See chapter one for disclaimer.
A/N: Chapter has been lengthened. Huge thank yous to those of you who have responded, especially the error-catchers. Please continue! Errors will (eventually) be corrected; feedback will always be joyfully received. :)
My Andromeda
Chapter Three
by Mabyn
Energy pulsed around her, cracked at her splayed fingertips, whiplashed through her skin. She breathed it like oxygen, drew it in through her pores, drank of it heavily like wine.
She was the eye of this hurricane.
A ball of pure blue light grew steadily inside of her. She could taste it, feel it licking her organs, bathing them, restoring her balance and sustaining her. A smile waved across her lips as she danced in this ecstatic downpour of pure power. The images made sense now, the sounds, the letters, the words―all of it. She knew their purpose, why she saw them and how.
She realized she knew everything.
Her belly began quivering―the energy wasn't meant to be pent up this long. But it only seemed like seconds since she and it had become one. She resisted letting it go, this unnameable bliss, this assurance of purpose. She held on, one more moment―just one more moment.
And then it came pouring out of her like steam, enveloping the Stargate in a thin blue haze, its glimmer outshining that of the event horizon. Her eyes opened; she saw past the horizon to the world beyond it, a world untouched by time. Reaching out her hand, she stroked the horizon with gentle fingertips. She smiled as it leapt at her touch and embraced her skin; it knew her, she thought. It knew her and it was delighted to see her again. She laughed softly, her joy like a child's, and embraced the horizon with open arms.
--
Jack's strangled cry ripped through the gateroom. SG's 1 and 4 and Captain Caise stood staring at Sam's last location, now totally enveloped by the unstable vortex; everyone was postured, ready to leap to her defense. Jack's arms were thrown behind him, his legs bent and prepped to run.
None of them moved. Thoughts of helping the woman on the ramp had fled; the synapses that had fired, preparing the muscles for movement, had forgotten its message. The signal had died halfway back to the brain. The vortex still trembled--but now it was not trembling at all. It had smoothed over, an ever-shifting cloud of light and power gleaming, leaping, dancing around Sam's upstretched arms.
She looked euphoric, her head thrown back, all signs of exhaustion gone, her fingers gently splayed and reaching towards the heavens. She and the vortex were dancing.
She and the vortex were one.
Slowly, the cloud shifted, like a breeze had changed, and swelled over the ridge of the Stargate, encompassing it in soft tendrils of light. The horizon shuddered and the lit chevrons turned dusky blue. Her laugh skipped around the room.
And then she was gone.
The mystical quality that had permeated the gateroom evaporated immediately. Jack's arms grew heavy and flopped to his sides. His eyes still on the active wormhole, he stooped to retrieve his P-90. Around him, the other men were regaining their bearings, mumbling softly to themselves or others.
"What just happened?" Mitchell asked, righting his pack. "Did she just--"
"I think we should follow her," Daniel said quickly. "Now. Before the wormhole loses integrity."
Jack nodded, unable to form coherent thoughts let alone sentences. He glanced over his shoulder at Landry, who nodded his approval. Silently, he shouldered his pack and gestured his team through the horizon.
--
"I have one rule," Jack called as he exited the wormhole. "Just one, one little rule." He stopped next to Sam and turned her to face him. "No dying. A subset of said rule that should be apparent―and I stress should be apparent--is that if you're going to do anything, anything at all that looks like it could maybe, possibly be in violation of said rule, tell me lest I have a heart attack. Got it?"
She had the decency to look slightly abashed, and saluted him.
"Little brat," he mumbled as rest of SG-1 ambled towards them. But he couldn't help smiling at her; her face still shone from powering the Stargate.
"Quite the place," Mitchell said, shielding his eyes from the late afternoon sun. "I'd live here."
"Yeah," Daniel intoned, his jaw lax as he surveyed the land surrounded them. "God, look at this..."
Sam smiled at his awe and, though a part of her shared his thrill at the purity of Temporasa, a larger part of her rejoiced at her homecoming. Though she physically had never set foot on this planet before, her heart knew it intimately. She had run barefoot through the fields of Locapacis and scaled Monveras to gaze upon the distant pools of Profus Infinitam Lux. Yes, she knew this place. This was the land of her ancestors, the land of her legacy.
She turned as she felt Captain Caise's hesitant approach. "Sir?" she said, addressing Jack. "I need to make sure Colonel Carter is--"
"Yep," Jack replied, hopping out of her way. "Have at her."
Sam stood patiently as Captain Caise briefly surveyed her for trauma, content for the moment to breath deeply of the sun's heavy scent on the breezes. Losing herself in the warmth of the setting sun, she was caught off-guard when Caise gasped.
