Author's Notes - This takes place immediately after the events of the Stargate Novels book, City of the Gods by Sonny Whitelaw. As a disclaimer, none of the novel is mine, but I absolutely recommend you go read it, because it is absolutely fantastic! While you're at it, go read all of them.
Whilst the novel fits perfectly into canon, this fic deviates to become an AU.
The first chapter is a little angsty, but I promise it gets a bit more cheerful later on.
Sam's grin didn't leave her face as the General left the Gate Room, and she turned back to her team. Her heart was doing back-flips in her chest and if asked, she would have struggled to find a moment when she had been happier. Her relief and joy at seeing them alive was reflected on each of their faces. Daniel pulled her back into another hug.
"We thought you were dead, Sam." He muttered, clearly holding back tears.
"Yeah, well, I thought the same about the three of you." She felt a strong hand on her shoulder and pulled out of Daniel's arms to see Teal'c standing behind her.
"I am extremely glad to see you well, Major Carter." Even he looked as though he was welling up.
Sam grinned at him and Daniel finally let her go. She turned back to look at the Colonel, allowing herself, for once, to just look with no care for what anyone around them might think. He smiled back at her, but behind the smile his eyes had a darkness to them. She recognised the look from her own face. Each time she'd looked in her mirror since they'd been gone she'd seen a shadow in her own eyes; the pure, gut-wrenching sadness and loss.
"Well, we'd best get cleaned up!" Daniel broke the tension, grabbed Teal'c by the arm and walked out of the Gate Room, leaving Sam and Jack alone.
"I…" Jack started, still staring intently at her, "I'm really glad you're alright, Carter."
"You too, sir." She smiled, weakly.
"Walk me to the locker room?" He smiled again.
Sam nodded, and turned towards the door. As they set off, she felt his hand on her back, as though he were reassuring himself that she was still alive. She was glad; she needed reassuring that he was too.
They walked in silence towards the locker room, Jack not removing his hand, despite the looks he was receiving from fellow airmen. Some merely appeared curious, others outright shocked. But he realised, belatedly, that they probably all thought, as Carter had done, that he was dead.
At the locker room, they stopped.
"I'll…er…I'll wait for you before the briefing." Sam said.
Jack just gave her a wide grin. As he turned towards the door he grabbed her hand and squeezed it, tightly, then disappeared into the locker room.
As Jack stood under the hot water from the shower he couldn't help but replay the events of the last week in his head. It was true, he'd disappeared and gone fishing, but it hadn't been the relaxing break he'd made it out to be.
He couldn't stand to be around anyone. He'd done his job, he'd saved a civilisation, but, in his mind, the cost had been too much to bear. Simply looking at the people he'd rescued was painful and reminded him of his loss. Daniel had said they would be able to get home in a matter of days, but Jack simply couldn't bring himself to care. It didn't matter where he was now. He could be on Earth, he could be here, he could be floating through space. But Carter was gone. Where he really wanted to be, if he was honest with himself, was back on that damn moon as it was being torn apart; let him suffer the same fate she had. Because in truth, a world, no matter which world, without her, was too painful to be in.
He'd thought about chucking himself off one of the cliffs surrounding the lake, but he hadn't done it. Daniel and Teal'c still needed him. He would at least get home with them, he told himself. This was how it had been after the first mission with Daniel. Give himself little goals to get through. Make it one more day. And whilst he still bore the pain of the loss of Charlie, SG-1 had eventually helped him to manage it. She had helped. Simply by being there, by being a part of his team and his life. Except now, she wasn't there. She'd never be there again. And he didn't know if he could meet each goal, each day, this time.
He didn't sleep. He came back to his tent as the sun was setting, ignoring the puzzled look Debruzzi kept giving him, waving off Daniel's concern and heading straight into his sleeping bag. Closing his eyes he flashed back to that first day on the moon, when she'd almost been swept away when the dam had broken. He felt again the relief and joy when she coughed and breathed again. He felt a tear roll down his cheek at the thought that it was all for nothing; a few more days, that was all, and then her death had been so much more painful than if he'd let her drown. He didn't brush the tear away. She deserved a tear, even if he'd let no one else see.
