"There is no logical reason; there never is.
"We all have our own fears, our own secrets, doors to our innermost and very private neuroses and psychoses that we keep locked shut, too afraid to open them to inspection — personal or otherwise. We all have our own flaws that make us what we are. For the most part they help keep us alive; it's healthy to be afraid, to be watchful, just as it's comforting to have friends who watch our backs, who are afraid for us.
"Doubt is our own worst enemy. Know that you are right, and act on it. 'Him whom hesitates, yadda yadda yadda,' as Jack would say; but it isn't that simple — it can't be, or I wouldn't be here.
"Toss a coin.
"Experience gives us an edge. It gives us the chance to beat the odds, but how long can we go on winning? How long can we keep on gambling when the stakes are so high?
"Above all, never stop to think who or what you're saving. Never ever stop to think of the sacrifice because, believe me, you'll just be deluding yourself.
"Would you risk your life to save a comrade? Your best friend? Your lover — if you had one? Would you risk your life for the world on which you live? Even when your world is doomed on its own? When the threat of the Goa'uld is nothing more than a passing inconvenience in its vainglorious path to its own self-destruction?
"Yes, still you would risk your life. Not because to do so is the ultimate, selfless sacrifice.
"That is not the reason.
"You risk your life because you'd rather be dead.
"You risk your life because you'd rather be dead than suffer the agony of failure. You'd rather be dead than see everyone you know, everyone you love, die before you."
...
Three years had passed, yet time had remained apart. The way beyond was theirs now, all the stars but motes of light, all the planets but grains of sand, cold harbors from the storms on the seas of eternity.
In her arms, Sam held her daughter, so small, so fragile and so innocent of the world about her; so serene in sleep, so beguiling in wakefulness. Every moment was a singular delight; but the crying... Saurav reassured her, but she wished it otherwise.
She leaned back into Saurav's arms as tears again filled her eyes. Never before had she been so complete, so filled with happiness. Never before had she so little control over her emotions. Still she was learning to let the tears flow.
The way beyond was theirs, but the small island was still their home, and the Nox their closest companions. The joy that was Nafrayu appeared and disappeared, busying himself harvesting fruit and vegetables. His innate curiosity had brought him to them, and he remained close, doting on the baby, cherishing her new life as she and Saurav did.
Nafrayu had held Sam's hand as she came into the world. Lya had stood at her side, Anteaus had frowned... but Nafrayu had held her hand, had wiped her brow, his youthful spirit comforting her as each of them eased the pain of her daughter's birth.
The choice had been hers.
She'd turned her back on Jack – she'd long ago stopped thinking of him as her commanding officer – but she had never forgotten him. She'd sat for a while with her future-self, she'd listened to all that she'd had to say — and all that she hadn't. Durga had taught her to twist the way between, to hide herself and those she loved. Saurav had been waiting for her on the small moon. And when they'd come back, Jack... Jack had gone.
Three years before, she and Saurav had gone to the Nox, to ask their blessing to live on the island. The Nox had shown no surprise, they'd recognized Saurav for who and what he was immediately. They knew of Siva and Durga, and yet as cautious as they were, they hadn't hesitated to welcome them.
Three years before she'd been tired and so very much alone. She had been so complicated she couldn't have imagined herself appreciating living such a simple existence; just as now she couldn't ever imagine herself going back, but she had known that one day she would have to.
Sam wiped away her tears. Nafrayu's path had become entangled with their own now. What was yet to be done was not intended to affect Earth or the Nox. Nafrayu was happy providing them with roots and berries; he was content watching over them and their daughter — but in the years to come? The Nox would certainly hesitate to let Nafrayu leave.
So she tries to imagine her daughter grown up and living amongst the most harmonious, the most peaceful of all races. Lya had held her up to the sky, had marked her forehead with water and the living earth. The Nox had given her daughter their blessings; now they would give her a name.
Sam smiled and let the tears come again.
...
The day came so much more quickly than she could have imagined.
Sam knelt uneasily in front of her daughter; they had never been apart before. There was no easy way to explain to her that she had to go away, that for a while she had strange things to do on strange worlds and that her daughter couldn't come with her.
Of course, her daughter was five years old. The Oh, Mother! look came first, then the I'm not a baby frown, swiftly followed by a knowing things I can get away with smile, hurriedly replaced by an I'll be brave for you pout. At least Sam was glad that she had the sense not to run off immediately, dragging Nafrayu into her mischief-making.
The dread was still there. She had spent an eternity alone, and here she was with a family she was leaving behind so that she could twist time and space, creating the very paradox that would lead to their new beginning.
The gate whispered into life at her gesture. She glanced back. Saurav was as calm as ever, her daughter and Nafrayu standing before him, holding hands. Saurav nodded his encouragement, but still she never expected her leaving to be so painful.
