WE DISAPPEAR
this is not a safe place anymore
BY: KIT & YUSAGI

A SHATTERED PARALLELS UNIVERSE STORY

It had been lost before she could even begin to understand it. The Ori had come with their plague two months prior and she had watched, horrified, as it spread. Within a week it had spread world wide in some form or another and despite everything they tried, they couldn't find a cure. It was killing them, all of those who should have lived, mutating every time her team had thought they were close. It changed and changed again, immune to broad spectrum antibiotics, slicing through whole populations like a knife through butter.

Today had been a bad day, though the good ones seemed to crash and burn even after the slightest glimmer of light. Outside, the clear, cold winter sky was a washed out, pale blue. She hadn't seen it for five days. Carolyn lit a cigarette with shaking hands and frowned as she leaned her head back against the wall. It didn't matter if there was a non-smoking sign anymore. Stargate Command was almost empty, operating on some sort of very base skeleton crew.

Her red rimmed eyes stared at the silent gate, frowining as she watched Walter as he quietly talked on the phone. His eyes caught hers for a moment and she tried to smile. His was better than hers and she blew smoke into the air. It clouded for a moment and her hands shook violently.

Stop it. Stop.

She breathed in to stem the tide before it got started again. Her reflection in the glass was gaunt, her eyes hazy sleepless shadows, and she watched the glowing end of her cigarette for a moment. Dad had died late last night and Cameron (not him, not him, not now) was in critical condition in the infirmary. She was going to lose him, too. Her jaw tightened and she shoved herself forward as a nurse came flying through the door.

There were no words.

She ran, slipped, crashed into the door frame of the infirmary, and got up again. Any curses that might have torn from her lips were ineffectual. Twenty minutes, an hour, three hours. Eventually someone shut off the monitor, silenced the noise, but she sat there. There were vague noises, the brush of hands, but eventually they left her alone. She stared down at her hands and touched the slim silver wedding band almost absently, frowning.

Carolyn expected him to get up. To somehow, against all odds, get the hell up.

But he didn't.

Not this time.

That was the end of her balking. She finished attaching the Hazmat suit's helmet and worked on Sergeant Amanda Miller's, then moved on to Colonel Terrence Nelson's and triple checked them to make sure they were as safe as possible. Her fingers twitched as she nodded to Walter. The gate began to dial.

She blinked at it for the longest time, watching the ripples of the event horizon shimmer.

"Doctor Lam?" Colonel Nelson murmured.

"I'm coming, I'm..." She just shook her head. "I'm coming Colonel." But he wasn't her Colonel, he was a Colonel. She swallowed down the sudden bout of nausea and stepped through the gate.

She wasn't sure she'd ever get used to it, gate travel. Or maybe she just got better at hiding the way it tried to deprive her of her already unsteady composure. You couldn't count when you were being demolecularized, you just were and then you weren't and then you were again.

She frowned.

P3X-991 was dead. The MALP had confirmed that, but she was determined to find survivors somewhere. They looked for four hours and found no one. Not even a cat. Eventually, they simply dialed the gate and left when even the radios couldn't find anyone. Nelson was silent at her side as she stepped through the gate. Her frown grew.

There were too many bodies. Live bodies in the gateroom. She took her Hazmat suit helmet off, wrenched it off, and gripped it tightly in her gloved hands. There were a metric asston of things that could go wrong in gate travel, but this? Her head swam.

"Carolyn?" Her chin came up in a jerk, her eyes wide. She knew that voice. She knew his voice.

"Dad," she whispered and Colonel Nelson made a grab for her elbow as her knees started to give. "I'm good. Let go. I'm good. I'm fine," she snapped. Nelson's grip tightened and she jerked away from him hard enough to stumble away. "I said I'm fine."

Obviously, they had ended up somewhere else. She sat through the briefing in silence, her fingers free of her golves twitching every few minutes as she smoothed at her short hair absently. Her eyes were glued to Landry's face the entire time as he explained and then had Carter, Sam, explain. A Sam. One of more than a few. Eventually the words stopped bouncing and people started moving.

