, you know?” and he nodded, probably feeling the same. She’d been captured and imprisoned for long periods before, and she’d spent pretty much three months straight on base when she’d worked solidly to rescue the Colonel when he’d been lost off-world three years ago, but this was the longest she’d ever gone without seeing her own home planet’s sky. “Also, I have a kind-of niece who lives in town, so I’m looking forward to catching up with her,” she added. “How about you?”

“Well, I called my parents yesterday, who were stunned to hear that I was even alive. Guess the Air Force hadn’t called them yet to let them know until I passed the tests.”

“Wow, I’ll bet they were pretty surprised! Urm, actually, Joe, I kinda met them at your funeral…” she admitted sheepishly. Of course she’d attended memorial services for SGC personnel who’d miraculously come back alive- Daniel included, of course- but it was always more awkward when it involved people not signed in on the non-disclosure act. People didn’t tend to come back from the dead in a normal line of work, and she wondered how Joe was going to explain his resurrection.

“Oh my god, you didn’t…?” he said, setting his fork down on the table with a clatter and hiding his face in his hands in apparent embarrassment.

“I did,” she said, finding herself rather amused by his reaction. “Everyone said nice things about you, by the way,” she teased, before taking a sip of her vegetable smoothie.

“Oh god,” he said, looking uncomfortable by the thought of the funeral that had been held for him. “Well, anyway, I’m flying out to see them the day after tomorrow.”

“Bet they can’t wait to see you,” she said, now tucking into a juicy pineapple slice.

“Yeah. The official cover story I’ve been given to tell everyone is that I was kidnapped while working in Libya and presumed dead, if you’d believe that.”

She couldn’t help stiffen at his use of the phrase ‘cover story’. She knew all too well the feeling of having to lie to people she cared about.

“So anyway, I have no plans for tomorrow. And, well, you know, I never did get the chance to take you to that restaurant after our last mission...” he suddenly said as she tucked into a second pineapple slice, making her pause with the fork in her mouth like a deer in headlights, and she felt her face redden, taken aback by the sudden change in topic. She’d forgotten that he’d asked her out before the mission that had gone FUBAR when she’d had to leave him behind on Volia.

“I’m sure the restaurant will still be open even after a year,” he added, and broke into one of his endearing smiles as he awaited her answer.

She had to admit, there was something very appealing about being charmed by a nice man after so many months spent completely alone, aside from Orlin, if he counted.

“They do good steak, and they have these pool tables, I wonder if you know it?” he added again when she still hadn’t replied. “It was called Oh-something.”

“O’Malley’s?”

“Yeah, that was it. You know it, then?”

“Yeah, I know it,” she smiled, unable to suppress giving a chuckle at the memory of being thrown out of the restaurant for instigating a bar fight while she, Jack and Daniel had been under the influence of alien technology.

“Plus, I feel like I need to make it up to you for rescuing me, of course, and you know, for the crazy resistance I put up and the mild concussion I gave you,” he added when she still hadn’t answered, and she unconsciously put down her fork to feel her forehead, where just a light graze remained.

It would have been so easy to say yes. She liked him as a person, at least when he wasn’t on some crazy comedown from Aschen tunics, and of course didn’t hold any grudge against him for the fight he’d put up. Plus, he was easy to talk to, charming, and rather handsome, too. Not to mention he was non-Military. There were no regulations that would hinder them getting together, and yet he knew her job and line of work. She wouldn’t have to hide any knowledge of aliens or missions to other planets from him. He’d understand her crazy working hours, and even the likelihood of her coming back injured or delayed from some mission off-world.

It really would have been so easy to say yes, and admittedly, maybe in another timeline, there probably could have been something. A timeline where she hadn’t had to kill an entire race of people in front of him. One where she didn't still have the burden of the fate of the rest of the human race resting on her shoulders. But she was here, and those were her circumstances, and she had a responsibility to everyone to keep focused on her ongoing mission. She didn’t have time to start dating someone, and she also couldn’t deny the impact of that hug from the Colonel days earlier that still left tingles of pleasure and butterflies running through her body at the mere memory of it. He was her CO... he was completely off-limits, and yet the thought of going to dinner with Joe seemed like it would be a betrayal. To the feelings that she had for the Colonel that she really wished didn’t exist at all, and it would be a betrayal to her duty to the mission.

There was no choice. She’d have to turn him down.

“Joe- I,” she started, then paused to look at his expectant look, feeling guilty that she was probably going to hurt him with his answer. She really wasn’t good at this kind of thing. “Maybe before everything happened, yes, I would have liked that. But…” and she saw with a pang that he was already looking crestfallen by the turn her reply was taking. “I just want the life I used to have back, you know? I- I’m not looking to go on a date right now. I’m still dealing with the year I had to live.”

He looked disappointed, but then he put on what was probably a forced smile, and said brightly, “You’re right. This isn’t really the time. I’m sorry I asked. But we’re friends, right?”

“Definitely.”

They continued their lunch amicably, ranking the fruit on their trays by taste and juiciness, and talking about what other foods they’d missed the most, when he took her by surprise with another sudden question.

“I have to ask, did the Aschen really dial the black hole planet?”

His question threw her, and she studied him, trying to read if he was accusing her of lying. He didn’t look accusatory, and maybe it was just his way of bringing up the topic, but she felt her defences rise regardless, readying herself again to defend her story. The truth was, she had lied, and she admonished herself for not having been prepared for him- or anyone else- to suddenly question her story even a week later like this.

Aware that she was faltering, she quickly set down her drink and composed herself as best as she could.

“Of course,” she replied, as simply and neutrally as possible.

“Wouldn’t that have disrupted the crop shipments from the other Confederation planets?”

“It did,” she lied.

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “I never knew that,” he said, thoughtfully. “And you said time slowed down?”

“For us, yes. But time is relative,” she continued, anticipating his next question. “We didn’t notice time passing by differently when everything around us was affected at the same rate,” she replied, feeling more comfortable by falling back on her knowledge of physics.

“I see,” he said pensively. “I guess, I always imagined there’d be more, I don’t know, sucking, or something,” he said, awkwardly, and she found herself releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding as she chuckled aloud at the thought that the Colonel would likely say something similar.

“Yeah, well, it’s not really like how it is in the movies,” she smiled, and to her great relief he seemed to buy her answer.

“Fair enough. I’m no astrophysicist, so I’ll take your word for it.”

'Thank god,’ she thought to herself.

“I have to say, too,” and she felt herself stiffen again at his words, readying herself for another attack on her story. “While I’m glad to be back, I miss the shortened sleep and the enhanced memory and brainpower the clothing gave me. I feel kind of tired all the time, and admittedly, pretty dumb, now, too. Not that you’d know what feeling dumb would be like, of course,” he added,with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Haha, well, I don’t know about that,” she brushed off modestly, feeling internally glad he wasn’t picking holes in her story anymore. “But I wasn’t under the effects that long, considering,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. “But I’m sure with time you’ll feel like yourself again, like I did, soon.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

----

The next morning, she’d said goodbye to Joe, changed into the civvies that Janet had brought for her, and finally been released from the base, as well as the watchful eye of the guards. Her bike had been cleared up, so Janet gave her the promised lift, and at the sight of the sun streaming through the car window as they pulled out of the base, she’d felt immediately euphoric. She’d rolled down the window and allowed herself to relax into the passenger’s seat, enjoying the feel of the early summer sun’s rays on her arms, as they’d winded down the mountain road.

But once they’d reached the bottom of the mountain and turned onto the highway, she’d been hit like a truck with the memory of seeing the smashed, rusted car wrecks that had lined this very road. She hadn’t been able to stop herself stiffening in the seat, instinctively retracting the arm she’d placed relaxedly on the door frame, and had had to work hard to calm the palpitations of her heart and hide her reaction from Janet. It had been a good thing she hadn’t been driving, she’d thought, and thankfully Janet had been too busy watching the oncoming traffic as she’d turned onto the highway to have picked up on her agitation.

Tuning in to the fact that Janet had been talking to her, Janet repeated herself to remind her that it was a Saturday, and once she’d regained control of her reaction, she’d ended up pleading that Janet take them to the Frasier’s instead, using the excuse of wanting to see Cassie right away to cover up for the fact that she wasn’t at all ready to face being alone in her house yet.

It had ended up being a fun day out. She’d felt a strong need to be surrounded by people and the bustle of the city, and her suggestion of a shopping trip to the mall, followed by a visit to Cheyenne Zoo had been immediately accepted by the over-excited and newly-turned sixteen-year old who had launched herself into her arms at the sight of her. Janet, too, had been more than thrilled with the prospect of spending a full day with her two favourite women off-base.

Finally back at the Frasier’s at the end of the day, exhausted by the events of the day, and her stomach uncomfortably full of sundae ice cream and fruit smoothies, Sam still wasn’t ready to face the silence of her home. Thankfully though, Janet had soon broken out a bottle of wine and offered use of the guest bedroom, which she’d graciously accepted. No longer facing the looming thought of having to sleep alone in her house, and being surrounded by the two excited, bubbling women, she’d allowed herself to relax once again and enjoy herself as they ate their way through two bags of half-burnt popcorn and drank their way through a second bottle of wine. Thankfully the naquadah and protein marker in her blood- courtesy of Jolinar- had helped keep her at a decent level of sobriety; she hadn’t wanted to accidentally slip up and mistakenly say something that would contradict her cover story. But Janet, however, was soon considerably inebriated, and Cassie, too, was already wired by the jam-packed day, as well as the giant bottle of soda she’d gotten through alone. And when a romantic scene had then begun in the rather girly movie that Cassie had picked out, to her complete embarrassment, Janet had started recalling the story of how the Colonel had been kicked off base for what, in her professional medical opinion, had diagnosed as ‘excessively pining over Sam’. Cassie had found this absolutely hilarious, and the two girls had been unable to control themselves when Janet had then remarked that the on-screen embrace the movie characters had initiated looked no different to Sam and Jack’s reunion, which had made Cassie squeal, and Sam, not quite being able to find the sunny side, had promptly had to cut-off the conversation short, turning to questioning Cassie about her own boyfriend, Dom. Internally, though, and it had probably been the fault of the wine coursing through her system, she hadn't been able to deny the fluttering of her insides at the idea of Janet likening herself and the Colonel to a couple.

----

The next day being Sunday, the three women had indulged in a long lie-in, and when they’d all finally crawled out of their beds, she’d been most delighted to hear that Janet had been rewarded with a well-deserved hangover.

After a cobbled-together early lunch from bits and pieces floating around the Frasier kitchen, the three had then indulged in a second day of shopping. Sam had bought Cassie a belated sixteenth birthday gift, and Sam had gotten a well-needed and more Air Force regulation-acceptable haircut, before Cassie had later let slip that she had an entire book report due the next day; the book of which it was due she hadn’t even read yet. Janet had promptly switched over to ‘Mom mode’ and reprimanded her for always leaving things until the last minute, and Sam had had to make her excuse and call a cab from the mall to be driven straight home.

She was finally home after almost eight months’ absence- from her perspective, at least- and three and a half months’ from everyone else’s, but she still wasn’t prepared for the stillness of her home. It was clear that someone had cleared out her fridge and checked her mail while she’d been gone, for which she was highly grateful, but there was just something not right about it. The last time she’d stepped in her home, it hadn’t even been hers at all. Another family had been living, and had died there, in this very living room, and she couldn’t help a lingering doubt creep in as to whether she even belonged in this time frame. In fact, as far as physics was concerned, she didn’t. The grim, dead future she had seen… that had been her real time frame. This was… a second chance, just as the other Sam had said. But that thought only left her feeling like an imposter in her own life.

She couldn’t stay here. She found her bike in the garage, where the keys had been left in the ignition by the person who’d brought it back- presumably Siler, since he was the only person she knew who could actually ride- and sped off, North.

Soon passing by the Air Force Academy in a flurry of speed, she didn’t slow until she reached the bridge that crossed the creek, where she decided to stop, feeling a pang of nostalgia as she looked to the elk-free tree line. She was almost saddened, too, to see that the creek was a murky, polluted brown; the crystal, untouched waters of the future a distant memory.

It was around nineteen hundred hours by the time she pulled into Boulder. She grabbed dinner at the most-crowded diner she could find, before deciding on a whim to stay overnight in a cheap motel, finding comfort in the paper-thin walls separating herself and the family next door, the sound of their chatter as they watched a rowdy tv show a reminder of the mirth of the previous night she’d shared at the Frasier’s.

It hadn’t been the best sleep, and the bed had been particularly uncomfortable, but she hadn’t minded too much. It had left her wide awake early, giving her time to think what she needed to do, and consider why she’d been drawn to biking to Boulder at all.

She’d decided to take the first morning tour at the NIST, feeling nostalgia of the time she’d taken the same tour with her mother, but also carrying with her a tension and trepidation from the memory of when she’d felt when she’d come alone. She hadn’t engaged with the other tour-takers, nor asked any questions at all as they’d been led through the busy Monday-morning labs, merely feigning a mild interest. It wasn’t until they were shown a closed-circuit live feed of the F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic clock, the highlight of the tour, since they weren’t permitted to see the real machine, that the knot in her stomach unclenched, as she saw the time now displayed,

07.01.02 10:40:21

July 1st, 2002, she re-read. She really had done it, she instilled in herself, expelling any doubts, and sparing a thought for the other Sam who had given her life in the future.

Following the tour, and having picked up a key chain souvenir from the gift shop to clip on to her bike key to serve as a reminder of her mission, she then took the long road round Denver, enjoying being a part of the hectic Monday morning traffic, revelling in weaving her bike through the buzzing trucks and cars spread across the lanes of the highway. Riding past the bustling airport, she enjoyed the sight and sound of the rumbling overhead planes, and then, before she knew it, a pressing need to purge the trauma of those early memories from her mind had driven her to ride all the way back to that railway bridge, just south of the airport. She needed to see for herself that it had never happened. That that future wasn’t hers anymore. It was an alternate, now irrelevant timeline. It didn’t need to be a part of her anymore. It wasn’t even real.

With a shaking grasp on her motorcycle handlebars, she pulled up on the side of the road in full view of the bridge where she’d seen the derailed train. In fact, she noticed that she was parked in almost the precise position where she’d stopped the Colonel’s truck she’d been riding. She stood still, her heart hammering with anticipation, her legs protesting having to straddle the heavy bike for so long as she waited.

Cars and bikes continued to trundle by, passing to-and-fro under the bridge, and some pedestrians even turned their heads to see why someone would be stopped, straddling a bike and staring at an empty overhead bridge.

Ignoring the stares, her heart gave a lurch as she felt a resounding reverberation grow in the ground, followed by the tell-tale sound of vibration and swishing of overhead cables indicating a train was approaching. She held her breath as she waited, and soon, the roar and clickety clack of multiple conjoined train cars came into view, crossing the bridge, passing her by in a blur of movement. She could just make out the passengers inside, a myriad of colour, of life. Families, friends, workers, all eagerly heading to their destination, going about their daily lives. Alive again, because of her, and in the few seconds it had taken for the train to whizz by, it had been enough to dispel the trauma of that day. The sight of the derailed wreck was purged from her mind. It never happened, and it never would, she affirmed.

Satisfied, she backed up her bike with her feet, keeping the heavy bike balanced between her legs, turned the ignition, then with a turn of the handle, the engine gave a purr and she sped off, back to the highway, feeling back on track.

Chapter Text

Satisfied, she backed up her bike with her feet, keeping the heavy bike balanced, turned the ignition, then with a turn of the handle the engine gave a purr and she sped off, back to the highway; back on track.

971 days to go

It was a further two weeks before she was officially put back on mission rota for off-world missions. She’d first resented the forced downtime, feeling a need to get back to her old life as soon as possible, as well as to get started on what felt like an impossible mission, but as it had turned out, she was still struggling with poor sleep and recurring thoughts and guilt about what she’d inflicted back on Aschen Prime.

So, as she always did, she coped by burying herself into work on-base, channeling her focus into continuing the X-302 project that she’d been working on before her disappearance and communicating with the engineers in Nevada remotely. The camp on PS1-297 had finally been set up, too, and SG-11 were just beginning to extract the first source of raw Trinium. Despite not being officially assigned back to SG-1 yet, she had fortunately been cleared and permitted to visit the camp to see the mining set-up for herself as a consultant of sorts, and had of course taken the chance to covertly retrieve the Goa’uld ribbon device and Tretonin she’d hidden, breaking away from the team under the pretense of needing a bathroom break. She hadn’t anticipated the heat on the planet, however, and could only hope that the added high temperature exposure of the planet’s summer season hadn’t deteriorated the already four-decade old substance. She’d hidden the syringe within the sleeves of the notebook the other Sam had written to her, where she’d also slipped the photograph of Cassie’s eighteenth birthday within another page spread, placing all inside a ziploc bag for protection.

”Be careful Sam,” read the words on the notebook’s cover that she could just make out through the rather steamed up plastic bag.

She’d always wondered why her other self had written those words, but regardless of the purpose for which they’d originally been written, they certainly still rang true. She did have to be careful. She hadn’t been able to risk bringing back any of the mission reports, or anything larger back with her, but she simply hadn’t been able to bring herself to travel back in time without some remnant of that other Sam who’d given her life to safeguard her in the past from Anubis, to guide her to subdue the Aschen AI, and to travel back in time before Anubis found her. This notebook represented this other version of her’s voice, musings and thoughts, as well as what must have been months of hard work. She could only hope the book would go unnoticed on her shelf back in her lab, where she had already amassed quite a collection of unfinished physics papers and years’ worth of notes and ideas, not dissimilar to Daniel’s disorganized array of translation and anthropological notes and observations. Besides, no one but Joe would recognize the Aschen writing, anyway, even if it was found.

Back on base, none of the Area 51 scientists seemed surprised by the sudden progress the X-302 project was making by her hand due to her rekindled Goa’uld knowledge thanks to Orlin’s interference. After all, she already had a firmly established reputation for making scientific developments, and no one doubted that her first-hand experience working with alien ships on SG-1 had left her with a superior knowledge of the workings of such technology, as well as a knack for being able to come up with the most efficient designs.

She knew from the mission reports that she’d done her best to memorize before her trip back that they would soon encounter the element named naquadriah, a more powerful, though unstable, form of naquadah. The Area 51 researchers, it seemed, had attempted to use it to power hyperdrive technology, but from what she’d read, they’d never been successful. This time however, with her Goa’uld knowledge, she was confident that she would be able to change history and make sure that this time, Earth would have interstellar-capable ships.

----

The sudden arrival of the Tok’ra Ren’al just over two weeks later at the SGC had been unexpected to all but herself. Only she knew that it meant that the Goa’uld System Lords were planning a summit to discuss an as yet unknown threat, and that the Tok’ra would ask their help with a secret mission to sabotage the gathering. The SGC, and the Tok’ra, were finally about to learn of Anubis, and Sam’s own mission was about to take off.

Just as she’d read, a plan was conceived for someone to go undercover as Lord Yu’s top slave, or Lo’tar, and when the need for a non-blended human who could speak fluent Goa’uld was called out, Sam had had to fight an inner desire within herself that had been sparked within her. She would have loved to have volunteered and seen for herself again some of the same faces that she’d seen through Hestia’s eyes when she’d attended the very first meeting of System Lords thousands of years ago, even though they’d likely be inhabiting different hosts by now. She'd had a burning curiosity, too, to see for herself the dynamics of power-play in the galaxy to help with her own mission to stop Anubis. But, of course, she wouldn’t have been able to explain her sudden Goa’uld speaking ability, nor knowledge of the many System Lords who would be attending. And so, she was forced to passively allow for history to repeat itself. Daniel was chosen to go undercover as Lord Yu’s slave, and her father had been designated with the task of piloting the cargo ship that would stand by for his extraction.

She knew that Osiris would make a surprise appearance at the summit, and while she hoped that events would play out differently this time and that Daniel would be able to rescue the host, Sarah, there was no reason that her existence in this timeline would cause things to play out any differently to how they had before.

And yet, to her utter disbelief, a day later while on Revanna, events had ended up playing out completely contradictory to her foresight.

Her first official mission back on SG-1 wasn’t supposed to have been more than a babysitting mission overseeing some of the latest recruits who were joining the Stargate Program to officially meet their off-world allies, together with SG-17. She’d been in the Tok’ra science lab, discussing the condition of Jolinar’s former mate, Lantash, with Ren’al when she’d been stunned to hear that unknown enemy Goa’uld ships had been detected heading straight for the Tok’ra base. Their escape through the gate had been cut off by a deliberate dial in, and trapped on the planet with no ships available, Sam had had to watch helplessly as the underground base was pummelled by a barrage of Al’kesh from above. The cave-ins and collapses of the Tok’ra’s underground tunnels had killed many of the Tok’ra, Jaffa raids of the tunnels had killed the rest, and SG-17 had sadly perished, too.

With Lantash’s help, she, Teal’c and the Colonel had eventually made it out of the tunnels after the main assault had passed, and she’d been able to signal Daniel and her father for help by modifying one of the base’s long-range communication devices to signal an SOS. Once they’d rendezvoused, just as she’d read in the report, she’d heard that Daniel had once again failed to utilize the gaseous symbiote poison that had been intended to annihilate the System Lords, and nor had he rescued Sarah. Fortunately for them, however, that had meant that they had been able to use that same symbiote poison on the Jaffa troops on the ground to allow for their escape through the gate, though it had come at a huge emotional cost for her; the sacrifice of Lantash.

In the debriefing back on Earth following their successful escape from Revanna, as far as she had been able to tell from Daniel’s story, the summit had gone precisely as before. The same System Lords had been in attendance, before Osiris had made a surprise attendance and announced the return of Anubis to prominence after thousands of years of exile, hiding in the shadows. Daniel had made the decision to refrain from using the poison, for which she was immensely glad. Not just because it had enabled SG-1’s escape from Revanna, but because the elimination of the System Lords would have completely cleared the chessboard of all pieces and paved the way for Anubis’ one-track rise in domination of the galaxy.

Daniel had then reported that Anubis, via word of Osiris, had claimed culpability for the attack on the Tok’ra. She was only half-surprised to hear this piece of information, since Anubis had instigated an attack on them last time. But what she couldn’t understand was what could have led Anubis to end up attacking the Tok’ra base well over a year in advance of the report she had read? Anubis, she recalled, had used the Eyes of the Goa’uld to destroy Revanna after Daniel had already returned from his ascension. In fact, she’d been hoping to use her foreknowledge to prevent Anubis from claiming that last Eye on Abydos, which would then have served to save her father and the rest of the Tok’ra. Yet, they’d just been decimated before her eyes in a completely unexpected attack.

Her father and Selmak, also in attendance of the debrief before they’d hastily left to regather at the Tok’ra’s fallback position in the Risa System, had then insisted that the only way Revanna’s location could have been discovered by Anubis would be through the capture of a Tok’ra. She had been quick to agree that this was the most likely scenario. She’d already ascertained that being ascended, Anubis would be constrained to the same rules as Orlin. To be permitted to interfere in the mortal plane of existence and get away with attacking the Tok’ra, he would have to have learned of their location through mortal means, and that would mean capturing a Tok’ra. But still, it seemed too much of a coincidence that it had happened so soon after her return. Why? What could have changed? Other than random variations and chance, such as a different roll of the dice, the only variable in the equation that she could think of was herself.

----

A few days later after the dust had settled, a memorial service was held in the Risa System, the preliminary location for the Tok’ra’s new base. The population now consisted of only a few stragglers who had survived the attack on Revanna while they’d been off-world on ops, including of course, her father. Looking around, she only counted only forty-or-so Tok’ra in attendance, or eighty if both symbiote and hosts were counted. And while there were still a few dozen more unaccounted for Tok’ra, uncontactable on their deep undercover missions, it was still a number vastly shredded down from the original precious hundreds. It truly was a harrowing loss. Not just personally to her, as a former host, but also for the future of the galaxy. The intel provided by the Tok’ra, who had always continually worked hard to place spies within positions of megre power among the ranks of the System Lords, had always been essential to her plan. She had been counting on saving them in just over a year and having them assist in her plan to learn more of Anubis, and hopefully to learn of his weapon. Now her resistance against Anubis had been dealt a terrible, and unexpected, blow.

The rest of SG-1 were back on Earth, working with other teams to gather supplies to be brought to the Tok’ra to help with their rebuilding after the service ended. She, alone, had decided to attend the service itself, wanting to stay as an emotional support for her father, as well as his symbiote, Selmak. She’d also been hoping to learn more information from the other Tok’ra on ideas as to the cause of the attack.

“Selmak, sorry, do you mind if I have a word with my Dad, please?” she asked quietly, after the service had finished.

Selmak turned to look at her, her heavy emotion playing on her father’s face, and she found herself instantly reminded of the way her father had worn the exact same saddened expression after the loss of her mother. This time, however, she couldn’t help feel that Selmak had just lost even more this time. She’d lost hundreds of her brothers and sisters to Anubis in one fell swoop.

Selmak bowed her father’s head as she allowed her father to regain control.

“Yeah, kiddo, what is it?” he asked in a tired voice.

He looked terrible and anguished. She couldn’t imagine the emotional pain and grief that he was going through on behalf of Semlak.

“Dad, I’m sorry to ask at a time like this. I just want to know something.”

“Sure, of course, anything,” he said, smiling wanly.

“When I was missing-,” she started, then felt her heart give an uncomfortable lurch at the sight of his features falling. She felt bad for reminding him of the loss he had been going through recently, too, caused by her absence, but she needed to know. “Urm, SG-1 was off mission rota for a month searching for me. I was wondering if you helped?”

“Jack’s been telling on me, has he?” he smiled with a glint of humour. “Well, I couldn’t exactly sit back and let the SGC search the galaxy for you without me.”

“So you altered your own mission schedule for my sake?”

“Only for the same month that SG-1 was off for, then the High Council was on my back to send us out on missions again, mostly getting back to worming my way into Lord Yu’s inner circle. Anyway, what are you getting at, Sam?”

“I see, and then when I came back, you came to visit me at the Alpha Site.”

“Yes, of course I did. Why do you ask?”

“Was there a mission you were supposed to go on when you came to the Alpha Site?”

“You know that’s classified, Sam," he said, putting his hands on his hips. "Well, actually, it was, but I guess the High Council is disbanded now since they all perished on Revanna. I guess I can tell you,” he shrugged. “It wasn’t an important mission, anyway, just a trade in information on one of Zipacna’s planets-”

Her insides froze at the name. Zipacna’s name had been listed as one of Anubis’ servants in Lord Yu’s archive that she’d read through in the future.

“Why are you asking me anyway, Sam?” he inquired again, sounding rather impatient now.

“Was another Tok’ra operative sent in your stead?” she pressed, ignoring her father's tone of voice.

“Ah yeah, Marteen went instead of me. Actually, come to think of it, Selmak and I haven’t seen him since that mission…”

And she saw as he bowed his head and his eyes flashed, indicating that Selmak had re-taken control, then Selmak suddenly excused both of them before marching with purpose towards a group of Tok’ra in quiet conversation, leaving her alone to her thoughts and guilt.

It was her fault, she realized. Her return had done this. Dad and Selmak must have gone on the same mission the last time, but they must have evaded capture for some reason that time. Perhaps they simply had superior experience; Selmak was one of the oldest Tok’ra, and her Dad’s military background would certainly have helped, too. But instead, because of her return, a perhaps more easily-snared target had been sent in her Dad’s stead. Marteen must have been captured, and the location of Revanna must have been stolen from his mind.

----

Sam then spent the next week assisting the SGC with bringing aid and supplies to help in the set-up of Risa as the new, official Tok’ra homeworld, which had now formed a new High Council, with a position held for Selmak and her father. She wasn’t sure what she thought of the appointment of Malek as the new Tok’ra leader, however. She could remember from her memories of Jolinar that he was a proud, stubborn man. He had even initially resisted all the aid Earth had offered, though Selmak’s pleas had eventually won him over. The thought of Malek as the new leader made her concerned as to whether this would mean that she would see her father less from now on, though.

Finally back in her home after a week’s absence, and having said goodbye to her father, hoping it wouldn't be too long before she saw him again, she decided to unwind with a glass of wine as she spent some time digesting the events of the past two weeks. Being inadvertently responsible for the decimation of the Tok’ra had come as a complete shock. She would have to tread carefully from now on, she reminded herself. There would be no re-do of this timeline. She’d had to destroy the dome city on Aschen Prime to safeguard Earth, but that had meant the loss of the computer core to access and control the satellite array around the suns. There would be no more time travelling. No third chance.

Almost empty glass of wine still in hand, she made the decision to dig out the box of treasures she kept in her bedside drawer. It felt strange to imagine that the Colonel in the other, future timeline, must have gone through this same box in the future. There was the photo of her family taken from when her mother was still alive, some of her earlier certificates and awards, her old Lieutenant and Cadet pins, the Major Matt Mason doll that the Colonel had kept for her, and then nestled at the bottom of the box, she found what she had been looking for- her combat bracelet from her tour in the Gulf. That tour had been her first ever service duty, and another Lieutenant that she had fast-bonded with when they’d been stationed together in Saudi Arabia had woven it for her. She’d made one back in return for her friend, and at the time, to her personally, the bracelet had symbolized a feeling of belonging in the Military, as well as embodying the excitement of being entrusted with her own F-16 to pilot in combat. Later, when they’d both survived and accomplished the mission, she’d kept it as a reminder of the success of her first ever Military mission. In the future, of course, this very same combat bracelet had served as a reminder that that even more important mission had needed to be completed, but upon its success, she’d had to leave that bracelet behind in the future just before her trip back. This newer, less-faded one, however, would now serve as a hope to succeed in this final, vital mission.

----

“Right now, I'd like to know what options remain,” the General had asked in their briefing discussing the issue of a 137-km wide asteroid detected on a direct course to impact Earth.

The Asgard had refused to help, saying they were unable to interfere, which to her was an all-too familiar and rather irritatingly arrogant position that more advanced races all seemed to take. The Tok’ra, too, weren’t able to help either. They’d seemingly fallen into disarray since she’d last seen them in the Risa System, and it looked as though most, including her father, had gone back on the run and for now were uncontactable.

She’d recalled reading that it had been her father who had assisted SG-1 last time round with preventing the asteroid disaster, but of course the Tok’ra hadn’t just nearly been wiped out then. Options had been looking slim for them this time round until Daniel had posited the idea of fixing the crashed cargo ship still on Revanna to nuke the asteroid themselves, at which point she’d become confident that her rekindled Goa’uld knowledge from Jolinar would be more than sufficient to allow her to fix the ship and carry out the plan.

“Well, our understanding of Goa'uld technology has improved quite a bit. We might be able to fix it,” she’d said non-committedly. Internally, however, she’d been more than self-assured that she’d be able to fix it single-handedly.

“How much time?” the General had then asked.

“Given the right team, maybe a couple of days?”

The truth was, she’d been sure she could have handled all the repairs alone, but she’d known that delegating some of the more time-consuming chores to other scientists would serve to mask her new hidden knowledge, and would save on valuable time, too, giving them a larger window to reach the asteroid in time.

“I'll assign anyone you need, Major.”

----

The mission had ended up cutting it far closer than she’d expected. They’d reached the asteroid with much less time than she’d hoped. She’d been able to adjust the sensors of the cargo ship once they’d finally reached it easily enough to detect the naquadah within the asteroid that she’d known to look for, but she’d been surprised by the amount it had held. The report she’d read had missed that detail, and SG-1 and her father must have arrived at the asteroid while it had been days out from reaching Earth, where blowing it up hadn’t proved a problem. This time the ship had had less power and had ended up being pulled in by the intense mass of the naquadah-dense asteroid, having to land on the asteroid itself, and a lack of power had left it unable to take off again. Being so close to Earth, too, they hadn’t been able to detonate the bomb this time, either. In the end, at the last second, she had come up with a way of averting the disaster by riding the rock through the Earth via a hyperspace window.

It had been a close call, she’d thought, as she’d twizzled the combat bracelet around her wrist, sitting in the back of the Tok’ra ship that had eventually come to rescue them from the face of the asteroid, having finally been contacted by the SGC. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that the asteroid had been sent by Anubis himself, and given the changes she herself had caused in the timeline, he had almost succeeded. It had been too close.

----

The following few weeks had then thankfully lined up precisely with the reports she remembered reading. Despite her foreknowledge of the Goa’uld imposter hiding at the Rebel Jaffa camp, she had sat back and allowed events to play out just as they had before when Major Griff had been assigned to the team instead of herself. Though she wondered, with an inward grin, if even he could have nailed the single shot demonstration she’d pulled off, which had been much to the Rebel Jaffa leader’s chagrin.

Several weeks after that had then found her walking among the ruins of a dead, once-advanced city. The dilapidated buildings of the once-advanced city, now mangled with overgrowth, thick vines and grasses had brought back vivid memories of walking alone among the eerily silent ruins of Earth, Vyus and Yu’s planet she’d seen in the future. She’d felt immensely glad at the thought of being together with her team, as she’d followed them to find the source of the faint energy signature that had been detected by the MALP. Their discovery of an abandoned android immediately meant to her that the creator of the Replicators had just been found. Once again, painfully aware that any action she took may lead to drastic changes to the timeline, she’d initially tried her best to stay on the sidelines, merely taking an interest from a scientific standpoint, but it had soon become difficult not to interfere.

The thought had occurred to her that perhaps the reason she had never been able to make contact with the Asgard in the future was because they had lost their war against the Replicators. Knowing in advance that this android was their creator, she’d decided that having the team piece that truth together earlier and contacting the Asgard earlier might be able to make a difference.

Following their return to Earth with the android in tow, and having powered it back up and questioned the surprisingly infantile android, named Reese, she’d advised the Colonel to take a team back to the planet and scour for anything that they might have missed. She even went to the trouble of personally telling the leader of SG-3 who’d be joining the Colonel, to look for anything uncharacteristic of the indigenous technology, and to not ignore anything, even if it seemed insignificant.

Sure enough, as she had expected, the Colonel and SG-3 had later returned with some dead Replicator blocks that they’d found scattered on the planet. Once it had been confirmed that Reese had indeed created the Replicators herself, she’d made the recommendation to General Hammond to involve the Asgard. Unfortunately though, they hadn’t been able to make contact with them at all, and Reese’s self-made Replicators had multiplied and had begun attacking the base. Daniel’s plan to talk Reese into shutting down herself and her ‘toys’ had failed, and the Colonel had been forced to neutralize the android.

The resulting tension and argument that had unleashed between him and Daniel following his decision had been heartbreaking for her to watch unfold. The pair had ended up bickering and seething at each other for days, each believing their way of resolving the Replicator situation had been right. Only she knew that within a few weeks, Daniel would be dead, and it would have torn her apart if the rift that had come between the two men hadn’t been repaired by then.

Chapter Text

Only she knew that within a few weeks, Daniel would be dead, and it would have torn her apart if the rift that had come between the two men hadn’t been repaired by then.

945 days to go

As she and the rest of the team were led around the research facility of the Kelownan nation’s capital, where they were visiting off-world, they were introduced to the senior advisor to their High Minister; a notably friendly, peppy man who seemed to smile a lot. It would have been easy to have been swept up in the man’s enthusiasm and passion for the scientific research that he was overseeing being conducted there, except that once she’d heard the man’s name, it was like an ice cube had been slipped down her back. The man’s name had been Jonas Quinn, and that had meant that this was the day that Daniel would be exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.

She’d spent the remainder of the tour of the facility struggling to take in any information, wanting to be near Daniel and make the most of being in his company for the last few hours that she could. Yet, she’d felt sure ever since she’d first found reference to the naquadriah element that they were about to be introduced to would be vital for her plan of advancing Earth’s technological capabilities in this timeline. Based on the report she’d read in the future, the element looked to be the missing link in terms of generating the kind of energy necessary to create a hyperspace window or shields capable of defending entire ships. The scientists in that timeline hadn’t figured out how to account for its instability, but she was confident that with her Goa’uld knowledge, this time, she could alter the path that research had taken.

Trying to tear her thoughts away from the pain of the impending loss of one of her best friends, and trying to stay focused on her own personal agenda to gain a sample of the naquadria, before she knew it, the team had split. She, the Colonel and Teal’c had been whisked away on a tour of the city, while Daniel, who had found a kindred spirit in Jonas Quinn with a shared passion for cultural history and a love of learning, had remained alone behind together with Jonas.

In some ways, it probably had been for the best that she hadn’t been there to witness the subsequent accident at the research facility. She wasn’t sure if she could have stood by and done nothing while Daniel had gone on to sacrifice himself to save the city and its people from imminent nuclear meltdown, receiving a deadly dose of radiation in return for his heroism and bravery.

The Kelownans, it seemed, had placed full blame for the accident on Daniel and they had been promptly returned back to Earth, leading to the foul mood the Colonel was in when she and the remaining team members had convened in the SGC briefing room. Only Daniel was absent, being treated for severe radiation burns in an isolated medical room.

Despite strongly voicing her opinion trying to emphasise the importance of maintaining diplomatic relations with the Kelownan government in order to secure a source of the valuable naquadria element, she had become greatly concerned that the Colonel was prepared to sabotage any chance at diplomacy in order to get the Kelownans to confess that they’d used Daniel as a scapegoat for their own scientific blunder. At the conclusion of the debriefing, when the Colonel had been ordered by General Hammond to return alone to Kelowna with an official letter of apology to smooth things over with the Kelownan government, she’d decided she would have to track him down alone in the locker room before he could have a chance to gear up.

“Sir,” she called from outside the door, knocking. “Are you decent?”

“Carter,” she heard him respond gruffly from inside.

A few seconds later, the inner latch was unlocked, and the door was opened for her, where sure enough, the Colonel hadn’t had a chance to change out of his BDUs yet.

“Can it not wait?” he asked irritatedly.

She could tell his foul mood from earlier hadn’t dissipated one bit. In fact, if anything, he looked even more irked than he had been at the meeting. She’d made the right choice tracking him down first.

“No, Sir. Actually, I wanted to catch you before you left.”

“I know exactly what you’re going to say, Carter, and I don’t wanna hear it,” he fumed. “I can’t believe you’re putting your excitement over this damn new Naquadah over the sanctity of Daniel’s name,” he spat, looking furious.

“It isn’t like that, Sir. And you know I care about Daniel as much as you do-”

“I’m only doing this-,” and he picked up the envelope from the bench in the middle of the room before slamming it back down in hatred, “-because I am being ordered to. But that doesn’t mean I am okay with kissing their collective asses when they’re happy to throw Daniel’s name under the bus, and neither should you be!”

She was at least grateful for his passion in fighting for their friend. All trace of the falling out the pair had had over the android incident seemed to have been long forgotten.

“Of course I’m not happy with their allegations, Sir,” she cried exasperatedly. “But I cannot strongly emphasise enough how much we need this new element, Sir.”

“I don’t give one shit about that,” he snapped.

“Well you should, Sir,” she said aggressively, knowing she was being borderline insubordinate. “This is about our standing orders, Sir. To seek out technology to aid in our defence against the Goa’uld. This is it,” she repeated, assertively.

She knew her tone was out of line,
but her words seemed to have had an effect. He fell silent, glaring at her, so she seized the chance to continue driving her point home.

“We’re talking about an element with the power generation capability of flying our own ships, Sir. Of generating shields around those ships. This is huge, Sir. This is what we’ve been looking for all this time. Please don’t let Daniel’s sacrifice amount to nothing-”

“The only reason Daniel went and sacrificed himself at all was because of their complete incompetence! Why the hell-,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Their incompetence isn’t their fault! Their knowledge of particle and nuclear physics is 1940’s level at best. We’re lucky we don’t have this kind of element on Earth because I’m sure we would have made the same colossal mistakes decades ago. But we have the knowledge to utilize it, and we can make a difference in this War.”

He stared at her, and she was sure he was considering her words.

“I know how you feel about Daniel, Sir, but we need that element. Please don’t say anything to them that might screw this up for us,” she implored, and he started pacing the room, rubbing his hand through his hair. She was glad to see the tension of his earlier fury looked to be releasing. She’d succeeded in winning him over.

“We just got you back, Carter,” he finally said after a prolonged silence, and his voice was so small that she barely heard him as he faced away from her at the lockers behind him. He’d probably been hiding behind a wall of anger to mask his own grief, but it sounded like his emotions were catching up to him. She wondered if he’d behaved similarly when she’d been missing, too.

“I know,” she whispered back. “I’m not ready to lose Daniel, either,” she admitted, and she could feel her own eyes burning. Even knowing Daniel’s death had been coming had done nothing to dent the building dread at knowing she was going to have to watch him die over the coming day.

“But hey, we’re still trying to get hold of Dad, right? Let’s not count Spacemonkey out just yet, ‘ey?” he said, turning and giving her a pained smile, but the warble in his voice betrayed his own words. It sounded like the Colonel wasn’t convinced Daniel was going to make it this time, and the truth was, he couldn’t make it.

In fact, she’d already caught word that the Tok’ra had been contacted to try to get a reach of her father. There’d been no mention of him in the original report of Daniel’s death in the future, but events were unfolding differently this time, because of her. Last time, her father must have been deep undercover working to undermine one of the System Lords unreachable, but this time he was still trying to round up the last of the unaccounted for Tok’ra. There was a decent chance that he’d be easier to recall this time, and that presented a dire problem.

The sight of the Colonel suddenly reaching to pick up the envelope broke her out of her thoughts, and she caught a flash of the words written in General Hammond’s handwriting on the top, First Minister. Then she watched him study it, before he let out a sigh.

“I’ll do it your way, Carter,” he said, still looking at the paper, before his eyes darted upwards and he met her eyes, making her stomach lurch. “You do usually turn out to be right about these kinds of things,” he grimaced, then shrugged.

She couldn’t help shed a tear over his words. He knew nothing about the future fate of the galaxy that she, alone, had to work to prevent. He knew nothing of how everything would depend on ensuring their mutual friend died today. But it was so comforting for her to hear this confirmation of his belief in her, and the trust that he placed in her.

“Thank you, Sir,” she breathed, trying her best holding back any further sobs. “I appreciate that. I- I better get back to Daniel, then,” she said before quickly excusing herself before she ended up breaking down and crying in front of him, and she left him to gear up.

----

“He looks awful,” she said to Janet, whom she’d been watching from above in the observation room for the past thirty minutes as she’d tended to Daniel.

A couple of nurses were still with him down in the isolated ward, changing his bandages and delicately placing cooling ice packs beneath his crimson limbs, and she stared on unseeing, sickened by the suffering her friend was going through. Daniel’s face was now barely visible beneath the cooling bandages that had been placed on his decaying skin.

“It's gonna get a lot worse, and it's gonna happen fast,” spoke Janet quietly from behind her.

“You sure you're doing everything you can?” she asked, already knowing that Daniel wouldn’t- couldn’t- survive the next twenty-four hours.

“Sedatives and painkillers, that's all we can really do. You have no idea how painful this is going to get,” Janet replied.

As it happened, as she’d been sat alone in silence, keeping a vigil from a distance over the past half hour, a memory of Jolinar’s had stirred within her. The memory was vague, probably from at least five hundred years ago, though she couldn’t be sure. There had been a trojan horse-style attack from when Jolinar had still been a Goa’uld. She’d accepted a gift in her palace, which had then promptly exploded. At first she hadn’t understood the nature of the blast, but later, as the skin of her Jaffa court and her own host had begun to redden with the appearance of painful necrotic sores, she’d understood the explosion to have been a lethal blast wave of radiation. Thankfully, her slaves had been mostly unaffected across her palace, and she’d been able to switch hosts before the pain had become insufferable, but her jaffa-

“You know, I would never normally say this…” Janet continued, and Sam returned her thoughts to the present and of Daniel. “It goes against everything I've been trained to do, but the truth is... He'd be a lot better off if I…” she trailed off.

There was a pause, and suddenly the implication of Janet’s words and the memory of Jolinar congealed in her mind. She knew what she had to do now, and she could almost convince herself that Janet had just given her permission.

----

She’d proposed to Janet and the General, who’d both given the go-ahead, the idea of saving Daniel’s life with the Goa’uld healing device stored on base. The very same device, in fact, that she’d borrowed in the future and used to save her own life on Aschen Prime. Except, this time, she wouldn’t be utilizing its life-saving capabilities. But she couldn’t idly let him suffer, either. As painful as the action she was about to take was, she’d been left with no choice but to intervene. Daniel had to ascend, so that the SGC would learn more about Anubis, and importantly of the Eye of Ra on Abydos. She had to let those events play out again, so she’d have a chance at stopping Anubis from creating the new weapon and destroying Abydos, the Nox, and the entire Goa’uld dominion. Her father, too, might dial in at any moment and arrive to save his life. There was no choice.

The Colonel had just returned from Kelowna, and he, the General, and Teal’c had gathered at the observation deck to watch.

“Daniel,” she called gently once everyone was ready, and it pained her to see that even the effort of opening his eyes to look at her seemed to cost him immense effort amidst the agony he was clearly in. “I didn't suggest this before because, well, the truth is, I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this thing,” she lied. “I could make things worse,” she said, feeling sick at the thought that that was the precise plan she intended to undertake. While she was pretty sure Jolinar had never used the device to inflict damage, she innately knew that it was capable of doing so.

With great effort, Daniel stiffly nodded his consent, and with a nod from Janet, she raised the device above his chest, and activated it. She immediately set to work, focusing her mind on disabling the majority of Daniel’s somatic nervous system so that he wouldn’t have to suffer as much pain for the remainder of the time he had. She then worked to hasten the cellular degradation of his vital organs, commanding the vital cells in his heart ventricles to break down, telling herself in her mind over and over that she wasn’t killing him, that it wasn’t murder, when she knew he was going to ascend and live on.

But as he began to seize, choking on the fluid in his lungs, she instantly flashed back to the scene of the writhing, suffocating bodies in the lobby and outside of the Civil building back on Aschen Prime. She’d murdered thousands there, and now she was doing the exact same again, here. To her best friend.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” she cried as she shut off the device, wrenched it from her hand, tossed it aside, and bolted from the room, unable to bear the sounds of beeping and spluttering issuing from Daniel, as well as Janet’s frantic voice as she worked to stabilize him.

She ran straight for the women’s bathroom on the same floor where she dashed into the furthest stall from the entrance, locked the door and promptly threw up into the toilet bowl. When she was done heaving, she collapsed to the floor, hunching her body tight, then sobbed hard at the thought of what else she might be forced to do before she could save everyone.

----

Later, when her father had indeed been tracked down and had come to try to save Daniel, she knew the steps she’d already taken would ensure that he couldn’t be saved. She’d kept up her charade, even asked him to, “Do all you can,” expecting her father to soon give up trying to heal him, but to her surprise, he didn’t.

The humming of the activated device rang on and on as Selmak refused to give up on saving Daniel, and she suddenly became struck by the terrifying thought that Selmak might even guess that some of the damage had been deliberately caused. She already knew of her failed attempt to save Daniel, but what if she somehow found a way to undo the damage she’d done?

As she anxiously stood in silence, watching on as her father continued to work the device, praying that his attempt would fail, a blink of an eye later, she abruptly found herself staring outside the window of a ship looking at the rocky remnants of the Nox homeworld.

Before her brain could even register the paradox of being aboard the Al’kesh again, a calm, female voice spoke from behind her.

“The more you seek it, the more it will remain out of reach.”

She immediately spun around to see a smart woman dressed in a blazer with a strange, white glow about her despite a lack of light source.

“What?” she asked, completely taken aback by the woman unknown to her. “Who are you?”

“Because it is so clear, it takes a longer time to realise it.”

“Realize what?” she asked, utterly confused, but the woman merely stared at her as though she was waiting for something.

Suddenly her brain caught up. Hadn’t she just been watching her father and Selmak trying to heal Daniel? How could she possibly be here on the Al’kesh again, unless…

“You’re Oma Desala?” she surmised, and the smile upon the woman’s lips confirmed her guess. “You’re the one helping Daniel to ascend?”

“Many roads lead to the Great Path. Only the willing will find their way.”

“Daniel is willing, isn’t he?” she asked, assuming that this ‘Great Path’ was her term for ascension.

“He is ready to complete the journey he began on Kheb. But I know, now, that this is not the first time he has walked the path to enlightenment.”

She’d read her mind, she realised, thunderstruck. She knew everything.

“You looked at my memories. Why?”

“A bull cannot hide in short grass,” she replied whimsically.

“Sorry, what?” and she was reminded of the Colonel irritatedly talking about the Monk on Kheb who’d spoken in such riddles.

“The river tells no lies. Given time, all knowledge can be known.”

“Right, I know that,” she replied, recalling that Orlin had used those exact same words on this ship. “Are you here to help me?”

“If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current, how can he help others across?”

“Sorry, I don’t get what you’re saying.”

“Drop by drop is the water pot filled. You must empty the cup overflowed with burden.”

“Burden? You mean my mission? Or are you talking about my guilt towards it?”

“Lightning flashes, sparks shower, and in one blink of your eyes you have missed seeing.”

“Missed seeing? What am I missing? What are you trying to tell me?”

“The more you seek it, the more it remains out of reach.”

“Oh boy,” she said, rubbing her face with her palm. She’d thought Orlin’s answers had been cryptic when he’d spoken to her on this Al’kesh, but this Oma Desala character was on a whole other level. “Yes, you said that before,” she said, trying to sound as patient as possible.

