O'Neill had noticed, having spent far more than the normal amount of time fading gradually back into consciousness after a long period of blissful insensibility, that the olfactory senses always seemed to return first. Most people seemed to talk about hearing someone calling them, or light through their eyelids, but O'Neill always smelt something that bought him back to consciousness.
He could smell cold air, a breeze on his face. There *were* voices, on the edge of hearing, familiar ones. And light, shining through his eyelids.
Cold air. Had to be better than sulphur and brimstone. He opened his eyes.
Thor was standing over him; never before in his life had he been happier to see the alien's egg-shaped head. "Thor!" he cried, although his throat felt as if it were full of sand and it emerged as more of a croak.
"O'Neill. I am glad you have regained consciousness."
O'Neill struggled to sit up; thankful that all his arms and legs appeared to be present and functioning, if somewhat erratically. "Where's Carter?"
"She is close by. She has yet to regain consciousness."
"Can I see her?"
"Soon," Thor assured, and O'Neill noticed for the first time a slightly worried edge to his voice. He ran his hand self-consciously through his thinning hair. He stopped, hand hovering over his head. His hair had been shaved short and almost bald on top but now his fingers touched a shock of hair two inches from his head; thick and luxuriant. He traced the hair to where it now fell, just below his earlobes.
"What happened? Are Daniel and Teal'c okay?" he asked, his voice sounding as if it were coming from far, far away. He bought his hands in front of his head. Here again was a difference. His hands were scarred, gnarled with age. The hands he held before him now were smooth, the skin supple and tanned. Something was wrong here. His head felt as if it were full of cotton wool, thinking was harder than it should be...
"Their escape pods were successfully retrieved and Doctor Jackson and Teal'c have been returned safely to Earth."
"What happened to me?" he repeated, now tracing his bare arms with his long, tapering fingers. Muscles long wasted with age once more bulged with the vigour of youth.
"Your body was destroyed in the explosion, along with that of General Carter," Thor said.
O'Neill considered this. He thought that he ought to feel slightly more... more *bothered* by this bald statement, but he didn't.
"How am I here?"
"Your consciousness was stored on the computer core which survived the explosion, stored via the neural link on your headsets. Enough genetic material was procured to clone a replacement body into which your consciousness was transferred."
O'Neill swung his legs off the bed, clutching the silvery blanket to him to cover his nakedness. "I'm a clone?"
Thor looked awkward. "Not exactly. You're *original* consciousness has been transferred into a cloned body."
"This isn't the body that died. This isn't even *like* the body that died."
"No," Thor said, honestly. "We thought that it would be more beneficial to only age the new body to maturity as is standard procedure for Asguard transferences, as you know."
O'Neill nodded woodenly. "Uh. I need some time to... get my head straight... Can you tell me when Carter wakes up?"
"Of course. Your possessions remain in your quarters, if you wish to put on some clothes."
O'Neill smiled thinly. The Asguard had never really understood the whole idea of clothes.
He wrapped the silvery blanket firmly around his midriff and hurried towards his quarters on Thor's ship. They were as he had left them.
A mess.
He dropped the blanket as he hunted for some clean boxers in the piles of clothes. His gaze was caught by the figure in the mirror and he found himself drawn inexorably to the glass.
It was his face, certainly. The angular lines and wrinkles age had bought had been erased and there was a softer look to it, but it was reassuringly familiar. His hair was wrong, longer than he had ever kept it in his life, but it was muddy brown again, curling as it grew away from his head. He studied his torso carefully, somewhat admiringly; it was as if it belonged to someone else because even at the peak of his physical fitness, even when he was twenty-two year old special-forces officer, he had never had muscles this defined and developed.
He knew the Asguard had medical techniques that could exercise unused muscles, so that their cloned bodies were in perfect physical condition when they transferred their consciousness. Presumably they had used the same techniques on himself.
Apart from the muscles, everything else (even *that*) seemed pretty much the same. Maybe a bit less wrinkled, or slightly less hairy, or not as grey, balding or gnarled. But still familiar; still *his.*
Which was reassuring.
Thor had offered him a cloned body before, but he'd refused. He'd allowed them to perform some surgery on his knees (otherwise he's probably in a wheelchair by now) and he had been thinking about asking Thor to do something about his arthritis but he had been uneasy about cloning. It wasn't a religious thing it was just, where would it end? To be younger in body than his friends; Daniel, Teal'c and Carter, would be plain weird.
