---
PART TWENTY ONE
---
A light touch on her shoulder yanked her from a deep sleep, and she jerked sharply on the bed as she woke.
"Easy," a quiet voice whispered near her ear.
"Paul?" she murmured, trying to gain her bearings.
Infirmary. They were in SGC, holed up until the local bugs were taken care of.
Cassie.
She sat upright instantly, and cracked her forehead against Paul Davis' jaw.
"Oh, shit," he hissed as the crack echoed through the still room.
Janet clutched at her head until the sharp, sudden pain faded. "God, sorry," she whispered. "You okay?"
"You're lucky that wasn't my nose," Paul muttered. "I think Cassie's waking up."
Paul was forgotten almost instantly as Janet scrambled out of the bed she found herself in, not even thinking about how she got into the bed in the first place.
"Cassie?" she whispered, stopping next to the bed her daughter was lying on.
Janet thought she might have imagined it, but Cassie's eyelids seemed to flicker.
"What did you see?" Janet demanded, resting a cool hand on Cassandra's forehead.
"I'm sure her fingers twitched twice," Paul said firmly.
Again, Janet could have sworn she saw eyelashes fluttering. Seconds later Cassandra's lips twitched.
"Oh, god," Janet breathed, wrapping her fingers tightly around Cassandra's hand. "Cassie, honey, can you hear me? It's me. Mom."
A butterfly brush of movement within her fingers was Cassandra's respond. A weak, barely there flutter of her fingers before they fell still again.
"Oh, honey," Janet whispered, leaning over to press a kiss against Cassie's forehead. "You're going to be okay, sweetie, you're going to be okay."
When she moved away she was surprised to see dampness on Cassandra's skin, but when Paul reached over with a Kleenex and dabbed under her eyes she realised she was crying. She smiled at Paul gratefully. When a whisper soft moan escaped Cassie' lips, Janet wrapped her free hand tightly around Paul's and waited as her daughter finally woke up.
---
"Are you awake?" someone asked quietly.
Bek was tempted to keep her eyes closed and pretend she was, but there was something about the person standing beside her bed that tugged at her.
A Tok'ra, she realised, and opened her eyes.
Harry Maybourne was standing beside her. The man she had met that day at the airfield had been tense and anxious, his mouth pulled tight with strain and his eyes shifting quickly out of her gaze. This Harry Maybourne looked more in command of himself, and his gaze met hers steadily.
"I'm awake now," she said finally. She was the one to break his gaze.
"El'son wanted to talk to you," Maybourne said by way of explanation.
El'son, the Tok'ra who had accompanied Garshaw the day she blended with Bek. The Tok'ra who had been damaged, and blended with Maybourne to save both of them.
"About?"
Maybourne's eyes flashed gold, and despite having been blended herself, Bek felt a flicker of unease and fear at the display.
"Garshaw."
"I don't want to talk about that," Bek said icily, glaring at the Tok'ra.
"I understand in her last moments Garshaw acted in a manner which left you helpless."
"Jack was right," Bek spat at the Tok'ra. "The Tok'ra can't be trusted."
Maybourne/El'son smiled somewhat sadly at her. "You are grieving," he said gently, and lowered himself to the bed beside her. "If you could have saved Earth, but had to sacrifice yourself, would you have done so?"
Bek would have liked to think that she'd answer yes to that question, but having lived through it by way of Garshaw, she didn't think she could honestly answer it.
El'son interpreted her silence as permission to touch her, and he covered her hand with his. She stared at his hand; his fingernails were bitten and chipped to the quick, and hard calluses roughened the skin of his fingers.
"You are allowed to grieve for her," El'son said quietly. "It may seem strange because you were only blended for a short period, but a blending combines two beings in a way that nothing else does. You were part of each other, and now it feels as though a part of yourself has died."
Bek refused to look up at him, and she tried to pull her fingers out from under his. The Tok'ra tightened his grip on her hand though, and reached with his other hand to gently take her chin and lift her face toward his.
"There is still a part of you inside her, just as you have a part of all her hosts before. Their memories are yours now, and their knowledge is yours. It will be difficult to accept it on your own, but it can be done."
"How?" Bek whispered, closing her eyes to break their gaze.
El'son shrugged. "I am not the one to ask; I have always been blended with another. Samantha Carter was once blended with a Tok'ra, perhaps she can offer you more advice."