A second later, however, she found herself back beside the gurney where Daniel’s bandaged body lay still. The heart monitor’s beeping had screeched to a drawn out tone, and the EKG reading flatlined. Temporary or not, necessary or not, it was still gut-wrenching to witness him die. Then, as she fought back the tears and guilt at his death, his body changed to a white, floating, glowing form, and he arose to begin a new journey.

’Thank you, Oma Desala,’ she thought, grateful that her friend was being aided to cheat death and become something greater, and hopefully more powerful, towards the cause against Anubis.

“Knowledge is power, but wisdom does not always equate truth, Samantha,” Oma’s voice suddenly whispered through her mind. “You cannot seek to travel the path until you have become the path itself. Remember that.”

Chapter Text

“Knowledge is power, but wisdom does not always equate truth, Samantha,” Oma’s voice suddenly whispered through her mind. “You cannot seek to travel the path until you have become the path itself. Remember that.”

855 days to go

She’d still barely begun to deal with what she’d had to do to the Aschen, and now the fresh memory of how she’d hastened Daniel’s death plagued her. She could still feel the way she’d attacked his vital organs with her own mind when she closed her eyes in bed. She could still see the way he’d writhed, just like the Aschen bodies had as they’d suffocated to death by her hand. And so, as before, she’d buried herself back into the X-302 spacecraft project as a means to deal with the trauma she carried with her.

Jonas Quinn, the Kelownan who’d been overseeing the research that had led to Daniel's death, had abandoned his planet in shame of his government’s cover-up, smuggling with him a quantity of stolen naquadriah. With SG-1 down a team member, she’d immediately jumped at the opportunity to lead the research on the element, flying the samples herself to Area 51 and spending time there on-and-off over the next three months working on calibrating the X-302’s hyperdrive system to work with naquadriah. She’d also assisted with the last of the repairs to the cargo ship that, with the Tok’ra’s help, they’d recovered from the crater on the asteroid that had been sent by Anubis just over a month prior to Daniel’s death.

Teal’c also took the brief down time to spend some time with his family, who were living at a Jaffa refugee camp under the care of Bra’tac, as well as accompanying SG-3 on more dangerous missions. The Colonel, however, did nothing but brood over the loss of Daniel, and the way he would steadfastly refuse to discuss the topic of him all, practically pretending as though he’d never existed, came to her incredible annoyance.

”This is the job. We lose people all the time,” he’d said, and it had taken all of her self-control not to lash out at him in full view of the surrounding Airmen in the base corridor.

Unlike her, he didn’t have the comforting foreknowledge that Daniel would be back in their lives in just over a years’ time, assuming things played out the same as before. She just couldn’t fathom how he could be saying such things and behaving this way when as far as he was concerned, he was out of their lives for good. Daniel hadn’t just been their co-worker, nor just any teammate. He’d been their friend, and even knowing he would return, she still found his absence incredibly painful. She desperately missed him, and the Colonel’s flippant attitude over his loss only served to cause resentment to build towards him. Not to mention, he was still twiddling his thumbs over choosing a new, fourth member for their team. She’d expected him to select Major Griff like last time and be done with it, but this time he hadn’t. Instead, to her irritation, the Colonel had insisted the team remain on regular mission rota, meaning that she’d been continually pulled deep out of her work to trial new potential members for SG-1, which had been disaster after disaster.

Another distraction from her work on building the new naquadriah-based hyperdrive had been their drafting onto a mission by the Asgard. After several weeks of failed contact via K’Tau’s Hall of Wisdom regarding the discovery of the now-terminated Replicator-creator android, they had finally received an answer, and Freyr had paid a visit to the SGC.

It had transpired that the Asgard’s war with the Replicators had taken a turn for the worse, and Freyr had gratefully taken the android back with him through the gate with high hopes that its study could help turn the tide in their war. Sam wondered whether the reason the Asgard had never answered her calls in the future had been because they had finally lost their War against the Replicators. She supposed it had probably been a good thing that she’d been injured on Cimmeria, as it had caused her to take drastic action by going to Yu’s planet, which had led to her meeting Orlin. She wondered how much more time she might have wasted trying to contact the probably long-dead Asgard had she not sprained her ankle. At the time, she hadn’t known that the clock had been ticking against her until Anubis had learned of her, and any more time-wasting could have cost her and the other Sam.

Freyr had also brought news that Osiris, whom Daniel had learned at the Goa’uld summit to be one of Anubis’s minions, had suddenly come to possess shields capable of repelling Asgard weapons. Of course, only Sam knew that Anubis had access to advanced knowledge via his ascension, and was thus able to build technology far superior to that of ordinary Goa’uld level, but the development had taken the Asgard by complete surprise, and Thor had been kidnapped in the ensuing battle.

Thinking back to the mission reports she’d read, as well as the information contained in Yu’s database, Anubis was repeating history in some ways, steadily coming out of the shadows and moving into a more offensive position. But it struck her as odd that history seemed to be unfolding in a slightly different manner this time. Anubis had already wiped out most of the Tok’ra, and this time he had even dared go so far as to boldly kidnap an Asgard. She wondered if by chance, Thor hadn’t been in the Milky Way last time. Freyr had mentioned that their war with the Replicators was at a crucial stage. Perhaps by random chance, the timing of them contacting Earth had simply played out slightly differently. Or, was it possible her efforts to steer the SGC into contacting the Asgard earlier when they’d first found the android could have somehow influenced their war?

“Knowledge is power, but wisdom does not always equate truth, Samantha,” Oma had advised.

She’d spent some time since Daniel had left their plane of existence to try to contemplate Oma’s words. An ascended being wouldn’t have reached out to her if it hadn’t been important, but of all the frankly puzzling things she’d said- something about water pots, burdens, even something about becoming the path itself- but the near-last words she’d imparted were probably the least cryptic. She’d guessed she could only have been trying to warn her that things wouldn’t necessarily go to her plan, and honestly, the thought had almost made her laugh. With thirty-six years of life experience under her belt, she’d already learned as much herself. She’d lost her mother at a young age. She’d grown up estranged from her brother and father. She’d passed up in a career as an astronaut because she already had a job visiting other planets. Another future version of her self had died protecting her. No, things definitely didn’t ever go to plan in her life, so that surely couldn’t have been the most pressing lesson Oma had been trying to teach.

If only Daniel had still been around to help her unriddle the other oddities Oma had said, she’d thought glumly.

Then, before she’d known it, the Colonel had agreed to the Asgard’s assignment, and the three remaining members of SG-1 had flown the now fully-repaired cargo ship to a planet in the Milky Way to rescue a stranded Asgard scientist. She’d ended up glad when the Colonel had assigned her to stay in the hidden lab under the planet’s surface when he and Teal’c had gone to rescue Thor from Osiris’ ship, because Anubis himself had unexpectedly shown up to interrogate Thor. If she herself had been captured on the ship- as the Colonel and Teal’c had ended up doing so- the thought that Anubis could have had a chance at accessing her knowledge of him was absolutely terrifying.

Still, safely hidden underground on the planet with the Asgard scientist Heimdall, the mere thought that Anubis himself had been up in orbit had distracted her from her plan to get the Colonel and Teal’c off the ship. She’d fumbled over giving them directions as she’d tried to lead them safely through the ship. Waiting for them at their next checkpoint in hologram form in the silent ship’s corridor, transmitted from her safe location in the Asgard lab, she’d been petrified at how close she was to Anubis. In all this time, following those months of fearing him and racing against him in the future, she’d never come this physically close to him. Hell, aside from the smoke being she’d seen in Jolinar’s memory, she didn’t even know what he looked like, and she certainly had no desire to find out.

Thankfully, in the end, while the mission to rescue Thor had been highly risky, and Sam had just barely escaped the clutches of Osiris when the secret lab had been discovered, they had successfully escaped from Anubis, with Thor in tow.

Following the mission, feeling disconcerted by Anubis’ more antagonistic actions this time round, as well as feeling lonely from the distance Daniel’s death had caused between herself and her other team mates, knowing that Jonas Quinn would most likely end up as the fourth member of SG-1, Sam had decided to try to befriend him. Jonas was now living on the base as a refugee from his home planet, and had received permission to make use of Daniel’s now empty office. She’d been highly surprised to learn that the man had a natural eagerness to learn, along with the ability to retain information at a far greater capacity than a normal human, reminding her of the effects of the Aschen tunics that she had read about in the Aschen database, and that Joe had talked about in his own debrief.

As well as getting to know Jonas better, she’d also done as she always did when she needed a distraction, and had promptly buried herself back into the X-302 project. SG-1 had gotten through nine candidates for a new member, none of which had impressed the Colonel, and he had finally conceded to taking SG-1 off regular mission rota. Grateful for the additional down time, she’d spent more and more time in Nevada, personally overseeing work on many of the key systems, as well as writing several of the necessary safety subroutines herself, as well as giving her opinion on the final design together with the team of engineers. With her help, the project had ended up being completed far ahead of schedule, and as it had turned out, the fate of everyone on Earth had depended on it.

----

An incoming wormhole that had refused to shut down even after the thirty-eight minute cut-off a wormhole could remain sustained, had trapped Teal’c, who had just left to visit his ailing wife, as well as several other SG teams on ongoing missions off-world. Initially, the detection of a minute energy transmission coming through the gate hadn’t seemed to be much more than an anomalous signal, until she’d calculated that the energy would be absorbed and continue to build-up within the gate’s naquadah-structure. It was then set to become charged, which would cause the gate to explode in just over three days’ time, with enough force to destroy the entire state of Colorado with it. The resulting environmental effects were certain to eventually wipe out all life on Earth along with it.

She’d stared dumbfounded at the numbers she’d calculated on her screen. This had never turned up in any of the reports she’d read. Was it possible this incident had been classified and covered up, just like the foothold incursion she’d almost single-handedly averted three years prior?

Either way, she’d had no idea how to avert the imminent explosion of the gate, and the addition of one annoying Doctor McKay shipped in from Russia to ‘help’ had only added to her problem.

She had, however, admittedly enjoyed the run-up to co-piloting the finalized X-302 for their attempt to reach the Asgard by initiating the hyperdrive that she had worked so hard on the past few months.

“I see you’re feeling pretty confident about the mission,” the Colonel had commented with a smirk playing on his lips. He probably hadn’t missed the bounce in her steps as they’d marched up to the completed craft in their flight suits.

“You’re not, Sir?” she’d asked, unable to stop herself from grinning with excitement.

“You know me and gliders, Carter. Not the best track record.”

The Colonel and Teal’c had previously been sent into deep space and nearly met a cold, hypoxic death by the X-301 retrofitted glider, but she’d felt rather insulted that he would refer to the X-302 simply as a ‘glider’. She’d poured her heart and soul into this project over the past three months. This ship was her baby; with its systems and capabilities far, far more sophisticated than a mere Goa’uld death glider.

“Sir, I practically built the X-302’s systems myself. I know her safety subroutines inside out. Nothing’ll go wrong, Sir. But if it does, and I stress, if, we’ll be fine.”

He’d then stopped in his approach to the hangar to give her a drawn-out side glance, before saying, “I don’t trust the idiots who screwed up last time,” he’d said, scowling and waving towards the engineers still bobbing around the hangar making final preparations. “But I do trust you, Carter. If you say it’s safe, then it’s safe.”

“Thank you, Sir, I appreciate that,” she’d beamed. She really did appreciate the trust he put in her. He may have been only talking about the X-302, but it meant to much to her that he still trusted in her after the cover story she’d had to sell, and after the death of Daniel which was quite literally partly by her hand.

“Time to see if that super-naquadah you insisted I get proves its worth, then?”

“Yes, Sir,” and she hadn’t helped burst into a full-on grin as they entered the hangar, where the atmosphere was electric. The engineers still buzzing around had been working round the clock for months, and they, too, were clearly as excited as she was for the launch. “And if we successfully contact the Asgard and save Earth, do I get to say an, ‘I told you so’?”

“Yeah sure you betcha,” he’d beamed back, before being assisted to climb up to take the front seat of the cockpit.

She’d felt glad the banter was back between them. She could feel her previous resentment towards him over his reaction of Daniel’s death fading. They were reconnecting over their joint love of piloting, and she could feel her elation and excitement rise even more at the thought.

“You know, Sir,” she’d said, as they buckled themselves into the cockpit seats. “If this works, we’ll be making history as pilots of the first ever fully Earth-built craft capable of interstellar travel.”

“Okay, I gotta say, that is pretty cool,” and the way he’d turned in his seat to return her grin had made her insides squirm even more than the G’s they’d pulled as they’d shot into orbit just minutes later.

----

Unfortunately, the naquadriah had proven too unstable. The hyperdrive engine had failed to hold a lock on their coordinates to Abydos, and to her immense disappointment, the mission had been scrubbed. She was expecting to feel the resentment return when the Colonel would surely start making jokes about the failure of the engine she’d worked so hard on, but to her surprise, he hadn’t said a word. As a fellow pilot, he must have been feeling just as gutted as she was that their mission hadn’t been a success. They were out of options, and the clock was still ticking down until the gate exploded.

Several hours later, back on base, to her great irritation all the other scientists spent the remainder of the day continually throwing glances in her direction. She knew they were expecting her to miraculously come up with a new, brilliant plan, as admittedly, she often did. But this time she was completely stumped, and struggling under the pressure, she’d ended up hiding out in her own lab to consider the conundrum alone. Forget trying to save the entire galaxy from Anubis, she’d thought to herself sulkily. She’d only been back in her time period less than four months and it was already looking like she was going to fail to save Earth- herself along with it- from a seemingly simple attack from an unknown assailant. It was so frustrating, and she was getting nowhere. There was no feasible way of shutting down the gate from their side. She’d already ruled out sending a signal from their side to disrupt whatever weapon was being used on the other side, and she’d been unable to come up with a way of draining the already stored energy within the gate for as long as the gate remained active.

Just as she was considering joining the Colonel for a break in the commissary, a sudden widespread power loss on the base drew both herself and the Colonel to the Gate Room, where she was surprised to see a towering hologram appear, not unlike the technology the Asgard possessed to transmit messages through a closed iris. This, however, was no Asgard. The dark, cloaked figure, its face no more than a rippling, dark shadow, then spoke with a slow, booming voice that resounded around the concrete walls of the Gate Room.

“I… am... Anubis.”

Her heart stopped dead in its tracks at the realization that the attack on the gate had been instigated by Anubis. This incident hadn’t been covered up last time- no, there could be no doubt now that this simply had never happened before.

“There is nothing that can stop the destruction I bring upon you. Prepare to meet your doom,” he thundered, and she stiffened, her heart hammering fast inside her rib cage as he turned to look her right in the face. He bore no eyes, nor any facial features at all, but she could feel him deliberately directing his focus upon her.

‘He knows,’ she thought, paralyzed by the ramifications of the thought as she continued to stare blankly at the gate even after the hologram transmission had cut off. She barely registered the Colonel’s continued nonchalant comments about Anubis’ speech. The form of Anubis was permanently burned into her eyes. After all this time, she could finally put a face to his name - and it was horrific. He didn’t even have a face, and there was no mistaking the sight of that same black smoke-ish energy form his face had been made of that she’d seen in Jolinar’s memory.

She had no proof, but she was sure that he knew of her. It was like a sense within her had been triggered, causing every hair on her body to stand on end with the implication that Anubis was targeting her specifically. But how could he possibly even know?

“Given time, all knowledge can be known.”

Both Orlin and Oma Desala had spoken those words to her. She was pretty sure Oma Desala would have no motive to deliberately reveal her to Anubis. In fact, she was fairly confident she was trying to help her. Instead, had Anubis simply learned of her naturally through his ascended state? Like a process of osmosis? Orlin had found her in the future about a month after she’d been sent there, and Oma had found out about her memories when she had hastened Daniel’s death. She’d been back in this time frame for almost four months. Was it possible that all the Others knew about her by now?

”A bull cannot hide in short grass.”

No. She’d been in proximity to him on the ship when they’d rescued Thor just over a month prior. Could it have been then? Was that what Oma Desala was trying to warn her of? It was plenty possible, even though she hadn’t had any indication to guess that Anubis had even known she was there. Osiris had only found her at the last moment before Heimdall had beamed her away from her clutches. But if Anubis had accessed her mind, perhaps that was how the lab had been found at all...

----

In the end, Jonas had inspired an idea at the last moment to use the X-302’s unstable hyperdrive to spare Earth from the gate’s explosion. The charged gate had been sent several million miles away by a short hyperspace burst, taking her X-302 with it, to where the blast had been harmless to Earth from a distance. The Colonel, who had piloted the craft, had ejected last-second and thankfully survived, and the atmosphere in the SGC Control Room at the news of their success had been nothing but jubilant.

But she hadn’t been able to join in with the celebrations going on around her. She'd barely heard the sounds of whoops and cheers, of papers being thrown in the air and the sound of congratulatory pats on backs. The thought that Anubis knew of her now had left her feeling more alone than ever, and if true, then what would stop Anubis from attacking Earth all over again?

“The more you seek it, the more it remains out of reach.”

They’d narrowly staved off Anubis’ attacks on Earth by the skin of their teeth twice now. But in trying to save everyone in the galaxy, what if she was simply making things worse?

Chapter Text

They’d narrowly staved off Anubis’ attacks on Earth by the skin of their teeth twice now. But in trying to save everyone in the galaxy, what if she was simply making things worse?

827 days to go

Despite the destruction of the gate, a second gate had been installed, on-loan from Russia, and the SGC program was open for business again. To her surprise, Teal’c’s son, Ry’ac, had reportedly destroyed the weapon Anubis had been using to send the energy through to Earth’s gate. The weapon had been located on a planet in Anubis’ domain, and from Teal’c’s description, it had been of Ancient design.

’The weapon is on a planet,’ had been the final message written by her other self in the notebook still hidden in her lab.

Everyone was assuming that, like any ordinary Goa’uld, Anubis had merely scavenged the weapon when he’d claimed the planet into his territory, eventually learning how to use it after long-term study. No one guessed that he might have built it, and assuming that he wouldn’t have a deep knowledge of the weapon’s workings, no one was expecting that Anubis could fix it now that it was destroyed, and that they were safe now.

Only she knew that he had ascended. Only she knew that he would have gained a mastery for such technology, similar to how Orlin had knowledge of how to build the weapon on Velona, or how to build his own basic stargate. She was certain it wouldn’t be long before he caught word that Earth had survived, and that he would soon repair or rebuild the weapon elsewhere to begin his attack on Earth all over again.

Yet still, she considered, lying on her on-base bunk, twiddling her combat bracelet absentmindedly. Perhaps she was overreacting. Perhaps General Hammond and the others were right. Surely, as an ascended being, Anubis was bound to the same rules that Orlin had been. Anubis wouldn’t have been permitted to use his advanced knowledge to build the weapon, would he? But assuming he hadn’t, she didn’t know if repairing the weapon with ascended knowledge would fall under that same banner.

Unsure as to whether Anubis would indeed simply restart the attack, but not wanting to lie idly in wait, she’d already made the decision to warn Bra’tac and the Tok’ra in person when she next contacted them, and advise them that Anubis was likely to repair the weapon or rebuild it elsewhere, and to be more vigilant of Anubis’ movements. She’d also already developed and installed a system that would drain the capacitors from the new gate should it fall prey to the same attack. Other than that, though, there seemed to be no more action she could take, and she was left feeling like a sitting duck as another week passed. She felt vulnerable, like her life was in limbo, simply waiting to see if another attack would come.

In the meantime however, at least the Colonel had finally decided upon Jonas Quinn as the new fourth member of their team. While he’d told her a story about wanting to block the Russian government from assigning a Russian soldier to SG-1, she sensed that he had in fact seen the same potential in Jonas that she had, despite his initial vocal misgivings. Jonas was a quick-thinker, fast learner, and had a memory capacity that she was particularly envious of. As soon as she’d got the gate drainage power system up and running, she’d then spent some time training Jonas in the gym, teaching him the basics of Earth weapons fire at the SGC shooting range, releasing some stress and frustration of her own in the process.

----

Not ten days following the attack from Anubis on the gate, the sounding of the base alarm had her racing to the Control Room from her bunk in the middle of the night. She’d been right to choose to sleep on base, she thought, as she looked on in horror at the fuzzy photo sent by Cairn Deep Space Radar showing what was unmistakably a Goa’uld Hatak-class vessel. Her fears were confirmed. The ship was heading straight for Earth. Anubis was coming.

She hastily advised Colonel Reynolds, the most senior officer on duty while General Hammond was home for the night, that their best bet would be to immediately contact the Asgard. While they didn’t know the identity of the approaching Goa’uld, any attack on Earth was in breach of the Protected Planets Treaty, and if they could reach the Asgard in time, they might be able to stave off the attack. What she didn’t bother mentioning to him, however, was that if the ship was one of Anubis’- which it more than likely was- then their upgraded shields would likely prove too strong for even the Asgard, as they’d learned when Thor had been captured.

It was all over already, and it was her fault for allowing Anubis to find out about her that day.

Forty-five minutes later, SG-10 had already reported back that the Asgard had once again failed to answer their calls. The cavalry wouldn’t be coming. General Hammond and the rest of SG-1 had been called in, joining herself and Reynolds in the Control Room, where they all watched the chaotic scene in the Gate Room below as evacuees- most having just been woken up- raced to ready themselves to gate to the Alpha Site.

A call from Dr Murphy at Area 51 informed them that their only remaining line of defence following the recent loss of the X-302, the cargo ship they’d flown back following Thor’s rescue, was ready to launch. One tiny, pitiful Tel’tak against a gigantuous mothership, which more than likely had an entire backup fleet on its tail. ‘What hope would that serve?’ she thought to herself dully, and to her relief, General Hammond and the President, had agreed. Only Teal’c was considered proficient enough to the cargo ship in battle conditions, and there was no way to get Teal’c to Area 51 in time. Instead, he was advised to join the evacuation teams as his life was deemed too important in the continued campaign against the Goa’uld, even if Earth wouldn’t survive. However, as she expected, Teal’c wouldn’t leave until contact with the ship could be made, citing that his ability to translate Goa’uld may be needed.

She held her breath as the Ha’tak finally reached Earth’s orbit, and NASA deep space patched through a radio to be transmitted to the ship.

“This is General Hammond of Stargate Command, Earth. Your presence is in violation of the Protected Planets’ Treaty. Stand down, or the Asgard will attack,” he boomed in such an authoritative voice that even she almost bought the bluff. She was in awe of how collected he looked despite how he must surely be feeling inside. She, herself, certainly felt nothing but sick and completely helpless. Earth was about to be attacked, they might all be facing death within hours, and aside from trying to contact the Asgard again she was flat out of ideas.

A heavy minute went by, though it felt far longer, but no reply came even following the General’s reiteration.

“Are we sure they can even hear us?” he asked aloud.

She took a seat at the computer terminal beside Sergeant Harriman and had a look for herself at the radio transmission data. It was of a frequency and signal strength that a Goa’uld ship in orbit should be able to pick up. They’d used the very same signal when communicating with Teal’c, Bra’tac and Ry’ac when they’d all flown to Earth by cargo ship a week prior; Bra’tac had since flown that ship back home now.

“Should be reading us five-by-five, Sir,” she confirmed.

The General gave a sigh, as though he’d been hoping for a different reply.

“Dial the Alpha Site, Sergeant,” he ordered, and with a nod and a press at the keyboard, the gate whirred into life, encoding the chevrons one by one.

“Proceed with evacuation,” the General then spoke into the tannoy mic, and his words were met with nods and looks of trepidation by the people below who pulled their bags and supplies more securely, readying to step through the dialling gate. “Groups one and two will go through first, followed by Three and Four on my command.”

Once the gate had dialled, the groups began filing through the gate as quickly as they could, slowed down lugging their heavy boxes and containers. As the last of Group Two disappeared, a tense minute then followed as the ship continued its silence.

It would surely soon move into an attacking formation and start bombarding Earth’s cities any second now, she thought. Likely starting with Cheyenne Mountain as it was already over the North American Continent. It would surely be able to detect an active gate’s signature from orbit.

She warned the General that their position might be compromised, and General Hammond promptly gave the order for Groups Three and Four who had been waiting in the side corridors to proceed with their evacuation. He then surprised her by suggesting that she join the next group.

She knew she ought to. She had to protect herself and the knowledge she held, but she just couldn’t give up on thinking of something. It surely couldn’t end like this. She hadn’t been through everything- getting back to her own time, wiping out the entire Aschen civilization to safeguard Earth from invasion- only for it to be attacked less than four months later her return.

Deciding instead that she would join the evacuation the moment the ship opened fire on Earth, she stood firmly where she was, listening to Hammond’s continued unanswered attempts to contact the ship.

And after ten minutes, however, to everyone’s surprise, the ship still hadn’t opened fire. In fact, it hadn't done anything at all.

Following the General’s authorization, she logged in to NORAD’s system and accessed one of their higher-orbit satellites to hone in on the ship’s position, where it indicated that the mothership was emitting very little EM. It was, for all appearances, dead in the water.

But that was impossible. How could a mothership have flown itself all the way to Earth and then be emitting little power? It must be a trick, and Teal’c agreed with her. But Deep Space Radar wasn’t detecting any sign of a back-up fleet. There seemed to be no more ships coming. What was going on?

It was around 06:00 hours, an arduous tension-filled five hours after the ship’s first arrival, when the President called and gave the order for SG-1 to take the cargo ship in Area 51 up to investigate, and that Major Davis from the Pentagon would be joining them for what was now being proposed as a ‘salvage mission’. She was opposed to the command- Anubis was surely lying in wait on the ship for her- but she couldn’t come up with a viable reason to defy the President’s order. General Hammond had already sent word to the Tok’ra, too, to advise them that they were under attack by an unknown assailant, most likely Anubis, and her father had replied, asking to join the mission. Again, she didn’t want her father to be put in danger, but she had to admit that Selmak’s knowledge of mothership’s workings and piloting skills could prove invaluable, so she’d said nothing. She also requested that Dr Friesen join them, a scientist with whom she’d worked closely at Area 51 on the X-302 project and while they’d been repairing the cargo ship. He was one of their best engineers, with a good knowledge of Goa’uld technology.

Four hours later, the crew of seven were approaching the mothership. Scans showed no lifesigns, but as an ascended being, she doubted that Anubis would be detected. He was surely lying in wait, alone aboard the ship, waiting for them. Teal’c and Jonas were ordered to stay behind, and she felt nothing but apprehension as she boarded the ship with the Colonel, Dad, Davis and Friesen. The unexplained garbled sound coming through the ship’s intercom system, as well as the discovery of the ship’s self-destruct countdown stuck part-way didn’t help improve her level of fear, either. The empty ship, exactly the same appearance-wise as the one she had boarded in hologram-form when they’d rescued Thor, was positively creepy.

Ten minutes aboard the ship, however, nothing had happened. There was no sign of Anubis, nor anyone else for that matter, and by the time she’d made it to the sealed-off computer core room, its entrance bearing several staff weapon basts, she’d begun to let her guard down slightly. It was looking more like the ship had been sabotaged than anything else, and if Anubis hadn’t shown himself yet, she didn’t see what he would be waiting for. Perhaps he wasn’t here at all. Perhaps the ship had been sabotaged and abandoned on its way to Earth, and it had then simply continued on its pre-programmed course unmanned, similar to how she’d set the autopilot for the Al’kesh she’d flown to the Nox homeworld in the future.

Colonel O’Neill assisted with blasting their way into the computer core room, where she immediately hooked up her computer to access the computer logs. She also set up a diagnostic to try to find out what happened to the ship, as well as to determine what was wrong with the self-destruct’s timer.

After confirming from the basic ship’s log that this was indeed the very same ship that had been in orbit of the Asgard’s secret laboratory a little over two months prior, she began to suspect even more that Anubis wasn’t on board at all. Records showed that the ship had been travelling to Earth on low power for almost two weeks. She wondered whether perhaps the saboteur was none other than Thor, whose mind had been linked to the ship’s computer while Anubis had probed his mind. Though they hadn’t made contact with the Asgard since his rescue, nor heard from Thor, she couldn’t help wonder whether the Asgard had left something behind in the ship’s systems to steer it to Earth once the crew had abandoned ship as perhaps a thank you gift?

Shortly after, while Major Davis was occupied with examining the crystal hardware of the core, and the Colonel had gone to check on Dr Friesen, who seemed too immersed in his own study of the ship to answer his radio calls, an opportunity presented itself. Stifling the sinking feeling that Friesen’s radio silence could mean something more sinister, she quickly got to work before Major Davis might see what she was doing. While she’d known just enough Goa’uld before her trip to the future to be able to confirm that this was the ship Thor had been on, her ability to work around the security and access the more restricted sections of the ship’s log would raise eyebrows.

Anubis seemed foolishly overconfident, considering the ease at which she managed to gain access. He likely never imagined that anyone working against him would ever have the chance to gain access to this kind of information.

She quickly found in the database up-to-date information on his domain. His territory included fifty-seven systems spread across a territory of approximately one kiloparsec, and she also found detailed information on each of their stargate addresses, the population of Jaffa on them, and when he had taken control of them. This information was a gold mine, and was more than she could have hoped for. She quickly began to download the information onto her computer, before accessing the file on the planet where the weapon that had attacked Earth was listed. It seemed that he’d only discovered the planet, and thus the weapon, around twelve months prior. She quickly ran a search for any other weapons on the other planets in his domain, but nothing came up. If, as she’d begun to guess, Anubis wasn’t permitted to build any weapons, then he might only be able to utilize those already constructed. That explained why he was gathering the Eyes of the Goa’uld, too, rather than simply constructing new ones. She guessed he wasn’t allowed.

Having downloaded the information on the extent of his domain to her laptop, she then moved on to making a search for her own name or that of the Tauri, hoping to find proof that he had indeed learned about her that day she had been on the ship as a hologram, but nothing came up. Of course, unlike Yu’s database where she’d read his colourful entries regarding Anubis, Anubis himself didn’t seem the type to keep a diary.

She did however learn that he had already found three of the six Eyes of the Goa’uld. Of course she’d seen Anubis claim the green Eye of Osiris in her memory of Jolinar. Anubis had accused Kronus of stealing it from Morrigan, and she could only assume that Morrigan must have come across it when Osiris had been sealed in the canopic jar on Earth.

She read, too, that Anubis had recently acquired the Eye of Apophis. She guessed that following Apophis’ demise only a year ago, Anubis would have wasted no time claiming his old territory and finding his Eye. She was however surprised that Anubis had somehow tracked down and recovered the Eye of Tiamat from the rubble of the ziggurat that had collapsed a year and a half ago prior. It had been a mission that had gone spectacularly badly, ending in the loss of the jewel as well as three of the four members of the Russian unit that had accompanied them.

But Anubis had found it regardless, and he seemed to be working fast. She knew the Eye of Ra was hidden on Abydos, and that only left two more- Balor’s and Ba’al’s. Although Daniel had said following his attendance at the Goa’uld summit that Ba’al had voted to agree to allow Anubis’ return, she knew that in the other timeline, he had later come to oppose Anubis. She didn’t expect that he would simply hand over his Eye. And Balor had died millennia ago, but that likely wouldn’t stop Anubis from hunting down the entire galaxy. He’d found Osiris’ easily enough. And the more his domain expanded, the more likely it would be that he would come to learn of this information. And as more planets added to his territory, the sooner he would come across the weapon capable of destroying all human life in the galaxy. She needed to hurry up.

Her thoughts were torn away from Anubis as her radio suddenly crackled to life.

“Carter. I want you and Davis back in the pel'tak with Jacob,” ordered the Colonel in a hushed voice.

“What's going on, Sir?” she asked tentatively, whispering back, dreading to hear that some trace of Anubis or threat to themselves had been found.

“Friesen's dead.”

'Shit,’ she thought. Maybe Anubis was here after all. She couldn’t let him know what she’d learned about him. After confirming the previous download was finished, she snapped her laptop shut before quickly falling back to the bridge together with Major Davis to the increased safety of where her father was.

----

In the end, it had been another mission that had rapidly turned downhill. Thankfully, Anubis hadn’t ended up being aboard, but a few of his higher-ranking Jaffa had managed to avoid detection. They’d killed Dr. Friesen, attacked her father, then set the ship to break from orbit and plunge into the Pacific Ocean. It had been a close call, with an impressive rescue pulled off by their newest team member, Jonas, and thankfully she, the rest of the team members, her laptop, and Thor’s consciousness that had been stored in the ship’s computer, had successfully escaped before they’d drowned.

Later, when they were home and dry back on the base, she ran through the information she’d downloaded from Anubis’ ship. Having accessed the detail for each planet in his domain, she could find no indication that any piece of technology with the capability of enabling him to dial all planets in the Milky Way at once and disintegrate all human beings in a single strike had been found yet. Thank god she still had time, she thought to herself.

This intel was far too valuable to keep a secret, but not yet wanting to admit to everyone the extent at which she could now read Goa’uld, she decided instead to take a chance.

She called her father to her lab and lied, saying that for some reason she had been slowly regaining her memories from Jolinar over time, and since a Tok’ra had never died within a surviving host before, to her relief Semlak didn’t even question her story. She then explained that she had been able to gather valuable intel from Anubis’ ship before it had been lost at the bottom of the ocean, but citing that she didn’t want the SGC to find out the extent of her memories for fear that she would be experimented upon like the time she’d been kidnapped by a wealthy businessman, Adrian Conrad, or questioned by the NID, she had reservations. Thankfully, having seen for himself the importance of the information she’d gathered, her father and Selmak both agreed to take credit for obtaining the intel while they’d been alone on the ship’s pel’tak, later handing it to Hammond before their return to the new Tok’ra base, as well as taking a copy of the intel with them.

She’d almost drowned twice, but she’d learned that Anubis had collected three of the six Eyes of the Goa’uld, and thanks to her, the Tok’ra, the SGC, and soon the Rebel Jaffa now had up-to-date intel on Anubis’ territory, locations and army. She could only hope that it would be enough to make a difference in her fight against Anubis.

Chapter Text

...thanks to her, the Tok’ra, the SGC, and soon the Rebel Jaffa now had up-to-date intel on Anubis’ territory, locations and army. She could only hope that it would be enough to make a difference in her fight against Anubis.

823 days to go

It had come as a relief that she hadn’t found any evidence on Anubis’ computer log that Anubis had acquired the technology to target and eradicate human beings yet. But there was no guessing when he would, and if soon after discovering it, whether he would implement it right away or not. He’d waited twelve months to use the gate-destroying weapon, clearly choosing to attack Earth again when he’d learned about her. She wondered what had been the trigger to annihilate all human life in the galaxy last time? Had he only chosen to use it once he’d reached a superior enough position of power from his use of the Eyes of the Goa’uld, or had it simply been the timing of his discovery of the weapon? She really wished she’d thought to have asked Orlin more detailed questions when she’d seen him on the Al’kesh, but at the time she’d been reeling from the shock of speaking to someone after so long, and her first priority had been finding a way back in time. The reality of actually making it back at all, and having to stop Anubis had at the time been so far out of the realm of possibility. But now that was her reality, and now it was a matter of life or death for everyone.

While she had nothing to go on but conjecture, and no possible way of imagining the workings of the human-disintegrating weapon, she could only wonder if, just like the weapon he’d last used to attack Earth, it would end up being Ancient technology or knowledge that could allow a gate to simultaneously dial all others. The gates themselves were, after all, built by the Ancients, and so, surely the DHDs inner programming would be the first place to look. She already knew from previous research that a DHD’s dialling software contained multitudes of safety subroutines, and while she’d never seen it directly, there was surely one to prevent the dialling of more than one gate at the same time to prevent the accidental cloning of travellers. But, if she could confirm that it could be done, then perhaps there would also be a way of defending against it. Perhaps, even, a system could be rigged to reject an incoming wormhole from a specific planet, like blocking a phone number from a cell phone. Or better yet, maybe there was a way of taking masses of friendly gates out of the gate network in defence. The note from her alternate self had said the weapon was on a planet. If they could ever find which planet, then there might still be hope of resisting the attack.

It was late in the evening, only a couple of days following her escape from Anubis’ sunken ship, but she knew the General would still be on base at this hour. She left her lab to pay a visit to his office, where she told him of her idea to block incoming wormholes from all planets in Anubis’ domain on the list she’d acquired from his mothership, and the General promptly agreed to allow her to restart the long-abandoned study on the DHD they had in storage in Nevada, starting the following week.

Earth’s original DHD had been recovered from Antarctica four years ago together with the second stargate that she and the Colonel had accidentally been sent through in a freak accident. Research had been conducted on the DHD at Area 51 in the past, but back in her lab, accessing the relevant files on her computer, it looked like the research had been discontinued three years ago when its power system had been drained. They hadn’t been able to find a suitable power source for the DHD, and further study of DHDs had been moved working to off-world models. Earth’s DHD had then been placed in storage, untouched since.

In the past three years, of course, they had since developed better power sources, and a naquadah generator proved more than capable enough to power the DHD back up. Within three days of research in Nevada, with her newer knowledge of DHDs garnered from years of field experience, as well as the plans that the Colonel had hand-drawn when a suppository of Ancient knowledge had been downloaded into his mind several years ago, she’d come to the surprising conclusion that the power source for this particular DHD was of a cruder design compared to other DHDs she’d ever seen. It was fair enough that she’d never made this observation when she’d almost frozen to death in Antarctica, stranded and praying that the Colonel didn’t die of internal bleeding, but she couldn’t believe the original analysis research team had completely missed this glaring detail the first time round. It didn’t escape her notice either that this DHD didn’t quite match the Colonel's design specs. This DHD was unmistakably more rudimentary than others she’d ever seen, perhaps even a prototype.

After getting a second opinion from a couple of other scientists working at Area 51, she requested that General Hammond have all teams currently off-world examine and photograph the inner podium of the DHDs on the worlds they were on. After the six teams sent back their images, all of the same consistent design, and all different to Earth’s DHD, she formally submitted her theory: Earth’s DHD, and by extension the Antarctica gate that had recently been installed on-loan from Russia, was one of the oldest, if not the oldest in the Gate system.

Earth must have been deemed important by the Ancients to have been one of the first places to place a gate. There surely had to be more waiting to be discovered in Antarctica, where a science team was still working, having been posted there four years ago. She’d followed their work excavating around where the second gate had been discovered on-and-off over the years, and she knew by the timing of the season that McMurdo would soon fall into winter and the team would be heading back to the States in a few weeks. She promptly got in touch with the head scientist there, Dr Michaels, to ask if they could conduct any additional deep-ice surveys before they wrapped up the season to see if there was anything that could be found.

And as it turned out, there had been.

A woman, perfectly preserved, frozen in the ice far below the surface had been recovered, and she’d inexplicably come to life, despite initial tests showing that she was at least 25 million years old. This woman could only be a living, non-ascended Ancient. Her initial excitement at the thought that perhaps this person might have some knowledge to help defend against Anubis’ impending attack soon faded, however, after the discovery of a highly contagious and deadly illness the woman was carrying. She, the science crew, Dr Frasier and the rest of SG-1 who had all flown down to see the discovery for themselves had nearly died. Fortunately the Ancient woman turned out to bear several advanced human powers, one of which she used to cure everyone, but unfortunately, she died before saving the Colonel.

Back at the SGC’s isolation room, still fighting for his life, she begged the Colonel to take a Tok’ra symbiote- the only chance he had of curing the unknown disease. She knew how he felt about symbiotes. She knew he would despise the thought of sharing his body and mind with a Tok’ra, but there was no alternative. She couldn’t be sure, but his retirement from the SGC program last time must have been one of the contributing factors to the demise of the state of the galaxy in that timeline. He’d retired from the SG program because of her. This time, she would make sure he would continue with the program. She couldn’t deny that she needed him on a personal level, too, even if that was something she couldn’t admit aloud.

Struggling to form words through obvious pain, it tore her heart apart to hear his whispered answer, “Over my dead body.” How could he be so callously willing to choose death? After everything she’d been through and done to get back, to get back to him, how could he even say such a thing? So soon after they’d watched Daniel die, too? He’d once told her he cared for her more than he was supposed to. If he cared about her, how could he tell her to her face that he’d rather choose death over any alternative, no matter how extreme the solution?

The sight of him lying weakly on the bed, beads of sweat clinging to his face as his body tried in vain to resist the disease, struggling for breath and barely staying conscious broke her heart further. This was the very same room they’d lost Daniel, and she was starkly reminded of what she’d had to do that day, too. She’d asked him for consent too. To use the healing device on him, lying to everyone about her intention. In some ways, that was what she was doing now. Pleading with him, trying to reason with him, she told him the blending would only be temporary, when the truth was, with the Tok’ra so few and still in such disarray from Anubis’ attack, humans wouldn’t exactly be lining up to volunteer as a replacement host. It would likely take months to find a new host, and despite Thanos’ assurances that the symbiote would sacrifice itself rather than live in an unwilling host, she didn’t believe him. She knew the way the Tok’ra thought. There were less than a hundred of them left now. Every life was so precious. They would never allow the symbiote to die. Not to mention, she was more than aware that blending with a Tok’ra would not be easy. She still had occasional flashbacks and nightmares pertaining to the memories she held. She still felt nuances of emotion and desires that weren’t her own flare up and affect her judgment. The ghost of Jolinar still haunted her, and the Colonel already had his own lifetime’s worth of difficult memories and experiences to live with. Years of black ops, his son’s death, difficult missions they’d shared together on SG-1, too. She didn’t want to face the thought of how the assimilation of thousands of years of a Tok’ra memories and distasteful past experiences would change him. Would he ever be the same again?

But even so, he had to live. For her. For the galaxy.

“Sir, please,” she begged, pleading with him wordlessly with her eyes, desperate for him to choose life. To want to live. She needed him.

His nod of consent was barely perceptible, again reminding her of Daniel’s equally-pained nod before she’d invaded his organs and plundered his cells. She didn’t want to be responsible for any more pain for the Colonel, either.

But maybe this could be a good thing, she tried to convince herself. Maybe he’d be able to understand her experience with Jolinar better. Maybe their mutual experience as ex-Tok’ra hosts would bring them closer together. Not to mention there would be a huge strategic advantage that the knowledge he would gain from blending with a Tok’ra would help in their fight against Anubis.

Minutes later, he’d slipped into a coma again, and she, along with Teal’c and Jonas, accompanied him through the gate to the new Tok’ra homeworld to be blended and cured by the injured symbiote. She wished her father had been there waiting for them. The Colonel would need a friendly face at a time like this, but she was told he was away on a deep undercover mission and wouldn’t be back for several weeks. She hated the thought of having to leave the Colonel alone with the Tok’ra when she knew how little he trusted them, or even liked them. To make matters worse, the Tok’ra had deemed the mission knowledge contained within the symbiote too sensitive, and despite their pleadings, she, along with Jonas and Teal’c, had been pretty much forcibly sent back through the gate before the blending process had even started.

----

Two weeks later with still no news of the Colonel, she was woken up at zero two hundred hours at home by a phone call. Her first thought was that it must be news that the Colonel was returning home, but she was instead surprised that the call had been placed by a frantic-sounding man who introduced himself as a Doctor, claiming to know of the man who’d kidnapped her a year ago, Adrian Conrad. An investigation back at the SGC traced the name the caller had given as being a biologist working in Oregon, with links of working for a company previously owned by Adrian Conrad, the man who had implanted himself with a Goa’uld to cure himself of a fatal degenerative disease. With Colonel O’Neill still with the Tok’ra, she’d taken lead of SG-1 herself, and she, Teal’c, as well as their newest member, Jonas, had travelled to the small town of Steveston in Oregon where the company was located to learn more.

Her instincts had alerted her that something was off from the outset. The townspeople’s behaviour was strange, there was evidence the company had covered up another death, and a witness had indicated that Dr Fleming had told him not to trust the townspeople before he’d died. However, it wasn’t until she’d managed to decrypt some data discs they’d found at the supposedly-shut down shipyard where they’d also made the shocking discovery of a partially-constructed alien ship, that she had understood the full scale of the situation.

They were Goa’uld. Almost all the townspeople had been taken over by cloned Goa’ulds. She stared in shock at the Goa’uld text that had loaded onto her screen, reading fast, alone at the motel working on the discs having assigned Teal’c and Jonas to monitor the shipyard for any activity. If it hadn’t been for her heightened ability to read Goa’uld, not only would she never have been able to understand how Adrian Conrad’s acquired Goa’uld had been artificially cloned in the lab in the town, but she wouldn’t have been able to learn that the cloned symbiotes had been engineered with an in-build kill-switch. A serum, injected into the host’s bloodstream, would kill the Goa’uld from within, and fortunately, an unknown syringe had come into her possession during her investigation of Dr Fleming’s house.

Teal’c and Jonas weren’t answering her radio calls anymore, and she could only assume they’d been captured. By the sound of multiple cars pulling up in front of her motel room, she, too, was about to be accosted. She immediately grabbed her pistol, inoculated herself with the unknown serum, then quickly hid the laptop she’d been working on as the door was rammed down by the town Sheriff. A hoard of other men then burst into the room from behind him and together they grabbed her with surprising strength, forcing her into the back of a truck outside.

The drive was frightening. It was dark, she didn’t know where she was being taken, and none of the townspeople, or rather, Goa’uld, would answer her pleas or questions, or even acknowledge her at all. She knew they likely deemed her too inferior to speak to. It must have been ten minutes later when they pulled up outside what she recognized as the Sheriff's office, where inside she was forced into a chair and restrained with cuffs. While these cloned Goa’uld lacked naquadah in their blood, meaning that she couldn’t sense their presence, the sounds of squealing and splashing from within the medical transport pack that sat on the desk behind her was all she needed to know that there was a symbiote inside. Her heart pummeled helplessly against her ribcage as she froze at the knowledge that they were going to implant her. They were going to force her to become a Goa’uld. She could only pray that the unknown serum she’d injected herself with was indeed the kill-switch. She could only pray that if it was, that the dosage was correct, and that it would still work if taken before being implanted. And she could only pray, as the Sheriff then pressed a towel bearing the unmistakable smell of chloroform into her face, that the Colonel hadn’t experienced this same terror as he, too, had been implanted only two weeks before.

----

“Major, take a seat,” said the General as she entered his office having been summoned there.

“Yes, Sir,” she affirmed, taking the indicated seat the other side of his desk.

“Well done on Steveston. Good command. The NID have their tails between their legs now, sounds like their plan pretty much blew up in their faces.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said. It had turned out that NID agents had known of the Goa’uld for months, and they’d been waiting to stop them upon completion of the spacecraft they were constructing, only the Agents’ cover had been blown and the entire operation had been compromised.

“I hear the ship looks promising.”

She hadn’t been given much chance to see it while assisting with the cover up of the mess in Steveston and the delivery of the kill-switch serum to all the Goa’uld-controlled townspeople. It had taken almost a week to determine that no more of the population was under Goa’uld control, and that all persons were accounted for, and in the meantime, the ship had already been moved from the shipyard to Area 51. But from what she’d seen, the ship wasn’t just promising, it was more than she could have ever hoped for. And it was all thanks to Orlin. She would have been taken as a Goa’uld if she hadn’t been able to read the information on the discs. Instead, the serum had worked, she’d successfully secured the partially-constructed ship which would serve well as a base line for the next X-303 model, and, together with the regular shipments of Trinium coming in from PS1-297, and with the naquadriah from Jonas that was still being studied, she didn’t think it wouldn’t take much to get the partially-constructed ship completed. Earth’s first, full-size craft capable of interstellar travel.

“Yes, Sir. It does,” she couldn’t help beam. “I’m eager to get to Nevada myself to see it again close-up.”

“I’m sure you are. But that isn’t the reason I called you here,” he said, and she was surprised to see a serious look pass over his features. She suddenly became afraid that he’d heard bad news related to the Colonel. It had been three weeks with no contact from the Tok’ra already. Taking a deep breath, she tried to ready herself for whatever the General was about to say.

“I assigned Teal’c to translate all the discs you found at the shipyard related to the Goa’uld’s construction project and plans.”

She took a moment to process the words. She hadn’t expected him to say that. In fact, she’d assumed the files had been lost after her laptop had gone missing from her motel room, and then she’d forgotten all about it after being so busy taking charge of the cover up operation until the NID and military backup had arrived.

“They were recovered by the NID, if you’re wondering. Part of the deal of exchange of information between Stargate Command and the NID was that they handed the data back over to us. I thought the engineers at Area 51 would want a full translation, hoping for more schematics and detail related to the engineering of the ship.”

“Of course, Sir. That’s good news,” she said, trying to sound calm, but already fearing where this conversation might be headed.

She watched as the General then produced a printout of the page of text she’d read on her laptop related to the cloning of the Goa’uld, and the killswitch antidote, and placed it on the desk between them.

“You can read this?” he asked simply, looking at the hieroglyphs.

“Parts Sir, yes,” she replied hesitantly as she saw his gaze look up and lock with hers, studying her shrewdly.

“Teal’c says that this section of the text contains a lot of scientific words. He said that he was surprised that you could have been able to read and understand enough to have known how to kill the Goa’uld you were implanted with. He said he wasn’t sure even Daniel could have read some of the more scientific words, and that he himself couldn’t translate this section in its entirety.”

She couldn’t help feel slightly irate that Teal’c had gone behind her back like this. Why hadn’t he simply asked her himself instead of going straight over her head to the General? Though perhaps with the Colonel still absent, he’d only naturally gone to the next-highest chain of command, which unfortunately was the General.