Nelson gave up trying to coax her out into the mess for coffee on the fourth try. Miller's pointed remarks fell flat seconds later and the two of them were gone, leaving her alone with her father who wasn't her father. And she was still staring.

He started with Dr. Lam and her eyebrow twitched slightly. Landry's tone was softer than she'd ever heard it after he'd cleared his throat.

"Carolyn," he said and she came back. "What happened?"

She blinked for about a solid minute.

"Everything happened," she said in a hoarse voice. "Everything and nothing and more of everything. I...I don't know if there's a home left to go to back there anymore. Was a mess. We lost...we lost before we could--" She shook her head minutely, her eyes tearing and blurring as she tried to contain the rage and the sorrow and the fear. He didn't really have any words for her.

There simply weren't words.

"I wish we could fix it," he said after a moment.

"You can't," Carolyn whispered. "You're already dead. Dead men can't...fix..." She frowned and shook her head. "No. It's fine. There's nothing to be done. I'm not sure a cure would help us now, even if there was one. I should be dead, too."

"But you're not," he said softly. "C'mon. I'm getting you something to drink."

He pulled her upright and there was an awkward moment where she wasn't sure what to do and then he pulled her into a hug. It was firm and warm and she let out a soft, low sound that was so wrong his arms tightened. Her bones ached, her throat burned, and she clung to the familiar spaces of a man who wasn't her father (she'd pulled the sheet up, she'd said goodbye, she'd said I love you much too late) like she was drowning.

And maybe she was.

It stopped abruptly when she pulled herself together, but he rocked her anyway, and she held on in silence. There was no coffee, no Scotch, no substance to fix it. Whenever they went back home, nothing would change and he'd be dead again.

Again.

The cool effect ran out at about SG-1 seven. Now it felt exactly like it was--work. Interviewing every member of every team to find a commonality, while Sam studied the science side of things, and Jackson cross-checked. Some worlds were downright creepy.

This team had arrived in a hazmat suit, and initial briefing and impressions said this was one of the worlds where the Ori plague had never been cured. Chilling, yes, but it was more frightening just how many similar worlds to this one there were.

He had just finished checking over the notes, as he made his way into the interrogation room. He offered a friendly smile as he scooted his seat out and moved to sit. "Is it Doctor?"

She didn't see him at first. There was his voice, but she didn't actually see him sitting there until about the third blink. Carolyn's eyes closed and she forced herself to look at him, her eyes catching the line of his jaw, the angle of his cheek, the planes of a face that had been gone for days now. Weeks. Had it been weeks? Seventeen days, five hours, eighty-three minutes. She swallowed and tried to find words that wanted to stick in her throat.

"It is," she finally said, her fingers white as they pressed against the table.

She was worn--much moreso than the other teams he'd interviewed thus far. The plague must have hit much harder in her world. It was almost as if she were only a faint echo of the doctor he knew personally. He offered her a tight, reassuring smile. "Lets see if we can get this done quickly."

Carolyn rose unsteadily, unable to sit any longer.

"What do you want to know?" she asked in a tired, graveled voice that spoke of entirely too many late nights. Her fingers itched for a cigarette, and she linked her hands if only to keep them from trembling any more than they were. If they'd stay still, she'd feel better, but they wouldn't. They only stilled when she had a patient, now. Every once and awhile she had to remind herself to breathe again, but she was fairly certain she would continue the same way she had since her Cameron had died.

He stood when she did, studying her carefully. "Just a bit of a fuller profile than the briefing was. I need to know the things that led up to you ending up here. Starting a few months ago. Step by step."

She found herself at the wall and frowned as she pressed her fingertips into it. It, in itself, was cool but not cold. Not like winter. Carolyn turned back to him and forced herself to remember, to bring it all up to the front.

"One of our teams came home the same they always did, I checked them out, treated one of them for a cold, sent him home," she began. "It started like a flu, actually, first around Colorado Springs, then nationwide, then international. Priors came. More than one, actually. We declined, of course. My team kept working on a cure, but every time we came close it mutated. It started killing about a week after the Prior finally left. He came back another week after that. By then, the President was dead, and the Vice President still told them to..." She gestured, her expression bleak.

