Notes: Stargate SG-1/Dark Angel crossover. f/f fanfic, so if that isn't a. legal where you live/b. your sort of thing then may I suggest that you take yourself elsewhere, and try and enjoy yourself at a more respectable site, say the Vatican homepage? Four_horsemen_of_the_apocalypse@hotmail.com for anyone who wants to tell me that I'm the literary god of the 21st century. Proper constructive criticism should go there too. Archiving: if you want it, take the damn thing. Just e-mail me where, and credit me properly. That's all.





Disclaimer: Neither are mine.

Rating: PG-13 for language.



Thanks to: James Cameron, for introducing Jessica Alba to the world in general. You are God sir. And everyone who's review my work at fanfiction. Good of you to take the time.

Mark of Cain

By the Horseman

Seattle, United States, 8th May 2019

I'm slowing down.

I can feel the rot setting into my bones. What once were the militarily acceptable reflexes of a 30 year old are now the slower, weaker reaction times of a 52-year old ex doctor turned simple survivor. I guess that 11 years east of the Rockies have just managed to keep me alive and kill me slowly at the same time.

Kinda freaky if you think about it.

I can't remember what happened before. Not really. Flashes come to me, but they're getting weaker, and more infrequent. I keep on forgetting the names. Can't remember that Corporal who used to man the gate anymore. And I sometimes have difficulty remember Teal'c's name.

One though I've never had any trouble with.

I still remember Sam just fine. Every goddamn detail. The mole just below her mouth, the way that she used to chew gum while she was thinking hard about her latest project.

Everything

A cat scarpers out from behind the bins in front of me. I whip into the doorway, hoping that whatever it is misses me, and swear at myself when I see that it's a damn cat.

Feline domesticus. Although what's domestic about Seattle nowadays I dunno.

I emerge slowly from the doorway, thinking that the cat may have been startled by someone. No. Doesn't look like there's anyone else in this hellhole of a street but me and my demons.

Out of a simple human curiosity, I look up at the company whose doorway I just took shelter in.

O'Neill Deliveries. 'Nothing too large'.

Fucking coincidences. Don't ya just love 'em?

Me taking shelter in O'Neill's doorway. Sometimes, I think there must be a God, otherwise the constant fucking irony makes no damn sense whatsoever.

I carry on down the street, fighting back the demons as they prey at the doorway to my conscious. They always come, after I'm reminded of them. I've got used to fighting them. Had 20 years expierence. But they still come, hungry for the food of my insecurities, feeding off my loneliness and self- hate.

Absol-goddamn-lutely amaz-ing Fraiser. When you take your psychiatry course. You could be the next bloody Fraiser Crane at this pace.

I cower back from my own rant, looking down at my psyche and seeing the mental scar tissue that enwraps my memories.

The neon lighting either side of the street provides a dull, unearthly glow for my loitering. I wait for the girl to get here. Girl. She's about 27, and I'm calling her a girl. Age creeps up on you slowly, and then pounces when you're least ready.

"""""""""" I honestly don't know what killed him. It might have been a dozen of things. The power cut was hardly beneficial to his recovery. I remember holding his heart with my fingers, pumping constantly and angrily shouting at Hamilton, telling her that the power would be back on at any moment, and we couldn't afford to lose anybody in the SGC, let alone someone as important as Colonel Jack 'look at my brilliance' O'-fucking-Neill.

Which is promptly what we just did.

I still remember the look on Sam's face when I called it. It was like she'd lost the reason to live, that her life had suddenly been ripped from the only thing that gave it meaning. It was a look of pain, fury, sadness and grief.

I almost cracked there and then. I wanted to tear the scrubs from my body, run out and comfort Sam, tell her how much I wanted her, and let her cry as much as she want.

But no. I had to do the honourable thing (I was so fucking stupid at that age, still believed in honour and decency). I went out, and I had the brains to talk to her as 'Sam-the-grieving-loved-one', not the woman who needed my help and comfort.

Or at least that's what I keep on telling myself.

I never told her how much I wanted her. How my brain seemed to turn to slush every time I saw her, and how I couldn't even talk to her. My mind just blank, and I mumbled the same sort of platitudes at her that a three- year old would. I just seemed to go to pieces. I kept on referring back to medicine, my comfort blanket when it came to Sam.

Y'know, I read every single science journal I could find for that woman? Every time I invited her round, pretending that it was just for Cassie, I used to try and debate science with her, argue with her about quantum physics

I was so fucking lame. Such a bloody asshole. She'd always smile at me sweetly, pretending that I was some sort of goddamn challenge for her.

God, I was so fucking stupid. Sam never wanted me, not like I wanted, ached, longed for her. I used to wake up to her, and cuddle her as she went to sleep. I was obsessed with her, knew her day down to when she drank her first coffee in the morning (8:33am, as she got into work, but before she started up on her projects. Black, no sugar, but with milk).

I wince at the memory of how much I wanted Sam.

And y'know what? I still do

""""""""""

After P3-108 I ran like hell. I can't remember leaving the SGC but I must have. Just went AWOL. It was fucking cowardly, I know that. I asked Daniel to take care of Cassie, and just ran. Went for as long as my car would carry me.

I crouch in a corner, where the street turns off to a side passageway, arms clutched up over my head, trying to drown out my whispering tormentors. I turn slightly, old habits kicking in, checking that the passageway is deserted. I'm carrying, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Cassie's a doctor now. Somewhere east, one of the refugee camps outside Boston or something. I had this excuse for a private eye look into it a few years ago. Doctor Cassandra Fraiser. She even adopted my name. I left without warning her one day in May, and haven't seen her in 20 years. And she adopts my name.

It gently feeds the demons in my head. They know what Cassie's done, and they keep on torturing me with the guilt of it all.

Hammond's dead. Shot by anarchists in northern California. They appointed him military governor a couple of years ago, and he never even got into Sacramento. They dragged him and his wife out of the car, and shot her in front of him on the side of the highway. He got a couple of slugs to the gut, and was left there, bleeding.

Logan told me it was the government. He has this paranoia thing that the government is responsible for all worries and sorrows in the world. If only it was that easy, I keep on wanting to tell him. The government doesn't have the energy or the brains to organise a worldwide conspiracy. Hell, I was involved in the goddamn Stargate project for years. I should know, if no-one else does.

It was the NID. Pure and fucking simple. They killed Hammond, had their fingerprints all over it.

I got Max to track 'em down. She worked a treat, left the entire cell to be wiped out by the government. All that, and a nice ass too.

I stifle a grin, and feel the demons rustling up in my subconscious. I can't betray Sam. Even if she wanted me. Which she doesn't. Who the hell would want a 52-year old with a scar down her left hand face.

Who possibly murdered her only love's chosen one.

It's isn't a real scar after all. Biblical references keep on coming back to me whenever I look at it. It's sorta like the mark that God gave Cain.

Given to the one who murders someone out of jealousy.

Appropriate given the circumstances. I don't know if I murdered Jack O'Neill, consciously or unconsciously. I may have, I may not have.

I'll never forgive myself though.