"Oh my god," the captain breathed. One of Sam's bandages was peeled away from her forehead, revealing, not healing wounds, but unblemished skin. Carefully and with unsettled eyes, Caise peeled away the remaining bandages, her eyes widening as more of Sam's skin was uncovered, every inch of it sound and intact.
Her gaze fiercely anchored to the ground, Sam felt the eyes of her companions sweeping her face, heard the unasked questions ring clearly in her head and saw their feet scuffling in for a closer look.
"Guess we don't need to worry about that anymore, ay?" Jack said, pulling an antibacterial towlette out of the medkit and gently wiping the remaining adhesive off her face. "This stuff sucks," he told her softly.
"Gratas," she whispered as the small crowd around them dispersed.
He smiled. "No problem."
Screams filled her head―women screaming for their children, children screaming for the pain to end, men screaming for the chaos to cease. Burning, she smelled fire, tasted ashes, smoke seared her lungs, filled her nostrils. Her eyes overflowed with tears.
Sam.
His face was set, his eyes milky white to match his skin. He wore a hooded robe. A staff gripped in his hand. "You are a child of the Ori."
Sam, honey.
Clothes burnt off her body. Skin charred, peeled. Flames licked her skin.
It's Jack.
Life seeped out of the cosmos. A wound dripping blood, never to congeal, seeping. Seeping.
Come back to me.
She was the only one who knew.
Please, honey.
The only one able to stop it.
Awareness trickled back to her. Brown eyes. She knew those eyes. Jack.
"Carus," she whispered, reaching for him.
"Beloved," Daniel muttered to Jack. He smiled at her in reassurance and then retreated a few steps, giving them what little privacy he could.
"I'm here," Jack told her, taking her hand in his and gathering her in his lap. She had apparently collapsed; she wasn't surprised. But they must begin their trek; the universe was dying. After allowing herself a few moments to drink in the comfort afforded by Jack's embrace, she began to rise.
"You sure you're ready to go?" he asked her. "We can take a few more--"
She shook her head. "Nula. Porroi via nos praecessa qua haud tempora ut sileo."
"The 'nula' I got," he told her, smiling slightly. She didn't return it.
"Insista," she murmured, the wind carrying the exhortation. "Insista mihi." She turned and began walking through the deep grasses, her palms open to skim the warm blades. Jack fell in behind her.
"You, uh, you know where you're goin', right?" Mitchell called to her, but she didn't answer. To Daniel, he muttered, "You see a path? I don't see a path."
"I don't think there is one," he replied, scanning the horizon. "I think 'Urbaliena per Temporasa' means city foreign to time, excluded from time, something like that. From what I know of Ancient—given this isn't exactly Ancient--"
"Right," Mitchell said.
"Some sort of derivation, right. Well, 'Praclarush Taonas' means 'lost in fire,' and the world was literally lost in fire, so I'm assuming that 'city excluded from time' is meant literally." Daniel shrugged. "I'm just guessing."
"It's a good guess," Mitchell assured him. "Especially after that funky light thing Carter did back home. 'Spose that was time being...however it is time is...when it's not been to a world for...however long it's not been...here?"
Daniel looked at him askance. "Was that a sentence?"
"I don't think so, no."
"K. Just checking."
"I believe what we experienced," Teal'c began, "was Colonel Carter channeling the immense energy of the unstable subspace field created by a newly active wormhole. Her recently acquired abilities allowed this channeling to include aspects of the light spectrum visible to the human eye."
Mitchell and Daniel stopped and watch Teal'c saunter past, a slight smirk apparent on his lips.
"Yeah," Mitchell called to him. "That was my next guess."
--
"Your faith is waning."
He spun and fell straight into the face of his god. The ground lurched into focus as he prostrated himself at the Ori's feet. "Forgive me, my lord," he managed. "I do not know--"
"You allowed the woman to live."
His chest heaved. He could not breathe. "...yes."
"You doubt the promises of Origin."
"No, my lord," he assured him. "I am dedicated to the teachings."
"Then it is our will you doubt."
"No!" he all but shouted. "No, my lord, never! Your will is pure and good, and everything--"
"Then why does the woman yet live?"
He trembled, his nostrils caked with dust. His nails entrenched in the soil, he whispered, "I could not kill her."
The intervening pause was unlike any he had ever experienced before. Seconds melded to minutes, hours, days―he felt age wearing his bones and muscles, heard his ligaments snapping under the strain of too many years. A whimper escaped his lips. Certainly, he was about to die.
"It is our will she die."
Then why do you not kill her? He thought vaguely, immediately cowering before his master. Questioning, searching―these were forbidden to the followers of Origin.
But his master did nothing. His eyes―smoldering coals burnt blue―his eyes seared into his tunic, through his flesh, into his very heart...but they always did that. Why was his arrogance not punished? Why did they not kill him when he refused to kill the woman?
"It is our will you kill her."
Please feed the muse bunnies!