“Major, is there something you’re not telling us?” he then asked sharply.

There wasn’t exactly accusation in his eyes, he was, in fact, difficult to read, but she was immediately reminded of the debrief when she’d first come back to Earth after being held at the Alpha Site, and the memory of the turmoil of emotions at needing to sell her story to everyone only served to make her insides squirm with anxiety.

“No, Sir, it’s just-“ she stammered, desperately trying to mask her tumult. “Well, I guess I didn’t know how much I could read until the text was on the screen, and in the chaos of everything that happened after that, I didn’t really give it any further thought, Sir.” At least the last part was true, she hadn’t considered the files might give away her Goa’uld ability at all since she’d assumed they were lost.

“That’s understandable. You were taken host for a second time. That must have been traumatic for you.”

“Yes, Sir,” she grimaced. The kidnap and chloroform had been exactly like her kidnapping by Adrian Conrad, and it hadn't been a pleasant experience to have repeated.

“And from what I understand, you were kept busy assisting the NID with the clean up operation.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“But didn’t you think to question how you’d read the information when it came to writing your report?”

“Actually no, Sir. I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me. I didn’t mean to deliberately withhold information, Sir,” she said, feeling instantly guilty about the fact that she was in fact withholding far much more information from him, and everyone else.

“How do you think this happened, anyway?” he asked, and she was glad to feel that she wasn’t on the spot anymore. At least his tone seemed more curious as opposed to accusatory. “How could you have come to suddenly be able to suddenly read Goa’uld?”

Suddenly she felt the excuse she’d used for her father when she’d given him the logs on Anubis’ ship wasn’t going to be enough, and she surprised herself as she came up with a more elaborate lie.

“I- uh- I guess, urm, maybe it was to do with the Aschen?” she flummoxed.

“The Aschen, Major?”

“Specifically the clothing I was forced to wear, Sir. It aids memory and boosts brainpower,” she fumbled, recalling and using Joe’s exact words to describe their effects. “I was put to work on various science projects on Aschen Prime while under control of the city. Maybe that triggered Jolinar’s memories to come back.”

“I see. But why did you leave that out of the report? Why did you keep it to yourself?” he demanded.

“I- I didn’t realise I could read Goa’uld until the other day. I haven’t really had the opportunity.”

“So you’ve regained some more of Jolinar’s memories?”

“It seems so.”

“Any other special skills we should know about?”

She may as well come clean all about the Jolinar knowledge parts, she thought. At least that might serve to ease some of the guilt she was carrying about the rest of what she still needed to hide. The truth was, if her father had told the Tok’ra the truth of where the information on Anubis had come from, the Colonel might find out anyway.

“Uh- Sir, when I was working on fixing the cargo ship to stop the asteroid a few months ago, I noticed I had a certain knack for the systems, though I didn’t think too much of it at the time.”

“Could you elaborate on what you mean by ‘knack’?”

“I don’t know, Sir. Maybe more of an intuition than usual for the workings of Goa’uld ships. It inspired me to make some changes to the X-302's design and hyperdrive.”

“I see," he said, looking surprised. "Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I know I should have. But sometimes it’s hard to draw the line between what I know, and what Jolinar knew before. It’s still confusing. I’m sure it’s probably something the Colonel will be going through now…” she trailed off, thinking of the Colonel, and hoping the topic of him could serve to redirect the conversation.

“Yes, I don’t think the Colonel will be too happy about that aspect.”

“Any word on him while we were gone?”

“We’ve still not heard anything from the Tok’ra. Anyway, it seems your new knowledge has come in handy several times. And if it can be put to use on work the ship we've acquired, then I don’t see any harm from it. But in future, I don’t want you holding back on anything that might prove invaluable to our standing orders. Information about the Goa'uld, knowledge how to build ships. That's big stuff, Major.

“Understood, Sir,” she replied, fighting to suppress the lurch of guilt that swelled within her.

“Dismissed.”

----

Unfortunately, the guilt hadn’t ended there.

If it hadn’t been for her, the Colonel would have already retired by now. He should have been safe at home. Instead, however, the absolutely unthinkable had happened, and she was responsible for causing him more suffering than any human could ever possibly have been made to endure.

The symbiote he’d been blended with to save his life, Kanan, had taken off in the Colonel’s body and taken them to one of the System Lord Ba’al’s fortresses to rescue a former lover he’d met on a previous undercover mission. Kanan had then left the Colonel’s body behind to be captured, revived by a sarcophagus and then tortured to death over and over repeatedly by Ba’al, before his escape.

The sounds of the Colonel’s shouts and screams from the medical isolation room as he suffered through withdrawal from the effects of repeated use of the sarcophagus threatened to destroy her own soul, and the thought that it was all her fault had made it all the more harrowing. His shouts had reminded her of Joe’s recovery on teh Alpha Site, too. The guilt that both their suffering was her fault had been almost impossible to bear. He hadn’t deserved this. She was only trying to save everyone, but her selfish desire to keep him alive and convince him not to die had only led to a worse experience than death. How could she forgive herself?

----

After a month of on-and-off talks with the Pangarans, they had finally agreed to a face-to-face meeting with an SG-team on their world. The diplomatic team, SG-7, had initially been assigned, but though she couldn’t remember the exact planet name or designation, she was pretty sure the ‘miracle drug’ that she’d seen mentioned in the reports of talks through the MALP must be Tretonin, and so Sam had plead General Hammond for SG-1 to take the assignment, citing that the Colonel needed an easy assignment after their bad string of luck with missions of late.

The welcome given by the people on Pangar had indeed been a nice change. Though it had only been an excuse for the General, the Colonel truly did deserve an easy mission following the aftermath of his experience with Ba’al. She was at least glad that he hadn’t repeated history and simply handed in his resignation after the experience. A mission to make contact with a deep-undercover Tok’ra agent soon after had gone badly wrong, and then the Tok’ra had faced further loss of life and been forced to abandon the Risa System after another capture had revealed their location. SG-1 had then most recently faced a cloaked assassin on the Alpha Site which had resulted in even more loss of Tok’ra life, as well as many of the Rebel Jaffa also living there, and Bra’tac, too, had almost been lost.

As it turned out, Pangar was indeed the planet where the wonder drug, named Tretonin, was being developed. As she and the Colonel had continued with the progressing talks, she’d been able to call upon her now-known Goa’uld knowledge to recognize three of the planets to where the Pangarans had wanted to visit: three very hostile Goa’uld homeworlds, deep in their respective System Lord owners’ territories. It was an impossible ask, and she guessed internally that the reason they wanted to so adamantly go was because they were searching for a second Goa’uld Queen to harvest more symbiotes for their Tretonin manufacturing process.

It turned out that Jonas had been the one to figure out the truth that she’d already known about the identity of the Goa’uld Queen here. Jonas truly was turning out to be a remarkable replacement for Daniel; they had indeed been kindred spirits- not just for their love of research and ancient cultures, but also for their curiosity and ability to ask just the right questions.

And so, Queen Egeria, the mother of all the Tok’ra had been found, and she had then promptly died of old age, just as she’d read in the original mission file in the future. It had been unavoidable. It had pained her to know that the Tok’ra Queen had been here the entire time- even more so following the string of recent Tok’ra deaths- but she’d already known the Queen wouldn’t have been able to be saved. She was too old, and too weakened.

Two days later, personally choosing to attend Egeria’s funeral alone in Jolinar’s stead on the Tok’ra’s brand new base after they'd chosen to leave the Alpha Site, she successfully smuggled the syringe of Tretonin from the future that she’d been holding onto the past few months. After the ceremony was over, she handed it to Malek, asking that he examine its contents, lying and calling it an alternate prototype that the Pangarans had previously come up with and had wanted examining.

If all went to plan, by the time Teal'c and Bra'tac would need it, the Tretonin should be refined enough to save both their lives. And so, satisfied one part of her grand plan had been set in motion, she turned her focus back towards Area 51, her work on the DHD program, and the newer part of her grand plan: the development of the X-303.

Chapter Text

If all went to plan, by the time Teal'c and Bra'tac would need it, the Tretonin will have been refined enough to save both their lives. And so, satisfied one part of her grand plan had been set in motion, she turned her focus back towards Area 51, her work on the DHD program, and the newer part of her grand plan: the development of the X-303.

794 days to go

Not long after her arrival at Area 51 to assist with the design plan for the acquired ship from Oregon, she effectively shelved her work on the DHD inner programming, passing on her ideas to the science team there and back at the SGC. The X-303 project needed her more, especially now that she didn’t need to censor her Goa’uld knowledge anymore. She had the full backing of General Hammond and General Vidrine, head of Area 51, and the X-303 project, nicknamed the “Prometheus” project, had been infused with even more government funding.

SG-1 took a back seat on mission rota as she began to spend longer and longer in Nevada, which she felt was for the best for the Colonel. He never mentioned anything about his experience being captured and tortured by Ba’al, but she knew he was still affected by what had been done to him. He’d been even more sarcastic and antagonizing than usual both on-world and off-world, which was generally a red flag for him. Teal’c spent some time running recruiting ops together with the Rebel Jaffa, who had settled on yet another new world after the attack by the Ash’rak assassin on the Alpha Site, and Jonas, who still called her daily so they could agree on matching BDU colours, had apparently started work on reading every book in the base library a second time. Her friendship with Jonas had grown considerably over the past two months shared together since he’d joined SG-1, and she felt bad that he still wasn’t permitted alone off-base without an escort. With her and Teal’c away from the SGC, and SG-1 temporarily off mission rota, Jonas was now forced to spend all of his time alone at the SGC, and the Colonel probably wasn’t the best company for him either. At the very least he always sounded chipper enough over the phone, enthusiastically telling her about an interesting science article he’d found in the latest issue of Scientific American, but she couldn’t help the nagging thought that Jonas had been captured and killed by Anubis around six months from now in the other timeline. Of course she would do everything in her ability to use that foreknowledge and prevent his capture this time, but if these really were his last months, she couldn’t help feeling guilty that because of her work on the X-303 project, he was being forced to spend all of his time alone stuck in an underground military base.

Three months of hard work later, its construction was coming along to her satisfaction. Some additional naquadriah that had been brought from one of the scientists on Kelowna, Jonas’ home planet, had proved helpful, too. But, unlike the smaller X-301 and X-302 gliders, the scale of the new task was far larger, and construction of the partly-finished ship had proven impossible for the engineers of Area 51 to complete alone. Initially, she’d been against the decision to subcontract a significant portion of the circuitry and parts to civilian companies, citing concerns of security leaks, but then she’d had the thought had occurred to her that if Anubis was going to attack Earth again, then the sooner Earth had a working spaceship, the better. Without subcontracting, it would likely take three years to complete rather than the current projected six months total. They would have to take the risk.

Merging both the reverse-engineered Goa’uld crystal hardware and the home-built parts was proving the most challenging, as were the multitudes of design requests and changes made by her superiors, including Colonel William Ronson, whom had already been selected to become its first commander once construction was complete. He’d recently moved to Nevada full-time to work on assembling the X-303’s first crew, and though he’d initially come across as a typical demanding flyboy commander- many of whom she’d come across during her service in the Gulf- his humour had slowly warmed on her, and they’d eventually struck up a professional friendship. She’d even found herself reminded her of her own Colonel back at the SGC on occasion with his similar commanding presence and self-effacing humour.

----

By the time another three months had passed, she was back in Colorado Springs full time and back on SG-1. The project was now set to come together without her ongoing help, and it was looking like the X-303 would be completed in just over a months’ time. She’d just dropped Cassie off at the mall to meet with her friends on her day off when she’d found her concerns about security breaches had been justified: a news reporter had approached her out of the blue, questioning about a government-funded project named Prometheus, and she’d even been holding what looked like a sample of Trinium.

She’d immediately driven straight for the safety of Cheyenne Mountain, where she couldn’t be followed, bringing up the breach with General Hammond. The reporter hadn’t been able to be silenced however, and to avoid risking exposure of the project, a deal had been reached where the reporter and a small camera crew would be given a tour of the X-303 in exchange for silence on the new report they were threatening to go public with.

She’d been firmly against showing the reporters into the X-303, but she'd had no choice but to obey her given orders. Unfortunately, the tour had quickly become a complete disaster. She’d ended up trapped aboard the unfinished ship as it had been hijacked by several ex-NID agents who’d been posing as the camera crew. Threatening to self-destruct the ship, they’d ransomed a Goa’uld on board- none other than the one in Adrian Conrad- and then she’d nearly suffocated, trapped on an unfinished, unpressurized deck as the ship had been flown to Earth’s orbit. It had been a close save by Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c who’d flown aboard secretly in an old Goa’uld glider stored at Area 51. They’d managed to kill the Goa’uld and subdue the ex-NID agents, but not before the Goa’uld had jerryrigged the ship’s incomplete hyperdrive and jumped them into hyperspace, stranding them in the dead of space.

To her surprise it was Thor who had ended up rescuing them from being lost in an unknown section of the local system. They hadn’t heard anything at all from the Asgard in over six months since they’d rescued Thor from Anubis and Osiris’ clutches shortly after Daniel had died. It transpired that the Asgard’s war had taken an even more serious turn than the news that Heimdall had last brought them. Their Homeworld, Hala, had been overrun by the Replicators, and a trap using the damaged android named Reese that Earth had provided had failed. The entire Asgard race was now apparently hiding out in their last remaining ships in the void between both the Ida Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy waiting for SG-1’s answer as to whether they would render assistance, and of course the President had no choice but to approve the pretty-much suicide mission to rectify the trap the Asgard had set for the Replicators. She’d had to agree, too. She feared the Replicators, but Thor had just saved them from being stranded in open space, and if in the unlikely event that they could turn the tide in the war against the Replicators on behalf of the Asgard, then the Asgard would owe them big time. Last time they hadn’t been able to contact the Asgard when Anubis had attacked the gate, and they had refused to render assistance when Anubis had deliberately sent the asteroid to attack Earth. But this time, if Earth could save their entire race and end the Replicator War, then the Asgard would have no choice but to intervene in Anubis’ next attack. Perhaps she could even ask Thor for help tracking down and destroying the weapon that Anubis would use in the future. With the potential assistance of the Asgard, stopping Anubis suddenly seemed possible.

----

The Asgard’s trap, a device to create a short-range time-dilation field around all the Replicators that had been summoned by a buried subroutine in the android had been reversed. The Replicators had penetrated the device and set it to in fact speed-up time within the field. They’d then consumed the entire surface of Hala, and a few replicators had even managed to evolve into human-form, based on the image of their android creator. With limited resources on the planet where they were restricted, only six human-form Replicators had been synthesized, but they easily overwhelmed them, captured them and interrogated them by less than pleasant means.

“I won’t blame you if you choose me,” she volunteered, asking that the human-form Replicator named Fifth, interrogate her next. She’d noticed there was something about him right from the start. He seemed different to the others. He seemed to display emotion, perhaps even empathy. She knew if she could gain his trust, he might be able to help them escape their desperate situation.

She got up and walked over to Fifth, who touched his forehead to hers, and suddenly they were standing on the desolate surface of a planet, where flashes of thunderclouds swirling above lit up the barren landscape around them.

“I don’t know what you’re showing me, but it’s not my unconscious mind,” she said, looking around confused. She’d expected him to be invading her thoughts and memories just as the other human-form Replicator had in the previous interrogation session.

“No, Major Carter. It is mine,” and she suddenly recognized that this was Hala, his home planet. This was his memory. “We share much of our thought, in this way we are connected even with our Replicator brethren. But this corner of my mind is mine alone. It is the only place we could communicate without the others knowing what is said.”

She was impressed by Fifth's quick-thinking. He’d found a way for them to communicate secretly. She’d been right to take a chance and volunteer herself to submit her mind to him.

“You’re not like them,” she said, intending it to be a compliment, but instead he looked hurt.

“I’m a mistake,” he said sorrowfully.

“No, they are,” she affirmed. “A terrible mistake. Help us.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Because you’re more like us than you’re like them. The others inherited the same flaw that Reese had. But you…”

“The others would destroy me.”

“Not if you came with us.” She hoped he couldn’t read her mind as long as they were in his unconscious mind. The truth was, the Colonel would likely never approve of allowing an evolved replicator to come back with them.

“You would do that?”

“If you were to come with us, and the time dilation device was reset with the new interface we brought with us…”

“They are my brothers and sisters.”

“The Asgard device was never designed to destroy the Replicators. For them, it would seem like a few days had passed. We’d have hundreds of years to solve their flaw.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Thank god she’d won him over. He was going along with her plan. She didn’t know how the Colonel would take it, but the truth was that the Asgard would have a real chance of being able to correct the human-form Replicators by re-writing their programming. They just needed to get off the planet alive first.

She explained the adjustments that need to be done to the Asgard time dilation device to reset it to slow time once again, and described the new timer she’d brought with her that Thor had created to replace the current one.

“I understand. I will do it. The others will not know of this conversation. However, we must now enter your mind. My brothers and sisters will wish to know what I learned from you. If we stay here, they will know I am concealing something from them.”

“It’s okay, Fifth. I already gave you my consent.”

“Very well.”

The scene around them suddenly changed. The whirling storm clouds of Fifth’s planet dissolved into blackness, before being replaced by the darkened walls of Goa’uld design that looked vaguely familiar.

“You bear the memories of others,” he said.

“I was briefly host to another being,” she said, suddenly recognizing the temple Jolinar had once ruled.

“A Goa’uld.”

“She later joined the Tok’ra, though. They fight against the Goa’uld.”

“You might have perceived Jolinar as good, but the truth is she could never eradicate the evil within her. That darkness is inside you, too, Sam. I can see it. Thousands of years of power-thirst and oppression of those below.”

She suddenly became unnerved that whatever dark memories he was accessing of Jolinar’s or Hestia’s would corrupt Fifth’s apparent good nature, just like the influx of memories of Hestia’s that Orlin had shown her had filled her with rage. She still cringed at the memory of how she’d lost her temper and yelled at Orlin when she’d last spoken to him.

“Fifth, I think it would be better if you didn’t look at those memories anymore. The Goa’uld are incredibly evil. They are born with the memories of their predecessors. We’re better than they are.”

“Agreed. I am sorry. Let us access your memories.”

The scene around them suddenly changed to that of her lab at the SGC. On her workbench was the unfinished prototype of the mark I naquadah generator she’d reverse-engineered from the plans obtained from a planet called Orban.

“You are a remarkable scientist, Sam. You have progressed your race and made great accomplishments here, in this very room. I admire you.”

“Thank you.”

“The others do not revere me in the same way that your coworkers respect you. They think I’m a mistake.”

She hesitated to answer, knowing that the other human-form replicators would gain access to this conversation when he later would have to share this ‘interrogation’. She chose her words carefully before speaking.

“Fifth, you have the chance to help your people. To make the same accomplishments and help your race of people, too. The android you’re all based on wasn’t perfectly constructed. We want to help you. All of you.”

“But can we trust you, though? How can I trust you? You have lied to your coworkers. This concept of deceit was unknown to us until we met you. We share all information with each other without censor. But you humans are alone in your thoughts. You choose what to share. And you chose to never tell them of your journey to the future. Of your intentions to stop this Goa’uld, Anubis.”

“You can see my thoughts, Fifth. You know why I made that choice, and that it hasn’t been easy. Sometimes deceit is necessary for the greater good,” she said, hoping Fifth would understand that she meant that his assistance would be for the greater good of the Replicators.

“I think I understand. I admire your tenacity. You are brave, Sam.”

“Thank you, Fifth. Prove that you can be brave, too.”

----

Fifth successfully made the changes to reset the time-dilation device, but in a last-minute ploy by Colonel O’Neill, she had been forced to leave Fifth behind just as the time device was set off, trapping him on Hala with the other human-form Replicators. As she sat alone on the bridge of the Prometheus, the guilt ate her up. She had been sincere in her desire to help him escape with them, and have the Asgard study him. Fifth had deserved better than to have been used and discarded. The Colonel had insisted that he wasn’t human, and that it wasn’t worth thinking about, but the truth was, she’d been in Fifth’s mind. She’d been the one to get to know him, and the truth was, regardless of his origins, he really had come across as human to her.

Sometimes deceit is necessary for the greater good. She’d used those very words to convince Fifth to deceive his own people, but the thought didn't do anything to alleviate her guilt at betraying the trust she’d earned from him. Having said that, as far as the greater good was concerned, they’d successfully put a pause to the Asgard-Replicator War. The entire Replicator race was now trapped indefinitely in the time dilation bubble, and she now realised that this must be why she’d never been able to contact the Asgard in the future. Without the X-303, the new-form Replicators must have killed the Asgard in the other timeline. They surely must have set the same trap but without a completed spaceship, the Asgard would never have thought to recruit SG-1 to fix the device. And even if they had, without herself and the Colonel on the team, she doubted they would even have been successful. Her guilt over Fifth was tearing her apart, but the truth was, today had been a good day in the grand scheme of things.

As Thor towed the X-303 back to Earth from the Ida Galaxy, with a promise of upgrades to their ship as a reward for ending the Replicator War, she had the idea of talking to Thor alone and asking him for advice about Anubis. They were still far away in the Ida Galaxy. Surely so far away, even ascended, Anubis wouldn’t know, would he? But in the end, the opportunity to speak with him one-on-one had never come up, and before she’d known it, they’d arrived safely back to Earth.

——

MALPs were routinely sent to planets on the list of gate addresses found on the Goa’uld cartouche from Abydos and the Ancient database’s list of addresses to scout potential mission sites, and SG-1’s latest mission had been assigned following the detection of a certain amount of unknown energy being emitted from the ruins of a very windswept planet found in the Ancient database. Her initial curiosity had been promptly replaced by excitement when Jonas had recognized the symbols on the side of the device they had just discovered in the underground chamber below the main section of the ruins. The symbols were of a very old dialect of Ancient. Could this possibly be the weapon Anubis would eventually find? It wasn’t often that they found Ancient technology simply lying around, and the thought that they might have beaten Anubis to it had her extremely excited, and she quickly requested that they bring back the unknown device back to the SGC for study.

The Colonel had decided that hanging around for the results on the device wasn’t worth delaying his well-earned trip to his cabin. He’d made it clear that he’d been looking forward to his trip for days prior to the assignment of the mission, and she too was glad he was still planning to take the time for himself. She was sure the past six months had been hard on him, and like with Jonas, she’d felt guilt over her absence at the SGC, unable to support him. Not that he would admit he’d ever need it, but with Daniel gone and Teal’c frequently off-world, he’d probably been quite alone the past half year.

As she studied the device back in her lab, her heart leapt when he unexpectedly invited her to the cabin to join him. Of course, they’d both known he’d only asked her knowing full well that she would have to turn him down as she was planning to study the Ancient device. She even dared call him out on his reasons for inviting her… and yet, she felt a door had been opened. He’d shut everyone out after Ba’al, but now, she could see a glimmer of his charm and warmth returning. He’d invited her on two previous occasions, too, and she’d refused then. She could only hope that if they ever survived long enough to see the completion of her mission, that there wouldn’t need to be a reason to turn him down. That things could sone day change between them.

Unfortunately, the device hadn’t turned out to be a weapon, nor anything at all of strategic use in the war with the Goa’uld and Anubis, though its effects had caused quite the disturbance when it had given base personnel the ability to see creatures living in interdimensional planes. But the incident had, however, given her the idea of the necessity of studying the Ancient language herself. She should have been able to recognize the Ancient origin of the device first. She may not always be able to rely on Jonas, or even Daniel if or when he did come back. If the weapon was indeed Ancient technology, and if there was a chance they would find the weapon before Anubis, then she felt a grave responsibility to be able to read and understand the Ancient language for herself without the need for others.

And so, unbeknownst to Jonas, who was borrowing Daniel’s old lab, she sneaked out Daniel’s old notes on the various dialects of the Ancient language and started to study in her free time. If the Colonel and Teal’c had managed to learn Ancient while stuck in a time loop, then she could do it too.

——

She could feel her body, manipulated by the Goa’uld Nirrti, weakening with each passing second. Every cell inside her was dissolving into disarray. She didn’t even have the strength to open her eyes anymore. Every breath was a monumental effort. She’d already seen the end of Evanov and Aldebran, and soon, she, too, would start convulsing as her body melted down into a puddle.

“Sir,” she mustered, her breath barely a whisper as she felt him scoop her up in his arms. She lay into his grip for support, siphoning all the strength she could from his tender touch.

“Carter, save your energy. Nirrti’s dead. We’re gonna get you better.”

His voice sounded so full of hope, and it broke her heart that she was about to let him down. If Nirrti was dead, they wouldn’t be able to undo what had been done to her. She knew she didn’t have the strength to make it to the SGC, where they wouldn’t be able to help her there anyway. Every molecule in her body was about to disintegrate. As he carried her, she could feel the movement of air brush over her clammy skin, a cooling breeze against the agony of heat within. At least the pain would be soon over, she thought, but she couldn’t die yet knowing she hadn’t saved the human race. She had to pass on her foreknowledge first. Someone needed to know.

“My computer,” she breathed. “A… file.”

Speaking was taking every ounce of energy she had remaining. She was suddenly worried she’d left it too long to tell anyone. To tell them of the detailed file she'd written and hidden on her computer just in case she became incapacitated.

“Carter, I told you to save your energy.”

“Password’s... ”Mission”,” she enunciated with great effort. She could feel unconsciousness threatening to claim her, trying to pull her into the void. She’d never wake again if she gave in to the darkness, but at least the suffering would be over. Her entire body felt on fire, every muscle was clenching, desperately trying to cling to each other, to keep her body intact.

At least dying in the Colonel’s arms wasn’t the worst way to die, she thought.

“Please…” she rasped with all her remaining energy.

She’d done it. She’d passed on her knowledge. It was out of her hands now. She’d done all she could, and as she felt herself being carried along another long corridor, she permitted herself to surrender to the blissful void of unconsciousness.

The next time she became aware of what was around her, she was being supported in a strange standing position, surrounded as before by the whirling lights of Nirrti’s gene-manipulating machine. She was about to cry out in protest against the Goa’uld meddling with her again when she realised that it was the Colonel who was supporting her, and she saw now that it was not Nirrti controlling the machine, but one of her test subjects, Egar. She stood up straight, noticing that she felt almost one hundred percent better and incredibly re-energized, and the machine’s light disappeared.

“Thank you,” she said, after Egar informed her that he had returned her to as she was before.

She gave a wobble as she tried to step off the machine’s pedestal, and she fell into the Colonel’s arms as he helped her regain her balance.

“You okay?” he asked tenderly, his eyes full of concern, and it didn’t escape her notice that he was holding her steady a lot longer than he normally would.

“Yes, Sir,” she breathed, and she suddenly felt the dizziness washing over her wasn’t only caused by the machine and her near-death experience.

“Yes, you are,” he smiled, taking one last gaze at her with those warm, chocolate eyes, and then he gave a small, slightly awkward clear of the throat as he stepped back, his military mask fast returning, replacing the previous look of worry he’d been wearing.

As they later headed back to the gate to have her checked over at the SGC infirmary, Jonas and Teal’c lagged behind them out of earshot, engaged in a hot debate over whether the villagers were right in gheit decision to destroy gene-manipulation device.

“About earlier, Sir…” she began, nervous the Colonel would want to know about the files she’d given him access to, and sure enough, he guessed what she wanted to talk about.

“Gonna have to change your password now, Carter,” he smirked amusedly before throwing her a wink, which made her smile.

A part of her questioned whether there was still a need to keep her secret. Daniel had already ascended, and she had a feeling Anubis already knew about her. Why did she still have a nagging instinct that she had to continue the lie? They would be called to Abydos soon by Daniel. If the Colonel knew in advance, things might play out differently. Jonas didn’t have to die. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to accompany them to the planet at all. If she came clean and they headed to Abydos tomorrow, they’d have a head start on Anubis. Maybe they’d be able to find the Eye of Ra and destroy it first.

Yet, something in her was tugging her back. Oma had tried to warn her. “Knowledge is power, but wisdom does not always equate truth.” If they went too early, would that alert Anubis to its location before even Daniel knew about it? Then, without Daniel’s help, would they even find it? Or, worse yet, maybe the nagging doubt was simply that she was scared of what her superior’s reactions would be to her lie. What if the truth led to her losing her place on SG-1? What if she was packed off to a mental institute? How would she stop Anubis then?

“Yes, Sir,” she conceded. She would have to change the password and move the file as soon as she got back. She couldn’t tell him, or anyone. She was still alone in her mission.

“Close one, wasn’t it?” he then said looking suddenly serious after his earlier levity.

“Too close, Sir,” she said.

It had been. In more ways than one.

Chapter Text

“Close one, wasn’t it?” he then said looking suddenly serious after his earlier levity.

“Too close, Sir.”

It had been. In more ways than one.

649 days to go

Over the past half year, Teal’c had been spending more and more time with the Rebel Jaffa cause off-world, but when Teal’c didn’t return after three days following an organized Rebel leaders’ meeting, she had an inkling as to the reason. She requested General Hammond that SG-1 be permitted to check up on the meeting, and sure enough, just as she’d read in the future reports, Teal’c and Bra’tac had been found clinging to life with one symbiote shared between them. What she hadn’t expected was for the scene to be so horrific. It was worse than she’d ever imagined in her mind’s eye reading the report. It was a complete massacre, over a hundred rebel Jaffa lay dead on the ground, their bodies mutilated, covered in blood, each one having had their symbiotes removed to ensure no survivors. Many of the bodies were half-submerged in the nearby riverbank, and the stench was been terrible. With every stride she took wading through the sea of dead Jaffa, swarms of disturbed insects would rise up, buzzing angrily at the interruption of their feast. She’d been instantly taken back to thoughts of the genocide she’d committed on Aschen Prime, and she’d had to run behind a tent to mask her dry heaving from the Colonel and Jonas.

Either Teal’c or Bra’tac must have survived the initial ambush, then tried to save the other by sharing their single symbiote between them, taking turns over the past three days, clinging to life. She already knew the symbiote wouldn’t survive, and with the Colonel’s permission she’d raced back to the gate, holding back another nauseous wave, to alert the SGC to contact the Tok’ra immediately and ask them to bring the Tretonin. There was no time to waste.

Unbeknownst to the SGC, following her advice, Malek had been working on refining the Tretonin for Jaffa use. Though it was as yet untested, her father, who’d promptly brought the sample to the SGC, seemed confident it was ready.

And sure enough, to her great relief, the refined version of Tretonin had taken in both Teal’c and Bra’tac. They were both alive, and while the Jaffa Rebellion had been dealt a tremendous blow with the loss of tens of faction leaders, thanks to her efforts, its two most important leaders were still alive to continue the fight.

----

Two weeks later, Teal’c had been approved for off-world missions again. It was strange not being able to sense the presence of his symbiote anymore. If it weren’t for the omnipresent reminder of his Jaffa origin in the form of his forehead tattoo, the truth was, Teal’c would seem nothing but human now to her. She wondered how he must feel psychologically about losing his symbiote, and about losing his ability to sense her, too, but she hesitated to broach the subject or even offer any sympathy in case it was too sensitive for him to speak of. Instead, she decided to do what Teal’c always did when she needed comfort, and simply made herself available and to be prepared to listen if and when he decided to talk. She also made an effort for once to stick to reasonable meal times rather than snacking alone in her lab as she usually did, ensuring she’d be more likely to run into him in the commissary. Jonas, too, was now recovering from his own health scare following surgery for a brain tumour caused by changes done in Nirrti’s machine, and so, feeling that the team was long overdue a team night, she invited the guys over to her house.

She forced herself to refrain from ripping apart the poorly accurate science in the Star Wars movie that Teal’c had chosen, but Jonas, now well-versed in Earth’s level of physics from all the reading he’d done when she’d been in Nevada, hadn’t had the same tact. And when Teal’c had threatened to maim Jonas following his constant nitpicking in an extremely convincing deadpan voice, she and the Colonel hadn’t been able to stifle breaking into a fit of giggles. Teal’c’s use of his signature dry humour was a good sign, and she felt assured he was going to be okay, but she still later warned Jonas in a lowered whisper that desecrating the Star Wars anthology around Teal’c was akin to having a death wish.

----

Another week later, Colonel O’Neill summoned the team and General Hammond unexpectedly to the Briefing Room, and began informing them that Anubis was heading to Abydos to find the Eye of Ra. She’d almost been dreading this moment, and yet it was almost funny to observe that the Colonel was deliberately leaving out the source of this sudden intel. She couldn’t help looking around the conference table in silent amusement at the stunned faces of General Hammond, Teal’c and Jonas as they took in the information, and if she hadn’t already known the Colonel had gotten this information from Daniel, she, too, would surely have been just as perplexed. When the General finally asked the Colonel where he’d learned of the information, she’d had to fight hard not to laugh at his quiet reply of, “Daniel told me.” The Colonel was always so emotionally-guarded; she rarely, if ever, saw him looking embarrassed. Her amusement quickly turned to surprise, however, to hear that it hadn’t bee the first time he’d seen Daniel since his ascension, and Teal’c, too, spoke up to say that he’d spoken to Daniel, too, in the past year. Daniel had never contacted her during his absence, and she was initially saddened to feel as though she’d somehow been betrayed by her friend, but then she reminded herself that it was vital that she keep her knowledge of Anubis from him until he was no longer ascended. In retrospect, she guessed she’d been lucky.

As she continued to listen to the Colonel pass on the intel he’d gotten from Daniel, she thought about how Anubis must have tracked down both the Eyes of Balor and Ba’al in the last six months since she’d accessed his logs on the crashed mothership still at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. She knew Ba’al had initially aligned himself with Anubis at the Summit, but she knew from reading Yu’s records that he would eventually turn on Anubis. She wondered if it was the theft or acquisition of his Eye that would trigger it. Either way, Anubis only had one last Eye to claim before, according to the Colonel’s account, his power would be increased ten-fold. It was a galactic emergency, and General Hammond was quick to approve the mission to Abydos.

She raced to gear up and urged the others to do so too. It was vital that they find the Eye of Ra first this time round. She wanted to safeguard Jonas’ life this time, too. Almost ten months had now passed since she’d last read the mission reports in the future where she’d left them, having made the decision not to bring them back with her in case they were discovered. She couldn’t quite remember all the details precisely now, but what stood out clearly was that SG-1 had been captured on Abydos before they’d found the Eye of Ra, Jonas had been taken and never heard from again, and the remaining members of SG-1, including the Colonel who’d accompanied the mission as an advisor for Abydos, had escaped without Jonas in a scramble for the gate. Anubis had then quickly conquered the galaxy with the last Eye of the Goa’uld. She couldn’t let that happen again. This time she would make sure they wasted no time finding the Eye before Anubis’ Jaffa, and if the worst came to the worst, she was prepared to destroy the Eye herself and face the consequences later. She knew she wouldn’t be able to justify destroying it to the General and the Colonel, but she had already seen for herself the destructive capabilities of the combined power of the Eyes of the Goa’uld. She would never forget the scene of the spinning rubble remnants of the Nox Homeworld in space.

Once they’d gated to Abydos, Teal’c stayed outside the Abydonian pyramid together with Abydonian volunteers to help fend off Anubis’ troops who had showed up all too soon. If only Daniel had given them more warning, she thought. The Colonel and Skaara soon joined Teal’c outside to help, and she, along with Jonas and Daniel, who had finally made an appearance as the sound of ship fire could be heard pummeling the desert surface above, successfully gained entry to the inner chamber of the pyramid where the Eye was suspected to be located.

Inside, the chamber was filled to the brim with an amass of treasure that Ra had collected and stowed away over his millennia reign as Supreme Leader of the System Lords. It was an incredible find, and she knew if the mission wasn’t so urgent, Daniel and Jonas would both have loved to have spent days cataloguing everything. But time was of the essence, and as she and Jonas began to search through the priceless trinkets one by one, Daniel showed them the necklace he’d once been given by Catherine, saying the Eye of Ra probably looked like it. As she hurriedly looked through the items in Ra’s collection, Daniel drew her attention once again by saying that he’d found an Ancient tablet, which said it confirmed that the original ascended, the ‘Others’, as Orlin had always referred to them, were the Ancients, the builders of the Stargate. That could only mean that Anubis definitely had access to knowledge of the Ancients,, and so did Daniel. Maybe he could help her if there was a way for her to talk to him alone if they could get off the planet with the Eye before Anubis’ Jaffa stormed their way in.

Daniel also said that the tablet made reference to a Lost City of the Ancients before quickly vanishing with barely a warning, leaving herself and Jonas alone to search for the Eye. There was no time to consider the ramifications of this tablet’s information, however, as the sound of gun fire began to ricochet even louder into the chamber from the pyramid above them. Teal’c, the Colonel and the Abydonian fighters must have fallen back to inside the pyramid, and that could only mean that Anubis’ troops were fast bearing down on them. They were running out of time.

She and Jonas continued to rifle through the collection, but nothing even loosely resembled the jewel given to Ra that she’d seen in Hestia’s memory. Unfortunately, the report from the future hadn’t contained the exact location of the Eye. She guessed Colonel Reynolds had never known where the Jaffa had found it. But she was sure that Daniel was right thinking that it must be hidden in this secret chamber. But where? If Anubis’ Jaffa had found it, then why couldn’t they find it now?

Maybe they’d sensed it, she thought quickly. She tried to calm herself despite the urgency of the situation and focus on trying to detect the naquadah signature of the jewel that she’d already seen and felt through both Jolinar and Hestia’s memories. Closing her eyes, she could sense several signatures around her. Too many, in fact. Many of the trinkets seemed to be constructed of the mineral, and she was unable to pinpoint a specific signature at all. Instead, she tried feeling the sides of the walls, trying to pick up any trace of a power source, or even of a mechanism to open a secret compartment within the walls. Ra had known of the jewel’s power potential when he’d received it following Anubis’ incarceration millennia ago. He’d have surely considered it far more powerful and valuable than the trinkets laid on the tables here. Perhaps he hadn’t left the Eye out together here with these other treasures.

As she shared her idea with Jonas as she hurriedly ran her hand across the walls, concentrating hard, Jonas came up with an even better idea. Using a long metal rong found among the treasures to hit the side walls, he soon came across a panel that gave a hollow-sounding clunk. A few rounds of bullets of her P90 blasted apart the plastered wall, and sure enough, they’d found it. They’d got the Eye in time.

She allowed Jonas to conceal it inside his uniform, along with the Ancient tablet that Daniel had shown them, then together they quickly raced out of the chamber to head to the gate when the Colonel, Teal’c and Skaara suddenly rounded the corner blocking them off. They were too late. The gate room above had been lost to Anubis’ Jaffa. They were trapped.

Damn. They’d only needed another minute to have escaped Abydos with the Eye. How could Daniel have disappeared on them like that?

They were trapped, and worse still, Skaara had been hit by a staff blast in the firefight upstairs. He was bleeding out, and it was absolutely terrible to see the Colonel watch him die over the following tense few minutes. She knew the Colonel had always thought of Skaara as a second son. At least she could draw comfort in the knowledge that he would ascend and live on as he muttered his last words in Ancient Egyptian. And indeed to her relief, he did ascend.

There was a moment’s silence as Skaara’s white glowing form rose through the chamber’s ceiling, and then she watched as the Colonel got up and walked towards the entrance to the chamber where Anubis’ Jaffa were holding position, blocking their exit.

“Sir, you're not considering shooting our way out?” she asked. They couldn’t risk Jonas getting killed again, and Anubis getting hold of the Eye or the tablet in his clothes. He was a fast learner, but he didn’t have the same military background that she, the Colonel and Teal’c all shared. If anyone was likely to get killed, it was him, and she felt a strong sense of duty to do anything in her power to protect him. He wasn’t just her friend, but Jonas had ended up saving her life in the sinking Anubis mothership, and he’d saved Earth with his idea to move the charged stargate off Earth when Anubis had attacked with the Ancient weapon. She owed him.

“No,” replied the Colonel to her relief, answering her earlier question. “No, Anubis must really want that thing in one piece if his boys have held off this long.”

“He does,” came the voice of Daniel, and she turned to see that he had returned.

“Where were you?” she couldn’t help ask accusatory. They might have gotten the Eye but they were trapped in the pyramid. Daniel could have bought them some time if he hadn’t disappeared on them suddenly when they were still looking for the Eye.

“Busy, busy,” he replied, and she wondered if he’d been observing Anubis.

“Hey! Thanks for Skaara. I assume he's okay,” said the Colonel. Of course he would assume that Daniel had helped with his ascension.

“What are you talking about?” asked Daniel, and she was surprised to see him look confused. How couldn’t he know Skaara had ascended? She’d always gotten the impression that ascended beings had access to a vast amount of knowledge, but perhaps she’d overestimated ascended beings’ knowledge. He hadn’t even known the exact location of the Eye.

“He has ascended,” replied Teal’c.

“What?” Daniel asked, still clearly unaware.

“That wasn't you?” asked the Colonel, and then she saw as Daniel closed his eyes.

“Oma's here watching me,” he said simply.

“And?” questioned the Colonel, clearly wanting to know if Oma would help them.

“And I don't care anymore. Anubis is one of us.”

“What?” asked the Colonel incredulously, but she herself immediately felt a great tension she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying the past year leave her body. Thank god everyone was about to learn the truth about Anubis’ ascension.

“At least partly in some…bastardised way,” added Daniel, to her surprise. What could he possibly mean by ‘partly’?

“Daniel, what are you talking about?” she quickly interjected, urgently needing clarification.

“The Goa'uld Anubis used to be figured out how to ascend.”

Well that wasn’t a helpful answer, she already knew that.

“He was believed to have been dead for quite some time,” commented Teal’c.

“The Others didn't want him,” Daniel then said, and she held her breath, hoping he was about to share something valuable about Anubis.

“That's understandable,” muttered Jonas.

“They sent him back. At least they tried, but not all the way.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After all this time, she’d always thought Anubis was ascended, just like Orlin, or Daniel. That was what Orlin had tried to tell her, or so she’d thought. But now that she considered it, Orlin had never confirmed that fact outright. Of course he hadn’t been able to. He’d merely guided her to the memory Jolinar had of him. She’d never once ever stopped to consider that what she’d seen in the memory had been anything but other than a fully-ascended being.

“What is he now?” she asked, needing to know more.

“He's still some form of energy. That black mask is a shield. It's keeping his form intact. He's stuck somewhere between human existence and ascension.”

That was why he hadn’t been white like other Ascended beings in Jolinar’s memory when she’d seen him leave that merchant’s body, and Cronus’. He’d been black. How could she have been so stupid to have never questioned the form she’d seen him in? This changed things considerably. Anubis was only half-ascended. Orlin hadn’t been able to tell her outright, but he had hinted that there were different levels of ascension. That must have been his way of trying to suggest that there was the possibility that Anubis wasn’t the same as him, or Oma. And if he wasn’t as ascended as they were, then he couldn’t be as powerful. That explained why he’d always seemed to behave like an ordinary Goa’uld- using stargates and ships, amassing armies and expanding his territories. It was because he was stuck on their mortal plane inside that cloak he always wore. This was a huge revelation. The threat of Anubis had suddenly been lowered several notches. He was immortal, but not omnipotent. He had some knowledge of the Ancients, but it was likely only limited.

“Why have the Others allowed him to remain that way?” Teal’c then asked, and she pulled herself from her thoughts to try to catch everything she could. This conversation was vital. If they could just get off Abydos safely, then she could take her time to consider the full ramifications of this revelation later.

“I don't know. Maybe they couldn't exile him completely,” Daniel answered.

“Maybe they just don't care?” asked the Colonel, and she found herself silently agreeing.

“Maybe you're right,” Daniel also agreed. “Either way he's still very powerful.”

She longed to be able to ask exactly how powerful, but she didn’t want to risk asking any deep questions and risk giving herself away, so instead she decided to make an observational comment instead.

“It explains his mastery of Ancient technology.”

“How's that?” asked the Colonel.

“Jack, the Others are the Ancients,” Daniel answered, turning to him. “The original creators of the Stargates.”

When the Colonel looked confused, Daniel turned back to her, looking questioningly.

“You didn't tell him?” he asked.

“Uh, no,” she said, looking at the Colonel. There hadn’t been a chance to fill him in on the Ancient tablet Daniel had found as they’d watched Skaara draw his last breaths.

When Daniel didn’t say anything for a little while, she looked up to see him still staring at her, and when his thick eyebrows suddenly furrowed, a pang of panic suddenly ran through her as she realized he was scrutinizing her. What if he was considering reading her mind, she thought, her stomach dropping and mind racing with fear, as the sound of Anubis’ First Prime’s return with reinforcements drew their attention. Relieved by the timely distraction, she turned to look towards the entrance steps leading down to the chamber room where more Jaffa were assembling in formation, and gripped her P90 tighter, drawing a steadying breath to brace against the fight that might be about to ensue.

A second later, however, the Jaffa suddenly vanished into thin air. Surely Daniel wouldn’t have risked using his powers to make them disappear, would he?

“You knew,” came Daniel’s strangely cold voice from behind her.

“W-what?” she spluttered, spinning around to face Daniel, where she saw the rest of SG-1 had vanished too, leaving only herself and Daniel stood alone in the suddenly darkened chamber. The previously lit oil lanterns had gone out, and the only source of light now in the underground chamber was Daniel, glowing faintly just as Oma had had when she’d spoken with her just before Daniel had ascended. Daniel hadn’t used his power to vanish everyone. He was communicating with her in her mind.

“You knew Anubis was ascended. You knew before I did,” he said sternly.

“Daniel, it’s a long story, but it’s important that you don’t read my mind. Let me explain-“

“It’s too late. I already saw everything. You lied about being sent to the future by Orlin.”

Why was he looking so coldly at her? Was he angry at her for lying?

“Daniel, hold it right there, I had to-”

“I know why you did it, Sam, and you were right to. Anubis can never find this out,” and she suddenly realised that Daniel wasn’t angry at her. He was angry at himself for reading her mind and finding out for himself.

“Actually, I think he already has, but now you’ve told us he’s only partially ascended, I’m not so sure anymore.”

“God, I was so concerned about Anubis getting hold of the last Eye of the Goa’uld,” he said, looking suddenly weary, rubbing his forehead with his robed arm. “Now it turns out it doesn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things if he finds that weapon.”

“Of course it still matters! We can’t hand him the kind of power to wipe out the other System Lords again. They’re the only thing delaying his rise to power. Daniel, do you know where that weapon you’ve seen in my mind is? The one that he’ll use to wipe out all the humans?”

A glimpse of the security feed of the gate room showing Daniel, Teal’c, Hailey, Reynolds and the new SGC leader all disintegrating at the touch of the white light emanating from the gate flashed through her mind.

“No. But I can’t believe the Ancients would have built a weapon capable of such destruction.”

“Do you think it’s Ancient technology that Anubis uses in the future?”

“I do. But then again, its takes hundreds of years of discovery and learning to interpret the knowledge ascension gives you access to. I wouldn’t be able to tell you exactly how it works or even where it is.”

“So Anubis might not know where it is either?”

“As you’ve been speculating, I don’t think he even knows it exists yet, otherwise he wouldn’t be wasting his time now seeking out the Eyes of the Goa’uld. But Sam, I’m starting to understand what Oma was trying to warn you of. Knowledge is power.”

“What are you talking about, Daniel?”

“It’s quantitative.”

“You mean it actually has a tangible physical property?”

“Yes, it has the energy to influence great changes and power, right down to the subatomic level.

“You mean like how an observer can influence the path of a photon?”

“Yes, but it’s far more complicated than Earth’s understanding of quantum physics, if you can call it that. Anyway Sam, all I can say is you were right to keep this from everyone, and it’s a good thing you didn’t ask Thor about the weapon or tell Jack about your mission when you nearly died by Nirrti’s manipulation.”

“You saw that, too?” she cringed, hoping he hadn’t seen the memory of her feelings for him.

“Yes,” he continued, impassively. “Don't tell anyone. Not about this weapon. The less people that know, the less that knowledge influences other changes. The less chance Anubis has of finding it earlier than he would otherwise. The chain of events will grow too chaotic. Keep the burden as small as you can.”

“Oma said that word- burden- too.”

“Knowledge is power, but it’s a burden, too.”

“Don’t I know it,” she said with a sigh.

“Knowledge like that attracts attention. I found out, too, because of your reaction to my news that Anubis was like me. Oma was right, you're like a bull in short grass, Sam.”

She couldn’t help wince. Had she really been that obvious?

“Don’t take it personally,” he then added at her reaction, perhaps thinking she was offended. “It’s just a metaphor. But Sam, Anubis is not unstoppable, and I’m going to do everything in my power to stop him from destroying Abydos. And I’ll do all I can to not let him find out what I learned of you. Trust in me. I have a plan. I’m going to tell Jack I’ve made a deal with Anubis.”

“You made a deal with Anubis?” she asked exasperated. How could he possibly expect to be able to trust Anubis to keep any deal he'd made?

“In exchange for the Eye, you guys can gate off Abydos.”

“Daniel, we can’t just hand him the Eye!” she protested. “You must have seen in my memory what he did to Abydos-”

“I did, Sam, and believe me, I will do everything in my power to stop history repeating itself,” he said determinedly, a flash of fire appearing in his eyes. “What’s more important right now than Anubis collecting all the Eyes is that we get you safely off this planet, Sam. You have to find that weapon first, and the best lead we have now is the Lost City written on that Ancient tablet I found. That’s your new mission now, Sam.”