"More died."

She paced restlessly, shoving her hands into her pockets as she shuddered.

"And more after that. They died. They died. I couldn't do anything. Not a damn thing." Her jaw snapped shut hard enough that her teeth clicked. "When the next Prior came, there was panic. Riots. Martial Law. We said no." She blinked again, unfocused as her fingertips caught the edge of the table. "The statistics in Europe stopped coming in after the second month. Asia followed suit one week later. I don't know what the death rate was. 90% mortality rate is my best guess."

Carolyn was talking too fast in pointed, clipped sentences.

"We kept looking for a cure, everywhere, anywhere," she said and her eyes found his. "I started leading teams through the Gate a few days after..." There was no way she could finish that sentence. "Currently, we have gone to one hundred and fifty three worlds with no success. The Asgard are dead, the Ori... The Ori are everywhere. And our world is nothing but a world of ghosts and skeletons."

She leaned into the table, frowned, and resumed pacing.

"Would you like more?" she asked in a toneless voice.

It was the nightmare they'd refused to truly acknowledge. Her world had suffered through the very worst possibility--what had kept the team from decent sleep and peaceful dreams for weeks afterward. He could barely even imagine the things she must have witnessed. He hated that there was nothing they could do. The team with Doc Fraiser they could give the cure to. It was already too late for them to help this team.

He shook his head slightly, still frowning. "Did you notice any abnormalities over the past week or month?"

"There was no unusual gate activity," she said softly. "Nothing besides death, which has ceased to be...abnormal." Carolyn sat and set her chin on her folded hands to stare at him, her eyes tempered with the horrors she'd seen. She was holding it together as she touched the silver ring on her finger just once, just the once. She could hold on until he was gone, but she wanted to reach out. Her eyes closed and she tried to take slow, steadying breaths, but for a few moments all she saw was his still face.

Death waited for her at home.

It was stupid not to call it like it was.

He sat down carefully, and watched her in silence for a few moments. There was no dishonesty in her eyes, and no reason in their previous information gatherings to believe she lied. The General believed she spoke the truth as well. Days like this, he knew he would end up questioning what the point of their jobs were--even if it was completely impossible to save every universe.

He reached over to clasp a hand over her wrist. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I...just wish this could have happened while there was still time."

Her fingers slid over his knuckles and she soaked the heat of his skin in. Carolyn's smile was faint, a glimmer of warmth that was still somewhere in there. She didn't have any words for him, then, but she leaned across the table to cup his face in her hands and place a kiss against his cheek. It was barely a brush of dry, papery lips, before her fingers slipped away.

"We can't save everyone," she whispered. "But we can try."

He summoned his best, warm, reassuring smile, and squeezed her hand gently. She felt so frail--so wired and thin--he was afraid he might break her if he held any harder. "You did it well, Doctor." He tilted his head to the side, and offer a determined frown. "We will get you home, Doctor. With the cure. I promise you that, Doctor. It's all we can do."

He did not know how, yet, but they would find a way. They could at least do that.

"There's nothing back there," she said quietly, frowning slightly as her fingers touched his cheekbone and brushed his chin. Soft, helpless laughter slipped out before she could silence it, and once it was out she had no way of stopping it. "Don't you see?" she managed between between sharp breaks and rough silences. "I failed. I failed because I couldn't even save you."

Her eyes snapped onto his as if she could somehow see past this Cameron Mitchell to the one she'd lost. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I'm sorry.

"Getting us home does nothing for me," she said, "but...if we can find someone...someone to help. Maybe." Her fingers were shaking again, uncontrollably jerking as she snatched them away. She had another few hours before she was just going to shut down, grab two hours of sleep and wake again. Or maybe she wouldn't, this time.

"But I failed."

"Doctor." His voice was sharp, and he stood abruptly. "You did not fail. Don't ever believe that."

