by Avalon (avalon99@telusplanet.net)
fanfic at http://members.dencity.com/avalon_online
PG-13, S/J, part 5/6
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD V
Two Roads Diverged
Pain.
More pain.
And more.
It wasn't supposed to hurt. General Carter hadn't mentioned anything about it hurting. For a moment -- if such a thing could be said to exist in the timeless vortex that Jack found himself trapped in -- irritation flashed through him.
It wasn't supposed to hurt.
After...what? Moments? Days? A lifetime? ...the pain lessened -- a little. Jack tried to draw in an unsteady breath, his starved lungs clamouring for air, trying to see past the silver and green blizzard swirling across his vision, and then the pain resumed, barrelling into him like a cannonball, scattering his consciousness into a million different directions.
"It really wasn't supposed to hurt," was his last coherent thought.
* * *
When he awoke, the pain was gone. Well, mostly. Agony shot through him once, sharply, when he tried to move, then began to fade away, disappearing like mist in the sun. Jack stayed motionless, gasping a little, until the pain had reached a manageable level, then carefully cracked open one eye, waiting for the agony to come back.
It didn't. Much. Cautiously, Jack drew in a deep breath and tried to focus his eyes. They weren't working properly, he noticed blearily. A long, thin blob of brown just in front of him danced and wavered for a long moment before settling down into a single clump of dirt. He was laying face down, he realized slowly, on dark, dusty soil. A light breeze was riffling through his hair and across the back of his outstretched hand. There was a sharp tang in the air that he could almost taste, and a scent almost but not quite like lemons...
Edora. He was on Edora! Jack had pulled himself up to a sitting position before he had time to consider whether it was really a good idea. It wasn't. The pain came back with a vengeance, slicing through his head like razors and sending his vision spinning. "Damn, General," he thought silently, holding his head in both hands and wondering if it was going to fly off, "you could have warned me..."
It was all flooding back to him now -- how he and General Carter had used the stolen...ah, "borrowed"... Tok'ra technology to send Jack O'Neill back in time, in a desperate attempt to save Jacob's daughter and change history; how they had secretly hooked it up to the Stargate; and how Jack had dove into the vortex just before a furious General Hammond had ordered it shut down...
It had been different this time, Jack remembered, wincing. The device had changed things, converting the Stargate's power so that he could cross the vast expanses of time as well as space. And it had hurt. A lot. Wincing, Jack patted himself down, checking for any permanent damage. When there didn't appear to be any Jack levered himself to his feet with a groan, and looked around him.
He was standing in the middle of a featureless expanse, the earth blackened and scorched. For a moment he struggled to place it, to remember exactly where and when he was, then another, different memory flickered through him. General Carter warning him about the device:
"It won't send your body back in time, only your consciousness. There aren't going to be two Jack O'Neill's running around in the timeline. That would be too dangerous."
Jack hadn't asked him why it would be too dangerous, had only nodded and continued hooking the machine up to the Stargate, following the General's instructions.
"Are you sure about this?" Jacob had asked. "Because you won't be going physically into the past, you won't be able to just come back to now when you're done. The device doesn't work that way. You'll have to live through that time all over again, and everything you do will have the chance to change history. That's why this is so dangerous. The timeline is fragile and..."
"If it's so dangerous," Jack had broken in, both hands and his mouth full of multi-coloured wires, "then why did the Tok'ra even bother to invent it in the first place?"
"Ah..." Jacob had hesitated and looked a little... sheepish. "Well, because..."
"Because you could."
The General had nodded, looking a little embarrassed. "Yeah. Because we could." Jack had felt a flicker of pleasure go through him at that. Nice to know that humanity wasn't the only one who liked to play with dangerous toys and do stupid things. The thought was somehow very satisfying.
Jack's attention returned to the present...er...past. Or whenever it was in his own personal timeline. He glanced down and rubbed his fingers over the back of his left hand. The scar from the cut he had received during the Tok'ra attack on the SGC was gone. So it was true. What General Carter had said was correct - he was in his own body, but in an earlier time. It had worked.
But when was he? He already knew the where, and was a bit shaken by it. Edora wasn't part of the equation. Or maybe it was. Jacob had warned him that he would end up wherever his body happened to be at that point in time. They had been aiming for just before the mission to PX3-1142, before Laira's summons for him to return to Edora. But he was on Edora now. Did that mean he was too late? Were Carter and the others being ambushed by the Goa'uld while he was stuck here? No. Cold grief went through him. He had already lived through that once. He couldn't do it again. He wouldn't.
"Jack?" There was a tentative voice behind him and he whirled, staring with startled eyes at the woman who had spoken. Laira. But... He whirled again, looking frantically for the Stargate. He had to get back, get to PX3-1142 and warn them. Save Sam...
"Jack?" she said again, laying a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you all right?"
"Laira, where's the Stargate? I need to get back to Earth, right away." His voice was thick with desperation and fear.
Confusion flickered through her eyes and she removed her hand, lifting it instead to hold the back of it against his forehead. "What is wrong with you? Do you feel unwell?"
He pulled her hand away then held onto it, like a drowning man holding onto a single lifeline. "Please Laira. It's very important. I need to get back immediately. Where is the Stargate?" Jack tightened his grip on her wrist, trying to sort through the chaos in his mind. Something wasn't right, wasn't making sense...
Still gently but with surprising strength, Laira prised his fingers open and eased her hand away from his. Then she looked back up at him, frowning in worry and puzzlement, and spoke slowly. "The Stargate is in the same place it has been these past seven days, since it was buried and you were trapped here..."
She went on, saying something about fevers and working too hard, but Jack had stopped listening. Seven days. Buried. Yes. There it was, just to his left. The shovel he had used, six months ago, to try to dig up the Stargate and find his way home. He hadn't noticed it laying on the blackened earth when he had first climbed to his feet. He was on Edora, trapped again for a hundred days. And Sam...Sam was still alive, a million light-years away, working day and night to bring home again. She was alive!
To say that relief coursed through him would be an understatement. There were no names for the emotions that were flooding through his being, although relief was foremost among them. And a wonderful sense of being alive, truly alive, for the first time in more than a week. Sam was alive. The universe had given him a second chance. Jack barely noticed that his legs were refusing to hold him any longer and that he had collapsed to a sitting position on the ground as his surroundings whirled around him. "You screwed up, General Carter," he thought happily. "It was supposed to be six weeks, not six months." But it didn't matter. Sam was still alive.
He was grinning like an idiot and laughing out loud, Jack realized a few seconds later. Laira was crouching in front of him, worry, concern, and something else etched in her eyes. Jack blinked and focused on her, his grin fading as realization hit him. The universe really had given him a second chance. Six months to relive. Six months of mistakes to fix. Six months... Gently, but firmly, Jack pulled his hands out of Laira's. A brief flash of hurt appeared in her eyes and he felt a moment of remorse. But better a small sorrow for her now than a larger one later. And then, saying nothing, he climbed slowly but decisively to his feet, picked up the shovel, and began to dig, this time in the right place. And this time, he didn't plan on stopping.
Laira watched him for a long moment before her shoulders sagged a little and she turned away, walking back towards the village. Jack paused, leaning on the shovel and watched her go, then resolutely turned back to the ground beneath his feet. "Sorry Laira," he thought as he drove the shovel deeply into the scarred earth. "Not this time. This time I'm going to do things right."
TO BE CONTINUED