She emerged from the stargate into a world that was so familiar and yet so alien. All traces of the Goa'uld had been removed, but there was no way to imagine how — the paradox was already resolved, although for that part of her in the eternal garden, she still had to live it.
The world still had to settle down, to accept its new shape as its history was rewritten. It was not a simple matter to weave the way between, encouraging it to accept that centuries of existence be drawn tight together, squeezed so compact that the weft merged into a single string that could be plucked from the warp.
The way between was never easily deceived. Shades of what had been still lingered, ghosts unwilling to be tossed aside lightly. All that had been still resonated in the air as harmonics, echoes of the past.
There was so much work to be done.
None of the loose strings could be simply abandoned. Some – such as those containing the remnants of the invading Goa'uld – would be made to collapse, their energies dissipated. Others, like the eternal garden, would have to be inserted into the new weaving. Even more complicated, some strings would be have to be re-sequenced, taken out of the context of the way between before being re-placed to maintain order.
There was only one way to re-sequence a string and that was to live it. She knew that she will have done so once before, although she had no memory of it – she could have no memory of it – but the echoes would still reverberate.
And she smiled to herself as she walked away from the gate — quantum: always, it was quantum.
In classical mechanics, there was no general solution for the three-body problem. Nor was there a solution for the two-body problem — except that relativistic quantum field theory, well, just plain cheated. As for the one-body problem... that was one place she didn't want to go. Which left the zero-body problem and the vacuum of space. And just as a vacuum could never be empty, so even a null-string had to vibrate. The theory was beautiful in its elegance and simplicity, yet so far beyond simple understanding. She even had a name for it, for the paper she would never write: quantum super-imposed null-string theory.
The stargate shut itself down behind her.
"The first temple is already solidifying," Durga whispered, her voice calm. Durga opened her eyes to the way as Sam stretched her arms wide, visualizing the two strings, temple and gate. With her left hand she pulled on the gate, drawing out the string she'd woven in her passage through it; in her right hand, she caught the strand of the temple. Now she had to connect them, manipulating the weft, anchoring the temple to its new place in the way between.
Carefully, she drew her hands together; the strings would only stretch so far. Just before her hands met the strings would break – each snap the sound of one hand clapping – only to join with each other making a single new string.
Durga smiled and Sam relaxed. The part of herself that was sustaining the garden would hear the distant vibrations, would know that her journey was almost at an end. Her own way was becoming clearer: links could now be forged between the past and the present, and the loops that had been kept separate would join with the sunrise in the forever of the way beyond.
But still the temple wavered, and as always Durga calmed her. Again, she stretched her arms wide, to the temple and the gate. This time she had to reach further, she had to see the before of the temple, the before of her arrival here, the before of Jack's arrival on the island, to join the what was of the way between.
Again, she opened her left hand to the gate and her right to the temple. She saw the strings and held them, yet almost immediately an itch began to gnaw at her left hand. Confusion crept into her awareness; uncertainty threatened to paralyze her. The itch began to burn. She tried to let go as Durga had taught her, but her hand refused to obey. An electric hum began to beat at her ears, and dimly she saw the gate not through the between, but from the beyond; she saw the vibration and fought to control her fear.
The gate had been activated.
She watched the cold event-horizon begin to take form, her hand trapped in a between that couldn't exist, her fingers burning with impossible, naked null-strings. She watched the worm-hole splash out, the weight of the way between pulling it, stretching it out until it engulfed her arm.
Sam looked inwards to Durga, but she had no answer. She looked to the temple only to see it fade as she blinked. Instinct alone told her that the stargate was her only salvation. With a silent prayer, Sam opened her right hand. The weight of the strings pulled her in, through the event horizon, stretching her across space, across time.
What she was, she had no idea. What she would become, was most likely meaningless. She knew that matter could only travel one way through an open worm-hole. But she also knew that, ultimately, matter was nothing more than strings. Trillions upon trillions of strings, inconceivably small localizations of energy. And strings formed the basis of the way beyond.
And her consciousness?
Slowly, she realized that she was still reasoning. She had no shape, not in any physical sense — or any other kind that she understood. But her left hand still burned and her right... that was still open, empty.
Except... she closed her hand and it no longer burned — there was no physical sensation at all. There was no hot or cold, no light or dark, no sound, no taste, no sense of smell. There was no notion of time – except that one thought followed another – and she knew that the worm-hole wouldn't stay open for ever, but she wouldn't panic.
There was no pain when the worm-hole closed.
She didn't know that it had.
...
Sometimes it was best not knowing. Jack knew when to ask questions and when to accept that the General had his reasons. It hadn't stopped him asking more questions, but he hadn't got any more answers. Besides, if Carter couldn't survive a week alone on a deserted island overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables, he didn't know who could.