It was fundamentally wrong that this could have happened. Sam might have said it was an inevitable statistic that there were worlds where the Ori would have destroyed Earth, but he knew she wasn't taking the cold reality of it well, either. It was frustrating, unjust, and watching that haunted, broken expression in all of the eyes of the SG-1 teams from those worlds--the resigned, hopeless guilt in hers--was outright heartbreaking.

He navigated around the table, and pulled her up out of her seat into a hug. She was not military or even SG-1. She was a medical doctor--the CMO who had to stand by and watch her Earth die. 'Keep on fighting, soldier' didn't cut it.

"You did everything you could. I know you did. You succeeded, because there are still people fighting."

She didn't have the strength to not collapse against him, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, her lips buried against his neck. He was talking (he could have said anything, anything) but it was just noise, words meant to comfort, to excuse blame, to make it somehow better. It wasn't going to help. She'd been there before. Carolyn curled into him unable to stop the shivering that gripped her.

Her words were just gone and her fingers found his hair hesitantly. It was a gesture that said more than it should have.

She was so shattered--so completely opposite from the perfectly collected Doctor Lam he knew. The things she'd gone through had torn her apart, wrung out all the life he expected from her. Just then, all he wanted was to find a way to patch her together again, and bring back some measure of the life she deserved.

"M'So sorry, Doctor." He knew it didn't matter what he said. None of it could change anything. But the sound of it, the presence, perhaps, would offer some small comfort. "If there were any way to undo it, I would do it."

"I know," she breathed. "I know you would and...and I'd wind up yelling at you for doing it." tight laughter shook her as her eyes teared. Carolyn buried herself into him hard enough for her joints to creak and her shoulder popped audibly. She counted silently as her vision blurred and realized the laughter had turned into hyperventilation (which turned back into laughter a few more times). It was the lack of everything, she supposed.

"I always," she gasped, trying to stuff down another fit of laughter, "seem to yell at you. For something."

He winced at the sound, but gave a soft chuckle. "Yeah, you do. Lucky I put up with it, Doctor."

He carefully extracted himself from her far enough to cup her cheeks in his hands, and place a soft kiss to her forehead. "You should check into the Infirmary, Doctor. Your team and your world can't have you collapsing."

She could have heard those same words from Cameron, with exactly the same tone. For a good long while, she worked on steadying herself until her face was clear again. She had to claw and scrape to find the doctor, but Doctor Carolyn Lam was still there.

"All I need is two hours," she said softly. "I'll sleep for two hours and I'll be fine."

"No you don't, Doctor." He gave her a severe frown. "You need to get yourself checked out. You look like you're about to fall over--and if I have to, I'll walk you there myself."

These people were on the same side--they were allies. They were not about to be treated as hostile elements.

"I've been doing this long enough," she protested hollowly. "I can't..." Carolyn waved ineffectually. Something always happened. "If I stop," she shook her head, panic creeping into her expression, "...someone dies when I stop. They all die. Two hours. I just...I just need a couch, a chair, the floor...anywhere."

"Hey, hey..." He stroked her cheek gently with a thumb. "No one is going to die. This place is safe. If you sleep the entire time you're here, no one is going to suffer for it. Just...c'mon. Let me get you to the infirmary, the Doctor will check you out, and you can get some rest. Alright?" He kissed her forehead once more. "Trust me."

She wanted to argue, but he was right. Carolyn knew she was riding on the coattails of where she'd come from. Plague victim after plague victim, emergency after emergency; it was a cycle she knew was killing her as sure as anything. She didn't need an other version of herself telling her that. She went anyway, her fingers trailing against the familiar walls of the base if only to help keep her upright.

She knew there was a part of it that just wanted this madness over one way or another. Sam was out there somewhere, Teal'c, too. And Daniel, but he was with Vala God knew where.

Half way there, she stopped sharply.

"I always trust you," she said, her voice a slight rasp. The smile was slight. "I always have."

He nodded to the guard outside of the interrogation room, and the others they passed presumably assumed she was their Doctor Lam. When she stopped and spoke, he offered a small smile, and touched her shoulder. "The feeling is mutual, Doctor."

