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3: Losing Sam Carter
Jack stared around at the series of dark little hovels that constituted the "village" that their guide, an enthusiastic young man who went by the name of Callan, had spent the last hour leading them to.
This is a village?! The Colonel mouthed to his Second, who was stood just beside him, but Sam Carter merely offered him the smallest of smiles before turning her attention back to Callan and Daniel, who were busy chattering to one another animatedly.
"So, there are other villages nearby?" Daniel was asking, and when Callan gave a nod, Jack wondered whether these other "villages" were any more substantial than the one in which SG1 was now stood.
"Many, many more!" Callan confirmed, grinning widely. "All surrounding the Great Ring!"
"Right, and that's what's up on top of the hill? The Great Ring? That's where the glowing light is coming from?" Daniel asked, waving a vague hand over his shoulder in the direction of the mysterious, rather eerie glow above them. Jack looked up at the sky, frowning at the way the air seemed to pulsate, the glow making his eyes ache. As he reached for his sunglasses, he couldn't help but feel a little uneasy about the whole atmosphere. Beside him, however, Carter was staring up towards the top of the hill, her bright blue eyes themselves aglow in fascination. There would be no stopping her, Jack realized, feeling both bored by the prospect and awed at the same time. Any minute now she was going to leap into scientist mode and be off in her own little world full of atoms and electrons and all those other stupidly complicated things that would make any normal person's head explode because of the massively increased pressure of all the...stuff...that was involved. (If he asked, she could probably write an equation that proved this would happen. He'd remember this idea for the next time he had paperwork to do and needed an amusing distraction; he'd go down to her lab and ask her to figure it out.) And then she'd get excited by it all and attempt to explain it to him, but fail miserably because the words wouldn't be able to leave her lips fast enough and he'd just have no idea what she was talking about.
God, he really couldn't put up with scientists with all their ridiculous techno-babble!
Except Sam Carter, that was. Anything she said, techno-babble or not, was music to his ears.
At this final thought, Jack sucked in a sharp breath. Bad thought. Very bad thought. Remember the regulations, Colonel, he told himself sternly.
"So, can I go, Jack?" Daniel's question snapped Jack back to reality. The archaeologist's expression was possibly even more excited than Carter's, Jack half expected him to start hopping from foot to foot impatiently, like a kid begging for Dad to buy him an ice-cream.
"I'd like to examine this Ring, sir." Carter put in hopefully, and Jack could have sworn that Daniel had started to fidget were he stood. "Maybe I can find out what it's used for..."
"Alright, kids, settle down! Teal'c and I are gonna do a sweep of the surrounding area, check this place out a bit better. Daniel, you and Carter can go look at this...Ring thing..."
"But Jack, the caves! From what Callan has told me there could be so much to learn..." Daniel trailed off, scowling at Jack's sigh of exasperation. Then, thankfully, a quiet voice announced:
"I know the way to the Great Ring. I was on my way up there when I came across you."
Jack turned to eye Callan with a scrutinizing gaze. He seemed harmless enough, and even if he wasn't Jack thought he was a bit on the weedy side. Carter could handle him, no problem.
"Well that's great, Callan." the Colonel decided. "Take Carter with you."
There it was, Jack would later recall. There it was, there was the moment. It was the moment that he had lost Sam Carter. It was the worst moment of his life.
Jack had watched Daniel head off towards the caves and Carter follow Callan up the hill towards the Great Ring.
As he made his way out of the village, Teal'c walking just ahead of him, Jack sensed movement behind him and turned abruptly to survey the cluster of huts. When his gaze came to rest upon a native who had no doubt just stepped out of one of the huts, Jack immediately lowered his gun, giving his head a little shake. It was that eerie light, he told himself crossly, it was making him jumpy for cryin' out loud!
The native, a tall male dressed in a sweeping hooded robe, did not appear to be startled by Jack's sudden movements at all. Jack could sense the man watching him from under the folds of the hood, his face shrouded in shadow. Jack noted the dark blue of the robes and the distinctive heavy silver chain that hung around the man's neck, a strange, hypnotic symbol of swirling metal dangling from the end, before turning away again and hurrying after Teal'c. Jack didn't like to admit it, even to himself, but there was something horribly sinister about the robed figure that now stared blankly at his retreating back.
As he and Teal'c swept the area, finding nothing much besides a whole lot of trees and some grass, Jack found himself recalling the swirling silver symbol again, it's many edges curved into points like an array of smooth circles edged in sinister needles. God, Jack really hated needles, and he had a feeling that he would not forget that hypnotic, sinister symbol in a hurry.
Especially since, over a month later, having finally gone off world for the first time since loosing his 2IC, Jack was to find himself looking at the same image. This time it was a vast silver sculpture, there to greet him as he and the remaining members of SG1 stepped out of the Stargate and onto a new planet; a place where simply losing Carter almost seemed better than the alternative Jack was soon to discover.
Maybe, he'd soon think, just maybe, that moment when he had lost her was not so bad after all. Maybe it wasn't the worst moment of his life. Not compared to this.