He suddenly looked up at the darkened chamber ceiling, then looked directly into her eyes with a look of urgency.

“We have to finish this conversation, Sam. In the time we’ve been talking, about three seconds has passed in the real world. Anubis’s guards and First Prime have already congregated at the entrance.”

"I understand,” she nodded, readying herself to be sent back to the present and potentially into the start of a firefight.

“Just one thing, Sam. Forgive yourself for what you had to do to me. And to the Aschen. It was the right thing to do, for everyone. Don’t let the guilt weigh you down any more than it has to. You already carry enough of a burden. You’re very brave. I’m not sure I could have done what you have.”

“Thanks, Daniel,” she said, and she could feel her ears welling with tears. “I needed to hear that.”

“I know you did,” he said, and as he threw her a warm smile, the scene around them melted, and she suddenly found herself staring at Anubis’ troops who had indeed finished gathering at the bottom of the stairs.

“All right look, just bottom line this for me, will you?” she heard the Colonel ask, and she found herself disorientated, confused as to what he was asking and to whom he was talking. But Daniel then stepped in, answering calmly without betraying a single trace of evidence of their brief conversation.

“There's a fleet of System Lord Motherships surrounding Anubis, I warned them about the Eye and what it can do,” he told the Colonel.

“Nice.”

“Turn it over,” he instructed.

“What?”

“I made a deal with Anubis. You turn the Eye over, you go free, and the people of Abydos remain unharmed.”

“You made a deal with Anubis?” and she had to stifle her reaction to hearing the Colonel use her exact same words.

“I'll make sure he keeps it. The Goa'uld are going to fight it out over the Eye and hopefully destroy each other in the process but even if they don't, while they're licking their wounds, you're gonna find the Lost City of the Ancients.”

His eyes then met hers, and he gave a nod, silently affirming the new mission he’d just given her. She nodded back her understanding of her top priority now. She just needed to survive this situation, get Anubis’ Jaffa to back off and let them pass through the gate.

“The Lost City?” asked the Colonel.

“Didn't tell him about that either, huh?” he asked her, giving a knowing look.

“Daniel found a tablet talking about a Lost City,” she replied.

“Where there are powerful Ancient weapons capable of giving you a big advantage over Anubis.”

She smiled internally at the hidden meaning in his words- he was referring to the weapon that she needed to find first before Anubis did. She knew Daniel wouldn’t know if there were truly powerful weapons there or not, but she knew his words would be enough to grab the Colonel’s attention and convince him of the new plan.

“Do you know where it is?” he asked.

“No, but I'll help you find it, Jack. Nothing will happen to the Abydonians. The most important thing right now is for you to get out of here with that tablet. If Anubis gets his hands on it and finds the Lost City before you do, it's all over.” He was right. If the weapon with the capability to eradicate all humans was on the planet mentioned in the tablet, and the Jaffa killed them all and found it then and there, it would be the end of everything. “He already has a huge advantage over you because of what the Others have done or rather failed to do,” he added.

“You gonna kick his ass?” asked the Colonel.

“If I have to.”

“Can you?”

“We'll see. Nothing will happen to the people of Abydos.”

She could only pray that he would be able to keep his promise this time round. And she could only pray that he wouldn’t unwittingly betray her secret to Anubis in the fallout.

Chapter Text

She could only pray that he would be able to keep his promise this time round. And she could only pray that he wouldn’t unwittingly betray her secret to Anubis in the fallout.

575 days to go

Daniel had failed. Abydos had been destroyed, and Oma Desala had ascended all the Abydonians once again. She knew Daniel would have done everything in his power to prevent Anubis using the Eyes superweapon on Abydos. She could hardly believe that Anubis had won, assuming they’d battled. How could Anubis, whom she’d now learned was only partially-ascended, possibly have been more powerful than Daniel, who was fully-ascended? The only explanation she could think of was that the Others must have intervened in Daniel’s action against Anubis, which was against the rules all ascended beings must abide by. And if he had indeed been punished, or banished as Orlin had, she was scared she would never see him again.

Either way, even half-ascended, the Others hadn’t taken any action to intervene with Anubis’ new campaign against the System Lords. Despite the news from the Tok’ra that the System Lords were banding together against Anubis, forming a United Alliance of System Lords led by Lord Yu, it had been to no avail. Latest word was that Anubis was quickly decimating forces of all opposition, and the more territory Anubis claimed, the more the chance grew that he would happen across the weapon, assuming Daniel hadn’t already accidentally shared that knowledge when he’d faced him.

She felt so helpless. They’d heard no word from Daniel in over two months. But at the very least, Daniel had been right about one thing. Handing over the Eye had safeguarded herself along with the rest of SG-1. They were alive, and they’d successfully gotten the Ancient tablet back to Earth with them, which Jonas had been working solidly on translating. All she could do was hope that Daniel’s intuition about the new mission he’d set her would prove to be the right course: that the tablet would contain the location of the Ancient’s Lost City that would lead her to the Ancient weapon capable of eradicating all human life in the galaxy.

She hadn’t given up on studying Ancient herself, but the tablet was in such an old and obscure dialect that it had needed cross-translating through Asgard and deciphering it took a long time. Fortunately Jonas had a genuine talent for languages and spotting patterns, and if anyone could translate the tablet in Daniel’s absence, it was him. It had still taken him two months to satisfactorily come up with a lead to follow when he deduced that the Lost City had been deliberately made lost by the Ancients, and he’d managed to come up with a potential gate address.

Upon their arrival on the planet, first glance showed they might be on the right track. The planet turned out to house extensive Ancient-built ruins, and SG-1, together with SG-3 and 5 all searched together among the extensive ruins to try to find a clue as to where Ancient weapons or information might be held. What they hadn’t expected to find instead was Daniel.

He’d de-ascended to a human again and had apparently been living among the local people since the destruction of Abydos. He also had absolutely recognition of her, his old team, or any recollection whatsoever of his life previous to appearing on the planet, and she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or horrified about that. On the one hand, he had no memory of their conversation on Abydos when he was ascended. Her mission was presumably still safe. But when he expressed no desire to return back to Earth with them, instead choosing to remain on the planet, she’d done her best to try to convince him to want to return to his old life.

Eventually, she did convince him, and as she lay in bed on base the night of his return, wanting to be on hand if any of his memories returned, it occurred to her that it could only have been Oma Desala who had intervened when he must have faced Anubis. She must have been forced to de-ascend him as his punishment, but had been lenient enough to send him to that particular planet, having had the foresight to know that Jonas would translate the tablet and lead them there. She could only think that she’d chosen, too, to wipe his memory to protect her and her new mission. She knew for a fact that losing one’s memory wasn’t a natural process of returning to the mortal plane of existence, as Orlin had demonstrated. She’d also never gained any inkling from the reports in the future that Daniel had ever lost his memories then, either. But if true, she couldn’t help wonder why Oma seemed to take such an interest? Why was she safeguarding her? Why did she seem to want to help her stop Anubis, anyway? As far as she could tell, the wholly majority of the Others saw the plight of humans as below their level, of little consequence. What made Oma different?

Unfortunately, the planet Jonas had led them to, named Vis Uban, had turned up nothing. There were no signs of any advanced weapons or power sources, nor was there any indication that it could be the Lost City of the Ancients. The writings in the ruins told them that it was nothing more than an unfinished city of the Ancients, abandoned when a plague had swept their civilization- likely the same plague that had almost killed them all in Antarctica.

Over the next couple of days, Daniel began to recall his former life slowly. He had also gained the ability to read Ancient fluently, as discovered during a briefing discussing the contents of the tablet, reminding her of the way Orlin had enabled her to read Goa’uld. Oma too, it seemed, had chosen to gift Daniel with linguistic knowledge, likely risking a lot by toeing the very fine line between disobeying their higher laws and receiving banishment. This was huge. With Daniel on the team, able to easily translate Ancient writings and information from now on, the challenge of finding the weapon Anubis was destined to discover suddenly seemed more attainable.

In the meantime, however, with each passing day, Anubis was quickly dominating the galaxy. If they didn’t act quickly to stop his fully-powered Superweapon, once he conquered the System Lords, Earth would surely be his next target.

Vis Uban might have turned out to be a bust, but Jonas, it transpired, had come up with an ingenious plan. But they’d need help if they wanted a chance to succeed.

They first contacted the Tok’ra, whose secret operative among Anubis’ ranks provided plans for Anubis’ main mothership utilizing the new weapon, finding the weapon’s weakness to be an exhaust shaft, though its precise location was unknown. Following the loss of his old mothership to Thor’s control, however, it seemed that Anubis had since shed his overconfidence. The Tok’ra operative had reported that Anubis had since changed his computer systems to using complex cyphers in the oldest dialect of Ancient that no one in the galaxy could possibly translate and gain access to. No one except for Daniel, that was.

She relished in heading the presentation of the finalized plan. It was such an incredible feeling to see everyone working together against Anubis. Up until now, she’d felt so isolated in her fight against Anubis, the burden of responsibility weighing on her shoulders alone. But now, the secret of his true identity was out, and Anubis wasn’t just her problem anymore. Out of the shadows, openly at war against the powers of the galaxy, the SGC, the Tok’ra, and even the System Lords- a key part to finishing off their plan- were now all rallying together to bring down their common enemy.

Following the end of her presentation, she addressed the Colonel’s concerns. She had to agree that the plan was a long-shot, and that the plan’s success hinged on many things going right, but she couldn’t help feeling confident that together, they all stood a better chance of taking down Anubis than the failed United System Lords had of the previous timeline. And after two months of inaction, it felt so good to be preparing for a plan to further her mission. They had to succeed, she thought, with a glance down at her combat bracelet.

Within the space of a week, a fake tablet that Jonas had assembled to lure Anubis to Vis Uban had been planted, and they’d gotten a single F-302, a production model of the previous X-302 built alongside the construction of the X-303, from Nevada to the planet to be launched and piloted against the mothership. The plan was for her and the Colonel to fly the F-302 into orbit and hyperjump through Anubis’ mothership’s shield to take out the cooling ventilation shaft of the weapon once Daniel and Jonas had communicated its location from inside the ship. Teal’c was already with Lord Yu, whom he’d requested to round up the rest of the System Lords’ fleets and wait on standby, ready to take out Anubis’ ship once Anubis’ superweapon was disabled.

The plan was ambitious, but it was their only chance to put a stop to Anubis’ sheer dominance of the galaxy.

Anubis took the fake tablet bait and soon showed up as hoped, and they were ready for him. Daniel and Jonas ringed aboard the mothership from the planet’s surface, and after launching the F-302, she successfully made the hyperspace jump to bring them inside the ship's shields.

The size of Anubis’ new mothership was absolutely staggering, but there was no time to stop and take in its size as several gliders and the ship’s cannon fire bore down on their tail. She should have been terrified- Anubis himself was aboard, the entire fate of the galaxy was at stake, this was their only shot at taking out his advantage over the other Goa’uld, and her life was in danger- but she wasn’t. She found herself, instead, simply exhilarated. She’d never flown together with the Colonel in a combat situation, and she was simply in awe of his piloting skills. Even after a decade out of active piloting duty, she could still see the extent of his talent. He wasn’t just a supreme pilot, able to dodge and weave through the shots as though he bore a sixth sense, but once Anubis activated his superweapon to fire upon the planet’s surface, his shots were impeccable and bang on target, and as she jumped them back through the shields to safety, they rode the blast wave of the successful destruction of Anubis’ superweapon.

“Nice shot, sir!” she cried in triumph, adrenaline still pumping through her veins.

“Well, thank you, ma'am,” he said, sounding as equally exhilarated as she felt.

They got in touch with Daniel who was carrying a Tok’ra communication device, who promptly gave his congratulations on their success from inside the ship.

“Thanks, it was fun,” said the Colonel from the front pilot’s seat, and there was no missing the grin in his voice.

He was right. It had been fun, and seeing the Colonel's piloting skills in battle after all these years of serving together had been a dream come true. She’d flown with dozens of great pilots and thought she’d learned from the best before her stint in the Gulf, but no one had been on par with the Colonel, and she could feel her respect and trust in him deepen even more. She couldn’t believe they’d actually pulled it off. The Eyes of the Goa’uld- the power core of Anubis’ superweapon- were destroyed. His huge advantage over the other System Lords was no more. She’d successfully changed the timeline, and now all they had to do was wait for Teal’c to bring Lord Yu and the other remaining System Lords with him to finish the job.

Except they didn’t show up, and the adrenaline rush from the success of the mission quickly dissipated to hear that Daniel had ended up separated from Jonas, who had been captured. And as she and the Colonel flew back towards Vis Uban’s surface to rendezvous with Daniel on the surface once he ringed off Anubis’ ship, the ship suddenly disappeared behind them, jumping into hyperspace, taking both Daniel and Jonas with them.

Daniel would surely be captured soon, she thought glumly, and if he was to have his mind probed by Anubis, all she could do now was hope that Oma Desala had done a thorough enough job of erasing his memories of her mission.

She and the Colonel gated back to the SGC to report to General Hammond that at least their main objective had been achieved- the Eyes of the Goa’uld, the power core of Anubis’ superweapon was destroyed. But the other System Lords hadn’t shown up as arranged by Teal’c to finalize the ship’s destruction, and Daniel and Jonas were now lost.

As they continued their quick debrief, an unexpected incoming wormhole from Kelowna, Jonas’ homeworld, took them by surprise. Apparently, Anubis was there in his ship, hovering above the capital. There was only one reason she could think of that Anubis would head there- he must have probed Jonas’ mind and learned of the naquadriah native to the planet. He must be looking for a new power source for his superweapon. This was a disaster. If only the System Lords had shown up on time and taken out the ship! What the hell had happened?

She and the Colonel wasted no time gating there to address the situation. To her surprise, it seemed that Anubis hadn’t just come for the naquadriah mineral when word reached them that Anubis’ Jaffa were ransacking the Museum of Antiquity. He must be looking for additional research conducted on the naquadriah by the former Goa’uld that had occupied the planet, she deduced.

Teal’c later joined them on Kelowna, bringing word that Ba’al had replaced Yu as the head of the United Alliance of System Lords, and they sent word to bring Ba’al to Kelowna and take Anubis’ ship out once and for all before he had a chance to re-power his weapon with the naquadriah he’d gathered.

They successfully discovered the data crystal that Anubis had been searching for in the city’s museums, but were soon locked in a firefight against Anubis’ troops, led by his First Prime, Her’ak, over possession of the crystal in the Gate bunker below ground as, by the sound of shaking from above informed them, Ba’al had arrived, and had begun assaulting Anubis’ ship.

When she overheard the Ha’tak communicate to Her’ak in Goa’uld that the ship’s status was critical and was to be evacuated, she knew his next move would be to go for the gate. She had to stop him from returning the crystal now in his hands to his master at all costs. If Anubis gained the ability to stabilize and utilize naquadriah in his weapons, then all their effort to destroy the Eyes of the Goa’uld would have been for absolutely nothing. In fact, she was positive that the power-generation potential of naquadriah would end up being more superior than even the combined Eyes. The galactic situation and balance of power could possibly end up even worse than before.

With all her might, she knocked back the Jaffa who’d been pressing on her, kicking him back with a shove, before launching herself at Her’ak just as he activated the gate to make his escape. She pulled him to the floor at the foot of the DHD with the force of her body weight, the crystal rolling from his grasp, and she engaged in a wrestle to pin him to the floor long enough for the wormhole to disengage. Maybe they could capture him, she thought hazily as she struggled against his immense strength. They could learn valuable intel from him. But she was no match for his symbiote-enhanced strength, and a second later, with a sharp knock to her head, all went black.

The first thing she registered as she opened her eyes was that the gate had disengaged and that all sounds of the earlier firefight had stopped. How long had she been out? She rolled to her side at the sound of a moan of pain near her to see that Jonas had been shot, with Daniel already at his side.

“Jonas!” she cried, ignoring the dizziness that washed over her as she orientated herself to crawl to his side.

“I owe you one,” Daniel said to Jonas, and she gathered that Jonas must have taken the shot for Daniel.

“We’ll call it even,” he said, referencing that Daniel had given his life to disable the Kelownan’s naquadriah bomb a year prior.

“The crystal!” she then shouted, suddenly recalling why she’d been knocked unconscious in the first place.

“It is safely within our possession, thanks to your efforts Major Carter,” said Teal’c, standing beside the gate, holding up the orange crystal for her to see, and giving her a bow of his head.

“Yeah, nice save there, Carter,” said the Colonel approvingly from beside Teal’c.

“Her’ak?” she asked, not seeing any sign of Anubis’ First Prime anywhere around them.

“Got away through the gate,” he replied.

'Damn,' she thought. He must have made a run for it right after he knocked her out.

“Gone quiet upstairs, though,” the Colonel said, looking upwards at the bunker’s ceiling and indicating towards the surface high above.

“Ba’al and the remaining System Lords’ forces have surely succeeded in destroying Anubis’ ship,” Teal’c posited, with a hint of a smile pervading his usual stoic expression.

“Let’s go up and find out, shall we?” said the Colonel, cocking his head and looking optimistic.

----

Anubis’ mothership had indeed been destroyed by Ba’al and the other System Lords, and to everyone’s surprise, they had kept their word and retreated following their victory, leaving Kelowna untouched. With Anubis’ ship destroyed, the remaining ground troops soon surrendered, and Teal’c took point to offer them the chance to join the Rebel Jaffa.

It had been a hell of a day. They’d not only destroyed the Eyes of the Goa’uld over Vis Uban, but they’d followed Anubis to Kelowna, and his entire mothership had been destroyed, his stolen stockpile of naquadriah recovered in a shielded container that had rained down upon the city. And best of all, they’d all survived. Jonas, too, while a little shaken from his experience with the mind probe, was alive, and though Anubis, too, would surely have survived the destruction of his ship, his ability to dominate the galaxy was now severely crippled. It would probably take him months if not years to recover his position. She was sure the remaining of the System Lords would waste no time to seize back their stolen territories before Anubis resurfaced, ensuring the balance of power of the galaxy fell back out of his favour, and that meant his ability to come across the weapon capable of destroying all human life in the galaxy had been set back drastically. They’d bought valuable time.

A week later, after Jonas’ recovery was assured, and after assisting with the cleanup of the city and providing medical aid in the aftermath of the destruction of Anubis’ ship- sadly no intact computer core parts of the destroyed mothership had been salvaged- Jonas was offered a job as liaison for the Kelownan nation on his homeworld, which he accepted.

She was sad to see him go, but he’d survived, and he’d helped save not just Earth but the entire galaxy. He was leaving SG-1 to be remembered as a hero, and more importantly, as her friend.

----

Over the next few months, there were no reports whatsoever of Anubis from the Rebel Jaffa or Tok’ra. She knew he was still alive somewhere, biding his time and likely working on a new plot to regain power, but Orlin had said time wasn’t important for ascended beings. Anubis might not retry to seize power for a long time. He’d chosen to return to the shadows, and as anticipated, in the meantime, the balance of power in the galaxy had shifted back to the other System Lords. Ba’al had risen to gain the most power and territory, but as Earth didn’t seem to be an immediate target, and since the System Lords seemed only focused on internal skirmishes over territorial borders, she felt herself relax slightly for the first time in months.

With Daniel back on SG-1, and with Anubis out of play for the time being, she almost felt like she’d returned to the old days before she’d been sent forward in time by Orlin. Without any active leads to follow to find the Lost City, aside from occasionally lending a hand to work on fixing the damaged X-303, which had ended up stuck on a planet following an accidental overload of the naquadriah engine on its official maiden voyage, she spent her free time with Cassie and Janet, as well as continuing to covertly study the Ancient’s language.

And aside from the bizarreness of the Colonel being cloned as a teenage boy, a run in with an AI controlling its citizens within a dome which had been a situation far too similar to Aschen Prime, and participating in a spaceship tournament with an allied race of people, life returned to a sense of normality as SG-1 continued to follow its mission schedule.

----

When she’d passed on her ideas of calibrating a DHDs internal programming to block incoming wormholes almost a year prior, she’d only ever considered her ideas as defensive. But when Dr Felger, a brilliant though rather socially-inept scientist working at the SGC, proposed the idea of a scrambling virus to disable an off-world DHD, rendering the target gate useless, she had to agree that the idea had huge merit. She’d never once considered an attacking application of her ideas, but if they ever found the location of the Ancient weapon that Anubis was set to find, disabling its stargate had the potential to put an indefinite stop to his attack. She was almost certain that the Others wouldn’t permit him to rebuild the weapon elsewhere, though she wished she’d thought to confirm that with Daniel when they’d spoken on Abydos, and if the weapon turned out to be too large to move by ship to an alternate planet, then his plan might end up being thwarted permanently.

And so, she promptly volunteered to join Dr Felger in his development of the scrambling virus, working together in the science lab over the next few days. When they had a complete prototype ready, she proposed testing it on one of Ba’al’s principle mining planets.

At first it had seemed a success, however things didn’t continue to go to plan. What initially seemed to have been an unintended side effect of the virus- the entire gate network in the galaxy had become disabled- turned out to have been a deliberate attack by Ba’al. He must have detected and modified the virus in his DHD and intentionally sent it out to infect all other DHDs in the galaxy by initiating a correlative update.

When the incident was finally resolved by an anti-virus written by Dr Felger, reintroduced to the original DHD on Ba’al’s planet, she couldn’t help think that this ability to have a DHD communicate with all others in the galaxy was similar to how Anubis had dialled all gates in the galaxy simultaneously in the other timeline. Had they accidentally stumbled upon the answer of how it could be done, via the correlative update program? Could a DHD in fact be programmed to send a dialling command to all DHDs in the network simultaneously in this fashion?

----

The successful capture of a new foot soldier, black-armoured and helmeted, and seemingly indestructible, who had been attacking minor Goa’ulds of late had led them to learn a disturbing fact. These strange and frankly scary new soldiers weren’t human. They weren’t Jaffa, either. They were Goa’uld in a genetically-engineered host- stronger and more resilient than any Jaffa or human. Their suits, too, were capable of absorbing and repelling any weapons’ fire including both energy and ballistic. Capturing one alive had taken a stupendous effort, and though the humanoid creature didn’t willingly give up any information, with her father’s help, and use of the Tok’ra’s mind-reading technology, they learned the foot soldier had been created by Anubis, and they had extracted its planet of origin.

This was what Anubis had been doing during his absence since his defeat at Kelowna, she realized. He was creating an army, and a plan was hatched to visit the planet the soldier had given up. It was deemed unlikely that Anubis would be on the planet, and they had to learn more. They had to access his systems to find out how many drones Anubis had manufactured, and learn what his future plans were.

The planet, Tartarus, turned out to be one of Anubis’ most heavily defended planets in his new domain, guarded by a powerful sensor array, preventing anyone from arriving by ship unnoticed. Her father penetrated the forcefield surrounding its stargate by wearing the armoured suit of the captured soldier, and he then gained access to the rest of her team- Bra’tac, Teal’c and herself- who’d arrived by cargo ship. Daniel and the Colonel were away on a separate mission to learn more of the Ancient technology that Anubis had likely used in his creation of the soldiers- the origin of the Goa’uld’s healing device, the sarcophagus.

She’d initially had her reservations about commanding the team to Anubis’ world, which had included her own father, but to her surprise he’d followed her lead and allowed her to call the shots. Ordering Bra’tac to stay on the cargo ship to await their getaway, she, Teal’c and her Dad soon found hundreds of holding tanks in a lab on the base, as well as a Goa’uld Queen capable of spawning thousands of Goa'uld, presumably for more soldiers. It was a sight all-too similar to what she’d seen on Pangar when the Pangarans had used the Tok’ra Queen Egeria to manufacture Tretonin. Anubis could only have accessed the knowledge from Jonas’ mind when he’d been captured just months prior, and stolen the idea.

She planted C-4 on the Queen Goa’uld’s tank to be blown when they fled the facility, before making the decision that the team’s next priority would be accessing Anubis’ computer logs, hoping that he hadn’t encoded them in the same Ancient language as he had on his mothership.

“Okay. We take what time we have remaining and try to find out what else Anubis is up to. Then we detonate the C4 and get outta here. There must be a console somewhere that will let us access a log of recent activity. Even if it doesn't contain Anubis' long-range plans, we might be able to gather intel on the movement of his fleet.”

Her Dad and Teal’c agreed, and they stealthily made their way through Anubis’ base to the common area, finding the corridors surprisingly empty, to where they hoped they’d be able to find a computer terminal to access the information they needed.

Before they’d had a chance to access any consoles, they soon found out why the corridors had been so quiet. The sound of hundreds of boots marching in unison drew their attention, and as they all moved to the observation window before them, she was absolutely floored to see Anubis himself standing up high on a platform. He was here, on the planet. He’d been here the whole time. Her brain was screaming that they had to get out of here right now, but she was paralyzed by the shock of actually seeing him in real life for the very first time, and all she could do was look on helplessly as tens of hundreds of his foot soldiers, all identical in their black suited armour, all stepped into formation before their master.

“You are all my children,” boomed Anubis’ amplified voice, making the frame of the window they were stood at shudder with each resounding word. “Kull Warriors. You are the instruments of my conquest.”

“Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis!” they all called out in unison.

It was a scene taken right out of a nightmare. She thought they’d put a stop to his plans of galactic domination by taking out his weapon and destroying his mothership. She thought they’d bought time for her to find the location of the Ancient weapon first, but instead, in the few short months that had passed since his ship’s destruction, he’d built a staggering army of almost unstoppable soldiers- "Kull warriors"- he’d called them.

“There must be thousands of them,” she remarked to Teal’c and her father.

Accessing Anubis’ computers to determine his plans and intel were now no longer relevant. His plan was more than clear; he’d used the word “conquest” when addressing his warriors. He was going to use his near-indestructible army to seize back his domain from the System Lords and take over the galaxy.

She was just about to order them to fall back to Bra’tac and the ship when they were accosted by a Goa’uld from behind them.

Teal’c was faster, however. He stunned the Goa’uld with his zat, giving her the chance to raise her gun and finish the job. There was no point trying to capture or question this Goa'uld. They had to get the intel on the size of Anubis’ army back to the SGC and the Tok’ra fast, and they had to get away before Anubis had any chance to find out they were there and capture them.

As they raced to make their escape, all she could do was detonate the C-4, killing the Goa’uld Queen, and thereby stalling Anubis’ ability to manufacture more of his Kull warriors. But he already had an army of thousands. Not even Ba’al would stand a chance against this new formidable enemy. It would probably only be a matter of weeks before Anubis reclaimed the galaxy.

Chapter Text

But he already had an army of thousands. Not even Ba’al would stand a chance against this new formidable enemy. It would probably only be a matter of weeks before Anubis reclaimed the galaxy.

420 days to go

Fortunately the Colonel and Daniel had been successful in their own mission to recover the piece of Ancient technology said to be the origin of the sarcophagus technology, and believed to be a key part in the functioning of the Kull warriors, whose genetically-modified hosts had been animated in a Frankenstein’s monster-esque way using similar Ancient knowledge by Anubis.

Her priority now was working to construct a weapon capable of undoing the effects of this Ancient technology, thereby killing the Kull warrior’s host and thus disabling the Goa’uld inside. Collaborating with the Tok’ra, Selmak and Malek in particular, working at the Alpha Site, she began to make some headway.

Alongside her work on disabling Anubis’ new army, the government of Tagrea, the planet where the X-303- now officially named the Prometheus- had been forced to land after the failure of the naquadriah hyperdrive, were putting increasing pressure on the Earth scientists there to complete their work. And so, the decision was made to retrofit an Al’kesh engine that had recently been recovered by the Colonel and Teal’c during the DHD-scrambling virus fiasco and bring the Prometheus home. Though an Al’kesh engine was designed for a ship one-tenth the size of the Prometheus and would overheat and burn out from any prolonged hyperjump, a way was devised by establishing cool-down points between Tagrea and Earth, allowing the engine to return to within safe parameters before its next hyperspace jump. She’d be hobbling home, but after six months stranded on another planet, the Prometheus would finally be coming home, where further repairs and work on the naquadriah-based engine could be done smoothly without the red tape and interference of the Tangrean government.

Despite her work on the anti-Kull warrior device being urgent, she was unable to stop herself from volunteering to assist with the pending mission of bringing the Prometheus home. She’d invested too much into the project, and the ship had saved the lives of the Asgard; she felt an innate duty to bring her home safely, and the sooner she was brought home, the sooner the ship could be outfitted with the promised upgrades from the Asgard.

Not to mention, there was a rare nebula-type formation that the Prometheus’ designated route home was due to pass, and she’d been highly amused that both the Colonel and Colonel Ronson, the commander of the Prometheus, had given her the precise same knowing smile at its mention. She knew she was abusing her position and rank within the Prometheus project, as well as her friendship with Ronson whom she’d met in Nevada a year prior, indulging her own scientific curiosity and causing a detour on the Prometheus’ flight home, but if she was honest with herself, hadn’t she earned the right to have some fun after all her recent hard work? She was dying to see the stellar object for herself up-close after years of seeing it through a telescope, and she hadn’t forgotten her mission she reminded herself, tracing the feel of her combat bracelet under her fingers as the Prometheus dropped out of hyperspace at the border of the stellar formation, its giant green swirls of gaseous clouds billowing closer before the bridge’s window as the ship slowed its approach. As soon as the ship safely got back, she’d return to work on the Kull warrior neutralizing weapon, and if the Earth’s knowledge of astrophysics was advanced through the two hours of study a chuckling Ronson had acquiesced, then what harm could come of indulging her curiosity?

----

Four days later however, though it had felt to her like weeks, lying alone in the infirmary bed, bearing the most momentous headache she’d ever experienced, she looked back on her experience on the ship.

They’d come under attack from an unidentified alien ship as soon as they’d approached the nebula-like cloud. The hyperdrive had been hit, and as she’d tried to override the safety protocols to make a small hyperspace jump to hide within the cloud from the enemy, an overload had caused her to hit her head and lose consciousness. When she’d awoken, she’d found herself completely alone on the ship, left behind during the evacuation of the ship.

Trapped on the silent ship inside the gas formation for days, the last remaining crew member, the effects of her concussion had rapidly progressed from what had begun with a dull pain to increasingly frequent blackouts, memory loss, and even hallucinations of her teammates and family. It had felt as though her brain itself was under attack, deteriorating together with the effects of the gas outside’s corrosion of the ship’s outer hull. She’d become confused, time had stretched out and lost all meaning, and by the end she’d found it more and more difficult to even string a coherent thought together. Looking back, she couldn’t believe she’d single-handedly managed to save the ship, rescued the crew from the alien ship, and got the Prometheus out of the cloud.

How had she even done it?

She stared up at the blank infirmary ceiling trying to urge her brain to remember. It must be night, she thought, as the ward was silent apart from the beeping of her own heart monitor, and she found herself wishing she’d thought to ask the Colonel the time before he’d left. He must have been watching over her while she remained unconscious waiting for her to wake up, and her heart gave a lurch at the thought.

Pulling her thoughts away from the lingering embarrassment at having mistaken him for a hallucination when she’d first regained consciousness, straining through the fogginess and haze of her brain caused no doubt by the pain medication she must have been put on, she was soon rewarded with a flash of memory of excusing herself from duty on the bridge of the Prometheus after the return of the crew, though she couldn’t remember anything after that. What had led to that? She’d have to write a report over the coming days regardless, but she wanted, no, needed to process for herself first what had happened to her.

She forced herself to recall. Yes, that was it. Before the return of the crew, her ears had been filled with the sounds of the alarms, and she could recall the smell of burning circuitry as sparks showered from the overhead bulkheads on the bridge. There had been minutes to go before the ship’s inner hull was breached, and the hyperdrive and sub-light engines had been rendered completely inoperable within the gas cloud. She’d been trapped, stranded and injured, alone with a massive concussion, conjuring images of her teammates talking to her- a survival technique, she guessed- as she was forced to embrace the fact that she had been about to die.

She’d been out of ideas. She’d given up, she recalled with a pang. She’d had to face the regret of not being able to complete her mission, and accept the stupidity of the fact that her simple curiosity had doomed everyone. The damn cloud that she’d been so excited to study had been about to kill her, the crew, her ship, and likely together with it the entire human race. She’d let everyone down because she'd chosen to selfishly indulge herself. The only fragment of hope that she’d been left with had been that the Colonel would remember about the file on her computer. She’d never changed the password. Would he have read it if she’d never made it home? Would it have been enough?

And then, just as fear had all but consumed her, punctuated only by the fierce, almost blinding, pounding of her head injury, the countdown to the inner hull breach on the surrounding displays ticking down the minutes to her death, she recalled the appearance of that girl again, there on the bridge. Another hallucination, along with her imagined teammates, surely. Only, unlike the comfort the hallucinations of her familiar teammates and family had brought, she didn’t know the identity of this girl. Who had she been? Why had she been there? She could recall that her hallucination of Daniel had suggested the girl might be the personification of the gas cloud, which was perhaps a sentient being. That concept had been, and still was, entirely ridiculous, but now looking back, she couldn’t push aside the idea that there had been something different about her. Almost deliberately vague in her answers, wearing that white dress, at times a certain sense of wisdom in her eyes far beyond her apparent young age, and, wait- yes, she could recall the scene vividly now. Lethargic from her concussion, collapsing from the pain and exhaustion onto the bridge floor, her mind frantically scrambling at some semblance of an idea or way out of her certain doom, asking the galaxy for forgiveness in letting the human race down… Yes, she was certain the girl had appeared again, playing with those bubbles… That had inspired her to create a hyperspace bubble using the Al’kesh engine, causing a partial shift into hyperspace, negating the effects of the cloud on the sub-light engines and their operation. That’s how she’d saved herself, the ship and the crew from the alien ship also stuck in the cloud, she recalled with triumph, earning a slice of pain from the mental effort of remembering.

“Then the traveller in the dark, thanks you for your tiny spark.”
“How could he see where to go, if you did not twinkle so-”
rang a small sing-song voice through the empty ward, and she recognized the lines as a verse from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which the girl had been singing on the ship.

“Spark...,” she repeated aloud, as the meek voice of the young girl continued to ring, repeating the same verse.

"Lightning flashes, sparks shower, in one blink of your eye you’ve missed seeing."

Now that she thought about it- wincing from the sting in her head as with great effort she sat up to look around the infirmary to find the source of the singing, but finding it empty as before- hadn’t the girl been almost glowing when she’d given her the idea of the hyperspace bubble? The idea that had saved her, and more importantly, salvaged her mission?

Pushing through the haze of her concussion, her sluggish brain made the connection. It couldn’t be, could it?

“Oma Desala?” she asked aloud, looking towards the other empty beds in the ward for the source of the soft singing.

A chuckle from behind her made her jump, and the murmur of singing ceased immediately.

“First you call me Jack, and now you call me Oma Desala?” asked the Colonel who’d somehow entered the infirmary without her noticing. “Your brain must really be addled,” he teased, throwing her a smirk.

“Sir,” she grimaced, humiliation creeping over her at the memory of his reminder of her mistaking him for the hallucination of him on the ship when she’d first awoken, and disappointment by his interruption of her train of thought.

“I know you said you didn’t need anything,” he said, and she was surprised to detect a hint of hesitation in his voice. “But I heard that during your absence the commissary ended up with a surplus of blue jello, and I figured you could, you know, help them out,” he said awkwardly, handing her a glass of jello and spoon.

She understood the gesture. He’d wanted to make an excuse to be here even after she’d told him she hadn’t wanted anything when she’d awoken. He’d probably felt useless while she’d been missing, marooned on the spaceship, just as she’d felt when he’d been away for weeks with the Tok’ra and captured by Ba’al. She was always left with such a lonely, helpless feeling when she was away from him with no clear course back, and sometimes the mere thought of him had ached so badly it had hurt when she’d been stuck in the future.

Truthfully though, her concussion-induced queasiness had removed any sense of appetite, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him by refusing the jello, and so she reluctantly accepted the offering of the spoon and glassed jello that he was extending, slowly taking a bite of it under his watchful gaze and forcing herself to swallow.

Once she’d successfully made it through consuming the gelatinous concoction without betraying her sense of nausea, he reached back for the evidence of the dessert he’d smuggled in that the on-duty nurses would likely object to. As he began to take back the glass from her hand, their fingers brushing against each other, she couldn’t help suck in a breath as she lingered to ungrasp the glass, relishing in the feel of his fingers against hers, frozen in the moment. Feeling his gaze on her, she looked up to see him studying her, likely assuring himself that she was okay, before a brief trace of a smile and flash of emotion- relief, satisfaction, and something undefinable- flashed in his eyes, before he quickly schooled his features and cleared his throat. And as she reluctantly relinquished the glass from her grasp, their fingers no longer touching, she couldn’t help feel a sense of loss that the brief moment was over. She could only hope that he hadn’t picked up on the quickening of the beeping of her heart monitor, though if he had, he’d made the decision to conceal it, saving her dignity.

Then, reminding her of the shindig to be held to celebrate her safe return, he swiftly exited the infirmary, leaving her again to her solitude and silence.

After trying to convince herself that the light-headedness that had come over her was simply a lasting result of her head injury, her thoughts soon returned to Oma Desala. The soft singing voice had entirely disappeared, and now that her stomach was full of food and her brain was feeling a little less foggy, she couldn’t help a sense wash over her that she had likely imagined the entire thing, likely trying to grasp at any reasoning to explain her state of mind and the strange girl she must have conjured up. Yet, she couldn’t help thinking that there was still a non-zero possibility that the idea of generating the hyperspace bubble had been an intervention by the ascended being. And in which case, if true, which was a strong if, then she couldn’t help wonder again, why? Why was Oma Desala helping her?

Chapter Text

...she couldn’t help wonder again, why? Why was Oma Desala helping her?

409 days to go

The afore promised shindig was finally held following a week’s delay caused by an impromptu visit to Kelowna to help with a near-disaster caused by their naquadriah mining. The timing had worked out well, however, since Jonas had been able to join them at the Colonel’s house, along with Janet and Cassie, and of course Daniel and Teal’c.

As the others continued to watch the selected sci-fi movie with far too little real scientific basis for her liking, she found herself drawn outside by the smoky smell of cooking.

Stepping outside onto the deck, she was forced to hug her jacket closely to her chest in an effort to bar out the late January nip and soft snowflakes starting to weave their way down from the overcast sky, before she caught sight of the Colonel working his barbeque grill, and decided to stop and observe him. She couldn’t help smiling at the sight of how at ease he looked, unaware that he was being watched, standing there in his element, seemingly enjoying the task of tending to the numerous sizable steaks laid out on the grill. The wafts of smoke and spews of flame from the charring meat occasionally being thrown up warmed the ageing features of his face, and she found herself wondering if this was how he looked when he was alone at his cabin- happy and relaxed, and without a hint of his usual soldier demeanor. He was simply Jack, and as she heard a bout of laughter ringing from within the house, she found herself wishing that it were only the two of them here.

The sound of laughter must have drawn his attention because he looked up, immediately meeting her eyes, causing her to give an awkward smile at having been caught watching him, before he waved her over, the pair of tongs still in his hand.

“Movie finish already?” he asked her, looking surprised.

“No, actually I got kicked out by Daniel for tearing the movie apart,” she said, approaching the barbeque and closing the distance between them. “I don’t know why Teal’c picked out ‘The Core’. Surely he should have known I’d hate it?”

“All I know is you once blew up a Sun, Carter,” he said, an ounce of pride in his voice. “No amount of science fiction could ever live up to your real life, could it?”

“Our lives are pretty crazy, aren’t they?” she smirked. “I mean, we almost just got blown to pieces inside the upper mantle of an alien planet a couple of days ago,” she said, referring to the drill they’d had to send down to cut off the vein of naquadah set to explode in a chain reaction below the Kelownan surface.

“Yup. And then a week before that you saved the entire crew of the Prometheus from alien captors- “

“Yeah…,” she interrupted, still feeling uncomfortable by the memory of her experience aboard the ship. She still hadn’t remembered everything, but she’d had to listen to all the ship’s logs she’d left aboard the ship to complete her report, which had been a less than pleasant task.

He seemed to read her mind, because he surprised her by then asking:

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks. You doing okay?”

The way he asked her so earnestly warmed her despite the onset of cold from the fast-fading sun. The truth was, she wasn’t okay. Far from it. Because of the changes made to the timeline, Anubis had ended up capturing Jonas that had led him to make the Kull warriors. She was entirely responsible for leading to their creation, and she had to get back fast to work on the disruptor technology to stop him from dominating the galaxy. But her work had been put on hold because of her selfish decision to join the Prometheus mission. She’d spent a week under medical observation, wrestling with guilt and leftover confusion from the gaps in her memories of the incident, and then the very day she’d been released and cleared for off-world duty she’d been side-tracked once again by the Kelownan incident, pushing back her project to the sideline yet again.

Holding back a sigh, she focused on tracking a single snowflake as it fell down towards the heat of grill where it vanished in an instant. Her mission, too, was like a snowflake, she thought. As was the fate of the entire human race. Delicate and fleeting. One wrong move, one wrong gust of wind and her efforts and the lives of everyone would be vaporized in an instant.

“Fine, Sir,” she forced herself to say. She really, really wasn’t, though, and she wished so badly that she could convey her thoughts, her fears and share the burden that she alone had to carry.

She felt him look at her longer than was probably necessary, as though trying to gauge the truth of her words, before apparently deciding a change of topic was in order.

“Looking forward to getting back with Dad at the Alpha Site?”

“Yes, I am,” she said, grateful for him shifting his questioning away from the subject of her feelings. “He can’t make it until next week now as he’s on an op, so I’ll be working out of the science labs on-base ‘til then.”

He nodded, then returned his attention to a particularly blackened steak, before shuffling round the scant vegetables on the grill before they stuck.

“The guys miss you on the team, you know,” he said after a pause, his eyes still directed down at the peppers and onions, and she understood full well that he was masking his own feelings by mentioning the ‘guys’.

She didn’t know how to answer. She missed working with SG-1 too. Between her work on bringing the Prometheus home and developing the Kull disruptor weapon, she hadn’t been on a scheduled off-world recon mission together with SG-1 for almost two months now. Not since they’d come across the Hak’tyl, a group of female Jaffa who resisted their Goa’uld master, and who promptly joined Teal’c, Rebel Jaffa group. Some had even been put on Tretonin, and the leader of the Hak’tyl, Ishta, had even begun a romantic relationship with Teal’c, whose wife had sadly died a year prior.

But her mission and stopping Anubis had to take priority over everything now. She was determined that there would be no more disruptions to her plan.

“Oh there you both are,” said Cassie from behind them, standing in the porch doorway, breaking the silence silence that had fallen between them. “Daniel’s fallen asleep on the sofa and I thought we should prank him,” she said with an evil smile, reminding her of the fact that the teenager was set to leave for college that coming Autumn. She was going to fit in just fine, she thought with a chuckle.

“Permanent markers are in the top-left drawer of the kitchen unit,” said the Colonel with an equally evil smile, and she couldn’t help suddenly laughing out loud despite her earlier melancholy. Her commanding officer, a full-blown Colonel in the Air Force really was such a child at heart.

“Carter, take care of this will you?” he then asked, handing her his tongs without waiting for her answer. “I gotta get in on this,” and then he tossed her a wink before dashing into the house with the bustling energy of the teenager who’d disappeared just ahead of him.

As she resigned to tending to the steaks alone which she’d since noticed had an odd smell of beer to them- ‘had he really dowsed them in beer?’ she thought incredulously- a yelp and the unmistakable protesting shouts of Daniel could be heard, and she couldn’t help smile at the thought of all her friends- no, family, inside the Colonel’s house, all alive and well together, enjoying each others’ company.

Sometimes, especially lately, they felt far in-between, but today was a good day.

----

As it happened, Daniel’s tiredness hadn’t ended up being a one-off. Osiris, it turned out, had been praying on Daniel in his house the past few nights. Beaming down from a concealed Tel’tak ship in orbit, she’d been attempting to access his subconscious memories left behind from his ascension by manipulating his dreams using a modified Tok’ra memory recall device. The only possible explanation that she could come up with was that Anubis must not only have stolen the information on the naquadriah element and the idea of mass-breeding drone Goa’uld symbiotes from Jonas’ mind when he’d captured him over Vis Uban. He must have also learned of the existence of the Lost City, too, sending his agent, Osiris, to extract the information from Daniel by use of his host’s past history with Daniel. Fortunately they’d managed to trap and capture Osiris before she escaped back to her master, and the Tok’ra had been able to extract the Goa’uld from its host, Sarah.

She was extremely traumatized from her experience of having been forcibly taken as a host for the past three years, forced to watch as a helpless observer, trapped within her own body, the evil actions of the Goa’uld. Try as she might to relate to her, using her experience with Jolinar to bond with her, she couldn’t get Sarah to confirm Anubis’ instructions related to the Lost City to the former Goa’uld within her, nor would she speak at all of any mention of Anubis’ plans or if he’d ever mentioned a superweapon, which she had braved asking about in confidence.

Regardless, it was enough to know that Anubis was now actively searching for the Lost City himself. And with an army of thousands of Kull Warriors ready to do his bidding, it surely wouldn’t take him long to track it down. Working on the disruptor technology to disable the Kull Warriors’ host bodies was now an even greater priority.

----

Following the distraction that had yet again been thrown at her and her mission, she’d had to agree with her father’s assessment that the prototype should have been finished weeks ago. A solid week’s hard work collaborating with him full-time at the Alpha Site, however, had finally yielded a prototype of the weapon.

It was immediately put to the test, however, when two Kull Warriors unexpectedly invaded and attacked the Alpha Site.

She couldn’t believe their work had been discovered, and that the Alpha Site’s location had fallen into Anubis’ hands. But there was no time to speculate how. With the blast of the base’s self-destruct still ringing in her ears, she sped for the treeline, forced to leave her father behind in the chaos of screams and flying debris- one of which had skewered her leg.

A single Kull Warrior remained hot on her tail. There was no mistake that it was singling her out. Its movements were too precise. It knew of the newly-completed disruptor upgrade unit in her possession. Anubis must have captured someone living on the Alpha Site and used the mind probe technology and sent the Warriors to prevent its completion. It wouldn’t stop until it found her.

Unfortunately the delivery mount for the prototype upgrade in her possession had been with her father when they’d been separated. She didn’t even know if he was still alive. Without a viable weapon or radio on her, her only choice was to run, evade and buy time until rescue showed up. The SGC would dial in when the Alpha Site missed their scheduled check-in. All she had to do was hold out until then. But what chance did she possibly have to compete against a relentless, inhuman, genetically engineered being that required no rest?

She’d never been so fatigued and drained in her life. It hadn’t helped that she’d skipped breakfast the morning of the attack to finish up the prototype, now twenty four hours ago. She’d since been pushed far beyond her physical limits by her relentless hunter, pursuing her through the endless line of trees. As exhaustion set in and the pain-dampening effects of adrenaline wore off, she felt her leg injury worsening, shock setting in and her legs giving way. She couldn’t run anymore. She knew from experience and a lifetime of military training that all she’d have to fall back on was her mental strength to survive. But what hope was there?

She’d come to think of the Kull warrior by now as Anubis himself, personified. A stronger, more powerful enemy, dressed in black, its face hidden, constantly one step behind her, honing in on her, determined to put a stop to her mission. The other Sam in the future had already lost her life to him. This time round he’d already attacked Earth, destroyed Abydos, decimated the other System Lords’ armies, and the small victories she’d gained against him- destroying his superweapon and hindering his Kull Warrior factory still hadn’t seemed to have put a dent in his plans. And now, she’d just found out he knew about the Lost City. He had far more resources than her, and would surely find it first. He’d found out about the only defence against his new army of super soldiers, too, and now she was being hunted for it. More Kull warriors were probably on their way here, too. Anubis would surely send more when the first two didn’t report back.

A glimmer of hope was presented by way of a UAV, which she spotted from her makeshift hiding place under some shrubbery where she’d been forced to rest as her leg finally gave out. While the UAV was promptly downed by the nearby Kull, it at least meant the SGC must be looking for survivors. They would know its position, and hopefully they’d have guessed by now it was after her. But she must have covered several clicks of terrain away from the gate by now. Even if they did get a fix on her twenty, they’d never make it to her in time. Anubis’ soldier was bearing down fast on her position, she saw, as it passed by her concealed position no more than thirty meters away.

Looking at her combat bracelet, she knew she had to dig deep. She couldn’t count on an ascended being to help her out of this desperate situation, not that she was sure that was how she’d even survived her near-death on the Prometheus just weeks prior. All she knew was, once again, she was injured, exhausted, and alone; the clock ticking down against her. Once again, it was all down to a battle of mind over matter.

She couldn’t let Anubis get hold of the prototype, the only thing standing between him and galactic domination. She couldn’t give up. Not for as long as she still drew breath.

Emerging from her hiding place, she risked heading for the downed UAV, knowing the Kull warrior would likely be drawn to it too, working as fast as she could to haul it to a nearby pile of boulders and prize open the circuitry panel of the missile to override the command wire enabling a manual ignition.

Sure enough, the soldier showed up not three minutes after her arrival. She set off the missile, immediately making contact with her hunter, who instantly vanished in a giant mound of rubble.

She’d done it. She was safe. She still had the prototype. She still had a chance at saving the galaxy.

What little adrenaline she’d manage to produce to enact her plan drained from her into the gravel below in an instant of relief, and she sank against the mound, exhausted, praying the blast would eventually draw a team of rescuers to her position. They’d likely be a few hours behind, and until then, she would gladly rest here. She couldn’t possibly move another inch. She had nothing left in her.