She studied him for awhile and then managed a smile. It was the sort of thing you might see on a hazy summer day where the sun broke briefly behind a bank of clouds. It was just bright enough to hint at who she'd been before. And then she was moving.

Her feet knew where to take her.

One Lam turned to face another. There was dead silence as Carolyn stumbled. Lam caught her deftly and frowned, her words soft and low as well as annoyed. There was a brief exchange of terse words and Lam's eyes went wide.

"Tests," the said at the same time, though Carolyn's was slightly despondent. It began with bloodwork and Lam insisted in an EKG before they were arguing in hushed tones. There were normal, run of the mill, EKGs, ones that showed normal function, ones that were fine. And then there was Carolyn's.

"If you stress yourself out anymore," Lam snapped, clearly displeased, "you're risking heart attack, stroke, and possibly arterial tearing." There was a moment where the two women locked gazes in a silent exchange of wills as if they were already battling treatment plans. "Look at it! Sinus arrhythmia, tachycardia...too much coffee and cigarettes, too much everything."

"I know it's too much," Carolyn snapped back. "There's nothing I can do!"

"You could try to relax," Lam said softly.

"Great," Carolyn murmured. "I highly doubt that's even possible."

"Try," Lam said, folding her arms as the EKG spiked again. "At the rate you're going and the sleep you're getting, if you don't you'll be lucky to make it to Friday." Her eyes said the time frame was different and a look passed between the two woman. Lam's expression tightened. "I can give you something to help, maybe get you off base, even." She frowned worriedly. "Colonel Nelson?"

"Yes ma'am?" His salt and peppered head and dark brown eyes peered around the curtain.

"How long has she been running like this?" Carolyn scowled up at Lam for a moment.

"Since the plague started, ma'am," he said quietly. "I ain't gonna lie to...you. Either of you. God, that's weird." He shook his head. "I keep tellin her to git some rest, but she don listen to me none. Not anymore."

Carolyn squeezed her eyes shut and Lam's eyes snapped to the monitor.

Cam frowned from where he stood watching, and moved over to speak quietly to his Doctor Lam. "Let me try, Doctor. You get the General to approve it, and I will make sure she takes it easy at least as long as she stays here."

"Somehow I don't think that's going to be a problem. If you'll excuse me?" She didn't wait for an answer, but strode off to make the call. There were a few terse moments on the phone and Lam was back. Not missing the idiocy of the moment, she tried not to smile. "She's all yours, Colonel. Rest."

"Fine," Carolyn growled softly and jerked the electrodes off. Nelson looked entirely too pleased. His low 'knew there had to be something good in this somewhere' was just barely audible. Carolyn ignored it and buttoned up before shoving herself off the bed much too quickly.

Cam offered her a small, apologetic smile, and gestured toward the doorway of the infirmary. "I'll show you to your quarters, Doctor."

She mumbled something under her breath as Lam turned back to Nelson, a slightly stricken look crossing her features. Carolyn pushed herself to follow after Mitchell wearily. She'd seen the damn EKG herself and it had been a complete mess with PVCs popping up like popcorn in a bag. Too much stress, too much deadly stress.

"I guess she wants me to take a leave of absence," she murmured.

He reached over and squeezed her shoulder with a slight smile. "You've earned a bit of a vacation, Doctor."

She caught his arm, blinking hard to get through the fact that her eyes were starting to blur. Maybe the next eight years. She wouldn't mind an eight year vacation. Eighteen year. Carolyn had lost her father, mother, husband, and team. There was no one else to lose. Her head ached sharply and she drew in a breath as her fingers tightened.

"Just a little one," she finally managed, breathless.

He nodded, and started on down the corridor ahead of her. She needed much more than a short break, but it was all he could give her. A few hours, until Sam figured out to send them back, where she didn't have to worry about the world and the Ori. She was the last SG-1 he interviewed, so there was nothing else for him to do to contribute, anyway.

He spent the walk to the guest room going over possibilities. Once he arrived, he opened the door and gestured for her to enter. "Gonna stick around for a bit and make sure you get to sleep, if you don't mind, Doctor?"