At his words, memories of Sam when she first met Garshaw assaulted Bek's senses, and she gasped at the vividness. The Sam in the memories was so young, she realised, and so innocent compared to the hard, silent woman Bek had been introduced too. Memories of different people all known to Garshaw as hosts of Jolinar accosted her next, and Bek opened her eyes to try and stop the images flooding her mind.
El'son was still there, holding her hand she realised.
"It is a great gift, what you have been given," El'son remarked. "And great gifts often have great curses. You were selfless in your act of generosity when you volunteered with Garshaw. Garshaw was selfless in her act when she saved your planet. If you are ever in need of anything, Rebekah, the Tok'ra will do their utmost to assist you."
The Tok'ra eyes flashed again, and when Bek met his gaze she realised it was Maybourne she was looking at, and not El'son any longer.
"Are you going to stay blended?" she asked him eventually, when the silence in the room was too loud.
He shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like I didn't have voices in my head before. One more probably won't make all that much difference."
She smiled slightly at his attempt at a joke. "I liked Garshaw," she admitted, sighing. "But when she refused to let me have control… she just pushed me aside and rammed me into a corner. There was nothing I could do, and even though I screamed and screamed and screamed I never made a sound."
Maybourne's lip twitched, but he didn't respond.
"I never want to feel like that again," Bek whispered. "Ever."
"I'm a little concerned about that," Maybourne admitted. "Okay, a lot."
"You'll accept the risk?" Bek wanted to know.
Maybourne paused. "Well, I sort of owe him my life, so I guess it would only be fair."
Bek nodded, biting her lip. "Garshaw thought of El'son as very noble and honourable. I guess he's one of the better ones to get stuck with."
"El'son is flattered by Garshaw's opinion of him, and would like to inform you that if anything he's got the worse end of this deal because he's stuck with me," Maybourne said, grinning.
Despite herself and the dark emptiness inside her, Bek found herself smiling at him.
"If he picks on you, El'son, just tell me and I'll sort him out."
Maybourne looked at her oddly. "You're not a bad kid, Bek. I'm sorry about Cassandra."
"Yeah," Bek said quietly. "Me too."
---
It felt like a lifetime had passed since he found out Carter was still alive, despite the fact that it was little more than a week in reality. Still, in all that time, he hadn't really allowed himself to consider the implications of Carter being alive, and why exactly the knowledge made him feel so… content, despite everything else that had happened.
If he'd failed to truly consider her apparent status amongst the living for the last week or so, then he was certainly making up for lost time now. Sitting beside her while she slept on the hospital bed, he allowed himself to really look at her. To notice the dark rings under her eyes, and the way her cheekbones appeared more prominent than he was used to. Even in sleep, there was a tightness around her lips that spoke of bad dreams and a hard life.
And her hair.
Unable to help himself, Jack placed the offering of Jello he'd managed to locate in the commissary on the small cabinet beside her bed and reached his fingers out toward the tempting strands of hair. Short and spiky, there was something strangely satisfying about fiddling with her prison haircut.
"You really need to get a dog, sir."
Once upon a time, Jack would probably have jerked back guiltily if someone had discovered him stroking Carter's hair. Today, though, he continued ruffling it with his finger and looked down to meet her clear blue eyes, now open wide and looking up at him curiously.
"They're generally not as clean as your head," he said easily, ruffling a little more enthusiastically now that she was awake.
She scowled at him darkly, obviously not impressed with her hair, but didn't move away from his ministrations.
"I brought you a present," he said when the silence threatened to grow too strained.
"Just tell me it's not orange," she said with feeling.
He grinned at her, retrieving the bowl of Jello and presenting it to her with a flourish. "It's blue," he told her, even though she could see that for herself.
Her eyes widened and she stared at the Jello he still held in his hands. "Well?" he demanded impatiently.
To his surprise, and slight discomfort, it looked like she was trying not to cry. "I haven't had Jello… God. Thank you," she whispered, meeting his gaze steadily. For the first time in a long, long time, Jack saw the ghost of the old Carter in her eyes.
He smiled at her. "You going to eat it, or stare at it all day?"
She struggled to sit up in the bed, and he knew from experience that if he tried to help he'd do more harm than good. Eventually she had herself propped up on her pillows, and reached for the bowl with her good hand.
He would have handed the bowl over, but if she held onto it he wasn't sure how she was going to feed herself given her right arm wasn't exactly functioning properly.
"Full service," he told her blandly, sitting himself on the bed next to her and holding the bowl within her reach.