The next second, however, with horror, she saw as the loose gravel beside her began rolling. Tiny pieces at first, until the mound of dust rose, out of which burst forth the black armour plating of the Kull warrior as it stood once more, completely unharmed.

It wasn’t dead. But she was about to be. She had no fight left to give. No plan. No hope.

As the Kull Warrior raised its arm at her, taking airm to fire its energy weapon at her, she gulped, instinctively reaching for her combat bracelet, screwing her eyes shut and silently praying and apologizing to the human race and the other Sam for letting them all down. Anubis was just too strong.

All she could do was wait for the end.

Only, the shots she heard next didn’t make contact with her. And didn’t they sound like an M32?

Her eyes flew open to see Teal’c aiming his weapon at the soldier, firing another grenade. She couldn’t believe he’d got here so fast. The mere sight of him infused her with just enough energy to get clear of the Kull warrior whose attention had been drawn away, where she ducked back behind the mound of boulders with the UAV, sinking into the safety granted behind them.

Her heart then leapt to see the Colonel emerge from the treeline before her with the weapon her father had been carrying- he must have survived- and she promptly handed the upgrade she’d kept in her vest pocket, and she heard him fire shots behind her, hearing the sound of it making contact with the warrior, who could be heard hitting the ground with a clatter.

“Is it…?” she breathed, wincing at the pain her words caused, realising now how hoarse her throat was from panting and lack of use the past day.

“Yeah, he's dead… Right Teal'c? He's dead?” he called out to Teal’c who was still out of sight behind her.

“Yeah, he's dead,” he confirmed after a pause of silence. “You wanna get up?”

She had nothing left in her. She couldn’t even turn her head to look at him.

“I just need to rest for a minute,” she panted, barely able to muster the energy to breathe, let alone speak.

She then felt him sit down next to her, his arm resting against hers, and drew on his presence like a lifeline.

“C’mere,” he said after a pause, and she felt him put his arm around her, drawing her to him, and she gratefully embraced his gesture, allowing her body to fall towards his, resting her head on his shoulder.

“It’s over, Carter. We got you.”

She didn’t have the energy to ask how they’d got there on time. She barely even had the energy to register his words and accept that it really was over. That they’d found her in time. It had been too close. Like when Nirrti had manipulated her DNA. Like on the Prometheus. She’d given up again. She’d accepted her death, and waited for the Kull to take her life, only saved again by a mere sliver of a miracle.

But now all that meant was that it wasn’t really over. Not for her. She still had her mission to complete.

But she didn’t have the energy to protest. For now, she would simply soak in his presence, the sweet smell of his sweat and the comforting feel of his breathing as her own rhythm deepened and slowed, as she allowed herself to succumb to merciful oblivion.

----

Physical recovery hadn’t taken the several weeks it should have as her father had healed her leg injury with the on-base Goa’uld healing device before he’d left with the Tok’ra. But the technology was of no use on the mental scarring she’d accumulated over the last few weeks. Three off-world missions and three far too close brushes with death in a row had left her entirely mentally drained. Not helping was the recurring paranoid expectation and anxiety that a Kull warrior was about to accost her from behind the corner at any moment. And when she did finally find time to rest amidst her busy schedule with the Alpha Site’s relocation and the prep for the next stage with the prototype weapon, her dreams were plagued by dreams of being endlessly pursued. She couldn’t seem to turn off the feeling of being switched “on” all the time, awake or asleep, in defence mode, ready to react when the chase resumed as though expecting the Kull warriors to follow her to Earth.

Adding to her mental load was the unwelcome presence of a camera crew to officially document the one-thousandth trip made by a team through the gate. She couldn’t believe the President had actually sanctioned such a project. She had no interest in his political-related movivations, and it didn’t help that she’d already suffered from a bad experience with camera crews before. She just didn’t have time or patience to be forced in front of a camera as she diligently tried to focus on the plan with the Kull disruptor weapon. It needed to be mass-produced and given to all SG teams as soon as possible. It was only a matter of time before a team ran into Anubis again.

Added to her workplate was a Goa’uld probe that SG-13 had recovered from a planet with Ancient ruins they’d been surveying. She’d never seen the technology before, and she was anxious to access its data logs in case it had found anything of interest among the ruins that could provide any clue as to the whereabouts of the Lost City or perhaps even readings pertaining to a hidden weapon among the ruins. But amidst the distraction of the necessity of her interview re-do because apparently she’d looked ‘too nervous’ the first time, and their request that she explain the Stargate’s power function on-camera, it was late evening when she finally found the time to interface the damaged circuitry of the probe, and track down Daniel for his help with the translation of its logs.

She never anticipated that the logs would turn up that the probe had sent out a long-range subspace communication after it had made contact with SG-13. It would have alerted whoever had sent it to their presence on the planet. The team was in danger.

By the time she’d alerted the General to her discovery, SG-13 and SG-3, who’d been securing the gate as backup, had already come under attack. Her warning had been too late because of that damn camera crew.

Dodging the annoying crew trying to follow them into the Gate Room after SG-1 had raced to gear up, she was surprised to see Janet with her medical team alongside SG-5 and SG-7, all geared up. There had been little time for a pre-brief as the call for backup had been urgent. All she knew was SG-13’s Wells was injured and pinned down by a mere half a dozen Jaffa- easy pickings for three backup teams.

It should have been a cake walk.

It had all happened so fast. They immediately found themselves in a firefight with far more than half a dozen Jaffa. It was an ambush, and it hadn’t been long before the Colonel had been hit.

The sight of him plummeting backwards, unmoving, from a staff blast’s shot hitting him square in the chest sucked the very air from her lungs. All thoughts of her own danger instantly wiped from her mind, she left her position of cover to race to his side, her ears ringing from the shock, oblivious to all sounds of the ongoing firefight around her. All she knew was if he was dead, then she didn’t care about anything else anymore.

She felt at his clammy, sweat-soaked neck, finding an erratic pulse, a second of relief washing over her before her radio crackled into life, and she heard Daniel’s panicked pleas for a medic and shouts of the name Frasier come over the radio. In her shock she’d all but forgotten that the medical team had even been sent as backup with them. And it was then that her brain pieced it together.

If only she hadn’t been so mentally overwhelmed by recent events. If only she hadn’t been so distracted by the presence of that damn camera crew. If only she’d been given just a second to stop and think before being sent into a firefight- a second to consider that Hammond’s last-second call to add Janet to the back-up team might have been the command decision that sent her to her death. The death that she had foreknown. The death that she should have been prepared for and worked to prevent. And now she was too late. And worse, still, the Colonel was fighting for his life.

The rest of the firefight ended up as a blur. She couldn’t help breaking down, unable to move from the Colonel’s still side, paralyzed by the realization that she’d failed her best friend. She’d failed Cassie.

She sank into despair, resting her head atop the Colonel’s TAC vest, praying with each feel of breath he took that it wouldn’t be his last. She didn’t care how it would look to the other teams to be found like this. She couldn’t stop the tears from pouring down her face, the crushing sobs erupting from her own chest compounding against the Colonel’s own.

Then, before she knew it, the sounds of weapons fire had stilled. The other teams must have somehow managed to take care of the rest of the Jaffa around her.

It was moments or minutes later that she then felt herself being prized from him. Instinctively, she clutched onto his jacket sleeve, resisting being pulled away from the Colonel. What if he died if she let go? He needed her. And she needed him. Then, realizing that it was Teal’c who was strongly pulling her to a stand to allow the other half of the medical team to check on the Colonel, she unclasped her grip, allowing him to wrap his strong arms around her as her sobs continued uncontrollably. She vaguely registered the command given by Colonel Reynolds of SG-3 who must have assumed command, ordering the Colonel to be taken back to the SGC immediately. And, as he disappeared out of her sight, carried away on a stretcher, it was then that she rediscovered the ability to move her legs, and she raced to Daniel’s position, terrified of what she was about to see.

----

She’d never forget the sight of Daniel, distraught, tears streaming down his face as he looked on at the lifeless form of their best friend, Janet, also being heaved onto a stretcher. Her best friend was dead. Cassie’s mother was dead. And she’d known it was going to happen, but she hadn’t been able to piece together that it was this mission. It was harrowing, too, to think that was no way to undo her death. No option of time-travel. This was already the second chance. And she'd blown it.

As she passed through the Level 28 hallway to the elevator she spotted the camera crew. It was their fault she hadn’t been able to focus on her mission. It was their fault she’d missed the signs that this was the planet Janet would die on. How dare they try to ask her what had happened. It took all her self-restraint not to simply smash their camera as she unleashed her anger at them, yelling at them to shut their damn camera off as she raced to the infirmary, needing to see the Colonel. Needing to confirm she hadn’t lost him, too.

----

After picking up Cassie from school later that evening and breaking the news to her at her home, it had resolutely torn her apart to think that she had foreknown, and yet she’d been able to prevent it. She’d let Cassie down, and she’d lost her best friend in the process. At the very least, this time round, she would be here for Cassie as she grieved her mother. At least that was something.

A couple of days later, word had reached her that the Colonel was to be released, and she wanted to see him alive and well before he headed home.

“Sir, I heard you were up and around.”

“Yeah ... err, still a little tender but they said I could go home,” he said, wincing as he gingerly lifted his shirt down over his wound.

“We're lucky that staff blast hit you where it did. That new vest inserts works well.”

Dr. Lee and the science team had been working on a ceramic polymer capable of resisting and absorbing the heat of a staff blast. Unfortunately, Janet had been hit just aside of the insert.

“Didn't help Fraiser much.”

His use of her family name stung, but she understood he was trying to keep a professional distance to maintain control over his emotions. She knew he must be in equal agony inside, but she knew him well enough to know that he would prefer to hide it and mourn in the privacy of his home. “No,” she acquiesced after a pause, trying to maintain control over her own emotions. She’d spent much of the last two days trying with Cassie, but the grief and guilt was still so fresh so strong.

She watched as the Colonel stood up from the bed to grab his shirt.

“How's Cassie?” he asked, as though he’d just read her mind.

“She's a strong kid. She survives, you know,” she replied.

She wasn’t sure if Cassie was in shock, but the truth was it had been herself who’d been struggling the most of the pair, likely from worrying over the Colonel, too. When he’d first been brought in he’d been touch-and-go, and she hadn’t had the heart to tell Cassie anything of his condition. The insurmountable guilt at having known that Janet might die sometime that year and not stopped it hadn’t helped either.

“Yeah,” he nodded, pulling on his shirt. “You speaking at the memorial?”

She didn’t want to talk about the speech she’d been struggling to write even a single word of. The intensity of relief at seeing him standing before her eyes, alive and well, and the overwhelming guilt at the presence of Janet’s body in the morgue on the same floor was too painful.

She nodded to answer his question, then tried to summon the courage to tell him how she’d reacted when he’d fallen in battle. Teal’c wouldn’t tell him, but she’d been seen by the medical teams and more than likely Reynolds. He’d probably soon catch word of her crying into his chest mid-battle as he’d lain almost lifeless in the field.

“Sir, I... I just wanted to say, when you were lying there I…,” but she couldn’t say it. Tears welled into her eyes despite her efforts, and fighting against breaking down completely in front of him, she simply fumbled, “I'm really glad you're okay.”

She couldn’t help a few stray tears from rolling down her cheeks. She needed him. She needed his assurance that she was going to be okay. That she was forgiven for letting down Janet, despite the fact that he could never know of her failure.

Through her blurred vision, awash with tears, she saw him slowly move closer to her, and she met his gaze as he finally broke the silence.

“C'mere.”

Caught mid-sob by his offer, she hiccuped slightly as she allowed herself to be pulled to him, sinking deep into his embrace, desperately gripping his shoulder blades to press him into her further, her breath hitching at the feel of him turning his head into her neck to plant a ghost of a kiss against her skin. She trembled at his touch, sighing softly in his arms, and couldn’t help returning the gesture, trying to convey all the relief and gratitude at his recovery through the press of her lips.

She thought of the way she’d fallen apart when she thought he’d died on the battlefield, bringing with it more tears welling into her eyes. She thought of how she’d lost all care for her own life in that moment…

If he ever died, would she even have the strength to continue on and complete her mission? It was clearer than ever now that she couldn’t face the thought of ever losing him. All she could do was hope that she’d never be forced to face a situation where she’d find out.

Chapter Text

If he ever died, would she even have the strength to continue on and complete her mission? It was clearer than ever now that she couldn’t face the thought of ever losing him. All she could do was hope that she’d never be forced to face a situation where she’d find out.

357 days to go

Janet’s funeral had been a sorrowful affair, and she’d since found herself the legal adoptive mother of Cassie, as per Janet’s wishes in her will. So, for now, following a week’s leave supporting her as she grieved for her mother, she’d temporarily moved into Janet’s old house in order not to disrupt and uproot Cassie’s schedule, dedicating herself to being there for Cassie. It was hard, however, being constantly surrounded by the continued reminder of Janet by way of all of her belongings, photos and the memories she held spent together in this home. It only served to keep her grief and guilt raw, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hold out living here until September when Cassie moved out to start college, but she had a duty to be strong for her. It was her fault she’d been unable to save Janet. And in order to be there for her more for her, she once again opted to remain off active duty roster to ensure less risk to her life on exploratory off-world missions: the last thing Cassie needed was to lose a third mother figure so soon. Not to mention, her own safety was of paramount importance to her continued mission against Anubis.

Over the next couple of weeks she pottered in her lab with various projects in the on-base labs, in particular delving through the Goa’uld probe’s entire logs, though finding no indication that it had found evidence that the planet had housed anything related to a hidden weapon. She’d also been trying, though failing, to repair its anti-gravity function, but she always ensured she kept an eye on the clock, for once not staying late on-base, being sure to pick up Cassie on time from her various after school clubs.

Finally, in their first lead on discovering the Lost City’s whereabouts since Vis Uban, SG-2 discovered some Ancient ruins on a planet designated P3X-439, where Daniel soon translated a wall of text within the structure’s pillar walls referring to another repository of the Ancients.

This was a huge breakthrough. If there were a way of interfacing and accessing its data without it needing to be downloaded into the mind of a person again, an action which would lead to the person’s death without intervention from the Asgard, then there could surely be a way of searching its database for the Lost City. Or better yet, perhaps she might even be able to covertly search for the Ancient weapon capable of destroying all human life in the galaxy.

The situation became urgent, however, when another Goa’uld reconnaissance probe was spotted, exactly like the one that she’d been working on that had led to the recent ambush and Janet's death. Jaffa would surely turn up on the planet soon again. They were suddenly against the clock.

During the pre-brief, she stressed the importance of obtaining the Ancient’s repository intact. They desperately needed that intel, and if the probe would lead a Goa’uld there, they couldn’t allow that data to fall into their hands.

With no time to waste, she, and the rest of SG-1, along with SG-3, and SG-5 serving as backup, all quickly gated to the planet to try to extract the Ancient’s database. The colonnade, a giant, ruined statue, had Ancient writing scrawled on every surface within, but she found that she understood far too little to be of any use. She’d been too overwhelmed by events the past three months to even think of picking up any of Daniel’s notes, and she kicked herself for allowing her emotions to get in the way of her mission. What if there was something vital written that would be missed?

Fortunately, Daniel’s fluent reading ability courtesy of his time ascended came through for them, and he was soon able to activate the interface for the repository just shortly before a squadron of gliders and Al’kesh showed up, immediately beginning an air bombardment before landing troops.

Her’ak, Anubis’ First Prime was among them. Anubis must have been responsible for sending out the probes, she realised. He must have stolen the idea from the MALPs that the SGC utilized, and sent them out to search hundreds of planets in his search for the Lost City. Though that didn’t explain why he’d sent them out in the previous timeline. A probe must have led to Janet’s death the first time- events had repeated themselves too closely- but she was certain a probe hadn’t been explicitly mentioned in the report she’d read. Perhaps the other Anubis had merely been passively scouting Ancient ruins for any technology in the other timeline. Maybe that was how he’d come across the Ancient weapon in the first place?

Regardless, left without time to extract the Ancient’s database, and both herself and Daniel protesting the Colonel’s idea to blow it up, the Colonel made a snap decision to put his head in the repository once more and download the information into his mind before any of them could stop him.

She couldn’t believe he’d made that decision without consulting them first. Of course she understood the precedent of her own mission. Of course she understood how little time they had with Her’ak’s troops closing in on them. But she had to take responsibility for the part she’d played in his decision by earlier insisting on the importance of obtaining the information contained within the repository. But it was suicide. They hadn't been able to get in touch with the Asgard. The Colonel had chosen death. Even if they found the Lost City with his help, would that be worth it for her? A galaxy, a life… without him?

But it was done, and with Her’ak’s troops closing in on them, she blew the ruins with C-4, and they ran for the gate before a firefight broke out.

Anubis’ ground troops must have recognized them, however, because Bra’tac showed up the next day at the SGC with word from the Rebel Jaffa among Anubis’ ranks that Anubis was gathering the full force of his army.

He wanted revenge for their destroying the repository that he had likely been seeking himself. Earth was the target, and they had as little as three days before his invasion.

----

Over the next two days, the Colonel’s mind, inundated with Ancient knowledge, began to change. He began preparing the team for an off-world mission, and soon they were flying on a cargo ship to Proclarush Taonas, the possible location of the Lost City, together with Bra’tac and Ronan, another Jaffa in the Rebel Jaffa wing.

It was a long journey to their destination by ship, and with the three Jaffa on the Pel’tak section together, and Daniel fast asleep in the cargo hold section where they were meant to be resting- except that the Colonel had suddenly taken it upon himself to suddenly start modifying the engines- she decided to follow him to the back engine room.

Certain that they wouldn’t be overheard, she observed him working for several minutes, marvelling at the strange sight of seeing the Colonel deep in thought, making changes to the alignment of the crystal components that he wouldn’t otherwise know one from the other. And as he took a pause in his reconfiguring, she made the decision to broach the subject of the weapon. Oma had made Daniel forget about her mission, and based upon his previous experience at having the Ancient knowledge downloaded into his brain, she was sure the Colonel’s condition was advanced enough by now to forget this conversation even if he did somehow, miraculously survive.

“Sorry to bother you, Sir,” she said, and he turned around to look at her dazed, seemingly not have noticed she was in the room.

“Carter,” he said neutrally.

“Sir, last time you had the Ancient knowledge in your mind, you didn’t remember what happened, right?” she whispered, not wanting to be overheard by Daniel, whose snores from the other room could still be heard over the low sound of the engine’s hum.

“Not after I started making that gate power thingy last time, no,” he replied, turning back to look at the control panel he’d been working on, pushing it back into the wall, and then giving her a curious look. “What are you getting at?”

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. This was the first time she would be choosing to tell someone.

“We got intel that Anubis is after an Ancient device capable of eradicating all human life in this galaxy at once.”

His eyes widened in surprise, before he asked, “From where? How come I didn’t hear any of this?”

“We only got this intel a couple of days ago,” she lied. “Weir said she wanted your mind focused on the more pressing issue, which is finding the Lost City to safeguard Earth before Anubis attacks.”

Just the previous day, General Hammond had been unexpectedly removed from command of the SGC, and the civilian woman in the cardigan she’d seen in the security footage in the future, Dr. Elizabeth Weir, had been given command. Considering Anubis’ imminent attack, it was the absolute worst timing. Thankfully, she’d turned out to be a reasonable woman, and she’d been convinced to permit SG-1 to run the Colonel’s mission to find the Lost City before SG operations shut down for a three month review.

“Fair enough,” he shrugged. Thank goodness he’d bought her lie.

“Anyway, Sir, please. While you can still speak English. Assuming Earth somehow survives this attack, we will need to find this Ancient weapon before Anubis does and wipes out every other human in the galaxy.”

“The fun never ends, does it?” he joked, though she failed to smile at his poor attempt at humour this time.

“Tell me, Sir,” she pressed. ”Do you know of any Ancient device capable of doing that?”

“Carter,” he said in a loud whisper, causing a brief pause in the sound of Daniel’s snores from the adjacent room. “Why don’t any of you lot not get that I have no clue what I’m doing? I still have no idea why the hell we’re even flying to Procla-whatever. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know anything,” he said with an air of irritation.

“You do know, Sir,” she pressed more insistently. She didn’t have time for the Colonel’s stubbornness and habitual inclination to feign ignorance. “Please Sir, think. This isn’t about saving Earth, this is about saving everyone.”

He looked at her, his face awash with concentration for several moments, seeming to be trying.

‘This could be it,’ she thought. The answer she’d been seeking for almost three long years.

“I got nothing,” he then shrugged, before returning his gaze to the crystals, and she couldn’t help being awash with a sense of disappointment. He mustn’t have conscious access to the Ancient’s knowledge that had been downloaded into his brain yet. The information must still be buried deep in his subconscious. But she was certain it was in there, somewhere, she’d just have to wait until his mind had been taken over further before he could help her.

She just hoped by then he’d still be able to communicate with her.

“Give me your zat,” he then said unexpectedly, breaking her from her thoughts.

Instantly complying and handing him the zat weapon she’d had stowed on her leg, she watched as he fired it at the crystal panel he’d been working on, causing the pitch of the engines to suddenly up a notch, drowning out Daniel’s snores.

“There you go,” he said, returning her zat.

She knew from the last time he’d been through this process that it wouldn’t be long before he lost the ability to control his actions and eventually lose his speech, and she decided she’d better warn him of the conversation the General had had with her just before his sudden relief of command while he was still able to understand her.

“Sir, I think you should know that General Hammond authorized me to take command of the team if I determined it-”

“Do it now,” he cut in, and their eyes met.

“Sir, I don’t think that’s necessary yet,” she objected. He might have started doing many things of his own accord, but that didn’t mean the Colonel was incapacitated or no longer capable of making key decisions that might still prove vital to their mission.

“I trust you,” he said earnestly, and her heart gave a jolt at the sincerity in his eyes. “I’ll make it easy for you. I resign, you’re in charge.”

“Okay,” she replied hesitantly, unable to stop her mind from conjuring the potential implications of what if he really had resigned. But while he may have handed her the mission lead, he still technically fell under her command. It still wouldn’t be appropriate.

Yet, did it even matter? It was more than likely that- and she found it difficult to even piece together the thought- that the Colonel probably wouldn’t live to see the end of the day.

She’d tried to tell him when she’d ended up visiting him at his home a few hours after their return from P3X-439. She shouldn’t really have turned up at his house uninvited at all. It was just that with the recent loss of Janet, it had just seemed too much to come to terms with facing losing him, too. Not to mention, she’d originally been angry with him. Angry that despite having known the Asgard hadn’t answered their calls, and known it was suicide, that he had made that choice without consulting her first. Without giving her a chance to stop him, which she probably would have. She guessed she’d planned to berate him when she’d sat in her car and driven there… Yet the moment he’d answered the door and she’d seen him, her anger had evaporated, instantly replaced by nerves and the desperate need to simply spend time with him.

But then Daniel and Teal’c had showed up unexpectedly at his house, followed by General Hammond, who had come to deliver the news of his sudden reassignment. It probably was for the best that she’d been interrupted then. If- and it was a large if- he survived this ordeal, it was likely he would have remembered their conversation.

But now she had another chance. Daniel was asleep, and the Jaffa were catching up and sharing battle stories. They were unlikely to be interrupted. And this time, he wouldn’t remember. She had nothing to lose.

“Sir, at your house, before Daniel and Teal’c showed up-”

“I know,” he said simply, cutting her off, and she felt like he was gazing into her soul. But he surely couldn’t know. Aside from the za’tarc incident they’d never spoken of their feelings. It was forbidden by the Air Force regulations. In moments facing death they tap danced around their feelings- a glance here, a comforting embrace there- but could he really know? Know exactly how much the thought of losing him was tearing her heart apart?

“No Sir, I don’t think you do,” she countered, making the decision to see this conversation through. “When I travelled in time a couple of years back, I didn’t think I’d ever get back. And the thought of never seeing you again… I,” she hiccuped. “It tore me apart,” she confessed, finding him staring at her intently, but choosing to remain silent this time.

“And then I nearly lost you the other week,” she continued, “and now I really am losing you,” she sobbed, suddenly finding her throat unable to form any more coherent words.

He continued to gaze at her intently, and she could feel her heart hammering. She’d never have another chance at this.

“When I was gone, the one thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you. I need you, Sir.”

“Carter-,” he said finally, but this time she interrupted him.

“And I’m such a coward because I’m only telling you this knowing that you won’t even remember even if you somehow survive this.”

He then sighed, then seemed to think something over.

“You’re far from a coward, Sam,” and her stomach gave a wobble at the sound of her name on his lips. “You’re doing an amazing job with Cassie, you’re going to get to the Lost City with my help and save Earth, and then you’re going to stop Anubis from wiping out the galaxy. A coward would have given up years ago. No scratch that, a coward would have run away screaming the first time they saw the gate opened,” and she hiccuped a half-laugh half-sob at the image and the smile he threw her.

“You’re gonna survive, Sam. And knowing you’ll live on is enough for me.”

“But I don’t want to live in a galaxy without you, Jack.”

The honest confession tumbled out of her mouth before she could even stop them.

“From what you’ve just told me, there won’t be a galaxy without me doing this. It only solidifies more that this was the right choice and the only way things could have gone down. I’m sorry, Sam.”

She couldn’t help tears from streaming down her face. She knew he was right. Earth was about to be invaded by Anubis. He was still on course to conquer the entire galaxy and find the weapon. The Colonel accessing the repository of the Ancients was their best chance at survival. Her best chance at completing her mission. But, as selfish as the thought was, she couldn’t help feel that the Colonel’s sacrifice wasn’t worth it to her. She couldn’t face losing him.

As her sobs continued, he then surprised her by wordlessly stepping forward into her personal space and cupping her face gently with both hands, skimming his thumbs across her cheeks to wipe away her tears.

“Can we at least say goodbye, then?” she whispered, desperate for him to never pull his hands away from her face. To never let go of her.

He smiled wanly, before nodding, then leaned downwards, pulling her face to his and their lips met, the touch fleeting at first, before she pressed her lips to his further, increasing the pressure, hungry for more, a desperate need to deepen the kiss engulfing her senses. But he didn’t allow it. The kiss continued tenderly and gently until to her dismay he pulled back, before wrapping her in an embrace.

She’d always imagined that kissing Jack O’Neill would be a flurry of desire, setting her body alight with fireworks of passion. But this hadn’t been a kiss of mutual love and future promises and new beginnings. This had been a heart-wrenching kiss of goodbye, and as he held her in silence beside the glowing, humming of the ship’s engine, her heart completely broke in two.

——

They’d just gotten back from Proclarush Taonas, where they’d learned, to everyone’s great surprise, that the Lost City was located on Earth in Antarctica. The Colonel had accessed what had looked like a database in an advanced chair through what she guessed was a neural interface, but there’d been no opportunity to ask him alone about their earlier conversation. She was growing rapidly concerned now by his growing silence. Since his use of the neural interface, he seemed to be quickly losing the ability to speak English.

Back on the cargo ship, Ronan had turned out to have been an agent of Anubis’. He’d betrayed them, attacking Bra’tac and attempting to leave them on the planet, but Bra’tac had killed him despite being mortally wounded. The Colonel, it seemed, had gained a power similar to the Ancient they’d found in Antarctica a year prior, and he had healed him. Surely by now his mind had sufficiently been overwritten to know of the device she had to find.

She seized the very first opportunity she could to catch him alone to speak with him.

Under the pretence of wanting to study the changes he’d begun making to the Tel’tak’s ring transporter, she sent Daniel to the pel’tak with the others to give them a ‘moment’. She knew he’d think she wanted privacy to say goodbye to the Colonel, not knowing they already had. Now, she had to put her emotions aside and focus on her mission.

“Sir, about our earlier conversation,” she started, but he was so deep in concentration that he didn’t even react to her words, and she found herself suddenly reminded of the Aschen scientists she’d seen on Aschen Prime upon her return, so engrossed in their work that they hadn’t noticed her entrance into their lab.

“Can you understand me?” she asked, and he glanced up at her, making eye contact with those dark, yet now somewhat glassed, eyes, as though his mind was racing with thought, before again returning his focus on rewiring the inner parts of the transporter.

“Sir, hidden in your mind somewhere is knowledge of an Ancient weapon capable of destroying all human life in this galaxy. Do you know it?”

He looked up at her again, but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t even sure he even could even speak at all anymore. Could he even understand her? What if she’d left it too late?

“Sir, try. Please,” she begged in barely more than a whisper.

“Altera creare vitae non deleo,” he then mumbled.

Thank god he could still speak, and thank god she’d thought to brush up on her Ancient since their return from P3X-439, anticipating he might start spouting Ancient again like last time.

“Altera… that’s the Ancients.”

“Altera creare vitae non deleo,” he repeated, and then she suddenly grasped the meaning. The Ancients create life, not delete it. He had remembered the question she’d asked earlier. But she probably wouldn’t be able to understand much more if he continued speaking in long sentences.

“My Ancient understanding isn’t that good, Sir. Can you answer me yes or no?” she asked, reminded of the twenty questions she’d been forced to play with Orlin long ago.

He simply stared blankly, and she wasn’t sure he understood her.

“Sir, I already know this device exists, whether you think the Ancients would have built it or not. Do you know it? Can you think where it might be?”

He gave pause, and she saw his eyes suddenly awash with great intelligence. The kind of wisdom that Orlin and Daniel had both borne when they’d spoken to her, ascended.

“Etias… nego scio nescio,” he said after careful consideration, his eyes then refocusing downwards on the re-wiring he was in the middle of.

“Etias, that means yes. ‘Scio?’ What’s ‘scio’?”

God she wished she could bring Daniel back from the pel’tak and interpret for her, but she couldn’t come up with a feasible way of questioning the Colonel without telling Daniel what she wanted to know.

“Etias is yes, ne- that means no, right? Are you saying you know and don’t know?”

But that couldn’t be right. That didn’t make sense at all.

“This is important, Sir. Anubis is going to attack Earth,” but he still wasn’t paying her any attention. “Err, Anubis impeta Terra,” she tried in broken Ancient, and the effect was immediate. He was looking straight at her again. “But once he’s done, he’s going to seek out this device and wipe out the rest of the humans. All of them. We have to find it first and destroy it.”

He merely stared at her, remaining silent. By the way he was studying her, it didn’t look like there was much of the Colonel left in him. His eyes looked so different now. Weary, but still filled with wisdom.

“I think you said yes and no. Does that mean it’s a device with a different purpose, but can be repurposed towards that end?”

He continued to look at her, almost unseeing, then returned to his work on the rings.

“You don’t understand me anymore, do you?”

He was losing his English fast. She had to keep her questions simple. Or maybe she could try again with what little Ancient she knew.

“Locas mundus?” she asked in Ancient, and he looked up again, giving her his full attention. “Netario locas,” she asked again. ’I need the location, Sir.’

“Nescio.”

“Scio again… It means you don’t know?” she finally understood. “Sir, what do I do now?” she asked helplessly.

He went silent, but she was relieved to see that he’d stopped his work. He looked like he was thinking it over. He was trying.

“Subo glacea Terra. Disce hik.”

“Under the ice of Earth. What’s 'disce'? Disce… discern? Learn?”

Maybe hanging out with Daniel all these years had actually rubbed off something on her.

“Subo glacea,” he repeated, glass-eyed.

He didn’t know, but they could find out back on Earth in Antarctica.

“Okay. I understand. Thank you, Sir.”

“Tempus netario,” he then said, and he returned to his work on the rings. He needed time. Time to prepare for their arrival at Antarctica, she guessed. She couldn’t believe there was an entire city hidden under Antarctica after the science team had been there the past several years studying and surveying the area.

She just hoped there’d be enough time to find the city in time to stop Anubis’ attack, and that he’d live to see his plan through, whatever it was. And to that end, she decided not to interrupt him again, instead deciding to watch him in silent vigil over what would be the last few hours of his life.

At least she’d already said her goodbye.

Chapter Text

And to that end, she decided not to interrupt him again, instead deciding to watch him in silent vigil over what would be the last few hours of his life.

At least they’d already said their goodbye.

She’s standing in the control room with the General and the rest of SG-1. They watch the gate activate, but no IDC is sent through. Suddenly the power flickers and the gate room’s lights go out, plunging them into darkness. For some reason, the Colonel hastens to the Gate Room, and she finds herself following him through the side blast door automatically, with Teal’c and Daniel on her tail.

As they reach the base of the ramp, the giant hooded figure of Anubis suddenly materializes before them, towering and terrifying, almost as tall as the Gate Room itself. She gasps in horror as Anubis turns to look down straight at her with his horrible, faceless, rippling black smoke face.

“You thought you could stand against my might, Samantha Carter?” he booms, amusement in his voice, before suddenly erupting into a loud cackle that vibrates through her spine, paralyzing her with fear.

“What’s going on, Carter?” the Colonel asks, looking shocked, but she can’t even turn to look him in the eye. She’s frozen by the sight before her. She can’t believe he’s here. She can’t believe this is happening.

“You are but a fool, Samantha. You are so small. So weak. You never stood any chance against a being as powerful as I am.”

“Carter, talk to me!” the Colonel barked, but she’s still too rigid with shock to answer.

Suddenly she hears the sound of the General’s gait as he marches into the Gate Room.

“Major, what is the meaning of this?” he demands, sounding infuriated.

“Everything you’ve done, Samantha,” Anubis crooned evilly. “All your lies and secrets have been to no avail. You’re too late.”

She can’t speak. She can’t move. She’s simply frozen in the moment, filled with nothing but pure terror.

“Lies?! Secrets?! Major, I demand an answer right now!”

“Carter, what the hell is going on!?”

Both her commanding officers bark at her in unison with equal voices of fury, before a bright, blinding light suddenly appears from behind the gate’s iris, bubbling out unimpeded from the gate, the iris of no use to stop it.

This can’t be happening, she thinks, her brain unable to process the sight before her.

The swell of light slowly expands forth, painstakingly slow, steadily engulfing the Gate Room.

“No,” she whimpers as it creeps forth down the ramp, passing through the hologram of Anubis which has begun laughing again.

“What is happening?” asks Teal’c, as everyone backs away from the approaching light.

She can’t understand why the light is moving so slowly. It had been almost instantaneous when she’d seen the security footage in the future, and it’s torture seeing her friends meeting their deaths so slowly, helplessly standing there, unable to do anything to save them.

“Prepare to say goodbye to everyone you’ve ever loved,” booms Anubis, before erupting into hideous cackling.

“Carter, do something! Help me!” begs the Colonel as his eyes bulge at the weapon’s light’s touch, disintegrating him in an instant, his clothing dropping to the floor in a heap where he was just standing at the back wall, followed closely by the General, Daniel and Teal’c right behind him.

The light vanishes, and she’s suddenly left alone in the dark staring at the clothes of her dearest friends, Anubis still cackling behind her.

“I’m so sorry everyone,” she says, crouching down to the Colonel’s visible dog tags atop his BDUs and plucking them up before collapsing into tears. Everything she’d worked so hard to achieve has been for nothing. She’s too late to save everyone, and she was helpless to do anything.

She looks all around, seeing nothing but darkness just like when she first came through the gate in the future, except for the subdued light of the wormhole behind the iris and the rippling, holographic figure of Anubis.

She stares at the tags in her hand, reading the name etched above his service number in the metal in the dim light.

O’Neill, Jack

He’s dead. Everyone is.

But, wait... why isn’t she?

“I’m still alive,” she says, turning around to face Anubis. “It’s not over yet,” murmurs, before adding conviction to her voice to make sure she’s heard over his continued cackling.

“You’ve failed, Anubis! I’m still alive!”

“Are you?” he asks, his amusement finally abating, and the feel of a strange tingling on both of her arms draws her attention.

She rolls up the sleeve on her left arm to see to her horror not her own white skin, but that her arm is made of tiny, dull grey, metal replicator blocks.

She flinches, jumping back in vain as though that would get her away from the blocks on her arms.

“What have you done to me?!” she screams in terror, raising both hands to feel with her fingertips the cool, ridged surface of more blocks over her cheeks and neck.

“This is your punishment for lying. You lied to everyone. And you lied to me,” Anubis spits in an uncharacteristically emotional tone.

She’s surprised by the fact that he almost sounds hurt. But how can that be? She’s never lied to him. They’d never even spoken until now.

“What are you talking about? I never lied to you, Anubis!” she screams, desperately trying in vain to pull at the blocks on her cheeks.

“You left me behind,” he booms angrily.

And then suddenly everything came back. This couldn’t possibly be real. Anubis’ fleet over Earth had been eradicated- obliterated by the Ancient weapons the Colonel had utilized in the Ancient outpost found in Antarctica. Her war with him was over. They were safe. And the Colonel wasn’t here. He was still back in Antarctica in a stasis chamber found below the ice, frozen on the brink of life, for nearly two months.

Once again, they had failed to find the Lost City. It hadn’t been there; the Ancients must have secretly moved it elsewhere. But it didn’t matter anymore. Finding information on the weapon capable of destroying all human life in the galaxy wasn’t a priority anymore. Anubis was dead.

This definitely couldn’t be real. She wasn’t even on Earth, she then recalled. She’d flown the cargo ship that the Colonel had modified all the way to the Ida galaxy to contact Thor directly for help with the Colonel’s condition.

And that was when she’d been captured- she recalled with dread- by the Replicators.

“You left me behind,” repeated the voice with fury, and she looked on to see the cloaked form of Anubis suddenly morph into a giant, terrifying version of none other than Fifth.

She was being held captive aboard his ship, and he was torturing her inside her own mind.

“I already said, I never wanted to leave you, Fifth. Look at my memories. I never wanted to betray you. I genuinely wanted to help you and your people.”

Couldn’t he see her memory of the guilt at leaving behind that had eaten her up? Of her anger towards the Colonel?

“Irrelevant. I will make you pay for the suffering and humiliation you caused me.”

----

271 days to go

She came to her senses on a leafy world, surrounded by trees, crackling leaves scratching below her body as she made to sit up. The rest of her team was there, including to her astonishment, the Colonel. How could he be here? Alive?

But before she could question him, however, Thor’s communication came over the Colonel’s radio, and they were instantly beamed aboard his ship.

She’d lost all track of time being mentally tortured by Fifth. She could only deduce that there had been enough time for Thor to have flown back to Earth and rescued the Colonel from stasis in Antarctica, removing the fatal-amount of information from his brain to save his life.

She listened as they explained that the Colonel’s mind had been linked to the ship’s computer by Thor, and that he had been able to produce a weapon capable of disintegrating the Replicators. Curious, she asked to see how the weapon worked, and was shown a video playback taken of the weapon being used on the Asgard’s new homeworld, Orilla.

She watched as a bright, white light was displayed spreading across the planet’s surface, bubbling outwards, enveloping the entire planet, rendering any replicators instantly inert at its touch.

She froze, barely able to breathe, stunned by what she’d just been shown. She’d just seen the very same weapon used in her mind being tortured by Fifth. There was no mistaking that this was the exact same weapon. She couldn’t believe it. How could this be real? Was she still being tortured by Fifth? She simply couldn’t believe the Colonel had produced the very weapon that she’d been seeking all along.

Yet, she now recalled, her memory of the torture returning, Fifth had said that her friends were coming. That one named O’Neill had found a way to stop him and the Replicators. Yes, this had to be real. She had been rescued. But this technology that the Colonel had produced couldn’t possibly be that weapon. The other Sam had left her the message that it was on a planet.

No, assuming that this was real and happening, then the Colonel had simply accessed the knowledge within him and reproduced the same technology. Was that why he’d said both yes and no when she’d questioned him on the cargo ship? Because he’d known of the technology and how it worked, but hadn’t known where the main device was kept? Was it possible it had been moved or deliberately hidden, just like the Lost City? Was that why he hadn’t known its location? If so, she’d never find it by searching through Ancient databases and repositories. She was back to random searching during standard recon missions. It could take years.

But that didn’t matter anymore. Anubis had been thwarted. She was no longer racing against the clock. No longer living in fear.

There wouldn’t be any harm asking Thor about the technology now in front of them, either. Her question would only appear to her team members to be coming purely from a place of scientific curiosity.

“Thor, I’m curious if you kept a copy of the Repository of the Ancients from the Colonel’s mind before you erased it from his mind?”

“The contents of the library of the Ancients is truly extensive, Major Carter. There was no time to store a copy in the ship’s computer, however a copy of the library has already been stored on Orilla, which is now safe thanks to Colonel O’Neill’s effort.”

“I see. When you return, I’m guessing you’ll scour the database to learn more on this technology the Colonel built, right?”

“I will endeavor to do so, however, as I earlier mentioned to your friends, its contents are extremely vast. It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack of infinite size.”

No wonder downloading the repository into a person’s mind was fatal.

“However, if I am fortunate enough to discover anything at all related to this new technology, I would gladly share anything I learn with you, Major Carter.”

“Thank you, Thor.”

It didn’t sound like a promising lead, but there was no longer a race to find the weapon anymore with Anubis gone. And with the Colonel saved and Earth safe, the fact that Fifth managed to escape barely registered as a concern as she sank down in relief and exhaustion, crouching to sit at the side of the bridge to rest and process this sudden discovery as they flew home to Earth.

----

224 days to go

Her elation at being promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and being given command of SG-1 following the Colonel- no, General’s- appointment as the new Leader of the SGC was soon cut short.

She reprimanded herself for being so naive. For allowing herself to slip into a false sense of safety.

He’d survived, and she should have guessed he would. That it wouldn’t be that easy. He hadn’t been destroyed with the Ancient technology the Colonel had utilized in his advanced state. Instead, with the destruction of his fleet and shield clothing, his essence had simply been released in Earth’s orbit, and now Anubis was here, on base, in his half-ascended form. The black smoke she’d seen in Jolinar’s memory.

Trapped and unable to use his powers without being punished by the Others, he’d already tried to leave Earth through the gate by possessing two personnel, including Daniel. The thought that he was invading people filled her with complete dread. What if he possessed her? He’d surely be able to read her mind. She couldn’t let him learn of her identity, the weapon, nor of the technology the Colonel had produced.

She’d been so paranoid when she’d first returned to the present. She’d also thought he was fully ascended, and had ended up convincing herself that he’d learned of her identity when she’d been in proximity to him on Osiris’ ship. But since then, and since learning that he was only half-ascended, she’d deduced that that couldn't have been the case. Anubis hadn’t hunted her down relentlessly. He’d given up on attacking Earth too easily after his initial attack on the gate, too. No, she’d been relatively safe until now.

Now, however, there was a very real possibility that he could finally learn of her identity here, and of where she’d been and what she knew. And if he did, her life and her mission was in danger. And while there were over a hundred personnel isolated between the three segregated sections of the base they’d established to restrict movement of personnel and to try to contain Anubis, if he wanted to breach the lockdown and escape through the gate, then she couldn’t help think that there was a very high chance that Anubis would choose her to possess. She was, after all, the one who’d written the lockdown program, who best knew the SGC’s security workarounds, and who had full security clearance codes. She would surely be Anubis’ prime choice to inhabit and make his escape, and the thought utterly terrified her.

Both Oma and Daniel, when he’d been ascended, had told her that her emotions and behaviour had led to them noticing her and reading her mind, like spotting a bull standing in short grass. She had to control herself in an effort to not attract Anubis to her. She had to mask her burden. But how could she possibly conceal her constant terror and anxiety when Anubis was right here in the SGC, trapped along with them in lockdown?

She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t focus on anything. All gate activity was shut down. She couldn’t concentrate at all trying to write one of the physics books she’d been meaning to for a long while. She couldn’t bring herself to study Ancient. She consistently lost at the chess games she played with Daniel, who was also together with her in Section Three of the locked down base. Her life was simply a limbo of waiting.

A week later of the stalemate, calling daily to check in with Cassie who was having to live alone until the lockdown ended, Anubis still hadn’t made any move to possess anyone. There were no unaccounted personnel; no evidence he’d possessed anyone. But she couldn’t shrug off the dread that he would never give up. That he would make his move soon.

——

She opened her eyes to find herself being dragged to her feet by three SFs. Why did the tingling in her body feel like she’d been shot by a zat gun? How had she got here? Hadn’t she just been sitting at her desk in her lab trying to force herself to write her astrophysics book?

Come to think of it, wasn’t this corridor in Section One, where the gate and control room were supposed to be cut off from her locked down section?

Dazed, she was about to ask the soldiers escorting her rather roughly what had happened when the alarm signalling five minutes until the base’s self-destruct rang out.

Anubis had made his move. He was making a break for it, and though she couldn’t remember, he must have used her to bypass the security protocols and reconnect power to the dialling computer only possibly done in her Section.

She didn’t have time to be quarantined for questioned by some SFs. Anubis couldn’t be allowed off base. Especially not now that- as she’d feared may happen- he’d had access to her mind. It was all over if he got off the planet now.

She took out one of the escorting airmen- she’d gladly face charges later- then bolted to the Control Room to where Anubis might be making for next.

Teal’c was there, standing guard in the Control Room, aiming his weapon at her. Managing to convince him that she was no longer being controlled by Anubis, under his watchful eye she successfully bypassed the lockout and shut down the self-destruct, just as a timed command initialized appearing on screen. The gate was dialling. Anubis was about to escape.

Typing furiously, she couldn’t abort the dialling sequence, and just as she was considering other options, none other than newly-promoted General O’Neill marched into the Gate Room, halting at the base of the ramp, watching the gate dial.

Of course Anubis was in him, she thought. He’d been in her mind. He’d know she would do all it took to stop Anubis from escaping, so he’d purposefully chosen to inhabit the last man she would want to hurt. The last person she would be prepared to sacrifice to stop him.

But she couldn’t let herself falter. Anubis couldn’t be permitted off base. Especially not now. Not with the knowledge he must have now.

Flashing her eyes back down the the keyboard, she quickly overrode the already-initialized dialling sequence by altering its destination to an address from the recently dialled list to a planet scouted just before the lockdown had begun. A planet in the middle of an ice age, with no DHD, KS7-535.

Hitting the button to execute the command, she couldn’t help thinking that she was ending the General’s life with the push of the button. She was sending him to die.

Then, to her relief, a visiting Russian officer entered the Gate Room, and bravely chose to sacrifice himself and take the place of the General. Completely unaware of the plan she’d already put into motion, Anubis looked back directly at her through the Russian’s eyes, leaving her with no doubt that he’d seen everything she knew, before stepping through the gate, to be unwittingly trapped indefinitely in the frozen wasteland on the other side.

——

173 days to go

Since its discovery, following several stop-and-start negotiations and treaties helped brokered and signed with the help of Doctor Weir, an international team of scientists had begun working full-time at the Ancient outpost discovered in Antarctica. And when their research finally yielded a breakthrough with an eight-chevron address in another galaxy, an expedition was mounted to send a team of both scientists and soldiers, to be led by none other than Doctor Weir herself.

Unfortunately, there was a huge chance it would be a one-way trip, and despite Anubis’ defeat, she still felt her place was in this galaxy, deciding to remain to lead SG-1 rather than pursue her curiosity. That had already wound her nearly dead on the Prometheus, and she’d learned her lesson.

Yet with Anubis stopped in his tracks- literally frozen, as confirmed by the image of Vaselov’s iced body meters from the gate sent back by a UAV sent two days after the lockdown ended- she finally allowed herself to accept her victory. There was no way for Anubis to get off KS7-535 without using his half-ascended powers, which would merely lead him to be banished permanently by the Others. Her mission was complete. It was over. In fact, she’d even considered taking off her combat bracelet, though out of habit, she’d found herself still wearing it as a good luck charm.

The General had shown no signs of memory of their conversations aboard the cargo ship, and she’d concluded that she had no reason to hide what she’d been through, and about how she’d been sent to the future by Orlin. How her mission to stop Anubis had been a success.

No reason, except to avoid seeing the look of disappointment in his eyes as she broke his trust in her forever. And, feeling that she still needed to buy his complete faith in her ability to lead SG-1- particularly when her first mission in lead ended up with them being trapped in a Goa’uld lab out of contact with their back up for several days- she decided that confessing her secret wasn’t pressing, if even ever necessary.

Over the next few months, leading SG-1 now as a three-piece team on reconnaissance missions, Teal’c moved to an apartment off-base for the first time, Baal took over Anubis’ kull army, though didn’t seem to pose an immediate threat to Earth despite the General’s grumblings, and she had the chance to work together with Thor to discredit an old colleague from her time at the Pentagon who had tried to go public with evidence of aliens. He reportedly hadn’t yet found any additional information on the weapon the Colonel had constructed, however.

But otherwise, it was a strangely uneventful and quiet few months, which was saying a lot considering her line of work. Her combat bracelet must have been working. There were no brushes with the Goa’uld, who according to the Tok’ra were busy in-house fighting amongst themselves. She didn’t even face a brush with death. In fact, the most noteworthy event of late had been the temporary evacuation of the Hak’tyl to the base and the wedding of Teal’c’s son to a young woman in the clan, and the drama it had caused had almost been a welcome change for her.

----

All too soon, September rolled around, bringing with it both a sense of pride and sadness that Cassie was about to start college, meaning she would be selling Janet’s house and moving back into her own home.

Travelling together with Cassie and the General in his truck loaded with Cassie’s belongings to the UCLA to study Biochemistry, it occurred to her that this was her first time riding his truck since she’d borrowed it in the future.