Carolyn managed a soft sound that was as positive as she could manage as she let her eyes roam. She'd stayed in a room much like this on base before, so it wasn't a surpise, but she looked around anyway. The bed was soft, which was better than what she'd found herself sleeping on, and she picked at her boot laces in weary resignation.

No one was going to die.

After a few moments of almost untying the one boot, she sat with her back up against the side of the bed and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of heel palms. Slow. Slow was good. She could slow down for a little while. Couldn't she?

He crouched down next to her, and brushed some of her jagged hair from her face. "Hey. S'Okay. Just...calm down. It's safe here--peaceful. I'll take you off base for some steak after you get some rest, alright? Your pick."

"It looks the same," she said softly. "I know where the bodies are. Where they died." Carolyn let a breath out and tried to laugh. Nothing came out. She worked on her boots again absently, drinking in the sight of his face. Her fingers stilled for a moment and she shook herself into working the boot off. "I haven't had anything but mess food...and then not even that, in about six weeks."

She supposed that was obvious. There was barely any meat left on her bones.

"Don't remember what normal's like," she whispered. Her other boot finally slid off and she sat there, staring at his face, her eyes running over his features as if she was making sure she wasn't going to forget them. She wouldn't forget how he looked dead. Every time she closed her eyes she saw that.

He smiled softly, and touched her cheek. "Good, then. We'll go somewhere that serves great big portions. I know just the place. You'll love it."

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "You just promise me this: No more bodies, no more dead. For now...you just concentrate on me. On the fact that you are still alive, and you're gonna make it. You said you trust me, so...trust me now. As long as I have anything to say about it, things are gonna be fine."

"Things will be fine," she murmured and tried to move. Nothing happened. She fell silent and tried again. "I'm going to need help," Carolyn said very quietly, trying her best not to appear the least bit embarrassed. "As much as I hate admitting it."

He nodded after a moment, and gripped her waist and shoulders carefully, helping to pull her up to her feet. He took a moment to offer her a reassuring smile. "Just need a bit of rest. Good thing the bed's right there."

Her smile was a flicker as she worked her way onto the bed. It took her longer than she would have liked. Her legs felt leaden and she knew exactly what was going on -- she'd figured it out days ago. The exhaustion was catching up to her like she knew it would, so she would take her pill, drink it down with water...and hope it was enough.

"Guess I should follow my own advice," she managed lamely tentatively massaging the leg with most of the numbness. Tingling, too. That was just her nerves, literally and figuratively.

He chuckled, and pulled up a chair to sit next to the bed. He brushed stubborn strands of hair from her face, and sat back in the chair. "Doctor's orders."

She curled up on her side, knees to her chest and watched him. Alive was good. If she stopping thinking, if she stopped thinking this would be perfect. But that would be a great deal of not thinking, so she studied his face again. After a moment, she spoke in a soft, slurred voice.

"You have new scars...I think," she mumbled. "Different ones." Her expression grew hazily amused. "I remember the cake plate...at the reception. Teal'c's daughter threw it, broke everywhere. Ended up with a slice across your eyebrow. Blood everywhere. I...I told Janet it wasn't SG-1 without someone bleeding all over the cake." Carolyn's laughter got stuck and she wound up coughing for a moment before she was smiling.

"You hated the uniform, but your Dad insisted. Couldn't say no to him."

He offered a slight grin, and kissed her forehead. "S'Okay. No one can say no to him."

"Always liked you in blue," she murmured, eyes closing for a half second. "He came...he came to the cabin. Later. And your mom insisted on making dinner...no...pie. It was blueberry pie." Carolyn drew a short breath and laughed. "The silence when everyone was gone. Was amazing. Just the. Just the wind."

She missed the wind.

"Spring wind," she said. "I remember. How still it was. That I remember." She shivered and curled in on herself. "I remember lots...lots of things."

"Blueberry pie and spring wind. S'a beautiful evening." He reached over and took her hand, still smiling. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her palm to combat the chill he felt there. He pulled up the covers around her with his free hand. Doctor Lam would have said if there were anything immediately dangerously wrong with her. "How about you tell me about them?"

