Pure Intentions
Summary: They'd lost a colleage, a teammate, and a friend. And they would do anything and everything they could to make things right.
Excerpt: "When'd you get so pushy?" he asked, changing route to grab his jacket and keys.
"Probably around the time I was separated from my body and you guys left my corpse behind on an alien planet."
Technobabble in the previous chapter was brought to you by...
My paraphrasing of the theory of relativity from two websites that make things simple and easy to understand: osti.gov/accomplishments/nuggets/einstein/speedoflight.html and /theory-of-relativity.htm.
Chapter Three
General Hammond was going through a pile of paperwork, doing anything to keep his mind off the death of Major Carter. A brilliant astrophysicist, Carter had immediately been assigned to be on the team returning to Abydos to retrieve Doctor Jackson. Jack was to lead the team and, a couple of trips through the gate later, they'd brought home Teal'c. In the days that followed, the four of them had become a team... and a family. A family that was torn apart because of the war they'd started with the Goa'uld.
The General's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Part of the General wanted to look up and see Major Carter with a report in hand, ready to convince him to let her perform some dangerous experiment that could have benefits for all of mankind. Or to let her go offworld to study some odd energy signature that a team had picked up.
The latter of which had been the case on that fateful day.
But he knew that wasn't the case, now. In fact, he knew that knock.
"Sir?"
The General looked up. There in the doorway stood his 2IC, Colonel Jack O'Neill, casually leaning on the frame, looking more relaxed than he had in days. But there was something else there as well. Never in the entire time that they'd known each other, had Hammond ever seen Jack O'Neill nervous. It not only puzzled but concerned the General greatly.
"Jack? Didn't I order you to go home?"
"I did, sir, but then I came back."
"I can see that. Is there any particular reason why?"
"Uh, actually, yes, there is."
Jack hesitated while the General waited for an explanation. How much should he tell the General? The whole truth sounded like fiction in his own ears, and he couldn't help Carter in a rubber room...
"Well?"
The query seemed to snap Jack out of his reverie.
"Sir, I want to request a retrieval team sent to P30-154 to retrieve Major Carter's body. And if it's not asking too much, sir, I'd like to go with them."
"Request denied."
"General..."
"No, Jack, and that's final. I won't put the lives of more men at risk, even if it is to retrieve the body of one of our own."
"This is Carter we're talking about here..."
"Exactly. Which is why I won't send more people into a hostile situation. And besides, from what you and your team have told me, the Major is dead and she's not coming back."
"I know what we told you but we were wrong. Carter's alive, she told me so herself."
The General paused, giving the words a moment to sink in. A moment or so later, after catching Carter trying, without success, to bang her head against a wall, Jack caught the implications of his own words.
"That is to say, I have a gut feeling about this."
"Nice save," Sam said dryly.
"I'd like to see you do better," Jack sniped back.
"Excuse me?" Hammond asked, affronted.
"Oh, not you, sir. I was talking to Carter."
"Jack, there's no one there."
Frustration brought Jack's Minnesotan accent to the forefront.
"What're ya talkin' about? Are you trying ta tell me ya don't see Carter standing right there?!" he pointed to her general direction. The General, of course, saw nothing.
"Colonel, maybe..."
"Now I know what you're about to say and no, I do not need to see Dr. Mackenzie."
"Jack, you're talkin' to imaginary people."
"They're not imaginary. It... she is real."
"This bodes so well for your sanity plea," Sam remarked.
Hammond had had just about enough. The death of Major Carter must have affected his 2IC more than he'd thought. It was obvious to him that Jack was having a mental breakdown, what with his talking to thin air and all. He discreetly picked up the phone and asked Walter to call down the rest of SG-1 and inform Dr. Fraiser.
"I don't see you helping any."
"What do you want me to do? As far as I know you're the only person I can communicate with."
Jack looked puzzled. Sam continued.
"Which means that no one else, including Daniel, Janet, General Hammond, even Teal'c, can see or hear me."