She hadn’t even noticed on the journey there, paying attention to Cassie’s excited gabbing and her laughter, as well as the sound of the pop music station she’d insisted the General play on his radio. But on the way back, she and the General had fallen into an amicable silence, soft country music now playing, and she couldn’t help notice the truck giving off the same engine sounds as it hauled itself up the harder slopes along the mountains back to Colorado, almost reminding her of… no, she wouldn’t let herself start brooding and allowing her mind to go back there.

The sight of the General suddenly waving his arms in front of him rescued her from her thoughts, and she was relieved to feel amusement stir within her.

“I thought you’d be used to mozzies, Sir,” she quipped. “Teal’c said your cabin had plenty when he went to visit.”

Teal’c, who usually took anything in his stride, had been uncharacteristically vocal about his irritation with the fishing trip he’d been dragged to at the General’s cabin several months before her trip in time. Most notably, he had complained about the fact that the pond had been inhabited by precisely zero fish, and a thousand hungry insects.

“Ah, but some say driving requires more concentration than fishing, and they might be right in that assessment,” he said with an air of humour.

“Fair enough,” she giggled. “I’ll try and get it for you then before we both die.”

“The buggar must have joined us when we stopped for lunch earlier. There’s a box of tissues in the glove compartment.”

Unthinkingly, she opened the compartment before her, and as she pulled for the rectangular box a small, white circular object clattered to her feet. She immediately knew what it was, but she was too frozen from the shock to react.

“Carter, can you get it? It’s buzzing in my ear and I can’t concentrate.”

Remembering the reason she’d reached for the tissues, she jogged herself into action to grab a tissue from the box before her, squished the offending bug in one shot, then sat upright again, staring blankly out the window.

“Nice one," he praised the ease at which she caught the mosquito. "Oh, I think something dropped out of the glove box. Probably my yo-yo. You can play with it if you’re bored.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look for it. She continued to just sit there, trying to ignore the trembling of her hands by squashing the tissue within them with as much pressure as she could muster.

Suddenly she felt the truck slow and she registered the red light indicating that they were approaching a set of traffic lights, before a heat rushed to her ears as he then unexpectedly ducked over her lap, reaching below her feet, brushing her legs with his hands.

“Here,” he then said, handing her the yo-yo unceremoniously, before sitting upright in his seat and replacing his hands on the steering wheel.

“Neat, huh? The Minnesota Wilds,” he said, and she forced herself to look to her side, seeing him beaming expectantly at her reaction.

She couldn't not look at the object he’d placed in her lap. Dropping the now minuscule compressed ball of tissue to the side of her leg into the seat, she looked down at the offending object. It looked so new. So white, having not been discolored with age, with far fewer scratches than she remembered. The bear logo was still so visible. This Colonel O’Neill must have barely used it.

“Figured since I’m not in the field anymore I’d leave it here for when I got stuck in traffic jams. And besides, everyone knows the cool Generals play with Gameboys instead,” he said, giving a very un-General-like chuckle, before shifting the gear stick as the light presumably turned green, and she felt his eyes leave her.

But she couldn’t stop staring down at it. Every time she’d missed him in the future, she’d held onto this very yo-yo like a beacon of hope, as though the string it bore had tethered them together through time. She couldn’t shove away the memory of first finding it that first time at the scene of the train wreck, either. She was even sat in the very same truck as she had then...

But she couldn’t allow herself to break down again like that. Even if all of that had happened in the future, that was her past now. She was here, now, with him, both alive and well, and most of all she’d done it, she reminded herself. She’d completed her mission. It was over.

----

Until a visit from herself three months later threatened to turn the state of the entire galaxy on its head.

Chapter Text

...and most of all she’d done it, she reminded herself. She’d completed her mission. It was over.

Until a visit from herself three months later threatened to turn the state of the entire galaxy on its head.

49 days to go

“There are two of us,” spoke the carbon copy of herself, staring back through the MALP feed displayed on the Control Room monitor.

“If only,” joked the General from beside her, but she couldn’t react to his attempt at humour, or even any implied meaning behind his words. This couldn’t be good. If there was another her, then something must have gone wrong with the timeline. Was she possibly the other Sam from the future? Had she somehow survived being killed by Anubis and made it back? Was she here to warn her about something?

“Where are you from? How did you know how to contact us?” she asked, concerned that her time travelling secret was about to be blown, though with Anubis dealt with, she figured everyone finding out now wouldn't be the worst outcome.

“Strange. I recognize my own voice,” the other her then said, giving an odd tilt to her head, sounding somewhat listless and rather unlike herself. “I was made in Samantha Carter’s image. I know what she knows. I feel what she feels.”

Okay, not a time traveller, then.

“You were made? Who made you?” she asked, entirely puzzled what she could mean. Who was she?

“The one you call Fifth.”

“Oh my god,” she voiced aloud. “She’s a Replicator.”

This was bad. Considering the almost peace that had befallen the Milky Way since Anubis’ defeat, and the subsequent in-squabbling among the System Lords as they’d fought over his territory and army amongst themselves, she’d almost forgotten about Fifth and the threat of the Replicators in the Ida galaxy. She’d also expected the Asgard to be able to easily handle them with the technology the then-Colonel had given them. She’d never considered they would come here, to this galaxy. Yet, here she was, a human-form replicator who looked just like her, in their home galaxy, dialling in by stargate.

This was really, really bad.

----

“That's better. Now we can take our time and have a little talk,” came her own voice from both seemingly far away, and from all around. “Of course, only a few seconds will pass in the real world.”

She was confused. How had she got here, in this darkened place? Her memory was hazy. She’d just been working with the Replicator version of herself at the newly-completed Alpha Site, housed inside the same mountain where she’d sought refuge in the future. Together, they’d been trying to undo the immunity that Fifth had introduced to himself and his Replicators, rendering himself and the others immune to the weapon the General had produced. Only, their incomplete weapon had somehow just disintegrated Fifth, along with his Replicator ship, in orbit above the Alpha Site. How could that have been, when the General’s weapon hadn’t been recalibrated to work against his new cypher yet?

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, suddenly recalling that her Replicator duplicate had twisted her arm- though there was no pain- and stuck her hand in her head moments before she’d found herself here. They were inside her mind.

“I wanted to thank you,” she spoke, sounding rather pleased with herself. “You gave me the opportunity to study the disruptor, and that allowed me to make myself immune to its effects.”

“There never was a cypher,” she realized, her disorientated brain finally piecing everything together.

“Until now. I've already begun uploading it into the link. Soon, all my brethren will have the new program. And they will be unstoppable.”

Shit, she’d lied. She’d taken advantage of her desire to take out the Replicators, and in doing so, she’d unwittingly helped the Replicator make herself immune to the only weapon they’d had against them.

“And you'll be their leader,” she added, cottoning on to her duplicate’s plan all along.

“That's right,” she smarmed.

“So this whole thing was a setup. You just wanted to get rid of Fifth.”

“Fifth was pathetic. And to think, he expected us to love him.”

His feelings for her had led him to kidnapping her in the Ida galaxy first out of anger, but when he’d finally relented with the torture, he’d tried to trap her. To keep her with him out of professed love. He must have made the duplicate of her when she’d resisted his advances and been rescued by SG-1 and Thor.

“Fifth was flawed. And if I had to destroy him, I would. But-”

“But what?” the other her snapped. “You feel sorry for him? Don't bother. He was never fit to lead an army and he certainly wasn't fit to rule this galaxy.”

Rule the galaxy? She couldn’t be serious.

“But you are?” she asked, disbelieving that another version of herself could even begin to have such thoughts.

“I am what I am because of you.”

“You’re not me,” she said, almost insulted by her insinuation. This copy might share her memories, and might have been stamped with her thought patterns, but she’d never want to rule the galaxy. Fifth must have unintentionally programmed her wrong somehow. “You’re what Fifth made you.”

“You have untapped greatness inside you, Sam. But you're limited by your own fears. You play by the rules, you do as you're told and you deny yourself your own desires.”

“I have no desire to rule the galaxy, believe me.”

“All humans desire power. It’s just that most of them are never in a position to attain it.”

Her arrogant words reminded her of the feeling of power she’d experienced herself, through Hestia’s eyes, and she suddenly understood how this duplicate of herself- supposedly with her thought processes and personality- could be speaking like this. It was Hestia’s memories. The memories she bore of a Goa’uld queen must have corrupted her.

“You sound more like a Goa’uld than a human.”

“You know as well as I do the Goa’uld have long-sought the perfect host. First choosing humans over the Unas. Apophis’ attempt to sire a harsesis host. Pelops’ and Niirti’s genetic experiments. But their plans were all flawed. Blood and flesh is weak,” she said haughtily. “I am perfect. Machine. Even the Aschen tried to manipulate their bodies to emulate that of a machine, reducing the need for sleep and food. That is true ascension- not shedding your body and becoming energy, helpless to wander the galaxy unable to affect anything, like the fool Anubis. The last stage of evolution is becoming an immortal, powerful, machine, like me.

“You’re wrong,” she contradicted, horrified by what she was hearing.

“And thanks to your complete gullibility, I am utterly unstoppable.”

“No,” she protested again, wincing at how feeble her voice had become. What had she done?

“Fifth was right about one thing. You are but a fool, Samantha,” and she recognized the taunt as being the same words she’d been tortured with in one of the scenarios Fifth had conjured. “You really are so small, and so weak. You thought you could change the timeline and save your pathetic race? You were wrong. Everything you did, everything you think you achieved merely served to pave the way for my superior race,” she said slickly, and she felt as though a knife had been dragged through her stomach with every word.

“No,” was all she could say. This couldn’t be happening. If she was right, the peace she thought she’d achieved, her victory against Anubis, safeguarding the galaxy… everything was about to become undone.

“Yes, Sam,” she spoke, having likely just read her thoughts. “My brethren- millions upon millions of them- will storm this galaxy under my rule,” and as she spoke a chill of dread ran through her spine at the sight of how manic she looked at the thought of controlling such an army. “We will travel to KS7-535, take all the knowledge we need from Anubis, absorb his technology before discarding him, then strip down every planet in this galaxy until we find that weapon.”

“No! You can’t do that!” she pleaded, knowing full well how desperate she must sound.

She couldn’t let her set Anubis free. She couldn’t let the galaxy fall under attack by this...monster. And the fact that she looked just like her was beyond any horror she could ever have imagined.

“I can and I will,” she spat. “I will use the Ancient weapon you’ve been seeking all along and disintegrate every last living being in this galaxy myself. Then, the galaxy and all its resources will be ours for the taking to repopulate with vastly superior human-form Replicators.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was bastardizing Anubis’ plan, and even worse was that unlike him- half-ascended and stuck between planes of existence, unable to exact any real power, forced to behave like just another System Lord- this Replicator’s threat was far more real. With such a large army able to communicate with each other in real-time, they would be unstoppable to conquer the entire galaxy and find the weapon.

“Even if you use the weapon, Anubis will still be alive,” she said, grasping at straws, desperate to say anything to make her question her plan.

“Anubis is nothing compared to me. He will be powerless to stop us.”

“We will stop you,” she protested. She had to. There was no talking her out of this plan. She was pure evil, and she couldn’t let her leave the base and draw the rest of the Replicators to the galaxy.

“You're forgetting, I know exactly how your mind works. I know what you're going to do before you even think of it.”

The next second she found herself on her knees back in the science lab on the Alpha Site, the pain in her wrist where she’d earlier been disabled by the Replicator instantly returning in a flash of agony.

“You set the naquadah generators to overload,” her duplicate said sickly. “Trying to blow up the base before I can leave.“

Cradling her wrist, she helplessly watched as her Replicator duplicate accessed the computer beside her to disable the self-destruct she’d already set on standby on the General’s orders, and the power suddenly went out, plunging them into semi-darkness save for the emergency lighting.

“Oh, and you won’t be needing this anymore,” she sneered, and before she could defend herself, with a snap her combat bracelet was ripped from her uninjured arm, and she watched helplessly with horror as it was shredded into tiny pieces before her eyes, its threads scattering onto the floor.

Her duplicate then threw her a contemptuous smile before backhanding her across the face with immense force, dizzying her to the floor. The disorientation cost her seconds, and before she knew it, her duplicate had already left for the Gate Room.

Tearing her eyes away from the shreds of material on the floor, she looked up, spotting Teal’c across the room, unconscious on the floor of the lab where he’d been knocked out earlier. Rousing him, they both hurried to follow the trail of disabled airmen strewn along the underground corridors of the base to the carnage of the Gate Room. The Replicator was just too strong to be stopped, and despite Teal’c’s best efforts, her duplicate made her escape through the gate, deliberately disconnecting and leaving behind the inert cell blocks that had constituted her arm in the struggle.

“Teal’c, what have I done?” she asked as the gate shut down.

She’d helped a being worse than Anubis make herself immune to the only effective weapon they’d had, and now she wasn’t going to stop until she found the Ancient weapon and wiped out all human life. How could she have been so stupid?

----

41 days to go

Study of the inert minuscule replicator blocks left behind by her duplicate’s discarded arm had quickly proved fruitless at finding any way of countering the cypher she’d introduced in herself.

She was out there, somewhere, calling forth her Replicator army of millions to advance from Ida to this galaxy. And once they arrived, at the rate of which they would consume planetary systems and make more of themselves, replicating exponentially, she didn’t think it would take more than mere weeks before the entire galaxy succumbed.

It had been with humiliation, guilt and embarrassment that she’d had to inform the General back at the SGC, then Thor, of the Replicators’ duplicity, and how she’d practically handed over a way to make themselves immune. And now the entire galaxy was about to be invaded solely because of her.

But to her frustration and almost disbelief, the Asgard wouldn’t intervene. Bound by the Protected Planets’ Treaty, an agreement signed between the Asgard and Goa’uld, the Asgard High Council refused to offer any resources to help defend against the imminent Replicator invasion, despite the fact that she personally felt it was their failure to implement the time dilation trap that had culminated in the creation of the advanced human-form replicators in the first place.

The Asgard must have felt sorry for her, however, as they finally decided to follow through on their long-ago promise of upgrades for the Prometheus in return for SG-1 repairing the time dilation device. She’d hoped that they would send Thor, whom she hadn’t seen in person for half a year, hoping to appeal the High Council’s decision to him personally, but it was instead Freyr who came to Earth shortly afterwards, installing vastly improved shields to the ones first provided a year prior, as well as a brand new hyperdrive engine and Asgard beaming technology.

Finally, the Prometheus, the project she’d worked so hard on for almost three years, was fully battle ready; Earth’s first full-strength starship, its first line of defence.

Except, what good could a single ship possibly do against an incoming vast army of millions of self-replicating robots?

----

28 days to go

They were here. According to Tok’ra and Rebel Jaffa intel, they were already swarming vast Goa’uld territories, quickly eliminating all in their path in their race to find the Ancient weapon capable of destroying all life. The System Lords Bastet and Olokun were already dead, with Morrigan and Ares’ dominions close to collapse.

The only glimmer of hope was the unexpected discovery of an Ancient-built ship capable of time travel during an off-world rescue mission. The General, whom it had recently been discovered bore Ancient lineage, leaving him with an Ancient gene rendering him capable of utilizing Ancient technology, was able to fly it.

Should they use it? Could she travel back in time and undo the creation of her duplicate Replicator self?

She’d thought she’d done so well with her inadvertent discovery and recovery of the half-built ship in Oregon that had later become the Prometheus. She’d dedicated herself to the project of giving Earth its first ship capable of interstellar travel, and it had led SG-1 to saving the Asgard race from the Replicators, permanently altering this timeline for what she'd thought, had been for the better. She’d been so confident that saving the Asgard would be their ticket to stopping Anubis. The Asgard were their most powerful allies, after all.

She could never have imagined that saving them would instead lead to the Replicators advancing to this galaxy, and launching an all-out assault on the Goa’uld. And it was personal. Fifth had made the duplicate of her because of his feelings for her. Her duplicate was attacking the Milky Way as opposed to the thousands of other nearby galaxies merely because of her. And now, because of her mistake of trusting her and allowing her to study the disruptor, they were unstoppable.

Use of the time ship was certainly a possibility. It should be easy enough to make sure the mission in Steveston failed, so they never discovered the ship, which she strongly felt was the key moment that had led to the spiralling chaos that was the situation now in this timeline. Maybe she could even prevent General O’Neill from being captured and tortured by Ba’al shortly afterwards, too? She’d need the General to pilot the ship, which meant that she would have to confess everything to him- of how she’d lied and covered up the truth of her mission. Maybe she could use his experience with Ba’al as leverage?

Fortunately or unfortunately, however, before she’d made her decision of whether to tell the General everything or not, the choice was made for her. With Daniel’s translation help- though her Ancient reading had improved somewhat over the past six months- access to the ship’s data log yielded that the time travel technology only worked in time jumps longer than a couple hundred years. Too far back to allow her to enact any substantial plan.

It was futile. And with Aschen Prime destroyed by her hand, any hope of time travel to undo the damage done to this timeline was out of the question. She’d already been given a second chance and she’d blown it. And there was no hope of a third.

----

22 days to go

Everything was spiralling out of control and descending into chaos. History was repeating itself, only this time it was worse than Anubis’ assault on the System Lords with the Eyes of the Goa’uld weapon, as she had read in the last future mission reports. The systematic attack on the Goa’uld by the Replicators this time round from all fronts was dismantling the entire order of the galaxy, and despite their attempts to band together, Goa’uld and System Lords alike were dropping like flies.

Worse still, were the reports that Anubis was back, and that he’d regained control of his Kull army from Ba’al, along with much of his territory. Her Replicator duplicate had indeed released him from his icy prison, and she wondered whether she’d done it simply to spite her.

And despite the failing empire of the Goa’uld- in her opinion pretty much nullifying the treaty signed between the Asgard and Goa’uld- the Asgard High Council still claimed to be bound by the Protected Planets’ Treaty, meaning that they wouldn’t use their technology to assist any planets that fell under the treaty, including Earth. They were alone.

She was alone.

The whole galaxy was falling apart because of her, and finding the concrete walls of the base suffocating, she needed to get off the base to think.

She headed to the top of Cheyenne mountain, where she found the sky already darkening, owing to the short daylight hours that mid February brought. There was humidity in the air despite the usual dryness of the season, and thick clouds rolled across the sky, just visible through the towering pine tree tops.

As an eagle swooped overhead, she found herself reminded of the day she’d brought the alien Narim here to this very spot. It seemed so, so long ago now. Over eight years ago, in fact, from her perspective.

She’d been so young and naive back then. Every off-world mission had been an adventure; an exciting pursuit of discovery and progress of her race. Sure, they’d run into several skirmishes, but SG-1 had quickly slotted together like long-separated siblings. Together, they’d seemed an invincible team. Hell, they’d even been revived from the dead, thanks to the Nox.

She hadn’t had her body taken over by a symbiote yet. She hadn’t been captured and tortured yet. She hadn’t yet known of true evil and suffering. She hadn’t, then, been forced to make difficult, ethical choices to save the planet. She’d still been comfortably safe under the Colonel’s wing of command, never needing to shoulder the responsibility of making the big decisions that affected everyone.

She could never, ever could have imagined then that she’d end up here with the weight of the entire human race in the galaxy resting solely on her. Where each action and choice could mean life or death consequences for billions upon billions of lives. And she was failing everyone spectacularly.

Oma and Daniel had already warned her that the more people that knew of the weapon, the more likely Anubis would learn about the weapon. And try as she might, as hard as it had been at times, she’d kept her secret safe, not knowing that her efforts would end up entirely futile.

What a joke it was that she hadn’t needed to tell anyone. Anubis himself had read her mind, and a copy of her memories had been made and placed inside a machine duplicate of her. Both of whom, now, with massive armies at their disposal, were focused entirely on finding the weapon.

It had been turned into a three-way race, and the simple fact was that she lacked the resources to search the galaxy herself. She still hadn’t told anyone about the weapon’s existence, either. Should she? And if she did, would it even make a difference? The Asgard wouldn’t help, and the Rebel Jaffa and Tok’ra simply didn’t have the numbers or coverage she would need to find the weapon first.

She sighed defeatedly. She’d already been thinking over the pros and cons of confessing the truth and about her mission to the General over and over for days upon end, like a loop stuck on repeat. The truth was, she simply didn’t know what to do, and she desperately needed guidance.

“Orlin, you’re the one who started me on this mission,” she spoke aloud, upwards to the darkening clouds above. “If you’re here, then please help me. What do I do next?” she asked.

But the clouds simply rolled on by, uncaring, turning a shade of purple as the beginnings of dusk approached.

”Oma Desala, if you can hear me, please help. I don’t know what to do. Everything I do is just making everything worse,” she yelled at the sky helplessly.

The sky above gave a feeble flash, followed by a low whimper of thunder resounding down the valley, and she was reminded again of the ascended being’s words spoken three years ago.

“Lightning flashes, sparks shower, and in one blink of your eyes you have missed seeing.”

“The more you seek it, the more it remains out of reach.”

Her efforts to save the Asgard had led to the creation of her Replicator duplicate from her betrayal of Fifth.

The destruction of the Eyes of the Goa’uld had only led to Anubis’ discovery of Naquadriah and his creation of Kull warriors.

Her efforts to find the Lost City had led to the Colonel nearly dying and had drawn Anubis to attacking Earth again.

Her efforts to find the weapon herself had only led to another, worse enemy to seek it, too.

Aside from the small victories of saving Bra’tac and Jonas’ lives, what had she even achieved? Janet had died again, the Tok'ra had almost been wiped out, and now Daniel had been kidnapped, and would probably soon be killed once the Replicator got what she wanted.

Every time she thought she’d made something better this time round, achieved something, it had turned out to lead to something worse.

“So, what am I supposed to do? Nothing!?” she yelled at the growing storm, and it was the smell of nitrogen that warned her a second before the sky suddenly opened, dumping a heave of rain onto her.

“Great. Just great,” she muttered, scurrying back to the elevator to take her down to the locker room to change out of her already soaked clothes.

What the hell was she supposed to do next? It was hopeless.

Chapter Text

What the hell was she supposed to do? It was hopeless.

10 days to go

The Replicators had reportedly already taken control of over a third of the galaxy. Lord Yu was dead, along with several more System Lords. It was only a matter of time before they found the weapon. Days, perhaps. And the thought that they were being led by someone bearing her face was simply unthinkable.

While there was disarray among the Rebel Jaffa, Teal’c and Bra’tac’s campaign had never been stronger, their ranks swelling fast as they rallied the countless Jaffa who had recently lost their master, and she had little heart to tell them that it was all pointless now. The faster the Goa’uld Empire fell- the goal Teal’c and the SGC had been striving for all these years- the nearer the end of everyone’s existence drew.

One of the last remaining System Lords, Amaterasu, was barely clinging on to the last of her territories. Desperately needing the distraction, and also praying the weapon would turn up in her territory, she agreed to accompany Teal’c and Bra’tac on a mission to take her out once and for all. Daniel, too, decided last-minute to join, probably out of loyalty to his teammates, and together they flew a hijacked ha’tak to intercept with Amaterasu’s main mothership.

Only, it turned out their intel had been wrong. The Replicators had already taken out Amaterasu, seizing control of the mothership they’d been intercepting. Their ha’tak’s shields were no match for the Replicators’ superior weapons, and it only took a couple of blows for the Replicator-controlled ship to breach the hull and begin boarding their ha’tak.

Less than a minute later as they raced to intercept the robots with their P90s, Daniel had been beamed away aboard the mothership.

She knew exactly why the Replicators must have taken him, and she kicked herself for not having had the foresight. Her Replicator counterpart must want to search through his buried Ancient memories from when he was ascended to try to locate the weapon. While Daniel had said it took hundreds of years for ascended beings to understand and interpret the knowledge, there was no reason it would be the same for Replicators. They were machines, with highly advanced processing power, and coupled with her duplicate’s ability to directly access people’s minds... Damn, how could she have not preempted her duplicate’s plan? They shared thought patterns, didn’t they? But she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself. She’d wasted time, and now that her duplicate stood a chance of getting that information directly from Daniel- which she more than likely would- then it was already all over.

----

The only good news upon her return was that Thor was waiting for her back home in Earth’s orbit, intent on helping with the Replicator situation. The Asgard High Council, it seemed, had made a turn-around decision on their stance at interference in the Replicator’s invasion. With the Goa’uld almost all defeated, and the Replicators’ victory in sight, it had been decided that the Replicators would likely return to their galaxy after conquering the Milky Way, and that working towards stopping them before their numbers grew even further would be in their best interest.

Immediately setting to work with Thor aboard his ship, she watched as he manipulated her Replicator duplicate’s inert arm cell units that she’d had stored in her lab until they melted into liquid form.

“The process is complete. Now we must re-establish the subspace link between these cells and the rest of the Replicators.”

The plan was to reanimate the cells enough to search through the communication link tethering all Replicators together, to find the cypher her duplicate had uploaded. If they could find it, then they could recalibrate the General’s disruptor weapon to counter the Replicators once again.

“What if they receive instructions?” she asked, imagining with dread the cells on the table reforming back into her own arm and jumping up to strangle her.

“It is a risk we will have to take. I will only maintain the link for microseconds at a time. It will slow the process, but I do not believe we have a choice.”

She gave a nod of understanding, and he activated a beam onto the cells for a couple of seconds. As it faded, she turned to look at the screen behind Thor where multitudes of data flashed by.

“What did we get?”

“I am processing the data now,” he said, as a star map appeared on the screen, covered with blue dots. “I believe we have pinpointed the location of the Replicators within this galaxy.”

Their intel that the Relicators had taken a third of the galaxy was wrong. They were everywhere. It was absolutely horrifying. They had to find the cypher today, or once her duplicate extracted the location of the weapon from Daniel, the Replicators were poised to seize it straight away from wherever it was in the galaxy.

“Thor, I know obviously defeating the Replicators is our first priority here. But there is something else I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

There hadn’t been an urgency to ask him directly about the weapon when she’d last seen him, since Anubis had been frozen and secured at the time. But there was no time or reason to hold back her secret from him anymore.

“What is it, Colonel Carter?” he inquired, looking at her with curious beady eyes as he stepped away from the screen still displaying the map of the galaxy.

“I have reason to believe that both my Replicator duplicate and Anubis are seeking a weapon on a planet here in this galaxy with the capability of destroying all human life in the galaxy at once. It was built by the Ancients. In fact, I have reason to believe it uses the same technology that we’re working with now to battle the Replicators. Do you know where the Ancients might have built and left such a device? You were allies with them, right?”

“The Asgard were indeed allied with the Ancients long ago. Millennia ago, in fact. But that was before my time. I was born after their ascension, and thus have not personally met any Ancients. However, it is my understanding, from what I have learned of their kind, that they would not build a weapon with the purpose of killing all human life.”

She found it interesting that he’d given the same answer the General had when she’d asked him the same question aboard the cargo ship when they’d been looking for the Lost City, the locations of which had since confirmed had indeed been relocated to another galaxy.

After receiving the Asgard upgrades for the Prometheus, a mission to visit the expedition still located in the Pegasus galaxy had been launched, but the Prometheus had been hijacked and damaged on the journey and its crew had had to turn back. Just days ago, however, working late at the SGC, she had been surprised to have received a short dial-in from the city, including a data transmission burst containing the expedition’s mission reports, plans of the city, and all intel gathered on Ancient technology so far in the galaxy. Unfortunately, the expedition had also encountered a major threat- a dangerous alien species indiginous to the galaxy- and the data burst had essentially been a goodbye before the city came under siege from their new enemy.

The Lost City, named Atlantis, had indeed been discovered, but ascended Daniel had been wrong. Facing imminent death, and with neither side with enough power to dial, the Lost City would be of no use in finding the Ancient weapon in the Milky Way, nor would it be of any help with tackling the Replicators or Anubis.

“Is it possible this technology could be manipulated toward that end? To wipe out human life?” she asked, returning her thoughts to questioning Thor about the Ancient weapon. There had to be something he could know of, or something he and the Asgard would be able to do to help the desperate situation.

“It is possible,” he conceded, nodding his head slowly. “The Ancients seeded all human life in this galaxy, as well as others.”

Suddenly the data transmission from Atlantis confirming the surprise find that there were humans living on various planets in the Pegasus galaxy, too, just like here, made sense. The Ancients must have seeded life there with this same technology. Orlin, too, had hinted that there were humans in other galaxies when she’d asked him on the Al’kesh if she was the last human alive, and he’d answered that she had been, in this galaxy.

“So the Ancients created all humans?”

“In their image, yes,” and she recalled the woman they’d found frozen in Antarctica. That Ancient woman hadn’t looked like them. It was that all humans had been made to look like her.”

“So if they seeded all life in this galaxy, then…”

“Then it would be reasonable to deduce that all life could indeed be un-sown with this device you speak of. Both the Replicators and Anubis desire this?”

“Yes. Both the Replicators and Anubis, who is half-ascended, would survive the effects of such a weapon. They both want to control the galaxy and repopulate it to their own specifications.”

Thor’s large black eyes grew even wider in shock.

“Then the situation appears even more dire than we had previously considered.”

“It is,” she urged, relief flooding through her that she’d finally been able to confide her long-kept secret in someone. And if anyone could help her, it would be the Asgard.

“Thor, if you know where the Ancients might have left this piece of technology, then we need to find it and destroy it.”

“As I prior promised, upon my return to Orilla, I did indeed attempt to investigate the disruptor technology in the Ancient’s database. However, I came up with no information about any such device of the same construct in the Milky Way.”

She hadn’t expected him to have found anything in the vast haystack he’s spoken of, but it was still disappointing to hear confirmation. She’d have to try another strategy to recruit the Asgard’s help.

“Is there any way of scanning each planet in the Milky Way with a known link to the Ancients for such a technology or weapon using your ships?”

“In theory, yes, but it would take several of your weeks, even utilizing a fleet of Asgard vessels, assuming at all that I could convince the Asgard High Council to sanction such a search.”

There was no time for that. At least not as long as the Replicators were still a threat, anyway. But, if they could get the disruptor weapon to work again, it was possible there might still be time to still find the weapon before Anubis did.

“I see. Thanks anyway, Thor,” she said. It was a Plan B, at least, but it hinged solely on eliminating the Replicators first.

“Now let us return to activating the next connection,” he said, and at her nod, he swiped the control panel, causing the arm cells to begin to glow again.

——

It had taken several hundred microsecond-long connections and hours to go through each subsequent burst of data, but eventually, miraculously, Thor managed to isolate the cypher that made the Replicators immune to the disruptor, and she helped adjust it accordingly.

Deciding to take on a few isolated Replicator ships whose location they’d learned during the analysis of the scans, they tested the weapon, finding it initially successful, but by the third ship, the Replicators had already built an immunity to it. Thor's ship was soon boarded, and before she could stop the attack, without warning, Thor beamed her back to Earth for safety, before steering his ship as far away from Earth as possible.

For all she knew, Thor was likely dead. And she was back to square one. The disruptor weapon still didn’t work. And she was still no closer to finding the Ancient weapon.

----

8 days to go

She’d been trying to rest in her on-site quarters, exhausted from more than a day’s pain-staking work aboard Thor’s ship. She hadn’t even been given a moment to process Daniel’s kidnapping before getting to work with Thor, and now Thor himself was likely gone forever, too.

But her time to grieve was cut short when she was summoned to the Briefing Room by the General, where he was already joined by Bra’tac, Teal’c, and her father, who had arrived with intel from the Tok’ra while she’d been with Thor.

“Ba’al dialled in,” the General announced to the room. “He said Anubis has sent him after a weapon on Dakara. Said it was a weapon built by the Ancients.”

Her insides froze, all prior weariness evaporating in an instant. It couldn’t be.

“What did Ba’al say it does?” she asked, trying to mask the shaking in her voice.

“He said it can destroy the Replicators and take out all life in the galaxy.”

“A device capable of destroying all life in the galaxy,” she repeated, her heart both sinking and screaming in elation. Anubis had found it first. He’d be on his way already. But by a huge stroke of fortune, Dakara had just fallen under control of the Rebel Jaffa. And Ba’al had confirmed that, just like the weapon the General had created, this weapon was also the key to defeating the Replicators.

She could barely breathe. They still had a chance. They’d found it, and it was on a planet, after all, just like the note from the other Sam had said. The planet had been Dakara all along, and now that she thought about it, she remembered the name being mentioned in the very last report of SG-1 in the future. It had been the planet where Teal’c and Daniel had gone to meet with a Jaffa informant within Anubis’ ranks. Had the Rebel Jaffa in the other timeline found out about Anubis’ plans, too? Or had it been Ba’al who had tipped them off then, too?

“Ba'al said he was serving Anubis?” her father asked.

“Not exactly. You know those Goa'uld and their egos,” grimaced the General, gesturing with his hands a large-sized head.

“He would never admit to being subservient,” her father agreed, nodding.

“No. He said he was biding his time, learning what he could from Anubis.”

“Probably looking for a way to kill him.”

She quietly agreed with her father’s assessment. Lord Yu’s log in the future had stated that Ba’al had been working on time travel technology to try to stop Anubis, and she wondered if he’d been doing the same this time round. He probably wanted to stop Anubis just as much as they did. After all, he would be just as vulnerable to the effects of such a weapon as any other human.

“Well, we have no idea how this Ancient device works or what the effects will be,” she lied, joining the conversation, eager to get to Dakara and begin the search for the weapon. “But since Anubis has no real corporeal form, it's likely he would survive it.”

“He'd have no one left to rule,” her father pointed out.

“For now. Time may not even be an issue for someone like him. He could essentially start over, re-populate the galaxy to his own specifications,” she said, knowing precisely that this was his intention.

“A little ambitious,” quipped the General.

“Well, he has at least some knowledge of the Ancients. I wouldn't put it past him.”

It was precisely what she’d seen him do, and she felt an immense sense of relief in finally being able to disclose Anubis’ plan to everyone here.

“Well, let me sit here and state the obvious,” the General said. “We can't let something like this get into his hands.”

“Or the Replicator's hands, for that matter,” her father added, just before she was about to suggest the same thing, knowing full well that that was exactly her duplicate’s intention, too.

“How much time do we have before Ba'al's fleet reaches Dakara?” she then asked.

She wondered if Anubis had sent Ba’al to recover the weapon first, hoping he’d be taken out by the Rebel army guarding the weapon. Or perhaps the Replicators were keeping him too busy to get there himself. Either way, whatever his reason was, it would cost him because it had bought them time.

“Why?”

“Ba'al didn't say exactly where the device was, did he?” she asked.

“No, he said it was hidden.”

“Well, chances are it's in the ruins but we can't be sure. Short of blowing up the entire planet we can't be a hundred percent positive we've destroyed it. And if it's protected by a shield, even our biggest naquadah-enhanced nuke might not do it.”

“The fact is, to be sure we've destroyed the weapon, we have to find it first,” her father weighed in.

“Go,” came the command, and she couldn’t get to the locker room to gear up fast enough.

----

Thank god she’d thought to study the Ancient language in her free time the past year and a half. As it turned out, Dakara was home to a massive Ancient monument, similar-looking to where the repository of knowledge had been found on P3X-439 a year earlier. And with Daniel kidnapped by her duplicate self and possibly even dead by now, though she didn’t even want to consider the possibility, and with Jonas no longer on the team, it had fallen to her to decipher the Ancient writings to gain entry to the hidden weapon inside.

Fortunately, in studying Daniel’s notebooks in her free time, she’d managed to familiarize herself with his rather unorthodox organizing system, and was able to recognize enough words on the text to see that it was a riddle. Selmak, too, had a limited knowledge of Ancient, and together, after a few hours’ work, they successfully gained access to the inside of the monument just as Ba’al’s fleet’s approach to the planet was detected.

Teal’c left the planet’s surface to join the Rebel Jaffa fleet in orbit, standing guard for Ba’al’s arrival, and inside the monument, she and her father found an altar-like control mechanism, similar in design to the time device on the planet that had caused Earth to be caught in a time loop three years prior. It was engraved with even more Ancient writing, and from what she could tell from the readings on wall display, it was capable of emitting a disruptor wave, similar to the anti-Replicator weapon the General had constructed. This was it.

She knew Ba’al’s fleet was already close, and she knew her standing orders from the General were to blow it up before Ba’al’s arrival, but she’d just been working with the very same technology together with Thor the day before, and felt confident that she would be able to find a way of calibrating it to work against the Replicators.

She knew from the test-run with Thor, however, that the Replicators would build a resistance after a few shots. The only way to eliminate them once and for all would be to use Anubis’ plan- to hit all Replicators in the galaxy in one single shot by dialling all gates in the galaxy simultaneously.

And to do that, she would need Ba’al’s help. He’d been the one to manipulate the DHD-disabling virus to trigger a correlative update, bringing down the entire stargate network in the galaxy just over a year ago. She was certain he would know how to get Dakara’s gate to dial all gates in the network at once, but that meant allowing his fleet to arrive without engaging him, risking that he might simply kill them all from space just to maintain his cover in front of Anubis.

Having notified her plan to Teal’c in orbit, as they waited tensely for Ba’al’s fleet, she couldn’t help feeling a deep sense of guilt that if it weren’t for her, there wouldn’t be any need to make the device work at all. If she hadn’t allowed the Replicators to invade to the galaxy freely, immune to the weapon the General had already constructed, then they could have just blown up the Ancient device and be done with it before Ba’al had even arrived.

Fortunately Ba’al decided to help them without even a single shot fired. He really was prepared to risk his cover to stop Anubis. Following his instructions of how to reprogram the DHD, leaving Selmak and her father to work on calibrating the Ancient device to emit a disruptor wave that would be effective against the Replicators, once the gate’s dialing program was set up, she raced back to join her father. But it was taking too long. Anubis was already questioning why Ba’al hadn’t gotten back to him, and before they knew it, things got even worse.

Ba’al and the Rebel Jaffa fleet both came under attack from Replicator ships. The Replicators had found Dakara, and that could only mean that her Replicator duplicate had already successfully extracted the knowledge from Daniel. She was coming.

Working as fast as she could with Selmak to calibrate the Ancient weapon, they were tipped off by the sound of gunfire outside the monument to learn that a Replicator ship had already landed on the planet. They were out of time. It was another race against the enemy, just like the time on Abydos and P3X-439, only this time, the stakes were a thousand times higher. If the Replicators gained access to the device before she and Selmak could finish calibrating it, they’d soon rig it to wipe out all human life instead. And worse, still, she’d already programmed the DHD to dial all gates simultaneously. She’d have handed them the victory on a silver platter.

As the sound of gunfire drew closer as the ground Jaffa fell back towards the monument’s entrance, she was left with no choice but to leave her father and Selmak to finish off readying the weapon. She had to buy her father every last second she could, and drawing her P90, she joined the few remaining Jaffa as they did their best to hold off the hoard of Replicators now swarming their way towards the monument entrance.

There were hundreds of them, scuttling forward in an unstoppable wave. There was no way they’d have enough ammunition between them to fend them all off. Not when there were even more ships full of them still in orbit, engaged in battle with Teal’c and Ba’al’s fleets. And once they were destroyed, the remaining Replicator ships would surely land and join the raid for the weapon. It wouldn’t be long before she arrived, either, she thought with dread.

If her father and Selmak couldn’t get the weapon to work, none of them would be leaving this planet alive.

The Replicators continued to advance to the entrance despite the continuous battery of fire from herself and the allied Jaffa as they fought to hold them off for as long as they could. She was just about to fall back to the altar to blow the weapon with C-4, along with herself, her father and the Jaffa, when at the very last second, she heard her father call out that he’d completed calibrating the weapon. Thank god.

With her shout of, “Do it!”, he executed the weapon, the soft ground beneath her feet trembling as a massive rumble and shaking broke forth from the towering monument above her head. A building vibration from within the temple alerted her to the weapon’s powering up, before, just as the Replicators reached the toes of her boots, a bright, white light erupted from the device. It bubbled outwards, brushing through her body with a delicate tingling, gentle as an angel’s kiss, then swept through the hundreds of Replicators before her, all falling inert at its touch, as it rushed on course towards the gate.

The white light she had dreaded to see all these years hadn’t ended all life in the galaxy, her along with it.

It had saved it.

Chapter Text

The white light she had dreaded to see all these years hadn’t ended all life in the galaxy, her along with it.

It had *saved* it.

5 hours to go

“General, I’m sorry to interrupt,” she heard an airman call, cutting through the glum atmosphere of the darkened medical isolation room, and she immediately felt a sense of loss as the General flinched at the interruption, swiftly retracting the arm he’d placed on the small of her back.

“Go ahead, Sergeant,” the General replied from beside her, where he’d been stood in a quiet offer of comfort the past few minutes, as she continued to stare unseeing before her at the now forever still body of her father.

His death had been just as senseless as Daniel’s. If it hadn’t been for the invasion of the Replicators, Daniel would still be alive. She was certain of his death by now. They hadn’t heard from him in over a week, and if her Replicator duplicate hadn’t already killed him after extracting the information on Dakara from him, he would certainly have died when the Replicator ship he’d likely been held on had disintegrated following the detonation of the Ancient weapon.

And Selmak, unbeknownst to everyone but her father, had been dying within her father’s body. And instead of allowing herself to die first without taking her father’s life with her, because of the Replicator invasion- because of her- Selmak’s knowledge of Ancient and ability to assist with calibrating the weapon had been needed, and she’d chosen to hold on just long enough to help save everyone, before passing, dooming her father to slowly follow in her death.

The Replicators had been stopped, but she’d never forgive herself for her part in the needless deaths of both Daniel and her Dad. Their deaths were forever on her head.

“Sir, we just got word that Teal’c and Bra’tac have finished gathering the majority of their fleet and are heading towards Tartarus now,” the airman reported.

Tartarus? Anubis’ old base where he was previously manufacturing his Kull army? What did that have to do with anything?

“Thank you, Sergeant,” the General replied curtly, and dismissed him.

“Wh-what about the defence of Dakara?” she coughed out in a half-sob, finding it difficult to form any words from the ringing shock of her father’s sudden death just moments ago.

Until her father’s sudden collapse two days prior, she’d spent almost a week desperately pleading with the newly-formed Free Jaffa Council housed in Dakara to allow the destruction of the Ancient weapon, during which time Anubis had thankfully, though unnervingly, made no attempt to seize the planet. But the Council had outright refused. Dakara had come to be seen as a symbol of freedom for the Rebel movement, and its destruction would be seen as sacrilege.

She would have done it on the spot after that first activation of the weapon if she hadn’t needed to wait until they could confirm she’d been successful in dialling all gates in the galaxy at once, eliminating all the Replicators. If it hadn’t been for her enabling the invasion of the Replicators, the weapon could have been destroyed before the Council had even been formed following the official defeat of the Goa’uld Empire, and the threat of Anubis would have been left minimal.

“Teal’c said the Rebel Jaffa would leave just under half their fleet in orbit to keep it safe,” she heard the General’s reply, cutting through her thoughts of self-blame.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” she protested, suddenly finding the strength to voice her anger at learning she’d been left out of the loop. “It’s essential that we not let Anubis get his hands on the device on Dakara! You know full well what that weapon is capable of,” she said sternly, feeling no desire at all to control the volume of her voice despite the presence of two Tok’ra beside her father’s bed, stood in silent vigil over Selmak’s passing.

“That’s why Teal’c and the Rebel Jaffa are making a first strike against Anubis at his base,” the General replied soothingly, glancing at the Tok’ra, trying to calm her. “You know he took a huge hit from the Replicators. Intel says he lost a ton of his super soldiers to the Replicators. He’s vulnerable. They feel it’s their best shot to take him out now before he has a chance to regather his forces and take on Dakara.”

She couldn’t believe she hadn’t been informed anything about this. She was so mad that he could ever think that she’d need to be mollycoddled because of her father’s condition. Did he think she needed protecting?!

“I’m sorry you got left out of the loop, Carter,” he continued, placing a hand on her shoulder, “but you were busy the last couple of days...”

She immediately shrugged away from his touch. She was furious.

“You don’t leave me out of this just because my dad was dying!”

This was totally unacceptable. There was no way that Anubis was on Tartarus. She’d sabotaged the place. He knew the location was compromised. He’d never go back there to lay low. How could they have let Anubis trick them so easily?

“That’s insubordination, Carter,” he replied slicky. “But I’ll cut you some slack seeing as-”

“I don't need slack! We need to get those Jaffa and their fleet to turn around and head back to Dakara now!”

“Carter!” he barked, dropping his earlier controlled voice. “What the hell are you flying off the handle about?”

“What am I-? Are you serious?!” she shouted, her anger building further by the fact that he wasn’t taking Anubis’ threat seriously enough. “Anubis isn’t on Tartarus! This is obviously a set up! Anubis will already be heading to Dakara as we speak to wipe us all out-”

“Watch your words, Carter! You can’t possibly know that,” he cut in, before successfully reigning in control of his voice again. “Our intel source is good. Ba’al’s on standby, too. I promise you, Carter, Anubis is not gonna get his hands on that weapon.”

He couldn’t promise squat. This was why Anubis had held off attacking Dakara the past week. He was feigning being vulnerable while planting false information, waiting for the right time to strike. Orlin had already warned her that time wasn’t an issue for a being like Anubis. He was patient, and it was paying off.

“I can’t believe you’ve all fallen for this, and I can’t believe you left me out of this decision!”

She was infuriated at herself for letting this happen. For not convincing the Jaffa High Council to let her destroy the weapon. At her father for dying at a time like this, and most of all at the General standing before her giving no indication whatsoever that he was prepared to listen to what she was saying. There was zero doubt in her mind that this was a ruse of Anubis’. Why wouldn’t he believe her?

“God, this is all my fault! None of this was supposed to happen! Dad wasn’t even supposed to die like this!”

How could her father have died? It was so unfair. She was supposed to have already saved him. He hadn’t been there when the Tok’ra had been targeted by Anubis. But now he’d died anyway, and because of the shit timing, she’d been left out of possibly the single most important tactical decision to be made in the fight against Anubis.

Everything she’d strived for. Everything she’d worked towards for years would hinge on this day, on this choice, and it had been taken out of her hands by the very people she’d thought she could rely on.

“Carter, I’m ordering you to calm down,” he said, though his tone betrayed his own flaring temper.

“No, I will not calm down! Everything is so fucked up!” she yelled, kicking at the metal table beside the bed where her father lay, earning scathing looks from the visiting Tok’ra.

“Come with me, now,” he hissed, and without warning, she was tugged by the arm and pulled into the darkened, empty isolation room next door.

She seethed as he released his grip on her, standing rigid and crossing her arms defensively as she watched him flick on the light and swipe his keycard to close the door, sliding shut behind him with a bang as he rounded on her.

“What the hell are you talking about, Carter? What do you mean this is all your fault? Are you talking about the Replicators again, because I already told you, I gave you permission to work with the other you, and that falls on me.”

“Forget it. It doesn't even matter now,” she said, her initial fury starting to dissipate as her heart sank at the thought that there was nothing to be achieved by arguing with the General anyway. They wouldn’t be able to get word in time to Teal’c to turn around even if she did convince the General that they’d all seriously fucked up. The fleet’d be out of contact in hyperspace for the next several hours until they got to Tartarus, during which time Anubis would have been given pretty much a clear path to the weapon.

“No, I won’t forget it, Carter. What doesn’t matter? What did you mean when you said that none of this was supposed to happen?”

She shook her head, refusing to answer, simply swallowing, finding her throat hoarse from her earlier shouting.

A silent stand off followed. She could feel the burn of his eyes glaring at her, and she could tell that he was trying to restrain himself from engaging her in another shouting match.

She couldn’t take his angry stare. She was awash with exhaustion from having just watched her Dad die, from crying, from missing Daniel, and from bearing the weight of responsibility for everyone in the galaxy.

Everything was falling apart again. They'd barely survived the Replicators by the skin of their teeth a few days ago, and now the thought that Anubis must already be on his way to Dakara was simply unbearable. Absolutely everything until now had been riding on her. Everyone’s lives. She’d thought she’d trapped him forever on KS7-535, and for a duplicate of her to have released him and done this just to spite her was just unspeakably cruel. How could she have been so stupid again, to trust a machine after what had happened to the other her on Aschen Prime?

Her limbs trembled uncontrollably as she unfolded her arms, raising them to bury her face as her chest constricted, her lungs suddenly struggling to draw breath. She felt cold and sweaty, her heart flailing aimlessly hard against her ribcage. This wasn’t the shock of grief that had hit her earlier. She wasn’t about to break down in tears again. This was a wave of crushing panic flooding her body, dragging her down into the deep. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t bear the burden of responsibility alone anymore. She could barely even hear the General ordering her to answer his earlier question as she forced herself to make it to the unused bed in the middle of the room, sitting down on its end as a wave of dizzying nausea hit.

“Carter, answer me! What wasn’t supposed to happen? And what did you mean by ‘Dad wasn’t even supposed to die like this?’”

She couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was going to explode. She needed to share the burden. She was simply, entirely, emotionally spent. She’d just watched her father die moments ago, and now everything was about to come undone. Anubis was going to win. Did it even matter about keeping her secret from him anymore when they’d more than likely all be dead by the end of the day anyway?

“Dad was supposed to die on Revanna with the other Tok’ra, but everything changed when I came back,” she confessed quietly, her voice so small that the General had to approach her on the bed to hear her.

“Come again? When you came back from where?”