"You," she said softly. "Need to talk to your Doctor Lam. Soon." Carolyn swallowed against the tightness of her throat. "The coffee," she said abruptly. "You replaced my dad's coffee with instant when he was at...when he came back from peace talks with...with the--" she stopped and couldn't find the word. "Whatever they were. He didn't notice. And you never pointed it out. He probably noticed. Likes you, not that he'll say it. Grumpy like that."

He frowned slightly at her suggestion. Was there something wrong, that he needed to know about? In the end, however, he chose to postpone the thought for now, in favor of indulging her stories, and promoting her relaxation.

"A grumpy big teddy bear?"

"Very grumpy," she murmured. "If he didn't like you, he'd make sure you were reassigned somewhere remote. Believe me. Have...have seen it." Carolyn shivered again and tried to pull herself into a ball. "He came with us to the farm in the summer. Never come if he didn't enjoy himself. No ducks though. Just very good pie. He helped bake one. Granted, he broke a pie dish, but he helped."

He readjusted her covers once more. "General Landry baking a pie. Now there's a sight to see."

"Maybe you'll get lucky," she said softly and then frowned. "Too far away. Always so...so far away." She blinked, trying to resolve his face out of the blur.

"Hey." He leaned forward, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Look, see? I'm right here." He slid his hand up through her hair and pressed another careful kiss to her forehead, lingering close to offer her a reassuring smile. "I could only hope to get so lucky as to see that one."

She reached to find him and her fingers fell against his cheek. Too far. But she would have to settle for it. He'd see lots of things. He would.

"It's cold," she said in a thin voice. "But can sleep. I think." He was warm. That was important, wasn't it? "You...you have to remember," Carolyn said absently, "that it's the house with the ginger...the ginger cat. Lots of guns. No kicking in front door. Too many bullets. Back door and side. Not front. Took me forever to find the last bullet. Have to remember."

His words were momentarily stuck in his throat, before he swallowed and offered a warm smile. "I'll remember. You can write a report on it if you like, when you get up." He had to shake that eerie feeling that she wouldn't. It was just the sedatives making her like she was. "And then steak. Alright, Doctor?"

It took her fifty-two seconds to answer him.

"You 'member," she said. "Promise. Promise me." A shiver made her fingers drop away from his cheek. Fifty-two seconds. She pulled her hand back in against her body to keep warm. It wasn't helping, but she was trying. Trying was always something she did. And then she did, so everything was fine. Carolyn kept her eyes closed, and her left eyebrow twitched every few minutes. The rest of her felt heavy, heavier than the time she'd found herself stunned from the neck down on the one proper mission she'd been on.

"Never did," she said quietly, "...never did go for an F-302 flight."

He studied her fore a few moments. She looked so cold. "Promise. We'll go for a flight after steak, too. Haven't lived til you been up in one." He frowned after a moment, and scooted over to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning against the wall. He gathered her up in his arms and pulled her close, complete with her blankets. She was so light and chill, it was almost frightening.

"Get some rest, Doctor. I'll be here when you get up."

She registered the change in position with mild confusion, but curled into him, still trying to form words that had decided not to come. There things about steak. Things about flying after steak. Her fingers slowly curled against his chest and she smiled. Alive. Alive was good. Carolyn drew a hitching breath and tried to ease the tension in her limbs. It took eighty-two seconds for the tightness in her left leg to ease. Ninety-three for the right. She lost count, eventually, but she was triumphantly dead weight, though she wasn't sure how good a thing it was. She forced her lips to move.

"You're always," she said with difficulty, "here."

"Yeah..." He kissed the top of her hair, rocking her gently. "I am. Get some sleep...Carolyn."

She forced her eyes open for a moment, just for a little while, and smiled. It eased the sharpness of her features, softened her mouth, and made her look almost normal. Almost. There was something she had to say still, but it wasn't coming out and she let out a breath she couldn't get back. It was fine.

This was fine. Wasn't it?

It was time to sleep.

Her lips smoothed into a soft smile.

"Always there," she murmured and her fingers relaxed completely.