He couldn't remember dying. Maybe, he thought, maybe my consciousness just hid in the computer before I actually burnt to death.
Maybe.
He dressed unthinkingly, his once baggy tee shirts now pulled tight over his chest. The comm link beeped. "O'Neill. General Carter is awake."
He hurried out of the room.
*
Carter sat on the bed, gazing unseeing out of the window at the scattering of burning white stars, like white paint dribbled on an inky blue surface.
She supposed she ought to feel happy.
She *felt* guilty. How stupid was that?
She had sacrificed her life to save another and by wondrous fortune and luck she had been given this... this amazing new chance at life, this fantastic body; so familiar and yet so perfect she barely felt it belonged to her.
She brushed her hair back behind her ears. It was nearly waist length and golden-blonde. She couldn't remember when her hair had last been this long. Probably when she was about six. The sleeves of the shirt she had borrowed from Jack, several sizes too large, hung loosely over her hands; coming to rest on the knees of extremely baggy, worn blue jeans.
What was she going to tell Cassie?
Beep. Beep-Beep.
Someone was pressing the doorbell. She sniffed and wiped eyes she hadn't noticed were tear-filled.
"Come in."
"Hey Carter," O'Neill said as the door slid open and a shaft of light illuminated the dark room, making her blink owlishly."Present for you," he said, indicating the bundle of clothing he carried in his arms. "You feelin' okay?"
"Just a bit weird," she confessed. "Computer, lights up."
He sat down on the bed next to her and she saw his face more clearly, impossibly young. Somehow, the youthful beauty made her feel more sad.
He rested his hand lightly on her shoulder for a moment. "Stop beating yourself up about it."
She smiled wryly, wishing he couldn't read her quite so well. "I just-"
"I know. Stop thinking about it. You-I-we've both been given a chance to live our lives again. That's all there is to it. No guilt." He looked sidelong at her, his roving hazel gaze softening as he took in the slight pink flush in her cheeks, the crystal blue of her eyes now freed from lines of laughter and care. He reached across and stroked an errant strand of golden blonde hair falling across her face, tucking it behind her ear. "I thought you would have cut this off," he commented, voice constricted with an emotion she refused to acknowledge.
She shrugged. "It's been a long time since I had long hair. I decided to keep it this way for a bit."
"It suits you," he responded, tracing the fall of her blonde locks with his eyes over her shoulder and down to her waist. Self-consciously he reached up and ran his hand through his own shock of brown hair. "I didn't know whether to cut mine or not," he admitted. There was an uncomfortable silence. He shifted awkwardly, trying to think of a way to end it.
"Thor told me we're heading back to Earth," she said listlessly.
"Yeah, me too."
"Aren't you worried?" she asked him, eyeing him quizzically.
It was his turn to shrug. "Not overly. I mean, I think most people will be glad to see us alive."
She paused before speaking. "I can't imagine what Cassie's going to say," she sighed.
"She'll just be happy that you came home," he reassured.
"I suppose," Carter replied, disbelieving.
Silence descended on them again. He took a deep breath. "Carter?"
"Jack?"
"You know... if all of this hadn't have happened. Would you have... uh. Would you have said yes?"
The silence ballooned as he held his breath in anticipation.
"Yes." The word was as the footfall of a God in O'Neill's world and he let out the breath he had been holding.
She sighed and looked away, the all too familiar sinking feeling in her stomach overwhelming her. "Don't-" she began, before he could.
"Don't what?" he asked, eyes suddenly alight, "Don't... what?"
"Don't say it," she warned, "Don't ask me. You know it isn't fair."
He stood up, so suddenly he made her flinch, and walked over to the window, arms clasped behind his back. When he spoke his voice emerged flat calm. "Ask you?"
She felt her own anger flare. "Stop playing stupid," she said, her voice shaking, "You know I can't-not anymore-"
"Oh, for cryin' out loud, why not?" he half-hissed, spinning around to face her, his face no longer as attractive in a shade of flushed red.
"Because!" she returned, stuttering in her anger, "Because there's a whole universe out there! And twenty-five years isn't long enough to explore it! Now I have a second chance to find out more."