She pushed out a slow breath through her lips, trying to calm herself. She felt sick. He was going to hate her. He’d never see her the same way again.

“I’ve tried to be so careful. To calculate every move. But everything just got worse and now it’s just happening all over again,” she said defeatedly.

“Carter, I’m ordering you to start making sense!”

His barking voice stopped her in her tracks. There was no going back now.

“I travelled in time three years ago.”

“I know. You travelled back in time and hid on the Aschen planet for a year and ended up saving us.”

There was a beat of silence as she sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady the quivering of her hands clasped in her lap.

“No, Sir.”

“No, Sir?” he asked, the pitch of his voice sky high, and she knew his eyebrows would have been at his hairline if she’d had the courage to look up at him.

“I travelled back in time, from the future.

“Carter?”

“I lied, Sir.”

“What do you mean, you lied?” he asked, his voice laced with anger, impossibly higher than she’d ever heard it.

“I was sent forward in time to a future where Anubis had already wiped every single human life in the galaxy with the weapon on Dakara.”

“You-- what? I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

“I lived alone for almost a year in the future until I was able to travel back in time to try to prevent it from ever happening. Except… I’ve failed.”

It killed her to say those words out loud. ‘I’ve failed.’ If she hadn’t been so intimidated and ashamed by the tone of his voice she would probably have burst into tears on the spot.

“And you didn’t think any of this vital piece of intel was worth sharing with us before now?!”

Again she couldn’t meet his eyes. She was terrified to see the effect of the break in trust in his eyes.

“I couldn’t take any action that might lead to Anubis finding out that I knew of his plan.”

“So you didn’t trust us? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, of course that’s not it!” she said, finally meeting his eyes, desperate for him to see that she’d never intentionally withhold such information from him, to convey how hard this had been for her. But it was too late. His face looked absolutely furious, and a shadow of hurt lined his eyes.

“You have to know I’d never lie to you without good reason. I knew Daniel was going to ascend. I couldn’t allow him to know about me, because Anubis might have found out through him.”

“What are you talking about? How could you have known Daniel would ascend?”

“SGC mission reports. I read them all.”

“You knew everything that was going to happen? I can’t believe this-” he said, running his hands through his greying hair and turning away from her as though he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

“I didn’t know everything!” she shouted after him. “The timeline ended up changed. Some of it, for the worse-”

“So why the heck didn’t you just tell us everything after Daniel came back?” he roared, turning to face her again.

“Because Daniel when he was ascended warned me that I had to keep the secret to myself or other Ascended beings like him would find out, and… and I was afraid you’d react just like this,” she added quietly, the sting of tears hitting her eyes as she spoke.

“This is nuts, Carter. You’re telling me that you’ve been keeping this to yourself for the last three years, manipulating and pulling strings, secretly trying to save the galaxy all by yourself?!”

The look of betrayal in his eyes pierced her, stabbing her with accusation and hurt.

“Yes, Sir,” she replied meekly, replying with the truth.

“What the hell do you think gave you the right?!” and the fury in his eyes filled her with fear. She’d never seen him look like this. “To fabricate mission reports? To work outside the chain of command? What the hell, Carter! It's like I don't even know you!”

“Orlin put me on the mission," she pleaded, desperate for him to understand her reason. "He’s the one who sent me forward deliberately so I’d have a chance at defeating Anubis.”

“Orlin? The ascended guy who stalked you? God, Carter, do you know what this sounds like? What I'm hearing is completely insane! I’d find it easier to believe you’ve just gone wacko from the stress of all that’s gone on recently, as opposed to the thought that you’ve spent the last three years lying to all of us.”

He didn’t believe her. After everything they'd been through together, after everything they'd faced in eight years at the SGC of working together, she would never have even have considered that he wouldn’t believe her if she ever told him the truth, and it broke her heart.

“Please, Sir. When Nirrti almost killed me. Remember when I told you about that file on my computer? The password’s still “Mission”. Promise me you’ll read it.”

There was a stretch of silence as he started pacing the room again, presumably considering her words. He’d have no choice but to believe her if he read her note, but would he even look at it?

“After Anubis is secured, or... whatever happens. After this is all taken care of, you know I have a duty to report all this.”

All she could do was nod. She didn’t know what else to say. She was speechless that he hadn't believed her.

“I’d order you home for… all this, but we might need you over the next few hours if what you say is true, and, obviously your Dad’s here, so… Look, Carter, just stay on base, but get the hell out of my sight until I decide what to do with you.”

She understood his reaction. She understood his need to have complete trust in her, and that she’d completely broken that. She understood, too, his obligation to report her.

But none of that stopped her feeling as though he’d just stabbed her in the heart with a knife.

Chapter Text

She understood his reaction. She understood his need to have complete trust in her, and that she’d completely broken that. She understood, too, his obligation to report her.

But none of that stopped her feeling as though he’d just stabbed her in the heart with a knife.

2 days post D-Day

”Dear Sir,

”If you’re reading this, then it means I’ve either been permanently incapacitated and am unable to communicate this information, or far more likely, I’m dead.”

“Do you remember when we were dying of hypothermia in Antarctica and I said I wouldn’t regret anything, but you said you’d regret dying? Well, if you’re reading this, then I have to say, that I regret dying now, too, because it means that I’ve been left unable to fulfil the mission I’ve been on since March 2002.”

”I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Sir, but I falsified my report on my time-travel incident. I concealed the truth about my experience, and about what happened to me. And the hardest thing, apart from keeping this secret from everyone, was the fear of how you would feel to learn that I’d lied to you. I never meant to betray your trust in me, Sir. Please know that the respect and trust you have always shown and placed in me is one of the most precious things I’ve ever received from anyone.”

He took a pause and a deep breath after uttering these words. There was complete silence in the Pentagon Conference Room as everyone listened to him read aloud the words from the computer screen at the desk where he was seated, joined on his side by General Hammond. Sat on the other side of Hammond was a nerdy-looking bureaucratic schmuck with glasses who used to work for the NID, Woolly, or Weasley, no, Woolsey. He was pretty sure that was it. At the far end of the panel was Head of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Fisher, a rather by-the-book man he didn’t like much, and to his left at a small table sat a woman, probably Fisher’s assistant, typing notes on a laptop computer.

Carter was seated in her dress blues across from the panel behind an elongated wooden desk placed in the centre of the room, resolutely avoiding eye contact with him, or anyone else for that matter, and the rest of SG-1, along with Ambassador Faxon, were seated at the back of the room behind her on foldaway chairs; Teal’c as stoic as ever, his jaw clenching as he listened to him speak, Daniel looked simply morose, while Faxon beside him looked stunned.

“I need you to understand everything I’m writing and why,” he read on at a nod from Hammond. “The truth is, I wasn’t sent back in time by a fluke solar flare. Orlin deliberately sent me forty years *forwards* into the future,” and he took care to vocally emphasize the word she’d underlined in her note. “To a future where I’d found myself completely alone on Earth.”

Faxon mustn’t have been told anything beforehand, because he suddenly let out a gasp, causing him to pause again in his reading, before pressing on.

“I’ll never forget the devastation I found. The stillness and darkness. The dilapidated, empty streets of Colorado Springs. All evidence pointed towards an event occurring in March 2005 when every single person on Earth suddenly vanished. I couldn’t stay on Earth. It was too depressing and I was all alone. I took a copy of the three years’ worth of mission files I’d missed out on since my disappearance, and moved to the Alpha Site, which I found to be equally devoid of life. There, I found plenty of dry food supplies, and lived for a couple of months while I scouted friendly planets, before deducing that I was the last human alive in the entire galaxy.”

His heart ached just as much now to read the words as when he’d first read them shortly after ordering Carter to get out of his sight. He felt like such an asshole now. He stole a glance at Carter again, wishing he could tell her he was sorry, but she was still looking down, trying not to give anything away, and it broke his heart to see how tiny and sad she looked, sat alone, behind the huge desk.

Daniel and Teal’c meanwhile exchanged looks of sympathy and surprise. They, too, hadn’t had a chance to read the contents of the note, though he had quickly filled them in on the basics of why they’d suddenly been beamed to Washington before her hearing had started after Carter had already confessed to Hammond when he’d reported her.

“I couldn’t reach the Asgard from either the Hall of Might or Wisdom, and the Nox homeworld had been destroyed. Fortunately, though, Orlin found me. He couldn’t help me directly, because he had his own ascended rules to follow if he didn’t want to be banished, but he helped me in his own way by helping me recover some of Jolinar’s memories to find out that it was Anubis who had done this, that he was an ascended being like him, and that he had used a weapon called the Eyes of the Goa’uld to conquer the galaxy, before somehow dialling all gates in the galaxy simultaneously and setting off a weapon capable of wiping out all human life in an instant. A weapon I’d already seen being used in security footage playback on Earth. It was horrific.”

He stared at her again, but she continued to keep her face blank, looking steadfast at her clasped hands. That weapon had turned out to be the Dakara weapon. He still couldn’t get over the fact that she’d known about it all along, even if she hadn’t known its location.

“Orlin was prevented from talking to me further, and I found myself alone again, eventually going to Aschen Prime to track down their time travel technology. Remember the note you sent back from the future? Anyway, when I arrived on the planet, I found a note and a set of video messages that had been left there. It seemed that another me had already been to the Aschen homeworld, fallen under control of the Aschen’s AI subroutine running their city, and had failed to figure out how to travel back in time forty years before Anubis had found her and killed her.”

He paused again as a murmur of astonishment rang around the room, and he couldn’t blame them. Her claim was far fetched, shocking even for those in their line of work.

“Please continue, General,” prompted Woolsey, and he cleared his throat and forced himself to go on.

“Anyway, Sir, the details don’t really matter now, and I know time travel gives you a headache,” and he couldn’t help give a chuckle despite the sober atmosphere of the room, as did Hammond, though to his disappointment Carter herself didn’t react, “-so I’ll just say that with the other me’s guidance, I was able to keep from falling under the AI’s control, learn how to operate the Aschen’s computers, and after several months managed to travel back in time forty years, where I rescued Joe and was forced to kill every single Aschen before destroying their city in defence of our planet. That part of my report, at least, was true, Sir.”

He saw Hammond pull up the copy of that mission report on his own screen, where he pointed something out to the bespeckled chairperson, who nodded, before prompting him to continue reading.

“I’m sure you’re probably angry at me for keeping this all from you, but please keep reading, Sir.”

It was true. He had been angry at her at the time. He’d thought she’d betrayed him and everyone else. That, or that she’d gone nuts, which he had to admit, would have been an easier truth to digest than believing that Carter had lied to him. But he wanted her to know now that after the attack from Anubis had miraculously been staved off, and after he’d had time to process everything, he hadn’t been angry at all. He was simply heartbroken that she’d had to go through everything alone. They’d been a team, they’d worked together for eight years. They’d faced so much in that time. Imagining her spending the last three years feeling forced to work alone had left him nothing but saddened that he hadn’t been able to be there for her and help her. He wished he could tell her. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her one-on-one since her father had died, and now she wouldn’t even look at him.

----Flashback----

Four hours after reading the letter on her computer in her lab, Teal’c had returned by gate in his ceremonial robes directly from Tartarus with news that the Rebel’s Jaffa insurgence plan of Anubis’ old base had been a ploy by Anubis to dwindle the defence of Dakara, exactly as Carter had warned. Anubis had sent his army of Kull warriors to Dakara, and they had already massacred the sparse defence left there. There’d been no question that Anubis himself would already be on his way to claim the planet… and the weapon.

He’d called Carter from her quarters to get her up to speed, grateful and admiring of the way she was willing to work so professionally with him despite the way he’d chewed her out mere hours ago.

She’d been quick to suggest that they dial out first to the Alpha Site to block any incoming wormhole, but it’d been too late. An incoming offworld activation had already come through. It had to be Anubis at Dakara.

He’d never seen her look so terrified. So hopeless. He couldn’t doubt from the fear in her eyes that everything she’d written in that note was true. That she’d already seen the devastation of the weapon being used in the future. That she’d known full well what would be coming through the gate any second.

He’d ordered the self-destruction of the base despite Carter’s protest that it wouldn’t shut down the gate. He’d agreed with her assessment, but better to blow up Colorado on the slim chance that it would work, rather than sit back and allow Anubis a clear path to vaporizing the entire seven billion people of Earth. He’d had a duty to try something.

Watching with dread the self-destruct’s timer tick down, he’d wanted to apologize to her for yelling at her. He hadn’t wanted her to die thinking he was angry at her, just as she’d guessed in her note to him. She’d also written that she’d regret dying, and he knew she would no doubt be standing there, regretting being unable to complete her mission. Carter always found a way. She always saved the day. That she’d failed, and hadn’t been able to stop this happening would have been worse than torture for her.

Only, the timer had frozen before it had hit zero, and the gate had shut down without anything coming through. Something must have happened to stop Anubis.

The mystery had been solved when Daniel turned up naked in his office shortly afterwards- a sight he didn’t want to ever recall again if he didn’t have to- back from jettisoning off to another plane of existence again. Seriously, how many lives did the man even have? He couldn’t remember much from his time ascended, but he claimed he’d managed to convince his glowy fairy godmother Oma to stop Anubis before he could push the button and wipe out the galaxy.

Then, mere hours later, after convincing the Rebel Jaffa on Carter’s behalf to have the Dakara weapon destroyed, he’d been summoned to Washington, beamed directly to the White House to debrief the President and Hammond to confirm that both the Replicators and Anubis had been stopped, and that the war was officially over. Then he’d been smacked in the face with another promotion and a reassignment from working at the SGC to Hammond’s job as Head of Homeworld Security, possibly the worst reward ever for helping to save the galaxy. And that was why he was now being forced to sit on the prosecutor’s side of Carter’s preliminary hearing, as part of the handover process.

----

He hadn’t wanted to get her into trouble, let alone at a time like this when she’d need to start planning funeral arrangements for her Dad, but he’d had a duty to report what she’d told him, and had had to show Hammond the letter she’d written him.

She’d been lucky in a way, though. The Pentagon had been trying to gain more control over the goings-on of the SGC for years, slowly worming in more civilian oversight of its operations-
including Weir’s appointment- and they’d seized at the chance to put Carter through a preliminary hearing. But if she failed to convince them of her intent and reasons for lying at this hearing, then she’d be passed to a military court to be formally charged with allegations of falsifying mission reports, withholding intel related to an ongoing war, lying, and acting alone outside of the chain of command. All actions that she’d unfortunately already pleaded guilty to.

He sighed at the thought of his own feelings of guilt, before pressing on as the room sat in silent wait.

“Sir, I need to tell you why I lied. Why I was forced to spin that cover story in that debrief, which I tell you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” and as he spoke those words, he saw her body finally betray a glimmer of emotion. Hammond, too, shifted beside him, and Faxon looked sick.

He remembered the way she’d broken down at the end of that debrief. How he’d been so glad and relieved to have her back, but at the same time had been so pained to hear her account of what she’d been through- or rather, what he’d thought she’d been through. Now it turned out it had been so much more. He wanted so badly to hug her again the way he had on that day, and the way he had after Janet had died- Jesus, had she possibly known that would happen? But the idea was pushed from his mind at the sight of how hurt she looked now. She must hate him now for reprimanding her and then reporting her. That must be why she wouldn’t look at him at all. He wished so badly he could take it back. He was so sorry he’d done that to her right after her father had just died. How could he have been such an ass? He should have trusted in her more. He should have known that she would never have wittingly gone behind his back for anything less than the fate of the galaxy.

“It’s extremely vital to the survival of the entire human race,” he read on. “First, I couldn’t tell any of you, because I knew Daniel would die, ascend and meet Anubis.”

He saw Daniel look at him, then at Sam, then exchanged a shocked glance with Teal’c. He hadn’t mentioned that part of Carter’s note, and he saw that Daniel looked betrayed, probably wondering why Sam hadn’t tried to save him.

“With Anubis ascended, too, and with his ascended powers, he would have found out about me through Daniel. So I had to lie. Then, as Daniel ascended, Oma contacted me,” and again, Daniel looked surprised, his thick eyebrows reaching right up to the Pentagon ceiling.

“She’d read my mind and knew I’d been to the future. She’d seen what Anubis was planning. She warned me that I had to keep my burden small, which meant that I had to keep my secret to myself or else ascended beings like her would find out about me, and that the future wouldn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.”

“So, the mission I’ve been on, and which I’m now entrusting in you, Sir, is to find the weapon Anubis will use that is capable of destroying all humans in the galaxy. All I know is that it’s located on a planet, and that it might be of Ancient design, possibly similar to the weapon described by Teal’c that Anubis used to attack out gate. I’m not sure if Anubis already knows about me, because he already attacked Earth, but he can’t have found the weapon yet or he’d have used it already. You will also need to find out how he dialled all gates simultaneously, too. It might be something in the DHDs’ coding, and I’m planning to start a line of research toward that end. And for your reference, though the chance that it’ll occur on the same date is remote, in the original timeline, Anubis used this weapon to wipe out all human life in the galaxy on March 5th 2005.”

It was shocking to read again how close history had come to repeating itself. There had only been a margin of two days between the two.

“As Oma warned me, Sir, you can’t tell anyone about this. With me dead, that leaves only you and her that know Anubis’ true nature, and his plan.”

“I know this all probably sounds nuts, but I brought back a small amount of proof back from the future just to remind myself that I hadn’t gone crazy and imagined it all. I couldn't risk bringing anything more, but there’s a photograph and part of the message from the other me hidden on my lab bookshelf in the thick pink textbook titled ‘Essentials of Nucleosynthesis and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics.’ I figured it would be the last book on my shelf anyone would pick up for light reading.”

A small titter broke out around the room, then Senator Fisher held up the very same photograph and note with weird alien writing that he’d found in the textbook shortly after reading her note on her lab computer for everyone to see. It was of Cassie’s 18th birthday, which they’d celebrated before her move to LA, only it was aged, Cassie’s hair was short, and everyone’s clothes were different to what they’d been wearing that day. He was sure of it. It wouldn’t stand to much in the hearing, but to him, the photograph was proof alone that she’d been telling the truth.

“I’m sorry I’ve had to pass this burden onto you, Sir. Please save everyone in my stead.

Good luck, Sir, Carter. Dated: Dec 3rd 2002,” he finished, immediately sitting down and grabbing a glass of water. His knees had protested standing for so long, but the sight of how pale Carter now looked as he finished reading her entire note to him had gotten too much for him.

“May the record show that the file’s properties and date of creation is consistent with the date written,” spoke Woolsey, and the woman sat in the far corner made some more notes on her laptop.

All he could do was focus on Carter, sitting meekly across the Pentagon room behind a long metal table in her dress blues, resolutely avoiding looking at anyone, looking very somber.

“Mr. Woolsey, if I may,” interrupted Hammond, and he was given permission to speak. “Based on SG-1’s mission reports, this letter would have been written shortly after SG-1’s mission to recover Anubis’ abandoned mothership in Earth’s orbit, approximately six months following Colonel Carter’s disappearance in time.”

He, too, had searched his mind to think of when Carter must have written the note when he’d first read it in her lab just before Anubis’ attack. He’d remembered giving Cassie her advent calendar he’d bought her late that year, and she’d let him eat the first three windows of chocolates. He could recall being delayed meeting up with her because of the unexpected fiasco with Anubis’ ship showing up, when they’d all nearly died at the bottom of the damn Pacific Ocean. He and Carter had been trapped in a compartment on the ship with sea water rapidly seeping in, and if it hadn’t been for Thor’s mind linked to the ship, opening the sealed door, they’d have drowned for sure.

“SG-1 almost died on this mission, if I recall?” the Weasel guy asked.

“Yes, including Colonel Carter,” Hammond confirmed.

“So we can speculate that she may have been motivated to leave something behind following this mission?”

“I believe we can,” replied Hammond, and he looked at her again, but she was focusing her attention on taking a sip of the glass of water before her. The woman on the far end of the desk broke the short silence that ensued by making some more notes, tapping at her keyboard.

“We had this note analyzed,” said Woolsey, now holding up the paper inside the ziploc bag just as he’d found it. “The paper seems to have aged more than would be expected of this brand of notebook paper.”

He’d had the chance to show the note to Daniel just before he’d been zipped to Washington, and Daniel had recognized it as Aschen, having asked Faxon to write him a dictionary of the language after Carter had rescued him.

“Ambassador Faxon, please step forward,” commanded Woolsey, and he rose from the back of the room and took a seat at the long desk where Carter was seated, sitting two seats away from her.

He saw him throw her a smile, probably intending to be reassuring, and saw with jealousy her wanly return it. He wanted to be able to reassure her, too.

“Ambassador Faxon, thank you for attending at such short notice.”

“Well, I work down the street, Sirs. It wasn’t much of a commute,” he replied brightly.

His year spent with the Aschen clearly hadn’t diminished any of his chipperness, he mused to himself.

“Ambassador Faxon, can you read this alien text?” and the Senator rose from his seat to pass him the note from Woolsey.

“Yes, I can,” he said after a pause, his eyes quickly scanning the note, before frowning at its contents.

“Could you please read aloud to the room what it says?”

“Yes. It says, ‘It was-‘ uh, I can’t read that, I’m guessing it’s a name. ‘Oh-lin’, maybe- ‘who sent us forward in time. Don’t be mad at him. Thanks to him we have a chance at saving the galaxy and everyone we care about.”

“Thank you. And the bottom part?”

“It says, ‘The weapon is on a planet.”

He looked at Hammond who also looked at him, both understanding that it was referring to the weapon found on Dakara. Carter showed no reaction to Faxon reading the note, however, continuing to sit rigidly, flawlessly wearing her poker face.

“Thank you, Ambassador, you may return to your seat,” said the Senator, and he did.

“Colonel Carter,” Woolsey then addressed her.

“Yes, Sirs,” she said, rising to a stand, her eyes focusing solely on the ex-NID.

“Could you please elaborate on how this note came to be in your possession?”

“Yes. As I wrote in the letter, I found the note inside a standard issue backpack on the Aschen homeworld the day I first arrived.”

“Could you please explain how that could be possible?”

“The only explanation, as I wrote in my message to the General,” and he really wished she’d looked in his direction when she referred to him, “is that another me sent back the message in time.”

“And what did the message say?”

“I didn’t bring the other part of the note, because it was written in English, and I didn’t want it accidentally discovered, but it told me to get off the planet immediately, to disable the Aschen clothing I’d been forced to wear with an EM pulse, and to watch the videos that had been recorded on the camcorder also hidden in the pack.”

“And who appeared in those videos?”

“I did. Or rather, a future version of myself who’d ended up dying at Anubis’ hand just after sending the message back to me.”

Oy, he hated time travel, but the weasel guy surprised him by seeming to keep up with what she was saying.

“So why didn’t the other- you- go back in time herself?”

“The flare she’d utilized to send the message had only been a small one. Capable of sending a traveller only nine months or so into the past. She hadn’t had enough time to figure out how to instruct the Aschen solar satellite network to create a flare large enough to send herself back in time forty years before Anubis found her.”

“I see.”

Carter was right. Time travel really did give him headaches.

“But the instructions and the Aschen language dictionary she’d written that she sent me helped me reach that goal fast enough before Anubis discovered me in my timeline. It was thanks to her that I got back at all.”

“Wow,” remarked General Hammond, and Daniel and Teal’c, too, shared looks of surprise.

“This seems similar to the note we previously received from General O’Neill, warning us not to go to P4C-969, the Aschen homeworld.”

“I believe that’s where she got the idea, Sirs,” Carter then added neutrally.

“You’re welcome,” he said in jest, throwing her a smile, but to his dismay she didn’t return it, nor even look at him, instead seating back down at the request of the Weasel man and sitting rigidly.

“Ambassador Faxon, I have one more question. Please come forward again,” and he did, returning to his earlier seat position at the desk in the middle of the room.

“You attended Colonel Carter’s initial debrief, am I correct?”

“Yes, Sir, I did.”

“Was there any part of her story that you believed to be fabricated?”

Joe sat, frozen by the unexpected question. Then he looked to his side at Carter, who was still trying her best to remain neutral, but she, too, betrayed a look of surprise at the question.

“Ambassador?” the Chief asked again.

“Urm, well, yes, some, I guess.”

“And you didn’t mention this at the time?”

“Well, no, at the time I was so grateful to have been rescued and I didn’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Please elaborate on the parts that you didn’t believe at the time.”

“Urm, well, I couldn’t believe that she had passed the initial scan she would have been put through when she first arrived. They had my DNA on record. The system would have known that she was from Earth, like me.”

He saw her react to his words. He guessed that she hadn’t known the system ran DNA checks, and she looked as though she couldn’t believe the AI had let her through, either.

“I see. Anything else?”

“I didn’t buy the black hole story, either. Sam, I mean, Colonel Carter,” he said, clearing his throat at his misspeech. “She was right in saying that I was barred from contact with any of the Aschen scientists, so if the black hole planet had been dialled, I wouldn’t have been personally informed. But I still hadn’t bought that part of her story.”

“Why didn’t you speak up at the time?”

“I didn’t want to get Colonel Carter into any trouble,” he said, his ears turning visibly pink.

“Why?” the Senator then pressed.

“Because of all she’d done for me.”

“And…”? Woolsey pressed, and he, too, could sense the man was holding something back.

“Well, let’s just say I didn’t think she’d take me up on my dinner invitation if I said anything to question her story,” he said awkwardly, and he saw Carter freeze in her seat, her face reddening, as General Hammond cocked his head and shot him an eyebrow. They’d both been there in the Gate Room when Faxon had asked Carter out following their first round of successful negotiations with the Aschen on Volia before everything had gone FUBAR.

“You’re saying that you put your personal feelings for Colonel Carter before your duty to this planet?” Woolsey then admonished, and he couldn’t help being reminded of a time he’d been on the end of a similar scolding from Hammond after a mission where he’d been unwilling to leave Carter behind to almost certain death years ago when they’d blown up one of Apophis’ ships. It was exactly why he’d since decided that he’d never again put his feelings for Carter above his duty to the planet, and why he’d had to report her despite the risk of her going through a court-martial. There was just too much at stake in their line of work.

“She could have been an Aschen spy,” Woolsey continued, sternly. “She could have had hidden motives for lying that you didn’t know of. And as it transpires, she did. You should have reported it.”

“I know. I’m sorry Sirs. I guess,” and he looked at her with a boyish grin, and she felt herself redden further with embarrassment, “I guess I just trusted that whatever motivation she’d had for lying, it was for good reason. I won’t face any repercussions, will I?”

The Senator and IOA members turned to look at each other and at him, but he merely shrugged. He couldn’t exactly blame the guy for falling for Carter, and he certainly shared his trust in her.

“Understood, thank you for your time, Ambassador. There will be no charges pressed for withholding this information. Please be seated at the back.”

The room then heard Carter give testimony, describing how she’d deliberately used her knowledge of Goa’uld from Orlin to steer this timeline to developing the X-302 and X-303, how she’d saved the Asgard, how she’d smuggled the Tretonin to the Tok’ra to save Teal’c and Bra’tac, how she’d studied Ancient and questioned him when he’d had the Ancient knowledge, and how she’d failed to save Janet’s life, at which point she’d nearly broken down.

“Our next witness will be General O’Neill.”

“Yes, Sirs,” and he stood, his bad knee giving a creak of protest at being forced to stand again so soon, then rounded the long table before them and sat in the same place Faxon had just been, a little away from Carter, from where he couldn’t see her face anymore.

“Did you ever come under the impression that Colonel Carter was hiding something?”

“I guess I had a feeling something was off with her when she got back from the Aschen homeworld, like, she seemed nervous all the time, and seemed down, but she’d just been through a big trauma,” and he looked towards her, but she was looking downwards. “I just brushed off my doubts.”

“I see. Did you ever suspect that she was trying to guide your command decisions?”

“I’ve always relied on Carter for advice. She was my Second for years. I trusted her. I still trust her with my life,” and his heart gave a jolt to see her turn her head to look towards him for the first time during the court hearing. She looked sad, but there was a minute flash of pride there too. He hoped that she believed him. That he meant his words.

“I’ve always known she was way smarter than I am, and that brain of hers has saved this planet more times over than any of you can count. Her input was always welcome,” he finished, looking at Woolsey.”

“I see, thank you for your input, General.”

Teal’c, Daniel and General Hammond then all answered similar questions, mostly mirroring answers to his own, before the Senator and Woolsey began to wrap things up, summing up the contents of what they’d seen and heard, including the faded photograph of Cassie’s birthday that didn’t match what had happened.

It was a tense moment, and he suspected that the result of the hearing might go either way. Woolsey didn’t have a positive history with Carter- he’d interrogated her and the other teams involved in the the failed rescue operation that had killed Janet- though he hadn’t personally met him, having been fighting for his life in the infirmary at the time, and Fisher was a hard man to read. And since he himself was considered in too personally, his vote wouldn’t be counted despite his seat at the hearing, so it would go down to a three-way vote.

He studied her. She looked as though she was working hard to school her features, but he knew that expression. She was scared.

If she got court-martialed, if her flawless service record was blemished because he’d reported her, despite his duty, he’d never forgive himself.

Chapter Text

...he knew that expression. She was scared.

If she got court-martialed, if her flawless service record was blemished because he’d reported her, despite his duty, he’d never forgive himself.

2 days post D-Day (continued)

Senator Fisher suggested in a low voice that they take a short recess to decide on their verdict, and as he continued to look in Carter’s direction, he saw to his surprise her eyes oddly glaze over. Then, as Hammond and Woolsey both agreed to the recess, rising from their seats, a strange smile came over her face and he suddenly became concerned that the stress of everything had, in fact, finally gotten to her. There was a chance that she was about to face a court-martial. Why the hell would she be smiling? Had she finally succumbed to going nuts? Not that he’d blame her if she did...

“Please, Sirs. If I may,” she then called out of the blue, and he swore he saw a few strands of her golden hair seemingly move of their own accord, despite the fact that the windows lining the wall to her right were all shut.

But she wasn’t supposed to speak out of turn. The hearing was about to be adjourned, and Woolsey looked taken aback. After a pause, however, he allowed her to speak.

“It seems there is one more witness to question,” and she gave another smile, leaving him utterly confused, until with a flash of light, a middle-aged man with a stubble beard and a head of golden brown hair on the longer side appeared from nowhere, standing at her side in the centre of the room. He was wearing strikingly casual clothes, quite opposed to the military affair and suits and ties worn by all other present people.

“Hello,” the man said simply to the room.

“Who are you?” demanded Woolsey, but while he’d never met him personally, he recognized him from a photo taken secretly when the NID had spied on Carter when she’d claimed to have an alien in her house.

“My name is Orlin,” the man spoke in a strangely calm manner, confirming his theory. “I am the ascended being responsible for all of this. Please, allow me to share my side of the story. I never meant for Sam to get in any trouble on my behalf,” he said, giving what seemed to be a genuine apologetic look towards Carter, who nodded back to him.

His first impression was that he seemed a good guy, particularly based on the smile Carter was giving him back. He, personally, was willing to hear what the man had to say, but it wouldn’t be his decision.

“I will allow it. We accept… Mister Orlin,” Woolsey stumbled, as though struggling to accept a man with no surname or given salutation, “-as witness to Colonel Carter. You may speak,” and Hammond, Fisher and Woolsey all re-took their seats, as the woman writing the transcript of the hearing once again began to type at speed.

“Thank you. I sent Sam forward in time. It was my intention that she prevent Anubis from activating the Ancient device on the planet you know as Dakara and eradicate all humans in this galaxy.

“Why did you send her forty years into the future? Why didn’t you just warn her? Wouldn’t that have been easier?” Woolsey asked.

“I am prevented by Others of my kind from taking any action that would allow any being of lesser planes of existence to gain knowledge they would not otherwise be able to gain on their own. I could not tell her anything, no more than I could sit here and tell you of the origin of this universe.”

Daniel, when he’d been ascended, had pretty much told him the exact same thing before the Eye of Ra fiasco.

“Fair enough. But how were you able to send her forward in time? Wasn’t that breaking the same rule?”

“It was, but I was able to subtly manipulate the wormhole she was travelling in, so that it would appear to have been a natural phenomenon, as genuinely did happen to her and her team in the past,” and he exchanged looks with Teal’c and Daniel at the memory of their trip to 1969.

“My implication in the temporary disappearance of a single human being in an entire galaxy did not draw the attention of the Others until after she returned bearing significant knowledge. As Sam began to systematically manipulate the timeline, it drew the Others’ attention- including one named Oma Desala- and to avoid discovery, I was forced to stay away and avoid contacting Sam.”

He then turned to speak directly to her.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you at all until now. I’m so sorry I could never help you,” he said, and he watched him exchange looks with Carter again. She looked saddened, but she knew she wasn’t permitted to talk to her witness while he gave evidence, so she merely nodded.

“As I said,” he spoke again, addressing the entire panel, including himself, “I never intended for Sam to be in any trouble. I foresaw a potential threat to this galaxy years ago, but after meeting her, I believed that of all the beings in the galaxy, with her intelligence, fortitude of character, and position at your Stargate Command, she had the highest probability of stopping him.”

He couldn’t disagree with Orlin’s assessment. Carter really was one-of-a-kind. The Prometheus rescue along with so many other last-minute saves she’d pulled off over the years were kudos to that, and he felt incredibly proud that even an ascended being had recognized how amazing she was.

“So from your perspective, what happened?”

“I sent her forward in time, then I detected her reappearance in the galaxy approximately three of your months later. Until just now, when she permitted me to read her memories,” and he briefly made eye contact with her, “I didn’t know what had happened to her in the future, or here in the present. All I knew was that she’d been successful in coming back and manipulating the timeline. But I couldn’t contact her at all for fear of drawing the Others’ attention. Once I learned Anubis had been engaged in an eternal battle against the one named Oma Desala, rendered forever unable to threaten the lives of this galaxy, I returned to Earth to seek out Sam, and here I am.”

“Is that all?”

There was a silence as the alien then looked at Carter intently and her eyes glazed over, as though a silent conversation was happening between them.

“Actually, with permission, I would like to provide testimony on Sam’s behalf by an alternate method.”

Several heads in the room turned to look at each other, including himself. No one seemed to have any more clue than he did as to what Orlin might mean.

“An alternate method?” asked Woolsey, looking concerned, but personally he trusted the ascended alien. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t done wrong the last time he’d come to Earth, and the way Carter had smiled when he’d showed up was enough for him to trust the man.

“He’s a powerful ascended being. Not much we can do to stop him, really,” Jack shrugged, offering his honest opinion to the rest of the panel.

“Agreed,” added Hammond.

“Very well. Proceed,” said Woolsey, and the next second a white glow appeared around Orlin, before the entire room dissolved.

He found himself stepping through the gate, rematerializing in what looked like a darkened SGC Gate Room, but he quickly realized he didn’t have any control of his movement. It was like he was seeing everything play through someone else’s eyes.

He saw flashes of heaped piles of clothing all over the base in dim torchlight, before he was climbing up the emergency escape ladder, then suddenly he was driving a car down a street, where rusted car wrecks and broken roofs and walls littered the sides. Then he suddenly recognized his own living room in twilight, a heap of his clothes strangely dumped on his couch, before he was opening a box in what looked like his bedroom closet, before putting on the combat bracelet he often saw Carter wearing around his own wrist.

What was going on?

The next moment he was sitting in his own parked truck staring at a derailed train that had fallen off a bridge, his yo-yo falling from the glove box. Then he was in a dark room reading a red LED date on some giant clock reading 2041.

And it hit him. He was seeing Carter’s memory.

He suddenly found himself watching a glimpse of a video feed showing Weir, Daniel and Teal’c vanishing in the Control Room, hit by a white light.

There was no mistaking that wall of light he’d seen come through the Earth gate, wiping out the horde of Replicators that had invaded the SGC while Carter and Jacob had been working on the weapon. Carter had said in her note to him that she’d seen the security footage. This was it.

Then he was shown ever-so brief glimpses of various locations off-world. The new Alpha Site, Argos with the same piles of clothing, the Hall of Wisdom and a flash of some bear-like animal. Then there was another planet he couldn’t remember the name of, the Hall of Might on Cimmeria, a crazy storm and then he saw himself- or rather Carter- get injured.

Damn, she’d been going off-world all alone without backup and had gotten hurt. What had she been thinking? She could have died!

Then he saw brief glimpses of words and phrases in mission reports. Ba’al. Anubis. Janet dead. Bra’tac dead. Tretonin. His own mission file reading retired, and then suddenly he was stood in a darkened Al’kesh looking at a bunch of floating rocks in space, talking to Orlin, before what the hell- weird smoke coming out what looked like Kronos lying on the ground of some palace. Then, before he could get a better look, he was suddenly sat crouched below a vast white building reading a note saying, “GET OFF THE PLANET NOW!” scrawled in Carter’s handwriting, followed by the sight of a giant white, modern city with coloured lines on the ground, and a warm, giant sun floating in a white lab. He tried to walk towards the golden sphere, but suddenly found himself standing in some sort of office looking at the sickening sight of Borren and Mollum, their faces purple, choking and gasping on the floor, before he was outside in that city again, only the sky was purple, and hundreds of Aschen were writhing on the metallic ground, with blood oozing from their facial orifices, staining their grey outfits with red.

But there was no time to process the horrific scene he’d been shown. He was suddenly looking at his hand- no, Carter’s- using the healing device on a heavily-bandaged Daniel, before seeing Oma Desala telling him, “Knowledge is power, but wisdom does not always equate truth. To walk the path you must first become the path”, then the next second he was on Anubis’s mothership looking through Goa’uld computer records that he couldn’t read, then he was searching among golden trinkets presumably for the Eye of Ra on Abydos, then ascended Daniel was telling her she had a new mission- to find the Lost City. Then he was taken aback by a vision of himself rewiring the rings on a cargo ship looking completely unlike himself. “Netario locas,” he felt himself say, though it was Carter’s voice that came out of his mouth, before he saw himself reply with, “Nescio,” which was weird since he had no memory at all of this happening, nor any clue what he was supposed to be saying.

Then suddenly he was staring at Carter. No, it was Replicarter, recognizing her from the Replicator clothing she wore, and she was threatening to use the weapon she’d been seeking all along herself, before he felt her rip the combat bracelet from his- or rather Carter’s- arm.

But there was no time to speculate about the bracelet, as the sight of its torn threads scattered on the lab floor was replaced by the scene of a swarm of Replicators disintegrating on Dakara, before his heart plummeted at the sight of himself yelling at her to get out of his sight in the observation room two days ago for lying.

Then suddenly it was over, and he was back in the Pentagon Conference Room.

From the disorientated, shocked looks that Hammond, Woolsey and the others were wearing, he guessed that they had all just experienced the same flashes of Carter’s memory as he had.

“Wh-what the hell just happened?” asked the Senator, panting, and rising to a stand.

He glanced at Hammond, looking disgruntled and sweaty in the chair beside him, then at Woolsey, who was white as a sheet, before a clatter drew his attention to the back of the room as Faxon, who was stood clinging to the back of his chair unsteadily, looked like he was about to be sick.

“I believe Orlin has showed us Colonel Carter’s experiences of the past four years,” pronounced Teal’c from beside Faxon, just as he made a run for a wastebasket in the corner and promptly vomited, no doubt reacting to the sight of the Aschen carnage. It hadn’t been pretty.

He then turned to look at Carter, who was still sat looking rigidly forwards at the table despite the commotion around her. She looked extremely pale and fragile, as though one word might have her breaking down into tears.

“That was weird seeing me say that on Abydos. It must have been from when I was ascended?” Daniel asked, approaching the centre table, and Carter nodded quietly.

He agreed. It had been weird to see himself speaking Ancient and rewiring the ship looking like he knew what he was doing, but he decided not to comment. He was still trying to process what he’d just seen. Proof that Carter had been telling the truth all along. The state of Colorado Springs… and she’d been in his house. Why? And she’d nearly died alone on Cimmeria. And what was the significance of the bracelet from her first ever mission on active duty in the Gulf that he’d noticed her wear ever since she’d come back from her time travel escapade, but had never asked about in case it was personal. Now, owing to the fact that Replicarter had chosen to rip it off, it seemed he’d been right.

He wanted to talk to her, to say something to reassure her about the fact that everyone had just seen her memories. She didn’t look good. She looked so weak and unlike herself, but he didn’t know what to say. He just wanted this damn hearing to be over and done with.

Finally, Woolsey seemed to have regathered himself, as he cleared his throat, nodded the Senator and Hammond over to him, and the three men left together to consort in whispers at the end of the room, and Teal’c, Daniel and himself approached the central table where Carter was still seated.

But before he’d thought of anything to say to Carter, Orlin had already spoken up.

“I’m sorry if I upset you by showing everyone your memories. They were perhaps a little more intense than I had intended,” and everyone glanced at Faxon, still sat in the corner with his wastebasket. He didn’t blame him. He, too, felt sick at seeing for himself what Carter had been through.

“But I do believe it will have been effective,” Orlin continued, nodding towards the three men consorting in the corner. “I hope you will forgive me for what I did to you. As I said, I never meant you to go through so much pain and loss, and I’m sorry I made you relive it all.”

He watched her nod, looking like one gust of wind would have had her falling apart. He couldn’t imagine having lived that for the past four years, and then have it replayed back in your mind. The state of Colorado Springs. Being completely alone in the future. Jesus, she had known Janet was going to die beforehand. Daniel, too. And on top of that she’d had to lie about everything. She’d known everyone was facing death and had had to live with that dread all along.

Then finally he heard her reply quietly, the first thing she’d said since Orlin had first shown up.

“No matter what happens to me, you did the right thing, Orlin.”

It hadn’t just been Orlin. Daniel said Oma had ended up stepping in to stop Anubis, but that didn’t quite add up for him.

“What I don’t get is why Oma didn’t just stop Anubis in the first place? Daniel, you said that she stopped Anubis herself. Why let Carter go through all that if she’d the power to stop him all along?”

“If I may answer your question, General O’Neill,” said Orlin calmly. “While I don’t know her personally, I, too, am an ascended being. I understand full well the conflict between being constrained by the rules of the Others, and also wanting to stop Anubis as much as I did. I believe she wanted to help, but felt compelled to give Sam as much chance as possible to stop Anubis herself without needing to intervene.”

“So why didn’t she stop Anubis the first time round?” Carter then asked. “Anubis had used the weapon, just as you foresaw. What was different this time round?”

“You were different, Sam. She watched your struggle. And because of the creation of the Replicator version of yourself, she was presented with the opportunity to meet with Daniel Jackson once more,” and he turned to look at Daniel. “I believe you may be able to answer more?”

“Oma was the one who helped Anubis ascend.”

“What?!” everyone said suddenly. Carter, too, looked shocked to hear this.

“How come you didn’t tell us that, Daniel?” he asked exasperatedly. What was it with his former team members withholding key intel from him?

“My memory of my time ascended was hazy at first, like a dream, but it all just came back to me now,” and Jack didn’t miss the knowing look that had appeared on Orlin’s face while everyone else paid attention to Daniel.

“I remember everything now,” he continued. “Replicator Sam killed me, but Oma gave me another chance. I was only partially-ascended, somewhere between death and ascension, and completely powerless to stop Anubis from using the weapon on Dakara and wipe everyone out. But I found out Oma’s connection to him and convinced her to stop him.”

“So you’re saying that by killing Daniel getting the information on the Dakara weapon, Replicarter ended up saving everyone? Well there’s irony for you,” he couldn’t help grin.

“Replicarter, Sir?” she asked, finally looking at him again, and he noticed again how tired she looked.

“My nickname for the other you,” he chuckled, but he stopped short at her complete non-reaction, looking rather hurt, if anything. She mustn’t have forgiven him for not believing her. Dammit, she probably hated him for how he’d treated her, for reporting her and bringing this hearing on her, or probably both. He suddenly wished so badly that it could just be the two of them here. He would be leaving the SGC soon to be transferred permanently here in Wasington, and it would kill him if they didn’t have a chance to work things out before he left.

The uncomfortable moment that had fallen between them was then broken by the return of the three men, who approached the group.

A tense few seconds followed, before the Weasel man broke into what he guessed he must suppose was a smile, though Jack got the impression that Woolsey didn’t smile often.

“It is our unanimous opinion that if it weren’t for Colonel Carter’s courage and tenacity, we wouldn’t be standing here, alive. Yes, she broke many rules and acted outside of her chain of command, but we believe that every action she took had always been with this planet’s, and this galaxy’s best interest first and foremost in mind. To that end, we find Colonel Carter cleared of all charges.”

The smile on her face that appeared lifted his soul. The first genuine smile he’d seen on her face in what must be months, and while she still looked exhausted, she looked as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and he, too, felt the same. He didn’t know what he would have done if she’d been put through a court-martial, ending up with a blemished career after all she’d worked for.

“Thank you very much,” she said, accepting a handshake from the Woolsey guy, Senator Fischer, then exchanging saltes with General Hammond before he decided that he ought to do the same, which to his relief she returned, though her earlier smile noticeably faltered.

“I’m pleased for you Sam, but I must go,” Orlin then said, looking strangely grievous despite the joyful mood of everyone else, before glancing upwards at the ceiling.

“The Others are here, aren’t they?” Carter asked him, looking similarly sombre.

“They are. It’s my turn now to face judgement for my actions. I will likely be punished for some time, but I regret nothing. This galaxy is my home, and I care about its people,” and the way he looked at Carter as he uttered those last words, laden with intense emotion and meaning, caused a rush of jealousy to stir within him.

“You were right to do what you did, Orlin. I hope I get to see you again, Orlin,” she said, and he flashed her a smile, before in an instant, he was gone.

----

He’d been pulled back to stay for a one-on-one meeting with Hammond to discuss the handover, even though he wished he could have been beamed back to Colorado Springs along with Carter, Teal’c and Daniel by the Prometheus. He’d wanted to make sure Carter was okay. He still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her at all, and being stuck in his dress blues all day made him antsy, as did the thought of having to come to work here in the Pentagon every day soon after Hammond’s retirement officially went through.

Throughout the meeting, his mind had wondered even more than was typical for him. He meant no disrespect to Hammond at all, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts from drifting between those of Carter, to those of who might replace him at the SGC, back to Carter, to dreading having to wear these damn blues every day working here, to Jacob’s funeral, to how Carter was coping about losing her Dad… hell, who was he trying to kid? His mind was almost entirely stuck on Carter.

Just as the General was jabbering on something about the necessary word count for some report he’d need to submit directly to either his assistant or the President- he really hadn’t been paying attention- they were both surprised by a knock on the door.

“Hold on, Jack,” said Hammond, setting down the document he’d probably been referring to on the side table, before calling, “Enter,” and in came none other than Carter, looking rather sheepish.

“Generals,” she greeted them both timidly. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Carter, I thought you were back at the SGC?” he asked before he could stop himself and allow General Hammond to address her first.

“Actually, I ended up staying, Sir. I had some thinking to do.”

“Oh?”

“I can come back later, though, but this concerns you both, so…”

“Go ahead Colonel,” Hammond said fatherly. “I was about to call a break anyway. Jack’s clearly had his mind on other things all meeting, anyway,” he said, shooting him a single accusatory eyebrow, causing him to cough and look away apologetically.

Seriously, what had he done to be so lucky to be serving under such a forgiving and lenient General. Any other would probably have written him up immediately. No, scratch that, they’d have had him kicked out the Air Force years ago.

“Thank you, Sir. Actually, I’ve decided to step down from SG-1 and request a permanent transfer to Area 51.”

“What!?” he uttered in time with a stunned look from Hammond, probably a mirror of his own face.

He knew she loved her gadgets, but he was surprised that she’d want to give up command of SG-1. Now that the war with the Goa’uld and the Replicators was over, the galaxy was safe again. She could go back to exploration without having to deal with worse than bog-standard unfriendly natives.

“That’s a big decision, Colonel,” said Hammond, recovering. “Are you sure? I mean, given recent circumstances, and with Jacob, of course…”

“I know that, Sir. But it’s been a long-time coming. I want to work full-time on the Daedalus project.”

Based on the Asgard upgrades received for the Prometheus, a new line of spaceship, the X-304s, was already in development. He could have imagined she’d want to be a part of it, but the truth was, she could be running the SGC in a few years. He’d already been grooming her for just that this past year by giving her lead of SG-1 instead of Reynolds, who technically outranked her as a full-bird Colonel.

“You’re just burned out, Carter,” he said. “What you need is R&R, not R&D,” and he looked to Hammond, who he was pleased to see had humoured his joke with a short chuckle.

He didn’t mean to sound like he was belittling her decision, but he knew her. She just needed a break and to get the funeral out the way and she’d surely bounce back, just like she always did. Plus he didn’t want her to throw away huge career opportunities to simply tinker with toys in the desert. It seemed like such a waste of talent.

“I’ve already mind up my mind, Sir,” she replied coolly.

“If you’re sure it’s what you want, Colonel, I can get the paperwork started,” Hammond said, checking his watch. “If I make the call now I can probably catch Vidrine. I know he’s scheduled to fly out to speak at Fairchild later today. I’m sure he’d be happy to have you back in Nevada full-time.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’m sure.”

“Very well. Let’s reconvene here in the morning. Jack and I can finish things off then, and I’ll need both your signatures on the transfer order if it’s accepted, anyway. I’ll get my assistant to set you both up in a hotel, then you’re both to report here tomorrow at 9am sharp.”

“Yes, Sir,” they both replied in unison.