He sighed softly, and rested his face in her hair. He continued to rock her, even after she relaxed, murmuring soft endearments--his voice by now nothing more than a tool to bring back soothing memories of the one she'd lost. When the complete silence came, he turned his mind to cool Spring breezes, and fresh blueberry pie.

He lost track of when the tears began, or how long he continued to rock after they were gone.

The silence that came after all the teams were gone was unnerving. Colonel Nelson had left with Sergeant Miller an the alternate Lam's remains. She stood frowning at the stretcher for a long while, her arms crossed. It had been too late for her to help. Both of them knew that. And both of them knew how they'd want to go. It wasn't something she was going to fess up to, either. There was just this quiet understanding. She knew even before she got the white blood cell count back that the news was that bad. Before she had that confirmation another team had come through and she was busy dealing with staff blasts and knife wounds.

She hadn't forgotten.

But she'd been too late.

The silence was thick and heavy and she had no guard against it.

He wasn't even sure where he was walking, but he knew his destination. The other him, before he'd seized the Prometheus, had spoken of his own Doctor Lam. Before they'd moved on to happier memories, he'd listed her among the casualties their world had suffered.

How fragile was this universe? How long would the Prometheus last, or their war? How long would Doctor Lam?

He saw her first, once he'd entered the infirmary, and marched across the room--pulling her away from whatever she'd been working on into a desperate hug.

Lam wrapped her arms around him without hesitation at all, burying her face against his chest as she latched onto the back of his shirt with her fingers. After a moment, she gently ran her fingers against his shoulder blades and murmured his name very, very quietly. It wasn't Mitchell, or Colonel.

It was a soft Cameron.

He was trembling uncontrollably, fighting for a composure that was surely slipping away. He'd wanted to make her happy, to give her a reason to go on. He'd wanted to save her, if he couldn't save their world.

They hadn't saved anyone.

"She never got to fly." His voice was a tortured whisper.

Oh God. She swallowed hard and curled herself around him the best she could, her jaw tight enough to make her teeth creak. She still wanted to fly, still hadn't been up there. Hadn't done anything about wheedling her way up there either. Her fingers settled on the nape of his neck and she tried to find words.

"No," she murmured. "She didn't. But that's not your fault. I suppose it's not mine, either, or hers. Just the Ori. And we'll finish it. We'll finish it here. For them."

Despite his best efforts, the tears were returning--but he still clung to some semblance of composure. "It won't bring her back." He shook his head sharply. "I should've saved her. Somehow. Should've done somethin'."

"If I could have done anything," she whispered. "You know I would have. The damage was just too extensive. She knew it better than I did. She would have ended up the same way if she'd gone anywhere. Short of a sarcophagus, I don't think there would have been anything that would have saved her life."

He bit back complaints and pointless responses, until once more he had a strong grip on his composure. He pulled away, then, frowning determinedly. The other Doctor Lam, the one whose life was stripped away part by part, had told him to talk to his own Lam.

There were things to be discussed, no doubt, that would not be appropriate now--that he wouldn't be able to handle discussing just now. But there was one, important thing that could be discussed. Something he would make certain of.

"Clear out your schedule, Doctor. Tomorrow, you're going to go flying."

Her fingers found his cheeks and she let out a half laugh as she blinked tears away. They clung to her eyelashes and she smiled, nodding wordlessly. It was easy enough to clear the routine work by nudging it onto her staff (who completely understood, at this point). Her words caught in her throat and she shivered, her eyes echoing just a little of the alternate Lam's fear. It was easy to fall into could happen and she was suddenly very aware of him.

"Colonel," she finally whispered in a voice that was slightly choked, "just give me a time and I'm there."

Her fingers ran over his cheeks and brush his hairline as if she could physically soothe the hurt away, as if she could fix it somehow. She was going flying. Flying in an F-302. She suppressed the tears (not for the first time, nor the second), which had been threatening ever since she realized her other self had been married to a Mitchell. It hadn't taken too terribly much to figure that out.

It was in the way her eyes found his face.

Lam knew that expression haunted her own and remained unspoken.