Jack appeared thoughtful for a second. Then he spoke.
"And you couldn't have told me this on the ride over here?!"
Sam shrugged.
"I thought you knew," she said calmly and nonchalantly.
"You thought I... you should know better than to assume that I can figured stuff like that out on my own!"
"With all due respect, sir, we all know you're smarter than you look."
Jack was about retaliate when he realized that him and Carter had an audience. He turned to Hammond who had just put down the phone.
"I know what this looks like."
"Do you, Jack? Do you really?"
"Look, I'd be slightly hesitant to let me though the gate, too, especially when I currently sound like a stark-raving lunatic," he glanced at Sam. "but, sir, you gotta admit, this isn't exactly the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us."
"If my theory is correct, my consciousness is stuck in your head," interjected Sam. "How is that not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to us?"
"Carter..." Jack growled impatiently, leaning heavily on the hands he placed on the edge of the table. "Let me handle this." He looked at her.
Sam crossed her arms and sulked at the reprimand.
The General was thouroghly confused.
Jack turned back to the General. "Sir, ask me anything that you think Carter would know but I wouldn't."
"Jack, I don't know what you're playin' at, but..."
"I'm not playing at anything, General, I swear. Try me."
Hammond did a short, but very accurate, impression of a gaping fish before he gathered his wits and answered.
"Fine. Colonel, what is... a black hole?"
"What is a black hole?" It sounded so simple. He turned to Sam. "You heard him Carter, start explaining." Sam opened her mouth but Jack held up a finger. "But before you do I feel it necessary to advise you to speak slowly and use simple words so that I can prove to the good General that you're really here and that I have not lost possession of my faculties."
Sam smiled at his antics. She began explaining with Jack mimicking every word for the General to hear.
"What is a black hole? A black hole is a finite amount of mass that is infinitely dense and infinitely small. Yet this seemingly insignificant region of space exerts such a gravitational pull that nothing can escape from being sucked into it. All energy, mass, or even light cannot come in contact with the boundry, or event horizon, without getting vaccumed into the singularity of the black hole. Singularity is the centerpoint of the black hole where it is speculated to be the end of time and the end of space since all matter is condensed into almost nothingness."
Hammond just stared at Jack, his brain not able to process what had just come out of his mouth. He sounded like the Major, smart and confident... about astrophysics. And Jack didn't do astrophysics. Sure he looked at the stars, knew the basic names of astronomical bodies and such but...
Was it even possible? Could it be... could it be that she was still alive? They'd thought they'd lost Daniel in a similar fashion a few years back. But this time they'd all been there and it was real and Jack, he'd confirmed her death. But it sounded... just like her.
The shocked speechlessness turned into an awkward silence. Jack turned to Sam. "You do realize" he started. "that I have no idea what I just said."
"Look it this way, sir:" Sam said a smile growing on her lips. "You did good."
She reached up to squeeze his shoulder in support, forgetting that she had no physical body. She'd barely even brushed him when Jack gasped and his eyes shut.
"Jack?" asked the General, uncertainly.
Jack's eyes snapped open and he looked around, confused. Then his gaze landed on General Hammond to his right. 'Right?' Jack looked down at his strong, calloused hands. "Oh, no," he looked up at the General again. "You can see me?" he asked, slowly. The General nodded. "Oh, this is too weird!" Jack carefully held his own hands away from himself.
"Colonel..."
"No, sir, it's me. Major Sam Carter, at you're service."
'And this ladies and gents is the frosting on the proverbial cake.'
"This is too weird," Sam repeated with a groan.
Technobabble in this chapter was brought to you by...
The Amanda Tapping and David Hewlett (reupload) on youtube. It's a video of Amanda Tapping challenging David Hewlett to see who could read faster. Sam Carter versus Rodney McKay. It's brilliant so I just had to include it. It was written by Amanda, not me, so I do not own it in any way. All I did was transcribe it, so don't sue... review! Later!