Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters do not belong to me. They are property of the writers, producers, SciFi, etc. The only thing I own is this story and any original plot/dialogue contained here in.
Summary/Spoilers: Post Lost City, part 2. Kinda AU. Potential spoilers for everything up through and including "Lost City" and possible borrowing of the limited spoilers I have read for Season 8.
Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the Prologue. It was great to see the response this fic generated. It's been a really long time since I wrote anything to be posted here on ff.net. I know the prologue was kinda cryptic and poetic, but that was done on purpose. I left it purposely vague too, as to what was happening to Sam, but I promise I know exactly what was going on, and I'll let you all in on it in time. Thanks to Marcisgate for betaing! Enjoy Chapter one!
Of course, the kissing and passionate embracing soon followed.
But it all started with Jell-O.
She had searched tirelessly for months for a way to free him. They all had. Teal'c had returned to Chulak and beyond in search of answers while she and Daniel had burned the midnight oil until Dr. Weir threatened her with a court marshal and him with expulsion from the program. After that they dropped back to 20 hours a day.
After a month, they brought in Jacob to reason with her. Selmak had even made her presence known and expressed her thoughts on the matter. The Tok'ra were sympathetic to their plight. In the beginning, they'd agreed to help their Tauri Allies find a way to free Colonel O'Neill, but after trying everything they could think of, including trying to modify their sarcophagus, to no avail, they gave up. They mourned O'Neill as though he had died in battle. Most did. Dr. Weir and General Hammond had wanted to have a memorial service, but Sam and Daniel and Teal'c had insisted no--Jack was alive, somewhere, somehow, in that block of impenetrable ice and whatever other compound it was comprised of.
After three months, General Hammond and Dr. Weir had assumed joint command of the SGC, and SG-1 was considered on "special assignment", as Teal'c was off world and Sam and Daniel were still throwing themselves headlong into finding a cure for Jack. They traveled to numerous Ancient outposts, via the Prometheus or the Stargate but never found themselves any closer to defrosting Jack.
After five months, Daniel came to her and tried to talk her into calling it quits. They had devoted nearly half a year to this, and Colonel O'Neill was no closer to returning to his former self then he had from the moment he'd stuck his head in the Ancients' device. She fought him bitterly, and he agreed to devote another month to this, but that was it. After that, they would have to accept it--Jack was gone, never to return. Teal'c returned from his travels, reporting that he too had been unsuccessful. They received a message from Jonas Quinn, expressing his sympathy and regret, asking if they had thought of using naquadria as a means of restoring him. They replied that they had, unsuccessfully, and would keep him apprised of further developments.
At six months, after much argument, Sam reluctantly ended her search of Jack's cure. She locked all her research into four sets of file cabinets, locked them away in a storage room on the base, and readied herself in dress blues for the Colonel's memorial service. His "remains", as everyone began calling them, were going to be kept cryogenically on base, sealed. "As good as dead and buried," Sam had thought bitterly as she trudged through the halls of the underground complex, feeling an astonishing sense of deja vu--she had attended Janet's memorial nearly a year earlier, and the pain from that, still fresh, mixed with the undiminishing pain she felt towards what had happened to Jack--to the Colonel.
As his Second, she had been expected to speak at the service, just as she had at Janet's. Daniel and Teal'c and General Hammond spoke first. Cassandra was there, her eyes seemingly dull and lifeless, swollen and puffy with tears. Within a matter of months, the young woman had lost her mother and the closest thing to a father she had ever known. Sam had taken her in, as best she could working around the clock. During the months she'd spent searching for O'Neill's cure, Sam had realized that, in not dealing with her own grief, for both Janet and the Colonel, she hadn't helped Cassie deal with hers, either.
After the memorial, Sam was promoted to Colonel and given command of SG-1. Along with her promotion came a month of downtime, after which SG-1 would resume its duties, comprised of Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, and a fourth member she would select from a list of candidates.
Teal'c went to serve with Bra'tac--to keep himself agile and battle ready, he said. Daniel joked that even Teal'c had gotten his fill of Kel'noreem.
Daniel decided to travel. He went first to Egypt, his old haunt, before moving on to Greece, Italy, and the UK, throwing himself into further research of the Roman and Greek gods and the Celtic Druids, trying to find some correlation between them and the false-gods the Goa'uld had inflicted upon the Egyptians. He promised to control himself and be back in a month. "Really, Sam, this is a vacation for me," he said, his tired eyes holding the barest hint of mischief.
"I know," she'd replied good-naturedly, as she packed some of her belongings from her quarters at the base. She was leaving her cell phone and pager and taking Cassie and Jack's truck up north to his cabin.
"You're going fishing?" Daniel asked bemused. He knew how many times Jack had tried getting them all to go on an SG-1 bonding/fishing trip thing. Sam had always refused. For her refusal, Jack had tried getting her to agree to a one on one fishing trip. Which, by extension, presented an entire other issue about which Daniel kept to himself, mostly.
"It seems," she began, meeting his eyes for the first time that day, "appropriate. Cassie needs me. I haven't been very good to her."
"You've done your best," Daniel insisted. "I know she understands. We didn't forsake her after Janet...after she died. We were there for her."
"Were we? Or did we hide from our grief by throwing ourselves into mission after mission, determined to find the Lost City of the Ancients?"
"We were there for her as much as we could be," Daniel insisted. "She knows that. You and Jack tried harder than any of us to comfort her."
Sam's piercing gaze held his, "And now she's lost him too. I'm all she has left, Daniel."