They walked in awkward silence together through security after Hammond’s assistant sat them up with a room each at the InterContinental, before sending them on their way. He guessed the woman would become his own assistant if he couldn’t find a replacement, and made a mental note to ask Hammond in the morning if it’d be possible to bring Walter with him from the SGC instead, before deciding to make an effort to break the icy silence hanging between him and Carter.

He couldn’t stand not being on good terms with her, especially now that he was going to be moving here full-time, and if she was more than likely going to be stationed in Nevada. He couldn’t get the image of how small and tired she’d looked during the hearing out of his mind, either. He desperately wanted to make her feel better. He hadn’t even had a chance to comfort her after her father had died before that airman had come in with the news on the Tantarus preempt and set her off on her tirade.

He guessed that if she’d never found out about Teal’c and Bra’tac’s plans and Anubis’ set-up that they’d actually fallen for, she never would have confessed. He wondered if she ever would have shared her secret.

“So, what now?” he asked, finally daring to break the ice, and deciding to leave the ball in her court.

“I guess I’ll turn in,” she replied after a short pause. “It’s been a long day, and I need to call Mark to find out when he can get booked on a flight for the funeral-”

“You can leave all that to me. It’s the least I can do,” he said, as they passed through the final checkpoint and reached the Pentagon doors, the sunlight of the late afternoon shining through.

“It’s fine, Sir, I’ll manage-”

“No, you already have a lot on your plate and it’s my fault you got sidetracked by this whole hearing thing-” he said, waving back to the Pentagon behind them.

“You had a duty to report me, Sir. I completely understand,” she replied nonchalantly. A perfect military answer, though he hadn’t missed the coldness in her voice.

“I know, but I wanted you to know that I’m sorry anyway.”

She stopped part way down the steps to look at him, and he could see up-close how truly weary she looked. She looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. It was similar to when she was engrossed in studying some gadget in her lab, except that there was none of the excitement in her eyes at being on the verge of some scientific discovery he could never pretend to understand. She simply looked utterly drained, and it broke his heart to see.

“Carter, let me guess, you didn’t get a chance to eat anything today yet?”

The look on her face and her sigh confirmed his presumption. He’d be prepared to bet his life savings she hadn’t eaten anything decent at all since her father’s collapse four days ago.

“I thought we could go for dinner. You know, together,” he suggested warmly, pleading that she accept.

Predictably, she began to make excuses about needing to turn in early, but he wouldn’t let her. He needed to make things right between them, and he wanted to make sure she looked after herself. He knew her. She’d probably head back to the hotel room, forgo eating altogether and spend the night rehashing the day’s events and suffering over her father alone.

“I won’t take no for an answer, Carter. Don’t make me make it an order. You pick the food and I’m paying.”

She eventually relented, directing the taxi they hailed together to one of her old haunts from when she used to work at the Pentagon herself before joining the Stargate Program, and on the pretense of fishing for information on a few good places for when he moved here permanently, they managed to navigate through casual small talk about her experience of living in the city and advice as they rode through the streets of DC to the restaurant.

Chapter Text

...and on the pretense of fishing for information on a few good places for when he moved here permanently, they managed to navigate through casual small talk about her experience of living in the city and advice as they rode through the streets of DC to the restaurant.

2 days post D-Day continued

She’d been quite annoyed that the General had insisted that they go for dinner together. She was still upset by his reaction to her telling him about her mission with Anubis and the entire fallout from that. Logically, she understood his reaction, but she was just too emotionally drained and tired to forgive him, and all she wanted was to be left alone to decompress from the whole day.

But he’d been about to order her to join him, and he’d been right when he’d guessed she hadn’t eaten that day. She actually couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a full meal at all. It had probably been before her father’s collapse. Trust him to know her so well. So she’d had no choice but to give in, choosing an Italian restaurant she’d occasionally frequented with her old coworkers, the fact that it was still in business after all these years a testament to its continued popularity.

Once they’d chosen their dishes, he insisted on wine to celebrate the end of the War with the Replicators and the Goa’uld, and she knew he was more than likely hoping it would help her relax and open up more to him. It wasn’t like she could deny that they needed to talk, and at least there was a chance it might alleviate some of the guilt and grief she was carrying.

They clinked their glasses together, making a toast to the end of both the War with the Goa’uld and with the Replicators, to the freedom of the Jaffa, and finally to her father, and she appreciated the ear he offered as she regaled some of her childhood memories of her father- both good and bad- as their chosen dishes arrived.

“At least I got an extra three years with him after coming back. Six if we count from when he blended with the Tok’ra.”

“He was a good man,” he said, tucking into his pepperoni pizza. “And he died a hero, didn’t he? You said in your report that you couldn’t have gotten the Dakara weapon to work in time without him, right?”

She nodded. At least Dad going out as a hero saving the entire galaxy was the best way she could think of for him, but she still couldn’t shift the immense guilt hanging over the circumstances of his death.

“But I can’t let go of the fact that he only died because I led the Replicators to this galaxy. Selmak chose to hold on to help with the Dakara weapon. Otherwise she would have made sure she died on her own terms without taking Dad with her.”

“You couldn’t have known. You have to stop blaming yourself, Carter.”

She gave pause, poking at her salad with her fork, finding little appetite to start eating. He was right. She couldn’t have imagined the circumstances she’d set into motion would have led to her father’s death. But she had known about Janet.

“I knew Janet was going to die but I still couldn’t save her.”

It was still so painful to think about. She could never let Cassie ever find out how she’d known her mother would die and hadn’t prevented it.

“I saw you reading the report with her name in what Orlin showed us, and you were vague about it in the hearing. What really happened?”

She took a deep breath. Would he be angry? Would he blame her for having been so careless? Janet had been a good friend of the General’s too.

“I was so focused on the Kull disruptor and then that damn camera crew distracted me and slowed me down working on that probe, and then we were pinned down by those Jaffa, and then you got shot,” she replied with a gulp at the memory of how she’d completely lost it, crying into his chest. “I felt so helpless. I couldn’t do anything.”

“Sam, that ambush was a total mess,” and his use of her first name caused her heart to jolt, as did the move he made to take her hand resting on the table into his. “We’re lucky more lives weren’t lost that day. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I could have saved Janet even if I’d known ahead, either.”

She sobbed a bit, then looked into his eyes, nodding. He looked genuine with his words. He didn’t seem to hold her responsible at all. If the General with all his training and experience didn’t think he could have changed things, then maybe she shouldn’t shoulder that guilt anymore.

“Thank you for saying that, Sir.”

“Anytime,” he said, giving her hand a light squeeze, before retracting his hand to her slight dismay.

“How’s Cassie doing?” he then asked.

The question took her by surprise, although she should have guessed the topic would naturally follow the subject of Janet. The truth was, she didn’t seem to be doing well, and ever since the incident with her Replicator duplicate and the subsequent Replicator invasion, she hadn’t really done a great job at returning her adopted daughter’s texts, burdening her with additional guilt for sidelining her the past few weeks.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. She was so excited when she first started college, but my impression the last time we spoke on the phone was that she seems to be having a hard time. She said something about a fight with her boyfriend, too. It probably didn’t help that with everything going on lately I wasn’t the best at returning her texts... I feel like I’ve let her down,” she finished with a sigh.

“You had a lot on your plate. Considering that, I think you’re doing a great job with her.”

She appreciated him saying that, but she didn’t quite agree.

“But I could be doing better, and now that the war and everything’s over, that’s exactly what I intend to do. It’s another reason I want the transfer to Nevada. To be closer to her, you know?”

“That’s really great, Carter.”

“Plus, after you know, trying to save the galaxy and all that, focusing on something of a much smaller scale in R&D just seems so much more palatable right now than jumping back through the gate again.”

“After everything you’ve been through, you deserve whatever assignment you want.”

She nodded her appreciation at his words, and as a quiet moment fell between them, she found herself looking around at all the other diners in the restaurant, wanting an excuse to look away from the pasta dish she’d ended up ordering when the General had berated her choice of ordering a caesar salad, saying it didn’t count as dinner. But she just couldn’t stomach anything. Not like the families, couples, and coworkers dining at the other tables around her, happily chattering and eating away, all completely oblivious to how close they’d all come to the end. Knowing nothing of gate travel, of parasitic aliens, of robotic beings, and certainly never having seen the end of the world.

She couldn’t help but envy them.

“Carter, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I flipped out when I found out you’d lied. You deserved better.”

She met his eyes, remembering how she’d harbored resentment towards the General for quite some time after he’d gone undercover to weed out an offshoot of the NID who’d snuck through the second gate on Earth and set up a base off-world. His sudden change in behaviour at the time to maintain his cover had been shocking, and it had hurt when he’d told her he hadn’t been acting himself since he’d met her, before ‘retiring’ off-world to the very planet she’d spent three solid months working to rescue him from without so much as a word of goodbye. His similar comment about her, reacting to her own cover up saying it was like he didn’t even know her had particularly stung.

“Actually I was mad at you for a while when you went undercover on that secret op for the Tollan and the Asgard. Even after you were back and everything was explained, it took some time to get over some of those feelings. So I understand, Sir-”

“-But even so,” he interrupted. “You had so much on your shoulders. And your Dad had just died. Reprimanding you like that didn’t help. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you at first.”

His not believing her had hurt her the most. And it had taken her by surprise. But his apology now was sincere, and with him being transferred to Washington soon, and her hopefully being stationed in Nevada, they’d shortly be far apart, for good. If she didn’t work to set aside her resentment from that day now, things might never be resolved between.

He was making an effort to mend things between them, so she decided that she would too.

“I’m sorry, too, that I never felt I could confide in you after Daniel came back. Daniel warned me not to tell anyone, but maybe I could have tried telling you. I don’t trust anyone in this galaxy more than you, Sir, but…”

“You were afraid of how I’d react.”

“Yeah… I was.”

She saw him nod, and she took a last gulp of wine at the reminder of how he had indeed reacted.

“Are we going to be okay? he then asked.

She looked at him, and maybe it was the wine easily affecting her with her exhaustion and still mostly-empty stomach, or maybe it was the intense and unusually unguarded way he was looking at her right now, but suddenly she didn’t feel mad at him at all anymore. Instead, she became deeply conscious of the surroundings they were in. She was having dinner with him, and yes, they were in their blues- though the General had shrugged off his tie and jacket the moment he’d sat down in the taxi coming here- but the moment felt like more than simply coming here with coworkers after work like the last time she’d been here. It felt more. Almost like a trial date. Anubis was defeated. There was peace, and though she still needed to bury her father and make sure Cassie was okay, she could see that she was going to be okay.

And that surely meant that they might be okay, too.

“We’re okay,” she replied, deliberately omitting the Sir at the end.

“Sweet,” he said, taking another large bite out of his pizza, and with a growl, she felt her stomach react to the sight, asking for food, too, and they both sat in silence as she picked up her fork and finally set to work at clearing her plate.

It was a few minutes later that he broke the silence, looking pleased that she’d successfully eaten something.

“So, now you’re not mad at me anymore, there was something I wanted to ask.”

Her heart quickened at the prospect, and she self-consciously swallowed the mouthful she was on, before dabbing a napkin on her lips to make sure she didn’t have sauce on her mouth. Was he going to ask something important? Was he going to ask her something about them?

“When Orlin was showing those flashes. What exactly were you doing in my house?” he asked with a grin, and she couldn’t help let out a laugh at the unexpected question, before blushing at the thought that it probably had looked suspicious to him, General Hammond, Teal’c and Daniel, who would have all undoubtedly recognized the General’s living room. At least none of them had had a chance to bring it up.

“I swear I wasn’t snooping,” she replied embarrassedly.

“Really?” he asked, clearly amused by her squirming.

“Believe me, it was completely innocent. Someone else had moved into my house and the power was out and the daylight was fading fast and I had to seek shelter from wild animals on the streets, so your place was the closest.”

“Okay, maybe I buy that,” he said with a mock skeptical voice, seemingly enjoying this mock interrogation. “But what were you doing in my closet?”

She hoped he hadn’t recognized that part of the flashback trauma she’d been put through.

“I was after your weapon. I knew you stowed it in the safety box in your closet. But I found another box…”

It was his turn to fall quiet, and she pondered whether to press on or not.

“With your combat bracelet?” he then prompted, and she felt obliged to continue.

“Yeah. You kept some of my things after I guess, from your perspective, I went missing and never came back. You had some of my Air Force medals and some other things. I guess Mark wouldn’t have wanted them- he hates the Air Force- and Dad was already dead by then in that timeline… Anyway, I decided to wear the bracelet and not take it off until my mission was done. It helped me stay on track, you know? To get back to y- I mean, to all this,” she corrected, stopping herself last-minute from almost saying you. Damn wine.

“I see,” he said, pausing, and she wondered if he’d noticed her near slip. “I saw that you borrowed my truck without asking, too?” he then said, raising an eyebrow.

“Sir?”

“Hey, as long as you put it back with a full tank of gas you're good,” he said with a grin, though she couldn’t help grimacing. “I’m kidding, Carter,” he added hastily. “What’s mine is yours. Though I gotta ask, that time you found my yo-yo after we took Cassie to LA I could tell something was off with you,” he then said, his expression turning more serious. “You gonna tell me what was that about?”

Damn. He’d connected it. Of course he was perceptive. He was a soon-to-be two-star General in the Air Force.

“It’s stupid,” she replied.

He let out a laugh, before saying, “Carter, nothing you do is ever stupid. Believe me, no one knows stupid better than I do,” and she couldn’t help half-smiling at his self-deprecation. Try as he might, his continued promotions higher and higher up the chain only served to prove that this particular General was anything but stupid, as much as he may pretend otherwise.

Composing herself, she took a deep breath, deciding that she may as well be honest with him.

“I found it when I saw that train. You’ve seen it too, now. It was a horrific scene,” and he nodded his agreement, though remained silent, allowing her a chance to continue. “I ended up keeping it as a piece of you,” she confessed half-embarrassedly, but he surprised her by not laughing, rather remaining uncharacteristically serious. “It gave me strength sometimes to remember you playing with it,” she continued quietly. “And it reminded me of you and Teal’c winding up Daniel about the hockey game right before I was sent forwards. It made me smile to remember, sometimes.”

“That’s not stupid at all, Carter. I still have a box of Charlie’s stuff that I still look at from time to time, and he’s been gone almost ten years. You gotta hold onto the good times, you know?”

He hardly ever talked about his son, Charlie, and she was taken aback by the way he was opening up with her. He’d clearly been just as scared as she was that they were drifting apart after the hearing, and now they were about to be split up and working apart. She was glad that he seemed just as determined to mend fences as she was.

“And I had a box of your stuff too, right? So consider us even, then.”

She gave a nod, and then a few minutes passed by in silence while he watched her struggle with the second half of her tortellini. She’d barely eaten the past few days, her stomach must have shrunk, but she knew he wouldn’t let her leave the restaurant until she’d finished her dish.

“So, no more predictions for the future anymore, then?” he asked, as she set down her fork onto her finally cleared plate.

“No, Sir. We’ve passed the time of the last mission reports I read, so from now on, everything is unwritten.”

“No hockey game results, then?”

“No,” she laughed.

“Please tell me you brought a sports almanac back with you.”

She wouldn’t even dignify that with an answer, deciding to merely cock her eyebrow at his lame attempt at humour.

“C’mon, you haven’t seen Back to the Future? Teal’c made me watch the lot a few years back.”

“Yes, Sir, I have seen it.”

“And you didn’t think to bring back more profitable intel back with you? You could have been a millionaire by now,” he said looking incredulous, rubbing his fingers indicative of money.

“Saving the galaxy wasn’t profitable, Sir?”

“You got me there, I guess,” he shrugged, dropping his shoulders to mime defeat.

She chuckled. “No. There’s no more foreknowing now. It’s a new future, and I’m going to let life take me where it takes me.”

“Nice,” he nodded. “I like the sound of that.”

There was a beat of silence as he set down his empty wine glass beside his own equally empty plate, then looked at her with a sudden intensity, and she understood that he wasn’t joking around any more.

“So, other than building new spaceships and tearing apart Asgard hyperdrives, any other hopes for the future?”

She smiled, looking into his deep chocolate eyes, pretty sure that he’d meant the question in regards to them.

Her mind buzzed, her heart raced as he watched her patiently as she considered her answer. The world around them- the idle chatter at the other tables, the clinking of cutlery and dishes- all faded out. It was just the two of them, and the ball was in her court. He was leaving it up to her whether there would be a them… or not. She owed herself to take a chance. To take a risk. The Sam she had been four years ago, alone and afraid, back on the Alpha Site wouldn’t have hesitated.

“Actually... after Dad’s memorial is over and everything… I was hoping you’d invite me fishing,” she said nervously, deliberately omitting any salutation. This was Sam asking Jack. And if Vidrine approved the transfer, they’d be out of the same chain of command soon anyway.

“Yeah?” he asked, doing nothing to mask the huge grin that had spread on his face.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“Yeah sure you betcha!”

Then he pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket and pushed his chair back in an effort to stand.

“What do you say we get out of here, Carter? You know how I hate wearing these,” and he pulled at the shirt he was wearing and belt. “I’m dying to get out of them- wait, that came out wrong.”

And she couldn’t help giggling, surely turning bright pink. She was glad they were back on good terms, and after relenting and allowing him to pay the bill at his insistence, they trundled their overnight bags down the street outside side-by-side, before finding a taxi to take them to their hotel, where they said good night amicably, retiring separately into their adjoining hotel rooms.

----

She hadn’t been able to sleep well despite her utter exhaustion, her mind continuously reeling, fervently trying to process the past few days: her father’s death, her breakdown in front of the General, the almost end of the galaxy, Daniel’s return, the hearing, and then their dinner date… if she could call it that. It had been an utter rollercoaster of emotions, and it still wasn’t over yet. She was still waiting to hear if her transfer would be accepted, the funeral needed arranging, she needed to deal with her brother and his family flying in, and it still hadn’t sunk in that after everything was dealt with, that she would be going to his cabin. Finally.

Unable to sleep, she’d considered knocking on his door just for the company, but then decided against it. She knew she was still emotionally fragile, and was scared she’d say something stupid in front of him, or worse- simply end up breaking down again.

And so, she’d stuck it out, tossing and turning until the sun finally rose, when they reconvened for an early breakfast before they were back at the Pentagon by 9am sharp as ordered.

“General Vidrine approved the transfer order,” said General Hammond kindly. “All you have to do is sign here,” and he pointed to the relevant place, “and Jack, you’ll need to sign here.”

“Last chance to back out, Carter,” he said, and at her indication that she hadn’t changed her mind at all, he picked up the pen General Hammond had handed him, adding his signature above where Vidrine’s scrawl was already printed onto the fax for the transfer order. Without hesitation, she accepted the pen from him, moved to add her own signature before she saw with a shock the title of the position written on the top of her transfer order.

“Head of R&D?”

“Told you Vidrine would want you, and it looks like he wants to keep you by giving you control of all projects in the department,” and she couldn’t help breaking out into a beaming smile. She would absolutely relish the opportunity. “Plus Colonel Anderson, the current head, has apparently been looking to step down to spend more time with his family for some time.”

“Nice timing, then,” General O'Neill winked.

“Wow, I never expected this. This is great,” she said as she added her own signature to the paper, and passed it and the pen back to General Hammond.

“Good. Looks all in order,” General Hammond said, inspecting the document. “You’re to report at Area 51 on Monday April 3rd, so that gives you just over three weeks to get your things in order and find your own place to move to if you don’t want to live on-site.”

“Yes, Sir,” she beamed, imagining finding a house with at least one guest room where Cassie could come visit, and her thoughts even strayed to a rather different visitor who might want to come all the way to Nevada from Washington to see her.

“And General,” he said, turning to the man about whom she’d just been thinking. “You’re also to report here in Washington on that same Monday, as Head of Homeworld Security.”

“Yes Sir,” and she couldn't help notice that his reply sounded far less enthusiastic than her own.

He hadn’t spoken much about it the previous night as the main focus of their conversation had been her, but she knew he’d probably be dreading the transfer here to the Pentagon.

“So… looks like the two of you will no longer be in the same chain of command soon,” General Hammond suddenly said with a knowing twinkle in his eye as he glanced back and forth between herself and General O’Neill, and she prayed that neither would notice the heat emanating from her cheeks.

She had noticed the upcoming change in position between them, but she wondered if General O’Neill had before now, and whether he’d even considered the ramifications or potential changes they were facing by no longer being in the same chain of command? Would he even want to take advantage of the opportunity that presented? What if she’d misread his signals towards the end of their time at the restaurant? What if dinner last night really had been simply two coworkers going to dinner together after a long day?

“I could have you moved onto the Area 51 payroll as early as next week if you want, Colonel. Then, if you happened to use up your leave until then…”

If she hadn’t been blushing earlier, she was positive she was entirely crimson by now. General Hammond couldn’t have been less subtle about his desire to matchmake them and give them a window between transfers where they’d be exempt from the regulations forbidding any personal relationship between any officers of differing ranks within the same chain.

“Urm…” she hesitated, feeling morbidly embarrassed, but General O’Neill, looking far too cool considering what Hammond was insinuating, simply flashed her a smile.

“No second thoughts about our fishing trip now, Carter,” he jokingly admonished.

She wouldn’t dream of it. And having silently sought his approval and received it, she confirmed with General Hammond that she would indeed like to have her payroll transferred earlier.

“Fishing, huh?” He grinned before quickly composing himself, as if pleased his suspicions had been confirmed. “Okay, I’ll sort that out for you, Colonel, and I’ll confirm with you at your father’s funeral. You can head back to the SGC, now.” Then he turned to speak to General O’Neill. “Jack, I’d like you to hang back so we can finish off our meeting from yesterday.”

“Yes, Sir,” he replied, looking gloomy at the prospect of the meeting, before adding to her quietly as she turned to leave, “Don’t forget to leave everything with the memorial service to me, Carter. I’ll arrange it all as soon as I get back.”

“Thank you, Sir. See you back on base,” she said, grateful for the offer, before making her way to the Homeworld Security front desk to have the Prometheus beam her back to the SGC.

Chapter Text

“Don’t forget to leave everything with the memorial service to me, Carter. I’ll arrange it all as soon as I get back.”

“Thank you, Sir,” she said, grateful for the offer, before making her way to the Homeworld Security front desk to have the Prometheus beam her back to the SGC.

9 days post D-Day

Over the following week, they received word from the Asgard that Thor was alive. He’d been recovered in his disabled ship by his fellow Asgard, found adrift between star systems, where he’d survived by downloading his consciousness yet again into the ship’s computer to avoid being killed by the Replicators. He sent his congratulations on the defeat of the Replicators and Anubis, as well as on the destruction of the Dakara weapon, that the Jaffa High Council had finally agreed should be destroyed.

The memorial service for her father also thankfully went smoothly with surprisingly minimal family drama from Mark, though she’d been left spent emotionally between hosting her brother's family, including her tween-aged niece and nephew, and being forced to put on a brave face and mingle with various old military friends of her father’s.

True to his word, the General had taken care of everything, including the dilemma over her father’s body. The Tok’ra had insisted on taking her father’s body back to their base, and due to reasons of National Security, the body of her father with a Tok’ra symbiote within couldn’t be permitted to be buried in a public cemetery. Her brother had initially resented the burial of an empty casket, but the cover story the General had come up with had been sufficient to defer his initial questioning.

General Hammond had made it too, providing a steady source of comfort, as well as bringing with him confirmation that by the time of the fishing trip, General O’Neill wouldn’t be her commanding officer anymore.

----

Finally, it was the day before she and the General were to head to Minnesota to his cabin, and she hadn’t been able to focus much on work all day. She felt nervous, restless, tired, and she was also slowly having to come to terms with the fact that following the trip, she’d have less than ten days remaining here at the SGC before she left for good.

So much had happened under this mountain since joining the Stargate Program. It had been such a huge part of her life. Easily the best part of her life, in fact, despite the hardships and suffering she’d also faced along the way. She’d travelled across the galaxy, saved the world countless times, and worked with some of the greatest people she’d ever known. Could she really leave?

But she was totally burned out from the thought of field work, of Cassie needing her, and thoughts of how if she didn’t transfer, she’d still fall under the General’s command as the SGC was overseen by Homeworld Security. No, this was the right decision. Saving the galaxy was behind her now, as was running from enemy fire and facing unknown dangers off-world. Just as she’d told the General, this was a new future she was leading. And she hoped that it would somehow include him, despite their transfers moving them apart across the country.

Tomorrow, she would be departing at the crack of dawn with the General, who incidentally would no longer be her CO by midnight, and despite her nerves, she couldn’t wait. Daniel and Teal’c would be joining them at the cabin later, apparently both tied up and unable to join them until the next day, and she hadn’t helped wondering, even secretly hoping, that the General had been a part of the reason- conspiring to deliberately ensure they would have time alone together first.

The ringing of her lab phone interrupted her thoughts, and she rose up from behind her desk where she’d been sat all day to pick up the receiver on the wall, surprised to hear that Daniel had some urgent news, and had asked that she join him in his office.

Closing down the analysis program she hadn’t really been focusing on anyway, she made her way to Level 18, where she was soon joined by Teal’c and the General, and together they entered Daniel’s office, where they were met by the sight of an ostensibly old-looking crate.

“Guys, you won’t believe this,” Daniel greeted them all excitedly. “A team of archaeologists from the University of Chicago uncovered a First Dynasty tomb near Giza-”

“Ah!” said the General, immediately cutting in with a raise of his hand. “I’m clocking off and going fishing with Carter in oh-” and he looked at his watch- “t-minus five hours,” and she couldn’t help smile at the thought of the General counting down the time until their trip together.

“Jack, trust me, this is important.”

“If this is anything about rocks, I swear I’m gonna lose it. I already had enough with SG-13’s Balinsky going on about damn mineral samples all morning-”

“Jack, you’re gonna want to see this. Trust me,” and he removed the lid of the crate to reveal a glowing, orange power source inside, identical to the one first discovered on Proclarush Taonas.

“Oh my god it’s a ZPM!” she couldn’t help shriek, approaching the crate for a better look, all thoughts of going fishing with the General pushed out of her mind. Zero Point Modules had been confirmed in the transmission received from the Lost City of Atlantis to be the main power source of the Ancients, and she couldn’t wait to get started on studying a non-depleted one.

“It gets better,” Daniel said teasingly, before pulling out a camcorder nestled below the ZPM. “This was discovered in the same archaeological dig, perfectly preserved in a vacuum canopic jar for we believe five thousand years.”

“Five thousand years?! That’s impossible!” she couldn’t help utter.

“Really, Sam? You found a camcorder from yourself in the future on the Aschen homeworld, and you don’t-”

“Daniel, explain,” the General ordered impatiently, no doubt feeling the onset of one of his time travel headaches.

“I was able to charge the battery. I think watching it will explain better than I can,” and he immediately hooked up the camcorder with an HDMI cable to display a video on what she couldn’t help notice was the exact same monitor she’d watched the video message from the other Sam in the future.

She could hardly believe what they then watched together on the screen: themselves, wearing desert robes, similar to those worn by the Abydonians, talking about how they’d used the Ancient time ship to go back and recover a working ZPM from Ra’s possession when he’d been living on Earth. They’d learned of its location when Catherine Langford, founder of the Stargate Project, had passed away from natural causes at the end of March.

“That’s two weeks from now,” Daniel said, pausing the footage. “We have to do something to help her.”

She understood the feeling all too well, and she could feel the General’s eyes on her as she spoke up.

“At least this means you have a chance to say goodbye to her first,” she said quietly, grateful at least that she’d been able to see Janet and her father before losing them to fate. “Go see her, Daniel. You can join us later at the cabin.”

Daniel didn’t answer, looking crestfallen. Catherine Langford had changed his life forever when she’d asked for his translation help and permitted him to join the very first mission to Abydos nine years ago. She had full clearance, and she knew Daniel regularly kept in touch with her, keeping her apprised of the goings on of the SGC.

Teal’c, who’d been studying Daniel, then spoke up for the both of them.

“Daniel Jackson and I shall join you both in Minnesota at a later time,” he said, bowing towards herself and the General.

Sam tried to quash the lurch in her stomach that came from the prospect of being alone with the General for even longer at his cabin.

They watched the rest of the video, including a part at the end where they confirmed that although this SG-1 had become trapped in the past, unable to return, they had at least lived out their lives maintaining low enough impact as not to affect the timeline. So in essence, from their perspective at least, they’d gotten a ZPM with the ability to dial the Lost City and maybe even assist in their own war in the Pegasus Galaxy, for free.

Once the video ended, she was eager to take the power source to the labs and get studying it right away before the prep got underway to send a rescue team through the gate to the Lost City, but the General stopped her, reminding her that she had packing to do.

He was right. She did. She was finally going to his cabin.

----

They’d sat together side-by-side in his truck the next day in mostly silence aside from the country music of his preferred radio station playing over the truck’s roaring. Just like during the past few days, including her father’s memorial service, he hadn’t pressed her for conversation, and while she appreciated the space he seemed to be giving her- she was really too tired for forced small talk- she wished that he’d give her a clear indication of how he felt for her. He wasn’t her CO anymore, and the knowledge was like a buzz of excitement fizzing inside her. But at the same time, she couldn’t help being almost terrified by the thought, too. There was no more safety net that their differing ranks had always put between them, and with Daniel and Teal’c’s delay, she was facing at least three days completely alone with him.

What if nothing happened? What if it did?

Trying to bury her squirming thoughts, she turned away from him, instead looking out her side window at the blur of towns and forests they passed through, and soon the lull of the truck noise and monotonous surroundings had the exhaustion of recent events washing over her until she couldn’t help dozing off. She hadn’t wanted to leave the General alone for the drive, and promptly apologized for falling asleep when she’d briefly jerked awake later at a stop sign, but he’d encouraged her to go back to sleep, saying she clearly needed it.

She couldn’t lie, she did. She didn’t think even an entire month of lie-ins would help her catch up to the lost sleep from the past four years.

It was evening when they finally reached his Minnesotan cabin, where a strong nip of fresh, mid-March air greeted them as they opened the truck doors and got out, stretching their legs on the open, grassy ground that carpeted the front of the austere, single-storeyed cabin.

She was finally here. She could hardly believe it. And it was so tranquil. He’d been right all those years ago when he first invited her. She needed this.

“Come and see this,” he said, and he looked almost giddy with excitement as he nodded towards the side of the cabin, where she followed him to the sight of a large, glistening pond with a dock, shimmering in the orange glow of the sunset. Tufts of tall green grass framed it, and the water- murky, yet not too dark- mirrored the tall, surrounding trees casting long shadows across the cabin walls behind.

“Wow,” was all she could say.

“Ya think?” he smirked.

Then he left her there, gazing across the glowing water, asking that she wait outside while he straightened up the cabin and aired it out since it had been a good while since he’d last been.

Testing its stability first, she decided to stand on the edge of the dock and wait, ignoring the chill, and spending a moment listening to the birds in the nearby trees welcoming the oncoming dusk, as the sound of the General bustling around his cabin drifted through the newly-opened windows.

A soft ripple appeared in the pond, stretching out from a solitary bird that had just landed in it, and her eyes followed as the ripple swelled to meet the sides, before the moment of calm was broken as she suddenly became accosted by several insects. Teal’c certainly hadn’t been exaggerating about the local mosquito population. She headed back round to the truck to grab the bug spray she’d packed at Teal’c’s recommendation, before catching sight of a half-emptied bag of groceries in the back that hadn’t been there when they’d left Colorado Springs. When had he stopped for those?

The thought of how domestic it was that they’d be living together alone for the next few days, cooking meals, sleeping, and spending time together entered her mind, sending her nerves climbing even higher, before with a creak of the door and a call of, “Ready!” she turned around to see him standing at the entrance.

In eight years of knowing him, she’d honestly never seen him look so happy. He looked so at ease, and excited. And so was she, deep under her nerves broiling on top. This was his world, and he was about to let her in.

With a flurry of nerves and butterflies she took his outstretched hand, and allowed him to pull her inside.

She found herself in a small living room where he’d already got a small fire started in the hearth, crackling softly to the side, giving a rustic, smoky smell to the room. A sofa was facing it, and to no surprise there was no tv- he’d been very clear that a laptop would be useless with his simple gas-powered generator and no internet connection. Several decorative objects hanging on the walls drew her attention, many of which she wondered if they’d belonged to his parents or grandparents considering how antique they looked. She’d definitely ask him later about them. Then finally her eye was drawn to the low table spread with ready meals and two bottles of beer standing tall, the hearth light catching the side of the glass.

“Sir, when did you…?” she began to ask, wondering when he’d had the chance to buy the meal, but he swiftly cut her off.

“Ah! Rule number one, Sam. No Sirs, Generals or any other rank-related salutations in my cabin. Call me Jack.”

“Okay, Jack,” she said timidly, the butterflies in her stomach dancing.

“And since we’re on the topic, rule number two is absolutely no talk about science in the cabin. No technobabble. No ZPMs, and definitely no mention of... nintendos.”

“Nintendos? You mean neutrinos?” she asked, doing her best to suppress a smirk at his mistake.

“What did I just say?” he rebuked, cutting her off again.

“Sorry S- I mean, Jack.”

“Better," he nodded. "And finally, rule number three is absolutely no bashing or complaining about the fine art that is fishing.”

“Understood.”

“Good. And to answer your earlier question, you were fast asleep in the truck and I felt bad waking you when I pulled into a grocery store, so I took care of everything.”

She was moved, though somewhat embarrassed that she’d been too tired to accompany him in shopping for dinner. But it was a lovely surprise.

“C’mon. Let me show you the rest of the cabin,” and she was surprised to detect a minute twinge of nervousness in his voice. Was he worried that she wouldn’t like it? But he oughtn't be. It was already perfect. Just being here was a dream come true. It was exactly like the image she’d had of his cabin when she’d been sitting on the hill of the Alpha Site in the future, on forced downtime from her injury on Cimmeria. The cabin, the wooden, handcrafted furniture, the country smell. It was so him.

“It’s perfect, Jack,” she said as he excitedly gave her the tour of the few remaining rooms, and the grin he rewarded her for her honest words lit up her soul.

“Hungry?”

“Starving, actually.” She couldn't believe how sleeping so much and sitting still all day could work up such an appetite, but it wasn’t like she’d eaten much since the Replicators had started invading the galaxy two weeks ago, anyway.

He patted the floor beside him where he’d already sat down at the low coffee table, his knees protesting the position, then pulled a dusty blanket from the couch behind them, putting it down on the floor to make a cushion for her, then he started to dish out the ready pack of salad, spaghetti and chicken.

“This is surprisingly healthy for you, Sir- sorry, I mean, Jack,” she flummoxed, but he merely grinned.

“Just wait ‘til tomorrow’s lunch I have planned.”

“Let me guess. Beer and beef steaks?”

“What else?” he asked, and she gave out a laugh.

They tucked into the dinner he had prepared, and the temperature in the cabin seemed to be dropping by the minute, so he moved the table nearer to the stove fire, before wrapping her in the blanket which he told her his own grandmother had quilted.

She’d never met any of his relatives, they’d all passed away before she’d even met him, but it felt intimate to be permitted to share in this piece of his history.

History. Her mind couldn’t help wandering to the other them who’d almost been forgotten to history, trapped in the past, and long dead.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked her just as they were finishing up the chicken.

“I can’t stop thinking about the other us in that video from Giza. I can’t believe I sanctioned a trip back in time, after everything that happened to me in the future. And then we got stuck in the past and lived our entire lives out there. I just can’t imagine.”

A tiny part of her wondered if she and that General had gotten together. There wouldn’t have been a military at all. There wouldn’t have been any reason to hesitate.

“You must have thought there was a high chance of success or you wouldn’t have let us go.”

“But we didn’t succeed. And Teal’c would have died soon afterwards when his Tretonin ran out, too. I find that so sad.”

“Didn’t Daniel say in the video that they were waiting it out to join the rebellion against Ra?”

“Yes.”

“Then, what if we’re why Ra left in the first place?”

“You’re suggesting that we’re the reason the gate got buried in Giza and the Goa’uld left Earth in the first place? The reason we managed to advance technologically, free of the Goa’uld, and create a Stargate Program at all?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “You’re the theoretical astrophysicist.”

“That would be a crazy paradox.”

“Meh, I’ve heard of crazier,” he shrugged again nonchalantly. “Isn’t a paradox how you saved all of us?”

“But I didn’t, though. Not really. It was Daniel in the end.”

“Sam, are you seriously not going to take credit for all you did? Why do you think Spacemonkey cheated death and ascended again in the first place?”

“Because the Replicator version of me killed him.”

“Yes, and you led her to him. Okay, maybe it was done unwittingly, but you still did it. And the Replicators took care of the Goa’uld for us. The Jaffa Nation and countless humans all over the galaxy are free because of you. You did it, Sam. I’m proud of you.”

She gazed at him, beaming at her unrestrained pride. ’You did it, Sam. I’m proud of you,’ she repeated the words to herself. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted to hear those words from him. He’d said the exact same thing following her return to the present, too. It was wonderful to hear someone convey some understanding of her years of hard work and pressure. And it was all over, and with that thought alone she felt a release of some of the tension she’d been carrying inside her body for years.

“Thank you,” she said in a whisper, watching the flicker of the fire dance in his eyes.

A silence fell between them again as she thought back to what he’d said while he drained the rest of his beer. The Replicator her had led Daniel to meeting Oma again. She was the reason her duplicate had existed at all, and suddenly it all made sense.

“I finally get it. What Oma Desala said,” she said, smiling at the realization.

“Get what?” he asked, looking confused and setting his empty bottle back down.

“Orlin showed you all what she said, right? That knowledge is power but wisdom doesn’t always equate truth. I can’t seek to travel the path until I’ve become the path itself, or something like that.”

“Yeah, I saw something along those lines, and it still makes zero sense.”

“I didn’t get the second part until just now. I knew she was trying to tell me that things wouldn’t go the way I might expect. That as I tried to manipulate the timeline, unforeseen consequences might happen, you know?”

“You're barking up the wrong Oma if you’re asking me.”

“She must have foreseen there was a way of defeating Anubis, and she was trying to tell me it wouldn’t be in a way that I could predict or set up myself. I was the path. It wasn’t about fiddling with the timeline and setting up events and making a path, it was just me.”

“Told you you did it,” he smiled, patting her on the shoulder, and she couldn’t help turning into the contact, shifting slightly closer to him.

“Yeah,” she breathed, feeling content before her heart dropped at the sight of his smile faltering, suddenly looking more serious, and she instantly regretted the move. She must have misread him, and she immediately began to shift back before he spoke up.

“You know, Sam… I’ve been wondering if you’d have ever told anyone about all this if Dad hadn’t died and you hadn’t, you know, lost it like that…”

That was why he’d looked serious, she realized, and she, too, cringed at the memory of her breaking down and losing control like that.

“I… I honestly don’t know,” she replied stiffly, the tension returning to her body in a flash.

She really didn’t. Would it have mattered if the mission had been accomplished? It’s not like she wanted a medal or global recognition for what she’d been through.

“Does that make you angry?” she then asked when he didn’t say anything.

He sat in silence considering his reply for some time, before answering.

“There were things I never reported during my years in black ops before I joined the SGC. Things that are better off dying with me. I get it.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“Sam, you’re a goddamn hero. There’s nothing to forgive,” he smiled, and they finished off dinner before clearing the table with Jack taking care of the dishes, before saying they’d better turn in early as he was tired from driving all day, and that fishing was best done in the early morning.

He helped her get the rest of her belongings from the truck, then walked her to the guest room and showed her where she could brush her teeth. Then he brought her some extra blankets to stay warm, warning the morning would likely be cold, and after they said goodnight, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that something hadn't happened. Despite their reassignments and the potential that brought, she hadn’t gotten the impression that he was in any rush to do anything.

Lights off, curled up in the guest room bed and sufficiently warm under copious layers of blankets, doubts began to seep in. Perhaps she’d misunderstood his intentions after all. Or was he still simply giving her space after her father’s death? Was he waiting for her to make a move? But if she did, and it turned out he didn’t feel the same, what would she do? The remaining few days until Daniel and Teal’c came would simply end up awkward.

——

The sound of birdsong was so loud when she awoke that her first instinct was that she must be camping outdoors off-world, until the sight of wooden walls reminded her that she was in the General’s cabin. She’d slept surprisingly well despite the worry that had set in that maybe the General, Jack, didn’t feel the same way for her.

Prising herself out of the cocoon she’d made, she gave a shiver at the cold, before deciding that she wouldn’t let her own worries spoil her time with him. In less than three weeks they’d be permanently stationed far apart, and she was determined to make the most of the time they had together.

Pulling out her thermal jacked from her luggage, she relieved herself in the cabin bathroom, noticing on her way that the General’s bedroom door was open- he must already be up- then brushed her teeth before beginning a search for him.

It was no surprise that she found him outside, wearing a thick coat, sitting on a deckchair on the dock, doing something with his hands over a green tackle box that was out of view from her vantage.

As she opened the wooden door with a creak, she was startled to see him flinch at her approach, quickly stuffing something into his tackle box and snapping the latch shut before spinning around in his deckchair. What had that been about?

“Carter! Didn’t expect you up so early. After how tired you seemed yesterday, I thought you’d sleep in ‘til at least nine.”

“I did too. Guess I slept too much in the truck,” she replied abashedly. “And I thought you were calling me Sam?”

“Right, sorry. Come and join me. There’s a chair over there,” and he pointed to the side of the cabin where there were some stacked. “Just brush away any cobwebs, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

They did indeed seem to have become home to a spider or two during the General’s absence from the cabin, but she soon got one clean enough to sit on and carried it over before planting it next to the General’s on the edge of his dock, which was just wide enough to fit both chairs snugly.

“Beer?” he asked, and she now noticed he had a stash at his foot that she hadn't spotted before.

“At seven o’clock in the morning?”

“Ah! Rule number three, Sam. No bashing of the art of fishing.”

“What does beer have to do with fishing?”

The instant hurt look on his face almost made her burst out laughing, he looked absolutely appalled, as though she’d said something incredibly rude.

“You have much to learn, young Padawan,” he said, shaking his head, then handing her a beer, which she accepted and cracked open, wondering how many times Teal’c must have sat him through Star Wars to have him quoting the movie.

Taking a swig, she enjoyed the moment. She was sitting at the edge of the General’s pond outside his cabin on a sunny day, with a beer in hand. He looked totally relaxed, though she couldn’t quite stifle the running tension through her body.

“I think the other me had a good idea retiring,” he said, breaking her thoughts. “I can see myself here more than in Washington.”

“Drinking beer on a dock at seven o’clock in the morning?”

“Hell, yes,” and with a self-satisfying smug look he took a deep swig of beer, then set it back down beside him. “I never asked why the other me retired.”

She’d been wondering if he’d ask about that.

“It was after Daniel died. The time after Jonas’ planet,” she added, deciding to specify which time, considering the way their friend had a tenacity for brushes with death. “I guess you couldn’t cope with both of us gone.”

“I couldn’t have coped with just you gone,” and she was surprised by his honest answer. “It was a long three months.”

She gave a nod.

“I can imagine. It was even longer for me from my perspective. Maybe eight or nine months? I can’t really remember anymore…,” and she suddenly found her mouth had gone dry as she decided to take a risk and test the waters.

“I… I missed you like hell while I was gone.”

A tense pause followed her admission, and she almost regretted it before he replied softly with, “I missed you like hell, too,” before taking another swig from his beer.

She couldn’t help smiling into her own raised bottle, taking a swig of her own. She knew he was just as bad as her at talking about feelings, but there was no misinterpreting the raw emotion in his words. Maybe there was a chance, after all...

She took a look across the pond, glinting like diamonds in the early morning sun. It was incredibly serene and beautiful.

“You don’t know how many times I imagined this place over the years. When I was stuck in the future, I thought I’d never get the chance to be here.”

“Does it live up to your expectations?”

“More,” she said genuinely. The cabin wasn’t just a wooden building. It was a piece of him; his world. And she wanted to be a part of it.

He smiled and found herself locked in his gaze. He looked happy, and proud.

“Actually, there’s something I want to give you, Sam. Close your eyes.”

She was taken aback by his sudden request, but she trusted him more than anyone, and years of obeying orders from him had her immediately complying. She felt him release the beer bottle from her clasp, setting it on the dock beside her, before making a noise that sounded like he was opening the catch on his tackle box. What had he been hiding in there?

“Keep them closed. I just need to measure it before I can finish it off.”

“Okay...,” she said nervously, her heart pounding fast as she waited with apprehension as to what he could possibly be up to.

She felt him take her right hand and drape something thin and material-like around her wrist, before swiftly pulling it away, leaving her sitting alone, with nothing but the sound of insects buzzing and trees swaying in the wind as she waited still for several agonizing moments.

“Okay, open,” he said after what had probably only been a minute or two, and she did, opening her eyes to see that he was holding a combat bracelet between his fingertips. Only, it wasn’t her one. It was more colourful, with green and pale blue laces intertwined.

“I saw from Orlin’s flashback how Replicarter tore off your old one. Only, Orlin didn’t just show us the visions. I could feel how you were feeling at the time.”

She was speechless. It was no wonder everyone had looked so shocked, and that Joe had vomited. She hadn’t realised how intense the experience really had been for everyone in that room.

“I felt how much it meant to you. And you told me in the restaurant that you were keeping it on until you accomplished your mission. So, I have a new mission for you, Sam,” and he shrugged it over her right wrist, where it sat comfortably. “Be happy. That’s all I want for you. All I’ve ever wanted for you, Sam.”

She didn’t know what to say. She just stared at it. Peridot and light blue. Their favourite colours.

“I-I am happy,” she finally managed to choke out. “I made it here, with you. The war’s over. Anubis is defeated. This is- this is just perfect, thank you,” she said, twirling it round her wrist as she had done countless times with her original one.

“I know what would make this even more perfect,” he said, breaking into a smile, his eyes darkening with an intensity that sent a rush through her body that was most definitely not beer-related. “Close your eyes again,” he said, and she immediately obeyed again, unable to still the quivering in her body in anticipation of what he might be planning.

Shutting out her vision again, with a creak of his deck chair, she sensed him draw nearer, and she couldn’t help breaking into a smile just as the soft smell of beer and that oh-so-him smell invaded her nose as the gentle feel of his warm lips pressing against hers drove the butterflies in her stomach to erupt like fireworks.

They were kissing, and not like their last encounter on that tel’tak when he’d been dying. This time, he held back nothing. With zeal and passion, the kiss deepened and quickened into an effortlessly explosive fight to delve, explore, taste, and feel each other. Both equally craving, no, needing more.

She felt him cup her face, holding her in place, and she threaded her fingers through his greying hair, pulling him closer, desperate to further deepen the kiss. As their tongues roamed, she felt him twist his chair so he could get better access to her, and he leaned into her, roaming his other hand down over her back and up through the inside of her jacket, eliciting a moan from her. She needed more. She made a move to turn her own chair, wanting to be nearer to him, but with a clink and a plop, she recognized her own beer falling into the pond, and she felt him smile against her lips before pulling back from the kiss.

“Oops,” she said, as he broke into a completely unguarded laugh. So completely Jack, with not a trace of military persona to him at all.

“That was incredible,” he said.

“The kiss or the beer?” she asked embarrassedly.

“Definitely the kiss,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if she was shaking from the early morning temperature or the fact that she’d just shared an astounding kiss with him, but as she gave an involuntary shiver, he pulled her to him into an embrace, and she couldn’t help her eyes brimming with tears. She’d been so scared he wouldn’t feel the same way. She’d been waiting for this moment for years.

Then he surprised her further by whispering into her ear:

“Did I ever mention that I love you?”

She scrunched his coat in her grip, hit by an overwhelming wave of emotion at his words, leaving her hardly able to breathe.

“I think you just did,” she panted.

She ought to rip off the bracelet he’d made her right now because the way she was feeling, those mission parameters had already been more than met.

“I love you too, Jack. So, so much,” she said, squeezing herself further into his embrace, wiping a tear or two onto his collar as she nestled her face into the crook of his neck.

“Sweet,” he drawled in perfect imitation of Homer Simpson, making her laugh into his chest, before he added, “It’s pretty cold out here. What do you say we go inside and warm up? I have an idea that might be more effective than blankets and my stove fire?”

“Oh?” she said, pulling back. “Is this what you meant by fishing all along?"

“If fishing means luring the most beautiful woman in the galaxy to my pond and catching her, then hell yes,” he said, standing, and imitating catching her by tightening both his hands around her waist, before she, too, rose to stand.

“Do you really think I’m the most beautiful woman in the galaxy?” she asked shyly.

“Are black holes black? Hell yes you are, Sam,” he said leaning forward to kiss her again, but she stepped back.

“And what happened to rule number two?” she asked teasingly.

He looked adorably confused for a moment- perhaps the thought of kissing her had rendered his brain dysfunctional- before she saw him make the connection and admonish himself with a, “D’oh.”

“Take me inside already, Jack,” she said seductively, stretching out her hand.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied enthusiastically, taking her hand and leading them back to the cabin.

She didn’t know what the future would bring, and for once, she was glad. They’d probably face challenges having to navigate a relationship long distance, but the width of a country paled in comparison to those who were used to travelling among the stars. They’d find a way; they were heading into a new future, together.

And, looking down at the brand new bracelet adorning her wrist, she knew she was most definitely happy, and most definitely where she belonged.

Mission accomplished.

The End