She looked like she wanted to argue with him; Carter hated being incapacitated, and for him to hold the bowl for like a child… the indignity of it was something Jack could well relate to. Instead of giving her an opportunity to argue with him, he grabbed the spoon and gathered up a large chunk of the Jello. "If I'm holding the bowl, the least you can do is share," he told her before jamming the spoonful into his own mouth.
"You don't like blue though," she said heatedly as he swallowed her present.
"They didn't have red, so this will have to do," he returned easily, digging the spoon into the dessert again.
"Am I going to get some of this Jello, or is my present watching you eat it?" Carter demanded.
Jack hesitated, not entirely sure how to take that statement. Carter cleared up the confusion by blushing, obviously not having intended to phrase her jibe quiet so suggestively. He grinned at her, and offered her the spoonful, expecting her to take it out of his hands and feed herself.
Again, Carter surprised him by opening her mouth and allowing him to feed the Jello to her. "Good?" he asked as she closed her eyes and savoured the taste.
"Oh yeah," she said quietly. When she finally opened her eyes, there was a softness in her gaze he didn't ever remember seeing before. "Thank you, Jack," she told him quietly.
"You're welcome, Sam," Jack said, helping himself to another mouthful. The shared the Jello in silence, a spoonful each until Jack was scraping the edges of the bowl for a last taste.
"They've given us the all-clear," Jack said finally, holding the empty bowl in his hands.
"What do you mean?" Carter asked.
"The crystals we got… they're doing the job with the bugs. They're saying that the local skies are clean and bug free."
Carter looked doubtful. "They can't guarantee that though," she pointed out. "What about bugs in the process of developing? Or where there's a significant lack of human habitation. There's no way they can say for certain the bugs aren't breeding and-"
"They're taking care of it," Jack interrupted, feeling a bubble of amazement inside him. Despite her arm, her experiences, her imprisonment… Carter just never managed to stop thinking. "Something about EM beacons to attract any remaining bugs being put up all over the country, and specially created squads to go around killing any infestations that do crop up."
Carter still looked unconvinced. "I don't think we'll ever be able to get rid of them all."
"Probably not," Jack agreed. "Fraiser says the vaccines will help keep the humans protected, but the ecosystem is going to be experiencing some pretty dramatic jumps. She's not positive it can withstand the long term effect of the bugs moving in."
Carter studied him carefully. "You don't sound too upset about that," she said finally.
Jack shrugged. "I don't care anymore," he admitted, placing the bowl back on the cabinet, but not moving from his spot on her bed. "President's giving us commendations and clearing our names. Did you know that?"
Bitterness didn't suit Carter's features. "I don't care," she said coldly. "They can all go shove their heads up their asses as far as I'm concerned," she added.
"Apparently Paul Davis has had several of the brass from DC on his back already. They want to set up media interviews with us – well, you specifically, but I've been graciously invited along – and ceremonies and the like. You're America's new sweetheart, Carter."
"I'm beginning to wonder why I fought so hard for my country," Carter said quietly.
"When they just left you high and dry to rot?"
She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
"Teal'c and your Dad are leaving soon," Jack announced. "I'm going with them."
Her eyes flew up to meet his. "Why?"
He shrugged. "The Jaffa are loyal. And when you get to know them, the Tok'ra aren't so bad either," he said carefully.
It took her a lot less time to consider his cryptic proposition than he would have thought. "Is there room for one more on the Tel'tac?" she asked hopefully.
Jack grinned. "Apparently the next planet on the list of safe havens has beaches that go on forever. Your Dad also knows of a few planets that have lakes with fish, and Teal'c said he'd help me build a cabin."
"How will you feed a dog on another planet?" Carter asked him logically.
He sighed, and eyed her very short hair cut speculatively.
"No," she said with finality, reading his mind. "My hair is not staying like this."
Jack grinned broadly at her. "Pity," he said, rising to his feet. "I thought it looked kinda cute."
Carter scowled at him again.
"I'll let your Dad know you're coming with us," he told her, picking up the empty Jello bowl. "And I'll make sure I raid the commissary's Jello stores before we go."
She grinned at him, and Jack felt like whistling as he walked out of the infirmary.
---
Sam had always spoken about Cassandra's strength and determination with an affection that made Jacob long to see his daughter have a child of her own. He'd always thought she'd make a wonderful mother, but his daughter's heart had always been first and foremost with the Stargate program.
Watching Cassandra now, struggling to make her legs work and carry her weight, Jacob understood why Sam respected the young woman so much.
"How's she doing?" Jack asked from beside Jacob.