"I don't want to stop exploring either!" he shouted back, "But... can't we explore together? Why does it always have to come down to a choice between me or the SGC?" He moved obliquely across the black floor, drawing ever nearer.
"Why?" she yelled, "Why?!" She froze, the cool logic she had convinced herself with only moments earlier disappearing. There *was* a good reason for furthering her career at the SGC, she was sure of it, but he was too close to her... clouding her judgement. When she had looked Death in the face she had felt secure. At peace. There was no one else she would have wanted to be with. Wasn't that love?
He grabbed her arms, the movement shockingly sudden but his touch gentle.
"What more can you achieve Major-General Doctor Carter?" he whispered, "Career wise, what more is there that you want?"
Nothing. She knew the answer even if she couldn't say it. All she had ever wanted was holding her by the arms, dangerously near. Hormones, a long forgotten factor in their whole miserable equation were once more pulsing in her veins, dragging her gaze to his mouth. She could see the light dusting of stubble on his trembling upper lip; see the flush that angry blood thundering through his body leant him. She could hear ragged breathing, his own or hers she couldn't tell.
Why? Why couldn't she say yes? Was it simply that she had gotten so used to denying her feelings that now the opportunity to act on them presented itself she couldn't bring herself to do anything?
Forget pride at being a strong and independent woman. Forget old decisions. Forget what people would think. What did she, this Sam Carter standing here now with Jack O'Neill physically begging her to decide, really want?
Their eyes met again. She leant forward slowly, drawn inexorably forward until their noses touched. She kissed his upper lip, the prickling of spiky stubble adding a kind of reality to the dreamlike state she now found herself inhabiting. He kissed her lips back, gently, capturing her bottom lip between his own until they found the kiss deepening, moving away from the chaste brush of mouths it had started out as and into a more passionate, frenzied contact.
She slid backwards under the gentle weight he was exerting on her arms until they were lying, tangled together, on her bed. Her hand slid from where it had been clasped around his neck to rest on his chest and he misconstrued the gesture, drawing away from her, thinking she was uncomfortable. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him back
His hands moved from where they had gripped her arms, snaking down the contours of her body. His thumbs came to rest at the waist of her borrowed jeans as she knit her right hand into his hair, the other creeping over his shoulder to touch his back.
He broke away; leaned his forehead against hers, trying to think straight after experiencing the most intense kiss in his life. Carter tugged at the hem of his tee shirt and he responded unthinkingly, allowing her to pull it over his head.
They kissed again, his fingers fumbling for the buttons of her shirt, as she ran her hands over his exquisitely muscled frame; tracing the contours of the muscles that were defined to the degree of an anatomical chart and yet did not lend a disproportionate bulk to his lanky frame.
His fingers, fumbling with desire, managed to undo several of her buttons and he pulled open her shirt, shocked to find that she wasn't wearing any underwear underneath. But then, he didn't have bra to lend her, did he? A small moan escaped his mouth as his hands moved to mirror hers, seemingly no longer under their owner's control; the feel of her skin brushing the palms of his hands explosively intense. He felt her mouth move under his as they kissed; she was smiling.
He forced his hands to grip her shoulders, fighting the impulse to slide them back down her body again; his resolve nearly breaking as she kissed his throat. "Stop," he pleaded, his voice breaking.
"Stop?" she replied, confused.
His hands were shaking. "Stop," he repeated, hating himself for saying it but coercing the words to croak out of his throat.
"Why?" she asked, shifting her weight slightly and forcing her hips into his. He gasped slightly and she smiled again at the reaction, making as if to shift again.
"Because this isn't us. And it isn't fair. I mean, we can't... I can't know you like this if you're going to leave me alone at the end of it. Okay, Sam? I couldn't live with it. You can turn away and walk right now and... well, I'd deal with it. But I wouldn't be able to if we... if we..." He blushed, and realised he couldn't say the words.
She slumped back and his head dropped into the crook of her shoulder and neck, relishing the warmth of her skin pressed against his, her smell filling his senses. Now a little of the craziness had dissipated from atmosphere he found he was glad just to be here, alive with Carter. Sam. Whatever.
The comm-link beeped. "O'Neill. General Carter. We are approaching Earth."