He crossed the room and took her hand in his, stilling her stiff, mechanical mode of packing. "No you're not. She has us. And so do you. You're not alone, Sam."
She felt tears welling up in her eyes. "I know, Daniel." She withdrew her hand from his and turned her back, rummaging through a drawer so that he would not see her tears.
"Do you?" He prodded, gently. "These last six months you've been devoted to finding a cure for Jack as though your own life depended on it."
"I miss him, Daniel!" Sam yelled, spinning around angrily. "Why is that so difficult to understand? Everyone's acting like he's dead. He's not dead. He's somewhere, inside that block of ice, waiting for us to rescue him!" The tears began to fall now, unbidden. "How could you agree to stop, Daniel? He never would have! He would have kept searching and searching until he found us. He wouldn't have..."
"Given up?" He finished for her. "We didn't give up Sam. We did our best. You did your best. We didn't leave him behind." He walked around the table and took her, weeping, into his arms. "I miss him too," he whispered, crushing to him the woman he had come to love as though she were family.
In his embrace, the embrace of her friend, colleague, and brother, Sam began to allow herself to grieve. She wept openly, unabashedly, clinging to Daniel. There was so much she wanted to talk about, but couldn't. She knew that, to the impartial observer, she was overly upset at the loss of her C.O., no matter how close her unit had become. But it was unspoken among the members of SG-1, her family, what she and Jack had shared. Did share. They hardly spoke of it, but Sam knew that the feelings she and Jack thought they kept closely guarded did not go unnoticed by Teal'c and Daniel.
Sam didn't know how long they stood like that, mutually holding each other, grieving. When they finally did part, Daniel smiled at her sadly, brushed a tear from her cheek, and murmured, "Enjoy your trip, Sam."
"You too," she replied in a teary voice. "Be safe. That's an order."
He grinned. "Yes ma'am."
She and Cassie reached Jack's cabin later that afternoon. It was musty from being shut up so long. They busied themselves the rest of that day, airing out the place, cleaning and stocking the fridge with the groceries they'd picked up at the nearby general store. Cassie's movements were slow, mechanical, their conversation light, basic. A few times, Sam had tried opening up some sort of larger dialogue, but Cassie would only respond with enough words necessary to adequately answer. No more, no less.
Sam considered giving her a little push, like Daniel had with her, but ultimately decided against it. She was barely 18 and had lost so much in such a short time. Their time at the cabin was for healing and renewal, and Sam was going to let Cassie's happen at whatever pace she needed. The most Sam said was one night as they were preparing for bed, "Cassie..I know this last year has been really hard for you. And I know I haven't been here for you like I should have. But I am now. So if you need to talk, or anything, anytime...I'm here."
Cassie paused in the doorway to her bedroom. Her sad eyes met Sam's. "I know Sam. I just...I don't know. It's hard. I miss them."
"Me too." It seemed that that was all they would speak of it this evening. Sam offered the girl a reassuring smile. "Goodnight, Cassie."
"Goodnight," her niece replied. "Oh, and Sam?"
"Yes?"
"I'm here too. For you, I mean."
Sam smiled gratefully. "I know. It means a lot."
There were two bedrooms in Jack's cabin. Cassie had taken the smaller one, leaving Sam the bedroom that had belonged to Jack. It had been hard the first few nights, being in his house, eating from his dishes, sleeping in his room. There were some clothes in the closet that she could not bring herself to remove, but instead merely moved them aside to make room for her own. She placed some things in the drawers of his dresser as well, but didn't remove anything. She wanted to leave it as close to how he had left it as possible.
Sleeping in his bed the first night had been an overwhelming experience. Although he had not been to the cabin in some time, the bed still smelled like him, the blankets and pillows still smelling faintly of sweat and after shave and everything else that smelled exactly like Jack O'Neill. The moment her head had touched his pillow, she'd begun to weep softly, as not to wake Cassandra. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more, sir," she whispered into the darkness. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Jack."
She hardly ever called him Jack. In the eight years they'd known each other, she had probably addressed him by his first name a dozen times at most. Sir. Colonel. Never Jack. Hardly ever Jack. She was always Carter to him. First Captain, then Major. She wondered if she would have gotten her latest promotion had he not...
She couldn't say died. He wasn't dead. He wasn't. He was alive, in there somewhere, somehow.
Every night after the first one, Sam slept in one of Jack's flannel shirts and a pair of his sweat pants. Every morning she woke to find herself wrapped around one of his pillows, hugging it. By day, she and Cassie would eat, hike, sunbathe, swim in the lake. Once a week they slept under the stars. And, once a day, they would fish.
They had been at the cabin for two weeks when Sam was awakened one night by noises coming from the kitchen. She frowned, thinking it odd that Cassandra was looking for a midnight snack. The girl wasn't what one would call a voracious eater, and she rarely ate after the hour of nine, except for the occasional ice cream binge.
Sam threw back the covers and climbed out of bed, padding barefoot to the door. Cracking it open, she noticed Cassandra's door was a jar. "I guess she is hungry," Sam thought, walking down the hall towards the light coming from the kitchen.
"Cassie, you ok?" She called. "What's the matter," she chided as she stepped into the kitchen. "Is my cooking not good enough for yo--"
She stopped in her tracks when she saw what was on the kitchen table. A six pack of Jell-O snack cups. Attached was a post-it note on which was scrawled in an eerily familiar handwriting: Didn't think you'd remembered to stock up on these.
Then, behind her, she heard a familiar voice murmur, "Hi, Sam."