"She's improved a little more again," Jacob replied, his eyes not leaving the strange, dragging motion of Cassandra's right leg. "I can't do any more for her though."
The two men watched silently as Janet coaxed her daughter along, both women completely focused on their task.
"Will she get better?" Jack asked hopefully.
Jacob shook his head regretfully. "The damage to her leg was extensive; I'm surprised we managed to save it. There's also significant brain damage that is well and truly beyond our repair. The only chance we have of helping her is a sarcophagus, and even then I think it's unlikely it would do much more for her than we've already done."
Jack sighed. "I'm surprised that she's up and walking already," he admitted.
Jacob smiled. "She's a very stubborn young woman, Jack."
Jack grinned. "Takes after Carter and Janet," Jack informed him.
Jacob looked carefully at the man standing next to him, curious about Jack's slight shift in relationship with his daughter. Jacob wasn't blind – he'd seen the closeness between the two of them previously, even when they were in a command chain. He never doubted his daughter would break regulations, but now that the two were in a non-chain of command situation, everything appeared very grey. Along with that, Jacob thought speculatively, Jack had informed Jacob that Sam was joining them when they left earth.
Jacob was happy to hear his daughter would be travelling with them, in a manner of speaking, but Jack had clearly indicated that Sam would be with him, not Jacob.
"Careful, sweety."
Jacob realised with surprise that during his internal mulling over the situation between Sam and Jack, he'd missed Janet and Cassandra's approach.
"She wanted to say hi," Janet explained as she helped support Cassandra.
Next to Jacob, Jack grinned broadly. "You're doing well, Cass," he said.
Cassandra smiled sloppily, half her mouth refusing to lift self and complete the gesture. A small, incoherent mumble escaped from her lips, and Jacob felt a pang of regret. He would have liked to be able to help Cassandra more, but there was only so much they could do.
"Come on, Cass, let's go for a walk," Jack said gently, taking Janet's place next to the young woman.
Together, Jack and Cassandra made their way back to the physio equipment Cassandra had been using earlier under Janet's supervision.
"I wanted to say thank you again," Janet said quietly next to him. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost her."
"She won't ever recover, Janet," Jacob said gently.
Janet smiled, but there was a touch of uncertainty in her eyes. "I know."
"Have you determined the extent of the effects on her brain yet?" Jacob asked.
Janet shook her head. "I haven't had time to do any proper testing, but there's a lot of damage, sir. Very broad, very extensive."
"She's a strong young woman," Jacob said finally, watching Cassandra struggle. "I don't think many other people would have been able to fight it as long as she did."
Janet nodded. "I'm not sure what she understand and what she doesn't," Janet confessed. "Sometimes I think she understands too well what's happened, and other times…"
"It's been a day, Janet," Jacob said carefully. "Don't push too hard; she still has some healing to do on her own."
Janet smiled. "I know. I just… she's my little girl, sir. I can't… the thought…"
"I know," Jacob said quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You can be proud of her."
Janet nodded. "Thank you again, sir. For everything."
"Have you spoken to Sam yet?" Jacob asked after a moment of silence.
"I know she plans to leave with the Colonel," Janet said carefully.
Jacob nodded. "I want her to stay for a while though, but I don't want it to come from me. Either from Jack, or you, or someone, but I think she needs to stay here first and tidy a few loose ends up before she goes."
"Sir?"
Jacob smiled at her. "Selmak says that right now my daughter is hurting because of what she sees as a betrayal by her country. Personally, I think Sam's well within her rights, but Selmak's probably got the right idea when she says that if Sam stays and accepts her commendations and the public apology before she leaves, things will be easier for her in the future if she wants to come back or visit."
Janet nodded thoughtfully. "I'll talk to the Colonel," she said at length. "Sam… Sam's not very happy with me at the moment."
"Give her time, Janet," Jacob suggested gently. "Once she cools down she'll realise that things were out of your control and that she's being unreasonable."
"Maybe she is being unreasonable," Janet agreed, "but she is right to be upset at me. I doubted her, and that alone is reason enough for her to be upset with me."
"We're all human, Janet. Give her a little time."
Janet smiled up at him, and he squeezed her shoulder before letting his hand drop. "Thank you, sir. I'd better get back to Cassandra now, and let the Colonel go talk to Sam."
Jacob grinned. "You're a wise woman, Dr. Fraiser."
She winked at him, and seconds later Jacob was standing by himself watching as Janet and Jack carefully helped Cassandra continue to move around the exercise equipment.
He only hoped he was right about Sam.
---