Each day was the same. He'd disappear, fishing, wallow in his grief, then return at night to lie awake in his tent, shedding a tear for Carter. The first night he'd told himself he'd have done the same for Daniel, or for Teal'c. But by the final day, he'd become so frustrated in himself, so angry that he kept lying, even to himself, that he'd allowed the truth to enter his mind. He had loved her. She deserved his tears, he knew, but she, her memory, also deserved the truth; that he was in love with her. Screw the regulations, screw what anyone would say or think or do. Except it was too late. She had died, such an awful, painful death, away from him. And she had died not knowing how loved she was. The guilt he felt at her death, the pain he felt at losing her, all compounded beneath that awful truth; he should have told her, she should have known.
"Jack, are you staying in there all day?" Daniel called. "De-briefing, Hammond, remember?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll be out in a minute." It was the most he had said to Daniel all week. He swallowed the grating pain in his throat and switched the shower off. She was alive, he told himself, she was alive.
Carter was still in the corridor when Daniel and Jack came out. Teal'c must have finished his shower quickly because he'd gone long before Jack had dried off and changed into his uniform. Relief washed over Jack on seeing her standing there, waiting, and he couldn't help but smile again. She was alive. She beamed at the two of them and let out a breath she must have been holding. Daniel looped his arm in hers and led her towards the briefing room, Jack following along behind, content just to be in her company again. She kept turning to face him and grinning.
The briefing took some time, and afterwards Hammond ordered them to the infirmary, but called Sam back. She looked towards her team as they left, clearly wanting to follow them.
"Major Carter," Hammond began, "I'm aware you're technically still on compassionate leave…"
"It's ok, sir. I'll be ready to come back in first thing tomorrow."
"No, Major, I'd like you, and the rest of SG-1, to take a few days off. Say a week, at least."
"Erm… yes, sir."
"And I'd like you to speak to Dr MacKenzie."
"Sir, I really don't think…"
"It's not a request, Major. Colonel O'Neill, Dr Jackson and Teal'c will be speaking to him too."
Sam hung her head. "Yes, sir."
"Go spend time with your team, Sam. I'll ask MacKenzie to give you a call tomorrow."
"Thank you, sir." Dismissed, she left his office and sped off towards the infirmary and her team. Her team. Alive, relatively well, and back as if from the dead. All she wanted right now was to be in their company. Technically she'd been home for days, but in her heart, she wasn't truly home until they'd stepped through the 'gate. The agony she'd felt whilst under the belief that they were dead came back, briefly, and she sped up to reach them faster; to reassure herself that they really were alive.
As she reached the infirmary she heard raised voices, clearly in argument, but even this brought a smile to her face. Jack was admonishing an innocent nurse for trying to draw his blood "for no damn reason."
"Now, sir, that's not following General Hammond's orders is it?" She called out to him as she came into the room.
He turned to look at her, instantly smiling again, and the nurse took the opportunity to jab him when his back was turned. His face darkened as he glared at the woman. She peered up at him with a look of total innocence on her face and slapped a band-aid on his arm.
Jack turned back to Sam, "That was sneaky, Major." But he couldn't keep the irritated expression on his face and the corners of his mouth turned up. "So, when we're out of here, if we get out of here, I'm thinking a little team-bonding might be needed." He was still looking at Sam, but Daniel answered from the next bed.
"Decided you'd like to be sociable again, Jack?" He said.
Jack ignored him. "Pizza?" He said to Sam. Then seemed to realise that just the two of them probably didn't constitute a 'team night', and looked at Daniel and Teal'c. "Star Wars?"
"Not The Simpsons?" Daniel was mocking him, and Sam smiled cheekily at the archaeologist.
Jack ignored him again and looked back at Sam, whose gaze flickered back to him. "Yes, sir. I think that's definitely needed." She wandered over to a chair between Jack and Daniel's beds, took a seat and patiently waited out the remainder of their examinations, drinking in the conversation between the three men. She didn't fail to notice that Jack kept catching her eye and smiling, almost with relief, at her. Where usually she would have stopped herself from returning that kind of look so blatantly, now she smiled back, simply enjoying the fact that he, that they, were alive.